Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Russia Near To Its Military Goals.

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

Scott Ritter : Russia Near To Its Military Goals.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca slash Wondery. That's audible.ca slash wondering. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for judging freedom. Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025, the day before Thanksgiving here in the United States. Scott Ritter will be with us in just a moment on how much longer is this war going to go on? in Ukraine. But first this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse. And look at where we are now. 38 trillion in national debt. Stocks at record highs defying gravity. So what happens next? Groceries, gas, housing, everything's going up. And this dollar, it buys less every day. When the system breaks, your stocks won't save you and your dollars

won't either, but one thing will. Gold. I've set it on my show for years. Gold survives collapse. Central bankers know this and billionaires know it. That's why they're buying more. Is it too late to buy or is it just the right time? Call my friends at Lear Capital to find out. Ask questions. Get the free information. There's no pressure. And that's why I buy my gold and silver from Lear. Right now, you can get up to $20,000 in bonus medals with a qualified purchase. Call 800, 511, 4620, or go to Learjudgeonap.com today. Scott, welcome here, my dear friend. Before we start to everybody watching, apologies for the Internet issues.

I understand my voice is coming through, but I look a little blurry, but it is me, and Scott is fine, and he does not look blurry, and he's just back from a long trip. to Russia. I want to explore your understanding of the current sort of chaotic negotiations going on between the United States and Russia. But before we do, you recently published a fascinating piece that I couldn't stop reading on the arresting. If the Kremlin decides that it must use this weapon, how potent is it and is it stoppable? Well, first of all, there's nothing. in the western arsenal that can shoot down the Ereshnik. So it's an unstoppable weapon. We don't know the full extent of its lethality because apparently the warheads that they used,

while they had the heat absorption capability, meaning they came in with extremely high temperatures at high speed, which in and of itself creates a dynamic kinetic effect. They didn't have the explosive aspect to it, which apparently uses new technology that can be extraordinarily destructive. So we didn't get to see the Arashnik at full capacity. But the point is that this is a strategic weapon. It's an intermediate range missile operated by the strategic forces of Russia has never been used in combat before. This is the first time. It's the first time in the history of the world where a weapon of this capability has been used. Even what Iran used against Israel during its 12-day war doesn't match the lethality and capacity of the Ereshnik. Normally, when you

are dealing with intermediate range missiles, you're dealing with nuclear-armed missiles. And so there's an inherent barrier to their use, meaning that if a decision is made to use, then probably going to end up having a full-scale nuclear war at one point or another. By having this conventionally armed Ereshnik, you are able to climb up the escalation ladder, so to speak, to take that next step of escalation before you get to nuclear. And this gives Russia unmatched escalatory capabilities. But it also means that there will be pressure on the United States and NATO to come up with a counter to this. And indeed, there's talk about next summer, the Dark Eagle, a hypersonic intermediate-range missile developed by the United States,

are being deployed to Germany. This would give the United States ability to strike the Kremlin with pinpoint precision seven minutes after launch. Unprecedented, you know, even the Pershing 2, we're talking about 12 minutes back in the 80s. We're heading in the wrong direction here. We're headed in a direction where these horrible weapons. are becoming easier to use. And it puts us closer to a hair-trigger nuclear escalation reality. You know, I know there's a lot of people out there that, you know, like to say Ereshnik,

but the fact is it's a very destabilizing weapon. And if we don't find a way to not only control it, but to be honest, to eliminate it, it's just going to be the harborder of bad things to come. Are we about to see another nuclear arms race like we had 30 or 40 years ago? I think we're getting ready to see the intermediate nuclear forces version of that. You know, I'm sure we'll talk about it. There's a 28-point peace plan that's been leaked out there. The veracity and the completeness of this plan is unknown at this time.

