TRIGGERnometry - Military Intelligence Expert Breaks Down Russian Mindset

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Martti J. Kari is a former intelligence Colonel in the Finnish Defense Forces and now teaches at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Watch the lecture that inspired this interview here: Evaluation of Russia by Finnish Intelligence Colonel (subtitles) https://youtu.be/kF9KretXqJw - *SPONSORS* Stitch Fix: Make shopping for clothes easy! Go to stitchfix.co.uk/trigger and get 20% off when you keep all five items. Babbel: Learn a new language! Go to babbel.com/play, and use promo code TRIGGER for an extra six months free. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. - Chapters: 00:00 Intro 03:40 How Do Russians Think Differently? 10:50 Why Russia Prefers Strong Leaders 13:33 Yeltsin, 1990s Russia and Attitude to Democracy 16:49 Corruption: Unwritten Rules 20:29 Why Russia is Fearful of Invasion 24:04 Putin is Surrounded by 'Yes Men' 28:27 Ukraine War: Intelligence Failure 31:22 Why Did Putin Invade Ukraine? 38:16 Could This Have Been Prevented? 40:49 The Suwalki Gap and Kaliningrad. Will Putin Keep Going? 45:12 Why Do Russians Support Putin? 49:25 Meanings of Truth in Russia 53:33 Russia Today and Sputnik 55:55 Where Does Putin Go From Here? 58:16 How NATO Can Both Not Eslacate AND Support Ukraine 01:00:03 Would Putin Use Chemical Weapons? 01:01:13 NATO Membership For Finland and Sweden 01:03:14 Ironically, Putin Has Strengthened NATO Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The biggest mistakes in Ukraine war was that it was an intelligence failure. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. I am so excited for the guest we have for you today. He's a retired Colonel from the Finnish Military Intelligence Now Lecturer, Colonel Marty Carey, welcome to Trigonometry. Okay, thank you. Nice to be. be here. It is great to have you. I'll call you, Mara, because that's the short version of your name. But listen, before we get started, I just wanted to say, for anyone who doesn't know who you are,

we'll ask you to tell everybody your background. I listened to a lecture that you gave about Russian culture, history and attitudes that's on YouTube. And it was the best thing as a Russian whose father used to work in the Russian government. Everything you said was entirely true. It was just, I've never seen anything this good. And the moment I watched that, I said to Francis, got to get this guy on because he's so good. So just for people watching this, who don't know who you are, I can't wait to have this conversation. But before we do, tell everybody your background. Who are you? What has been your journey through life? How come you know so much about Russia, Russian culture, Russian history, etc.? Ah, okay. Okay. So I was born quite a long time ago.

And when it became time to be, because in Finland, we have an obligatory conscript service. I went to the airborne rangers. I served as an airborne ranger as a conscript. And my plan was to become a history teacher. But when I went in the conscript service and I was teach how to jump with a parachute in the night at the night, how to break the railroads and blow up the bridges. I like, this is quite nice. And then I applied to the cadet academy and I went to the cadet academy and I forget the history.

And then when I graduated from Cadet Academy because I'm quite small, they put me to the armored brigade because in that time we have Soviet tanks, T55, B&B1. So I worked with mainly with B&B1. And then in 1988, I was recruited to military intelligence because of my knowledge of my languages, language skills. And then from 1988 until 2017, I served in our military intelligence from lieutenant to colonel. And during that trip, I mainly worked in Finland, but I was one year in Bosnia as a Finnish continent commander, because I was in that age in the beginning of 2000 that I had to have the commanding post to be promoted, lieutenant colonel. So I was one year in Bosnia as a continent commander.

I served three years as defense at the sea in Poland and Ukraine. And that's it. So, so and I retired in the end of 2017 as a colonel. And I started in the beginning of 2018 as a university teacher in Yveskulah, quite difficult to pronounce, Yuvaskulah University. And I teach here now, intelligence analysis and also hybrid threats.

So that's in a nutshell what I have done. And Marra, it always seems to me that the best way to start an interview is to go very broad. And it seems to me that one of the great arrogancees about the West is that we think everybody thinks like us. And we think that the whole world has shares the same mentality. but it's proven time and time again, particularly in this case, the Russians and Russia doesn't think like us. So let's just look at the big differences between the West and the Russian mentality. That's a huge question.

Let's say, let's approach that question in that way. Okay, when I was lieutenant, I was sending it to Leningrad, Leningrad to study Russian language. I was there and I make friends with the Russians and I was thinking why they are, why they see the world from the very different angle than I do. And I was wondering why, why, why, why? And it was bothering me and it was bothering me

and I understood that, okay, there is something why they are thinking in a different way. And not until I start my PhD in 2017, and I found a theory of strategic culture, it's an American theory of international politics. And it was like, you know, in that moment when I found that theory of strategic culture, I realized that, okay, that's the theory by which I can explain why the Russians are doing the difficult. things in a different way than we are. So what, but the question, what are the biggest differences? That's quite challenging. But okay, let's say, let's say that, okay, for example, your attitude to the power.

