We've got a lot to cover on this episode of the podcast. There's this bombshell report that the CIA and the intelligence community asked foreign spy agencies to surveil twenty six associates of Donald Trump heading into the twenty sixteen election. Why did they do that? What does that mean? And then we also have what's going on in Europe right now, the war in Ukraine. We've got the Deputy Secretary of Russia Security Council warning about the possibility of an accidental nuclear war.
How would that happen? What do you need to know about that?
We've got the House Intelligence Committee chair warning about a serious national security threat. And then you've got FedEx's founder Fred Smith talking on Fox News about how Russia, along with a brick alliance, is working to dethrone the dollar.
So what does all of this mean?
What should you know about what is really happening in Ukraine and how it impacts us in the rest of the world. We're gonna have Rebecca Koffler on the show today. We've had her on before. She always brings a unique and interesting perspective to the show. She's a former da intelligence officer and author of Putin's playbook. She's also the managing editor of Cuttothnews dot com, and she's going to break all of this down for you in a very in depth way. Trust me, this is a fascinating interview.
You're gonna learn a lot. I know I did stay tuned.
Well, Rebecca. It's great to have you back on the show.
I think it's safe to say that we have a lot to cover, so I'm looking forward to hearing your insight on a bunch of different topics today.
Great to be with you, Lisa, you and your audience today.
I wanted to start out on you know, before we get to what's going on in Ukraine, I wanted to get to this bombshell report that the CIA and the intelligence community asked foreign spy agencies to surveil twenty six associates of Donald Trump's heading into the twenty sixteen election.
Is that normal and what do you make of that report?
It should not be normal, Lisa. In fact, it is illegal. But unfortunately, in the past several years, the intelligence community has become so politicized that I am not surprised at all. Uh. I mean, they're the one who concocted the whole Trump Russia collusion conspiracy theory that effectively destabilized our government for years. And it's because they wanted to remove Trump from you know, from ballot and then from his presidency. And you know
what happened as a result of this. You know, Russia's threat has been brewing for years, and these people, instead of targeting the real foreign threats, they decided to target American citizens. They prioritize resources for the wrong thing. And now we are in the conundrum with the world being on fire because nobody bothered to a identify these threats properly and be developed counter measures to them.
I mean, it also begs the question is our intelligence community working for us or against us?
Well, clearly right now there's and I want to make it clear that many, many good people in the intelligence community, dedicated honest intelligence officers with whom I had the privilege to work with. But I also encountered just like political hacks that who were careers and also they were working exactly like you said, against us. And that's what this whole deep state is about. And you probably know from
my book that I myself experienced those hacks. They were trying to you know, silence my book to censor, the attempt to silence and censor my book put his playbook in which I want about Putent's invasion of Ukraine that was coming, but nobody wanted to do a thinker because they were busy, you know, chasing hoaxes and targeting twenty six US citizens Trump associates.
I guess what I'm trying to.
Is this what they have been doing or do you think this was more specific to Donald Trump?
Okay, well it is more specific to Donald Trump. Before that, I never experienced this sort of situation. Yes, there is a counterintelligence program within the intelligence community, obviously, because the concern is always that foreign intelligence agencies would try to infiltrate their own spies, their operatives, and so we're constantly on the lookout to identify those. But this particular thing was an a normal and now it has become normalized.
Why did it happen is because a lot of people, particularly in the CIA, particularly on the analytics side, left us and the operational guys, the ones who actually go in the field, they tend to be, you know, more conservative. And the truth is that we're not supposed to be partisan at all. We take like a form of an oath when we join the intelligence community that we're supposed to speak truth to power, how we see it, you know, how the threat presents itself, how we're identifying, you know,
the key indicators. That's how we're supposed to report it. But what happens is that some of the elements, and especially those who are in charge, and we know their names, right, it's uh, it's James, call me, John Brennan and James Clapper. They are the architects of the collusion hoaks and they spent you know, a lot of resources on this. And yes, because they're Trump haters.
You know, yeah, I guess it.
