TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About the War in Ukraine *Special Live Recording*

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

*Recorded Live on the morning of 24th February 2022* Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/  OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kitten. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. And what a fascinating guest we have for you today. It's me! It is! We are going to do a very, very...

We've just done it. Well, we've just done it, haven't we? We just did a live discussion about the Russia-Ukraine situation. Francis was asking me, rather, some great questions about the situation from a layman position. and I did my best, I think, to explain it to people. And then we also asked a few questions from our audience, didn't we, Francis? Yes, we did. It was completely live and in person.

It was invigorating. It had that little frisone of energy. I'm glad you fell that way. Yeah, it did, mate. I did. It had that little free son of energy that you sometimes get when it's live, when you know you can't retake. And it was good.

It was really good. And people loved it. We had our biggest ever live audience. Bigger than Jordan Peterson, I believe. Yeah, indeed it is. 6,000 people watching live. So check it out. Obviously a very serious subject. One of which I know a little bit about. So I was able to explain, I think, some basic concepts and some of the stuff that's going on. And most importantly, why what's happened happened and what's coming next. Enjoy.

You know, I have Russian speaking family in Ukraine. Some of them are pro-Russian. Some of them are pro-Ukrainian. But I really, I'm not really that interested in having this conversation from the point of view of like what's best for Constantine's family. because I don't think that's what people in the West care about or should care about. I think what we should talk about is what is the right thing for us to do here in the West and why this has happened. Okay, well, before we get into all of that, so let's go back a couple of weeks because there's a lot of people probably watching, woken up, seeing this and thought, how the hell has this happened?

So let's go through it right from the start two weeks ago. Well, I think to start it two weeks ago would be to misunderstand the nature of what's happened. I think we have to go back to 20. 2014, which is when Russia first invaded Ukraine. This has already happened. So it annexed the Crimean Peninsula, which is in the south of Ukraine. And it also started what was a sort of low-level civil war in the eastern parts of Ukraine, in the Danyetsk and Lugansk regions, which is the eastern part of Ukraine.

And at that moment in time, the reaction from the West was, well, how can I put it, diplomatically pathetic. There was some very weak sanctions. There were some words of condemnation. Russia was kicked out of the G8, which it didn't really care about. And that was it. And so I think what the people who run that country learned was we can do this with impunity. And so a few weeks ago, what happened is Russia started amassing troops on the border

of Ukraine. And a couple of days ago, Vladimir Putin made a speech. which i think we really need to talk about in length to to to help people understand why no one's told them what's coming even though it was immediately obvious and that and we know exactly what's coming now as well because it's obvious from what he said right it's just it hasn't been covered in western media i don't understand why uh so he amassed these troops on the border a couple of weeks ago uh people in the west started warning about it a lot of people started saying well this is just saber rattling it's a distraction uh what we need to do is just say to putin look ukraine's not

going to join NATO and then he'll everything will be fine. If you remember we had this big argument with Nigel Farage about this on our channel. But that was, it was obvious to me from the beginning that that was never going to be the way it was going to go for reasons that I'm sure we'll get into. Okay. So, but why does Putin have this fascination with Ukraine? Why does it go back to 2014? Why did he want to annex the Crimea? Because surely that's an anti-antagonistic gesture. That means that he, the sanctions will then be imposed on Russia. That will weaken the in the Russian economy? And by doing that, doesn't he weaken his position as leader? Well, no, he's strengthened his position as leader because he's not, he's not answerable

to people here in the West. He's answerable to the Russian population and to Russian people expanding the borders of Russia seems a great thing. If you remember, and this was the case here in the UK and in America only 40 or 50 years ago, if you think about Margaret Thatcher, she was saved by the Folkland War, right? This was a war about an island off the coast of Argentina. Which we won. Exactly. So this idea, that the greatness of your country matters is something's been lost in the West, but everywhere else, expanding your borders as seen as a great thing. Now, as to your question, why there's an invasion now and why Putin is expanding into Ukraine, he explained all of this in that speech.

And this is, I think, the right time that we should just break down what he said. It was an extraordinary thing. I don't think anyone in the West has ever seen anything like it. This was a president of a country who spent an hour on national television. talking about history. The first 40 minutes of a speech, he talks about the history of Russia and the history of Ukraine. And his argument essentially is that the existence of Ukraine is a historic mistake. It should never have existed. The existence of Ukraine is the result of a series of weak decisions made by various Soviet leaders starting with Vladimir Lenin and then Nikita Khrushov and others. And the mistake as he sees it is that,

the Russian people, the Russian nation, which was embodied in the Soviet Union, it was artificially split up. And a portion of the Russian nation was put together with what he called pieces of the form of Poland and Hungary and put together into one country, which became Ukraine. So in his view, Ukraine is a mistake. It shouldn't exist. He claims in that speech and also in the speech that he gave this morning, essentially justifying the invasion, that Russian speakers and ethnic Russians in Ukraine are being genocided. I'm not exaggerating. This is the word he used. He says there's a genocide happening. Is there a genocide happening? I mean, my family live in southern and eastern Ukraine and their Russian speakers. If there was a genocide happening, I think I'd probably

find out about it. But it doesn't really matter what the truth is. What matters is what people believe, right? And if this is what he believes, then, you know, that's one issue. And if he's just saying this in order to justify an invasion, that's another issue, both are bad. And we can get into that. But so the first thing to say is he explained that essentially the Russian nation was split up. A piece of Poland and Hungary and other countries was glued onto a piece of Russia and made into a country. And these are historic mistakes that he says are sort of understandable and difficult time that the country was in at the time, but we cannot be held by decisions made at that time by weak leaders who made these weak decisions. So the first thing that you should know,

this is why the invasion was always going to happen because he's essentially explained that the Ukraine shouldn't exist. He explained why it shouldn't exist. He explained the historical reasons. He also made some other points along these lines, which is essentially that the Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, took on all of the entire Soviet debt and it paid it off and left, as he sees it to Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union, this great Russian inheritance, the land that Russian people had conquered over centuries, the great technological achievements, the manufacturing, the shipbuilding, all of that. So one of the points he makes is you said, look, in Ukraine, in one of the southern ports,

they've just shut down a shipbuilding yard, which was the foundations of which were laid by Catherine the Grey, the Russian Tsar, or Tsareen or whatever you call her in English. So what he's saying is, we the Russians, we gave you this stuff. We gave you this great culture, this land, these technological advancements, and you've squandered them. He spends 10 minutes talking about how Russia is corrupt. Not Russia, sorry.

That was a Freudian slip. She talks about how Ukraine is corrupt, how it's run by oligarchs, how... Is that true? Of course it's true. Of course it's true. But the same is true of Russia. Of course it is, right? All of that world is run by oligarchs and is corrupt.

I mean, would you say that the Western world is not run by oligarchs and is not corrupt? It is. Every country, to some extent, is run by oligarchs. The question is, does that justify their neighbor invading that country and taking over? That's really the conversation. having. So he talks a lot about how, you know, Ukrainian education is poor and people are not looked after and the pensions are not great and gas prices have gone up and how terrible things are for people in Ukraine. So that's the second part of his speech, which is so the first part

is explaining why Ukraine shouldn't exist. The second part is explaining why people in Ukraine are suffering, particularly Russian people and Russian speakers in Ukraine are suffering. And the third part of the speech, and this is the final part of the speech, and I don't understand why it hasn't been reported on, I mean, the first two parts are important because they tell you everything that's going to happen, right? If you don't believe Ukraine exists and you believe it is your historic mission to save the people in Ukraine who are of Russian ethnicity or Russian speakers from being abused by Ukrainian oligarchs, you always knew there was going to be an invasion. And you always knew it was never going to be limited to those two regions because when he talks about, well, you've, you've glubes. on parts of Poland and parts of Hungary onto Ukraine, onto this Russian peace, that means that at least half of Ukraine, including the capital Kiev, is within the strike zone of what he wants to achieve.

There's no question about that. So the invasion will not stop in those two regions in the east unless it is stopped somehow by the West, which at this point is looking unlikely. But his intentions are not to stop with those two eastern regions. There's no question about that. anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't understand or wants it not to be true or whatever. But those are the facts, right? He is going to invade as much as he is allowed to, and he wants to invade at least up to Kiev and probably beyond.

