Transcription
Welcome back, everybody. Today, again with Stanislav Kravchenko, our friend and colleague from Russia, who's updating us on everything that's happening over there. Stas, welcome back.
>> Welcome back. Um, well, my day, I got back yesterday from the Donbas. It wasn't quite as exciting as going into the woods in Japan with the bear attacks.
>> We, we just were on your program and we talked about the fact that Japan has an insane amount of bear attacks, 238 in 2025 and 13 fatalities of that in 2025. And we, Japan wins against Russia, right? You guys only have four fatalities.
>> And that's up. That, that was, you know, 2 years ago was one, last year was three, or, or the year before last was three, 2 years ago was one, last year was four. And I had to divulge a secret to you. It's the bear cavalry, the untrained bears, you know.
>> Yeah. And, and, and ladies and gentlemen, you can, you can see we're so desperate with the situation in Europe that we'd rather talk about bears and woods than about what actually matters. But that's what we're going to switch, switch to right now. Because again, I would like to talk to you about what you've learned from the Donbas. You were there, you were, you, you uploaded videos on your channel, Mr. Slavic Man, Stas Kravchenko [clears throat] on, on YouTube. Everybody look it up. But you put videos there are, among others, of the school that got bombed where 21 kids in Luhansk died, right? And, and can you tell us a little bit about your impression at the moment of the Donbas?
>> I mean, this, this was in Starobilsk. Starobilsk is a, it's a town. It's not a city. It's the town of maybe like 40, 50,000 people, which I guess it was medieval times would have been a major city, but these days, that's, that's just a town. And this was a college for future teachers. And just, I mean, it's, it's a small college, right? So you've got uh, administrative slash classroom building, which is an old uh, Tsarist-era building. Uh, and there's a re-, I'll come back to that why I'm, by the way, emphasizing that point. And next door is the uh, uh, dormitory. I think it was just a girls' dormitory. Uh, there were some other buildings in that area, too. Uh, but first of all, what you saw w-, was just those two buildings. The reality is, they took out, first of all, these buildings are in an, in an area of the town that are surrounded by residential buildings. They took out an entire block with the, with these drones. Uh, across the street, uh, perpendicular to these two buildings is a five-story building, which was the arts uh, center for high sch-, for the local schools. The building's destroyed. I mean, uh, it, it took a direct hit. Had nothing to do with the college. It was, there was nobody there, thankfully, at night, uh, in that building. Uh, beside it is a, as a private house that took a direct hit. Uh, across, uh, from, uh, from, uh, uh, the, uh, dormitory is a restaurant that, uh, took a direct hit. Uh, so, they were just, they were just taking everything out around it, too. Uh, there's, uh, two, uh, craters, uh, from, uh, from these drones. Uh, one of those craters, uh, where they got the engine parts, uh, out of, pulled that out of the ground. And the remaining is a drone. Um, it's over 2m, uh, deep, and it's about 4m wide. They're packing about 250, uh, kilos of, uh, explosives on these drones. And these are big drones. Yeah, these aren't the little, uh, anti-personnel drones that you see, the, the, the quadro drones, uh, FPV drones. These are airplanes that drones. Uh, some of these drones get up version length. And mean, are big drones. Uh, they get to be the size of a small, some of them will actually, not in this case, but some of the ones that they get tossed toward Russia, I mean, no, Russia toward Moscow and other deeper areas of Russia, they get up to the size of a small Cessna planes. Yet, just to understand the size of these. Um, yeah, the, the explosive wave was, uh, so strong, uh, and the direct hits on the, on the Imperial building. Those were the administrative/classrooms. Uh, the, in part of the video, you see where I'm standing there looking at the wall. The wall thickness is, uh, about 2/3 of a meter of, of bricks. These are not what you call when modern bricks. Modern bricks are crap. Uh, mass-produced, uh, crap, uh, from, uh, primarily clay. The old bricks were because they, they'd last. The old bricks would last for just about ever because in every brick, uh, the standard was you add in, uh, an egg yolk into the mix. Egg yolks act like super glue, uh, on the bricks. You'll have bricks are 500 years under sun and water and they look almost brand new. Uh, I mean, it takes a lot of chickens. I was just saying for, for, for anything that size, for, for mass production, but yeah, it makes super bricks. Um, they're more expensive. Yeah, but.
>> You, you get, you just, you just need the yolk, right? So, you use the egg white to make some drink and.
>> The, right, right.
>> Anyhow, let's continue. Sorry.
>> You, you have mountains of riga if you're making whole buildings worth of it. I mean, you used to build castle walls that way, right? So, this building is, is, I mean, the walls are cracked. Uh, uh, the, the floors, the, the concrete flooring between levels is sunk in, uh, from the hit. Uh, but the interesting thing is, is I just, as of something that I put up, too. Uh, so, we, we saw this, uh, video of, of supposedly Moscow hitting, uh, the Lavra. Uh, the, the upper Lavra, which is a cathedral. Uh, and what people pointed out, I pointed out also, if you look at it, uh, if there was a missile strike on the Lavra, then Russia would never strike it. Uh, it's been, uh, desecrated, uh, every which way they can. They've made discotheques out of it. They show, they probably had orgies in there. I don't know. I mean, they, they've done everything under the sun in this to desecrate, uh, the Lavra since they took it from the church. Uh, but the, the interesting thing is, so it's the setting on fire, blowing it up. Uh, there, there's pictures that came out of, uh, during the day, somebody in the back behind, uh, was taking pictures as the, uh, uh, filming crew was setting their equipment up. And then in the middle of the night, the guy sitting there videotaping, taping the fire on the Lavra. So, obviously, it was a setup by job. They knew it was, it was going to hit. Um, but the, the windows, if you look at the windows, the windows, not only is the glass in the pane, not only the panes in the windows, but the glass is in the, in the panes, uh, on the Lavra. So, there's no explosion. And what I was pointing out, if you look at the panes in these walls that are, are 2/3 of a meter thick, the panes are ripped out. And that's from the explosion that was outside, and that explosion was a good, uh, 10m away where it missed the building, hit the ground. They just dug a, a big hole into the ground with explosive force. And the, and the panes are, are ripped out of the windows. They're still hanging there at angles. You know, the glass is obviously gone out of it, too. That's the explosive wave. Uh, that this is, uh, I mean, they, they were carrying massive explosives. So, 21 killed, uh, 18 girls, uh, three boys. 40 injured, but you know, a lot of those injured are invalids for life.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, this isn't a, hey, do you need some sta-, stitches or, or can we cover up that bruise? No, these are, these people, their lives have been destroyed. Uh, and, and they're lucky that it's only 21 killed. Uh, if you look at that building, I mean, the building's demolished. Part of the building had to be quite literally fell in on itself. That's murder.
>> Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there.
>> What is the analysis of, of why this target was chosen or whether it was a mistake or something? Because there's obviously no military reason behind that. And on the other hand, and we have to talk about this, there might be now this this strategy of the West to actually provoke Russia into into something much more that Russia tried to avoid now for the longest time, right? And what is it according to, what, what the current wisdom says in Russia?
>> Oh, this, this was strict terrorism. Ukraine is losing on a battlefield up and down the entire line, uh, the thousand kilometers of front. Uh, I mean, just, just understand how the West is reacting on, or how much truth it's telling you. You know, about 3 weeks ago, uh, the Ukrainians started waxing, uh, romantically about how they may have to leave, uh, and abandon Mirgorod or Dmytriv. Um, yeah, several months ago, they were wiped, they were surrounded and wiped out, uh, in Mirgorod. They're just now talking about we may have to leave it. I mean, this is the reality of the quote bare reality they live in. This was strict terrorism. Look, uh, E-, even if you ignore the fact that there were, uh, recon drones flying overhead, uh, for half a day before that, the strike, during that, during the daylight hours. 16 drones. This is not an accidental missile went in the wrong direction. This is 16 drones hit those that set of buildings. So five buildings, 16 drones.
>> But, but why that targeting? Because like even from a Ukrainian perspective, it's like you're basically hitting a school building filled with people who you claim are your own, right? You're claiming those are Ukrainians. That's the claim in Luhansk, right? I mean, if you want to do this terrorism, why is it, why is it there? Why is it not in, you know, pre-2022, uh, Russia? Like.
>> Oh, it's there, too. Well, I'll tell you what. It, you know, this is what they're claiming. But if you, if you listen to the various videos floating around of various Ukrainian politicians speaking before 2022, they'll all tell you, "These are roaches which is we have to stamp. These are rats we have to destroy." They want the land. They just don't want the people there. They want the resources. They don't want the people that these resources belong to. They consider us, consider they themselves are mostly Russians by ethnicity. They're mentally degenerate. That, that's obvious enough because no mentally non-degenerate would ever do this. If, look, you can look up lots of videos where during the 19, I mean, the 2000s, late 2010s, leading up to the special military operation, they, they were having parties dissecting cakes that looked like Russian babies with little Russian flags. It's a baby. Look, we're eating little babies. The Satanism was, it was incredible. That, that's just pretty permeated society. You know, whether it's, they, they were actually, you know, sitting at an altar of, of Satan or they're just believing in an atheistic Satanism where they support the exact same thing. They just don't believe in an entity called Satan. It, it's still Satanism. The attacks on, on everything that would be normal in a society. I mean, somebody brings out a baby, a cake shaped like a baby and people are thrilled cuz it's got a little Russian flag on it. I mean, they, there were videos of them putting out cakes in the shape of a Russian soldier's leg with a piece, with a piece of uniform on top of that came off of a dead Russian soldier. These videos, they upload these videos. Azov was, was committing human sacrifices. Burning people on crosses, be-, burying people with their heads in, and chopping their heads off. And they're videotaping this. They're the ones that put these videos up. On their channels as recruitment videos. I mean, this, the insanity is very, very heavy in that area. So, they, they flat out said, you know, these aren't real people. We don't need these. It's, it's, it's, it's hatred and, and racism on that level.
>> I have, I have no problems believing that there are, there are people who act like that. But when we, when we talk about this military level, because 16 drones and whatnot, I mean, this is a very large coordinated affair, right? Among a lot of people on the ground. And the only question to me is, if it is intentional, then what is, what is the political intention behind it? If it is unintentional, then why would they mistake a school building for like a military compound? Both, both things would tell us something about the state of affairs in political Ukraine. But, yeah, I, I just wonder how, how to best make sense of this, well, the very horrible attacks. Because the other attacks are kind of easier to read. The attack on, on St. Petersburg during the forum is easy to read what it is supposed to do. The attacks on these petroleum stations and whatnot is easy to read. That one, this, that one is hard to read. So, I, I wonder what, what it tells us on the political level about the strategy in Ukraine.
