Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/21/24 Ted Snider on the Western Troops in Ukraine and Putin’s Re-Election

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Ted Snider returns to the show to discuss some developments related to the war in Ukraine. Scott and Snider start with the sudden admissions from a number of high-level officials that various Western countries have troops on the ground in Ukraine. They also discuss the fall of Avdiivka, the leadership change in Ukraine’s military and Putin’s win in the latest election. Discussed on the show: “Why is the West Suddenly Revealing That It Has Troops in Ukraine?” (Antiwar.com) “How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin” (New York Times) “Selecting Syrsky: The Untold Half of the Zaluzhny Story” (Antiwar.com) Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in U.S. foreign policy and history. He is a regular writer for Truthout, MondoWeiss and antiwar.com. To support Ted’s work, you can make a PayPal contribution at [e-mail]. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already, time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more the 5,500 interviews since 2000. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton show you guys on the line i've got ted snider he's our foreign policy fellow at the institute he is that's libertarian institute and of course antiwar dot com and he writes of the american conservative and responsible statecraft and all kinds of things welcome back to the show. Ted, how you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks for having you on show against

Ben. Very happy to have you here. We got a bunch of different things that you've been writing recently about the Russia-Ukraine war. Buried stories, the firing of the general in charge, multiple leaks from all different directions about special operations forces in the country, even though we've already known that. And big, tough talk from the extremely effeminate president of France, that he's going to make this war much worse. Just tell. me what the hell is going on man yeah well yeah you just did a lot there's a lot and i think um i think the last thing you touched on is is is a really intriguing one in that um it's been this sort of this this claim like the states Biden's been claiming for a long time that there

there will not be american troops engaged in the conflict so it's got i mean it's been a totally open secret that there's some people there and it's been a totally open secret that the west was writing everything but the bodies right They're giving the funding, the weapons, the training, the intelligence, they're giving everything but the bodies. And Biden's insisted that there won't be bodies because he didn't want to risk a war with Russia. And then all of a sudden, in like a two-week period, Scott, there's like five high-level leaks revealing that there are, in fact, troops in Ukraine. And to me, the stunning thing was this not just the pattern of leaks, but the question of why, why in just two weeks would there be this incredible series of leaks that there's all these

Western bodies in Ukraine? And, you know, it seems to me that we've reached, you know, I say at the beginning of one of my articles, we've reached this sort of what I call this long, feared fork on the road, that, you know, the West has to accept that Ukraine's losing the war. And they really have a choice now. They either have to push Ukraine to the negotiating table, or they got to do more than send arms and aid because arms and aid isn't going to send Ukraine. And that means they'd have to escalate by sending troops. And that means risking exactly what Biden says they've been trying to avoid all along, which is, you know, war in Ukraine. And yet in this short period, you get this series of interviews and leaks and direct confirmations by governments that

there's bodies in Ukraine, troops, troops in Ukraine. So where do you want to start? Do you want to start with what some of the leaks are that there's actually people already there. Sure. And well, actually, let's start with, I mean, what are exactly the implications? I mean, what's the difference between having clandestine deniable forces or semi-deniable forces embedded there versus dropping the 82nd Airborne in in terms of, well, if one of them gets blown up? Yeah, so I think, I mean, I think it depends. I mean, I think Putin's been remarkably calm about all this. And he's sort of said, who cares? We've known this all along. And just like you're sending weapons isn't going to make a difference. You're sending troops isn't going to make a difference.

