The. So new series entitled Then and now. The hope of the series is to sell you some books, I try to warn you by Jim Jotris.
That'd be nice. The other, the other aim of the of the the other The other aim of the series is to do some analysis of the Russian Ukraine crisis situation, war, special military operation, as you wish to call it, as it's unfolding in 2025. We're recording this on Australian time and on the January 29th, 2025 S this idea is to give a snapshot of what's going on right now and talk about some news stories and and some possible data analysis that's stemming out of those news stories.
And then because we have Jim Jatras, who is a retired diplomat and what's the, what's the official term for, for your position with the with the Republican advisory? I always mess this up. The I was a senior policy analyst for the Senate Republican Leadership. There you go, for that was called the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Is there an acronym we can use, Jim, to make it a bit more easier? No. RPC was the name of the committee. There we go, RPC.
Was an I was an FSO at the State Department. There we go. LSMFT. We're doing the intelligence exam again, Jim. Like can you sit in the yellow chair, please? So, so, yeah, so because we, because we have Jim Joshua's on who's who has many, many decades of experience inside of the, the, the machine that is the, the, the American government specifically sitting on the Russia desk and is a Eastern
European expert. So brought Jim on to do some historical analysis as well from his time there and looking back at certain flashpoints in, in Russia, Ukraine and let's say Russia American relationships. And we'll see how where the series goes. So thank you so much, Jim. Maybe do a brief introduction. I know you just said where you were, were you working in the government, but let the people know a little bit about you and then we'll get in some news stories. Not much to tell that you
haven't mentioned. Came from military family. My father was a career fighter pilot is one of his last postings was as the Air Force attitude in Moscow. That was after I was already grown up and gone. I was actually then at the Soviet Union desk at the State Department during the time he was in Moscow, and then served in the Office of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs.
And then later on for 17 years I worked in the US Senate and the senior leadership for the Republican side in the US Senate. So and then after that I was an evil Washington lobbyist for several years. So I got to see the from the outside with the the input from the private sector. So I think I've seen things from several different angles in Washington. It's it's not a pretty picture, Jason.
Well, you know, we're, we're not here to, to paint landscapes, Sir. We're here to, we're here to investigate data and, and wherever it leads. One of the things I've been trying to do fairly unsuccessfully for the last three years since the start of the Ukraine Russia conflict is remove my remove myself from from the data as much as possible and just examine it as
coldly as possible. But of course, being at least my part of my family is Ukrainian descent, I consider myself a Ukrainian nationalist for for well on 30 years. And so this has been a bunch of bitter white pills or a bunch of bitter pills in general to swallow over the last few years. Realizing that, you know, Ukrainian independence in one way or another is pretty much off the table. And, and I, I doubt she'll return, but we'll get into all that as we as we go on with the series.
Here's some, here's some news from the last week. One of the things I was saying to Jim before we used to press record was that one of the challenges in setting up this show this week was keeping abreast of all the developments. There's been quite a few on the war fronts. We've had Chasevyar, Valeka, Novosilka and Toretsk all essentially becoming falling to the to the Russians and the now the Russians are preparing a major offensive to see Pavrosk.
This is all in the Donetsk Oblask region. Essentially the once the once the southern Donetsk region is taken, then the Russians are free to move, move more freely throughout throughout the South southeast. So that's quite alarming. This is of course, there's make they're seizing territory in the middle of winter, which is a little bit when Russians start taking territory in winter, you
know that the the end is nigh. Povrovsk is to give you a little to give a little bit of context about the importance of Povosk. Povosk is a center of one of the major iron mines in in Ukraine. It can actually single handedly produce enough iron ore to satisfy most of the steel needs of of Ukraine both domestically
and in through export. So when Russia takes takes that city, Ukraine's economic future is is looking quite bleak, even if even if they do manage to retain any territory after the war. Another news story that broke is Ursula van Leyland, the EU chief is now claiming that Putin is at fault for cutting off oil and gas supplies to Europe as EU prices are now soaring across across the continent.
Left out of her statements with the E US pledge to eliminate Russian oil and gas and coal trade back in 2022, which they finally succeeded into at the start of the year in 2025 when they allowed the the transit deal between Ukraine and Russia, which was established in 2019 to expire. Any thoughts on that, Jim? Because I mean it, some of the, some of the reports, I, I, I read a lot of the Kiev Independent just to kind of get a sense of what they're saying
over there. And the reports are are crazy because you read them and you're like, this is straight up propaganda, Like there's no other way to reading it. Well, it's, it's, I think her name Ursula, fond of lions, says it all. I mean, she tells one string of lies after another, and somehow it's all Putin's fault. But it's it's the yeah. And it's not just this one
instant instance. It's what they've been doing since the beginning of the conflict by putting sanctions on Russia energy export that disproportionately hurt the European Union, don't hurt Russia. And then they come up all these dog and pony in runs of their own sanctions so they can import Russian oil without calling it Russian oil at a substantial markup, whether it's being handled by the Indians or where else the middleman is.
So I, you know, frankly, I have trouble falling all the different gyrations and stories they tell themselves to explain how they're damaging themselves, but it's really all their fault. Yeah, it's, it's pretty stunning. I've heard some reports or some people speculating that part of the reasoning for cutting off the the transit was to hurt Hungary and and Slovakia. There are two countries that would get damaged the most by the by this as well as Germany,
obviously. But of course, then we find out that Slovakia has been has been donating the majority of its excess electricity to Ukraine and that Ukraine itself has been siphoning off oil and gas and coal exports from Europe that who's been importing it from Russia. So it's still hurting Ukraine. So none of this makes any sense other than APR victory for one headline, which then continues to punch themselves in the own in their own in their own face.
It's it's literally the definition of cutting off your nose to shame your face. I this seems, and this seems to be, we'll touch on this more in some, maybe some other stories, but this seems to be a consistent, thorough line from the both the Biden administration to the Zelensky administration to pretty much all the EU is they're, they're more concerned with winning these PR war battles victories than actually winning the war on the ground.
That's right. And look, you know, there's all sorts of collateral damage, you know, what about Moldova? What about Transnistria, which I guess they don't. You mentioned Slovakia and Hungary, as I understand it, they're going to be able to get some oil, also Russian oil, but via Turk stream from the South coming up from Bulgaria and Serbia into Hungary that way and Slovakia, so and I even Austria may be able to benefit from that.
So, I mean, there's so many workarounds here that the way the ones we know are not going to be hurt by the Russians. So why they do this is exactly like you said. They need to have the headline, you know, for what? Then what's important is the narrative. You know, this is, you know, Ghost of Kiev stuff all over again, except in the energy sector. Yeah, the the the situation on the ground is finally coming to light and it's even coming through the Ukrainian media,
which I find very interesting. 2 reports have come out of Ukrainian sources, both from from the Ukrainian version of Pravda and and the Kiev, Kiev Independent. One was a transfer of Ukrainian Air Force servicemen. It's a confirmation to the front lines infantry. Some 5 to 6000 Ukrainian Air Force servicemen have already been transferred to the to the infantry just the starting this year. There's been reports that this has been, this has been happening since 2024 at least.