So, so we are living in democracy. We are electing our leaders every fourth year in 15. Finland and president every sixth year. And that's our system. So we have get used that, okay, we can change our leaders and so on. But the Russians, they don't have had a system that they can choose their leaders because they had first they have charles, then they have the communist party. And now when they have Putin, they have had not real possibilities to have elections

and choose the leaders. So I think the first thing is the relationship between the power and the people. Second difference from what I think is that I speak at behalf of Finns or Europeans. We have, Finland is like a country of when you speak about legacy and we are a country rule. rule of law, rule of law country. It means that we have laws which protect us from, from the authorities that they can't behave as they want. They had to, you know, behave with us in a way that they, they, they, they, they, they behave decently when they are working with us. And we know what we can do, what, what is lawful, what.

is unlawful and what is the punishment if we break the law but I think that Russia is rule by law it means that they have laws but the meaning of the laws is that the leaders can rule the people rule the system by legislation so they have also laws but but they can for example if we think about the internet Rasa segment of internet, they have a lot of laws which limit the users' possibilities, you know, to find the information and so on and so on. They say that, okay, this is for, they protect people from pornography or from the things which can help you to make suicide, for example.

or they say that, okay, they protect people against extremism. But what they do? They can close down, for example, opposite pages, Navalny pages, Horodowski pages, you know, saying, okay, this is extremist. And it's from the point of view, it's legal because it's rule by law country. Do you understand what I'm doing? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That's the other one, the approach to the power, the status of law in the system. And I think also attitude against, attitude to violence, for example, because they have long tradition of state terror, for example, even the great established the operetina system which means that the leader can use violence against the people who are around him and to the normal people very flexible so there is no there is no legal limitations to that how he can use his power for example our president cannot send our special service people to some other country to poison a person. But in Russia, it's possible. So I mean that the approach to the use of violence, it's different than we have than they have.

I think those are the three things which came to my mind immediately. And in your lecture, you talk a lot about history. And one of the things I loved about it was very non-judgmental. You describe how Russians think without saying they are worse than us or better than us or we are better and they're worse or anything like that, which I thought was easier to hear for people. And I'm sorry, because I like, you know, I like, I master in arts in Russian language and literature. I like, I like the language. It's a language of Talstoy, Dastoyevsky, Vladimir Vizotsky. So I, I like the language.

I like the people. I don't have anything against Russian people. I have Russian friends. So when I speak Russia, I don't mean Russian people. Normal, ordinary Russian people. I mean the leadership. Yes, of course. And so talking about the leadership, one of the things you point out is that because of

Russian history, whether it was the Mongol occupation being occupied by the Mongols for 150 years or some of the Tsars that came afterwards or the communist regimes after that, Russia has always had a strong leader. And one of the things I always tell people in the West that they don't understand is Stalin, who killed 20 million or more of his own people, has a 70% approval rating in Russia today. Why? Because I think the Russians, they have get used to strong, strong leader.

They have had periods in their history, it's called smoothness, smooth. How do you say it in English? Tons of trouble. Times of troubles. In end of 16th century, for example, they had times of trouble when they didn't have a strong leader. The Poles attack and there was, you know, internal revolts and things like that. A lot of people get killed and there was no good coordination of leadership and so on.

So in that time, Russians realized that it's better to have a strong leader than a chaos and, you know, the polls attacking and things like that. And second time, they realized that when Yeltsin became power and became that democracy or how do you say, it is not a democracy in that point of view. From our point of view, it's like, let's say, criminal democracy or something like that. So the Russians prefer strong leader because the strong leader can have a stability. They like stability. We all like stability. In Finland, we built our stability through the democracy. And Russians are building up the stability by a strong leader.

Amara, do you think that has a lot to do with geography? When you see Russia on the map, it's huge. Yeah, it's huge, yeah. And so you really do not need somebody who's that strong to hold all those different places together, all that vast amounts of land together, because if you have someone who perhaps is more liberal, more democratic, than what you're going to get is infighting people want breakaway group, breakaway republics, etc.

Yeah, the Palkanization might happen if you don't have a strong leader. Yeah, you're right. That's right. And you mentioned Boris Yeltsin. That was really the only time when Russia flirted with a pro-democratic move. It hadn't really happened in history. And what a lot of people in the West don't realize is Russians' attitudes to democracy and what Russians think of when they think about democracy.