You know, Chuck Schumer did say that the you know, uh, intelligence agencies have six ways from Sunday of getting back to you, are getting back at you.
Uh you know, went.
Directed at Donald Trump of saying that you know, basically they'll get the revenge, and oh, exactly they have exactly.
I want I want to nuanced a little bit something of what I said. It's not just I said just Donald Trump, it's anybody who would be their political opponent. Right. We know that they targeted Taker carlst This is why for three years, you know, he wasn't able to get an interview with the Russian President Ladmir Putin. They actually were surveying him twenty four seven. You know his communications,
Tucker causons. So it's other US citizens who are not with the party line, who are not with the program for independent thinkers, and who are actually trying to bring the truth to the American people. So I wouldn't be surprised, Lisa, you're quite you know, you always speak the truth to your audience, so I wouldn't be surprised if you became a target.
Well, let's not, let's not put that off. Leave me alone.
I'm just you know, I know, I'm just trying to live my life.
You know, it's kind of a joke.
But if you hed about it, to think about it as the Russians like to say, there's a joke in every joke, meaning that usually jokes are based on Now I'm true.
You know Tucker did finally, you know, he did get that interview with Vladimir Putin.
What did you make of it?
And why do you think there was so much effort to try to prevent that from happening.
Well, I answered the second question first. The reason why, especially the US government tried to prevent Tucker from doing it is because Tucker, again, like I said, talker is an independent thinker. He's not down with the party line. He wanted to really get down to the bottom of who Putin is because remember, Russia is one of the
top annissaries of the United States, just like China. And this is actually what the intelligence community should be doing, is trying to get inside Pulu's brain, and instead they were trying to get inside Tuckers and Trump associates networks and their brains. Right. So that's and they didn't want the American people to hear what Putin has to say because the Russia Ukraine issues really not simple. It's very very complex, and the deep state tried to simplify it
Russia bad, Ukraine good. No, Putin is not a saint, absolutely not, but neither is z Lensky. Lensky authorizes his
intelligence services to interrogate Ukraine's Christian Orthodox priests. He also authorizes his spy opera to grab our military age Ukrainian men off the street to go serve in the military because he's running of out of resources right now, right And so this interview, which was by the way, two hours, seven minutes and eighteen seconds, and I listened to the entire thing in both languages, in Russian and in English, and it reveals Putin's thinking. And Putin made a case.
Putin is an attorney, right, He's a trained attorney, and he wants everything to at least appeal legal, and if something that he wants to do is illegal, then he modifies the law like he did, you know, modify the Russian constitution to allow himself to continue running for presidency. And so he revealed in his monologue why Russia has claims on some of the lands that are now part
of Ukraine. Again, it's complicated, and if American people hear us, that would make them think, oh, Putin actually has a point on some of these things.
We've got to take a quick commercial break. More with Rebecca Kaufler on the other side, do you think from listening to it, because obviously the argument of sending money to Ukraine and being involved in, you know, helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia is that, well, if we don't help Ukraine, Russia is going to expand beyond those borders.
Did you get the sense from this interview is that what Putin has on his mind, you know, kind of what was your sense about where Putin views this war with Ukraine, his standing in the world, and sort of what his broader ambitions currently are.
Sure, while this interview just confirmed my previous and these analysis, and that is no, Putin does not have any designs on the Baltics, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, on Poland, god forbid. Uh here's why not Only like Tucker said, he doesn't need those lands. He has enough trouble on his hands managing Russia. But also from the strategic uh standpoint, those countries, Poland and the Baltics are part of NATO. Putin is
not an idiot, nor he's suicidal. Attacking one of those countries would trigger Article five collective defense and NATO is conventionally superior than Russia. What does it mean that when it comes to the kinetic conflict, Russia couldnot possibly win if it had a direct confrontation or war with the United States unless it takes the war into the nuclear realm. Putin does not want to do that because that would be effectively, you know, world War three, the end of
the world. And again, he's a rational human being, and so now and those people who claim, like Chuck Schumer and all of those, you know, professional liars who want to gine up additional billions for Ukraine so that those of Ukraine and all doxk are not spend it on buying their larger yards and whatever and bigger mentions. Those people are illogical because on the one hand they've been
marking the Russian military about its incompetent performance. On the other hand, they claim that is going to go after a NATO country, Well, what is it? It can be both, right, So they speak out of both sides of their mouth because there's they just have ulterior motives when it comes to Ukraine.