But the difference is if you undeniably have troops that are not just targeting intelligence, but firing the long-range missiles, if you've actually got troops in there doing the demining and doing the, you know, doing the fighting, then you've got NATO in Ukraine. And, you know, Putin's made it pretty clear that NATO fighting in Ukraine is tantamount to him of NATO fighting, you know, Russian territory. And then you've got, you know, Russia the need to defend its survival. And then you get all kinds of scary escalatory scenarios about what happens if Russia has to defendants territory. So what you get here is you get, you get this, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, but you get this really dangerous possibility that people been afraid of for so long that

that this war in Ukraine that has no real security interest to the West risks escalating into a possible world war between nuclear powers. And, you know, Putin reminded the world that there is only one reason why countries have nuclear weapons. He says, we're not going to do it. We don't think you need to do it. We don't think it would be a nuclear war. But he says, remember, you know, nuclear weapons are there so that if the sovereignty, integrity, and existence of your countries of threat,

you have nuclear weapons. And then you get, you know, Macron responding that, you know, Putin shouldn't say that because we're a nuclear power and we're ready. And so all of a sudden, you've got the president of Russia and the president of France engaging in this conversation about the potential of nuclear war. And who wanted to be there, you know, over this, you know, this fight in Ukraine. So you get this really sort of scary situation. And, you know, you've got Europe fighting each other.

You've got Germany mad at France for Sengen, and France. and France, mad at Germany for leaking it, and, you know, NATO's falling apart. And you've got this whole terrible scenario. Yeah, well, and, I mean, it goes right to the heart of the contradiction of the entire thing. They started this war with their insistence that nothing can stop us from bringing Ukraine into NATO. And if we can't do it this year right now, we're going to do it de facto. We're going to integrate their military with ours as best as we can. We're going to focus on interoperability.

I'm going to spend the entire autumn of 2021 telling the Russians, you're damn right, we're bringing Ukraine into NATO and there's nothing you can do to stop us. And then as soon as the war starts, Biden says there is a zero percent chance that we are sending the army, the Navy, the Marines in to fight this war. 82nd Airborne will be in Moldova. the third infantry division will be, I don't know, in Virginia, wherever they sit around in Germany. The Navy will be sailing in circles in the Black Sea. This is not our fight. And we are not going to war with Russia over Ukraine, which is the same thing as saying,

you're not allowed into NATO because we're not going to fight for you if it comes down to it. And so here we are. Now they're stuck in this contradiction. They're like, well, maybe we should escalate. and fight for them a little more and a little more and a little more at a time when that completely contradicts the theory of the case, which is if we went that far,

we'd end up in a general nuclear war. Yeah, and, you know, part of the case that Russia's made since prior to the war is that this isn't just about Ukraine and NATO, it's about NATO in Ukraine. And, you know, remember before the war, Macron, who's now like the leader of the most hawkish element before the war, it was Macron that reminded the West when they were all saying,

you can't do this, that, you know, Putin's security concerns about weapons in Ukraine and Ukraine joining NATO are legitimate security concerns that we, he called them essential security concerns that we have to negotiate with Putin. So Macron was saying that before, and now you do get this escalation. And that's part of the fear, I think, when I talk to people about why these leaks are coming out about troops in Ukraine, the scariest scenario of all was that it was to prepare for escalation with the idea being that it would lay the ground for sending more troops. The idea being that you can sell more troops by desensitizing the West by pointing out that there's already troops there. We've already taken the risk. How much more of the risk is it to send more?

So one of the possibilities about why all these leaks came out, and I guess we still need to talk to these. We've told you what we're talking about yet. But one of the reasons why all these leaks came on this tweet period, the scariest scenario, I think, is that it is to prepare for the possibility of sending more by convincing the West by saying, look, we've already sent some, and Putin didn't respond. How much more of a risk is it to send more?

But that's a very dangerous game because people like to play this game of knowing Putin's mind, but nobody knows what the red line is. How many, you know, is it acceptable for Putin to have a few Western troops giving targeting information for long-range missiles? But is it acceptable to send in hundreds of troops? Is it acceptable to be, you know, actually in the fight, a French general, the French general, the head of the French Armed Forces wrote a paper in LeMond, I think yesterday saying that, you know, France could get together a force. So I think he said 20,000 soldiers.