Can you talk a little bit about what the 90s meant for Russian mentality and why Vladimir Putin ended up being who he is? I think it started well. It started well became, you know, I think it started during the, during Carpatho, Perestroika and Glasnos and things like that. People were, I was 1986 in Leningrad, and it was time when the perestroika started and Glasnors started. People were quite, you know, enthusiastic that, okay, now something better will come.

They believe that, okay, now the life will be better. And then became 1990s and it should have been democracy, but it was some kind of capital. gangster capitalism. So the becoming oligarchs took the coupons from the people and people lost everything what they had. Inflation was in one year, I think,

94, the inflation was 2,500% for example. So you just can't live there. And that was the time when the people get the impression that this is democracy. This is democracy. And then in the new year, 1999, 2000, became a strong leader. He was not in that time.

He was not yet a strong leader, but became a different leader. And the 1990s was behind, and people start to believe that, okay, this might be a new start again. And the oil price went like that. it means that the new president had a lot of economic power. You know, people somehow connected the economical growth with the president who, in fact, had nothing to do with the oil price. But anyhow, it happened in that way that the oil price went up and somebody people told that,

okay, this is because Putin is now president, our life is getting better and better and better. But Mahra, he has been in some ways quite a good president. Most Western countries are in horrendous amounts of debt. As far as I know, Russia is in no debt or very little debt at the moment. Yeah, you are right. That might change because of the war. Yes, you are right. You because they sell oil, they sell gas, they get a lot of incomes from oil and gas.

So it has helped him a lot. And they have been quite wise because they haven't spent all the money. They have put a lot of money in the reserves, and they have a lot of money in reserves, and they don't have debt, as you said. So the economic policy has been quite wise. Because one of the things we tend to misinterpret about Russia is corruption. We say that the society is corrupt, the government is corrupt, and of course it is, but it's corrupt in a very different way than the corruption that you will see in the, United Kingdom and the United States. Could you explain that to us, please? It goes, if you read Mark Kaleotis book about mafia, it explains a lot how it works.

It works in that way that if you achieve some position in administration, you have right to saw, they say so, one part of the state money to you. to yourself. So you can steal one part of the government money to yourself and if you are in a low level in an administration or system

you can steal small portion. When you get upper, you can steal more and more and more and more. And when you get high you can steal tens of millions of dollars in a year. And it's everybody knows the rules.

So the rule goes in that way that don't steal too much, don't steal from the wrong guy. Don't steal from the wrong guy because then you are in troubles. So everybody knows, here's the rules. Let's play according to these rules. Don't break the rules. And of course, we in the West are hypocritical,

particularly in London, because the moment all of this corrupt money flooded into the city of London under Blair's government, we went right ahead. All the doors are open. Yeah, you were lucky. They passed Helsinki. They passed Helsinki. We have just few of them, so yeah.

Hey Francis, would you like to learn another language? No, mate. Already know foreign languages perfectly. O'I, Gary. O'A Le Bibliotheca. You can't go on holiday, mate, without knowing where the swimming pool is. Le Bibliotech is the library, you idiot.

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We're even going to get Francis on it. You might learn English. That's B-A-B-B-E-L.com forward slash play. promo code Trigger. I use Babel and look at me now. I can't have Spanish absolutely perfect. Noah, oh my and Gary? Colonel, one of the things

particularly you talked about in your lecture as well is why Russia at a sort of instinctive level is very fearful of invasion, Western expansion, it's fearful of, it perceives itself as being surrounded and under threat. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because I think as we move the conversation into the current situation, that will help us understand some of the thinking behind their actions. Oh, you mentioned about the huge, it's a huge country. It means that they have a lot of borders and a lot of different invaders has attacked Russia. From Mongols came. They were there 200 years. Then came Swedes and Finns because we have always been with Swedes.

wherever they go we go up with them because we were part of sweden uh 700 years they used to use fines you know for the military purposes we have a saying that the brave brave swedish king fight until the last finn it's a finnish joke okay but anyhow we attacked we attacked and then napoleon polls many times polls so so the the the russians have uh in their history in their family narratives there is stories about attacks the germans attack in two world wars they attack and now nato is according to the stories they are planning to attack russos so that that's the huge huge country and if you think about the area from the west borders of Poland and Ukraine, and you look to the Moscow, there's

nothing on, it's a plane, it's a plane, there's no, you know, rivers or there's a little bit of rivers, but there's no real obstacles, like mountains or seas or whatever. So it's easy to attack by horses, by tanks and whatever you use when you attack. So it has created a feel of, being attacked, like they called or somebody called it Parbarossa syndrome. You know, it means that when the Nazis attacked 1941 to Russia, it was called Operation Paparossa. So they called that Russians have a Barbarossa syndrome. It means that somebody will make a surprise attack again to Russia.

