Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter : Zelensky Is Cooked!

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Scott Ritter : Zelensky Is Cooked!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you're overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no, no contracts, no monthly bills, no BS. Here's why you should say yes to the switch and getting premium wireless for $15 a month. Ditch overpriced wireless and their jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages and get the reliable coverage on high-speed performance that you're used to at a significantly lower cost. plans start at $15 a month at Mint. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

Ready to say yes to saying no, make the switch at mintmobile.com slash freedom. That's mintmobile.com slash freedom. Up front payment of $45 required. that's the equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on the unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.

Today is Wednesday, October 29th, 2025. Scott Ritter will be with us in just a moment on just how cooked, cooked. is Ukraine. But first, this. History tells us every market eventually falls. Currencies collapse. And look at where we are now. 37 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 Learjudgeonnapp.com today. Scott Ritter, welcome here, my dear friend. I want to spend a fair amount of time talking to you about Ukraine, particularly General Apti Alodinov, to whose dinner you invited me, but I was unable to attend.

But before we do, what is your understanding of the current state of affairs in Gaza? Has the IDF unlawfully re-entered as occupiers? According to Hamas figures, they killed over 100 people last night. Again, just going off of the news reports, Israel used an incident

that allegedly took place in Rafah, a place where Hamas says they have no presence. Somebody allegedly fired upon an Israeli soldier, and they use this an excuse to unleash, you know, an aerial assault on civilian targets in Gaza, killing, again, according to reports, 100 children. And now Israel says that it has stopped and it will once again, you know, recognize the ceasefire.

But I think this is a deliberate ploy on the point. part of Israel to send a signal that they are the permanent occupiers, that even under ceasefire conditions, Israel retains the right to strike any time, any place against anyone without any fear of consequence. According to the prime minister's office, President Trump was informed of Prime Minister Netanyahu's instructions to respond with great force. I think that's the language that was used when translated into English. And he approved it.

Could you imagine Netanyahu asking Trump for permission when he wants to start killing Palestinians again? Well, I don't imagine that Nanyahu asked for permission. I think that, you know, informed Donald Trump based upon preexisting agreements that were in place that if Hamas, you know, violated in accordance with Israeli definitions of violation, any aspect of the agreement that Israel retained the right to strike. And so I think that Netanyahu simply told Trump, the Hamas did this and we will be striking. He doesn't want Trump to be taken by surprise while on an overseas trip because Trump has a, has a ability

when taken by surprise, to say things off the cuff. And I think Israel is very concerned. about narrative control here. But the idea that Netanyahu asked Trump for permission, I don't buy into that. Has Hamas rearmed during this, I hate to call it a ceasefire, it's not a ceasefire, this interregnum? I don't believe they've rearmed. I believe they've continued to retain their weapons. They haven't disarmed.

To rearm would require, you know, outside suppliers, you know, using existing, you know, supply lines. I don't think Hamas would risk the ceasefire carrying out the kind of precipitous action. I think Hamas has more than enough weaponry to defend itself and to carry out operations have called upon to do so. But I do believe that Hamas is serious about this ceasefire agreement would like to see it go forward. So I don't think that they're actively seeking to acquire weaponry from outside sources because that just creates the opportunity to give the Israelis on a silver platter what they want, excuse to bomb. Is Hamas alive and well? Can they defend adequately and substantially against an IDF incursion

if the Israelis come up with a pretext for executing one? The answer is yes, we know this because Israel launched their vaidivorion. mounted, you know, final assault in the Gaza that quickly got mired down. That's why we have a ceasefire agreement today because Israel tried to defeat Hamas and couldn't. Hamas continued to resist and was slaughtering Israeli soldiers on a daily basis. And so should Israel choose to, you know, re-engage Hamas, I believe Hamas has the ability to continue to resist as effectively as they have in the past. Was the Whitkoff, is the Whitkoff, Kushner, Trump, Gaza planned just a scam to get the Israeli hostages home? From the right-wing Israeli perspective.