So we're talking everything from junior pilots to to technicians to pretty much everyone who makes the airplanes go. And this is this is still continuing after a condemnation, a pledge to halt such transfers from Zelenski himself. So Zelenski came out, it was on the 15th of of this month and said, yes, this is horrible. We're going to stop all this. And reports from the ground is that no, they haven't stopped
anything. The transfers are continuing and now they're just draining out servicemen, you know, skilled servicemen to basically basically serve in the meat grinder. The others leaked admission, which is very interesting, comes from the intelligence chief Kurido Bunov, who's essentially the the the chief war
propagandist. Apparently it was leaked out of out of a closed door meeting held in the Rata when he when when Bernoff was asked how much time Ukraine has left, he said something to the effect of if there is are no serious negotiations before the summer, very dangerous process threatening Ukraine's existence could begin.
And now, of course, the Ukraine military intelligence has issued statements saying that quote is does not does not correspond to reality and has urged the media to stop spreading disinformation. I find this really interesting, Jim, because this this whole peace process by the spring or summer keeps coming back up and we'll see something that Trump's been saying and some other supplementary articles that you pointed to that you've also written. What are your what are your thoughts?
Initial thoughts on this whole wrap it up by the spring, which seems to be a constant reiteration from from different sources. Well, as far as what what Donald said, maybe he was spreading misinformation in the form of a giddy optimist to think that they're going to last till this
summer the way things are going. Because as you pointed out, with these Air Force personnel throwing skilled personnel into the meat grinder because I guess their skill are not as useful to Zelensky and company as this more warm bodies they can throw in there and have the Russians kill. I mean, it's the inhumaneness of this is just beyond belief.
I mean, as you know, there's been a lot of suggestions, including I believe from General Kellogg, Trump's designated negotiator, that as the Biden administration was also saying, to try to get them to lower their draft age down to 18, which means, you know, not, you know, basically untrained kids with no military experience who will not have any time to get military experience when I tend to send out there.
And by the way, a an age cohort that's already pitifully small given Ukraine's demographic problems for the last couple of decades. I mean, you take an 1819 year old kid who was born, you know, less than 20 years ago, that's already a small cohort given how low the fertility rate was at the time that they were born. So this is, you know, this is really, really, you know, the word genocide is so overused in the in recent years, but this is getting close to that.
It's like, it's like an auto genocide being inflicted on Ukraine by its own regime. We can talk about why the Russians are fighting this war this way, but I think that that's what they're looking at. You know, you mentioned Pakrovsk, as I recall a couple weeks ago, there was, I believe, an entire brigade friend by trained by the French that was going to be sent to Pakrov and it just sort of melted away. Everybody deserted. And and I heard another story
today of a similar occurrence. So, you know, at this point, I think they're going through the motion. The Russians are expanding an economy of forcing casualties on their side. But the, the, the, if anything, the Ukrainian casualties are increasing at a, at a accelerating rate. And it is just obscene. It really is obscene. And that's the one thing I do credit Mr. Trump with. He's got the numbers all wrong
and so forth. But I do think there's a genuine desire on his part that this, this slaughter has got to stop. It just has to stop one way or the other. Yeah, I agreed. I we with our first conversation or our conversation last year, which was part of the Tales of the Shadow Empire, we, I opened with that, with that statement was from was from Tony Blinken, who was essentially trying to pressure Zolensky at that time to lower the draft age to 18 and basically go into full mobilization.
And I had comment at that point how evil that that concept is. And it hasn't stopped. Yeah. I was kind of hoping that that means Zelensky, for whatever reason, has seemed to be resisting that idea, maybe because he thought it was unpopular enough that he didn't want to go that direction or who knows, right, with it's just too
many speculations. But it hasn't stopped under Kellogg. And I think if this continues the way it's continuing, that's what they're that's what he will end up doing is doing a full mobilization last push and for absolutely no benefits, as you're saying.
And what's the one of the interesting and stunning things this this past two weeks has been showing is that the fighting over Chasse VR in a few of these territories have been going on for quite some time, really in some cases since since 2022, since 2022. And now it's open doors like the Russians are getting no resistance. The news I'm getting out of Pavrovsk is, is essentially, you know, and again, this is a high value target for the Russians and for the Ukrainians to defend.
And it's sounding like the Russians are more or less walking in. They've they've done aerial gliding, bomb bombs to the city. They've the city's been evacuated and they're kind of moving in. And all the reports I'm seeing on a daily on an almost updating on the hour is just them just eating up territory without, with very little resistance. I saw pictures and I can't exactly remember which front it was on, but of like locals digging trenches and the the trenches are like, you know,
chest high. I'm like, what are you, what are we doing? Like that's a murder hole. You're just you're just you're you're, you're just digging very long trench cemeteries. I don't I don't get it. And you know, so maybe it's a make work project. I have no idea. Or maybe it just makes them feel better that they're they're part of the resistance or part of the movement, part of the war effort.
It doesn't make any sense. And so into your to your point, we'll get him to to some of Trump's statements, But what do you think, Jim? Why are why? Why the meat grinder? Because it's, it's, it's a meat grinder on both ends, right? The the Russians are are providing the grinder and the Ukrainians are providing the
meat. The Grindees. Yeah, you know, this, this is what worries me, that, you know, the piece I wrote in the Ron Paul Institute site a month ago and then the the news out earlier today about some kind of a outline of what a plan is being suggested by the American side. My, my concern has been all along that the Russians are going to fall into the trap of Charlie Brown kicking the football again.
They'll, they'll get another deal, another set of promises that will not be honored and will and will not end the hostilities on a permanent basis, will just set the stage for another and maybe worse for in the not too distant future. And, and I hear smart people say, well, you know, better to have a deal to end the war than a military into the war. And I, I, I go all the reasons why. I don't think that's actually a good observation, but I do think that's what the Russians are thinking.
I think they're also thinking that they don't want to do anything precipitous that would cause the West's NATO to intervene directly into the war, not because they couldn't defeat NATO, but because the dangers of escalation to the nuclear level and we all die are are not inconsequential. In fact, I think the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just raised their their what is now 89 seconds to 9 or something right now. So it's, you know, this is this
is deadly serious. This is more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis. So I can appreciate their caution in that respect. But at the same time, what that does has been has led the other side to become a more and more adventurous to, you know, pull another rabbit out of its hat all the time, you know, start shooting attack of missiles. Into into back of his missiles, into the course offensive into
Russian territory. I, I think the Russians are inadvertently bringing about the same dangers of escalation they're trying to avoid rather than taking decisive action to destroy the Kiev regime. You know, get rid of Mr. Zelensky and his administration, get rid of the rod to get rid of the SVU, destroy the bridges over the neighbor. Look, I'm not, I'm not a military strategist.