Like, is that, is that crossing a line for Putin? So it's a very dangerous game. Yeah. Well, you know, and you're right that they keep doing that. And the war party has been, this has been their mantra now this whole time is, well, he hasn't nuked us yet. He hasn't nuked us yet. And, you know, this Emily Harding from the Center for Strategic and International Studies was in, I guess, last month in February, they did this symposium. And, of course, CSIS is sponsored all by the military industrial complex.

You can read it right on their website. And she says, you know, we've been fiddling while Rome burns. And, you know, we've been debating. She says, we've been debating amongst ourselves, like, exactly what tiny weapons system is going to push us over the top or not now for two years. And if we hadn't been dithering earlier on, there's a little Sarah Palin idiocy thrown in there for you. If we hadn't been dithering, if we had actually provided the things that we should have provided, we would have been much better off now. She just claims, like, oh, yeah, the tanks, the artillery systems, whatever she has in mind, definitely would have made the difference. She explains no argument why we should believe that that's true.

It just goes without saying. And then she says, I love this. It's self-centered of Americans to worry that if they do this, it will provoke. Russia into widening the war because she says that just hasn't happened. But she's the one saying we haven't given enough weapons yet. We haven't done what it takes. So she's just saying the fact that they haven't nuked us yet means that they definitely won't. And then I just love this because it could come out of the mouth of Sarah Palin or John McCain or your junior high school reading teacher who doesn't know the first thing about it. She says, Russia's a bully. They respond to strength.

And it's like, she's going to get my home state nuked off the face of the earth with this crap. You know? It's completely stupid. It's a mindless argument, Scott. And one of the premises of it that drives me crazy is when people say we've done this and Putin hasn't escalated. And in fact, we don't even know that that's true.

Because you don't know that some of things Putin's doing now weren't escalations. Putin wasn't doing a whole lot of the, you know, long-range strikes into, Ukraine until, you know, Ukraine took out the bridge and stuff like that. Right. He has escalated. That's right. It's not only crazy to say he hasn't escalated. It's crazy to assume that you know someone else's mind well enough to know when they'll

escalate. Suppose Putin hasn't escalated. Credit to Putin, right? Well, and suppose that she's right that if we just give them enough Abrams tanks and enough attack them artillery pieces, that that'll be enough to help you, Ukraine win the war and push the Russians out. Well, what's he going to do then? Nothing?

It's a total zero-sum thing. You know, she says, we'd be much better off, meaning I guess that that would really tip the balance of power in favor of Ukraine. Well, then might he escalate? Yeah. It's a very dangerous game to play. It assumes he hasn't escalated. It assumes you know when he will escalate.

And it also assumes, as you said, that if you do succeed and, you know, the existence of Russia is threatened or Crimea is threatened, it assumes that Putin will let that happen. And that's a really, really dangerous assumption. And this idea of give them a little, give him a little more, give him a little more, you know, this is the talk that's happening right now again, too, because when Mechran says, you know, we could send troops into Ukraine, let's not take that off the table. And he's also pressuring Schultz in Germany to send very long-range tourist missiles. And, you know, Schultz says, We can't do that because that'll provoke Russia to, you know, further we want to provoke them.

And Macron's answer is exactly to sort of sarcastically remind Germany that you used to say, you know, no tanks, you used to say no planes, you used to say no long-range missiles. You are the guys who said you'd send, you know, helmets and lunch. And they says, you know, we're always six months behind us. It's kind of mocking that every time we say we're going to do more, we don't do it, then we do that little one. and then we have to push you to the next one, then we do that little one. You know, some people use the, I hate this scenario, but the, you know, the boiling frog scenario that if you just slowly keep turning it up, this assumption that Putin's not going to notice. And that's a really, really stupid and dangerous assumption.

And so you've got, you've got Mahon saying, let's actually not take it off the table that we're actually going to send troops in. And part of this is a distraction, Scott. Part of this talk about whether we should send troops in is a distraction from the revolution, of the more dangerous idea that we do have troops in. And, you know, this kind of got kicked off in, I think it was February 19th, with this leak of a transcript of a conversation between these very senior German Air Force officials. And what they're talking about is a briefing for the Secretary of Defense on precise this idea of will we send long-range tourist missiles into Ukraine.