There's no doubt about it. Ben-Guier has said so, surely it has said so. We got our hostages home, they said. Now it's the time to go in and finish the job. So clearly from the perspective of the right-wing political element in Israel, that will support Benjamin Netanyahu, that there was no intention of a real ceasefire. They have no intention of allowing the conditions to come into being that could lead to a Palestinian state. They want to terminate Hamas forever, but they had a huge political nightmare,

which was the hostages. This was causing huge political unrest in Israel. So they believe that they have solved this problem, and now they would like to go in and finish what they started, which is the absolute elimination of Hamas. always a sham. And for the Trump, Kushner, Witkoff, Triumvirant to pretend otherwise is absurd. Now, the question is, if you know that they believe it's a scam, what are you, the United States, these three willing to do to ensure that it isn't a scam? Because if you don't have a plan in

place to respond to the Bingavirs of Israel, then you're part of the scam. When Trump says that he's not going to allow the Israelis to annex the West Bank, is he playing word games since they have effectively de facto annexed it already? Of course he's playing word games. I mean, how else do you explain the Vice President of the United States, J.D. Vance, arriving in Israel, only to have the mess at the Israeli parliament vote in favor of the annexation. I mean, they're not even disguising it. They basically waited until the number two man in America showed up in Israel and said,

hey, we're voting in favor of annexation. Now, Benjamin Netanyo came out and said, I can't control the parliament. It's like your Congress. No, he can. And this vote took place. And it was a signal from the Israelis to the United States that we're going to do whatever we want to do regardless of what you think. Switching gears. What is your understanding, Scott,

of the Russian view, I'll make it more precise, the Kremlin's view of the U.S. cancellation of the planned Putin-Trump meeting in Budapest. This was a meeting that came at the request of the Trump administration. The Russians were more than happy to participate in this meeting. the United States backed away when it became clear that the Russians had no intention of caving into the United States demands. The Russian position regarding Ukraine, ceasefire, termination of conflict are quite clear and haven't changed, unlike the American position, which flops around every day. But now what's happened is because the Trump administration, you know, tried to blame the Russians on this. the Russians have come back with some very stark language.

In short, there will be no meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump until the United States comes up with a workable plan. They flip the script. Always, it was the Trump administration. We need Russia to come up with a workable plan. The Russians say, we have the plan. It's being implemented as we speak. It's playing out and ground truth on the ground in Ukraine.

That's our plan. If you don't want that plan, you come up with something, but it has to be reasonable. Until you do so, we're just not interested in meeting. Is the culprit here, Marco Rubio, who of course comes from his whole career has been Russia bashing, put aside his Zionist views, Russia bashing from the sort of Victorian Newland Hillary Clinton School of Russia and Ukraine. And I know just from watching his face in his hands that Sergei Lavrov was not happy after their last telephone call. We don't know exactly what they said.

But is Rubio the culprit here? Is he a trustworthy ally agent of Donald Trump to bring about peace? Or do you think he, like his neocon buddies, does not want peace, wants the war to go on because of their crazy idea that this will drain Russia and weaken Putin? Well, first of all, we need to be clear that Marco Rubio hates and despises Donald Trump. It's 100% certain. You only have to go back to the campaigns of 2016 to understand just how much Marco Rubio despises Donald Trump, the disdainee holds towards Donald Trump.

But Marco Rubio is the byproduct of Donald Trump selling his soul to Miriam Adelson and the Israeli lobby. $100 million bought Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State position. Now, Trump doesn't like him, doesn't want him, but he put him in there. Now, if this was down- Did she originally want him to be vice president, and Trump said I couldn't stand working with him on a daily basis? 100%. She originally wanted him to be the vice president,

and Trump drew the line there, so Rubio got the next best slot. $100 million for the vice presidency or second place, the secretary of state? You know, there was a governor of Illinois that went to jail for selling the Senate seat. Donald Trump sold the Secretary of State seat for honor. Correct. Rod Blagojevich, whom Trump pardoned. But, you know, if this was Trump's first rodeo, you could say that he didn't understand Washington, D.C. politics. that he thought that Marco Rubio once given the Secretary of State position would

subordinate his personal whims and desires to the needs of the nation as dictated by the man who was elected president by the American people. This is his second goground. You see, he used to have a Secretary of State named Mike Pompeo. Mike Pompeo stabbed him in the back repeatedly, and Trump has acknowledged us. He said Pompeo was a bad man. John Bolton was a bad man. Well, now John Bolton was the National Security Advisor. Now we have the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor rolled up into one person, Marco Rubio, who's a bad man. Yes, we can blame Marco Rubio. He doesn't want peace with Russia. Not at all. And he's sabotaging this right and left. He's giving a platform for people like Keith Kellogg. He's, you know,

advocating on behalf of Scott Besson. He's doing everything he can to push the, you know, the anti-Russian policy agenda of the neo-conservative wing of the Republican Party. But the blame rest with the commander in chief. Okay, you're the one who agreed to this compromise to put Marco Rubio win. You're the one who allowed him to double happen to the national security advisor and the secretary of state.