And you also explained that it benefits the leader of the country to create this perception of threat because then he can unite the people and say only a strong leader like me can can protect you yes yes i let's say that that way that 30% is is family stories narratives 70% is leadership is telling okay okay the the NATO is planning to attack us again or the West is planning to attack us again. So it's like, how do you say in English? You are collecting under the flag, around the flag pool. How do you say it?

Clock to the banner. You have a lot of blocks to the banner. Yeah. So it's, it's, all the leaders all around are using that also in Russia. Isn't it also a problem as well that essentially Putin is surrounded by yes men? you're not going to have somebody who disagrees with Putin or stands up to him because if you do that, you...

Or am I being facetious? You know, at all time, they have a system called Bayerstva, boyars, who were noble people who were surrounding the char. And there was, you know, the administrative boyars, there was military boyars, and they were serving the char. and Char was giving them, you know, the land and money and for the good service.

But if he suspected that you are not behaving well, or if he suspected that you are planning a coup, for example, or the revolt or whatever, you might lose your head. As I told you about even the terrible, he created the system glide operation. And it's like a KGB. and KGB of 16th century and he used that that that KGB very very flexible so and that time they lost they had and in Stalin time yes also you was there was next shots and things like that nowadays nowadays you will be transferred to the you will be head of the railway administration

or the governor of Kaliningrad they don't they don't they don't shoot anymore people, but anyhow, if the char is not satisfied for your services, as a boyar, you will be transferred to the lower post. Ivano, for example, is taking care of the, I don't remember, he is now in a position where he take care of environment, and he used to be in a very high position. But isn't that a problem? Because what that creates is a uniformity of thought. And it also means that bad ideas don't get challenged, particularly Putin's bad ideas.

So currently they're at war. I mean, will any generals go to Putin and go, look, I think we've made a mistake here because we've got massive amounts of casualties and in this part of the country, the Ukrainians are winning. Yeah, I think because I teach intelligence in university. And the task of intelligence is to provide objective information to decision making. So intelligence is providing objective information, decision makers. And then we have decision makers who make decisions based on the information given by intelligence and given by other people, like operative people and so on.

But in Russia, the problem is that it's mixed. It's mixed because around Putin there is Naryskyn and Bornyko, who are intel guys. So they are in the inner circle, they are those guys who are also making the decisions. So the idea of use of intelligence doesn't work there because the intelligence doesn't provide objective information to the decision makers because part of the decision makers are intel people. Do you understand what I'm trying to explain? Yes, yeah. No, there's no division. they should be a division

Intel guys provide Intel decision makers make decisions but there Intel guys are decision makers so it

it twist that decision making process as you say that it might cause that they are yes man and when the subordinators who are providing the information making the reports

or making the collection they know what the boss want to hear i mean not the highest boss but they boss warnikov or on lariskin they make the reports according the expected vizis of of the of the of that particular service and it wished also the system so so it's it's i think the one of the biggest mistakes of in ukraine war was that it was a intelligence failure. It was intelligence failure. I have analyzed that and I think it was intelligence failure. Well, let's explore that, Marra. What do you mean by that? I mean that, okay, if you think about the intelligence cycle, we have collection, we have

analysis, we have delivery or reporting, and then idea is that you collect data, you analyze data and make the data to intelligence you provide that intelligence in reports to your your customer and it should cause wisdom it should cause knowledge and in best case it should cause wisdom in the head of the decision maker from data to wisdom it's quite challenging job but it works if you are objective, honest, and so on. But if you have three services as they have, you know, foreign service, foreign intel, FHB, and military intelligence, you have three services who are competing,

who are competing for the resources and the money, for example. So they think that, okay, my boss wants to hear, this kind of reporting. So they provide probably a wrong reporting because they think that, okay, if I tell bad news, he don't like me, I will not get resources. And that's why it might as Stalin did, of course,

he didn't believe the Intel, which was provided by Ricard Sorge. Richard Sorge was the best, best operative officer in in Tokyo, he sent it that, okay, the Germans will attack in the mid of June 1941. Stalin didn't believe that because he has his own ideas, he has his own indicators which he was following. And other people were telling you know that, no, the German will not attack because they know that Stalin want to hear that, okay, the Germans will not attack. This is the same

system in now, I think. Putin didn't believe those who, told that, okay, we should not attack Ukraine. He believed those guys who said, okay, we can attack Ukraine because it goes easy as it went in Crimea, for example. I haven't been there, but I have analyzed that that might be one reason why this all happened. Well, Colonel, this is the question that I think a lot of people suddenly wanted to know the answer to. Why did Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine? Some people say, as we talked about earlier, that it's the threat of NATO expansion. He cannot allow NATO in Ukraine.