>> When you take out a bus, that's a bus going at night through a city, kill eight people on it, injure another 11. Take out a bus going, a Russian school, school children football team, killing a pregnant woman, putting two other adults in the hospital and four children. I mean, just understand the ages. And one of the witnesses, one of the adults said, we just switched the cartoons on. That's the ages of the children around there. When you hit houses, apartment buildings, specifically targeting them, lots of videos coming out. One of my wife's friends had, had a video of that their next door apartment was hit. And you can see the drones just flying straight in the middle of that apartment building. It doesn't, it doesn't clip it, it doesn't go out of control. It's, it's very directly flying into it. Yesterday, the Ukrainians murdered near Moscow, took out a two-story single family home, murdered a six-month-old baby, ripped the legs off of the mother who later died from, by the way, from massive brain injuries also. And the father lost a leg. And by the way, from that young family, when that father gets a prosthetic leg, what do you think he's going to do? He's going to go fight. He's going to go fight. He's going to go get revenge on, on the West for what they did.
>> So these drones, by the way, were the drones that took out and style of base were all made in Italy.
>> So let the Italians swallow that, that their baby murders. Their children, well, maybe these weren't babies, they were teenagers. The oldest one was 21. There were couple 21-year-olds and the youngest were 17, 16, 17. So that's what they're doing. That's what the money is going.
>> Is, is your conclusion that we are in a, in a phase of basically Ukraine and the, the, the West and the NATO using terrorism in order to provoke Russia? Is that, that's what we are in? Because that, that.
>> Yes.
>> Help me, when did that start? That, for the last, we've had now this war going on for over 4 years, but this kind of attacks on civilians inside Russia, inside pre-2022 Russia, is relatively new, isn't it? When, around when did it start?
>> In '22. So, they, day one.
>> It's a capability of striking deeper that's new.
>> Uh, Ukraine, they HIMARS missiles, which, by the way, I said from the very beginning, those are American military, active duty military firing those HIMARS missiles. On those HIMARS transport, it's Americans from the very beginning to the very end. From the manufacturer, missile, delivery, missile to the HIMARS platform, to selecting targets, to firing the missiles, to guiding those missiles into target, it's all Americans. 100%. And thank the New York Times because they confirmed everything I said. I mean, even the Russian media, they, they looked at me sideways when I said that. Like, it's Americans. America is murdering Russian civilians. That's the baseline. American military's murdering Russian civilians. And the New York Times confirmed that the, these, I don't remember the exact day the article came out. It was Decem-, it was late December 2024. In fact, they even went as far as to tell you that the ATACMS missiles were not something the Ukrainians asked for. It was something the, the American generals who are in charge of all this asked for the ATACMS missiles. And they've been hitting the hospitals, they've been hitting schools, they've been hitting everything across the board with them. The capability is the only difference. That, you know, how, how far can they hit? With these drones, they hit on something that's that, that's better suited to try to hit the deeper in. Though the Russia's, it's, it's an endless race. So this week, at least the Ukrainians hadn't had much success. Almost everything's been shot down. Very, very little is getting through for the resources they're going into these drones. Well, the, the Ukrainians, I mean, the West. Trump and his administration are fully involved. I mean, let's not forget it was Trump who was encouraging Zelenskyy to strike in the Moscow. A year ago, last May. I mean, not last May, May of last year. While he's talking about, you know, we, we want to end this war, we want to do this. Trump's encouraging, he's been egging it on. He's two-faced as it gets. He is a worse enemy than Biden was because Biden was just a wall. Okay, Biden was asleep. Problem. Blinken was a wall that didn't want to negotiate. So, okay, that's an enemy you can deal with. This guy is an enemy that keeps talking about, hey, let's, let's work around this while trying to stab you in the back with every opportunity. Just like, look at what happened with Iran. You know, well, we got an MOU, so instantly we're trying to get things through. Yeah, Oman to get around this and then, oh, and then we're starting to get the Kurds in Syria to invade into Iraq. I mean, I'm sorry, the Kurds in Iraq to invade into Iran. So you can't trust these people.
>> This kind of duplicitous game and using diplomacy as camouflage for military preparation. I mean, we've had a lot of examples for that, including the Minsk agreements, including like a lot of other diplomatic efforts that look diplomatic on the outside, but they're that are actually made in support of then finally getting to the military solution that you want. Is one of the reasons why people also in Russia, including the top leadership, argue that the United States is agreement incapable. So, how, why do you think then it is that that Vladimir Putin, for instance, and, and the top leadership still tried to, to cling to the Anchorage process and the spirit of Anchorage? What do you think the, the calculation there was? Because if somebody understands the duplicitous nature of that, that that Washington diplomacy, then it should be the Russian leadership.
>> You, you know, the problem is, if you're a diplomat, and, and Putin is a lawyer, and lawyers use diplomacy, if you think about it on a constant basis, you have a tendency to, to think more in that frame than say a military man who would go for more of a military solution. I would probably go more for a military, not probably, I would go for a military solution, particularly cuz I also know who we're dealing with in the West and their, their mental state. The, the problem with the West, I'll tell you. But anyway, in Russia, to finish answering that question, the diplomats like Lavrov have given up on all of that. I mean, they know that diplomacy is pointless with these people. These people are, and not just them, the Europeans in general. Look, there's very few Europeans you can talk to or negotiate with. Orban was one of them, not because he was a Russophobe, I mean, file, but because he was a Hungary file. And as he said, we've done this war thing twice with Russia, we're not doing a third time. Thank you, but no. He's been replaced. We'll see how Magyar reacts when it's time to ante up a few million Hungarians to the slaughter. Things get very, very serious at point. I'm quite enjoying the, the turnabout in, with between the Poles and the Ukrainians. Because the Polish people, by the way, hate, they, they understand what's going on. The, the elites are absolutely sold. Uh, they don't represent the values of, or, or the interest of the, the Polish population at all. Uh, I mean, from the, from the word, at all. Um, so, the, at this point, uh, what, what the West doesn't seem to understand is when they get desperate enough and they really want to negotiate, there's going to be nobody there to negotiate with, cuz nobody will ever believe them. And if they want to surrender or come to some time before full war breaks out, it's probably too late by now. Who would, who would trust anybody in the Western leadership?
