Xi's Trip to Europe & Ukraine Pulling out US Tanks! Conversation with Larry Johnson!

All right, hello everybody and welcome to Geopolitical Trends, where truth matters. Very excited to be with you live here because I have with me none other than Larry Johnson. So we got a lot to cover. I'm just gonna tell you straightforward what we're gonna be talking about. We'll be talking about Larry's, uh, presentation at the UN Security Council. We'll be talking about the announcements by Ukraine to pull out the US Abrams tanks and other NATO's weapons as well. And the last item we're going to be talking about briefly is the current trip of the Chinese president to Europe, mainly France, Serbia, and Hungary. So let me bring in Larry. Hi, Larry.

Hi there. Hey, David. Thank you for having me.

Of course. And very— once again, I don't take this kind of stuff for granted, Larry. I want to say thank you on behalf of the entire community. I know how busy you are, and it was just so kind of you to— when I emailed you, and I'm very appreciative of this. I want you to know. So let me start. Yeah, let me start first with, for those who might not know, guys, that Larry did a presentation at the UN Security Council, the United Nations Security Council. And I'm going to, by the way, post a link for you, or I'm going to show it to you right there, guys. I don't— I have everything in the description. So for now, don't worry about all this. I want you to listen carefully to what Larry is going to be explaining, a few things. But I have the links, all this for you on his Substack and everything else. So what I wanted to ask you, Larry, is this: in your professional opinions, do you think the UN Security Council will heed your advice regarding the thorough investigation for the attack on Nord Stream 2 pipeline?

If it was just a simple majority vote, the answer would be yes, but with the United States being able to exercise its veto, as well as France, neither France, the United States, or England want anyone to take a serious look at this, but the rest of the countries were clearly supportive. I was asked by the Russian delegation 5 days before the meeting if I would be willing to make an appearance and talk about the issue, and I said certainly. At no time did I get any instruction from Ambassador Novensia or Ambassador Polyanskiy or anyone else with the Russian mission or anyone else with the Russian government. Saying, okay, here's what we want you to say. They said, hey, we are interested in your professional view. So that's what I offered, and they were very pleased with what I had to say after they heard it. They did have an advanced copy of it 3 days before the session, and they didn't come back to me and say, oh, listen, we don't like this part, you know, because I talked about the Bank of New York Russia money laundering. Case as an example of investigations that I've been involved with. Uh, the Russians, to their credit, actually conduct themselves like I thought America should have conducted itself, which is someone who respects the freedom of speech and doesn't try to coerce people into taking certain positions. But, uh, the message was well received by most of the nations, including China. As well as Russia, Mozambique, Algeria, Sierra Leone, and even Korea and Japan. So, you know, this was a violation, flagrant. The attack on the Nord Stream pipeline was not only a flagrant violation of international law, which US professes to uphold, but it doesn't. It was also more, it was not so much an attack on Russia. Yeah, it destroyed a pipeline that pumped Russian natural gas to Europe. It was devastating for Germany and the rest of Europe. This was a loss of cheap energy. And that just, you know, the concept that good God, Russia supplying cheap energy to Europe, we can't have that. That was the US position. Well, why not? Well, it benefits the Russians. They're going to sell that gas one way or the other. The fact that it's now not going through the pipeline being delivered cheaply means it's going through other avenues arriving in Europe, and the Europeans are paying through the nose for it. So they're You know, it's only hurting the Europeans. And what's so shocking about this is that Germany in particular has acted like some prisoner in prison who's being sexually abused by the other prisoners. Just not standing up for itself at all and appearing to be just a little lapdog of the United States.

Well, I knew it right then. Back then when they want to have the— they join, in this case joined the US into the sanctions. I knew it right there and I said it's over economically for Germany. Just for you guys, I'm going to show you a brief clip, but again, I have the links here for you. As far as you go to Substack, you just put in your email there. So then that would be for just for you to access there is, uh, all articles and everything else. And there is the whole video there. I'm not gonna play the whole video, but I'm gonna share one particular clip of it because it's very important for you to see with your own eyes. So let me share quickly the screen here with you guys, and I'm gonna do it briefly, and we move on to what we're gonna be addressing here. So, all right, here is the— okay, let's play it.