Other people say, well, he's been talking, we had a former advisor to Vladimir Putin on our show called Andrei Ilaryonov, who talked about how since the moment he came to power, Putin was talking about, we want to go back to 1997 when no Eastern European countries were NATO. Basically, he longs to recreate the Soviet Union.

What's the truth? Why did he invade? I think those both are right but one I think one reason is that they are fear about the color revolutions because the system will go as I told you if you get the position

in the system you get the high position in the system you get you have access to the money you have access to money and you can you can you can saw money

as much as your people in your level in an administrative admin can can show. If you are high, you can steal a lot of money. If you are lower, you can steal not so much money as the guys who are up there.

But anyhow, you can steal. And if you have a system that, okay, we vote our leaders every fourth year, it might happen that you will be not in a position anymore where you can steal. So the color revolutions is a threat for the system where is the inbuilt corruption like in Russian administration. And that's why they are afraid of the color revolutions. I think that's one reason. And what happened in Ukraine in Maidan, 2014, it was a color revolution.

And they were afraid that it will spread also. to the Russia. It happened. It almost happened in Belarus. The Russians went in. It almost happened in in Kazakhstan. The Russians went in and so on. So they are trying to put down all the possible color revolutions which are, you know, might rise in the neighborhood. In Ukraine, they didn't manage and that is one reason why they attack. Of course there's, you know that. all the Slavs are one people and NATO expansion. We had to put the buffer zone, which we have lost when the Soviet Union break down and things like that. But I think one reason is that that system, that you had to protect that kleptocratic system

and not let the color revolutions come in to Russia. So the people at the top, they fear a change of system because it means they will no longer have the power and the opportunity to profit from having the power. Yeah, I think that's one reason, yes. That makes sense. But why now? They tried in 2014. They took Crimea.

They started a small local civil war in the east of Ukraine. Why did they attack now in 2022? What was the reason to do it now? I think one reason was that they tried to solve the question of Donbass. And they tried to solve. the Donpass question and they because there was a change of president in the United States they thought that okay he might be not so strong we can now you know try something another thing was that they saw that Zelensky was fighting against pro-soviet pro-russian actors

in in Ukraine for example he was Medvedevich. Television channels were closed year ago in February, January, February. So Zelensky was... I'm sorry to interrupt. Just for people who don't know, Medvedchuk is the leader of a pro-Russian party whose, I think, daughter's godfather is Vladimir Putin. So this is very much pro-Russian guy in Ukraine who was actively working against President Zelensky. And Zelenskyy shot down his TV channel.

So Medvedchuk was, you know, making a huge... information warfare, information campaigns pro Russia in Ukraine. And Zelensky closed that possibility and change of president, United States and also, you know, I think the Donpas, to take care of Donpas, it's caused a lot. So I think they also thought that they had somehow solved the problem with Donpas. I mean the rebel, rebel areas. And if you put all these together,

you come to the conclusion that, okay, it's time to attack. Because I think when they concentrate the forces in the end of last year, I thought that the idea is to put the pressure to Kiev, to put the pressure on Zelensky, that he would accept open the negotiations on Minsk two agreement. But when Macron went to Moscow and Stoltz went to Moscow, they came from there to Kiev and back their home.

And there was no discussions about the opening the Minsk II agreement. Then I realized, okay, this is not the exercise. They will attack. But I think they will, I thought they will not attack. so deep with so deep uh targets as they did because they had only one hundred ninety thousand troops and the ukrainians had they can mobilize 200 000 troops so i think that's that's miscalculation because you had to have uh three times so much forces as a defender so i think that they they make you know uh just they take my took harkov and they they took khov

reservoir because they need water to Crimea, for example. But this surprised me that they are attacking from four different directions, no center of gravity of the attack and

no, I don't... We come back to your point about poor intelligence and not being not being given the right information. Francis, let me just finish on this point. Could this have been prevented, Colonel? Ah, you made a Russian attack. Yes.

No. No. Yes. Yes. If they would have open negotiations about Minsk too, that might have been a solution. That might have prevent the war. What if Ukraine said we're never joining NATO? That might also, that might also have been the solution. Yes. Yes. You are right. Interesting. Marra, we've been talking and corruption about corruption. Now, this obviously wasn't a primary motivator, but it might have been a secondary motivator. We're talking about people whose motivations for progressing up the ladder

are, as you said, soaring off a bit for themselves. The higher up the ladder you go, the more you can soar off. Now, they might advise Invadamiputin to invade, because if they think, hang on, the war isn't going to last for very long, we'll take over all of this part of Ukraine, will have all of these resources, that means, inevitably, some of that will go to me. Some of these natural resources will go to me.