>> Nobody in their sane minds. I mean, you know, one thing, one thing is trust, the other thing is like setting something up that it's, that it becomes verifiable. I think that's the only way to go about. And actually, that's what the MOU with the Iranians is supposed to do on the Iranian side, right? It's, it's supposed to be a road map that can, that has verifiable steps that the Iranians can look at and say, like, either it was fulfilled or it wasn't. If it was, then we're going to take a step, we're going to go a step further. If it wasn't, then, well, that's it. Thing is dead in the water. Um, but so you cannot actually design any kind of process built around trust. So that, that has to be thoroughly understood. So anything that comes out of this must necessarily include verification steps in order to get to the, to the, to the next level, right? Um, but at the moment, when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, there's not, there's nothing on the horizon, right? With Iran, at least there is a process, somehow, large as large as it might may be, uh, but with Russia currently, there's nothing. It's, it's all blocked.
>> But Pascal, even with the process, look, um, they started negotiations on this process with the Iranians. Uh, Vance went over. Uh, they started the process and Trump starts basically the war back up.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, it's, it, it, it does, it gets to a point where you, where even a process can't go forward because the people on the other side are, are that insane, that untrustworthy, that treasonous, that if they, even, and that, by the way, lacking control and impulse when their impulse is, oh, wait, maybe we can just get one little more bite in, they can't control themselves. You know, Robert Barnes, I'm friends with, I had a good interview with him, and he knows Vance directly. He's got his sources in the White House on top of that, and in the administration, said, you know, Vance is basically a squirrel in a, in a wheel running around endlessly trying to keep as he basically said, Trump's gone mentally, he's gone Trump, okay? Yes. And Vance is the only thing keeping him. Trump's already demanded access to nuclear weapons and somebody said, no, sir. Yeah, the military said no. So apparently, him, you know, again, this is not videotaped, well, maybe it is somewhere, but this is going off of from people who were there who passed on. So again, I cannot verify this 100%, but I trust the people, the sources I'm getting this from. I said, you know, Trump, this is before the ceasefire, even back, back then, so a month and a half ago, two months ago, Trump was demanding the codes to launch the missiles because he wanted nuclear Iran. And General Keane was said no. And apparently had a screaming match at each other in the, in the Oval Office. In the end, the military said no, we're not committing this war crime.
>> [sighs]
>> Relief to hear that. Highly worried to hear that. Utterly believable on the, on the other hand, completely insane. Um, but where, again, where does this leave us with, where does this leave Russia? I mean, I am, and we talked, we talked before on your channel. I am so worried that the Europeans are trying to make an a self-fulfilling prophecy and inevitability, right? That they, that they inevitably now are trying to make sure that at some point Russia will have to strike NATO territory so that they can, can claim Article 5 and that you didn't have an Europeanization of the Ukraine war, which to me would be an absolute worst-case scenario. But I know that there's a lot of sick people in, in Brussels, in Washington, and in Kyiv. I mean, Kyiv, I understand the most. For them, that's the only thing that can potentially still save their butts. But for everybody else, it's an absolute insane proposal. And for the last 4 years, we saw how NATO actually wanted to keep the Ukraine war inside Ukraine, right? That was, that was all thing. Again, Ukraine missile key kills two Polish farmers in Poland. Uh, Zelenskyy screams Article 5 and NATO shuts him up immediately because they didn't want that, right? But it seems that this is now different and that they are preparing for the, for a real fight with Russia. And it seems to me that the Russians are starting to believe the, the, the Europeans when they say they would, they want, or they will have a war, right? So, what, what, what is it inside Russia and, and among your colleagues, among your sources, what you're hearing of how, how Russia is now digesting all of this?
>> Well, let me put it this way. Uh, Russian manufacturing is producing about 1,200 main battle tanks a year now, brand new. I'm not talking about refurbished T-72s with new turrets. Those are going in, too. You don't see them on the battlefield, do you? Uh, those are being prepped for the big war. Uh, a lot of the Russian munitions aren't going to the Ukrainian battlefield. They're being prepped for the big war. Russia is, and Russia is not a, a military, uh, economy yet. Uh, it's about 7% GDP. Uh, I mean, a fully militarized economy is going to be, you're looking between 30 to 40% GDP. It's, it's going to be a very different place once that starts. Um, so, you know, what, what are we looking at? Russia's preparing. Uh, and it's, it's massively preparing. It, when, uh, the, the, uh, investment, or not investment, let me phrase that. The, uh, recruitment potential for people with any kind of military service, uh, experience from your, uh, call-up, uh, guys, uh, to people with, uh, who'd served multiple years and made careers of it, from one extreme to the other, uh, with, in combat veterans, is about 32 million people. So, the mil-, you can't put that many people under arms because you don't have enough equipment to equip that many people, but that's the service potential without going into people without any military background, period. Uh, so, yes, that, that's a huge potential. Um, that, that's 32 million people. Now, Russia could quite quickly put, uh, 1 to 2 million under arms additionally. Uh, and if it's a full-scale war, you're not going to give them massive training because, yeah, uh, you don't have time for that. Uh, but the point is, Europe can't. You're, you're probably with Europe with four times the population of Russia, probably doesn't have 32 million people with, uh, military experience. That's what we're, if we're going to talk real realistically. Uh, that they could pull up. Never mind. Well, I guess, you know, so some of the, uh, the immigrants that they've imported from some of the African and Middle Eastern countries for more combatants. But realistically speaking, Europe can't do that. Uh, Russia's preparing. Uh, they, they heard the European message and the view is there will be war. Okay, fine. There will be war. Russia is preparing for the massive conventional war.
