Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Russia Has Already Defeated NATO and Ukraine

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Scott Ritter : Russia Has Already Defeated NATO and UkraineSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least?

What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, October 9th, 2006. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, welcome here. Welcome home from your long trip and long and as we'll find out soon, fruitful stay in Russia. And thank you for accommodating my schedule today. Before we get to Russia and Ukraine and Kaliningrad and NATO, I do want to ask you about the news of this week, which is the arrest of August Hanging, the former German spy chief,

charged with treason. How do you read this? Well, I mean, we're sort of prisoner to the data that we have. I think as an American, we operate under the notion that you're innocent until proven guilty. So, you know, I haven't seen the data, But I don't imagine they'd arrest this man without, you know, significant evidence of, you know, suggesting his guilt.

We don't know who he was spying for, although there was a lot of speculation up front that it was Israel. It appears now that it might have been Azerbaijan and China. But again, it's hard to know. But the, you know, the idea that it had an intelligence chief, because he, I think somebody else was arrested, one of his deputies. who was feeding him the documents over time. It's just a, it's a tremendous security breach. It's the same thing with Ed Snowden. How did he get those documents out?

You know, this is, this is a nightmare for intelligence service because I think a lot of the data that he gave away wasn't just the product of German intelligence, but also intelligence shared to the B&D, the German intelligence service by foreign partners to include the United States. and some of that intelligence might have some important, you know, very sensitive sources and methods involved. So this could be a security compromise, not just for Germany, but for the

United States and other allies of Germany. Very serious allegations. Wow. I would imagine that treason is about the highest crime he can be charged with. There is no death penalty in Europe. He's in his 80s. He's convicted. He obviously would spend the rest of his life in jail. And, of course, if it's not Russia, then who knows if Mossad's secret, if it's not Israel, I should say, excuse me, who knows if Mossad's secrets in there. But I would imagine, correct me from wrong, from your experience in Intel and the Marine Corps, that other intel agencies, CIA, MI6, Mossad are very concerned right now.

Well, absolutely. I'm sure there's a tremendous amount of damage control taking. place anytime you have a leak or a compromise of this nature um you have to go back and reverse engineer you know everything it's not just the um the intelligence the documents that were provided apparently you know these documents were internal documents um you know strategic briefing documents uh that would you know incorporate this but this is a man who met with uh people um and at that level uh i mean i'll just give you a hypothetical example of what could have happened.

Let's say there was a German operation to help the United States penetrate Iran's nuclear program. Because, you know, German, you know, they have Siemens, they have different companies. And so now you get together and you bring in into these meetings, non-official cover CIA employees. People will operate abroad, you know, without diplomatic cover. These are the people that are involved in commercial activities of the sort that would be utilized to penetrate Iran, people who might be living in other countries on passports that aren't American. He met these people. He knows who these people are.

And so now you have to reverse engineer every meeting this man attended, every potential contact. And then you have to do a damage assessment. And we may end up having to pull people out of the field. out of fear that they've been compromised. This kind of stuff has a paralyzing impact on intelligence services, not just the United States, but anybody who came in contact with this man. Got it. I had not thought about that, and I appreciate your articulating it.

I wish we could find out which country it is. I know a lot of our colleagues on the show are suggesting Israel, but one of them, our friend Pepe Escobar said he's pretty sure it's Azerbaijan. John. Do most diplomats accept as probably true that Benjamin Netanyahu knew from Jordan or Egypt or UAE or all three of the Hamas breakout from their open air concentration camp on October 7, 2020, I mean, the data overwhelmingly suggests this. We see statements coming from these various nations saying that we briefed Benjamin Netanyahu on the threat and that, you know, these briefings weren't acted on. So I think it's except now the friends of Israel, of course, will poo-poo this. And, you know, the standard thing is, you know, well, 1,000 Jews were killed.

Well, the fact is they didn't have to die. Nenian could have stopped this by, you know, acting earlier. Unless, of course, he wanted this to happen, unless this was, you know, his recognition that the only way he survives as a political leader is to break Israel free of the, you know, the trap that they were set into, you know, locked into, you know, this Gaza conflict that was never going to. end. I'm talking about pre-genocide. I'm talking about the perpetual state of a mosque-controlled Gaza, Hezbollah, vibrant in Lebanon, unable to break free of that. Iran emerging as a strategic threat.