To Mr. Larry Johnson. Thank you, Mr. President. My compliments to the distinguished members of the Security Council. My name is Larry Johnson. I'm here today to speak in support of Russia's desire to have the United Nations Security Council conduct an open comprehensive investigation of the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in September of 2022. I'm here at my own expense without compensation for my time. All material and comments are my own. My goal in addressing you today is simple: I want to propose steps that I believe can help resolve the mystery of the source of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline and thus help resolve the tensions that resulted from that unprecedented attack.

So here is, guys, what I want you to know. First of all, Larry paid for his trip. To those who argue or saying that someone else is taking care of— we all heard this— when you speak the truth, you become like the enemy, while some other government funding this or funding that. It's nonsense. So I want you to hear it with your own eyes. Second thing, I'm gonna move you directly to— I have a timestamp for this, and I listened to it for its entirety, but there's one particular section I want you to listen to here.

We do not believe that war is inevitable. One of the strongest reasons for this belief is our faith in the United Nations. The United Nations has three great roles to play in preventing wars. First, it provides a way for negotiation and the settlement of disputes among nations by peaceful means. Second, it provides a way of utilizing the collective strength of member nations under the Charter to prevent aggression. Third, it provides a way through which, once the danger of aggression is reduced, the nations can be relieved of the burden of armaments. I believe it is not only the responsibility, but the sacred duty of the Security Council to take the lead in bringing about a settlement of the Nord Stream matter by peaceful means. I will not review the mountain of evidence that implicates my own country, the United States, in this act of war against the Russian Federation and the Federal Republic of Germany.

All right, I'm gonna stop right here, guys. Once again, you have the link, you can access it so you can listen to it in its entirety because we wanted to have Larry's inputs into all this. Now, Larry, as one who's been following the UN Security Council's work from way back, and I deal with the— you know how it is, I deal with global affairs and all, right, right, right. I do, I do have doubt, Larry. I do have doubts that the UN And please correct me if I'm wrong, that the UN will take a forceful stand into uncovering really who was behind this and bring them to justice. Will I be fair to say that they have the will, the determination and political will to do so?

The majority of the UN does. But again, the problem is that in the Security Council environment, the 5 permanent members 3 of the 5 permanent members are going to veto any effort to do that. So, but it's really not going to matter. I think this is part of Russia's effort just to again portray how lawless the United States is, how utterly, I guess, our complete utter disregard for international law. Unwillingness to follow it and just going to be very selfish in that we will only use international law when it suits our purposes.

Wow, well, just before we move on to the next topic, I want to share one image here for a satellite picture that I had in my record here for the moment the attack happened. So I got a hold of it and I kept it right here. So, and I'm aware of that the Norwegian uh, divers, part of their navy, was involved into this attack on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. So I just wanted to share this with you guys for you to know. So, all right, let's move on to our second topic, which has to do with the announcements by Ukraine that will be pulling out, uh, uh, US Abrams tanks. Not only that, but also other NATO weapons will be pulled out. What do you make out of these announcements and why?

Well, number one, that after that announcement was made, then the United States put pressure on Ukraine and they then reversed themselves. So I said, oh no, no, that's not true. And then since then, there have been a total of 8 Abrams tanks killed. So the— I think there were like total of 16 in the first place. So 50% are gone. And the other 50% will probably disappear within the next 2 weeks if they stay on the front lines. The M1 Abrams tank, this is not Larry Johnson's opinion, this is according to both the Congressional Library, the, you know, Congressional Research Service, CRS. For every 1 hour of operation That tank requires 8 hours of maintenance. It doesn't use diesel fuel, and it's got a turbine engine that's very sensitive. Hey, it goes fast as long as it's not in a battle and out in the sand and desert and, or, or muddy fields of Ukraine. But think about that. If you were told that for every hour you drove your car, your car needed to have 8 hours of maintenance, okay, and so let's say that you're going to drive from Washington, D.C. to Tampa, Florida. Well, that's, that's about a 15-hour drive, so just do the math. Uh, oh, you're gonna, you're, you're gonna drive for 15 hours, but you're gonna have to stop for a grand total of 120 hours. Wow. To service your car. So, you know, let's see, every— we got, uh, you know, a 40-hour work week. So basically 3 weeks at 40 hours, or, you know, 24 hours a day. So you're talking a trip that you could make in, you know, 2/3 of one day is going to take you over 6 days. That's what we're talking about with these Abrams tanks. On top of it, the Abrams tanks, it has a, it has a 4-man crew. Got to have some guy in there loading, picking up shells, putting them in the, in the breech and, you know, firing them off and unloading, taking it out, dumping the shell. Russian tanks, 3-man crews. And automatic loaders. So basically, what, you know, the M1 Abrams tank is just— it's an expensive piece of junk. You know, it's great, it's great if all you're going to do is drive it around the streets for parades, put it out on, on a, you know, parade ground so people can go ooh and ahh and say, man, that's a big piece of equipment. But in terms of actually Putting it into battle against a pure tank formation, you know, it's, it's going to get killed and it is getting killed. I said the Russian— just today the Russians took out the 8th tank. You know, there's video confirmation of it.

