Judging Freedom - Who Killed Prigozhin? POWER PANEL: w/Ritter, Johnson, McGovern Intel Roundtable

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Who Killed Prigozhin? POWER PANEL: w/Ritter, Johnson, McGovern Intel RoundtableSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, August 25th, 2025. Today is our power panel of Ray McGovern, Larry Johnson, and Scott Ritter. We have so much to talk about. They're so modest. That's why they're laughing when I call it a power panel. But I call it that because I know how many of you have been lining up and waiting to hear what three of my dear friends who have educated me so much in all of this in the past year and a half, we'll have to say when they're all together. Scott, first to you. If Yevgeny Prokhozhin is dead, and it's a fair assumption, I think, to conclude that he is, what is your best understanding of the forces that brought him

down, figuratively and literally? Well, I mean, let's just start off with the statement of fact. The list of people that wanted Yevgeny Prokian eliminated is very very long and diverse it includes russians non-russians africans europeans americans and the fact is after june 23rd 24th he lost the protection of vladimir putin um he betrayed vladimir putin he committed treason against putin and so the door's wide open as to who could have done this. But I think we have to be realistic here. Putin did not do this. I'll just state that straight up. Vladimir Putin had nothing to do with Evgeny Prokhorin's death. Putin wanted him dead. A, that's not how he operates. Let's stop pretending that Vladimir

Putin is a mafia boss. He is the president of Russia. He's the adult in the room. He's the only mature national leader out there operating on this stage. He doesn't murder his opponents. He didn't murder Nemtsov. He didn't try to kill Navalny.

Those are CIA or Chechen or whatever things. He didn't do it. He didn't order it. He didn't order Prokofiev killed. But yet, Larry Johnson, your former employer, the Central Intelligence Agency, has been leaking like a sieve to Western media, including my former employers, that Putin is a thug and caused this to happen because the CIA wants the West to believe this, right?

Yeah, well, the CIA indulges in fantasies, not fact. So they never let the facts get in the way. I mean, I agree with Scott. This notion to try to paint putin as this great killer and yet the the sort of the defining characteristic of putin is he's a lawyer i don't use that to insult him but he tries to do things legally you know so he he tries to follow protocol and and frankly that you know i know some have speculated that maybe the GRU did this. The GRU is not a ham-fisted intelligence outfit.

And any kind of intelligence operation, there's that old saying, you don't want to poop where you sleep or eat. Well, you don't carry out this kind of operation in your own country if it's actually an intel operation. So I think the West is projecting its own fantasies upon this, but the CIA had nothing to do with it, I think. Here's what our friend Jack Devine says, Ray. Putin wasn't confident that he could punish Prokofiev in a traditional Russian show trial without an unpredictable reaction. Instead, in an emotion-driven attempt to reclaim his strongman image, Putin resorted to a dramatic act of violence against him. I don't know where the hell Jack gets that from, but what are your thoughts on it, Ray? Well, Judge, you'll remember that Jack Devine is an operations officer.

Those people engage in propaganda as well as operations. So the facts don't mean the same things they do to intelligence analysts who try to get to the bare facts. Scott is right. You know, Putin has been painted as a thug. Larry, too. Not as a thug, but Larry is right. I'm a thug? I've called you a lot of things, Larry. But the point is, you know, all this stuff that comes back to me when I say something like Scott just did about Putin.

What about Litvinov? What about the Skripals? What about them? Well, the British intelligence says that they... The British intelligence? You're going to rely on the British intelligence? So all these poisonings and all these killings, okay? If you looked at the evidence, they're singularly unpersuasive. And to an intelligence analyst, we wouldn't go any farther without digging further in to see what the truth was. So, you know, Prekoshen was a problem. He was a tremendously popular person in southern Russia and in parts near Ukraine because he was a hero of

what's called Bakhmut, the hero of Bakhmut. Well, you have to treat such heroes gingerly until such time as they're no longer worth anything. You tell them not to come back in the country, they come back in the country, and then people say, well, Vladimir, I told you, told this guy not to come back in the country. Well, now, the worst that Putin could be accused of, plausibly, in my view, is that they came to him and said, we're not going to tell you about pregogion, but you don't want him to stay around, do you? Now, plausible denial is something that seems to me. But I don't think, especially on this day when they're celebrating Kursk, it just doesn't force. Here's what President Putin had to say yesterday with a pretty good English translation.