You're the one who said you wanted peace with Russia, and you're the one who is silent while Marco Rubio sabotages you. So what we're seeing here is that Donald Trump is actually one of the weakest presidents that's ever served in that office. Whenever there is significant pushback from members of

the establishment, Donald Trump folds like a house of cards every single time. Is Marco Rubio wedded to the D.C. war lobby? He must. Well, we're going to go to war with Venezuela in the very near future. And that's a Marco Rubio war. 100% Marco Rubio. We're driven by Marco Rubio. He's been praying for this war and this opportunity since 2016. And he's going to put us in a war that's going to be worse than Vietnam. It's going to be a national nightmare. You know, it's just, it's going to be everything that, that we don't need right

now. And the irony is we're sitting here, you know, taking this highfalutant stance against Russia for their illegal invasion of Ukraine, total disregard for the historical fact, while we're preparing in the name of the Monroe Doctrine to invade and occupy and remove a government in Venezuela and probably in Colombia as well. I just want to jump off of Ukraine. We'll get back to a and on to Venezuela for a moment. Are there 10,000 of your fellow Marines aboard ship off the coast of Venezuela as we speak? 10,000? It appears to be.

Yeah, that's what we do for a living. We float on ships off the coast of countries that our nation is preparing to invade. Well, 10,000 troops must mean a ground invasion, supported by air or supported by Navy, but ground. What else could they be doing? Well, there's a number of missions that embarked Marines can carry out. One is, of course, just a presence to hold the Venezuelans in place, to put fear in the hearts of the Venezuelans, force the Venezuelans to take certain actions. You know, Marines can carry out raids, where we go in with a carefully crafted, you know, package to go in and accomplish a mission, whether it is to, for instance, capture Maduro, seize. you know, critical infrastructure to destroy things, you know, go in, do your job, come out.

A 10,000 can get you a small foothold, but not much more than that. It's not, you're not going to occupy a country the size of it as well with the force of 10,000 Marines, no matter how good the Marines are. But with 10,000 Marines, you do have the ability to, you know, to go in and do limited scope and scale military actions. But, like I said, the biggest thing they do is just to have this force and readiness that forces the Venezuelans to make sure they have forces available to respond to any potential incursion by the Marines. Do you see a line of moral relativism between Netanyahu and Trump, Trump killing innocence aboard the ships in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, Trump willing to invade without even consulting Congress much. less getting a declaration of war. Netanyahu wantonly killing and looking for excuses to do it even if the victims are children and babies? Well, first of all, the genocide that

Netanyahu is carrying out in Gaza couldn't have been done without the support of Donald Trump in the United States. So Donald Trump is as guilty for the deaths of the Gazans in Palestine or in Gaza as Netanyahu is. Benjamin Netanyahu is not an American leader. that, you know, I condemn him wholeheartedly and I despise him, but, you know, he didn't take an oath to uphold to defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Donald Trump did, and Donald Trump is operating in wanton violation of the Constitution. He's committing murder, acts of war crimes every time he goes forth. We do not have a state of war between the United States and Venezuela.

Therefore, every one of these ships has to be treated as a non-combatant and cannot be fired upon unless they direct, you'll potentially leave. lethal action against an approaching American vessel. We must close with and ascertain if any laws have been broken, and if laws have been broken, then we detain and bring to justice. What we're doing is murdering people, straight up murdering, and we have a president bragging about it. And we have Lindsey Graham, you know, behaving, I mean, this corpulent, fat-faced fool up there behaving if he's you know, Hermann Goring in 1943, you know, stuffing his face, giggling about what he's going to do to Vin as well.

I want to remind Lindsey Graham that Herring was eventually arrested and brought to justice, and he chomped down on a cyanide tablet to avoid being bound guilty and hung by the neck until death. And if there was any justice in this world, you might want to invest in a cyanide caplet, you know, Mr. Graham, because your future would be to be arrested and prosecuted as a war criminal. somebody who's advocating for a war of aggression, which the Nuremberg trial found to be the greatest of all war crimes, because from the war of aggression, all of their crimes emanate. Chris, while I'm talking to Scott, do we have that clip of Senator Graham that ends with a Maduro better watch out, not to raise your blood pressure, but it's an example of him exactly as you described.

