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.