He wanted to attack Iran, and he wanted by attacking Iran to destroy Assad in Syria, to destroy Nasrallah in Lebanon, destroy Sinwar and others in Gaza. In order to do that, he needed a justification. He needed something that would jumpstart, not just Israel, but Israel's allies of the United States, to get the United States to eventually attack Iran, which he was able to do. And so I think, you know, the reality is that Benjamin Netanyahu knew that this attack was coming, and he not only let it happen, but then he initiated the Hannibal directive to slaughter Israelis to up the death count to create an even more horrific picture to get the world to rally behind Israel. It failed.

I mean, yes, he got the United States to attack Iran, but that hasn't gone well. Yes, Nasrallah was killed, but the last time I checked, there was Israeli soldiers who continued to die in southern Lebanon. And we see Israeli soldiers continue to die in Gaza as well, because no matter how much genocide you've committed, there's steep people who live there who are not bending the knee. So, yeah, this is, it'll be interesting to see how this finally shakes out. Right, right.

On the Iran war, now approaching at the eighth month, has the American military achieved any of its objectives? No. We haven't achieved regime change. The whole purpose of killing Alechamene, even though it was Israeli weapons it did. It was American intelligence that helped facilitate that. So that failed. we've actually made the Iranian government more resilient and we've linked them.

You know those Lego movies that we see that are just hilarious? The guys who make those were actually part of the Iranian opposition, not the violent opposition, but there was a growing group of Iranians inside Iran who were frustrated with what they considered to be the ineffective leadership of the Iranian government. They were frustrated with the theocracy. Well, today they're like the best propaganda arm of the Iranian government. government by attacking, killing, murdering Ali Khamene, his granddaughter, and then thousands of others, including 178 schoolchildren and Menab.

They just caused the Iranians to coalesce today. So we failed on that front. We failed in terms of control of the strait-or moves. Iran is not only firmly in control of the straight-armuz. They're expanding their control of the region, striking large energy ships at port in Dubai. and they're beginning to mine, you know, the routes that have been opened up by the United States Navy. So they're shutting that down. We don't have control of that.

We're never going to get control of that. We didn't stop Iranian ballistic missile production. In fact, Iranian ballistic missile production today produces more missiles today than they did before the war. So we've actually helped Iran optimize it. Remember during World War II, when we went after, you know, German ballbearing factories to stop Mesher Schmidt production, Actually, the Germans were increasing the numbers of measurements of production because by bombing, we forced them to take alternative production methodologies, the same thing with the Iranians and ballistic missiles and drones. We couldn't stop them making them. We couldn't stop them operating them.

We didn't accomplish a single military objective in this war. We didn't do anything about their nuclear program as well. Marco Rubio said two days ago that more oil is flowing. into and out of the Strait of Harmuse then was the case on February 28th and the United States Navy has control of the street.

Does he know what the hell he's talking about? No, I mean, he may know what he's talking about. He's lying, a straight up lie. He may know that he's lying. I think this has become, you know, habitual for the Trump administration. The bottom line is the Trump administration's in a panic. If we had more oil flowing through the street,

today than we did on February 28th. Why did Trump have to go and get Europe to release their emergency reserves, their diesel reserves, et cetera? Because we don't have more oil flowing. It's just straight up, it's statistically impossible. The Saudi oil, which was flowing through on February 28th, is no longer flowing through. They've diverted it through the Yambu pipeline to Yambu to get out through the Bob Elmandeb and through the Suez Canal. Well, that pipeline's not functioning because on Sryphiq.

had destroyed it. But the point is, it's statistically impossible for what Rubio is saying to be true. And it's also physically impossible because the number of ships going through can't carry that kind of oil. So this man is literally lying through his teeth. The fact of the matter is, whatever oil is flowing through, and I think another Reuters reporter, another report is suggesting that whatever oil is flowing through is because the shippers are secretly paying the Iranians the toll, even though it's not being done public to avoid disclosure in the United States. The bottom line is Iran is actually generating a tremendous amount

of income because people are secretly passing the money under the table so that shipping could go through. But now Iran's saying that all of that's done. We're not letting anything go through. So Michael Rubio is just a straight-up liar. Here he is. Chris. The straits of Hormuz are open. There's almost as much oil flowing out now as there was before this conflict began, so they've lost complete control of the street. He said that standing next to it, but you can't see her, and it's no wonder he doesn't want her in the same picture, Kimberly Gilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece. But you heard exactly what he said. Now, further to what you just said about why it can't be true, President Trump