Please listen to the very, very end, the last few words he uses. Quote, serious mistakes. As for this plane crash, first I want to express sincere condolences to the families of all who have died. It is always a tragedy. And indeed, if there were people from the Wagner company, as the initial reports suggest, I'd like to say they made a significant contribution to our common cause of fighting the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine. I knew Prigozhin for a very long time. Since the early 1990s, he was a man with a complex destiny, and he made serious mistakes in his life.

What do you think he's referring to, Scott? First of all, he's referring to Progozhin's criminal past. Progozhin was arrested for a horrific crime. He and two other criminal colleagues mugged a woman, robbed her, terrorized her, and he went to jail for this. He was released and he started a new life. Well, could President Putin have been referring to the act of treason? Well, that's what I'm getting to. He said many mistakes.

And the first mistake is that he was a criminal. Second mistake is he's a criminal. He committed treason, high treason. uh the first mistake is that he was a criminal second mistake is he's a criminal he committed treason high trees um what he did was unforgivable and putin has never forgiven him for this but it's not just that it's not just the act of treason it's a continuous pattern of putting personal ambition ahead of the national good wagner is a business. The business isn't just sending soldiers out to do heroic things in faraway places. It's a business about making money. And Wagner has gone to Africa and made a lot of money. It's a multi-billion dollar business. They make two,

three, five billion dollars a year off of the businesses that they run in Africa and elsewhere. And Rogozhin, on more than one occasion, has refused to listen to the orders of his commander in chief, and that's the president, to cease and desist certain courses of action. And he's gone ahead and done them. Most recently, by the way, days before his death in Africa, he was negotiating contracts with the Central African Republic. People need to remember that after the coup, after Putin met with Bogosian and 35 Wagner commanders and told them, I don't want him to be the boss anymore. I want him. I want a guy they call Gray Hair, Trojan. He's the boss.

Most of the Wagner guys went, OK, we can do that. We'll sign up. Bogosian said no. Putin went, you're sort of sealing your own grave here, pal. They started dismantling the Wagner empire. They shut down recruiting centers, started taking over the businesses. Rogozhin lost every penny he had. He flies to Africa.

Well, first, there's a Russia-Africa summit where Putin's doing important diplomacy about one of the most important new fronts in the Cold War between the United States and Russia. He's negotiating new deals. Rogozhin goes behind the scenes holding a shadow summit in violation of a direct order to cease and desist. And then he flies to Africa and starts cutting new deals. This is what Putin meant. He's a man who has made many mistakes, many mistakes. Larry, among Putin's enemies, might there not be enemies in the Russian military, in the Russian Air Force?

I mean, his guys shot down two or three helicopters and murdered at least 12 Russian military figures in Russia when the aborted coup was taking place. Might that have been the instrument or the element or the impetus for retribution? Well, yeah, as we said at the outset, long list of suspects. Prokhorin was not known for making lots of friends. And Russian Air Force officers who lost friends in the downing of the helicopter, and I think it was another fixed-wing aircraft, during the June 23rd uprising or mutiny, they very well could have sought revenge. You know, it does appear that the plane was brought down by explosives that were planted in one or both of the wing, the wheel wells on the wings. Because you can see when the plane was falling, the fuselage was intact, but they didn't have wings. There was a slight rotation, which meant there was probably a portion of wing on one side. And, you know, this was not a surface-to-air missile.

There was initial speculation on that. So, yeah, Air Force could have done it. There could have been people inside Wagner that could have done it. You know, they're angry at seeing that they're being used as a financial tool for Prokosian, as Scott was pointing out. He was making billions. Are any of you surprised, I'll start with Ray, that the CIA wants to blame Putin himself? Ray? I'm not surprised.