You know, what what do you make of House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner has been talking about a serious national security threat?
What do you think that is?
And and why do you think he's putting that out there?
I was stunned, Lisa, when I heard this, this thing basically dominating the airwaves, and my phone was ringing off the hook. You know, people were asking what do you make of it? What do you make of it? First of all, it is irresponsible for him to talk about something like that. It was also curious why he decided to talk about this type of situation, and I'll give you and your listeners my fresh of the process, so to speak, intelligence analysis on what is exactly the threat
that Journey is talking about. And my intelligence reveals to me that it's about the recent launch of a hypersonic cruise missile called Tirkon. Tirquon was developed specifically on Pun's orders.
It's a hypersonic missile that serves as a counter to US ballistic missile defense because the United States exited the A b M Treaty and now that the two countries are in a proxy war over the control of Ukraine, which Russia perceives as it's part of its strategic security parameter kind of part of the It's similar to US
Monroe doctrine. I mean, we wouldn't allow Russia China to get as close as Mexico or Canada, and so of course Pool, you know, Ukraine is a red line for him, and so these weapons were being built for a few years now. And I'm actually one of the people who did brief Mike Turner's staff when I was at the Defense Intelligence Agency on hypersonics. And interestingly, you know, nobody
wanted to do anything about it. And in fact, the United States, our own pentergon, has yet to field our own capability, even though China and Russia are way ahead of us. And so all of a sudden turner decided to reveal this, which really really smells specially to me. I think what he's trying to do is basically gin
up additional billions for Ukraine. And now that you know Senate has passed the bill, you know, uh, they're going to continue or they're trying to continue milking the I as taxpayer for more foreign aid, as though this additional billions can do something that two hundred billions haven't done already. And so that's what is to me, it's all about. It's again, it's a shameful politicization of intelligence.
And what's the danger of hypersonic weapons.
Here's the danger. Hypersonic weapons are very fast and they are highly maneuverable, and what that means is that our missile defenses protecting the United States from missile strikes would
have a really hard time intercepting those. In fact, Putin has said many many times that so Gone is capable of penetrating BMD that Putin will never authorize an attack on the United States, either kinetic, whether it's with hypersonic weapons or with nuclear weapons, unless and this is the very important point, unless the Russian intelligence detects the United States either has launched or is about to launch, either a kinetic strike on Russia or non kinetic but crippling
strike on Russia, or in some other way crossed the red line. For example, something like retaking or an attempt to retake Crimea that Russia views as Russian having an exit, or retaking some part of Ukraine that the Russian forces currently control. Only in that case would authorize something like that, But again, it wouldn't be a bolt out of the blue sky. That will be what we call an intelligence
community escalation ladder. And this is what I Putin has been telegraphing to us by via cyber attacks, via all of these warnings. This is the red line. This is a red line. Don't do it, don't send weaponry to Ukraine. So we would have plenty of time to think about the problem is, Lisa, is that it seems like our intelligence and security operon us, and more importantly, our president as simply incapable of realistically assessing our adverstories and their mindset,
as well as our own resources. We have depleted our own weapons, arsenal. We are depleting our own treasury by throwing good money after bed, good weaponry after bed to Ukraine for nothing. And so now we could be defenseless because of the idiotic decisions that the Biden administration has made.
You know, one other thing that you know concerned me is something that FedEx's founder of Fred Smith said the other day on Fox about how Russia is working to dethrone the dollar, using the Brick Alliance to do so. Brick is you know, Brazil, Russia, India, and China as well as South Africa. I believe there's other countries like Egypt to Ethiopia, Rod, Saudi Arabia and the Amaraates as well.