And they're talking about the difficulties of how you'd actually do it. And one of them is heard on the conversation to say, we know how the British do it. They have people on site. And it's like, what? There's actually British people on site with the long-range missiles. And then although there's all this sort of getting mad at them for saying it, the British Prime Minister's office confirmed it recently. And I'm reading a direct quote now because I happen to have them in front of me.

He said, beyond the small number of personnel, we do have in country supporting the enforcement of Ukraine, we don't have any plans for a large deployment. So there's Britain saying we do have troops in Ukraine. And then, again, pressuring Schultz to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine, a week after that first revelation, Schultz says, I can't send long-range missiles into Ukraine because that would require the presence of Germans and Ukraine like the British and the French have to do. And that would risk, he says, that would risk participation in the war. So here's Germany saying out loud, Britain and France have troops in Ukraine. Britain confirms it. France says, if we don't, maybe we should.

The same transcript, also, by the way, when they're saying, could the Ukrainians do it on their own, one Luftwaffe officials says, look, it's known that there's numerous people in Ukraine in civilian attire who speak with American accent. So then you get this language of, well, maybe there's Americans there. And then you remember that in 2003, John Kirby of the NSC, yeah, the NSC said that there is a sense. small U.S. presence in Ukraine. Then you get this massive New York Times article based on interviews with 200 current and former officials. This is like almost like an organized leak. This is slight correction errors. They claim it was 200 interviews with we don't know exactly how many officials. Correct. Correct. Yeah, with former and current officials where they reveal the extent of a CIA presence there that at first we've been told was a small number. But it actually

refers to scores of new officers. Now, for those of you who haven't read your Shakespeare for a while. A score is 20. So score zuh. We're looking at 46. The score is 24. Is it 24? Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah. So you get all these people sent in to help the Ukrainians. And they're and they're passing on intelligence on where Russia's plan to strike what weapons they're going to use, giving intelligence for targeting strikes, intelligence support for lethal operations against Russians in Ukraine. So now you get this leak that there's not only some U.S. forces in, but there's tons of CIA forces. And then on March the 8th, the foreign minister of Poland makes this stunning confirmation where he says NATO military personnel are already

present in Ukraine. He says soldiers are present in Ukraine. I want to thank the countries who've done it. And unlike, you know, the big mouth in Germany, I'm not going to tell you which countries they are, but they're there. So you've got, you've got Germany and Poland. saying there's troops there. You've got the U.K. and the U.S. confirming it. You've got this big New York Times thing. And all of a sudden you've got this. And then there was that earlier, there was that earlier leak that that had said there was, what was it called? Remember the number was it? So there's 97 NATO special ops personnel in Ukraine.

Yeah, this is the Jack Tissaria leak from a year ago. So that was the earlier one too. So you get this absolute, this absolute storm of, um, leaks and interviews saying that there's, you know, not, not NATO troops, but troops of NATO countries, you know, in Ukraine. And then, and then, you know, you have to ask, I think you have to ask, why, is this coordinated? Why, after swearing there's no troops on the ground, you suddenly get France saying we could send troops? And then everyone's saying there are troops. And, you know, I think, I think, Scott, the least scary option is that the West knows that they've lost the war.

And that they pushed Ukraine to fight with weapons. Well, look, and we know that that's true. Ted, I mean, there's a, I'm sure you saw the intelligence community assessment summary that was released on February the 5th where they don't use the word losing. But, yeah, it's in there that, well, Putin thinks he's winning. And for the following reasons, he is winning. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, when we talked, I think, on a previous show in the town of Divika fell and now you've got, you know, the Russians on several fronts.

slowly pushing West. And again, it's always important to remember in this war, it's not, victory so far in this war is not measured in territory one. You know, it's measured in attrition. Russia's just using up Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian weapons. They're just, they're grinding the country into, you know, non-existence until, unless, you know, which can be solved by just negotiating tomorrow, as Putin said again recently. But I think, And, you know, it's possible, Scott, that in preparation for losing, there's going to be a lot of finger pointing. You know, the West is going to be pointing at each other in Ukraine, Ukraine, the West. And one thing this might be kind of laying the ground for is for the Western countries to say, look, we did everything we could.