The whole deal, ever since 2016, when they needed a villain, when they needed to blame somebody for Trump, Putin was selected. He became the devil incarnate, and most of my friends up there in New York City, very sophisticated friends, watch Rachel Maddow and believe that stuff. So yeah, of course, here's a chance to say Putin must have done it without any evidence. And, you know,

having painted this picture of Putin as a killer, remember Joe Biden several weeks into his tenure saying, well, what is his name? Steve Stefanovich. Okay. Now, is Putin a killer? Oh, yeah, he's a killer. And it went downhill since there. Now, that's bad because you don't negotiate with a killer. And that's precisely what needs to happen now.

They have to negotiate with the country that's winning in Ukraine. And that happens to be Russia. Scott, General Petraeus has a piece in today's Washington Post. I haven't read it. I don't know if you have. But the essence of the piece is just be patient. Ukraine can still win the spring offensive. Here we are. It's almost fall, but Ukraine can still win the spring offensive. Combined with that are stories about clashes between American or NATO military advice and Ukraine military advice. And there's a little bit of history here. That's why I'm going to you, Scott. And

General Zeluzhny saying this is the remaining confrontation is not counterinsurgency, it's Kursk, K-U-R-S-K, referring to that famous tank battle in World War II where the Russians trounced the Germans. Your thoughts? Well, let's just use that Kursk analogy for a second. During the Battle of Kursk, the Germans threw everything they had at the Russian defenses. And there was a Russian town that begins with a P, but I can't remember it right now. It was just on the tip of my tongue. That's why I'm going to get old. But the Germans had broken through a huge tank battle. And had the Germans actually penetrated that line, I'm not saying they would have won the war, but they would have created problems for the Russians.

They would have had to divert resources. Their big plan, double-pincer maneuver to surround them would have collapsed. It was a big deal. This battle right there was that big battle. There's a big battle going right now in a village called Robitino. Now, Robitino was where this started if you remember june 3rd june 4th maverick's gonna add in right now but um june 3rd june 4th uh the the they started with the 47th brigade the 36th brigade dying in the fields in front of robertino right now the 82nd brigade and two other brigades

the strategic reserve of ukraine is dying in the fields in robertino your strategic reserve is your exploitation force. It's the force sent in when you've broken through the first line of defense, broken through the second line of defense, and you are now penetrating the total thing, rolling it up. They're dying before they get to the first line of defense. I'll tell you what. Atreides may have four stars on his shoulders,

but I've done something he hasn't done. I've actually planned and helped execute a combat assault against a fortified defensive position. We did it in the Gulf War against the Iraqis. There he is. Well, that was the Iraqis. We procured 10,000 body bags because we thought this was going to be a very difficult fight. It turns out we were a lot better than we thought we were, and they were a lot worse than we thought we were. But it was still a difficult fight. I've done it.

He has it. He has no clue what he's talking about. The Ukrainians will not come close. They're dying right now. The war ends at Robitino. That's the truth. Larry, how did NATO, the West, and the U.S. get it so wrong? How did they so underestimate the Russians?

Was it a serious act of intelligence failure or was it political bluster put upon us by the neocons? This is a classic example of politics taking precedence over intelligence and not intelligence I'm not just talking about intelligence work by the CIA or Defense Intelligence Agency I'm talking about what goes on up here upstairs rational thought the ability to take on facts and look at them objectively there was none of that. You know, you would think at the outset of this that they're going to, quote, punish Russia by imposing sanctions.

Somebody would have asked anyone in the intelligence community, do we have a historical record of sanctions ever working in terms of changing the policy of a potential enemy? And the answer is no. Or you could say that it worked in World War two it inspired the Japanese to carry out attacks on Pearl Harbor so this was this is deliberate malpractice there's no other way to describe it and I was I was told just in this last week that the top brass at the

Pentagon are being briefed to believe that they're turning Ukraine into Russia's Vietnam, which betrays a level of stupidity and ignorance about Vietnam that we can't even begin to touch on here. So they're out of touch with reality. It's shocking. They've all had military educations. They've risen through the ranks, but they're not looking objectively at the situation. And Intel continues to tell the West Wing or the Oval Office or whoever they're speaking to what they want to hear. Ray, you did this every morning, not telling them what they want to hear, but telling them what you had in front of you.