Well, well, can we say the same thing about the German Leopard?

Yeah. French, and the Challenger, the Leopard. NATO tanks are, they were designed for a war people thought they'd fought 40, 50 years ago. Yeah, yeah. They're not prepared to fight a war of attrition. The Russians have lost tanks. I'm not denying that, but The Russians have an industry that's cranking out more tanks. So yeah, you know, they anticipated losing and they're not building these incredibly ultra sophisticated, technologically complicated platforms that, you know, yeah, you can drive it for an hour, but then, oh, you got to be, got to be in the shop for 8 hours. That's just crazy because for God's sake, you know, if you're going into combat, let's say it doesn't go according to bankers' hours. They don't say, okay, hey everybody, show up tomorrow between 9 and 5 and we're going to fire off our artillery and our tanks and, you know, we'll close it down at 5 so everybody can go to happy hour and then have a nice dinner and then we'll see you the next morning. You know, we're going to do an 8-hour war. That's not how it works. That's not how it works., you know, so let's, let's just say you've been out, you've had that tank out in the field for 8 hours, assuming it's still running. That means 64 hours of maintenance are required. So assume you got your technicians working 12, 12-hour shifts. Oh, that's 5 and a half days. Interesting. Yeah. Does any of this make sense? No, it doesn't. It's crazy. No, it doesn't.

And please, Larry, correct me if I'm wrong. I have my theory about why this announcement happened, even though I am aware that— I'm going to share a picture with our viewers here. Those are the German tanks on display inside Russia. They did a parade of the weapons that the Russians captured, including the Abrams tanks. I just got this picture here. But please correct me, Larry, if I'm wrong. I think the reason why the announcement was made is because the US does not want the rest of the world to see the destruction of the, of the Abrams or any other NATO weapons. So other countries will still purchase the US and Western weapons. But in reality, it turns out to be not up to the task. And that's the reason why they pulled them out. Will I be wrong in this assessment?

No, you'd be absolutely correct. This is all about the money, you know, and what the West is— one of the problems or weaknesses that have been exposed is that the Western weapon systems by and large are crap. They don't work. They're not terribly effective. HIMARS, yeah, you know, it's good at killing civilians, But the Russians have learned how to shoot those down. Patriot missile batteries, those get destroyed. Those are not stopping. They can't stop hypersonic ballistic missiles. So they proved inadequate. But we already knew that. They'd been deployed to Saudi Arabia, for God's sake, and the Houthis were bypassing the systems with their missiles. And then they didn't have advanced sophisticated technology like the Russians. Uh, the same with ATACMS missiles, uh, Javelins, the anti-tank guided munitions. So it's just the, you know, the West was trying to just put on display, man, we can send all these, you know, the Wunderwaffen, the wonder weapons, to, to the Ukrainians and look how they're triumphing over the Russians. And then it turns out, no, they're not. Uh, Who wants to buy that crap? Uh, the Russians will be able to have, you know, if the goal is to make a lot of money, which it hasn't been, uh, they'll be able to recoup a lot of their expenses with respect to this war by selling air defense systems to other countries. You know, the Saudis had a brain in their head, they'd be all negotiating with Russia right now to buy an S-400 system.

Well, the Saudis are so weak. I just don't see the Saudis doing that, but it would make more sense. But for them, they're not going to go the same route Iran did by acquiring, or the Turks for that matter, even though Turkey is a NATO member. They went ahead and purchased their S-400 systems and Iran's moving forward with that. Saudis are wishy-washy. As one who spent time in Riyadh, back in the day with the government. And so even during negotiations, when we talk to them, they go back and forth, back and forth. It's like, well, where do you stand? This is that. Yeah, I won't trust them personally. But now all this, Larry, comes in time. And by the way, speaking of missiles, I do know that the Russians shut down the US ATACMS long-range missiles. This is about 300 kilometers. They shot them down when NATO was conducting some sort of exercises near the, uh, the, the borders.