just announced that he claims he concluded a deal with President Putin, whereby Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 tons of diesel fuel. I didn't know fuel was measured as a ton to the American and global marketplace. Another 500,000 tons during the month of November, and a million tons immediately thereafter. Russia will then deliver, when a short period of time, 3 million tons of diesel fuel between our total control of the Strait of Hermuz and this great announcement of Russian energy, diesel prices for Americans and indeed the world will be coming down in record numbers and fast, lower prices for Americans, especially our great farmers, ranchers, and truckers.

It is my greatest priority. This is a very big and important announcement. Additionally, it must be understood that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald Day J. Trump. This is not going to affect the price of a single gallon between now an election day. Is it? Well, I'd like to see the delivery schedule for this Russian diesel.

First of all, I need to see the Russians acknowledging that this, in fact, is what happened. There's no doubt in my mind that Russia could engage in this. You know, Russia is looking to keep the United States, you know, from furthering the conflict in Ukraine. And right now, Trump needs, you know, prices to be controlled. But, you know, how do you go from, you know, Russia making the decision that they are ceasing diesel exports, which they've did in July, because of the CIA-backed Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, which meant that Russia had to divert, you know, diesel refining capacity for domestic sources? You know, I know that the Russian, that Vladimir Putin said, look, we've repaired these facilities and we may consider, you know, re-exportation.

But, you know, what's Trump going to do, depending on Russian refinery capacity? Well, Ukraine just said we're going to start to strike every Russian refinery possible. So now Ukraine, if they continue to attack Russian refinery, refining capability, is acting in direct opposite interests of the stated goals and objectives of the President of the United States. So what's he going to do? Because this now means that Ukraine is attacking American energy. Literally, if Ukraine attacks Russian production, capacity they're attacking American

energy because according to this deal, the Russian diesel is American diesel now and it's going to be sold to American as everything to be great. And then what Trump has to basically shut down, this is an insane tweet. I need to get a little bit more data before I can

Yeah, we all need a little bit more facts and you're right, we need the collaboration or verification from the Russian side. But let me get this straight. The American CIA and the British MI6 will be directing targets

for the use of American ammo and British ammo onto Russian refineries while the United States is looking for the product of those refineries. That's basically what the president of the United States just said. Yeah, so I need the president

to also come out and say I've directed the CIA to cease and desist their support of Ukrainian targeting and we've told our British allies to stop the same. anybody who provides support to Ukraine is an enemy of America, and we will remove them from the face of the earth that they do this. I mean, in order for the president's statement to be taken seriously,

he needs to make a statement of that nature as well. Does the White House and do EU leaders understand that under no circumstances whatsoever could a post-war Ukraine have anything whatsoever to do with NATO? I think the United States understands this. I think the Trump administration understands this very well. The problem is how do you politically and diplomatically get Europe to embrace this outcome?

You know, first of all, you just have to play a waiting game because much of Europe is going to not exist this time next year in terms of their current political leadership. Macron's out, Mertz is out. and I you know if marine Le Pen becomes the president of dogs on cue as soon as I say the radical right wing you're obviously not Frank who are dogs your dogs yeah the neighbors walk in the dog right in front of our house and because my dogs like to decorate my mailbox their dog stops to smell the decoration on the mailbox and we get perpetual barking I

I apologize for it. But I can't even make them shut up at this point. So, hey, that worked. Almost. But the point is, you know, the Europeans will have to come to this conclusion on their own. The United States can't compel them, but a lot of this is going to be, you know, self-regulated, meaning that there will be political leadership change in France and Germany and elsewhere. AFD comes into political prominence or, you know, dominance in Germany.

you get a change in political direction. So the other thing, too, is I think the president understands that Europe needs to change its strategic vision regarding Russia. And that can't be directed. It has to come from within. So Europe will need to bankrupt itself with the stupidity of this military enhancements that they're undertaking that they can't afford. They lack the industrial base to do this. And the other thing is that as Europe continues to believe in this forced militarization, that means they need the energy to do that.