>> Yeah, but that's an absolutely, that's an absolutely horrific scenario because the war inside Ukraine was already horrible enough. And then, and, and because this is, it's trench warfare basically, or like drone slash trench warfare. It's like, as in, as in opposed to, to, you know, sea warfare or so. We would, we are looking at a World War I type of situation.
>> I, I don't think so. There's, there's a degree here, difference. This is not a military. Okay, let me phrase that. This is not a war. This is a special military operation.
>> Right.
>> There's a reason I'm saying this. The Russian military is still very limited in what they're allowed to do. Quite literally, the Russian military can put up a divisions worth of white, white swans, which are heavy strategic bombers, and turn a section of the front several kilometers deep into a lunar hellscape. They could do that. Which would make advancing a lot easier, but that's called total war. Russia could turn Kiev into another Gaza. Russia could turn most any city in Europe into another Gaza. Russia is now, by the way, manufacturing. It's, I'll just say this. There's over 25, and the number is quite a bit higher. A Russian has been put in line and service every single month. So you can, you could take out the entire infrastructure of an average European country in, in a day.
>> I mean, it's, it's a horrific, it's a horrific scenario and.
>> On the other, on the other end, I hear from European sources that I have no reason to doubt their, their, uh, uh, uh, sincerity, that the Europeans too are still keeping NATO, still also keeps weapons back for, for the big fight. This would be absolutely, it would be an absolutely devastating war if it comes to that. I mean, and you're right to point out that it wouldn't look like a large scale of what we have seen in the Donbas for the last four years. For years, it would be fought differently and with, to use another horrible euphemism, with the gloves off, right? But Donbas like will look like a cushioned version of what awaits for the entirety of Europe and Russia, right? So, any sane leader should actually see their, um, duty as trying to prevent that. But if you look at what Finland just did this week of allowing now the stationing of nuclear weapons. I mean, in Russia, that must have been big news over there in Moscow, wasn't it?
>> Well, it wasn't big news because everybody was expecting that to happen. But with Finland, can expect worst-case scenario of Finland, that nuclear, that, that base will get a nuclear strike. A nuclear first strike. And not just that base, but every single European base that houses American nuclear weapons will get a nuclear strike. If there's any threat from the Americans to, it looks like a threat to start using them because you just can't take chances. Um, but even without a nuclear strike, a, a Russian liquid might out whatever facilities you have over there. Yeah, you can get nuclear contamination. Uh, but the, the point, what the Europeans seem to miss, particularly the northern Europeans, and they need to be paying attention that I have a lot more. Um, you know, you, you start talking to Fins. Fins are the prime category here. They're so brainwashed, the majority of Fins, it's ridiculous. They're like little children when you're talking to them. Oh, I'm going to, little children that grew, uh, that, that keep playing, uh, Call of Duty, I guess a little too much. Oh, I'm going to be the super sniper killing hundreds of Russian soldiers as they charge into my garden. Uh, no, no, you're not. Uh, the way this war will be fought with Finland is the border will be closed, the bases will be destroyed by stand-off missiles, and then the Russian military starts working on the cities. It doesn't have to bomb apartment buildings. You take out the ports, you take out the, uh, electric power plants, you take out the sewage, uh, you take out, uh, the heat, the, what, whatever centralized heating they have, uh, you get gas facilities. And the old Russian saying is, zimaniya za gorami, winter's not beyond the mountains, comes into play. Finland has a population about three times bigger than the Finnish, uh, than non-technologically, uh, uh, structured Finland can support. Which means if everybody has to go chop wood to survive and not freeze to death in the winter, most people are going to freeze to death in the winter. They don't have the houses for it, they don't have the facilities for it. The modern apartment, uh, cannot, uh, be heated by, uh, by any, by wood. They don't have wood stoves, you can't even install them for the most part. So, this is, this would be the Russian, uh, point with Finland. Why charge in there? We take out the infrastructure and we let winter take care of them with population, starvation and winter. Finland imports, uh, a lot of its food. Uh, that, that this is the same thing for all the cold countries. I mean, look, if it comes down to a total war, understand what total war, non-nuclear total war, those underground gas storage facilities in Germany, gone. The, uh, gas liquefied gas ports, gone. Raimetall, of course, is going to be gone. Uh, most of your electric power stations, gone. That's the first strike to take that out. Or maybe the first strike may be to take out the leadership, because Russia's full out said, "We're going to go after the European leaders and their families. We're not, before we start going after people, we're going to take the leaders out. They're the ones that want war, after all."
>> Do you think Russia now is, is going to take some of that playbook from the West and saying like, no decapitation strikes? Sure, why not? The West started it. They probably also tried it with Vladimir Putin in Valdai. So, why, why not us? Why not Oreshnik, the Brussels, right?
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah.
>> You think that's now on the cards?
>> Absolutely. Uh, I don't think it'll jump directly into it, but it will be an a ladder of escalation. Uh, when the full war starts, I would not advise being in the Euro Parliament buildings or NATO headquarters. I'd advise you running as far away from those as you can. Uh, because those are number one, a number, I'm not sure quite sure which one will be the number one target, which one will be the number two target. Uh, you take out the leadership and there you go. You, you put in a Oreshnik, it'll take out any bunkers underneath those buildings.
>> Russia, Ru-, Russia, Russia threatened retaliation for the, for, for what you just described earlier in the Donbas of that, of that school for, for teachers. Um, and, and threatened or said it would, it advises all the European diplomats to leave, or all diplomats to leave Kiev in order to avoid avoid damage to them, right? And that they would retaliate against decision-making centers in Kiev. That strike hasn't happened yet. Why do you think that is?