Just in terms of that part of it. The third part of it and the rationale for his invasion is that he says that the West is meddling in the affairs of Ukraine. The West is meddling in the affairs of other Eastern European countries. The West is expanding NATO, which he says they say is a defensive alliance, but actually this is a way of putting rockets and missiles and he goes through all the different rockets and missiles that the West already has and is developing. They want to put them all around Russia so that they could strike at the heart of Russia at any moment. So he is literally saying that Ukraine is planning an offensive against these eastern regions, which, you know some people in ukraine are joking and then going yeah we waited until Putin had 200,000 troops on the border and then we were like hey let's let's do an aggressive action here and uh the other

thing that he says is essentially the west is about to attack i mean he he he doesn't mince words about it he literally says that he says the west is getting ready it's putting nuclear and other sort of missiles in position to strike against us and we must defend ourselves now how you defend yourself by moving your borders closer to NATO, I don't really understand, but that is the argument. And there's an argument there that Nigel put forward is that the West, in particular America, has been antagonistic with putting these missile placements around the Russian border. And actually, if they've been a little bit more consideratory, this wouldn't have happened.

Do you agree with that? I think it's impossible to know. I don't personally agree with that. I think you, when I say you, I mean, I think people in the West forget the personal dimensions of this. You've got to understand that this paranoia about the West has always been a feature of the Russian mindset. It's not something that is going away. and if you could say, well, look, if the West had just stayed out of it, everything will be fine, that that isn't true. I mean, the same way that Ukraine is being invaded now.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, these are countries that have Russian-speaking minorities that can be weaponized in exactly the same way as the one in Ukraine is. These are countries that used to be part of the Soviet Empire after they were conquered and annexed by Stalin. while the Europe was busy with Hitler. Stalin took all of Eastern Europe basically for himself, including those countries. So, no, Russia was always going to try and expand. This is what people in the West really don't understand, is this isn't about NATO being aggressive, causing it. It's the West being weak that's causing it. The reason Vladimir Putin is doing this is he knows that the West is divided.

The West is distracted. The West spends more time talking about pronouns than it does about things that matter. And he's taking advantage of it, just like the Chinese eye. See, people want to make this all about Vladimir Putin as this evil guy and he's going crazy. He's not. He's not crazy. He's doing exactly what any sane leader in his position would do. Just like Xi Jinping is doing that in China.

You see the West as weak. You do the things you've been planning to do for a long time. That being the case. So we've got that expansion into Ukraine. He's actually come out and been quite aggressive. to the West and saying, you know, if the West gets involved, they, I can't remember his exact words. Put it this way. He wasn't being friendly. What, in your opinion, do you think the West should do now? It depends on, you know, it's like people keep asking me this question. And if you remember,

I said this to Nigel Farage. It depends what people in the West want. It's like that scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice meets the Cheshire cat. And she says, well, would you tell me, please, where I ought to go from here? And the cat says, well, that depends on where you want to get to. And Alice says, well, I don't mind where I get to. And the cat says, well, then it doesn't matter where you go. What do you want? What do people in the West want? I think, well, I think if they're being honest, they want this problem to go away.

They want peace? Yeah. Oh, that's very easy. It's very easy. You just surrender. That's the way you get peace. So if we surrender, then he takes over Ukraine. And then he takes over Latvia and Estonia and Lithuanian and Czech Republic and Hungary, but no one dies.

And, but you can't keep doing that. You can't just let NATO countries because Lithuania is it. How does that impact on NATO? Well, because surely the NATO agreement means that once a country gets invaded, then their fellow allies come in to protect them. But NATO's over. I mean, this shows you that NATO's over. People are, you know, when we talk about this, people go, well, you know,

I don't want to go and die in Ukraine. I was talking to my wife. My wife's Ukrainian, you know, this morning. And she was saying, well, I really hope the West does something, you know, they need to be strong. And I'm like, yeah, I agree with you. But, you know, you're seven months pregnant. Do you want me to go and fight in Ukraine? She's like, no.

Well, if you don't want your husband to go and die in Ukraine, whose husband should go and die in Ukraine, whose son should go and die in Ukraine. No one. No one wants to. No one in the West wants to go and die in Ukraine, right? So that's, but Ukraine is not part of NATO, right? But this is why I'm saying NATO is over. Okay, let's say he invades Ukraine, we protest, we put sanctions in place, whatever. He invades Lithuania. What, is that different? You want to go and die and fight in Lithuania?

But surely the agreement, surely the agreement with NATO changes something, doesn't it? Changes what? Do you want to go and die in Lithuania? No. Do you want British troops to be in Lithuania, fighting against Russians? No. Does anyone in America want American troops on the ground on Lithuania? No. No. NATO's over. And looking at the presidential situation in America with Biden, you and I have been quite open about the fact that we both think Biden has been a disaster. If you look at what happened with Afghanistan.

Well, this wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for Afghanistan. You understand this, right? Right. Let's go into that. Why do you say that? Well, look, Francis, you and I have spent our career so far in terms of trigonometry. focusing essentially on one thing. We talk about different things with different people, but we've been trying to explain to people, me as a first generation, a Russian immigrant and you, someone who comes from, partly from Venezuela, who's seen that world. We've been trying to explain to people in the West, one very simple thing, which is if you destroy your own civilization from the inside,

the punishment is coming. That's what we've been trying to do, right? We've been trying to tell people that if you spend your life worrying about this comedian who made the wrong joke or this, you know, our men women or our men or which bathrooms do we use. If you spend your whole life worrying about things that happened 400 years ago that were done by people who may look something like you against people who look like those people over there, you're going to be distracted from the business of reality. You know, this is one of the reasons I'm actually somewhat optimistic today. If there's one note for optimism, it's this.

We've been living in the dream world, all of us in the West. And I hope that the wool has been lifted from people's eyes somewhat. We don't live in this magical world of diversity, equality, and fucking gender, non-binary shit. You don't think Putin has pronouns in his bio? That probably doesn't make it. We don't live in that world. We live in a world that operates on a very simple basis, which is power, strength, land, military. That's the world.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin aren't worried about how to maintain peace in the international community. They're worried about doing what they think is the best thing for their country. And until people in America and people in the UK understand that it's our job to think in the same way, to defend our values, to remember what they fucking are. We've been talking about this for four years, man. If you approach a random person on the British or American street and say to them, what are British or American values, they'd run away from you like you're trying to recruit them into the fucking EDL.

No one knows what they are, and people are terrified of defending them, defining them, let alone defending them. So, we are where we are in terms of that. Where are you with the argument, and we'll come back to that in a second, but where are you with the argument? Trump made an announcement, quite like him, saying, under my watch, this never would have happened. Do you agree with that?

Of course. Why? You know, Donald, you would have had a teacher like this at your school. somebody that you didn't quite know what to expect from them, so you didn't fuck with them just in case. Yeah. That's Donald Trump. Yeah. That's Donald Trump.

And he understood the way the world actually works. He was not a nice guy. He didn't write nice things on Twitter. He didn't take losing very well. You know, he said some things that I don't agree with. But the job of your president or your prime minister is to go out there and get the best possible deal for you. your country. Not to write nice things on Twitter, not to be friendly and polite, to achieve the best possible outcome for America. The job of our prime minister in this country is to go out there

and achieve the best possible outcome for British people. Donald Trump, for all his flaws, did try to do that. And it's funny because in the Western world, he was despised and he was not respected. In the rest of the world, he was respected. People feared him. People respected him. And they knew not to fuck with them. So do you think as well, Trump would have approached this very much like a businessman? And he would have said to Putin, look, let's reframe this. How can we work with you in order that we can make ourselves richer? Instead of doing the more kind of the Democrat approach, which has been effectively to make themselves absence from the world stage, do nothing, and watch a whole world go nuts as a result, because there's a vacuum

of power. Look, we're getting into very big hypotheticals. Now, I don't know what Trump would have done. I just don't think that this would have happened if he'd been in power. I think things would have gone very differently. I don't think there would be an invasion of Ukraine. I don't think China would be expanding in the way that it's expanding or dealing with some of the issues they're dealing with in the way that they were. We have an absence of leadership. It's interesting. I was talking to my uncle in Ukraine yesterday,

and I was saying to him, well, look, I'm thinking of you and I wish you all the best and all of that. And he was saying, look, you know, we have hope here because, you know, Boris Johnson has been really good. And I was like, you're fucked that, aren't you? There's an absence of leadership, man.

And look, you and I have spent, again, years talking about this, the caliber of Western politicians, I mean, it's pathetic. You know, Nigel Farage, when he was on the show, you made this joke about list trust, some woman who's become foreign secretary, and he's right. She went over to Russia. She didn't even know Russian geography. And these are the people that are negotiating on our behalf with, you know, you can make

your criticisms of Vladimir Putin. The one thing I would not ever say about him is he's not a stupid man. No. He's not a stupid man. And the people that he chooses to work with him are not stupid people. Xi Jinping is not a stupid man. And the people that work for him are not stupid people. You know, the people who are there.