Here it is. We looked at the JAG manual. Preventative self-defense employed to counter non-imminent threats is illegal under international law. So if we are not at war and these suspected criminals pose no threat of imminent violence, isn't this potentially a war crime to be killing the people on these boats and then to be taking out a leader? No, not at all. I don't know what manual you're referring to, but I know what President Bush 41 did.

He took down Ortega, the leader of Panama, because he was involved in drug trafficking, threatening our country. Venezuela is now partnering with Hezbollah. Hezbollah is running out of money because Iran is weak. That's not new. They're partnering with drug cartels in Venezuela. No, it should have stopped. Here's what's new.

You've got a commander-in-chiefs not going to put up with this crap. We're not going to sit on the sidelines and watch boats full of drugs come to our country. We're going to blow them up and kill the people that want to poison America. And we're now going to expand operations, I think, to the land. So please be

clear about what I'm saying today. President Donald Trump sees Venezuela and Colombia as direct threats to our country because they house narco-terrorist organizations. The leader of Venezuela is an indicted

drug dealer in American courts. So yeah, the game is changing when it comes to drug traffickers and drug cartels. We're going to use military force like we have in the past to protect our country. That's the new game we're playing. I'm glad we're playing that game. And if I were Maduro, I'd find a way to leave before he goes down. A personal lawyer, no less, was taking an oath to uphold the Constitution favors these murders. Does he know what he's talking about? Not at all. First of all, Judge, you know this.

An indictment is not a finding of guilt. Correct. Of each indictment, it says people are innocent of all charges until found guilty in a court of law. So Lindsey Graham's acting as if an indictment passed down by the Southern District of New York through a grand jury, which we know federal grand juries can indict a ham sandwich.

You know, the corruption of our legal system and the process is such that we can manufacture data, we can put before a jury, and we can indict anybody in the world we want to have any charge we want to. And that's what we did, a politically motivated indictment against Maduro so that we can label him as such. But he's not guilty of anything. He's not been found guilty of anything. It's just probable cause through a grand jury process. And for Lindsey Graham to act now as if he is judge, jury, and executioner shows how this lawyer, who should be disbarred, by the way, for his flagrant disregard for due process and the Constitution. But it just shows you how low we have sunk as a nation, where we have a sitting

senator who is what, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, acting as if we actually live in a land where, you know, justice is a game, where we can do anything we want to because, my God, we can do it. That's not what America's supposed to be. And I also want to remind him that the president, you know, has to go to Congress for this. This is not, you know, the War Powers Act, grants the president ability to engage U.S. forces under circumstances in which otherwise you could not approach Congress for a declaration of war. For instance, we're being attacked or there's an imminent risk of being attacked. There is no imminent threat coming from Venezuela that if we want to go to war against Venezuela and you think you can articulate the case, take it to Congress.

Let Congress vote on this. But that's not what's going to happen. The president is just going to go forward and commit American troops. to what's going to be a national nightmare. Back to Ukraine. In the past 10 days, the president has imposed sanctions on two of the largest Russian oil producers. Are the Rosneft and luke oil, are those sanctions going to affect the Russian economy

or the special military operation, substantially. They're not going to affect the special military operation at all. The Russian economy, of course, will have to make adjustments. It's a new reality. But these are, this isn't as though the Russian government woke up the other day and went, oh my God, they sanctioned Luke Coyle. We didn't see that coming. It's been threatened for some time now. Scott Besson, before he became Secretary of Treasury, he was saying, we're going to do just this, we're going to collapse the Russian economy, we're going to bring down Vladimir Putin. Russia is just a giant gas station with nuclear weapons, so we're going to deny them the gas.

Russia is prepared for this, and they're making the appropriate adjustments as we speak. Don't believe the headlines you see. Russia still sells significant oil to India and significant oil to China, and that's not going to change. We're also selling significant oil to other nations in the global south. The one thing that Bassett maybe doesn't understand is that by doing this, you create a market turmoil that Russia has the ability to sell. a couple hundred thousand barrels of oil a day on the market the oil that russia is selling is you know they're going to demand a higher price which means russia can outbid the competitors one of the things that russia can do better than any other oil producing nation in the world

is sell oil at a discount because it doesn't cost russia as much money to get that oil out of the ground as it does for the united states saudi arabian other nations so Russia can steeply discount and continue the volume production that they're doing. This changes absolutely nothing when it comes to the strategic picture. What it does is further isolate the United States because now we're in a situation where we have told the Indians, we run your energy security policy, and the Indians are taking umbrage at that. And Trump's going to try and put pressure on China until China that you can't buy Russian oil.