But in those 28 points, there is a reference to, extending the New Star Treaty as is. No new negotiation extending it and then beginning negotiations. So I do believe that the United States and Russia will find a way to prevent a strategic nuclear arms race. But what we're seeing is a repeat of the 1970s and 80s when Russia deployed the SS20 intermediate range missile. At that time, an all-new technology, a transition Russia out of the liquid fuel models of the SS4, SS5 missiles of Cuban Missile Crisis fame and propelled them into the solid rocket motor area, mobile missile with three nuclear warheads. Russia ended up, you know, building and deploying about 200, and that's 600 nuclear warheads

are raining down on Europe, and at that time there was nothing that could match it. We responded by deploying the ground-launch cruise missile, the Tomahawk, and the Pershing 2, into West Germany, into Italy, into Great Britain. And we brought Europe to the brink of nuclear disaster. It was very destabilizing. Fortunately, sane heads prevailed, and the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty was signed, and these weapons were eliminated.

I was a proud participant in that process. But Donald Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019. And now there is no INF Treaty. And one of the things that I found is that while the Russians seem to be okay talking about their strategic capabilities, heck, Putin came out there and gave a deep, you know, briefing about the Bureau of Vesnik, they published photographs of the Bureau of Vesnik. They published photographs of the Burezniq in its production hall. They've talked about the Poseidon, published technical drawings in the Poseidon.

The Yars, again, Russian television crews have been in the production hall of the Yars, strategic missile, et cetera, the Bull of a strategic missile. But when I made the recommendation that we need to, you know, remove the transparent, we have to be more, the Russian needs to be more transparent about a Russianic so that begin these discussions about how to prevent a nuclear arms race. The Russians were like, nah, we're not revealing anything. We're not talking to anybody about this missile. We're not giving away any of the data.

And this just creates even more uncertainty on the part of the West, more fear. Or in some cases, sort of an aggressive cockiness because there are many people in the West that believe that the Eurasianic missile that was fired by Russia on November 21st of last year was a one-of missile, that there is no capacity to produce it in mass numbers, that Russia isn't telling the truth about serial production, that this is just one big bluff. Again, a dangerous way of thinking. Wow. And of course, it is Russia, President Putin himself, who offered to extend the new START treaty beyond its termination just three months from now.

So something's going to have to be done between now and February about the start treaty. I think if I'm reading the T-Leaves correctly, both sides will just recommend the treaty cannot be extended. You know, it doesn't allow for that. Now, they can do things such as amend the treaty, which gives them another extension. And you can do that if you don't touch the treaty, if you don't try to make the treaty into something that isn't, it probably could be done that the president could get the U.S. Senate to ratify an extension. And Putin could get the Russian Duma to ratify an extension. Whether they make that a two-year, three-year, five-year extension, I don't know.

But what it does is it buys time then for us to begin the more complicated, you know, negotiations for a treaty that, you know, takes its place that takes into account, the Bures Vesnik, the Poseidon, the Yarsim, the Sarmat, the avant-garde, all these other missiles. But what's lacking in that is, for instance, anti-ballistic missile. The Russians just aren't happy with the way things are going right now. Now, they believe that, you know, we have to have some sort of anti-ballistic missile treaty. This goes back to 2010 when Rose Gutte Miller, the American negotiator, lied to Anatoly Antinov, the Russian negotiator, saying that just let us get past this new start thing,

and then we'll sit down and we'll talk about anti-ballistic missiles. A Russian wanted incorporated into the New Star Treaty. So the Russians allowed this treaty to go forward as a strategic arms-only document. And then when Anatoly Antonov picked up the phone and called Rosa Giltmer and said, we're ready to begin the ABM talks, she said, now we're just not going to do that. They lied, straight up lied to the Russians. The same thing with INF right now. There is no INF treaty.

And the Russians have built some extraordinary capabilities. It goes beyond Ereshnik. There's other INF systems that are being deployed, being developed as we speak. Russia will have an overwhelming advantage to the United States over this. This will trigger an arms race, a very dangerous situation. And so these, in addition to a new new treaty, we're going to have to have our, you know, reengagement with the Russians on anti-ballistic missile and INF. And we're not doing that.

And why did Trump pull out of the INF in 2019? Because John Bolton told them to? Well, no, it began during the Obama administration, there were accusations that Russia was cheating. They named a particular system, the 9M-729 system. And they said that this was tested in violation of the range of limitations. The Russians denied this, and the Russians actually set up a demonstration in June of 2019 to show that it wasn't, that they were in fact compliant. But the United States had already made up their mind. It wasn't that the Russian, we were looking for an excuse because Donald Trump wanted to be able to deploy intermediate nuclear force missiles to counter China's advantage over those missile systems.