And I'm not saying list trust is foreign secretary because of diversity. I'm just talking about the broader context here. You know, if you choose the best people, you're going to end up with the best people. And if you choose people based on what looks right and what sounds right and who's never said the wrong thing and who's never made an offensive joke and all of that, you're going to end up with small people. people who never say or have an original thought, people who are afraid to express themselves openly, people who are afraid to call a spade the spade. I mean, this is why people hated Trump,

because in many things, you just said it like it is, like ordinary people think it is. Yeah. You know, for example, people got upset about his comments about Mexicans and something about how some of them are rapists and blah, blah, blah. Well, to a lot of ordinary people, when they see a mass wave of illegal immigration coming over the border, they know for a fact that some of those people are criminals, right?

So when everyone had this massive, you know, falling out over that, I was like, well, that's true, you know. There's not to say that all Mexicans are bad people, which is what people made it mean, but that's not what he was saying at all. He was talking in a way that people process the world. And let's go back to the war in Iraq. Yeah.

A complete disaster. Yeah. Awful, awful, awful. Never should have got involved. how much does that affect U.S. policy and UK policy to this day? Massively. This is why you and I opposed it so vehemently at the time. What the West has done is undermined its own moral authority, and it has none anymore. And that's why you see a lot of the people, like I say, that you and I would normally agree with,

essentially refusing to understand what's happening. And refusing to understand that that speech, that Vladimir Putin gave, he was talking, it was a Cold War speech. That's how people used to talk during the Cold War. They are about to launch nuclear missiles on us, so we must get ready. That's how people used to talk. And that's what he said. We are in a Cold War. And a lot of people fail to understand that because our moral authority to say, we are the West, we believe that our culture is the best culture for us, at least, and we're going to defend it. We're not going to let other people challenge us. We want to be the dominant superpower in the world because we

understand that that is how we protect our way of life. No one wants to say that anymore. Why? Because Iraq, because Syria, because all of these, Afghanistan, all of these places that we've gone in completely unnecessarily, often based on completely made up reasons, killed thousands and thousands of people, created ISIS, right, empowered the Taliban now. They have more Black Hawk helicopters than the UK military, right? People are rightly looking at that and going, well, now they're telling me about this place called Ukraine that I've never seen on a map. You know, isn't it just one of them? Unfortunately, it isn't. It isn't one of them. This is existential for the West. This is, you know, today is the Sudetenland situation. We're letting Putin do what Hitler did in 1938, which is

take a chunk of land that he claims is populated by ethnic Russians. And he's, you know, not going to stop there. And you can see him continually moving in. Well, as I explained, he explained why Ukraine should not exist and why he's justified to go in there and sort it out because it's so wrong and bad. There's quite a lot of Ukrainians who support Putin aren't there as well. No, I don't think there's a lot of Ukrainians to support Putin. There are some, for sure. There's no question about that. Like for my own family, for example, they're members of my family who are celebrating. Really? Yeah. This is what they always wanted. And they're members of my family who are crying. It's a very complicated situation. There are people who support that.

I think they're in a minority. And when we talked with Mikhail Svetov, he said that the West has turned Russia, but particularly Putin into a bogeyman, he said. We almost see him as sort of this cartoon-esque character. We don't know a lot about him. Who actually is he? What is his background and how did he actually get to power? Because I think that's also very important in this conversation. Okay. Well, this ties into another part of the conversation, which is about what Russia is today. A lot of people in the West, I think, think Russia is some kind of sort of quasi-democracy, maybe just a democracy, right? Because they keep having elections. Yep. He smashes them as well. Yeah, he does very well, surprisingly. So Russia has never

had a single democratic transition of power in its entire history, ever, ever. There's never been a time when power has passed from one president to another in a normal, transparent, democratic way, where the Democrats have handed power over to the Republicans, the Tories have handed power over to labor. That has never happened in the entire history of Russia, democratically. So when the Soviet Union collapsed, Boris Yeltsin became president after what was effectively an overthrow of the government. Right. He was president for about eight years. And then what he needed to do was he needed to find somebody who was not already part of the power structures,

somebody who was not already a politician. Because anyone who already had any measure of power, the moment Boris Yelton left, they would take away all the money that he'd stolen, they would deprive him of all his possession, they'd probably put him in prison for the crimes they'd committed, et cetera. And so they needed, Boris Yeltsin needed, to find someone who was an outsider to whom he could give the power and say, look, here is all the power that you've ever dreamed of and all the money that you've ever dreamed of. And in exchange, you let me live out my life and peace. And that's what happened. What he did is he appointed this guy that nobody had ever heard of called Vladimir Putin, who will get into his background in a second.

And he appointed him prime minister, not president, but prime minister, acting prime minister for a period of time, during which he basically big them up. And then at some point he said, look, my health's not very good. I'm going to take a step back and let this young man take over and look after the country until the next election. And then at the next election, the people can choose whoever they want. And of course, once Putin became acting president in this way, he was always going to win the election. because he'd been set up to do it. Then he became president. He was president for several terms. When his constitutional right to remain president ended, they did a switcheroo. He did exactly the same thing that Boris Yelton did with him with Dimitio Medvedev. You remember him? Barely,

probably. And so Medvedev became president and Putin became prime minister. They swapped around. And during the Medvedev presidency, the constitution was amended to allow Vladimir Putin to serve more terms and longer terms. And then they swapped background immediately afterwards. So Putin then became president again. So Vladimir Putin, we are sitting here in February 2022. He has been in power in Russia since 1999. Wow.

If you think about what the greatest music hits were at that time, what would they be? Anton? Greatest music hits from 1999, probably something like a probably oasis. Right. So think about this. We were all worried about the millennium bug when Putin came to power. Wow. And he's been in power since. Now, as to his background, he is the former head of the KGB. If you don't know what the FSB, the KGB, they are the successor to the secret police of the Soviet Union, which was the Czechat, the emergency committee. If you say to any Russian that someone is a Czechist, someone comes from the special services, it immediately makes it clear who these people, people are. Essentially, the KGB were the equivalent of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany. So they are

the people who, the secret police who would torture people, who would put them in prison, who would put them in concentration camps, who organized mass murders. And unlike in Nazi Germany, where the Gestapo and all elements of the Nazi machine were eradicated, that's not happened in the Soviet Union or in Russia in particular at all. The prisons are still there. They still use the same prisons that they used to use in the 30s and 40s to murder and torture people. So the people who run Russia are the ideological successes to the Russian Gestapo. Wow. So that's who you've got. And you can actually, that makes a lot of sense. Then when you look at his modus operandi for dealing with people who he feels have betrayed him or enemies or his enemies in that the poisoning,

that's completely out of the spy playbook. Yeah, absolutely. So what we knew, looking at that type of man in charge, what shouldn't have been always obvious to the West that they were dealing with a malevolent force? This was someone who didn't have good intentions. This was someone who they needed to have a strong hand with. This is somebody they shouldn't have let just behave how we want it. Yeah, but look at us now. we're doing the same thing.

Yeah. Like I said, who, like you can say, oh, Vladimir Putin's a really bad guy and we really can, well, what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Yeah. And it's also as well, how much influence is Russian money, which is being invested in the city of London, which, you know, you look at all these wealthy Russian people, you know, you've got our politicians, wives playing tennis with their wives.

How much of that, an effect does that have on our decision? making against Russia. Well, nobody knows exactly, but it's obviously no secret that there's a lot of Russian money swimming around London, the city of London in particular, a lot of lawyers and bankers and the state agents have all the good people, all the great people, all the moral people. They've all, you know, got fat and rich of those criminal proceeds. That's absolutely the case. But I think, I don't think it's about that. I think that's part of it. I think the reason Germany is so pathetic on this issue is that they've made themselves hostage to Russia's gas supplies when they shut down all their nuclear reactors purely on ideological basis, as we are trying to do in the rest of the West and with this green shit that is going on. We're making ourselves energy dependent on our strategic adversary.

You're literally giving, you're going, hey, we've got a weak spot here. You can stick your knife right there. And so, yeah, but the bigger thing is the one that we've already talked about, which is this is about the West being unwilling to assert itself more than anything else. And what impact do you think is that going to have on China? Because China are obviously going to be watching this. What do you think they're going to be doing? Well, Xi Jinping is wanking himself try, isn't he?