I but it seems to me there is a way they could end this quicker, probably with a lot fewer guys getting killed because, you know, you got a feel for these poor Ukrainian fellow as they're being, you know, Shanghai off the street and said, said to their deaths. And yeah, I guess from the Russian point of view, at that point, what else can you do but kill them? And, you know, it's just, it's just, it's so ugly. And I, I just like to see some
way out of this. But I don't think it's going to be a negotiation, unfortunately, unless the Russians are foolish enough to do what they say they will not do, which is to fall for another truce, another set of promises, kind of a Minsk free kind of thing. And I think that's there's still a constituency for that in Moscow. Well, OK, let's talk about negotiations for a second, because Trump has now said a few things over the last week, which I find my notes here say bizarre.
I think that's being that's being kind. He claims that Russia stole its hypersonic missile tech from Americans from Americans during the Obama administration vows to make a super duper hypersonic missile, which I, I appreciated and I was like, oh, super duper good because Wiley Coyote going to be riding it as well. That's, that's fantastic. That's just, you know, called the Roadrunner.
The he also claims that Russia has lost over 1,000,000 men in the conflict and Ukraine has lost over 700,000 men. This is kind of peeved off the Russians who have contested that the Russian numbers are not anywhere near that. And considering that the best numbers I've seen throughout the throughout the war has never been over 300,000 troops on the ground anyways. So I don't know where where 1,000,000 would come from. I mean, maybe a million.
Russia might have a million people involved in the war effort, but I don't think. But that's doesn't mean people on the field. And it also disputes Zelensky's claims because Zelensky up until recently has said that Ukraine's only lost 43,000 troops. And I think he he I think he just updated it to 8080 thousand, which is generous because he was like, oh, OK, you got me. I said 43. It's more like 85. You know, what are you going to do?
Yeah. The other thing that Trump has has said recently is that he that he loves the Russian people, but he's prepared to destroy the Russian economy via more sanctions if Putin doesn't agree to negotiate on any of the war. Of course, some of the some of the American sanctions against Russian oil and gas and other products and etcetera are coming due for renew very soon.
I don't have the date in front of me, but I know it's I know it's soon in the calendar year 2025 S I'm interested to know what your what your what your feelings are on this. My initial response when I read this is that Trump is getting trying to get leverage now. He surrounded himself with two notable people who are concerning Kellogg, who seems to be based in an extinction, sorry, extinction, an extension of of Tony Blinken, at least on the Russia front.
And and Gorka, who I don't know what to make of Gorka. I've written him. I wrote him off as sort of a wannabe Alex Jones type figure for a very long time. And now, of course, he's sitting, you know, sitting with a with a ear Trump, with a Direct Line of Trump, which I find disturbing. And I don't know how much of that is him doing media, how much of that he really believes in. I have no idea.
But he's been, he's because he's been, Gorka says, has said some outrageous things over the last few years as well. And so, yeah, maybe let's get your feelings on that, Jim, because my, my first initial response to that is that Trump's trying to get leverage where he doesn't have it. And either he doesn't have the information in front of him that's accurate, or he does and he's and he's fronting.
Because if, and we're I guess now the hope is that Tulsi Gabbard gets in and she's better at this. Or is she? You know, he starts getting a better brain trust of information, but he's also got Elon Musk. He's also got a few other people who are very good with data. I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm really not believing the whole he doesn't know what's going on or couldn't, couldn't know if he wanted to, let's put it that
way. And it's, I mean, it's all over X. It's really easy to get that information that Russia's taking tremendous amounts of territory, incurring very little losses, if any in many of those exchanges and Ukraine's running out of men. So initial thoughts on what Trump's been been saying, we can pick it, pick it apart or do a a general comment. I know you shared some commentary on Trump's Hundred Day plan that we can get into as well.
Yeah, or reported to be. I mean, we don't know that it's genuine, although it seems quite plausible to me based on my speculations a month ago. Well, let me give you the absolute best, best, most optimistic scenario I possibly can. And that is that Trump realizes that there's no way out of this. That as some have said, what what he just needs to do is, is recognize the Russians have won, signed an agreement that ratifies whatever terms they want, essentially a capitulation, and walk away.
So it's all Biden's fault. And maybe he can't do that or feels he can't do that because then it would look like his loss. So what he's doing is he's throwing out all this chaff so he can say I, I, I, I threaten them. I, I, I grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and, and they had to sign the deal. And of course, the deal really is a capitulation. Maybe that's all it is, smoke and mirrors to hide and defeat. Unfortunately, I don't think that's what it is.
I think what it is, is that he is woefully misinformed. I can't give you the details, but I heard somebody talking about a conversation with a Direct Line with somebody in the operation who was utterly, totally clueless about what is going on on the ground and what the Russians might or might not do. And that is really grounds for
concern. You know, Trump, you know, again, I don't know the man personally, but I do know people who do. And my understanding is he is as narcissistic as he seems to be. He is as uninformed as he seems to be, and he doesn't care. He trusts all the wrong people, gets all the wrong information, and he doesn't have the presence of mind to question what he's hearing. So what do you do with that? Does he actually?
And this is the other big problem I think we have, is that what does he think he wants to do? I think in his mind, this isn't the proxy war between the United States and Russia or United States, NATO and Russia. It's a war and Russia and he's going to come in as the big man and knock their heads together and say, OK, you boys settle this. And he doesn't really seem to understand that he's not not an onlooker.
He is a combat. Our country is the driving force behind this war with the Russians, not Ukraine. Ukraine, Who's Lenski? He's just a a a puppet for the CIA and MI 6. That's all he is. You know, if you wanted to deal with him, you could take a leaf from our Vietnam experience and put on, put him on the per diem plan, if you catch my drift. So they could get rid of him
anytime they want. So and the other thing is I don't think he understands that the unipolar moment has ended, that if the United States, if he wants to make America great again, he's got to get out of the global empire business. And it really needs to start with Ukraine. I don't think he understands that. I think he thinks he can maintain our hegemony in Europe.
He can make us still the big winner in Ukraine if we can get a deal, the force of the Russians feed to the fire and saves the Ukrainian state, as that outline said, leaves open the question that they will be in NATO at some future date or they'll be in the EU. And I mean, I still think he thinks he can win this if he throws something that looks like a compromise plan on the table and the Russians will either be desperate enough or maybe stupid enough to take it.
I think that's where we are, but I'm not sure. I'll just read down this this plan that you shared me. This is Trump's 100 day plan for Ukraine ceasefire promised by Easter. Report reportedly. Reportedly. Yeah, yeah, reportedly. And we don't know. Let me just, I'll just read the headline and then I'll, I'll, I'll do some mental on this because this isn't this this isn't just from this piece here that you sent me. I'm seeing this in Turkish media. I'm seeing this in the Ukrainian
media. I'm seeing this, I'm seeing this pop up all over the place. Different basic versions of this more or less the timeline. So the timeline I find very interesting. It's always about about April, May, April May is heavily referenced in all the reports I've heard and then variations of of things. But I'll just read this down and stop me where if you if you want to add any color on color commentary on it. So this is Trump's 100 day plan for Ukraine's ceasefire promise
by Easter, peace by May 9th. It's impossible to say with certainty that the plan corresponds to reality.