And they're not getting it from Russia. They're getting it from the United States. Vladimir Putin sort of talked about this in this recent Valdei statement. Europe used to pay 150 bucks per 1,000 cubic meters of gas from Russia. Today they're paying the Americans $1,500 for the same amount of gas. That's not sustainable. But Trump's going to make the profits that he can right now. He's not going to shut down the profit machine.

But the bottom line is I think the United States knows that Ukraine has. We're in the process of physically destroying Ukraine. And I say we, because we got Ukraine into this situation. We got them committed on this course of action for which there's no off ramp. And now Russia is in the process of literally dismantling Ukraine piece by piece. And I don't think the President of the United States who's desperate to receive all this diesel from Russia is going to turn around once Russia has given them a political lifeline and say, oh, by the way, we're going to put pressure on you to stop you from attacking Ukraine.

I think the United States has written Ukraine off. You were just in Kalunangrad, the portion of the Russian Federation that's not contiguous with the rest of Russia. There it is on the side left of the screen. Why is there this talk about, Europeans and even Americans attacking Kalenigrad. Well, again, we have to, we got to set it up by talking about Ukraine. The United States and Europe came together and used Ukraine as the vehicle to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia. That was the objective of the United States.

It's clearly stated by Lloyd Austin that the goals and objective of the United States, regards to Ukraine, is the strategic. defeat of Russia. That's been repeated by everybody, including Marco Rubio. That hasn't changed. I mean, you know, Trump is saying things, but the CIA still has a underlying directive to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia. And all the things the CIA is doing is, is toward that. The Department of Defense continues to have that as its objective. The State Department continues to have that as its objective. So facing the defeat of the American-backed program in Ukraine, If your goal and objective is the strategic defeat of Russia, you need another front, or in this case, two fronts.

One is the Arctic. We saw a security forum run in Finland in September 14th, I believe, saying that we can't allow Russia to have the northeast passage where Chinese ships leave. Chinese ports come through Russian territorial waters and bring goods to Europe in 20 days, cutting by half the 40-day transit through the Stuyas Canal, giving Russia and China a competitive advantage that Europe will never be able. able to overcome. We can't have that. So we need to build up our military capability to challenge Russia. I mean, this is what they're talking about. And Kalingrad is the other thing. It's seen as the low-hanging fruit. There's a right now in Vilnius is a three-day sort of war game being played called Kalenegrad 2050. The premise of this is that in 2050, Kalenegrad will no longer be Russian territory. It'll be called Konigberg and part of East Prussia return to the Germans. And this is their

Now, Putin just said, if you even think about doing this, we nuke you and you all die, but they're saying, oh, we don't need to do military attack on Kaliningrad. We just need to isolate an economic and let it collapse from within. I was just in Kaliningrad. I would tell you that the idea of the economic isolation of Kaliningrad, anybody who says that has no clue about the reality of Kaliningrad, first of all, to achieve economic isolation, you have to impose a naval blockade that is an act of war in Europe would disappear, according to Vladimir Putin, who I wouldn't mess with at this point in time.

So it's a fantasy, but it's seen as low-lying fruit. We had General Chris Donahue in July talk about how easy it would be to take over Kaliningrad. I would say that Chris Donahue doesn't know what he's talking about. And I made that clear when he first, you know, made this statement. He doesn't know anything. The other thing is that nobody's talked about is that Donahue, when he talked about how easy it would be, he was promoting an artificial intelligence targeting that were called Maven. Maven would generate the targets to overcome Russian air defense and area of denial.

And we would, everything work. Well, Maven was used against Iran and it didn't work. Okay, so Donahue doesn't know what he's talking about. None of the Europeans know they're talking about. I happen to know what I'm talking about. And I just came from Kaliningrad. The idea of, you know, an advance into Kaliningrad, people need to you know I learn something for instance 60% of Kaliningrad the area is below sea level

and that you know through a network of canals they're able to keep the water level down to promote agriculture but if you take a tank off the road it bogs down there will be no mass armored advance it'll come down a thin line of highway which means that you the Russian drones and the Russians are the best in the world of drone operations will pick them off before they even got into Kaliningrad. So people need just to take a deep breath. There were no active Russian military preparations underway at all to project power out of Kaliningrad. I've never seen a place more relaxed. I went to the naval facility at Baltisk fishing, soldiers out there with their wives holding hands walking around. None of this preparation. I wouldn't be allowed anywhere near that facility