That what an image. I think he's a bit old for that, man. I don't know, mate. I don't know. I think he's going to be that excited this morning that he might be. Look, if you're in China and you're watching, watching this, you're going great. I'm surprised they haven't invaded Taiwan yet. When would be a better time to invade Taiwan than today? Is there a better day to do it?

No. So it's probably coming as well. Do you think that this will fundamentally change the way the US does international relations? I think this is today is fundamentally going to change the world. This is a 9-11 moment, probably bigger than 9-11 in some ways. in terms of the impact it will have on the world. Well, because that's a big statement to make, because look what happened with 9-11. The war in Afghanistan, which lasted forever how long, 20-odd years. Okay, we then had air travel, which changed forever.

Yeah. I'm glad you're going for the big things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they make me give up my war. Yeah, and my shoes, take off my shoes, you know, war in Iraq, all of these different things. International terrorism, yeah, the rise of the rights. Islamism, yeah, yeah.

You think that this moment is going to be bigger than that? I do, yeah. I mean, I don't see how it couldn't be. How could it not be? We're in Cold War. We are in Cold War, too, with Russia. Okay, so what does Cold War mean to you? Cold War means that we stop pretending, as Vladimir Putin has already done,

stop pretending, that we live in a world of international trade and peace, and all we want is to all grow and, you know, things. So the end of globalization? Complete end of globalization. A lot of countries are going to recognize now that energy security is vital. There's going to be an understanding that, you know, an international supply chain that relies on Russian oil and gas and Chinese manufacturing isn't going to work. So you're going to see probably a more internal focus in terms of strength in strengthening in the West and the things that we're doing. You're probably going to see proxy wars all over the place as you did during the.

days of the Cold War, you know, Vietnam, South Korea, all of that. Those were all basically struggles between the Soviet Union and America, funded and, you know, often supported and often, you know, manned by Soviet and American soldiers. You're going to see the world change completely. The global order that we've had since 1945, the idea of which was, look, there's some fucking weirdos over there who are uncivilized and primitive and living in the 18th century. and the rest of us here in the civilized world, we're going to make peace and trade and be happy. That's over now.

It's over. But what would you say to those people who think, you know, the conspiracy theorists, you said this is all rather convenient. Our economies are not doing very well. After COVID, we've got a huge deficit. Inflation is going through the roof. What we need is a good war to get us back on an even keel financially.

Well, wars don't get you on an even keel financially. they bankrupt you. So that argument doesn't make much sense. So that argument doesn't make much sense. Fair enough. I think the conspiracy stuff that maybe you are thinking about is people are saying this is Biden has orchestrated this in order to look good by diffusing it. Well, first of all, I never bought that.

I thought that was a moronic thing to say. But even if it was well, he's not done very well, is he? No, yes. Defusing it. But that's really not what this is about. I think this is one of the reasons. you know, I find the last few days very humbling, actually, because I've watched a lot of people that I normally agree with about things to do with the culture and the culture war and so on really embarrassed themselves very badly. And it's made me realize that I really ought to refrain from commenting on things I don't understand.

And the list of those things is very large. This is one of the reasons you and I both stopped doing panel shows on GB News. because we felt that we were being asked to have opinions about stuff that we weren't qualified to have an opinion about. And a lot of people are really embarrassing themselves at the moment because they are reacting instinctively to their pre-existing conceptions of how the world is. But they don't really know anything about Russia or Ukraine.

They don't speak the language. They've never been there. They don't understand the history. They haven't watched Vladimir Putin speeches. They haven't looked at any other documents to do with everything that's going on. It's just their perception. And you know that I am the number one critic of the mainstream media in this country and in the West. But it's their perception that the media keeps lying to them, which it does.

And therefore anything the media says is then automatically not true. Well, that isn't the case. The fact that the media reported something doesn't mean it's not true. It means you have to be skeptical about the ways being presented and you have to look deeper. And I've made my own criticisms right at the beginning of this discussion about what the media fail to explain to people in this country. But just because the media lied to you about this or that doesn't mean that this particular issue isn't what they're telling you.

They're not telling you the full picture because they don't understand the full picture themselves. This is what people don't get about television and the media. It's run by kids. Yeah. If you go into a TV studio, the people running it in their 20s, they couldn't find Ukraine on a map. They don't know what's going on.

They're just reacting to things that they're being told by people. people who they think are experts, but they're not even qualified to decide who's an expert or not. That's, the media isn't some massive manipulative machine. It's, it's a bunch of people who don't know what the fuck they're doing with a few people turning the knobs at different ends to make sure that it kind of presents the right message for them. But it's not, there's no grand conspiracy in the media to misrepresent stuff. They just have a certain world view and it bleeds into everything.

It's not the same as some kind of evil conspiracy. that they couldn't organize a conspiracy if they tried. We've said it's a death of globalization, and you've been making predictions about that have proven to be correct. What is going to happen, do you think, so you've said that this is the end of NATO? How do you think this is going to affect the EU? When I say the end of NATO, I'm not saying NATO is like going to dissolve tomorrow.

What I'm saying is NATO is not going to be willing to defend its easternmost members. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, which means that. offensive organization, NATO is over. It's finished, which was its primary purpose. Yeah, that's what it's creative for. Yeah. So what about these other globalist structures?

Like the EU, for instance, do you think that the EU is going to be fundamentally affected by what's happening when you look at the fact that Germany gets a majority of its power from Russia? What are the Germans going to do? How is the EU going to, because they're compromised, aren't they? They are. They are compromised. I mean, they're also terrified because Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, these are all countries that are members of the EU.

So I think people in the EU are starting to wake up. This is why I'm saying the world is going to change very rapidly now. Because they're going to realize they can't pretend anymore. You know, just like all of us, I think, realizing you can't pretend anymore. Like I said earlier, we've been living in a dream world. Men or men or women are women or what or like when there are men. on your borders with guns, that sort of like idea of, oh, maybe, you know, toxic masculinity, like, that's going to fall by the wayside somewhat, I think. So with the EU, no one knows exactly what's going to happen.

They've actually been surprisingly vocal about what's happening. I think, you know, there's a lot of people in Europe who understand the historical parallels here. And you feel that this could be, because what this is at the moment for me, it's a fork in the road for our civilization and for the West, where we want to go. You said you were quite positive about it. Do you think that this is a moment where we could, it could be a reinvigoration for the West,

and that we need an enemy. We need somebody to push back against. We need something to focus the mind. Look, that is obviously a very cynical and pragmatic way of looking at it. And for someone who has family, who are, you know, crying on the phone and there's bombshells, you know, landing in their cities now. Obviously, that sounds an incredibly cynical way of looking at it because people are going to die.

Many people are going to die. It's going to be awful. We are going to come closer to nuclear war than we have been for 60 years. Do you think that there's going to be, before we get back into it, do you think there's going to be a sustained fight back from the Ukrainians? We don't know. it remains to be seen i mean i was you know the the the the problem in 2014 for ukrainians was um it's interesting i was talking to my uncle about this and he was saying well look the problem in

2014 was how do we shoot at the russians and i was like oh so you didn't have enough weapons and he was like no no the question for us was how do we these are our brothers we used to be in the same country we are the same people look we want our own country we want to be independent but we are the same people. How can we shoot our own brothers and sisters? He said that problem isn't a problem anymore. Really? That problem isn't a problem anymore. But that doesn't mean that Ukraine and its military weren't immediately collapse either because there's a, you know, in almost every war, the human factor is the deciding factor. And if you consider yourself from the position of a Ukrainian kid who's 20 years old has been conscripted to fight.

You know, is this a war you're going to win? Probably not. So why would you risk your life? Why would you try your hardest? Why would you, you know, it's it could go that way as well. So it could be that Ukraine puts up a really strong fight and develops a sense of national resilience with Western support, with Western weaponry, etc. Or, you know, there could be a lot of units that just don't want to fight.

That could also happen. It's very interesting that you say that, because there have been notable examples right the way through history where a smaller country has triumphed over a bigger country, particularly when they're being invaded. Yeah, and when they're being supported. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it could happen. Like I say, that is not something that anyone can tell you what's going to happen. And do you think the West are going to start?

I mean, they've already put sanctions in place. Yeah. Do you think that they're actually going to start to bring in troops? No. No, the West is never going to put troops in Ukraine. Why not? Because then you're starting World War III. But surely if you bring in troops, that's a sign that no more. So when you say bring in troops, what do you mean?

So, for instance... Put them where and what do you do with them? Right. So essentially, I mean, this is where I expose my lack of military knowledge. Yeah. But wherever the Russian line is, you bring... troops to face them and say, no, you will not come. So what you're saying is, basically, Putin's going to invade the part of Ukraine that he's going to invade. Yeah. And then will the West then put its peacekeeping force on that border?