Our friend Jack Devine is saying, I'm quoting him now. It's crazy, but this Jack, it could put an individual at great personal risk to tell Putin something that he doesn't want to hear. Doesn't Putin want to hear the truth? Doesn't he want to know the true strength of his troops and the true strength of the Ukrainian troops, unlike the West Wing, which only wants to hear the bluster that the neocons have perpetrated. What happens to intel advisors like you, Ray McGovern, who want to tell the truth as opposed to want to tell their bosses what they think their bosses want to hear? Well, Judge, as you may know, just before I retired, the intelligence community, and

especially my fellow analysts at the CIA, were politicized. They manufactured intelligence to justify a war of aggression and torture in Iraq. Now we have the next generation hired and promoted by these same people. They seem to be telling William Burns, the head of the CIA, the Russians have lost and, as William Burns wrote in the Washington Post, the lack of success of the Russian army has been laid bare for the whole world to see. And it doesn't help that the President of the United States five days later said three times, Putin has already lost this war. Putin has already lost, you got me?

The war has already been lost. Apparently, they cater to what they know, Burns, yeah, they know what the president wants to hear, and he's still got this megalomania that the U.S. is exceptional, indispensable, it can work its will around the world. He's delusional as well. Gary, can you run President Biden juxtaposed with Jake Sullivan? What agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin. There is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He's already lost that war. Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. I will say that over the course of the past two years, there have been a lot of analyses of how this war would unfold coming from a lot of quarters. And we've seen numerous changes in

those analyses over time as dynamic battlefield conditions change. So what we have said from multiple podiums and multiple briefings remains the same, which is we're doing everything we can to support Ukraine in its counteroffensive. We're not going to handicap the outcome. We're not going to predict what's going to happen because this war has been inherently unpredictable. What we did this week is formalize through a letter from Secretary Blinken to his counterparts in Europe that upon the completion of that training, the United States would be prepared in consultation with Congress to approve third-party transfer of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine. There have, for reasons I don't fully understand, been questions about whether we were actually going to do that. So to put all of those

questions to rest, then in fact, the training will be followed by the transfer as we work with Congress to effectuate that and with our allies. Scott, they still don't have an off ramp. The president's statement was just a month ago. Jake Sullivan saying we can't handicap, but we can't predict it, which is the exact opposite of what Joe Biden said. That statement was a week ago today. They still don't have an off-ramp what the hell are they going to do well there's no such thing as an off-ramp when you're on the titanic after it struck the iceberg i mean you could you can stay there you can play music on the deck you can have the captain giving instructions with the ships going down

and right now the american nato American NATO ship that was all about supporting Ukraine is sinking, and they can't recover it. It's gone. The best you can hope for is to be one of the lucky few who gets on a lifeboat and gets rescued down the road. Putin hasn't lost this war. Russia hasn't lost this war. I mean, that's what we need to start talking about, is Russia, not Putin. Russia hasn't lost this war russia's winning this war russia is a nation state with a very uh effective military that is prevailing in a very complicated uh conflict with the collective west they're beating 53 plus nations they're crushing them 400 000 ukrainian debt just chew on that 400,000 Ukrainian dead, an eight to one to 10 to one kill advantage, unprecedented in modern warfare of this scope and scale. It means that the Russians are dominating

the battlefield. I know people will pull up the odd video you get on Telegram or Twitter or TikTok or wherever you get it that shows a Russian tank blowing up Russian troops dying. Understand this, when I say an eight to one uh kill advantage in 400 000 dead ukrainians my military math is simple but that's 50 000 dead russians that's 8 000 fewer than we lost in all of vietnam and they lost that in a year and a half russians are suffering casualties this is a conflict that the violence is unimaginable in the West. Old General Petraeus has never experienced violence of this nature. Nobody in the U.S. military alive today has experienced violence of this nature. They don't know what they're talking about.