The Ukrainian publications Strana reports that the document was transferred from the US to to the Europeans, and they in turn transferred it to Ukraine. So here's the main Trump plans to have a telephone conversation with Putin in late January, early February. He also wants to discuss the situation in Ukraine with its authorities and based on the results of the negotiations, a decision may be made to continue
or suspend the dialogue. Vladimir Zelensky must cancel the the decree that prohibits negotiations with Putin. You think meeting Hopefully, Putin also cancels his decision not to talk to Zelensky and not and because he doesn't recognize him as a head of state. It's, it's, it's the details, folks. It's the little things. A meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky may take place in February or the first half of March. Is not yet clear whether this will be a trilateral meeting or
two separate ones. The meeting is planned to discuss the main parameters of the peace plan starting April 20th. This is a very specific date. So this this is what I find very interesting. A ceasefire is planned to be declared along the entire frontline and all Ukrainian troops will be withdrawn from the Kirk's region. An international peace conference. This is set to begin at the end of April to formalize an agreement between Russia and
Ukraine to end the conflict. The United States, China, and a number of of countries in the Europe and global S will act as mediators. I This one bugs me a bit because I again don't understand why I'm not. I'm not saying he won't do it, but I don't understand why Putin would allow essentially that many countries to act as mediators for a situation that he more or less has under control. That really boggles my mind.
Also, this time, the exchange of prisoners will begin according to the formula All for all by a May 9th declaration, the conference at the end of the conflict should be published.
Martial law and mobilization will not be will will not be extended in Ukraine, and presidential elections will be held at the end of August. What is what is to be included in the in the agreement, Ukraine does not seek to return to the territories that were liberated by Russia, either militarily or diplomatically, but at the same time does not officially recognize Russia's sovereignty over these territories. Ukraine. Ukraine will not become a member of NATO and declares its neutrality.
This decision, the decision that Ukraine will not be accepted into the alliance, must be confirmed at the NATO summit. Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 20-30. The EU is committed to rebuilding the country after the war. The number of Armed Forces of Ukraine is not decreasing and the United States is modernizing
the Ukraine army. After the conclusion of the peace agreement, some anti Russian sanctions will be lifted and restrictions of the import of Russian energy resources to the EU will be lifted. I'm going to have some notes. Parties. Parties that defend the Russian language and advocate peaceful relations with Russia should participate in the elections in Ukraine.
The persecution of of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church will also cease and separate consultations will be held on the issue of EU peacekeepers. This really sounds like it was written by the EU. You know, at the start here it says that this is apparently written up by the by the Americans and handed to you to the Europeans. This sounds more like a this was written by the Europeans and handed to the Europeans. And maybe they let the Americans know.
Maybe they let them do a byline. Just some of these things, like my favorite one here is at the at the conclusion of the peace agreement, some anti Russian sanctions will be lifted. Oh, some. A few occasion. You know, a handful, some. Yeah, we, we. We promise. Don't worry about it. And and the restrictions on the import of Russian energy resources to the EU will be lifted as a grace, as a grace to the Russians. You know, we're doing a we're doing a favor, Vlad, We're going to let you.
We're going to let you. Do the goodness of our heart. Yeah, we're going to let you make sure we don't starve to death, freeze to death. Isn't it nice? Freeze, please. OK. So, well, you, you, you, you, you asked me for color commentary. I'm not sure if I should do Howard Cosell or in my case, Jimmy the Greek, but in any case, it's I I just had a chill run up my spine because it occurs to me this is so similar to what I speculated in my piece
a month ago. I wonder if they stole it from me. That would be a terrifying thought. I hope not. You know, it's certainly plausible that, you know, you say this came from the Europeans. I I could, I could see Keith Kellogg being on board with this and his his partner Fred Fleitz is the one who wrote that plan
way back in sometime last year. But you know, it reminds me of something that Alexander Mercouris says is that the West is always negotiating with itself without bothering to talk to the Russians. And they come up with an idea of what be a good peace plan. And then they seem surprised when it's a non starter and you can almost hear it. No. Well, Keith, how does this look to you? Well, Sebastian, I think it looks pretty good. What does Marco think?
And they all agree on what is a good plan. And of course it means nothing to anybody but themselves in a little hot house atmosphere where it's only themselves, themselves talking to each other. So I think that's sort of what's going on here.
But unfortunately, it has a certain kind of internal logic to it if you accept certain premises, which is we can keep Ukraine from being entirely defeated, preserve more or less the Ukrainian state that has consisted from 1991 and build it up again into another quasi NATO army, even if it's not formally a member of NATO. And that's what really it would be all about. Preserve NATO, preserve Ukraine, preserve American hegemony over Europe.
And that's what they're trying to do with a plan like this. Yeah, even the idea of a ceasefire to me seems crazy. Again, I don't know how more clear Putin and Lavrov have to be. Again, maybe they're lying, Maybe they're not as 100% on those things as as they say they are. But just judging from their language for the last, well, two years at least, they've they've said very, very clearly we will not accept any ceasefire.
We will not even if we are, even if we enter into negotiations, the war will continue until we come up to a conclusion of the negotiations. Now again, maybe that's bluster, maybe that's maybe that's their horse trading, but it seems reasonable in this situation where they've been the Russians been lied to, betrayed, lied to, betrayed continuously. NATO will not be expanding its borders.
NATO expands its borders. This whole, the the whole Minsk agreements that that should never have even include Russia. It was an internal, it was an internal agreement to, to end a civil war between, between Kiev and the, the separatist parties. And then Zelensky tries to name Putin and, and, and Russia and into the, into the conflict. And Russia's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what what are you talking about?
Like it's not even involving us. The, the entire premise up to now has been just lies and deceits and betrayals. So, I mean, I don't know, I maybe, maybe you have a better idea of, of, of Putin's support in the Duma or with the internal oligarchs. But I think that would be asking Putin to basically put his, put his head on the chopping block. He's already, he's already on thin ice. So there's a lot of people who are vocally saying that he's not
doing enough. I, I, I can't imagine him capitulating on anything, let alone, you know, coming up with a, with a, a ceasefire peace plan. Oh, don't worry. You can, you get to continue to hold 60% of the country and we'll just go back home. Like we'll just keep our areas, keep these 4 provinces, which are massive by the way, and allow you allow you Odessa and CX is why I don't, I don't get it.
Like, talk me through it because I mean, you, you've, you speculated that that Putin might actually go along with it. I, I I. Speculated he might. I'm not predicting that he will and I can see reasons why he might not for the reasons you stayed. And I mean, OK, he's gotten fairly high approval rating, that's at 70%, maybe higher range.
But most of the people who disapprove are saying exactly what you say that they're he's not being, he's not pushing the prosecuting this war fiercely enough to bring it to a conclusion. And even though the, you know what, what did Trump say? They've lost a million men or something like that. It is not true. They probably lost somewhere between 90 and 100,000 men, which is, you know, for a country of 140 million people,
that's a lot. You know, we lost 50,000 in Viet Nam in a country of 200 million people. And that that, that that hurt us, that that was a lot for us. And so this is something that it can't be just sneezed away. You got to figure there's probably three times that that are we're badly wounded, you know, the usual portions of wounded to dead. So this is something that I think Russians want to feel, however much they may trust him in general, that this brought to a successful conclusion.