And so he was looking for any excuse to get out of the treaty. And now he's out and we're paying the consequence because we don't have anything to match China's capabilities. And now Russia has the Ereschenik, and we've got nothing to match that too. It was a fatal mistake. All right. Let's get to Ukraine. Is this going to end?

Is the military conflagration going to end on the battlefield or a conference room? Battlefield. There's the Ukraine's incapable of making the kind of, compromise is necessary. Ukraine continues to insist that negotiations be done that reflect that Ukraine is winning this war, that Ukraine gets to dictate outcomes. Ukraine gets to dictate nothing. Russia gets to dictate everything. Russia has indicated, based upon leaked phone calls and everything, a willingness for a negotiated settlement. One of the reasons is, and this came clear and from my recent trip is that while the Russian economy is functioning and doing well,

the sanctions are causing problems. There's a cash shortage in Russia right now. They don't print money like we do. And literally the government is running out of cash to continue funding this war. And if they don't have this war ended by, say, middle of 2026, Russia will have to go into a war mobilization economy. Everybody says the Russian economy is going to collapse. They just have no idea what they're talking about. The Russians are capable of, you know, moving out of this capitalist kind of economy they have running now, venture capitalism, et cetera, and going straight to a mobilization war economy. They can make that transition overnight. And they can sustain the war forever at that point in time. But, you know, that brings a cost to the Russian economy. That will

require the Russian people to do some belt tightening, which you're fully capable of doing, but the Russian government would prefer not to do that. And so if they can, you know, make this next step and get the United States to put pressure on Ukraine to end the war on terms, you know, that are in accordance with Russia's demands, that would prevent them from making this transition. But Russia is fully prepared to go all the way. I mean, there will be no backing down on Russia. I mean, the stupidity of the Ukrainians, you know, saying they went 800, thousand men. Hell, they only had 260,000 when the war started. You know, and Russia wasn't with that 260,000 included 68,000 NATO-trained troops that were being amassed on the border

of the Dombas to preemptively strike the Dombas and kick the separatists out. Russia has said you're going to drop it down to 60,000. That's what Russia is going to allow. And since Russia's winning the war, those are the numbers. But Ukraine is talking about 800,000 Europe's first army, the largest land army in Europe. Fantasy. Every aspect of the Ukrainian dans are pure unadulterated fantasy. Ukraine has run out of manpower. They've run out of everything. Their best brigades are surrounded and prokows can be slaughtered as we speak. There are additional caldrons forming where the other experienced units are likewise at risk of annihilation. They're out of equipment. They're now sending equipment, you know, because they lack trained formations and

they lacked adequate reserves. What's happening now is that, and the other thing that happened is they allocated, of course, billions of dollars to build fortifications behind these lines. All that money went to the pockets of people. No fortifications were built. There is no fortified line anymore. So what the Ukrainians do now is they take their reserves, which had, you know, this equipment that hadn't been upgraded for the reality of drone warfare.

There's no steel spikes. There's no cage. they're taking these parade ready units and they are throwing them in on these counterattacks because that's the only they can't defend there's no defenses so they throw them in into these counterattacks and they're being slaughtered the russians are just wiping them out there's a highway to hell now if you remember the highway to hell that was uh it exists during the gulf war where the iraqis were coming out that's the name of your book that i wrote the blurb for isn't it yeah that's about highway to hell for nuclear war but you know we talk about the highway to hell

that the Iraqis got cut out with a vehicle bombed in front, a bomb the rap, and everything destroyed in the middle. There's a highway to hell out of Pachosk right now. They can't get out of Pekrosk. And when the Ukrainians tried to go down this road, the drones are just slaughtering, and the Russians released drone footage that just showed, literally, tanks, armored vehicles, everything,

all burning out. There's nothing escaping from Pachos right now, nothing. And this is the reality. There's not, the Ukrainians right now, and this is why Secretary of Army Driscoll went to kill, And he said, you're losing this war. You're not going to turn this around. It's going to get worse for you.