Yeah. No, I don't think it will. No, I don't think it will. Do you think it will? No. There you go. No, I don't. I don't. Do you think they'll be supplying arms to the Ukraine? Yes, they already are. They already are. But the problem that I have with this is, the problem that you've identified. The weaker that we are, the weaker, the more that we show that we are weak, the greater, the advantages that Putin is going to take. There's going to be a time where you've got to say enough, surely. There's got to be a time.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm worried when will that time be? Yeah. You're not making me feel good, mate. I'm sorry. I have nothing but truth. for you. You're right. You're right. As long as the West continues to be weak, these problems

are going to multiply. And even if, you know, what is likely to happen, I'm not saying this is exactly what will happen because at this moment and time, we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But what is likely to happen is Putin is going to invade the part of Ukraine that he wants. The West will introduce strong sanctions and offer strong military support to Ukraine. Putin will say, look, we've got what we wanted. That's it. We're not expanding anymore. We've, whatever.

And this situation will die down. And then in 2024, when Trump runs again and everyone starts to have another meltdown, he will then encroach again. Because this is what you do. You wait until your enemy is distracted. And then you act. So this is the beginning. This isn't the end. This is the very beginning.

And this is what people in the West really need to understand. This isn't about Ukraine. This is not about Ukraine. This is about you. It's about your children. It's about their future. It's about the world you're going to live in. Because the fundamental thing, and you and your girlfriend have a lot of arguments about this

because she's a massive anti-imperialist lefty. This is what these people don't understand is, yes, the West is evil. It absolutely is evil. And the things that America and Britain do in foreign policy are wrong and bad and evil. They are. Who could dispute that? Who could argue that the war in Iraq was just and fair and decent? Who could argue that what we've done in Afghanistan was the right thing?

Who could argue that destabilizing Syria and destroying Libya as a country, the creating ISIS? Who could argue that any of that is good or moral or just or right? Nobody. I certainly wouldn't. I opposed all of those things. But the question you always have to ask yourself is, who would you rather the world was run by? The evil imperialist Americans or the wonderful Russians or the wonderful Chinese. That's the choice.

There is no unicorns and rainbows option. You can be run by cunts of different colors. Which ones do you want to be run by? That's it. And that's what we have to choose. If you want to be run by Russia, great. Well, just remember if you're a woman, for example, we care really about women's rights here in the West. In Russia, it's not illegal to beat your wife.

It's not illegal. It's been decriminalized. You can beat your wife. In China, if you're a Muslim Uyghur, they're going to put you in a concentration camp. They're going to cut your kidneys out and sell them to the West as donors for donors. That's what they're going to do. You want to be run by those people? The people who have concentration camps today, you want to be run by Russian.

Who do you want to be? Who do you want the world to be run? He's going to be run by someone. You need to pick a team. Yeah. We've got a few more minutes and then we will be taking your questions. So if you've got questions to ask, put in a super chat and then we will probably do about another half an hour. So make sure to put your super chats in now if you haven't done so already and ask Constantine questions.

And then I will be fielding your questions to Constantine. Now, what do you think of the argument that Putin has become increasingly more paranoid as he's gotten older? Because there have been several attempts on his life. He's become ever more isolated. And these are just the actions of a man who is no longer, I'm trying to, because I don't want to get poisoned either, of a man who's slowly losing his grip, shall we just say it. I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know him personally.

And one of the things I've learned from our experiences of being in the public eye somewhat is you don't, you know, what people write about me online isn't who I am. And the same way with Vladimir Putin to the end of degree. So there are two possibilities, I would say, about his mental state. Both are bad, but one is worse than the other. One of them is that he is simply, operating on the Hitler playbook, which is to say that he wants to rebuild the nation and attach parts of what used to be Germany, what used to be Russia, back together. That's what the Sudeten

land was all about. This was land taken from Germany, populated to some extent by Germans, right? The same here. And he's using all of these excuses and making things up about genocide of Russians and all of that in exactly the same way that Hitler did. to take land. That is the better option. If he's just an expansionist authoritarian who wants to take land from neighbors while the West is looking another way, in order to enrich himself and his country. And to maintain his leadership of Russia, etc. That is a sort of fairly normal, pragmatic thing to do, right? He doesn't have a racial animus in the way that Hitler did, so he's probably going to conquer a few more countries. Do we know where he stands on the trans debate?

I think we do, mate. It's pretty hardcore on our side on that one. We agree with Vladimir Putin on the trans debate. That would be the title of the episode. Exactly. So that's one option. The other option is the one that you describe, which is he actually believes that the West is about to drop nukes on Moscow. And he actually believes that Ukraine was about to invade. And he actually believes all the paranoia that he expressed in that speech. In which case, yeah, I mean, we are in a very serious Cold War period. that may not even end with him going whenever that happens. And he looks like he's in good shape. So it could be a while. Because what that then means is we're locked in this Cold War standoff. Because it doesn't really matter what, you know, if you said to someone here in the West, you know, the West is about to launch a missile attack on Russia.

They'd look at you like you were mental. But if people in Russia believe that, then it doesn't matter what the truth is about. Western intentions. All that matters is they believe that, and then we have to deal with that. I mean, do you say that? Was it the Daily Mirror who had, I think it was on their front page, what would happen to London if there was a nuclear strike? Yeah.

And they said, this is the area that will be ruined. Yeah. I mean, it's a bit of a weak word, ruined. It is, yeah, yeah. Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they were ruined. And you're just looking at going, it seems that we've been talking about things. that don't matter for a very long time. Yes.

It's nought to 60 in the space of a couple of seconds, it feels. I know it feels that way, but you've got to remember, I've been predicting this for years. I've been saying, this is what I've been saying for years. The weaker the West is, the more other people are going to come into that vacuum and take over. This isn't new. This has been happening for decades.

The Western elites that we talk on the show about, about wokeness and all of that, there's a mind virus that has spread into their brains that means that they're not capable of focusing on the things that matter. And this has been going on for decades. They're teaching people to hate the West. They're teaching people to hate this country. They're teaching people to hate our values. And how can you possibly defend values that you despise?

Why would you fight for democracy if you think democracy is evil? Why would you defend our liberal capitalist system if you think it's evil? do you where would you be uh because there's a lot of people who and the particularly academics i remember we went to an economics and uh conference a few years back and every debate that i saw the position that every academic took was like this is the end of the empire and we should just accept managed decline yeah yeah and this is where we are and there's nothing you can do yeah where do you stand on that? Well, I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is one of the reasons that Trump was so hated. He refused to bind to this paradigm. If you think about his election slogan, what was it? Make America great again. What does he mean by that? He means no fucking decline. We're not

going to give up our top dog status. We are going to fight tooth and nail to maintain our supremacy in the world. That's what you were saying. And people in the West are deeply uncomfortable with that message. Do you think that if President Putin walked out onto the steps of the Kremlin and gave a speech to the Red Square

saying, we want Russia to be the richest, most powerful, most dominant country in the world to maintain its status as it currently is the biggest country in the world? We want the Russian people and the Russian language to be spoken around the world. Do you think people would be like, oh my God, I can't believe you said that?

Why so nationalistic? People would be cheering. Imagine if Donald Trump or Boris Johnson came out and when our job as Americans is to make sure that America is the most powerful country in the world and that no one fucks with us. What would happen on Twitter? What would happen? Oh, they're going to meltdown. So there you go. That's it. If America and Britain and Western Europe refused to defend their right to be the most powerful people in the world, that's it. Isn't part of the problem as well?

And this is a final question. There's a helicopter of a head man. I know. Yeah, don't worry. Just wait for the sound of missiles. Isn't part of the problem as well is the fact that we are a democracy? We don't have a continuous. Yes, that is big problem.

We must change it immediately. That we don't have a continuancy of leadership. All of the decisions we make are short-termists. Yeah. Because we think in four-year or five-year cycle. No, we don't. No, we don't. We think in 24 hours, I think.

the prime minister of this country and the president of the united states are not thinking about a year from now or four years from now or the next election they're thinking about the headlines tomorrow that's what they're thinking about so yeah of course it's a problem we don't have any strategic thinking and the people who make these terrible mistakes are never going to be held accountable for them ever i mean look at iraq yeah if tony blair was the leader of an african country he'd be at the hague Yeah. If Zimbabwe had invaded Egypt, let's say, or bombed Egypt or destabilized the country on another side of the African continent, that person would be at the Hague. Is Tony Blair? Is George Bush? No. No.