You know, what should people know about that?
I mean that seems like it should be getting more attention than it has been.
Sure, yes, and then fact I wrote a couple of months ago a piece on New York Post about that, about the bricks and basically the de dollarization trend. But again, the crux of the match, Lisa, is that our own you know, the so called expert right, the Washington establishment have sort of driven our advisors into to this point to start de dollarizing by using our fiat currency, uh, the US, the mighty US dollar, as a weapon, by
placing sanctions on, you know, on foreign countries. Yes, Putain could be you know, a bad you know, human being, a terrible human being. You know whoever chopped up the Russian post uh journalist, the SHORGI Uh, those people are also you know, terrible people. But if you are trying to you know, chop the branch of the tree on which you're sitting, I think it might be a Russian program. There is such a thing in English. By digging your own hole, then you only have yourself to blame. And
sanctions never worked. I mean right now, the Russian economy is doing very well because it was propped up by the defense industrial complex. Because Russian actually, unlike NATO and like the United States, transitioned. Oh a, what I'm putting years before the invasion. And I actually briefed also the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, NATO about that. There's something called the special period that triggers the transition of the economy. And so the sanctions never worked, So why did we
do that? And so the third order consequence. That's another term we're using the intelligence business, is that by using dollar as a weapon, we are uh diminishing our own economy and basically eliminating the breast of the future for our own country. Because people are not stupid right right now, even India is kind of reluctant to use the US dollars. Certainly China and Russia they have been de dollarizing the economy and that will have very severe consequences in a
few years for the United States. Yeah.
And and of those consequences, Fred Smith said that if bricks is successful in this deliberate course to dethrone the dollar, if that happens, we can't sell our bonds. I can assure you the living standards that we all enjoy today are going to be a thing of the past, which is a pretty damning and scary thing to say. Quick break more in Russia, Deputy Secretary of Russia's Security Council told a Russian newspaper recently that the risk of quote
unquote accidental nuclear war breaking out has risen sharply. Some of the factors mentioned were the health of Defense Sectory Lloyd Austin, as well as Joe Biden's cognitive decline.
How do you read that? Do they want that out there? Does that mean anything?
And okay, it does, it definitely does. Here's what Putin means and just again, or rather patrushev right, So it doesn't mean that Putin is getting ready to launch a nuke, especially in the United States. The only reason, like I said earlier, that would happen. So we talked about hyperstonics. Now when it comes to nukes, the Russian doctrine calls for the use of tactical nukes in the event let's say that Putin word to lose Ukraine or like we were to try to retake Crimea. That's the that's the
case scenario. But what Patrusha likely meant was this, As everybody is already aware, Iran is in a shadow war against our country. I mean, they've launched close to two hundred attacks right now on US forces, causing brain damage to our personnel. And so why and yet the Biden administration has conducted only pinprick attacks, not even on Iran, that is the center of gravity for all of that mainness, but only on Iranian process the who sings. So Biden
has not established what we call escalation control dominance. None of our strikes have really deterred Iranians. Why is that? The reason in my intelligence assessment is this around is dangerously close to operationalizing their nuclear capability. How Uh well, there there are various schools of godenness. One of the assessments, uh, a very credible assessment says that it's within It was
like several weeks ago. It was within a week. So for all intents and purposes, I do not rely the possibility that they do have already a viable nuclear weapon and within a month they will be capable of producing I believe. Let me see if I can remember this six warheads, right, I think they have sufficient weapons grade uranium to both six warheads and then in five months twelve. Right, compared to Russia, which has six thousand nuclear weapons, it's nothing.
But you only need a couple to read have a right and once And on top of that, the Iranians just launched a satellite called Soraya that went into the highest orbit ever. Right, and this is what the capability that they use. You have to have a heavy leaf capability in order to launch in a CBM and intercontinental missile. Right, So they're developing those capabilities rapidly. And on top of that, Iran and Russia are now allied, and Russia is the
world's leader in space launch. Russia is the world's leader in nuclear nohow, Russia's nuclear arsenal even beats ours, especially when it comes to tactical nukes. And so, uh, this is why Iran is very arrogant right now. And and once it does have nuclear weapons, it's going to be almost impossible to compel them to stop this low grade uh destabilization and shadow war on our country.