>> Well, it has. Uh, multiple strikes have happened. Uh, they did say, Russia did say, uh, and came from the parliament, they weren't going to take out the military, I mean, I'm sorry, the civilian leadership. Uh, you know, I, I have my questions on that. Uh, because a lot of people say, "Oh, you know, if you just take out one of these guys, another one will take his place." No, that's not the type of government you're dealing with. That's the type of government that would happen in Russia. That's the type of government that's obviously happening in Iran. That's the type of government you have in China. You take out the leadership, the next guy in ranks that stands up. You take him out, the next guy in ranks stands up. You don't have that in Zelensky because there's no ideology in that government other than how much can I get out of this? How much can I sell the last Ukrainian baby for organs, pedophiles, or grenade strapped to its hand and pushed a prom toward the Russian soldiers. That's the people you're dealing with. You're dealing with a cannibal elite that's there to make money. As long as they're making money, they start getting whacked. Uh, or, or rather, as the church puts it, presented to Jesus, or presented, um, they leave because they're there to feed off Ukraine. They're not there to die from old age in Ukraine. They're not there to rebuild Ukraine. They're there to make money. And as long as they're making money hand over fist, they're going to stick around. But the moment that starts getting very dangerous, they're going to take what they've already stolen and that's usually in some Western bank and they're going to get the hell out. Uh, should they be tracked down and brought to justice? Absolutely. Uh, beyond a doubt, these people are the worst of humanity. It's like the guy in Monaco that just got a, well, I guess he survived. His his wife lost her legs. Uh, he, he's Ukrainian businessman. The guy, the guy owns a half the scam centers in Ukraine. They're not just scamming Russians, but they're also very effective at scamming Europeans and Americans. He was pulling in $2 billion a year in profit. He just didn't want to share with Zelensky. I mean, these guys are the worst scum of humanity. Uh, some are scamming grandmothers out of their savings. Others are sending their grandsons off to to die and and making money off of it. This is not exactly the, the peak of humanity. This is the worst of the worst.
>> Uh, yeah, but the, the, the, the, the problem is that under the special military operation, under this limited type of warfare that, that Russia chose, that Russia chose to implement for strategic reasons, that, that thing won't go away, right? And, and what do you think it is in terms of strategy why the current leadership is still sticks to its, to sticks to its guns? Almost literally of saying like, no, we're going to do this methodologically in, in the Donbas, the way we've been doing it for a while. And let me put it in, actually said like, we're, this, this is going to come to a conclusion relatively soon. So that he expects that this, this wave of moving forward, maybe even to the Dnieper, will, will at some point succeed. And from there, you do then what exactly?
>> Well, the Dnieper is already transformed as, as a war progresses, war goals change. Let's, let's begin with this. And Ukraine was warned every time that the next serious negotiations, the, the deal is going to just get worse. And now, the, as Putin said, now it's not just Donbas, and maybe first it was Donbas, first and autonomy for Donbas, federalization. Then it was just, then when the Donbas was recognized separately, it was just an independent Donbas. Then it was independent Donbas inside of Russia, plus now Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Now all of Novorossiya. But Novorossiya is Kharkiv, Sumy, and on down to Odessa. Just short shy of Kiev. And you have a trust, I think would be involved in that Donbas too. So what's next? Well, you talk to the Poles and you ask them, do you want to take the west? Your land for a long time. It was originally, it was all Russian lands. Uh, even Galicia was Russian lands up to about the 1400s. Oh, fine. Whatever. Uh, it's been, that was a long time ago. Uh, but the Poles, so far, you know, they, they want it, but they don't want to deal with the Ukrainians. But they're getting being led to obviously understand they will deal with the Ukrainians, cuz the Ukrainians want, they want a third of Poland. Uh, the, and, and it's hard to ignore, you know, suddenly Novorossiya realized, "Oh, wait a minute. Uh, Melnyk, well, that, that's one Nazi too far. You know, Bandera, Shukhevych, yeah, they butchered 300,000 Poles, but oh, wait a minute, Melnyk, that's just too much Nazism for us. We're going to take back the White Eagle Award." Uh, you know, what Zelensky, kneeling in Melnyk's grave after he's returned from, where was Luxembourg, I believe? That, that Nazi bastard got to live the rest of his life out with dripping in the blood of innocent people. Well, then again, Bandera was, uh, finally terminated in Munich, uh, where he lived for another 15 years after the war. A, a murderous Nazi criminal walking around absolutely freely. Uh, and people knew who he was. Uh, so, you know, that, that goes so much for Western idealism and, and democracy and all that crap. Uh, all this stuff told for little children and foreigners. Uh, the reality doesn't quite go to. But, you know, Azov published, now that Azov is no longer a battalion brigade, but now it's a, a core, uh, which is three divisions of that normal core. Uh, they're true, they're all under, under manned. But, they've published their core flag with greater Ukraine on it. It just happens to have a third of Poland attached to it. Uh, and now, you know, Zelensky told Novorossiya, "Go to hell. We'll decide who our heroes are. You don't get a word in this." Which is basically under normal circumstances would at least destroy any diplomatic, diplomatic relations. And then several of his commanders had flat out said, keep pushing, and the Ukrainians will be killing your, your people. We'll, you'll have Ukrainian drone drones or guy, you're not man enough for this. And this is all of last, over last week. So, Ukrainians, Ukrainians are a rabid dog. I mean, that's what they are. And you cannot be friends with a rabid dog. It's going to bite everybody. I mean, just let's just walk down the short list of countries Ukraine has attacked outside of its fight with Russia. Let's see, it murdered a couple poles with a missile trying to get Poland in. It's attacked the