No, no, Russia did. Yeah, Russians shot them down. They were attacked, uh, launched against targets in Crimea. Yeah, they've been shot down. So there's— I said, there's the US has yet to field a weapon system that the Russians can't defeat. Yeah, that's, you know, that, that's the wake-up call. And it's the kind of what, and what, what's, what the West hasn't captured or haven't grasped is that Russia is conducting a war of attrition. And attrition warfare means they anticipate that they're going to have losses, but they're going to replace those losses. But they're going to minimize their casualties as much as they can. So they're not going to launch human wave attacks, but they will be using up a lot of artillery, a lot of drones, a lot of combat air. And the West is simply industrially incapable of producing weapons at a level that can sustain this attritional war, which is, which is why you're seeing that You know, Ukraine's short of shells, right? Because the United States can't make them fast enough. We can't, we can't, uh, the United States in an entire year cannot produce what Russia produces, say, in a month, 2 months. Well, with respect to 155mm artillery shells, and the artillery shells aren't the only thing, you know, the barrels of those guns, when you when you're shooting that much, and particularly the US, the howitzers the United States uses, when that hot shell is traveling out the barrel, you know, it ends up, you know, eventually stripping the rifling. You know, if it's a rifled barrel, which means lands and grooves, which puts a spin on the shell, or even if it's smoothbore, it's still the barrel wears out, needs to be replaced. Well, where do you get those replacements? Somebody's got to make them.

Make them.

And when you make this kind of equipment, you know, Andrey Martyanov is coming out with a new book, and I've been privileged to read parts of it. But one of the points he makes is that, you know, with respect to something as simple as pig iron— so in the production of artillery shells, tanks, artillery guns themselves, the barrels, uh, Bradley fighting vehicles. You know, you go down the list of, uh, you know, equipment that fills the U.S. Army right now, or the U.S. Marine Corps. Uh, one of the key ingredients for that is pig iron. Well, the United States has like 93 million tons of pig iron, um, and the Russians have 120 million. Well, right off the bat, Russia's at a decided advantage.

Advantage.

About 30, 35% more than what the United States has. And on top of that, though, Russia has an intact industry for producing steel and furnaces and foundries, things that used to be common in the United States. All been shipped overseas, a large number of it. So, you know, the United States is not in a position that we could— if, if we're having our airplanes shot down, our rockets shot down, our drones shot down, uh, our tanks shot up, could— do we have the industrial capacity to turn around and produce new, you know, new ones to replace? Well, no, we don't. And that's what, that's what Russia has demonstrated they could do. You know, recall, you know, in March and April of 2022, so more, you know, more than 2 years ago, we were getting a story about every week about, oh, Russia's, Russia's running out of missiles. They're gonna be out anytime now. They're exhausting their supply. Boy, they can't keep this up. Here we are 2 years later, man, they are got more missiles, rockets, and drones than they had, uh, 2 years ago. So, and it's just that this refusal to accept that reality is, is one of the things that's saddling, uh, the American military, uh, in, in terms of its ineffectiveness.

And I was always thinking that at West Point, whatever they will teach the new cadets about the history of the Soviet Union back then, and they go way back, and they will realize you won't be able to defeat because historically it's a— the Russians have always come back and end up winning.