And if he gets hoodwinked as he did in Minsk, I, I look, I, I think there's a lot of pressure back from the, from the professional military not to do this. There is public opinion in Russia. It actually does matter. So I don't, I don't know what they're going to do. I, I guess the real question is, is whether he thinks that somehow having Trump on the scene makes things different. I mean, everybody publicly, including Putin and Medvedev and Lavrov are saying that's not
going to make any difference. I, I don't, I just don't know. I really, I really don't know. And and getting to the territorial thing. You, you know, you pointed out Perkovsk. Perkovsk is basically surrounded when it falls. That's really the last big stronghold before the de neighbor. But people forget the Russians are on the the neighbor already in Herzon Oblaz. They had been on the other side
holding Herzon city. They're also now moving into the name Petrovsk Oblast and also into Herzon, excuse me, into into Kharkov Oblast. So, I mean, this could get a lot worse for the Ukrainians a lot sooner than they think. And this could move toward some sort of collapse of the Ukrainian front. I don't know. The Russians are pulling back to avoid that because they don't
want this to spoil a peace deal. You know, there's so much going on, so many moving parts here, both militarily and politically and, and, and the personnel involved, it's hard to really know what, what the most likely outcome is, you know? I want to get to something that you said to me offline a week or two ago that I found really, really interesting. And that's something that I think when we get to 1991 might be interesting for people to, to get their head around 'cause
it's a hard one. It's it's one of those, it's one of those things when you hear it, you know it's true and you don't want it to be true. But we'll get to that. Novoroskia has been mentioned now more and more. I made a prediction about two years ago saying that when you start to hear Novorosia being mentioned and being publicized, that's the end game. Like that's when Putin's going to be saying, OK, this is over. This is what I want.
This is what's going to happen. And Novorossia for those who don't know is is pre Soviet was Azarist Azarist term as Azaris region that basically linked Russia, Belarus, Novorossia into the into a holy triumphant and it was taking over areas of Kiev and Odessa were very prime areas of of Novorossia. Putin's been saying this now for the last year, six months, a year, very publicly and it's being, it's now being picked up by Western press or by European press as well.
Thoughts on that? Because if we're talking about Northrosia and what those borders look like, and I've said this now for many years, I don't see how Odessa is I, I, I see Odessa as the jewel, like almost everything else. Doesn't matter if he gets Odessa, because that's complete control of the Black Sea. That's then now he puts pressure on Moldovia, he puts pressure on Romania. He he controls pipelines. That's, that's the and, and historically as well, Odessa has a significance.
So what are your thoughts on on Novorossi in general? And that's sort of like the the coming awareness of of that term. You know if there's any way this? War ends with the Russians not taking Odessa. I don't see how the Russians can call that a success because then you are preserving a rump Ukrainian state that's going to be just a a sort of Damocles over their head for the future. I would add Kharkov to that as well. But Odessa, I think is even more
important. And and that's where, again, are they going to put their faith in diplomacy or are they going to put their faith in the military advantage they have? I mean, I've seen the speculations that, oh, Putin needs to have a time out, he needs a truce so he can, he can rearm and re equip his army. And well, they're not the ones that need to do that. It's the, the West that needs to do that. So why would they allow them
that breathing space? I, I, I guess it really just comes down to, well, something be put on the table that is more plausible than that plan. You just read that they actually might go for it. Or do they, you know, Hey, the other other side to this is that they are so stupid. I'm talking about the West now and the way they approach this, that they didn't put a plausible deception on the table and essentially forced to do what's in their self-interest anyway.
Maybe that's the way it ends now. Is that intentional on the Western side? I don't think so. I don't think they're that clever. No, I and I think. Going back to Putin's interview with Tucker Carlson, one of the big takeaways I thought from there one he's he's presenting the the Muscovite ruse history versus the Kiev ruse history,
which I thought was interesting. But that aside, one of the things I think he was very clear about is, is historical precedents that lays the groundwork for no Croatia and also lays the groundwork for other statements he made after that saying or maybe during the interview, I can't remember
exactly. But he said something along the lines of, look, we don't make any claims for a lot of Western Ukraine that used to belong to Poland and Latvia and other places, and they're free to fight over it. Or will the Austrian Empire. Yeah. Right live of. Parts of Hungary, you know, Hungary had parts of western Ukraine as well at certain points. And Putin's basically was saying, hey, have at it. If you if you want to fight over the scraps, you're more than welcome.
It's it speaks directly to other intuitions I had about him. His empire of lies speech I don't believe was targeted towards the West. I believe his empire of lies speech was targeted towards other Eastern Europeans, specifically Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, people. He's basically saying careful, like watch out.
These guys don't, these guys aren't your friends and they're going to take your religion and they're going to, they're going to prune your kids and they're going to do this and they're going to do that. And you can't trust them. And lo and behold, all these things are happening and we're starting to see resistance, cultural resistance in places like Poland, Romania, Hungary, all these post European states who have no interest in the progressive woke agenda at all.
And that I find very, very interesting because I think if you're thinking about the long game, Putin might be trying to expand his sphere of influence, not just geographically, but almost cultural psychologically. Like he's playing, he's playing slot. He's he's, he understands, maybe Slavics a whole lot better than the EU and the West combined. Yeah, that's what it puts some to.
Some real vulnerabilities of Ukraine on the other side maybe you mentioned this guy Madonna, he's from Osgorod, which is way on the West, was part of Czechoslovakia before war two-part of Austrian Empire before that. It's got a mixed population of Blovaks and Hungarians. And in fact, his code name is Madhyar, which means Hungarian.
I mean, so there you, you've got a lot of the western part of the country that is only in Ukraine. It wasn't even part of the Russian Empire. It was in the Austrian Empire before War One and then in Poland mostly between the world wars. And you know, the Ukrainians are what's the part about glass houses and throwing stones? I mean, they're in a glass house and, and right now the eastern side of the house is shattering, but there's a western side of the house that's pretty fragile too.
And I don't know at what point maybe a collapse militarily in the east causes the whole thing to come crashing down. I mean, we saw the rapid collapse of a state in Syria just a few weeks ago. I don't rule out that it's at some point, and I don't know where that is. The Ukrainian state could shatter the same way. Doesn't mean there won't be Ukraine as a country.
There won't be Ukrainians as a people, but the state itself, unfortunately, has been very fragile and corrupt from the very beginning in 1991, and I think a lot of its fundamental fault lines are starting to catch up with it. Let's let's use it as a. Transition point.