You have absolute military collapse coming, and there's nothing anybody can do to help you. You need to take these terms now, because if we walk away from this table, when we come back, there won't be a Ukraine. And that's the fact. And is Ukraine also suffering a hemorrhaging of desertions? desertions hundreds of thousands of ukrainians have deserted uh they they they grabbed 10 of these guys off the street train them eight out of the 10 either desert or surrender within the days of being put on the front line the other guys who go in there they die this is what's happening the ukrainians are just being slaughtered right now it's such a one-sided fight now again it's

not that they don't have the ability to counterpunch i um one of the people that i was meeting with in in moscow you know he has he provides logistic support to different units and one of his units is what they call storm z a storm z a storm z unit one of the assault units and um you know the i guess the unit fell in love with me and you know they communicated with me regularly but they now had to go on the attack and um the commander of that unit who had communicated with me frequently um his unit got caught out they um they had a bad day they were 15 of them in this particular formation. And the Ukrainian drones got him and killed half of them. The other half, he had to hike because the Russians temporarily lost drone dominance in order

to get out. He had, this man was badly burned by phosphorus, literally skin peeling off of his face and his arms. He had to walk 20 kilometers on his own to reach the point where the Russians could then evacuate him. So there's parts of the front line where things, things are tough. It's a very tough war. But overall, these are just limited little Ukrainian victories that have no strategic value. Because what happened then, after these guys got pushed back, is the Russians didn't surge forward, get drone dominance, kill all the Ukrainians, and continue the attack. The objectives of the Storm Zed unit were met. And so, you know, war is a bloody thing. But the Ukrainians are getting slaughtered on a scale that is unimaginable. And at last, because Keith Kellogg was

fired for incompetence. He is truly one of the most criminally incompetent men that's ever walked to the face of the earth. He was a special advisor to Donald Trump. You know, Secretary of Army Driscoll now armed with the correct intelligence is in Kiev reading the hard fact. You know, the Ukrainians, they set up a deal with their war blockers where they purposefully delay the news so that they're publishing old maps and things to disguise the reality of what's happening. But for instance, in Proofs, they continue to, you know, lie that there's counterattacks, that they're operating. Pachrofts isn't just closed by fire. The Russians have actually linked hand. There's now a physical barrier. Nobody's getting out of Pekroofs, Goli. They're all dying.

And the Ukrainians keep doing these counterattacks. They're just getting slaughtered. They're coming in and the Russians are just slaughtering them. If the Kremlin in response to the cash shortage wanted to conclude the special military operation quickly and achieve its geographic and other goals. Could it do so? Could it do so in a week or a couple of weeks? No, even Vladimir Putin said, for instance, he talked about continuing the attacks and he said, you know, these other cities will fall. He said it may not be as soon as we would like, but the inevitability is that. will fall. Look, we're getting into the difficult time of the year. Maneuvering is tough right now. There's the mud.

You know, King Mud right now, General Mud, is there. But come wintertime, there's, I received a wonderful invitation to go to the Russian northern expedition, they call it. Basically, it's the paratrooper unit that was sent into the Arctic to build up an Arctic warfare capability. the soldiers there apparently like following me, and I got a very kind invitation to come out and visit them. But these soldiers are this winter, once the snow falls, the Russians are actually going to be pulling this unit out of the Arctic and bringing it in for very specific cold weather offensive operations. The Russians aren't about to let this war go on forever. They are going to put

the screws on it. But the most optimistic people, look, the Russians now know that the Ukrainians are fully capable of fighting and dying, because that's what they're doing. The Russians don't, you know, don't pretend that the Ukrainians aren't tough opponents. They are. But the Russians have never put a date on the calendar and said, this is when we need do things by. But now there is a date because the reality is that the Russian economy, in order to keep this war level going, may have to transition into a war economy sometime in the middle of next year if this war is still going. And so there is an imperative to try and bring this thing to an end. But Russia's not going to do it by sacrificing troops on the battlefield. Russia will do it at the negotiating table

by trying to confront the Ukrainians with the inevitability of their defeat and their demise and telling the Ukrainians basically there's an easy way to do this or there's a hard way to do us. Right now it looks like Ukraine's going to take the hard way. How will President Putin react when Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, of all people, show up next week? Will he politely say, thank you? I'll listen to what you have to say. Safe flight home. I think you'll listen.