Yeah. Now look, what they're teaching at West Point is, all right, let's get our pronouns straight. If you're they/them— I mean, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's ridiculous. But they, they spend time teaching cadets about diversity, equity, inequality, and then, you know, all this guilt-laden crap that's laid on them. Nothing about actual military strategic thinking. And, you know, you're turning out, you're turning out, you know, new generation of officers that are completely ill-equipped to fight this, the war that's on the horizon. We're intent on going to war with Russia and China. And, you know, the sane part of me says, God, I hope that doesn't happen. I hope we, you know, wake up. But there's a part of me that says, you know what? We need to do it for only one reason. Getting the hell kicked out of us is the only way we're going to wake up and go, wait a second, what we've done hasn't worked. It's failed. Only in defeat defeat will America find a path to return to a leadership role, believe it or not. But I don't think we're— we're right now caught in a web of delusion and self-deceit that is on just a colossal scale, and no amount of reasoning with people can turn that around. There's a— if anybody wants to see an example of this on YouTube, there is, uh, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted a debate 2-3 weeks ago with, uh, Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis, retired Army, and with John Mearsheimer. And there was Paula Dobriansky, who's the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Yeah, her family Mom and dad, her grandma and grandpa came from Ukraine, Ukrainian Jews escaping persecution. And so she, you know, I mean, she's been raised to hate Russia, can't see anything straight. And then another woman who was the German Marshall Plan. It was a fascinating debate. One, the fact that they tried, trot out these two chicks. Yeah, I'm being sexist. I'm diminishing these two women. Both of them are morons. Zero experience with the military, not understanding a damn thing about military logistics, about combat, about air supremacy, about armored operations, nothing. All they could do is talk about, oh, Putin's bad, Ukraine's good. And when you watch that level of delusion, The complete inability to grasp what's happening on the ground without, you know, if you try to tell them, look, here's the army of Ukraine. That's now its average age is a 43-year-old guy. That's too old. The, you know, most guys that age are not in shape to be carrying an 80-pound a rucksack, a backpack on their back, and to have to march 10, 15, 20 miles with that kind of load. People say, oh, they're not doing that. Oh, heaven. During this last failed counteroffensive where they were defeated, they stopped trying to carry troops forward to their battle positions in armored vehicles because because the armored vehicles were getting destroyed. So what they did is they dropped them off about 10 miles from the forward position. So the guys would get out. So you're carrying a rifle. Rifle's going to weigh maybe 8 to 10 pounds. And then when you put the ammunition, if it's got, say, a 30-round magazine, can carry 30 pieces of ammunition. That weighs something. And then, you know, you recognize you're going to have to have ammunition to resupply yourself. So if anybody's ever picked up a case carrying 1,000 rounds, that's 40 pounds. And then on top of that, you've got to have food, have water, because it's not like there's a, you know, 7-Eleven nearby or a Wawa where you can run over and go, oh, I need a couple of bottles of Gatorade. So, so these guys had to walk that in. And neither of these women, you know, I'd love to see one of them just put on an 80-pound pack because they'd stand there for a minute and then collapse, much less walk 10 miles with it.

Yeah.

And so here is the Ukrainian military with 43-year-old guys, untrained, They've not been through any kind of extensive training. They are inadequately supplied with food, with ammunition, and with artillery in particular, and they're being destroyed. Russia is now rolling them up all along that line of contact. These two women, they don't even grasp that. All they could argue was, oh, we got to stop Putin or he's going to take over the world. Putin's— and it's just like, oh, please stop. You know, at least admit that you guys are, are making money off of this boondoggle. At least admit that.

Yeah, but they won't have the courage to do that, Larry. I, I know this for a fact. There is no way. You know, but this is where, John, a serious note, this is where you will think, uh, people more understanding the history of what the Soviet Union, uh, or Russian Empire, whatever you want to call it, from way back went through, even up to World War II, that it wasn't us who won World War II, it were the, the, the Soviet Union, the army from— when I was informed on my last trip, I had a talk with some people, I went to the cemetery, I saw with my own eyes all the graves for the Russians with nothing on it, just the circle with the stars. And I was told those are all the former Soviet Army that fought and ended up winning the war. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't end up— but speaking of this, Larry, what I'm thinking about it, I usually read from overseas. I read stuff from overseas. I don't know if I ever mentioned to you that I speak Arabic French fluently and so forth. So I read foreign languages, and I came across an article written in Arabic. I don't know if we would even have it here or not, and by which the Russian president— as a matter of fact, just happened yesterday— the Russian president issued a directive now to start preparing exercises for nuclear exercises, right?

Yeah, tactical nukes. So the Yeah, yeah. So this is, yeah, this is important.

Um, and the second thing I want just to mention quickly here, the second thing is also he mentioned within that context the possibility of deploying the Russian troops to the Finnish border in Finland. What are we looking at here?

Uh, we're, we're looking at, uh, Russia preparing itself to fight NATO. You know, wow, they'd have to be blind not to see NATO is preparing to fight Russia. But not—

but can they? But can they?