if there was the kind of ongoing preparation that the West is talking about. I wouldn't be allowed near the border. There'd be helicopters and jets flying trek on the ground. There was none of this happening. I went to Soviets right on the border with Lithuania. Again, quiet, peaceful, nothing taking place. Russia poses a threat to absolutely nobody, but Europe can't handle that truth. So they have to create the perception of a Russian threat so that they can justify continued military

expenditures that are going to bankrupt them and allow them to engage in intellectual fantasy such as Kalinigrad 2050. It's stupidity. Where does the SMO stand right now? We know that Ukraine is going to go through a winter. It's very bitter and cold there with a seriously inadequate energy. What are the chances of a surrender or a total military dominance, surrender by Ukrainians or a total military dominance by the Russians come wintertime?

Well, according to the Ukrainians, they're winning the war, Operation Vivaldi was launched by the Azov Brigade and they've wiped the Russians out and the Russians are in retreat. According to Russian military officers, who I respect very much, Vivaldi was a counterattack that achieved very limited results. In fact, the entire Ukrainian counterattack force has been destroyed. And Russia has resumed advances in the Liman area, along with all the other areas. You know, the Ukrainians have always, and their Western allies, have always projected their reality onto Russia. If you remember back in the day when they're saying 30,000 Russian dead a month, you know, it's just a casualty's a month.

Well, then Budanov came out and said, well, we need to have 30,000 replacements a month to maintain status quo. He was acknowledging that Ukraine's losing 30,000. Ursula Vandula came out and used the term 27,000. Ukraine's got really pissed off and said, you can't use that number. you're giving away our secrets. Well, now the new number that's being put out by the West is Russia losing 45 to 47,000. I'm telling you that that is literally physically impossible. I met with some people who know the truth about Russian casualty figures,

and I will tell you that the Russian casualty figures, while high, aren't anywhere near that. I mean, this is high-intentioned conflict. This is dangerous. Russians are losing people, but not in these levels. Ukrainians, on the other hands, are being eviscerated. The Ukrainians are losing 45 to 47,000 people a month. They just project their losses onto Russia. Anybody knows about PK factors, probability of kill, which is something if you're in the

artillery business, fire support business, or air support business. It's how we say, you know, if we have used this much ammunition and this given, you know, terrain against this enemy, you know, what we anticipate for, you know, casualties. It's usually a very conservative number. But the point is, Ukraine lacks the PK projection to kill 45,000 Russians a month. They don't have the ability to do that. Russia isn't doing human wave assaults. They're coming in with very targeted assault groups,

36, 9, 12 minutes of time to chew up a piece of territory at a time, backed up by drones and everything. Sometimes things go bad, and those guys get killed, three, six, nine, twelve, at a time. Bad day for those 12 guys. But it takes a lot of 12 man bad days to get the 45,000. Too many days, in fact. You physically can't do it.

So it's a fantasy world to talk about high casualty rates. I don't know why Ben Hodges and the other guys do this because they're trained professionals like me who understand what is physically possible. Russia, on the other hand, has the PK projection capacity to slaughter the Ukraine's, which you're doing on a daily basis, wiping them out.

Ukraine is desperate for manpower, bringing in women, bringing men off the streets, dragging them out. You know, that's just the reality of it. But, you know, Russia is winning there. But the most important thing isn't what's happened on the battlefield, even though that's important. The most important thing is happening. Russia, for the first time, has decided to engage in a strategic air campaign designed to achieve the physical destruction of Ukraine. This is war-winning strategy. It happened because, again, Volodymyr Zelenskyy authorized a 40-day drone war.

against Russia back in June 25th that's now, you know, been expanded. He said he wanted to bring pain to the Russian people. He tried to do this to affect an outcome of an election on September 20th. It failed, but Russia isn't going to let you do that and get away with it. And now Vladimir Putin's taking the gloves off. In the Ukrainian economy, he's in shutdown, Black Sea ports, to close, shipping can't get out, steel manufacturers down to zero, the firepoint, the drone manufacturer, missile manufacturer for Ukraine, which is really just a front for corruption. She came out and said, co-founder, and bragged about how they fired their first, you know, five to seven missiles against Russia. They were all shot down, by the way.