Could that have been a motivator as well, people acting in their own self-interest? That might be also, but I think that has not been the main driver. Okay. And people talk a lot about the fact, that Ukraine is quite, is it quite rich in gas? And that could have been a factor as well, because then that undermines a Russian position, because Russia provides much of Europe, in particular Germany, with gas. No, I think that the Russian has gas enough. The Russian have oil enough.

I think the Ukraine as oil provider or gas provider is not so vital to Russia. What Ukraine provide is weed, for example, and things like that. But I think the economical reason is not the main, it's not even the second important reason to attack. I think, yeah. And kind of what does all of this mean, which we now have between NATO and Russia? Because people who understand the geography of Eastern Europe as you do, know that Kaliningrad, for example, is a piece of Russia that is disconnected from the main body of Russia by Latvia and Lithuania. And these are countries that are now part of NATO. Given that part of the national mentality is about making sure you're safe and part of it is about expanding borders, bringing the Russian people under one umbrella, controlling the buffer

zone of Eastern Europe. Do you think, as Andrea Laryonov told us, for example, that Putin wants to keep going? Now, obviously, the troops haven't done as well as he hoped, and it's been a big failure. I think that's certainly how people see it in the Kremlin at the moment. Do you think he has ambition to go further? You mean to open the door to, open the corridor to Kaliningradar. And more, and more, to go further than Ukraine. I think now they don't have a power because they have lost a lot of men, lots of techniques in Ukraine. So they had to take the breath before they can do anything else.

Will they do? I think that Ukraine has taught them a lesson. So they think twice if they go somewhere. else. Yes, but what I'm asking you is, is imagine Ukraine had gone very well for Russia. They come in, they take half the country, no problem. Ukrainian surrender like they did in 2014. Would they then keep going?

Or is it just about Ukraine? No, I think it might have, would have been like that you described. They would have keep going. Yeah, they might, they might have to keep going, yes. Yeah. Why? Why would they keep going? Explain to our view as why.

Because they have an idea that, okay, to protect Mother Russia, you had to have buffer zones. You had to have. So in old time, they had Warsaw Pact, all the Eastern Bloc countries. And then you had the second line of defense was Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine, and so on. So you had two buffer, two zones of defense before the mother Russia, mother Russia was, you under the attack. So probably they would have somehow expand the buffer zone further on. Hey Constantine, do you like shopping? No. In Russia you skin bear with your bare hands and wear it. Obviously this is for men only.

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Can you order fresh Siberian bearskin from Stitchfix? Possibly. Go to stitchfix.com.com.com.uk forward slash trigger to find out. Amara, why is it that the majority of Russians are pro-putin? They're very supportive. of Putin and in particular during the war surely they should have would they not have seen you know their own country as an aggressor but you know they they are in information vacuum they are in information vacuum they in 2019 they had law which said that they russia had to have capabilities to isolate the russian segment of internet from the global internet and now they have capabilities to

isolate the Russian segment. They haven't done that yet. They have not isolated that they segment yet, but they have capabilities. But what they have done, they have isolated the mentality or the information of Russian people from the information of the West. So they have closed all the non-official channels, just television channel closed down and And Nova Gazeta was closed. Eho Masque Radio channel was closed because they have a law. They just less than a month ago, they accepted the law that if you speak not the official truth,

you might get even 15 years jail. So the people are now very afraid to speak something else that what is obviously accepted. for example words like war and and and that like that kind of words they are forbidden so you can't say this as a war you have to say to special military operation and if you get that information 25 hours in a day from television so you start to believe that like a chinese water torture you get drop on your heads one drop doesn't do anything but if you get to drop 100 or thousands of drops in a head your head start to do you get a headache so it's the same because if you every evening you open the TV and you hear that okay in in in Kiev the leaders in

Kiev they are Nazis and and so on and so on you start to believe that and and you hear that okay the russian forces are participating in special operation because they are trying to get rid of the nazis you start to believe that and and you have not the alternative truth which which you might get from the west so so it means that and if and of course you believe that and of course if you are stopped in the street and they interview are you are you supporting Putin or not guess what the people people usually answer. So I think it goes like that.