No, no, no. They, they can, they can go out and, and start a battle for about a week or two and then they're going to collapse. So that's, that's the point I made earlier about the lack of— they cannot sustain an attritional warfare, but When you look at what Russia has been doing, the West has developed its own narrative. And based upon that narrative, then they encapsulate everything that they think Russia is doing. So, their narrative is this, that because of the weakness of the West, Russia invaded Ukraine. And as a result of that, the Ukrainians have fought back bravely. They defeated the Russians at Kherson. They defeated the Russians in Kharkiv. They pushed them back. And it's only because the failure of the West to continue to supply Ukraine with all the weapons it needs. That's the, that's the reason they're not succeeding right now against the Russians. And therefore all we need is, you know, the court, like the old Saturday Night Live skit, we need more cowbell, more cowbell. Yeah, let's get that out there. Um, it's not true. So, uh, I, I think the more accurate explanation of what happened is that Vladimir Putin made repeated efforts to negotiate with the West. Do not expand NATO to our border. Do not bring Ukraine into NATO. Request is made in 2008. Even then, what's, you know, current CIA Director Bill Burns was an ambassador to Moscow at the time, and he wrote back, said this is a red line. You know, the Russians, no means no. Nyet means nyet. And yet, you know, jump ahead into 2021, again, similar insistence by Russia to get security guarantees. United States refused. Putin made one last attempt in December of 2021, initially got a favorable response from Biden, but then was contacted by Blinken and others said, no, Biden didn't know what he's talking about. You know, basically go screw yourselves. So at that point, when the Russians launched the special military operation end of February, and they'd been building up all along because they, you know, they're going to be prepared for the worst. It was also true that the Ukrainian forces with U.S. and NATO assistance were building up their forces to try to launch a sudden strike, if you will, a blitzkrieg, a lightning war into Donetsk to finish off taking control of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas. Russia's initial military operation only contained 175,000 to 190,000 troops. They were at about a 3-to-1 disadvantage in numbers, and under sort of conventional military analysis. An attacking force, which is Russia in this case, should have a 3-to-1 advantage over a defending force. Well, this was just the opposite, but Russia was not attacking to acquire territory at that point. It was sending a message to the Ukrainians and to the West that, okay, we can do a lot of damage here, and for that first month, the first 4 weeks, Russia had even inserted— it was variably described as a 24-kilometer or 40-kilometer tank column north of Kyiv. And at no time in that, you know, that month was that tank column attacked by, you know, air-to-surface missiles. Fired by either attack helicopters or fixed-wing combat aircraft. They were not attacked by ground troops carrying anti-tank guided munitions. They weren't attacked by tanks, other tanks. And, and so the Russians were there. They could have, you know, they could have entered Kiev at that point. But it was then that the negotiations in Ankara between Ukraine and Russia reached a stage at which Putin, as a gesture of goodwill, ordered those forces to withdraw. So as they withdrew, then the United States, and using Boris Johnson as a tool— oh yeah— intervened directly with Zelensky, said, hey, don't make any deal. And they put together the psychological operation, the COVID action in Bucha in which the Ukrainians were slaughtered not by the Russians but by Ukrainians, but dressed up to look like they had been killed by Russians. Um, I think at that point Russia was like, okay, uh, this, you know, this is not going to end with a negotiated settlement.

Yeah.

And so by September they decided, you know, Contracts for many of the existing soldiers came to an end in August, so they issued a mobilization. That mobilization coincided with Ukraine trying to, you know, launching attacks both in, first in Kharkiv and then later in Kherson. And so the Russians first withdrew from Kharkiv. It was a tactical retreat. They weren't going to stand and fight for that territory. That's not the goal in a traditional warfare. You give up territory if you need to. Uh, we had General Surovikin back then, yeah, who was busily constructing defensive lines, uh, in the southern part of, uh, uh, of that, of, uh, the Donbas and, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. He then realized he had all— they had all the Russian troops on the east or the west bank of the river. And so they've made it— they, they withdrew from Kherson, put everybody— pulled everybody back, excuse me, to the east side. And so again, it was a tactical withdrawal. This was interpreted in the West as, see, the Russians are weak, the Russians are losing. Didn't recognize that the Russians say, hey, This is not a fight for territory, at least not right now. This is a fight to see who can kill the most on the other side while suffering the least amount of damage. And that turned out to be Russia doing that, inflicting enormous casualties. And yet all along this way, the Russians had their first victory in Mariupol in May of 2022, and then they They took out Lysychansk and Siversk, and then the Battle of Bakhmut, then the Battle of Avdiivka. So, you know, it was— I think it was wrongly attributed to one American writer that war is God's way of teaching Americans about geography. Geography and foreign language. I learned to pronounce Bakhmut. Tavdiivka. But, uh, you know, Russia pulled back, and, and while that's going on, they mobilized 300,000. And then the recruiting offices are open, and recruits are going into the Russian army at a rate of almost 500,000 a year. That was for 2023, and the numbers so far this year between 30,000 and 40,000 a month. So, you know, now 4 months in, that's another 160,000. So Russia is building up armies that will not only be there to defeat the Ukrainian army, but defeat NATO's army, which then, you know, they'll be prepared if they have to fight in Finland, they'll fight in Finland. They're not going to be intimidated. They're not going to be threatened., and that's, that's one of the reasons that, uh, this exercise was initiated. So I— they're not doing it immediately, but they just said, okay, we're going to conduct an exercise to test the readiness of our tactical nukes. That's significant, uh, that those kinds of exercises usually require, you know, it can require minimum of 6 months and sometimes 12 to 18 months require preparation before they're carried out. But it just shows that this is now the thinking. The Russian military, by announcing it, is letting the West know we are preparing for this contingency and we view it as a viable contingency, you know. Don't, don't force the issue or you're going to find out.