She said, but we're going to be producing more. The night that she said that Russia took out the entire missile production capability of Ukraine tied to those missiles, Russia's been following this, and now they will have no missiles. This is the reality. Russia is destroying infrastructure, bridges across the Nepe River in Kiev, those two major vision, north and south. Once that's severed, Ukraine becomes two nations. And the West is still sustainable supplies, but you can't get the supplies across the river to support the troops in battle. They will run out of ammunition, run out of food, and collapse even further.

Kiev will probably be depopulated this winter. The mayor, Klitsko, has come out and basically said people need to start leaving Kiev because we can't sustain life. There would be zero electrical production capability this winter. Other than that, produced by generators. Those generators have limited capabilities. Kiev has composed of a lot of high-rise buildings. If you don't have electricity to pump water up to the top,

what happens is there's no water. The sewage system fails and all that liquefied, nasty stuff collapses in. And you're going to be looking at Kiev being literally a city of frozen human waste this winter. unlivable, abandoned, and that's Ukraine's fate. Russia's in the business of destroying Ukraine as we speak, and I believe that they will achieve that objective this winter. Last question is a follow-up to what you just said, and thank you for that almost encyclopedic recitation. Can Ukraine surrender while Zelensky is still around, or does he have to go first?

Well, Zelensky's power, he retains power because, of the system of corruption. And as long as Ukraine, as long as the West is willing to write checks or give Zelensky money, that he can then dole out. He will buy off a system. The system has never been about the sustainability of the Ukrainian nation. The system has never been about caring for the Ukrainian people. The system has always been about the corrupt taking resources and creating their own offshore accounts,

offshore safety, and then running to them when they need. So as long as Zelensky is able to pad the pockets of the people who prop him up, he's there. Russia's not going to take Zelensky out. Zelensky is the best ally Russia ever had. Thanks to Zelensky, Russia is winning this war dramatically. You know, at some point in time, somebody's going to make the decision that Zelensky is no longer convenient. But the problem is, when you remove Zelensky, removing a system that's been, singularly built around him

and a vacuum will be created. From the Western perspective, this vacuum probably can't be populated by some of the sustainable, so the vacuum will lead to the total collapse of the Ukrainian enterprise and the West doesn't want that to happen. They want Zelensky to stay in power. They're willing to fight to the last Ukrainian.

They just want to see how long they can bleed Russia dry or how long they can continue this conflict to justify inflated military budgets that again pad the pockets of the defense industrialists and the politician. It's all a giant grift. It's all a giant scam. The amount of corruption in Ukraine and in Europe and the United States is unbelievable.

But they need Zelensky to keep this going. If you remove Zelensky, look, if the Russians take him out, they don't know who's going to replace him. Right now they have a man who's doing exactly what they want, destroying Ukraine. Right. So they keep him in as long as possible. From the West, it's about money. It's about the system of corruption that benefits everybody. Every dollar that goes in Ukraine actually goes in the pocket of some.

somebody in Europe and you know and um if you remove Zelensky who's going to replace them probably nobody you create a vacuum and the system collapses um and then you know you've got no alternative they're trying to find alternative venues of putting pressure on russia in the arctic i was in nizny bartovsk uh one of the largest oil fields in russia got a great briefing about the reality of russian oil production but also got a great briefing about the reality of russian arctic security the man i met with is responsible for providing extreme Arctic, extreme Arctic warfare training to Russia's elite special forces, the best of the best. And I've got important insights on all that, how Russia's securing the Arctic.

I was in Kaliningrad and got a very good update on, you know, the reality of Kalinigrad and Russia's defense posture there. The bottom line is the West has no options against Russia, but they don't know that yet. They haven't come to that realization. And they live in that fantasy world because Ukraine still provides them an outlet of corruption that pads them and feeds them and justifies it. But when Ukraine goes, people start to wake up and go, well, Klanegrograd is just a fantasy. The Arctic is just a fantasy. And we've got nothing. And then you'll see policy collapse. Wow. Scott, thank you very much. A terrific,

terrific analysis. I will see you shortly on the Intelligence Community Roundtable. So rest your vocal cords, my dear friend. And we'll see you soon. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. If you're watching, sure, if you're watching us live in 21 minutes at 4 o'clock this afternoon, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with our dear friend and colleague, Scott Ritter, and as usual, Larry Johnson. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.