You know, I know you previously have said that, you know, Russia is not suicidal when it comes to nuclear weapons, is iron.
Iran is a different character, uh, Lisa, Russia is not driven by ideology. Putin is is a realist. Uh, He's a rational human being. He just simply wants to make sure that Russia has its strategic security perima because with the collapse of the same that union, the distance between NATO and Russia has reduced from one thousand miles to one hundred miles. Right as I said before, no say Mility commander would allow this type of proximity to risk. So Pudines is not amendment but the Ayad told us
they are driven by completely different ideology. They are fanatics, and if you read any of the writings, you know they've said it many, many, many times that the United States is anathema. It's basically the devil. We are the big devil in Israel as the little devil in quotes, and they would stop at nothing to drive the United States out of the Middle East. But even more frighteningly, Lisa, than nukes is the fact that our audience have been developing,
according to US intelligence assessment, networks within US homeland. Okay, why do you think we pay millions of dollars and provide security to might compare on some of his former Trump administration staff who were working against Iran. It's because they are being targeted. And now that our border is completely wide open, Iran, as well as Russia and China have been flowing thousands of intelligence operatives into the country so that the sleeper cells when the time comes, they
can activate them. And that is the most frightening thing to me. The nukes, yes, it is frightening, But if our missile defense system cannot protect us from twelve nukes, you know that around will will have in five months, let's just say then, what good it is? You know, then we might as well just pack up and go home, right because Russia has six thousand. So I would be
more concerned right now about the internal threat. And this is why Christopher Ray, the f VI director, recently basically suggested that it's not a matter of if, but when there will be another terrorist attack.
You know.
And it's sad because you know, we did it to ourselves with open borders, and it didn't have to be that way, and it wasn't that way before. And you know, Joe Biden his administration shows this path that they've now put us on, and you know, there'll probably be repercussions as you just painted the picture for us, We've got to go to commercial sit tight. How incahoots are Iran,
Russia in China? You know, obviously they're each looking to destabilize different regions of the world and to you know, conquer more territory or at least you know, attack enemies like Iran has been doing with Israel v uh their proxies. How much coordination do you think is going behind the scenes with those countries.
Sure, I'll address the Russia China relationship. First, it is not a true strategic alliance the way that Putin and GMP one of portray uh their partners. But they're more like of a marriage of convenience. What drives them is they're like a lot of marriages, so so they are. What unites them is their hostility towards the United States and the perception that the United States is their threat number one, but in reality Russia perceives China as threat
number two? Why is that? And alluded to that although you kind of had to be uh, have to be able to read between the lines when he said what he talked and talk about it was very interesting to me. Uh. Putin dominated the most of the discussion, and he was very relaxed and and very kind of full of himself.
But the one question that Putin visibly got really not angry, but I could tell like his entire demeanor has changed and he got kind out close to Taka's space is when the question that asked was about China, and Putin UH basically said, China is has been developing economically and nearly tarily by leaps and bands and I'm paraphrasing. He didn't use that specific words, but and so China is even a bigger threat to the United States than Russia. And there are two schools of that are not an
intelligence community. But that is the reason uh why Putin, as he told Tuka for years, try to uh be friends, if you will, with NATO and with the West. To the point ways well Clinton, whether Russia could join NATO, it is because they wanted to offset the China threat. Russia has a huge border with China. The Chinese are acutely aware that uh the economy trump Russia's economy, and they've been infiltrating uh their population uh to the far
eastern border to Russia. Right, because Russia has a lot of natural resources and and China doesn't, or China that has different resources. Right. So in that sense, they don't have a specific very tight coordination. But if let's say, uh they want to challenge the US and the two theater war, they could coordinate that, right Uh. China attacks Taiwan, Russia is writing up the ante in Ukraine. We're already
spread out. Then you know that they could do. But it's not like their bodies and they share intelligence and they trust each other. Iran is a different story with Russia. And Russia right now is flowing assistance both from China and from Iran to help them prosecute the campaign UH in Ukraine. And so again they don't coordinate tightly with Iran, but if they can stage something that would challenge the United States spread our resources even and unbalanced Washington, that
they could do. And clearly, all of these foreign annastories, they're acutely aware of President Biden's cognitive and mental decline, and that could embolden somebody like Aroan to pop a nuke in order to discorient us even further.