Let's talk about 1991 a little bit because you know, we just said that Syria was a country one day and the next day it wasn't December and December 1st of 1991, Ukraine declares its independence by December 8th of the same same year, the Soviet Union is no longer. So this entire mega power super state, you know, 7580 year experiment, just one day didn't exist and basically had a whole bunch of people living on different borders and didn't know where they were in the
world. I mean, this is part of the reason why we have these problems in eastern Ukraine because, you know, I think it's difficult for people to understand maybe anyone who doesn't who didn't live in Quebec, Canada. It's hard to understand how people could be living in a country and feel like they're not part of the country, that they are distinct and different because of cultural, language, heritage, etcetera.
Something you said to me, Jim, privately really hit me was that when you were working inside the government, you realize that, and maybe I misquote you and so please correct me here, but you realize that the, the US government at the time or the the State Department wasn't really against communism. They just hated the Russians and that coloured the entire relationship and maybe is also why America veered into this
quasi. I hate using the word communist because I think it's an empty term now, but sure, whatever. Like Janet Yellen, I'm I'm very it's very easy for me to say that Janet Yellen is a communist. I'm fine with that. I'm very fine with the idea that that that Kamala Harris had some sort of communist wizzle wazzle muffin top stuff floating around in her head. So who knows? But maybe expand on that if you wouldn't mind, Jim, because I think that's really important.
And then we'll get into 1991. Because I think understanding the American response specifically to Russia and to this post Soviet empire and to Ukraine and Balkans and etcetera, that I think really comes down to it is that they didn't hate communism, they just hated the Russians. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. Well, you know, it's just a brief note on 1991 because he's a point out. In December of 1991, there was a referendum in Ukraine where the country voted pretty heavily.
I'd like I think 8590% in favor of a sovereign and independent Ukraine when the writing was already on the wall. The Soviet Union was coming apart and the only part of Ukraine that did not vote in majority for that I believe was Crimea. The rest of the Ukraine voted in favor of that and of course the far West, almost 100% in favor
of that. People forget though, the earlier that same year, I think it was March or April, there was an earlier referendum in Ukraine about Ukraine remaining as an associate in a, in a federative Republic together with Russia and the other Soviet states. And that passed by about 80%. And that was of course was very popular in Crimea.
The far West voted against it and everybody in between voted in the majority for it. So you can see that there was not a, you know, kind of a hardening of Ukrainian opinions about independence of versus a continued association and federation with the rest of what had been the Soviet Union and still was at that time. The I, I think I think what the way you described it is about, right.
The sense that working at the Soviet desk and the overall attitude during the State Department and this is during the Reagan years was that it hadn't really changed much under Reagan, that the attitude was essentially one of, you know, globalism, secularism, kind of soft socialism. There were probably, I don't think there were too many actual communists there, but they weren't anti communist either.
They didn't see communism as necessarily a bad thing that maybe it took on bad forms in Russia because Russians are bad people. But the overall idea of progress and, and getting away from tradition and religion and, and, and so on and so forth, those, those are values that we
basically share. That's why people talked about convergence back in those days that, you know, capitalism and communism going to meet in the middle somewhere and some kind of mushy social democracy and, you know, the, the Francis Fukuyama's end of history kind of notion before he wrote about that just everyone. Bernie Sanders. Yeah, basically Bernie. Sanders world, Yeah. And you know, I don't I don't want to say he's actually so much a communist, but a not an anti communist, Sir.
Yeah, world. Worldwide. Maine. Imagine if the world could just be Maine would be fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Or, or John Lennon's imagine, you know, that's, that's the world that they all were sort of hoping for, you know, free Ben and Jerry. 'S for everybody, all the time. Well, well, well for.
Example. You know, Strobe Talbot, who was Bill Clinton's house at, at, at Oxford and later I, I forget what you did at the State Department, he, he wrote a piece called, what was it called about something about being the citizen of the world coming New world order where everybody's going to be 1 country. There'll be no borders, no nationalities, no religion, none of that kind of stuff.
And then I think it came as a shock to them when communism fell and there were nations there, people who still remembered that they're Russians or Ukrainians or Georgians or Serbs or Poles or whatever it is. And then that's where I think then that a, a real pronounced Russophobia boiled up to the surface. I mean, there's also Cerbophobia and things like that. But Russophobia in particular, which I think has several
sources. One is we've got a very long history of Anglo-Saxon, specifically British Russophobia that goes, you know, back before the Crimean War and and somehow a lot of Americans with, let's say, more of an Anglo-Saxon kind of pedigree sort of stepped into those shoes.
But then of course, you all be obviously have, you know, the Victoria Newlands and the Bob Kagan's and the the kind of the neo con Jewish kind of, you know, I remember the pogroms back in kitchen Yelp and all that other kind of stuff that had their own ethnic acts to grind.
And I think all that. And of course, then you also had, you know, and this includes the West Ukrainians, you know, the Croats, the Hungarian, you know, I can remember there were these these what were they called Captain nations groups that met in Washington. There was something called the Anti Block of nations, which was run by again and Yaroslav Stetsko. They were originally was created by MI 6 and later it was taken over by the CIA.
And then what they basically think, well, it was kind of like a World War 2 losers association. These the people who had sided with the Axis during the war didn't like the territorial arrangements that had been made at the end of the war and wanted revised back to what they had been in 1943. And in the Balkans, by the way,
they pretty much got their way. If you look at the the borders today compared to 1943, the long and the short of it is a lot of things were had a lot of thumbs were in the pie, including a lot of ethnic prejudices, religious prejudices, long standing historical revisionist attitudes, coupled with the failure of this big globalist, you know, Bernie Sanders vision
for how history ought to end. And then when history came back with a vengeance, all these knives came out and, and, and, and one of the big ones in there, especially with with Putin having been perceived to revive, well, not not quite the Russian Empire the way it was before World War One, but something that's recognizably Russian national and Christian. That's just that's just impermissible that that that's like the devil Incarnate. And that's sort of where we are
right now. I'm comfortable blaming the polls by. The way. You know, I think there are a lot of. Poles who feel that way. I, I, I, I know, but I've talked to a lot of Poles who don't feel that way. I mean, they're not necessarily friendly toward the Russians, but they understand is a little more complicated than the standard narrative. And by the way, they're not real on the Banderas either, especially after what happened
in Volvia in 1943 and all that. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of, lot of ugliness to go around. Let's get to 1991 a little bit. And I know we're we're testing some time. I see, I see a chat. I'm not ignoring you completely. Buck Johnson would like to ask you, Jim, why you're always so optimistic. He's cheerful, Buck. He's. Cheerful. What else would you want from the man? Well, well, optimist is. A definition of an Optimus is a pessimist.
It doesn't have all the facts. And once you have the facts, you can be pessimistic about the short run. But any good Christian should be optimistic about the long, long run. There we are. See, Jim, Jim might be Greek, but he but he, he has a soul of a of a Slav. He understands these things where there is no there is no prolonged joy. It is all suffering really at the end of at the end of the day, the So let's get to 911991 a little bit.
Where were you in 1981? What what are your memories of 1991, both professionally and me in your own private life? You want to share any of those stories? But certainly what was the mood in December of 1991 inside the government? You know, some narratives say that everyone was completely unprepared for this. Obviously there was preparations for this eventual happening.