And this leads me to the key question, Larry, and I am sure majority of the viewers in the community will want to know, are we looking at a nuclear exchange?

Yep, I think so, potentially. Uh, and the United States and Europe, you can come out on the short end of it. So, well, um, you know, you're trying, trying to talk sense into these people. I mean, Macron announced that he sent 1,500 Foreign Legionnaires into Ukraine to fight. I mean, he announced it. Okay, fine, fine. You know, Russia's gonna kill him, and you know, what's French gonna do? You know, didn't— apparently, you know, Macron too busy to read about Napoleon and his ill-fated venture into Russia. Yeah, yeah. At least this time the, uh, the the French troops, if they— if any survive, probably won't have to march out in a freezing winter. They'll be dead or dispersed well before that.

Interesting. Well, speaking of France, that leads me to talk about the third topic I'd like to get your insights, and this pertains to President Xi's ongoing visit to Europe. As we speak, he's in France right now. Yeah, I think he David Oualaalou. Speaking of Europe in general term, Europe, I know US, Europe, NATO, whatever term we use, are like desperately trying to sway China from supporting Russia. I don't see that happening ever, no matter what.

No, no, no. Yeah, you're right. This is why—

so why is Macron issuing this kind of statements about well, we're gonna have— we cannot let Russia win, or we're gonna have to send our troops to Ukraine and so forth, knowing what the outcome is going to be.

Yeah, well, he was, uh, the issuing this announcement is, uh, it was really sort of, uh, uh, him, uh, insulting the Chinese. Uh, she had just— I think she was just there and she delivered a very strong message to him. No, we're not going to back away from our support for Russia, and we're going to continue to do things in Africa and other places in your stead, you know, with the vacuum you've left behind. But then Xi didn't stop there. He's going to Hungary and Croatia, and the reason he's going to those two countries is not because they're the most important countries in Europe, but they're the ones who are seen as most likely to be aligned with Russia, and he's sort of expressing Chinese solidarity with them. The, you know, the rest— Europe as a whole is making itself more irrelevant with each passing day. You know, the, you know, particularly the Brits. The Brits are so small, and, you know, militarily they're inconsequential.

Oh yeah, Brits are useless anyway. I mean, uh, Wasn't— and I didn't mention this last time. I remember, uh, the memo that was circulating inside the Pentagon, which was for internal use, wasn't for outside, suggested that if the Brits will fight the Russians, they will run out of ammo in one afternoon.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean, Britain's a joke. Good Lord. They— the problem is they take themselves so damn seriously. Yeah, because they've, you know, they've been, they've been lusting for, you know, really centuries, at least two centuries, to, to take over and control Russia. Because when, when you think about the landmass that Russia occupies, uh, you know, it's close to half the globe. It covers 11 time zones, at least 11, 12 time zones. Yeah. So And I'm always fascinated by— they talk about the Russian Empire, Imperial Russia. You know, Russia was not going out around the world conquering and colonizing territories. Uh, Russia, unlike Spain and Portugal, didn't colonize Mexico, Central and South America. Uh, Russia Unlike most of Europe, you know, the French, the Germans, the Dutch, the Brits, the Italians didn't colonize Africa, didn't colonize Asia. They tried to solidify the territory right on their borders so that they would have some peace, but they certainly were not out seeking to conquer and control the world like all of these other European states did. So, you know, now we've entered a time where Europe is increasingly weak. Russia is now, in terms of purchasing power parity and GDP, Russia outperforms Germany, which was the largest economy in Europe, which means Russia is outperforming every other country in Europe.

Economically despite the sanctions.