And the problem is, is what once that happens and you've got the majority behind him, it makes a leader very strong, doesn't it? Because if there's no, if there's no criticism, if there's no public backlash, then there's going to be less reason for him to think about his actions and maybe change them. Yeah, but in the Russian days, you know, always has been. Soviet Union and Russia there has been one thing which I learned in 1986 in Leningrad that they has a lot of levels of the truth the truth in the newspapers is different than the truth on the street and the truth on the street is different than the truth in the kitchen in the kitchen table

so so we don't know we don't we don't make the balls or they don't make the balls in a kitchen they make the pulse in the streets, on the streets. So we don't exactly know what is the real support of the present. Yes. And you mentioned different levels of truth. One of the most fascinating parts of your lecture for me was when you talked about language and how in Russian there are different words for truth. And I'd never thought about this, but it is accurate the way you describe it.

We have different words for truth. And some of them mean that it's absolutely true, but some of them are more flexible. And so people are more flexible. And you also talked about the fact that in Russia, there is this feeling among people, and this is definitely true, that if I lie for the benefit of my country or for the benefit of my group, then other people will be okay. And they will also agree that I am telling the truth in inverted commas, even though they know I'm lying because they know it's for our collective. collective benefit. Can you explain a little bit about that? Yeah, they call it, it's like, it's in Russian it's called Krugavaya Paruga. It's like a company guarantee or how do you translate collective responsibility. It's called English. Yeah. Okay. It means that okay, when the Russians

went to Crimea, the Russian forces went to Crimea, no insignia, no, no, any, any insignias that they are Russian soldiers. They went to Crimea and they start to, you know, take the, the object. and to their hand, I mean, the airport and the garnisos and so on. And people were wondering who they are. And Putin said, they are not Russian soldiers. And we, in West, we were thinking, okay, if they are not Russian soldiers, who they are. And after three days, Putin said, okay, they are Russian soldiers. So Putin gained three days' advantage by telling the tactical truth.

So he was denying that they are Russian soldiers. He said that they are not. And I was thinking, okay, if our president would say that, okay, those people are not my soldiers, the soldiers would be very angry. But because the Russian soldiers understood that it was Krukaw, by a paruka thing. He was, you know, denying us because he's achieving time. He is, he's bluffing the West Intel and so on. They accepted that. They were not saying, hey, we are Russian soldiers. Don't, don't forget that we are here. So, so that's one example. So, so you can use

the tactical truth to bluff. Yeah. To get people confused. As, as Lavrov, when they started negotiation in Istanbul, he said that we have not. attacked Ukraine. Yes. Because the basic assumption of the negotiations was that Russia was, Russia has attacked Ukraine. That was the basic assumption. Everybody has, you know, the notes according that basic assumption that, okay, we

negotiate. We will implement this negotiation according to the basic assumption that, okay, Russia has attacked Ukraine. And everybody was ready to start from that point of view. And he came there and said, we have not attacked Ukraine. Everybody was looking at their papers. How can I start now? Because he said that they have not attack us.

And what you're saying to us as well is people in Russia don't mind that their president didn't tell the truth about Crimea, about Russian soldiers, or they don't mind that they didn't tell the truth about what's happening in Ukraine. They can be okay with that. it's for the benefit of the country. Yeah, that's that system of the Krugavaya Baruka. So it means that, okay, he was clever. Yes.

He was clever because between truth and the lie, there is a lot of, let's say, 50 shades, but don't think that movie now, 50 shades of gray where you can flexible move. Very flexible you can move in that. And what does that mean for what we hear in the West in Russian media, like RT or Sputnik or whatever. Are those reliable TV channels for people to get the information from? No, I think in many countries, they have closed RT for example because they consider that it's not reliable source of information.

But of course, we can follow because it's quite important to also follow with RT, for example, telling because if you are able to, to interpret. What if they are saying something and you can understand why they are saying something, what is behind that tactical truth? So, so, so I think it's not wise to close. It's, it's much more wise to monitor and thing from the point of view of, for example, tactical truth.

Why they, no, I agree with you about closing. But what I'm getting at is I think some people have been, rather than watching and interpreting, they've been watching. they've been watching and believing. Yeah. Yeah. What we did in Finland already, let's say more than 10 years ago, we opened. We have, because I told that we have two official languages.

We have Swedish and Finnish, two official languages. But we have also news in Russia and in Sami. Sami is the language which they speak. The Laplans, they speak Sami language. So we have, when you open TV, at 5 o'clock, you get news in Finnish, in Swedish, in Sami and in Russia. So even Sami and Russia are not our official languages. So we decided that we will fight the information warfare by telling the Finnish truth. which is much more, I think,

it's much more close to the real truth. It's not tactical truth, but it's, you know, the based mainly on the facts. So I think it's a good system. We had a good system to make the information, weight information warfare. And Mahra, where does this leave Putin now?