We'd already had glasnos and pedestroika being being relatively disastrous, Gorbachev trying to re modernize or trying to change the Russian economy on the fly. And that of course was not working and possibly because people didn't want it to work. And certainly we get to December and within within a few short days, the Soviet Union is is completely gone. What's the mood inside of Washington at that point? Were you? I'm assuming you were, you were still working in Washington at
that time. Where was Jim? Yeah, I. I was working at the Senate at that time, and part of my job was to write analysis for the republican offices, for the senators and staff, so they would know what the Hell's going on. And remember, we talked about 1991, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. What came before that in June of 1991, the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
And then that was in some ways kind of a preview of what was going to happen in in the Soviet Union, except that that one was much more violent initially initially than the Soviet Union was initially. And that's where I started to run afoul with the establishment because I was doing my best simply to try to describe the facts as they are. I, I was doing briefing papers like, oh, the Soviet Union, it's composed to these various republics.
There's a Ukrainian Republic and a Russian republican. And because people did not know those things in the Senate, I mean, you can imagine the kind of knowledge about the outside world you tend to find in the Senate. So I was trying to write a, you know, AC spot run level of of of analysis of saying who here's who all these people are. And here's why they're going to be behaving the way they are. And that was particularly a problem in Yugoslavia, where I
ran afoul of Bob Dole's office. He was the majority of the Republican leader at the time. Because I tried to write as neutrally as I can. OK, here's where the Serbs are. Here's where the Croats are. Here's how they bet. And here's why each of them distrust the other. And here's what happened in history and so on and so forth. And I was basically called on the carpet and told, no, you
can't write it that way. The Serbs are communists and they're bad and everybody else is good because they're Democrats and pro American. And at that point I was starting to realize this is, it's not going to be as easy as I thought. My, my naive hope was that, you know, 'cause I'm, I'm a lifelong anti communist, that communism is ending and that we can go back to a kind of a normal pre 1914 world where, you know, hopefully we've learned something in the course of the 20th century.
Don't start killing each other again. But least we're rid of that crazy ideology. And, and unfortunately, I was rather naive at the time. In 1991, December, when the Soviet Union broke up, my first thought was, OK, the red flag's down. The Russian tricolor is back up. I used to have that on my desk at this, at the State Department at the Soviet desk back in the 1980s. And people didn't even know what that flag was. I'd say, oh, it's the Russian flag. I think it's going to be back
soon. Oh, you what are you crazy? And so I, I guess I was hoping we were re entering normal history after the ideological insanity of the 20th century. I wasn't as focused on the territorial breakup of the Soviet Union as I should have been and as I was at the time of
the Yugoslav breakup. But that's mostly what I was focused on at the time, trying to explain to people as much as possible who the actors are, why they're behaving in a certain way and what the consequences would be for the United States. What I was slow to pick up on was how that establishment that was never particularly anti communist simply looked at this as an opportunity to say, great, now we can pick up all the marbles and run the whole world ourselves.
And that's really where the neo con direction came in. Yeah, I. Found it interesting doing doing background on that time period. You know, one of the things that the new Ukrainian government did immediately was declare that is the the primary language is going to be English and not Russian. Even though the majority of people there spoke Russian, they had been speaking Russian for over 250 years. Catherine the Great famously annexed the majority of Ukraine and outlawed Ukrainian language
etcetera. And it, it was in, they had to import people from Canada and Chicago and a few other enclaves in the West to go back to Ukraine to teach Ukrainians how to speak Ukrainian. And so this has been a 30 year process. I mean, the country itself is really only 30 years. I, I thought 91 would be a good starting point. And we'll maybe pick this up in in, in in the the next episode because I mean, we could go back 1000 years and maybe the series we will have going back 1000
years. But excuse me, can I? Can I? Interrupt. Can I interrupt slightly there 'cause I know a couple people who grew, grew up in Kiev and, and learned in during the Soviet period, late Soviet period. And they learned Ukrainian and school, even though the primary instruction was in Russian. But they also learned the Ukrainian language as part of
their studies. And they said they cannot understand the Ukrainians being spoken today because as you point out, a lot of these people were coming from the West, particularly Canada and Argentina, and these were overwhelmingly people from West Spain. So what became then the standard Ukrainian language in independent Ukraine was even by Ukrainian standards, a far Western dialect, but that became the standard Ukrainian because that's as different from Russian as you can possibly get.
Whereas, you know, in in Kiev, First off, Kievan is, is basically a Russian speaking city, but also Ukrainian spoken in the center part of the country is not the same thing as the Ukrainian spoken in the western part of the country. And you know, it's like any country, like you go to Germany. I mean, people obviously speak different local language in
Bavaria or Saxony and so forth. You could say the same thing about Italy. Ukraine is a complex country in relation to linguistically and historically to the rest of what had been the Soviet Union before that the the Russian Empire. All of this stuff gets spat out and, and simplified as never mind all that. Ukraine good, Russia bad W good, E bad. It's, it's, it's this kind of bizarre Manichaean way of looking at the world and putting people into boxes based on very simplistic notions.
So you mentioned before that, Bob? Dole is basically saying anti Serbia prover when I was because Serbia, Serbia communist Serbia, Serbia bad and we we've already covered that. That may not be totally accurate in terms of communism. Not really the big bad so much. Why do you think they had a bugaboo about Serbia?
I mean, I can speculate, but I found that really interesting that Serbia itself was the, you know, versus Croatia versus Bosnia or, or who are whoever else in that we want to pick apart. What? Why do you think the Why do you think Serbia got pegged?
Oh, I know why exactly. I'd rather not say in public what all the details are, but remember I mentioned the World War 2 Losers Association and the very ethnic lobbies in the in Washington. Well, some of those were very well placed in order to further their agenda in the in places where a lot of the, you might call regular Americans had absolutely no idea. In other words, they thought they were just pursuing democracy and freedom and
American values. They had no idea they were carrying water for somebody's ancient ethnic feud. Right. Yeah. That's kind of what I figured also if if people are holding grudges all the way back to, you know, whoever, whatever time, certainly World War One might be might not have completely
dissipated from people's minds. I think really what I've been seeing is this sort of transference that the, the mortal Hun, you know, the eternal Hun has been transferred over to to the Russians in general. And you know, growing up Eastern European or certainly being tagged as an Eastern European in Canada. I mean, my mother had had had stories of being, you know, being called a Hungie and being mistreated.
There was concentration camps for for Hungies, Hungarians and East vaguely Eastern Europeans. A lot of a lot of Ukrainians got rounded up for that as well in Canada. Yeah, Bo hunks. Exactly. Yeah, There's a term I haven't heard in a while, so this isn't new, you know, this sort of strange fetitization of the East and and this sort of Saturday morning cartoon logic with it.