Yeah, despite the sanctions. You impose, you impose sanctions on a country that's self-sufficient in natural resources, what the hell do you think is going to happen? Yeah, I mean, this is just, this is one more sign of just the stupidity of U.S. policymakers. You know, don't, don't get into a fight that you know you can't win. But that's sort of a, sort of basic principle in my view.

Indeed, indeed. Now, what do we make out of presidency? Why did he pick France? I can understand the argument for Serbia and Hungary, but why France? Is it just to strike their ego per se, so the French will feel good on the international stage?

Oh no, no, no, no, no. He was delivering a very sharp message to Macron. To say, hey, you know, yeah, you can tell you and all of your other European buddies, we're not, we're not going to cave to you. We're not beholden to you. We're going to do what we want, what we think's in our national interests. And if you cross us, you will suffer the consequences. I'm sure that that's something along those lines. And then Macron comes out and says, oh, I want to announce we've sent 150 or 1,500 legionnaires into Ukraine. Okay, I think some of them are already dead, you know, they didn't last a week. Yeah, there'll be more of that coming down the pike.

Interesting, interesting. Now, how, how can we see things moving forward when we think about the upcoming U.S. elections, presidential elections? Do you see a change into the trajectory, or are you going to be noticing the same continuation despite who occupies, or no matter who occupies the White House?

No, I think Trump getting in will bring a change in the trajectory of U.S. policy, at least with respect to Ukraine and NATO. Uh, not so with— not so with respect to Israel. Israel, the, the whole Israeli policy is, you know, held hostage by the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee and Jewish money in the United States. It heavily favors and supports the Zionist cause of Israel.

Wow, that's what it's gonna go that direction. So very, very interesting. So, uh, I know, guys, I can't see your comments here, uh, and that's due to one particular, uh, when I was setting it up, I forgot to turn it from private to public. So I can't see the comments of everybody, but they are everybody here and so forth. So this time around, I will not take your questions, but we'll do it because Larry will be back here. By the way, Larry, some have been asking If I can bring you and Pepe Escobar, would that be a possibility?

Yeah, I can't, I can't, I can't speak for Pepe as far as I mean, of course, of course, always happy to appear with him. But yeah, we've done it once with Ania K. Yeah, so we can certainly do it.

Yeah, yeah, they've been asking and I'll, uh, I'll, I'll reach out to, uh, Pepe and just go from there. So, well, any final words, Larry, before I let you go? Because I, I I don't want to, uh, just want to ensure, uh, that at least the viewers have an understanding of where things are.

And yeah, this is going to be, this is going to be a very critical week. Um, yeah, Vladimir Putin is going to be inaugurated on tomorrow, Tuesday the 7th. I know from a friend whose wife is, uh, My friend lives here right now taking care of his elderly mother. His wife is still back in Moscow. She reported to him that she had been stopped 2 times while out driving by the police. Police are doing sporadic intense checks of vehicles entering and leaving Moscow, which is very, very unusual because when I was there, I commented on the fact that I hardly saw any police. So the fact that the Russians have dramatically boosted the police presence means they fully anticipate something going to happen. I also note that the U.S. Embassy in Germany, in Berlin, issued a warning somewhat similar to the one it issued 2 weeks before the attack on the Crocus City Center in Moscow, warning of a terrorist, upcoming terrorist attack Germany. I would not put it past the United States Western interests to be involved with a false flag terrorist operation in order to create a pretext, a justification, you know, to claim that this, uh, you have a terrorist attack carried out by Russians against German American targets, therefore we have got to go attack Russia, that this thing could get out of hand, and that's But again, the West isn't thinking this through. We keep thinking that we're in a position to fight our way out of this, and we're not.

Very, very, very interesting. Well, Larry, I can't thank you enough. I truly appreciate you sharing your insights and, uh, uh, the knowledge you have. I'm sure, uh, the viewers here at the community are very, uh, uh, sort of appreciative of that. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm among them as well. Very, very grateful to you for carving out time for us here, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

Thank you, David. Always a pleasure.

My pleasure. Thank you very much. Well, guys, I hope you find this very informative. My apologies because they couldn't see the comments here, because as I said, it was an error when I set it up. I didn't change the— from the private into public. Uh, something to learn next time. I'll make sure of this. And I look forward to seeing you most likely tomorrow. I will be doing a live stream for you tomorrow. So as always, remember, geopolitics impacts your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, guys, bye-bye.