There's a lot of articles recently about how Ukraine is struggling to counter Russia's advances on the battlefield on land, but they're having success at sea with things like naval drones. What does that mean for the broader war in Ukraine and where does that stand today?
So the war is right now in a deadlog basically, and my analysis has always been and it remains that there's no military path to victory for Ukraine. It is simply mathematically impossible. And the reason being is Russian military. Despite all the propaganda that you hear from the Washington establishment and the legacy media, Russia is considered by the Pentagon as a near peer competitor. It has the second best military in the world, right and so they also
have the population three times more than Ukraine. The Russians have about between one hundred and forty three and one fifty right now million. Ukrainians have forty three million. Right. So the war of attrition is what Putin is waging right now, and you can fight until the last Ukrainian And right now the average age of Ukrainian soldier is forty three and its rising. And the health of Ukrainian
men is very different than than Americans, let's say. And so Ukrainians are almost out of AMMO there rationing AMMAL right now, the front lines have not really changed like in the past year. I think less than maybe five miles or so, I need to double check has changed hands. So it's just the killing is continuing. The Ukrainian land
is now devastated. Ukraine is ceasing to exist as a viable country because we are providing not only weaponry, but also we're providing salaries to their civilian personnel, to the entire government, right tensions, et cetera. And so after we cut off our aid, if the aid is not approved. Ukraine is basically on the verge of collapse. Its critical infrastructure is destroyed, it's agricultural base is demolished, and the country is depopulated a quarter of a million, almost a
quarter of a million. It's approaching the number of dead or severely wounded Ukrainian man is the casualty toll. And I think Joe Biden has the Ukrainians blood on his hands by just prolonging, prolonging this war. And it's the biggest tragedy.
You know, there's obviously a funding fight on Capitol Hill about money going to Ukraine. Well, more money and weapons changed the outcome for Ukraine, because you know, that's the argument that a lot of people are making right now.
Absolutely not. I mean, look, we have already provided or committed to provide on the of two hundred billion. What do you think another sixty or however many billion will
do that two hundred didn't do. And on top of that, we don't have the production capacity to continue pumping out military hardware to supply to Ukraine, right, and neither do the Europeans and so But put on the other hand, like I said, he transitioned to his economy on the what I'm putting in about twenty fifteen, and they have no problem producing these kinetic military hardware that is required.
And now, what he also demonstrated with the recent launch this kaypersonic missile is that Ukrainians air defenses are going to have a very hard time with the wistard corn And basically putting his signaling right now is that it's time to come to the negotiating table because for all intents and purposes, this war is already done. It's ended. Ukraine has lost, Russia has won by virtue of having a different definition of victory. Put in, his definition of victory
was redline of Ukraine being part of NATO. He has achieved that because as long as Ukraine is divided, there's no Turtle integrity and there's an ongoing military operations, it is not eligible. And so no matter how long, and he can sustain this war for a long time because he just increased his defense budget seventy percent from twenty
twenty three to twenty twenty four. He also is mobelizing one hundred and seventy additional true to the maximum total of about a million point seven and so he has tremendous industrial militia economic capacity to continue, and Ukraine is on the verge of collapse, and so no additional billions, unfortunately, are not gonna help Ukraine.
Are you surprised that Ukraine's been able to hang on this long? Is this longer than you anticipated?