refineries in Hungary. It attacked refineries in Romania. It attacked refineries in Slovakia. Never mind the money it was filtering in for the race Hungarian elections that was going through from Brussels through Ukraine over to my gosh, if the reports are even halfway true. It's, it attempted genocide in Costa, Romania. Those four drones, I mean, Mikhail Lutsk, and who's head of the PPR party, former member of parliament, and several members of parliament have come out and said it straight out. This wasn't an accident. There's for four drones, two drones were headed for the oil storage facilities and two drones were headed for the nitrate storage facilities at port. You remember Beirut? I'm pretty sure it was the Israelis that blew that up but cuz they were in there, we're going to have the only working ports and everybody's going to have to go through us, a stage. This is after Netanyahu came out in the, in the UN and had that map and the lines and all needs to go through Israel and then the, the main competition sport just blows up. You know, that from the nitrate, if you remember that explosion, that would have been in Costa. The only thing that saved the people's lives there basically from wiping out half the city to try to drag Ukraine into, I mean, NATO into a broader war was the anti-oil spill buoys that they set up in the port. And those drones got stopped. And a lot of people came out and videotaped those drones, which are absolutely also be honest, they're British drones that the Ukrainians use. The Ukrainians aren't building these drones. They may be slapping them together, yet they're disassembled, but they're, they're British. Well, they videotaped these drones. And and Ukraine, "Oh, we lost control of them. So, give us 15 minutes, we'll detonate them." So, you lost control of them, but you can still detonate them on, on command. And yes, the port of Costa was saved, and probably, and the city, too. Let's see, Ukraine attacked the Greeks, sank a [snorts] ship of the Greeks. Ukraine is attacked Azerbaijan, which is supplying them 120-mm rounds, killed five seamen, including the captain of one of the ships, and they're laughing about it. Ukraine attacked Turkey multiple times. Luckily, Turkey has a, a leader that's willing to put a piece of a spine in every cherry he can find, cuz his butt can't quite get on all of them. And in the end, he's shown himself to be spineless, no matter what Erdogan says, even though the Turkish fueler has been hit, multiple foreign ships have been hit in Turkish waters, and Ukraine even sank a Turkish cutter. A military cutter. Ukraine, and you start looking around, Ukraine has hit pretty much so everybody. Luckily, they, luckily for Ukraine, they're all spineless.
>> The thing is, the thing is, it's, it's part and parcel of the entire strategy, right? Of the NATO strategy of how to fight this war. You also have to, to switch off a couple of capabilities of your own allies. And the ones who can sing the loudest tune here is the Germans with their Nord Stream, right? It's like, the, this war has been, has been very handy for NATO on several sides of, again, shepherding in everybody under the same tent. And I talked to a Turkish journalist, and one of them told me, "Look, these, these bases, these NATO bases outside next to Turkey, and also everything inside, we, we precisely understand that they threaten us, too. And keep us in line." So, you know, the.
NATO is a tool not only of fighting against Russia, but also keeping your own like sheep in inside the herd, right? It serves multiple purposes. The thing is at this point what I worry is that we are already beyond the point of no return where this big war against Russia might already have been decided a while ago and now we're in the execution phase, in the early part of the execution phase. Is that a worry that you share or am I taking it too far?
Well, I think you're absolutely right. The thing is, NATO is going to be a very interesting organization when the actual shooting starts. Because, one, let's just go through NATO really quickly. America's not going to fight. America's going to be neutral in selling weapons to the Europeans. So, that's the industry that's going to be supporting the Europeans. The Germans cannot produce tanks in any kind of volumes. Russia's producing 1,200 new battle tanks. Germany produced, I think, eight new tanks over the last year and a half. They don't have the capability. They don't have the gas. They don't have the steel. They don't have the coal. But the US has 5,000 over 5,000 tanks that are, you know, Abrams and Abrams A1s. The first two generations and the first generation they started renovating to the second generation. Changing the main gun to 120 and putting a multi-layered armor on it from just the steel. It is why would you do that if these are old tanks? Why would you keep 5,000 old tanks? Unless you're planning on selling them somewhere really quickly. I want to see it.
So the US is not going to fight. Yeah, the US is not going to fight, but it's going to make a lot of money off of it. The Turks are not going to fight. They have no reason to get in this fight. The Greeks will have a revolution before they have to fight. The Bulgarians basically already having a revolution. They changed governments. There are crowds in the streets right now ripping down Ukrainian flags. They're not going to fight. Even the Croatians, as bloodthirsty as they can sometimes get, are like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all great. We'll send weapons and ransom soldiers. Ain't no way in hell we're going to go fight." The Romanians are tasked because, well, if we followed the elections, obviously the majority of the Romanians do not want this war to happen. They don't want to fight. I mean, Georgescu had 68% of the vote, for God's sakes.
Yeah, but but you know, again, if you then pull off what they're trying to do, which is try to get Russia to attack first, right? Then you're going to have the what you told me in the beginning in reverse. If you're going to have this rally around the flag effect inside Europe, and you might actually get enough people dumb enough to sign up for this and actually go to inflict serious hurt on Russia. Until and unless the Russians do it in a way that scares the hell out of everybody else, but that is the Karaganov way. And Karaganov, of course, proposes it with tactical nukes, and that's an absolutely horrific scenario. But I do believe from the discussions we are having and with other Russian colleagues that apparently the thinking is now seriously going in this direction, isn't it?