Watch how good that works out. watch the humiliation that's going to take place when Donald Trump and President Zee sit down and it start hashing out their trade relationships. China will not budge one inch on Russian oil. China's not going to budge on just about anything else. Hasn't Trump's efforts to diminish Russia economically, in fact, enhanced Russia's economic independence and strengthened bricks? Look, the sanctions are serious. Let's not pretend it is not serious. Russia, like any other nation, would prefer to function in a economic environment that's normal,

based upon laws and contracts and things of that nature. But since 2022, actually since 2014, Russia's had to adapt to the world of sanctions. And they have. What's happened here is Russia's. actually become a far healthier economy. Because, first of all, you know, Russia continued to have to operate under the yoke of the worst Yeltsin-era oligarchs, these corrupt individuals who went in and bought, you know, state enterprises for pennies to the dollar, Copax to the rubble, and amassed great fortunes,

and then transferred much of their wealth outside of Russia. So instead of Russia, generating wealth and having it reinvested in Russia to helping growth, create growth. They were moving it outside, and they maintained a tremendous amount of economic and political influences. You know, Vladimir Putin did crack down on some, but you can't crack down on them all. It's a reality of Russia that no longer exists because after 2022, the West sanctioned these oligarchs, Putin said, you're on your own. You're the guys who made the decision to take your wealth your money you make gets reinvested back into russia that's it and it changed the relationship with oligarchs and also redefined how russia you know functions they no longer are dependent upon

western companies look at Boeing Boeing and airbus committed suicide here because they've got along with these sanctions and what has russia's response been to build their own domestic airline industry that today produces competitive aircraft with 100% made in Russia components. This wasn't going to happen. Russia wasn't going in this direction, but because of sanctions, they had no choice in all of Russia's industries that way today. Russia doesn't need the West anymore. That's why Russia is, in effect, sanctioned proof.

Is there developing in Russia, you and I were just there for a week, and I didn't. detect any of this, you have a lot more friends there than I do. And you were gracious enough to introduce me to your wonderful friends, for which I'm deeply grateful, as you know. Is there developing in Russia a sense of impatience solitary operation? Look, Russia, believe it or not, has a relatively repress. There is a chattering class in Russia, especially in the blogosphere. And they have made their reputations and their money

off of sniping at the Russian government, Vladimir Putin, Gerasimov, Belosov, before that, Shoyu, the Minister of Defense. And so if you're looking for evidence of dissatisfaction in Russia, you can find it. But you need to be careful because this

chattering class exists for It's the same thing here in the United States. We have a whole bunch of bloggers and people who exist to get clicks, to generate clicks, to get attention, to get viewership. And so they exaggerate things, they make things up out of a whole cloth,

but they aren't representative of reality, fact-based reality. The fact-based reality of Russia is that Russia as a nation is committed to victory. Russia as a nation is committed to victory. That victory doesn't come with a timeline. This is victory with the caveat.

It has to be done by this. that day or this state. Russia as a nation is committed to victory, and Russia overwhelmingly supports the leadership that it has who will deliver victory to them, and they are confident that this week has done the right way. They're not in a rush. The only people that are in a rush for this war to come to an end is in the West, because we're the ones you keep putting calendar. Russia is just in the business to get the job done, and they don't give a damn about our calendar. Given the economic and political weakness in Western Europe and given the mercurial nature of Trump one day threatening Tomahawks the next day saying no, how much longer do you think