It is longer that I anticipated. But what I didn't anticipate is that the United States would provide this level of weaponry to Ukraine, because I could have never anticipated that we would deplete our own reference arsenal to dangerous levels like that, because right now, the production the timeline for replant sing for some of these weapons systems javelins,
for example, is between eight and seventeen years. So no, I would never anticipate that we would do such a thing, And that is the only reason Ukraine was able to prevail, you know, in addition to the fact that they've been really, really valiant fighters, and Zelenski did not capitulate in the very beginning, as Putin anticipated. So many people, including Pudin and many intelligence analysts, were surprised by how good Ukraine was able to hold on.
So does that mean that they could surprise US further and be able to expel Russia.
I don't believe. So they simply don't have the manpower. I mean, there's no like I said, said the average age is forty three now and Ukrainian intelligence services are hunting for people. They literally grab people off the street. Talking about democracy. That's another you know hoax that the media and the deep state propagated here is saying that Ukraine is a democracy. Nothing can be further from the truth. But so, no, they don't have the main power, they
don't have the required Notary Hidhware, Biden never provided. He just provided enough weaponry for to Ukraine to virtues signal that he's doing something. But he never provided a sufficient amount for Ukraine to win. And there's a very specific reason for that. If he did provide, that Putin would bring war home to the United States, right, So Biden
knew that. Again, Biden was briefed on all of that, you know, Russian world writing strategy prudence, how Putin is holding US homeland at risk, whether it's cyber, whether it's hypersonics, space weapons, you name it, and a lot of other like non kinetic means. And so Biden knew that Ukraine could never win. The reason, the real reason, Lisa, why the Europeans and the Washington establishment continue or wanted to provide a weaponry is to weaken Russia's military potential because
because the Europeans never provided for their own defense. Think about this, Only eleven countries right now, eleven NATAL members out of thirty one pay or even on track to pay two percent of their gross domestic product towards the defense. So they basically have been freeloading on us. And then they decided that they're just going to use Ukrainians as me to throw in Putin's meat grind. This is why Boris Johnson went to Kiev right several months after the
invasion and talked Zelenski out of negotiating with Russia. It's because both the United States and Needle wanted to weaken the Russian capability. But that is deeply, deeply, you know, immoral, because as I said, quarto over million of Ukrainian men are are now out of commission.
Before we go.
What kind of end deal and the war deal do you think Putin would be amenable to or would actually agreed to.
Point yes, So here's my analysis on that. So Putin clearly wants to negotiate. It's very clear from Tekkausm's interviews, but it's not going to be a cake walk for us. In the beginning of this war, or like a few months into it, my assessment was that Wudn't could just be happy with the twenty percent that that that he got right, and but now he feels emboldened. My analysis is that he wants to settle on his terms, which would be Primeer will remain Russian, and he would want
the West to recognize premiers Russian. The twenty percent that of the Dombas, the bar he uh annexed, they want that too, but they also want to RECOGNI. They want the West to recognize them legally, like legally bound agreement not to allow Ukraine to be part of Natal. So he wants those guarantees and probably the removal of the sanctions. My assessment is that none of it is acceptable to Washington or to Brussels, and so therefore the war will likely continue.
Well, that's.
Sad to hear. Rebecca Coefler. Appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and bring all this insight to us. Always fascinating stuff. I always learned so much from you. I really appreciate you making the time for us.
Thank you very much, Lisa. And if I may mention my new newsletter for independent thinkers that I launched. It is cut to thenews Dot. Go to this website and subscribe. Every morning you will receive an email newsletter that is meant for conservatives and independence thinkers. It is free of bias.
Well there you go, guys, go sign up for that. Rebecca, appreciate you making the time. Really do you always learn so much?
Thank you, Thank you Lisa. That was Rebecca Koffler.
Appreciate her taking the time to bring her insight and her background to talk about all this stuff. Obviously a lot going on in the world, so always good to hear someone's insight who has an expertise in the matter. I want to thank you guys at home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but of course you can listen throughout the week. Also want to thank John Cassio and my producer for putting the show together.
Until next time,