We even put troops on the ground, right? So it could be cover for that. A second reason they could be admitting to all this is to pressure the U.S. to send more aid and weapons to Ukraine. Because, you know, nothing's coming, or little's coming out of the states now. idea might be to threaten to send troops in and then say to Western governments, it's far more palatable to send more weapons and to send troops, right? So the threat of troops from Macron could be, you know, pressure to get the West to cough up more weapons. There's also reports that some of this is to create the sort of strategic ambiguity that if you don't want Putin

to be confident, there's no Western troops coming because that would embolden him. So you say there's troops there and threaten to send more to create this sort of ambiguity. and fear that Putin, maybe you better be careful how fast you're in advance now because we could send troops in. There was one report. It didn't really make the Western need at all. There's reports in the Ukraine media that Macron held a meeting of the parliamentary parties recently and said that one scenario in which he would send troops to Ukraine would be

if, you know, Russia pressed on to Odessa and moved a certain amount west. So maybe you threaten troops in so that to tell Putin, be careful what you do. We'll send troops. There's that possibility. And then again, like I said, the scariest possibility is that they're serious. And that the reason why you admit there's troops there is to desensitize people and say, you know, how big a risk is to send troops. We did send troops. So there's these several possibilities.

But this is a very risky, very scary game to be playing. Yeah. Hey, you guys. Did you know that I don't just write books? I publish them. Well, the Institute does, and I'm the director, so yeah. 13 of them now, including my four. We published five more in 2023.

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slash donate. And thank you. Hey, y'all, Scott here. Let me tell you about Roberts & Roberts Brokerage, Inc. Who knew? Artificial bank credit expansion leads to price inflation and terribly distorted markets.

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Hey, if you just need some sound advice about sound money, they're there for you too. Call Tim Fry and the guys at 800-874-97760. That's 800-874-9760, or check them out at r-rbi.co. That's r-rbi.com. You'll be glad you did. Well, and the New York Times piece about the CIA presence there,

I mean, they're basically confessing a huge part of the Russians argument about how America was taking Ukraine and turning it into a base for war against Russia. But I guess the argument being that, well, whatever, we're two years into this war. So it's okay to go ahead and admit what we started doing after 2014 there. But boy, does it undermine their case about how totally unprovoked this war was when we find out they had 14 bases on the border and they were killing people from them. Yeah. Yeah. So this whole, you know, unprovoked argument. And as you said, the kind of explosive piece about this New York Times article wasn't just that it revealed the size of the CIA presence during the war. It revealed the size of the CIA presence long before the war. So it helps confirm that Russian, you're turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian, you know, bridgehead on our border. And it also confirms Russia's story about how involved the West is because it gives, you know, know, it says the CIA is doing, you know, really serious stuff, like giving intelligence to help attack Russians in Ukraine and soil, target information. So, I mean, it really confirmed not only the legitimate security concerns of Russia in terms of the provoked war, but it confirms

Russia's story of just how involved the West is in the current war. And again, this is just really dangerous stuff. Okay, so we have short time left here, what, seven minutes, So talk to me about the fall of Avdivka and the change of regime at the top. It's not just the top general, but his entire staff was kind of regime change out of there. Obviously, the president has suspended elections, but now he's got a whole new military team in there. So what all does that mean? He's got a whole new military team in there. And Zolushni, the former general, has been given the honor of being the new ambassador to the UK,

which is a euphemism for, let's get him out of. of the country, possibly because he's so popular and who knows exactly why, but Zelensky wanted Zoluzini, not just out of the army, but out of the country. The new general, Skirski, was, is seen as somebody who's much more likely to follow Zelensky's orders. That's exactly what he did. Zelensky went out of town for a meeting of world leaders and left instructions that Avdivkas to be defended, don't lose it. They sent the troops in to try to hold it. There was, there was, it was, what happened is exactly what solution.