Um, just something to consider. Russia doesn't really have tactical nukes. The tactical nukes he's talking about aren't 5 or 10 or 15 kiloton weapons. What is labeled as a tactical nuke in Russia is a 75 kiloton nuclear warhead. Two Hiroshimas. That's a tactical nuke. That's a city buster for most places. That's Rotterdam gone as a tactical nuke. When I am talking, so if these are used, if it goes to tactical nukes to take out American nuclear stockpiles in Europe, you know, that's not a little bomb. Plus the fallout, which would cover most of Europe. Europe is a, I mean, let's be honest, Europe is a cage full of hamsters. Uh, yeah. The fallout will cover most of the peninsula in one direction. I mean, there's enough of You don't have to hit the cities for it to fall out on the cities and make a lot of problems. Not to mention poison most of the agricultural land for the next at least 10, for anywhere from 10 to 100 years. Look, Chernobyl, when Chernobyl blew, that cloud reached Scotland. And the Scottish shepherds were told for 10 years basically they weren't allowed to go up in the mountains with their herds because it took that long for the radiation to wash out of the ecosystem. Some of it might still be there. A little dose of radiation will kill you. In fact, you know, it's questionable how much it kills you or if not. My uncle, two of my uncles died of stomach cancer. One died at 84, the other one died at 78. Now, granted, the one that died at 78, and they were brothers, by the way. The one that died at 78, he had it went into remission for a while, it came back. But here's the interesting thing, they were both military engineers, construction engineers. Uh, one that died at 84, they were near a Russian or Soviet nuclear site and they were stationed there and they made a garden. What they didn't realize is the soil they used was radioactive. And they all ate the plants from the garden, the tomatoes and so on. But that was when he was in his 30s. He died in 84. Yeah, he got contaminated, but he died at 84 years of age. So, would he have died anyway from that cancer? I don't know. The other one was working directly in construction, radioactive, and he got enough radiation from the construction. But he died at 79. So again, you know, how much does it affect? I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, but you know what we know from It's not fun. What we actually know from Chernobyl for sure is that it doesn't affect everybody equally, but it definitely pushes out the number of deaths of leukemia and what's not.
It's statistically speaking, it's a horrible scenario, but individuals, certain individuals, just like a chain smoker, somebody might make it to 88 chain-smoking, and another one's gone at 42, right?
What I'm saying is about the fallout. Now, if you're near ground zero, yeah, you're going to get zapped in massive dosages. And if you're better off dying fast in a blast than surviving, because it's not much of a survival. So, but fallout falling on cities is still going to have a big effect, at least psychologically. It's nothing good. So that's I mean, that kills all these.
The question to me is, is Russia really actually now contemplating this, or is the idea still to just absorb as Iran absorbed and plow on with the primary strategy?
Well, from the military point, of course, the military is contemplating this. This is their duty. It's their job to contemplate and plan this out. I mean, let's not be unrealistic about it. Are the politicians? A good chunk of politicians are. I think with the erection of Croatia, can do it without going directly into nuclear. And it's still pretty horrific, realistically speaking. The rally around the flag, I think, is going to be very dependent on how it's done. If you could go after the leadership and so, you know, if you go after leadership in, say, Germany, or take out the Rheinmetall plant or something of the sort, you will get a certain amount of rally around. Oh, the Germans may rally it, but I doubt if these Germans will. They actually were denazified and have sanity on their side. West Germans were never denazified. They just had the Nazi symbols removed. A lot of the second and third tier Nazis went right back into the government and got promotions while we were at it. But the question, would everybody in Europe rally around the flag? The Greeks wouldn't. The Bulgarians wouldn't. Most would say, "Yeah, the Germans had it coming." The hatred between the different nations in Europe is huge. The only thing that's keeping them in line right now is an elite that's absolutely not representative of the people and the threat of Russia. And even then, that's the second part is not exactly a very strong glue, if you want to call it that. So, I think a lot of these countries, particularly, I highly doubt the Spanish and the Portuguese are going to go full on, "Let's go have a war." They may talk about it to some degree, but no. So, really what you're going to have is these core northern European states, Germany, France, and then we'll see with France even. The UK, if it's not in a full civil war by that point, the Norwegians, the Scandinavian countries, and the pre-Baltics, and that's going to be your core warmongering. Poland is in flux, I think, right now. If we really look at it realistically, because the Polish people know what's next door. They hate the Banderites. They despise them. And the Polish government, at least on the Novorossiya, seems to be kind of waking up, or maybe they even knew but they were looking for the opportunity to start moving. Poland, by the way, just said, you know, scrap the deal about the MiG-29s. We're not giving them over.
Did they?
Yes, they did. So, you know, so you're going to have the heroes you want? Well, you can have them without our MiG-29s. And that's a hit on the Ukrainian war machine.
Well, that's a positive note.
Yes, it is. That is.
And and my friend, I think we should grab the opportunity and end on a positive note of somebody not giving military tools because I want to go and eat fake Italian food now.
So, do you agree, or is there something we need really need to add right now?
No, no, no. I agree. I'll say this, while I was at Donbass, I saw the ultimate fast food place, Pizza Burger Walk.
Pizza Burger Walk?
Yeah, you can get your pizza, your burger, and a walk. Yeah, so you got the American, the German, and Chinese. Just all of them.
Well, that's just human. Why only have one of the things? Like, why not all of them? So, this is the way to go and to live life. Um, everybody, if you want to follow Stas, then go and find him on his YouTube channel, Mr. Slavic Man, Slavic with a K, right?
Yep, yep.
Find him also on his X and his Telegram channel where they find you? What are the two places to find you?
On Telegram, you can look at stuff was there, that's the English one, and stuff today abroad now is the Russian one. And I'm also on Substack as mega niche.
I will put the links into the description box below. That's good. People, Nick, thank you so much for your time today.