But the bottom line is there will be, I mean, this is the point that I received over and over and over again. There is no room for compromise on critical issues. and it doesn't matter how badly Trump. Trump needs to understand that Europe is out. And I think he understands it. He's not working with the Europeans. And now Zelensky is desperate because he was supposed to meet with Trump. He says, I can't do it without the Europeans.

And Trump's like, I don't care about the Europeans. They're irrelevant because they are. They're really irrelevant to this problem. They just undermine and try to drag this war out. Ukraine needs to be told that there will be dire consequences. for failing to, you know, accept the Russian demands. And the dire consequences means the death, the literal death of a nation. And Zelensky has to understand that that means the literal death of Zelensky.

I mean, this man is not long for this world. Well, is he in a position to accept anything in the 28-point plan, or maybe it's down to 20 right now, or will he be assassinated if he does? this is where we find out what kind of leader he is because he will be killed if he um if he signs his peace plan he will be a dead man walking there's no doubt about that but is he going to save his life and sacrifice the nation or is he willing to sacrifice his life for the nation and we'll find out what kind of i think he's a cowardly you know sack of manure who's going to you know try to run at the end but he won't get out of the country they'll kill him in a heartbeat

Either that or it'll go on a fake diplomatic mission and never return. But no, it's finished. We're looking at the imminent collapse of Ukraine. The Russians basically have won the energy war. They've destroyed Ukraine's capacity to generate electricity. We're getting into the cold months of the year now. The Ukrainian people are going to suffer like they've never suffered before. And the Russians aren't going to take their foot off of the pressure here.

You're looking at societal collapse combined with economic collapse, which will lead to military collapse. And, you know, then the army will have no choice but to surrender or die. Does the Kremlin understand that Marco Rubio has the same mentality as the Europeans do, that he and his neocon buddies Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, just to name a few, actually want the war to continue? They actually think that they can bleed the Russians dry. I think that the Russians are fully cognizant of this reality. that um but the russians i mean look lavrov you know people say he got in trouble i don't think he

got in trouble um but he laid the law down to rubio apparently the phone call that he had with rubio was not diplomatic uh because rubio was trying to play keith kellogg on this is why kellogg was fired by the way because kellogg was pushing these talking points that you know he earned by winning the big medal from uh zolensky i don't know if everybody saw the award ceremony right but keith kellogg is a is a traitor to America. He stole his soul to Ukraine. And he got, you know, Rubio to continue to push Kellogg's talking points. And Lavrov set him straight in very undiplomatic terms.

You know, pound sand, go to hell, get out of here. We're not doing this. What part of we're winning the war, don't you understand? And that was a wake-up call for Rubio. And this is why you see, you notice Rubio is not involved. And he's not the lead on these. any of these negotiations, you know, Whitkoff is driving the ship right now. He's the guy. He and Dmitriev have set up a back channel that if this succeeds, and there's every indication that it

could, you know, if Trump is willing to, you know, put the pressure on Ukraine that has to be put. This could go down in history as one of the great, you know, back channel deals, you know, RFK Jr. or RFK, I'm sorry, had a, you know, back channel with Dobrennan to, you know, get the Cuban, get the Russian missiles out of Cuba and get the American missiles out of Turkey. Everybody forgets that part of the deal. You know, Willie Brandt had a back channel with Brezhnev back in the 70s where it helped prevent the spread of nuclear weapons into Germany. You know, and even more recently, again, during the Biden administration, we had CIA director Burns meeting on a regular basis with Nurishkin, the head of the Russian intelligence service SVR. You know, they weren't able

to promote peace, but they did maintain just enough communications to prevent a war. And I think Whitkoff and Kirill Dimitriov will go down in history is one of the great back channels of all time if they can pull this deal off. Scotty, thank you very much, my dear friend. I appreciate your time. I know you've just returned from Russia. Probably need a few good nights of sleep. Nights of good sleep.

Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. We'll look forward to seeing you next week. Okay, Judge. Thank you. All the best to you. Coming up today on our Super Wednesday, 11 o'clock, Max Blumenthal, at noon, Professor Glenn Deeson. At 1 o'clock, Colonel Douglas McGregor at 2 o'clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi, at 4 o'clock, Professor John Mearsheimer, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.