Because I think most people would acknowledge for Russia, this has not been a success. They've lost a lot of men. their reputation has been damaged his reputation has been damaged it's going to probably end in some kind of stalemate where does he go from here

I think yeah they have stalemate in Kiev area they have stalemate in north they have steel made in in in a don operational direction I mean the rebel areas what they are

okay they will the victory day ninth of May. So they had to have something to show to the people. We have one. And what they probably do, they do, because they said that, okay, we, the main reason of the operation was to protect those two republics or rebel areas. They call them republics. So what they do that, I think that they are trying to get that old Novorosia area. It means that from from Donbass to Crimea.

So the idea is that the shores of Azova Sea, from the rebels areas to Crimea until Niebu river up north. The area is called Novorosia. And I think that they are before the ninth of May. they are trying to take that area and the key of that area is Mariupol. So I think they are pushing now hard Mariupol. And if they get that, they can say, okay, this is what we were trying to get. And now we get that.

We won the war. And that should have happened before the 9th of May because then they can, you know, glorify all the losses which they have had during the war because they fight against. the Nazis again and now we get that Noborosia now people in in in in in those two rebufflicks are safe and free and I know that your background is not in decision-making it's in intelligence and an analysis but if I were a decision-maker and I came to you and I said Colonel I want to make sure that this is the end that whatever happens in Ukraine now peace is upheld that Russia does not advance further, that they're not even thinking about this

as a Western decision maker, what would you say to me? What would your advice be? That's a bad, bad, difficult, difficult question. I think, first of all, don't escalate as NATO. Don't escalate. Second, support Ukraine every way as you can. Right, aren't those two contradictory to each other? No, no, because you can economically, humanitarian, you can support Ukraine. You can provide Ukraine weapons, but it doesn't mean escalation.

Escalation means that there's not a fighter and Russian fighter, and they are fighting in the air. But if you provide weapons, for example, we said a lot of weapons, Finland said a lot of weapons, to Ukraine. as a member of European Union, as all the European Union nations did. And the UK also sent it javelins, which has been a very good weapon. It has provided to be a very good weapon against the tanks.

But anyhow, so I would say that, okay, don't escalate, support Ukraine, support the peace process, and beware, be ready if something bad happened. don't believe everything that might be my advice is Marra do you think he will use chemical weapons I think not because it would escalate it would be the red line

why would he use those weapons what would he gain because now he hasn't gained a lot of success by attacking normally by ground forces what would he gain by using the chemical weapon especially if you look for example the ukrainian ukrainian videos you see that all the ukrainian soldiers they have the gas masks

ready beside them so it means that Ukrainians are saying that we are ready if you use a chemical weapon we are ready. So don't use that because there is no effect. That makes sense. All right. Well, Colonel, it's been really great to get your thoughts on everything that's going on. We're going to ask you a couple of questions from our supporters, for our supporters. But before we do, the question we always finish with is what's the one thing that we're not talking about here in the West that you think we should be? You know, related with Russia or Ukraine or anything at all? anything would I want to speak? Yes.

About, for example, about myself? No. Well, if you think we don't talk about you and us. Okay. Yes. Okay. So I think what is now very interesting is what is going on is NATO, discussing about NATO membership in Finland.

Finland and Sweden, because before the Ukrainian war, according to Poles in Poland, In the support, the number of supporters or percentage of supporters, supporters of NATO was about 30, 28, 30%. When the war broke out, now 62% of Finns support the NATO membership. So it doubled, the number doubled. So 62% now support NATO membership in Finland and 28% is against. So it means that because we have had a long time discussions should we join or should we not join, but our politicians, they have not been brave enough to start the process.

And now it seems that the people have overrun the politicians. The people have overrun the politicians and now the politicians try to fix the situation. they try to find their position in this changed situation and almost all the politicians surprisingly are for the NATO membership now because they realize that people want to join NATO. Yes. So there's a great irony here in attempting to,

if the rationale of Putin's invasion is partly about pushing NATO back, he's actually strengthened NATO with. with what he's done. Yes, yes, yeah. We were joking that we should send to Kremlin a lot of those military merit medals because they have worked hard for Finnish defense. Well, on that happy note, Colonel, it's been an absolutely pleasure. Before we ask you, before we wrap up the interview and ask you questions for our supporters,

I know you're active on Twitter. Where else should people go to see your thoughts and your commentary? I link it in. But I link it in. I'm just following business things, but I'm Twitter. I'm a Twitter man. So Twitter is my main media. Okay.

We'll make sure to put the link to your brilliant lecture and your Twitter handle in the description of the video. With that, thank you for coming on the show. And thank you all for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon. Another brilliant episode like this one or a show. All of them go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your time, trigonometry on the go. It's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys.

Mara, from your perspective, what could be done to turn the Russians to Western Europe more, as in become more westernized?