He said what happened. They, first of all, a lot of them were, were, were, were, were, were, were, were, were, were, were, were missled in the town they were, you know, sleeping in the day before and never even made it in, but, um, when they got in, it was, it was undefensible. They had to retreat. They didn't have a proper plan to retreat. Um, you know, they were sheltering, they left lots of people behind. tons of people died. In other words, exactly Zillusini told them what will happen if you try to hold this place.

So they fired him. They put in a general who would hold it. What happened is exactly what Zoluzni said what happened. It was a disaster. So the Russians took that town. And the Western media portrays this as a symbolic victory. You know, it's Russia's first big victory in a year. It's symbolic big deal. It's not a symbolic victory. I'm not a military analyst, but I'm told it's a major strategic victory because this is the town that kind of defended and fortified the Donbass. There's not a lot of fortified towns west from here. Ukraine has to retreat, and that really leaves the possibility of Russia, you know, securing the lands that they have claimed in the Donbass and moving west at a speed, possibly of their choosing. They could be going slow for lots of reasons. one might be because it's not true that they want to rush to Kiev and take over Ukraine.

Like that was never true. And the other possible reason, like I said, Scott, is that Russia doesn't plan on winning this war as a war of territory. I don't believe Russia ever wanted Ukrainian territory. They could have taken it in 2014 if they wanted to. This is a war of attrition where they're going to make it impossible for Ukraine to fight because they run out of weapons and they run out of men until Ukraine's going to have to come to negotiating, table. And Scott, we've talked about this so many times because it's, you know, it's the, it's the tragedy of Ukraine is that they are going to have to come to the negotiating table

because of this. And when they do, they're going to get the exact same deal only slightly worse than they could have had the day before the war before half a million Ukrainians have been killed and injured. And that's the crime of this is that the West told Zelensky when he had a possible peace. I mean, one, one leader of the Ukrainian delegation during the peace talks, in Istanbul, as now said, we were popping the champagne bottles. We knew we had a deal. Then the West came and said,

you can't do it, and forced them to fight for two years. Hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded, and they're going to end up going back to the negotiating table to get the exact same deal with less land now and more people dead. And that's the horror of Ukraine, that the West used Ukraine to fight Russia and didn't let them make their own peace to go on to fight for the West's goal.

and decimated Ukraine. That's just horrible, unbelievable. Yeah. All right, so let's see, I got distracted, Googling up that champagne quote. Now I forgot what my last question was going to be. Well, I guess going back to that intelligence assessment, the declassified version that they released on February 5th,

they say in there that not only is Russia gaining on the battlefield, there but that back at home they've increased their production of every kind of military wear and artillery shells and they have they have done such a great job it says in there of recruitment that they're able to spare their conscripts keep them as reserves to free up the professional army so they're not even sending conscripts to the front right now yeah and they're not going to be this war that was meant to you know decimate and and uh and contain Russia, has produced a Russia that is, you know, stronger on the international scene in the, you know, the multipolar world in the global south.

They're stronger economically. They're stronger, not weaker militarily. They have not brought down the government. Putin's in for another six years. And you can say all you want that Russian elections aren't fair and Russian elections aren't totally fair. They're not as bad as people sometimes say in the West, but they're not fair. but really reliable polling, Scott, like polling by polling agencies that are funded by the U.S.,

like really good polling companies, they showed all along that if a fair election were to be held, Putin would win easily, and they showed his popularity at about 87%, he won the election about 86%. Sounds incredible, but it's actually exactly what the popularity polls have showed. So whether you want to call Russia's elections fair or not, there's no sense in which the potent government's been shaken. So you haven't reduced Russia militarily, economically, diplomatically, or politically. You've ruined Ukraine. But you haven't even touched Russia.