One of my aims maybe for this series and certainly everyone who's interested to go buy Jim's book, I tried to warn you. Collection of essays and and stories and and writings by George James, George Chatris. One of the things I, I hope to maybe do in the series is to demystify the, the Russian or the Slav, the Eastern European, whatever you want, whatever term
you like to use. Because I feel that there's depending on who you talk to or maybe depending on the day, the Russians are either these Barbarians, uncouths, you know, gas station with, with guns out in the middle of nowhere of no concern or great Machiavellian evil. These plotters and their people are cut from the stone and all this stuff. And it's very, you know, it's, it's terribly romantic, but doesn't really apply to reality at all. It may be in parts, but not, but
certainly. Let me, let me, let me. Let me, let me jump in here if I can, because one of the essays in there is one called Pravoslavophobia. And it, it, it, it, it, it, I, I think this is a, a part of the mix too that I didn't mention is that, you know, during the first thousand years of Christianity, the real center of culture, civilization, so forth was in the East, the East Roman Empire,
Byzantium, if you will. And the West was, you know, after the collapse of the West Roman Empire, the, you know, under barbarian rule. I mean, it was, it was in the, the dark ages could be overstated, but there is an element of truth to that. And it really only started to recreate what we might call a high civilization during the Carolingian era and, and, and, and ultimately what we get into the scholastic era, which is when the, the split between the
churches occurred. And then after that, partly because of the the, the very perilous situation in the East at the hands of Islam, things shifted where the West became the powerful driver for European crystal civilization. And it was kind of on the back foot. And that's when you got things like the 4th Crusade or the Teutonic Knights of the Swedes trying to invade Novgorod and so forth. There was always the sense that somehow we were wrong. We were backward because we
weren't scholastic. We weren't under the Pope, we
weren't Baroque culture. We know we didn't have all these Western intellectual and rationalist the ideas and and I think that's something that's carried on into the present day, long after it became just a sort of a Roman Catholic, Orthodox thing where the the Western European culture, which of course includes America, tends to look down on what we might call the Byzantine skull cultural sphere as something backward and dark and eastern and all those, you know, bad
thing words. And I think that's part of the subtext maybe more about a gut level rather than more of a conscious thought on most people from a Western European cultural heritage. Yeah. I mean, look. To be fair, I don't think Eastern Europeans make it easy or you know, fight against this the stereotype too much. But we can maybe get into some cultural discussions as the series continues. I just put out the question to the chat.
If anyone has any questions, we can do a little brief Q&A before we end it here. Thank you so much, Jim. We'll be back next week, I believe, to do Episode 2. This has been streamed to the members chat. We'll continue to do that. What I'll end up doing once we're done here is do some light edits and get a, a more YouTube and Spotify and yadda, yadda optimized version out to the people. So I will be looking forward to
doing that. And to keep an eye out, follow me on X and all the places to, to get any announcements. Anybody in the chat who's still there, Buck, anybody who has any questions, we can ask them now or forever hold your peace. Any last thoughts, Jim? Any last any last thoughts on Trump's announcements or any of the other things we've covered so far? No, at this point I think that
the. Situation is so fluid and we have so little information what's really, for example, these reports we've heard over the last week about aid being cut off, being cut off to Ukraine that have been so contradictory and partial and just uncertain what really is going on and out. We're all just speculating right now, I think. Yeah, the aid thing was very.
Interesting to me, I saw the headline in my basically leaned right forward in my chair because the wording was so vague that it might well this is going to be applied anyway which way they want to. I think because initially it sounded like they were cutting off all foreign aid, including military support. And then I looked into it a bit more. Obviously some of the support had been and people. I think I forgot all.
About this was, it was, it was a bit of a news topic that, but the Biden regime had set up funding for Ukraine well into Trump's or, you know, whoever. I think maybe, I don't know if Trump had won the election at that point. But regardless, it was going to be set up well into 2025. And there's no way to disrupt that easily. Who knows? So we already knew there was going to be a stream of money going into there anyways. And so, yeah, the, the, the wording on it was very vague.
We're not sure if it's aid money or supplemental packaging or we have no idea. I think it's just more the Trump administration is, is reserving the ability to to send money or not depending if they like your face today or not, which you know. It's it's a tactic I. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm neutral on the whole, on the whole Trump phenomena. What's your feelings so far with with your new president? Is this far into into his into his four year, 4 year run? I I I like.
Some of the initial indications on things like sending troops to the border, stepping up deportations, things of that sort. You know, I guess he's wants to do some again. I don't know what those really amount to at the end of the day. I mean, as I understand it, the troops are just being sent as support for CBP. The deportations are stepping up a big hit over what they were. But I think these flights do Columbia or wherever Guatemala are more demonstrative than actually big numbers.
But I think it shows an impulse in the right direction. Some of the executive orders, hey, look, release of the J Sixers for me that was big and I and frankly went beyond what I expected. I was working with some people that are trying to bring some aid to those people as they get, you know, thrown out of jail, some of them without any warning
or any support system in place. So yeah, there's some good stuff going on. Clearly compared to a openly anti American, anti Christian regime under Biden or Kamala Harris. Yeah, I'll take Trump any day of the week. How that will translate into the foreign sphere, I don't know. I, I don't, I don't, I don't know if we're really going to annex Canada or, or Greenland or the Gulf of America or, I mean, who knows, Who knows where he's going with that stuff. I found it very interesting.
That France came out and said that they offered offered their military to defend Greenland from America if if necessary, if if the Danes called upon them, France would answer the call. Very nice of the French. Didn't offer for Canada though. Just I found that very insulting a little bit. As as someone. Yeah, that's from. A I'm from a French product. My goodness. Secular beer. Come on, ASD. What the what? Well, Greenland is all right.
You like the Greenland, but you don't like to come over and save us a little bit. What the what? What about the French over here? Very. It's very, very insulting. It's very on brand for the French, I think. Yeah, I, I think, yeah, you know, I think, I think. I think, I think General de Gaulle would have offered to defend Quebec, though, I mean. At least send a boots, a dinghy, something, some baguettes, a care package, perhaps you know, some cheese. We would, we would appreciate it.
OK, Jim, we all love cheese. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Jim. Thank you everyone for listening, Jim. Let the people. Know where they can, where they can get more of your work or get access to you. The only place really is on. X Twitter, whatever we call now at Jim Jatras. That's my only social media. I don't really write much anymore, but when I do, on occasion I do write that.
And of course, my book you have there you can get, I think the hardcover is out on Amazon, but they should be reordering. I think Barnes and Noble still has it or you can get on lulu.com directly from the printer. I, I I. Think I mentioned this too before, you know, to get this shipped out to Australia. This was a very expensive book, so I've been treating it very
well. I was, I, I contemplated on getting the hardcover 'cause I do like hardcovers when I can, but I was like, no, I don't need to remortgage my house for a book. I like a book with Jim but. There are limitations. I don't want. I didn't want to have to. I'm sorry I didn't set the prices. No, no, no, it's not your fault. It's, it's, it's getting anything shipped out here to Australia sometimes gets a little bit silly, but, but it is a very good read. I, I highly recommend it to
anybody. And of course, hopefully as we go on this series, people get to know you more and be more interested in, in reading more about what you'll just say. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am Jason Merenchuk, and it is later than you think.