Because we don't hold ourselves to account for those things. And that's how we've devalued. That's how we've taken away our own moral authority to act in situations where action is needed. I mean, it's been an uplifting chat. I'm just telling you how I see it, man. There's nothing else I can do. I mean, look, I am more positive today than I have been for a very long time. Because to me, the decline and collapse of the West has been inevitable for since I've started really paying attention. And there is a small chance that what has happened today will lift the wall from people's eyes.

And we stop living in the dream world. And we recognize that we've got to stop wasting our time on things that don't matter and start to go back to some very sensible ideas about right and wrong about who we are as people, about what we believe. And remember, look, geopolitics is just a competition. That's all that it is. And if you don't want to fight and you don't want to play in that game, someone else is going to play and fight in that game instead of you.

That's it. So if this is the shot in the arm that Western civilization needed, then I'm hopeful. If it's not, the West is over. We're going to see what happens. But you are hopeful? More hopeful than I've been for a long time, yeah. So not that hope. No.

Well, we are now going to start answering your questions. So if you've got questions for Constantine, like I said before, hit us. up with some superchats and we will pick out the best ones. We're going to do about half an hour and we'll be putting your questions to Constantine. So Anton, can you make sure that you've sent me all of the questions please? Have you sent them on the telegram? I'm going to send you on the telegram. Yeah, you're going to send me on the... Guys, give us a second. We are going to go through stuff. This is the first time we're doing a live broadcast of any kind like this. So just bear with us while Francis and Anton get stuff ready. If you've got questions,

send them in if you've got any comments, if there's anything that sparked any sort of discussion, put that in the chat and we'll see how much we can get through in the next half an hour. So, there is, first question is absolutely cracking. It's from Icky-Ik

and he says, how do nuclear weapons weigh into this strategically? We still have the threat of mutual annihilation. Do you think Russia will use nukes in Ukraine? No, I don't. I don't think he will use nuclear weapons.

No, this isn't about that. He's not Kim Jong-on. He's not a man, man. Like I say, he actually is pretty sane and rational, and most other people who would be in power in Russia today would be doing the same thing. I don't think it will use nuclear weapons. Okay, so Ikea, you got the answer to your question.

It's not as depressing as you were hoping, I. Yeah, he's on the end of the world now. This is from Dean Cosgrape. And he says, how telling is it that many people who emigrated to the West from countries like China and Russia have been warning and overall against the nonsense the West has been arguing with the culture war. Of course. I mean, all of us see it.

We are not able to pretend like you guys and nothing's happening because we know, we understand how these people work. We understand. See, people in the West live under a number of delusions. And one of them is that everyone in the world wants what we want, and thinks the way we think. They fucking don't. They don't.

What? The Taliban don't what we want. But this is what people think. People in the West can't understand someone who is extremely religiously motivated, for example, who is so religiously motivated, they're willing to blow themselves up in the name of a cause. There are very few people in the West who would do anything

in the name of religion like that, right? And in the same way, people in the West don't understand. why a country might want to expand its borders. They don't. They don't get it. But people in the rest of the world do understand that. Because let me put it very simply and crudely for you. People in the rest of the world want what you have.

They want what you have. The prosperity, the freedom, the stability, the democracy. They want all of that. But mainly the prosperity. They want to be the top dog in the world. They want to have the most money per head. of population in the world. They want the comforts.

They want to be able to throw away the food that we throw away. That's what they want. And until they have it, they're always going to want it. That's it. There's no other, there's no other, there's no other great secret to it. People in the rest of the world want to be as rich and as successful as people in the West. That's why immigrants like me come here.

And that's why countries like China and Russia are doing it. everything they can to expand their land, to expand their power, to expand their influence, and to expand their economy. That's what they want. It's not about diversity, Francis. I'm sorry. Is it not? No, it's not.

It really isn't. It's about some pretty hardcore, fairly sort of old-school things that human beings have always known. Great question. Right. Let's move on and let's see what else we have got. So, we have got, uh, Ikeye could send another one. He says, why did you wake me up at 4 a.m.?

To tell you the truth, Ike. To tell you the fucking truth. So this is from Ayush Pandit. He goes, I have only one question. Why didn't the West let Russia into the EU Union and be part of NATO when he offered the hand of friendship? Russia doesn't make sense as part of NATO. And it wasn't a hand of friendship. Russia doesn't belong in NATO.

It's a country with a different cultural mindset and it wants different things. Russia doesn't want to be part of the EU. Not really. And it wouldn't work. Russia can be integrated into the EU in the way that cancer tumor can be integrated into the human body. It's not the same thing. People in Poland and in Latvia and Lithuania, they want to get the hell away from that sort of old school authoritarian way of doing. things. People in Russia don't want that, and the Russian leadership don't want that. They want to

maintain essentially a dictatorship. That's what they want more than anything else. I'm not saying every single person in Russia does, but they're very comfortable with that way of governance. They're not trying to get away from their Soviet past. They're embracing it, whereas what the rest of Eastern Europe has done is trying to move away from that. So Russia doesn't belong in NATO and doesn't belong to you. It's a different culture. Yeah. With different ideas about politics, about the world, about how things should be. Alex Alexander asks, do you support immediate Western military intervention?

No, I don't because as I said, I think that would start World War III. Do you really think it's that extreme? Well, if you start fighting Russia with British soldiers, what do you think is going to happen? That is World War III. That's what happened. That's how World War II started. Hitler invaded Poland, and Britain and France said, well, we have an obligation to support our ally.

we're going to come to their defense, we're going to fight. And that started World War II. So if the West sends military troops now, that is starting World War III. So I don't support that now. Okay. Thank you very much. Let's see. This is from Colby Hamilton, who says, the only necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Correct. Now, I don't like framing it in terms of good and bad. because it suggests that we are somehow impure and perfect. Vladimir Putin and people around him are evil. I don't believe that for a moment. And Colby as a Christian, I'm sure, would agree with me that every human being is complicated. I don't think the West or we should look at it as a matter of good versus evil.

I think we should look at it in a much more sort of Darwinian pragmatic term. It's a matter of us versus them. It doesn't matter who is right or who's wrong. that's not how they are going to be thinking about this and that's not how we should be thinking about this. Someone's coming. They're coming for our top dog position in the world. China and Russia.

And this is what it looks like. See, when people talked about, oh, well, you know, the acidity's trap and China is going to slowly become them. No, no, it's not going to be Chinese people are more rich than us 50 years from this. It's not what it's going to look like. It's going to look like this.

it's going to look like Taiwan. It's going to look like Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. If the power of the West wanes, the West is going to shrink and the East is going to grow. That's what's going to happen. And before you know it, you're going to be living under, you know, a very different regime to the one that you used to. Gemma asked a question, which did cross my mind in the initial interview. What is the likelihood do you think that people? Putin will be overthrown by the oligarchs?

Or do you think... Zero. Zero. Why? At this point, look, it could happen at some point. He has complete control. He spent 20 years cleaning out anyone who's against him. The people who are below him all owe their status and power to him.

He could have any of them removed or killed at any moment. I don't see this happening. the only way that he might be removed in the long run, and this will take time, is if very strong sanctions are applied of the kind that Britain, I don't think, would ever apply. And they hurt the oligarchs very badly and also then hurt the people of Russia very badly

who become restless. Now, I'll push back on that, but surely if he starts encroaching more and more, those sanctions are going to become ever more strict. Okay, well, let me give you an example. example. So one of the sanctions would be to seize the assets of all Russian oligarchs in the West with immediate effect to bar the children of Russian oligarchs from going to British boarding schools. Would you do that? It depends our extreme situation. Does it? You want to punish Russian children

for the actions of Vladimir Putin. I mean, but that's what sanctions are, effectively. That's what you do. You do punish Russia. As coming from a country where my mom does, which has had sanctions, that is what happens. What would the Guardian say about that for us? Well, that is true. But sanctions always punish the most vulnerable. They're not going to punish it. But when it's being done over there and you're not seeing the children starving to death, that's one thing. What about these kids right here, right here in the UK? Are you, who's going to sign up to that? That's the only way is if the people of Russia see that this strategy is really not paying off. And if the oligarchs around Putin really feel the bite, they lose all their money,

which, by the way, most of their money is in the West. You understand this. So why don't they just freeze bank accounts? Not freeze, seize bank accounts. They have frozen some bank accounts. But if you want to have an impact, you would seize those bank accounts and give that money to Ukraine to fight the war. Yeah.

But you don't think that's going to happen? No, I don't. I don't think people in the West have the stomach for it. Even if he starts marching eastwards towards or westwards towards Lithuania. Again, we're getting into hypotheticals. Right. Okay. Yep.