Zelensky and company can last? I mean, stated differently, how much longer can the Ukraine military last? I want to remind people, Ukraine is the second largest nation in Europe after European in Russia. It's bigger than Germany. It's bigger than France. It's bigger than Italy. It's bigger than Spain. It's bigger than all these nations. I don't know what's going on outside. But the reality is Ukraine is not a minor country. It takes a lot to defeat the nation the size of Ukraine with the resources that Ukraine has. Russia is in the business. of doing that without, by the way, significant mobilization. There was one mobilization that took place in 2022 for 300,000 men. Since that time, Russia's sustained this conflict

with contract recruitment, similar to what we do here in the United States with volunteers. Ukraine, on the other hand, is what, to their seventh or eighth mobilization. They've reinvented their military five times. That means rebuilt from the ground up with new troops, new equipment, hundreds of billions of dollars of investments. This cannot Ukraine admits that Ukraine's economy is always. There is no economy. Ukraine lives off of $120 billion of donated funds. Without this funds, Ukraine collapses. This cannot go on indefinitely. And I think the Russian targeted air campaign right now, which is taking out Ukrainian energy is going to make for a very, very difficult winter for all of Ukrainians. And that's going to have a political impact on Zelensky's

future. I was going to ask you about General. but I think I've been overruled by the dogs. They're okay. You can ask the question. I'll do my best. So I missed this dinner. Larry Johnson came away with his head spinning in a good way. That's how impressed he was with the general.

And then he blew me away and told me, by the way, the general is not Russian Orthodox. The general is Muslim. I didn't know any of this. I knew he was a daring, dashing. figure, but he has risen to such height by... Well, he's a Russian citizen, but we need to acknowledge that Russia is a very diverse nation. He is Muslim, a devout Muslim. He's a Chechen, ethically a Chechen.

Just so people understand the Russian Chechen War, he fought on the side of Russia. His father, his brothers, his cousins, 20 of his closest male relatives. were slaughtered by Shemul de Sceyev and the other Chechen rebels. And Akhti al-Dadnev got his reputation by going into the mountains with Sissah. This is not a man to be trifled with. Since 2022, he has led the Akamat Special Forces in combat in Lagansk, helping liberate almost the totality of Lugansk. And then he became sort of the rapid reaction force.

He's the man that surrounded Wagner and Rostov. and had progosian not surrendered, Opti would have led the Ahmats special forces in and would have killed Wagner to a man. That's how good these guys are. He then went up to Kursk. He was the man who responded to the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk. He stopped them cold and then began the process of pushing them back.

Operation Poltok, that pipe, where the Russian forces crawled through the pipe to get in the rear of the Ukrainians and caused them to retreat. That was his plan. that was his men who executed that plan. And now today he's doing, this is a brave man, a very courageous. And I think Larry will tell you,

I mentioned once I had gone to dinner with him and Stephen Seagall, and I made some offhand comment about, you know, yeah, you're a general, what do you know about being in the front line? You guys are back in the rear with the gear. And he pulled out a video that showed when his troops were pinned down and wounded, the evacuation troops,

that there. Opti went and got a BMP and rode in it, went in there and personally rescued these guys under fire, returning fire. One of his other men were wounded, detached the wound, put both men into the BNP, and then suppress the enemy. They drew that that. That is a major general at the time. Today's a lieutenant general. American generals don't do that. No, and to be honest, that's not the way we operate. But Russia believes in leadership from the front Opti commands the respect to his troops

because of this kind of leadership. He cares deeply about them. And as he said, the Akamat's special forces have never voluntarily left a position meaning they don't retreat. He said, we stand fast and we advance.

He's a highly respected man. He's a graduate of the General Staff Academy. He went there and educated the rest to the Russian generals on the battle for the reality. We received a more formal education on staff work, and now he's working his way up the chain of commandos in the Russian military.

How much longer can Ukraine last? Look, it's a big nation. I mean, I've been saying they're going to collapse for a couple of years now, and I've been wrong. How long can we in the West continue to sustain them? How long are we willing to able? How many, you know, they're down now to where they are talking about drafting 18 to 23 year olds. That's it. Once they exhaust this manpower pool,

there's nothing left. It's the end of Ukraine. And the Ukrainians are starting to recognize this. So, you know, I don't want to put a date on it. Ukraine will break. There's no doubt about that. Right now in Proz, 5,500 Ukrainian soldiers are surrounded, and they're not going home. In Kupianz, 5,000 are surrounded. They're not going on. Up and down the front line, there's other smaller pockets that are developing. This is a plan Russia has been putting in place for some time now. And as they close the pince around these pockets, there's a potential of 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers being trapped. Now, most of those will retreat. But the point is, Russia is dominating this battlefield like it's never dominated before. And Ukraine is simply running out of the resources

needed to plug the holes. So, you know, I guess the question is, how long will it take to kill last Ukraine? great observations got terrific observations as week of course of course coming up at 3 o'clock this afternoon phil geraldi judge napolitano for judging for it Thank you.