Not even touched them. And they say in there, they elaborate on and on about how they've strengthened their economic ties with China and the rest of Asia and the global south, meaning Africa, I guess. Africa, South America, you know, parts of Asia outside. And on the election, Ted, just real quick, I mean, I did read, and it seemed credible, that they banned two opponents for doing their paperwork wrong, supposedly, or something like that, and had only very safe little opponents. But still, so that means what, he would have won by 70% instead of 85 or whatever it is. Because he is, as you said, an extraordinarily popular president. And it's not exactly democracy, but, hey, this ain't a limited constitutional republic either, you might have noticed over here.

and it is you know he's an autocrat he's a strong man but he is one with essentially broad popular support and of course in the new york times they go well that's just because the tv lies to them all day and in fact to read the hard news new york times first major report on the election and the election results over there they're just seething and crying and gnashing their teeth as they write excuse after excuse after excuse and claim after claim after emotional claim throughout the story because they just can't let you conclude that, well, maybe

he's kind of a jerk, but they seem to like him, or you know what I mean? He can't just leave us with that. It's got to be stolen by you know, whatever, illegitimate power. I'm not an expert on the political system, Russia. There's really good stuff written about this. Richard

Sackwa's written really good stuff on this. And, you know, the truth is somewhere in between the Russian elections are a complete fraud. and Russian elections are democracy. The truth is somewhere in between that. But the reality is that it kind of doesn't matter. We can argue about political systems all you want.

The evidence is very strong that Putin, if his elections aren't real, his popularity is. And if there were to be fair elections, he would win. And, you know, Navalny never would have garnered more than four, five, six, maybe eight, nine percent of the vote. Never would have ever. Wouldn't have affected it. If he could have run this election all he wanted it, wouldn't have. Yeah. Hey, the Wall Street Journal said, oh, he was Vladimir Putin's most effective opponent. Okay. So, in other words, yeah, he would have won the election by a super majority landslide no matter what, even if you put them up against the next 20 guys.

Because Navalny had no support outside of Moscow. Right. I mean, it might have been latest polling show it might have been as low as like 1%. So if the West is going to claim that Navalny was was Putin's most potent opponent, then that's just an argument for how much even, even in a fair, election, even if this one wasn't, even in a fair election, that's how much Putin wouldn't move by. And we don't have to debate. Like, Scott, for you and me, it's the foreign policy, you and me, you and I aren't talking about, you know, what things are like in Russia and stuff like that. That's not the part that's important. I mean, for what we're dealing with, it's important if you live in Russia. The part that's important for us is that, is that part of this whole thing in Ukraine was to destabilize Putin's government to try to bring about regime change in Russia. And that's been an utter failure. So, so, so it hasn't, it hasn't

weakened Russian militarily, like Austin said. Russia's stronger now militarily. In fact, their recovery from the early mistakes have been remarkable. They've, they've strengthened militarily. They've strengthened diplomatically. They've strengthened economically. And Putin's stronger now as the leader of Russia than he was. And the U.S. is just going to have to deal with the fact right now that Putin's there for another six years. Like whatever your hopes were, you now have to deal with the reality that you've got Putin for the next six years.

And they did not destabilize his regime. He's stronger after this election than he was after the previous one. And now we're just this much further away from a reasonable relationship with Russia than we were before. Light years now compared to where we were in 2020 or even, you know, the worst of Obama years in the coup and the war in Syria and the rest.

just an absolute catastrophe. I'm sorry we're out of time. We've got to go to our next guest here, but thank you so much for all your great articles at the Libertarian Institute at anti-war.com and the rest. Really appreciate you, man. Thanks so much, Scott Horton. It was great talking to you. The Scott Horton Show, anti-war radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.