I take your point. So we have got... Zathras says, thank you, Constantine, for speaking sense about different mentalities in Russia. Rest of Eastern Europe, Poland and the West keep on speaking sense. He says, let's have, we've got former guest of the show, Francis Ball, who says, I must be one of few right-wing immigrants, but what West doesn't understand is that not all brown people are left-leaning, cut the white savior complex.

So I don't think it is the Francis Ball was on. It was another Francis Ball. But going back to that point of about how we're spoiled in the West, really. We don't understand how good we've got it. We're soft. We're not used to fighting. We're not used to confrontation. And all of a sudden now, we have a confrontation.

We don't really know what to do. And also, our lives are infinitely more valuable than they've ever been. We live longer. We live more fulfilled, not fulfilled, but sort of materially satisfied lives. Yeah. You know, so, you know, if your life expectancy is 40 and your life's pretty shit, and you go off and there's a rigid class system which prevents you ever from advancing. Then maybe going off to war, coming back as a hero and achieving something and being able to get out of your class limitations.

That does explain why the Scots are so violent. Yeah, exactly. That may be a route out for you. But if you're going to live to 85 and die of COVID or with COVID and your life's pretty great, why would you go and risk that? You're risking way more than you would have done in the past. Yeah. Ridgy 77 has got some sort of mental illness. He says, Constantine for Prime Minister. Yeah. Let's not do that. If there's one thing the West really doesn't need as me as Prime Minister. Yeah. So we've got Amy Vowse. She says, came in late again. So I'm not sure if you covered this.

But how worried should we be in the West about cyber attacks from Russia? Very worried. Well, we haven't talked about that because I've done. know enough about it. So let's talk about it. It is perfectly possible that in response to strong sanctions, Russia will retaliate. And one of the most obvious ways is to attack, you know, internet infrastructure and all of that. So as somebody who is a complete lullaby, explain to me, what does that actually mean? Your internet stops working. That's what that means. And your phone reception stops working. Really? And your electricity grid goes down. That's what that mean.

And do you think that that is in his playbook? It's a possibility for sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If the sanctions against Russia are perceived as being by him as punitive and whatever, he could try to do that. But our job is not to shy away from that. Our job is to make sure our defences are secure.

That's interesting. And I don't know enough. Do you know enough about that? Well, I was talking to one of our former guests who does know enough about it, who's Dr. Pippa Malgram, who advised two years' presence. I was on the phone with her yesterday and this is what she was saying. Like a lot of the shenanigans are going to be of that nature. Really? Yeah. So it's not actually going to be direct conflict.

No, there's going to be direct conflict in Ukraine. Yeah. But in terms of the West, that is a possibility. Yeah. So we're going to be seeing more and more of that type of action. Yeah. So very interesting. Let's have... Anton, by the way, are you checking the PayPal's as well? No. Okay. We might have those.

Let me have a look at those. Right. Let's see. So we've got a very interesting question here. Is the person we normally refer to on Raw as Barry? He says, how much does the Bidens, Joe and Hunter, dirty dealings in Ukraine, complicate the West dealing with this now, i.e. motors of the White House not to be trusted or untrustworthy. I don't know enough about it.

instinctively I'm tempted to say it's irrelevant, but I don't know enough about it. Okay. Sorry, Barry. Sorry, Barry. Apologies, mate. The reason I'm instinctively sort of hesitant to say that that matters is because I think there's a bigger geopolitical thing going on, and it's not really about President Biden or Hunter Biden, who, as you know, I've been very vocal about that story being suppressed.

So, yeah, I'm not persuaded that it's a big deal, but I don't know enough about it. Okay, Susie says, do you believe this move is likely to put Donald Trump back in power? Well, how could it not? How could it not? People like me and you who did not like Donald Trump, who did not like his style, who did not like the way he talked, who did not like the way the reaction he elicited from the media, much of which, by the way, in my opinion, was completely inappropriate and unfair, but nonetheless, that constant chaos and warring and sense of that he caused

or that they caused in response to him was so awful. And he was really not good. But the choice between that and someone who's actually going to prevent World War III I think is obvious now, isn't it? And you don't think that the way that he was so tarnished because of January 6th.

Yeah. You know, everything that happened. I mean, the events were dreadful. You don't think that that has put... No, no, I didn't say that I think he's going to get elected. But I think in a lot of people's minds, they're going to be looking for a strong man figure. Yeah.

Now, who is a strong man figure in the US? Kamala Harris. Exactly. You know what I mean? Yeah. So he's an off-the-shelf solution right there. That seems obvious to me. So, yeah, I mean, like, I don't see how this doesn't help him.

Yeah, absolutely. And it completely weakens the Democrat. Yeah, I mean, Biden's had two disasters in the space of six months. Yeah. So, we have got a question here, so who said, Uncle Vlad shenanigans is causing a ball energy market. Here with, uh, but energy prices are rising. energy prices are rising.

How is this going to affect society in the world as a whole? Well, we talked about this earlier. The first thing that people are going to realize is you need energy security. And it's not just energy security. You need to secure key infrastructure, things like electricity networks, things like phone networks, which we fucking sold off to the Chinese and whoever was willing to buy them. I imagine, and if this is not happening, then our government is deeply irresponsible and just, you know, completely incompetent.

Which say are on both? We've got to make sure that the Chinese, the Russians and other strategic adversaries of the US and the UK are unable to hurt us when it comes to energy supplies, are unable to hurt us when it comes to supplies of manufactured goods that we need to survive, are unable to hurt us when it comes to running our electricity, our nuclear power stations, our phone networks, our communications, etc. we're going to have to make sure that we're secure because if you are not secure, there's nothing you can do. Yeah.

Because someone's got a gun to your head. So that's going to change things a lot. Do you think this is going to focus on mine and increase any and increase greater cooperation amongst the West? Now, obviously with Brexit, with the with the UK leaving the European Union, that created animosity. Let's call it what it is. And a sense of disconnect between us and the rest of Europe. Now that this has happened, is this good, do you think going to focus the mind far more? And we're actually going to start thinking to ourselves, you know what?

What is the point in having petty little squabbles about fish with France when you've got Putin invading Ukraine and encroaching further, further westwards? It's a very good question, Francis, but it's way too soon to tell. Yeah. We don't know the answer to that question at the moment. In the spirit of being humble and not trying to predict things that I don't know. I don't have any insight on that. Okay. But here's a good question and an important one.

We just don't have an answer. Yeah, because you hope so. We really do. This is from Alba, ELF 84, and he says, do you think the West acceptance of Kosovo might be a triggering factor? No, it's an excuse. Just like Iraq, it was not a good decision, and it gave Putin a reason to sort of like explain why he's

entitled to do what he's doing. But it's an excuse. It's an excuse. You can't compare Kosovo to Russia invading its neighbor and annexing a piece of its territory. It's not the same as Kosovo. Galangelo-Watkins ask a very good question, which is, if Ukraine isn't the line in the sand for the West, where do you think, and I know it's an impossible question to ask, but

where do you think might be? Well, let's do this experiment. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Are you willing to go and fight and die to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lithuania? Are you willing to go and fight and die to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Estonia, of Latvia, of Poland, of the Czech Republic, of Hungary, of Slovakia, of Romania? Are you? Should we go further? Germany?

France. So, you know, I don't know where the line in the sand is for the West. Right now, the way things look right now, I'd be surprised if British people would defend Britain. I mean, have you seen millennials? Well, you want to put them up against the Russian army? Yes, I do, actually. Yeah, so do I. But it wouldn't turn out well.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And what is the Russian army like? Is it well-funded? Is it? By Russian standards, it's well funded. It's by no means the greatest military in the world at all. The greatest asset the Russian military has is the one thing that we lack in the West.

Men. Well, it's not men. It's the willingness to have men killed. Russian lives don't matter to the people who run Russia. British lives matter to the people who run Britain. That's the difference. So the Russian government can send in 200,000 troops and be quite comfortable to lose. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000.

The biggest weakness of America is not its military. Its military is huge. By far the biggest and most powerful in the history of the world, probably bigger and more powerful than the next 20 nations combined. The question is, how strong is your military if you're unable to use it? Yeah. If you lose 10,000 people and that causes massive social unrest and disruption, how strong are you?