These are people who spent the last 20 years kicking down doors in Iraq and killing wedding parties in Afghanistan. They have no clue about what large-scale combined arms warfare is about. And the Russians are doing it. They're mastering it. They're going to win. Russia will dictate the outcome of this conflict the way we dictated the end of the Second World War to Japan. On the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2nd, unconditional surrender. There will be a similar event where Russia dictates similar terms of surrender to

the Ukrainians. They're the ones who've lost. The tragedy is this war is going to go on for a little bit longer and a lot more people are going to die, but the outcome will be the same. Larry, aren't there people in the intelligence community who want to say to the president or whoever receives these briefings, essentially what Scott just articulated, rather than the Victoria Nuland version of what's going on? Well, that's why you've seen the flood of articles that have come out over the last three weeks. When leaks happen, they happen because there are disagreements within the intelligence

community, within the policy community. So the fact that the, you know, not just the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico, The Hill, everybody's getting on board with, oh boy, this thing is not looking good and it's going south. So there are elements in the intelligence community that recognize what's happening. And as, you know, Cy Hirsch has pointed out there are Reports being delivered down to the White House and they're just ignoring them. They're not paying attention so You know, it's Scott is right about where this thing is headed because but there is no objective indicator

You can point to that shows the Ukraine being able to train more personnel use weapons more effectively suddenly magically get combat air that can defeat Russian air defenses yeah I mean it's just it's across the board this you don't have to be Clausewitz or Sun Su to figure this stuff out I mean I always say Helen Keller could see it. Helen Keller could see it. Ray, I'll let you have the last word here. The four of us are of the same mind. We have thousands and thousands of people watching us now who I think are frustrated by what the American government is doing. I don't see a change coming, certainly not before the 2024 election. I don't know how

Joe Biden rides this out, but he's not going to wash his hands of it. Well, let's put our human hats on. Hundreds, hundreds of young Ukrainians and even some old guys like me are being killed every day, okay? First aid concept, you stop the bleeding, for God's sake. That's what needs to happen. Okay. Will it happen? Well, not if the intelligence going to Biden is prostituted on the altar of trying to gain favor with him. Not if the military intelligence coming from Milley and coming from Austin is already tainted. I mean, Austin has a reputation for tainting information on Syria,

for example. Look, I was an army infantry officer, okay? I knew that before you get into a fracas like this, you look at what you do. You look at the enemy, you find out how many, how well they're armed, their morale. Then you look at the terrain, right? And then you look at the weather. Maybe you can't move during a muddy season. And then you say, where are the locks, lines of communication and supply? Look at the damn map, for God's sake. Got it. Obama himself said this would be a crazy thing because to encourage the Ukrainians

to think that they could beat the Russians would be a disservice to the Ukrainians. And that's what we have right now. Short, short answers. Scott, when will the war end or when will the Russians triumph? How much longer can the Ukrainians last? I believe the Ukrainian army will be strategically defeated by the end of summer, early fall. Bringing this war to a conclusion is a political question, and I don't have a crystal ball on that. I believe the Ukrainian army will be strategically defeated by the end of summer, early fall. Bringing this war to a conclusion is a political question, and I don't have a crystal ball on that. Larry?

Yeah, I think it hinges all on U.S. ability to continue to send supplies, but the military ability of Ukraine to fight this is going to be over by December. Ray? I don't know. I think Putin is terribly gradual, terribly circumspect. As long as he can accret, attrit, attrit, attrition, and go up to the, up to the Dnieper River, I think that's what he'll continue to do. And whether he can complete that operation by the time the mud sets in,

I just don't know. Only Pooching knows, and maybe he doesn't even know this week. Maybe he'll know next week. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you for all the time you give us. We'll look forward to our conversations with each of you individually next week. My dear friends, if you like what you just saw, and I'm going to guess that you did,

like and subscribe. I was supposed to do the like and subscribe pitch halfway through. I forgot. I got so wrapped up in what Ritter and Johnson and McGovern were saying. We're at 188,000 subscriptions. Our goal is 200,000 by Labor Day. That's 10 days away. Tell a friend, like and subscribe, and tell them what we do on Judging Freedom. We look out you next time. your degree in the new year in the bay with wgu wgu is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning with courses available 24 7 and monthly start dates you can earn your degree on your schedule you may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know make 2025 the year you focus on your future learn more at wgu.edu