Right. How are you going to sell that to your domestic audience? And Vladimir Putin doesn't have that problem. Yeah. That's the difference. Right. Because there was that saying in World War II, you know, I can't remember, you know, I think Russia, the Americans provided the money, England provided the time,

and Russia provided the blood. Yeah. And that attitude is unchanged. I mean, the Russian World War II tactics was essentially just to send soldiers running at fucking machine guns. and just overwhelm the Germans with bodies. That's what, particularly in the first phases of the war, that's how it was. Later they developed more powerful tactics.

But yeah, the West biggest problem is an inability to absorb damage. Yeah, and the willingness to sacrifice young lives. Yeah, it's like a boxer with a glass jaw, like you can punch, but can you take a hit. Body god of lies says lies one. Francis, using the opportunity to shilfer rejoin. To rejoin the European. Yeah, that's what this is all about, mate. Yeah, this is what it's all about.

Juncker and me, mate, best buds. Don Jones asked, why do you think the West is waking up when Canada is becoming like Russia? The US has lost all wars since Vietnam. Why would it fight another one? what was the first part of the question? So it was like, why do you think the West is waking up? Oh, I didn't say the West is waking up.

I said, this is our one chance. Yeah. This is our one chance to realize we've been living in a dream world and wake up. If that happens, great. If it doesn't, well, like I said, like I've been saying for years, the West is over. Yeah, the West is over. Anton, if we've got any emails or PayPal, could you just send them over, please?

Fantastic. So we've got time for a couple more questions. Philip Oz, this is saying, and it's a good question, it seems the media isn't talking much about the nuclear consequences. Why is this, and do you think it's because there are none? Well, I mean, there's obviously, like I said, we are closer to nuclear war than we have been since 1962. I don't think that means we're close to nuclear war. I don't think we're close to nuclear war at all.

So I think the media are still trying to work out what the hell happened. This is blindsided all of them. I don't think they realize what's going on. So, yeah, I don't think people are going to understand the full repercussions of what's happened, probably for years to come. And a lot of them are just trying to work out what's going on. And do you think part of that, if we talk about the media for the bit, is what's happened to the media? They've essentially been defunded, you know, discredited.

So you don't have those big beast journalists anymore who actually take the time to understand the situation, read, explore, spend time in another country. When you've got a, I know, I know it's out of date, but a BuzzFeed article, you know, 10 things about why you should dress like a hedgehog in bed. Well, you and I have been warning about the decline of the media environment for a long time. And you're starting to see the consequences of that. just like we talked about earlier with the caliber of our politicians. It's the same. These are not people who are qualified to be solving these problems. Yeah.

When our foreign secretary doesn't know the geography of Russia, how are you expecting that person to negotiate with Vladimir Putin? That's not going to happen. And the same with the media and the same with alternative media. Look at all these influences running around now, having an opinion about this issue, that they don't understand. You know, there's go back a few days and look at, look at all the same look at all the articles where they told you there would be no invasion.

There are people, I wrote a long thread on my Twitter, which is my pinned post, which you posted on locals, there were people like replying going, there will be no invasion. Well, how do you know? You don't speak the language. You've never been to this place. You don't understand the geopolitics or the history. You think that because Matt Taibi or some other idiot told you, right?

But these people don't know what they're talking about. Just like, this is why I stopped commenting so much on COVID, and I've distanced myself for people who made the whole, the whole persona about COVID because I sort of went, well, you know, like, yeah, sure, I can have an opinion about it, but I don't really know what's going on. I'm not an expert in this. I better sort of just pull back.

There's a lot of stuff I don't understand. And we don't live in that world. We live in a world where people are incentivized to comment on things they don't know, to make statements that I never get verified. and that's both mainstream and alternative media. And all the same people that told you there would be no invasion. They're now either going to double. It's interesting watching the way that this is breaking out because they're doing one or two things.

Either they're saying there's no invasion. Like the Iraqi minister of information. Do you remember him? What was his name? Something Alley. Something Alley. Yeah. Chemical Alley.

I think chemical was a different blog. It was a different blog. But whatever. Or they're going to explain to you. it's justified. Well, these are historical Russian territories. If you're just joining us, by the way, you can go back and watch the beginning of the interview.

We go through all of this. So that's, I think, that's the other part of it. We live in exciting times. We have got time for one more. Either a super chat or a PayPal. Let's have... Francis, we could do an extra 10 minutes if we've got the questions. Okay, so let's have Arvid von Bras.

Arvid von Brasch. And he says, I'm not going to do the accent because we'll save that for war, Arvd. Yeah. He goes, do you think there's anything to the suggestion that the people running the U.S. State Department wanted to bring the Ukraine into NATO under Clinton and saw that as unfinished business that they could finally get done? So, well, I'm confused. The suggestion that the U.S. department wanted to bring the Ukraine into NATO. Now?

Yeah. It doesn't surprise me if the West does want to bring Ukraine into NATO. No, it doesn't surprise me. But the question that you... So let's go back to what we were talking about just now, which is, who do you want to run the world? This is what this conversation is all about. I don't have a problem with Western liberal democracies, flawed and messed up as they are, asserting their dominance on the world stage.

Not only do I don't have a problem with that, I want them to do that. And this is not some evil imperialist Constantine Kishin saying this, it's just a pragmatic reality that either we are expanding or they're expanding. That's the choice. So, yes, you could argue that America and the EU wants to expand eastwards. I personally don't have any problem with that. I don't have any problem with that.

But the main reason that it's happening, as I explained before, is Estonia, Laibyuan, Ukraine, and others. They want to be part of NATO because they know what's coming. They know what happens to people who are not part of NATO. That's why they're desperate. They're begging. The 2014 revolution in Ukraine started because people thought they were finally going to move to the West. They were going to join the EU eventually. They were going to join NATO.

And finally, they would be safe from the very. thing that's happening today from the very tanks that are on their borders and in their country right now. That's what they wanted. They just wanted their country to be safe from that. That's why NATO is expanding. That's why the EU is expanding. They want to take more people in under this umbrella of Western liberal democracy, which is flawed, which is not perfect, which has committed many great evils. I agree with you. But it's still better than the alternative. Very interesting and very good question from Harvard. We'll look forward to seeing you on Raw soon, Harvard.

This is quite good, actually, one from Desire Brendel, who says, can KK please recommend unbiased sources on the Russia-Ukraine conflict for people who don't speak Russian? Thank you and keep up the good work. I know it's difficult, and you can argue that no one is unbiased in Barbos, but some good-caliber resources. I don't know is the answer. I think you, I think the one thing I would invite everyone to do is find a good translation

of President Putin's speech from a couple of days ago and read that. That gives you a pretty good chunk of information that we've covered here. I don't think there are unbiased Western resources. The one thing I would say is Dominic Sandbrook, Dominic Sanbrook, who's the co-host of the Restist History podcast with our former guest Tom Holland, He wrote an article in the Daily Mail, which in my opinion is exactly spot on. And someone posted it on locals recently. So I would go and find that.

That is a good start. And they also did an episode of their podcast, which talks about the history of Russian and Ukraine, which details some of this. Which, if you want an objective, look at the sort of background to this, that will help. Perfect. This is from Steen-Click Gerrida. Rolls off the tongue. Will Putin demand a corridor to Kalangrad? next on his list?

To Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad? Absolutely. And look, I have no idea what those words are, what they mean, where Kalinigrad is. Well, Kalinigrad is a piece of Russia that is not connected to Russia. In the same way Alaska is not connected to America? Yes, with a big difference that America is not going to invade Canada to have access to Alaska. The better example would be Danzig, if you remember.

That was one of the demands that Hitler made in the run up to war. World War II. This was a supposedly independent port city on the northern coast. And he was saying we must be connected to our people in Danzig. And that's why he wanted the Polish corridor. This is what the question is about. Of course, he's going to demand that. That will be part of the process of, you know, Estonia, et cetera. And do you think he's going to get that? No one knows at the moment. No one knows. But you think he is going to demand it? I think that will be one of the things that he wants to happen. Now, how the West responds and how Ukraine responds and how this war goes and all of that

will determine the future steps. That's beyond our predictability horizon. Do you think one of the solutions should be unleashing Kamala Harris on him? Yeah, I'm sure she'll talk him out of it. Fantastic. I thought she can be very persuasive. Absolutely. I think that is pretty much it.

Let me see if we, uh, uh, no, I think that's pretty much it. All right. Okay. Uh, we've answered pretty much all the questions. Thank you so much for joining in. We're hoping to be doing more of these and with different guests. We've done them with Jordan Peterson and Heather Heying. We've also done it with Brett Weinstein.

And we've also done it with Douglas Murray. Thank you so much for joining in, guys. And we will see you very soon. a raw show or an episode and they always go out at 7 p.m. UK time. Take care and see you soon guys.