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- [00:00]
A
A dog's love letter to his squeaky avocado.
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B
Dearest squeaky Avocado, my heart yearns to chew thee. Alas, I've devoured a small action figure and have taken ill, unable to partake in our jubilant squeakings. Worry not, as I am on the mend. And Lemonade pet insurance covered 90% of the veterinarian's cost. I recommend all the cats and dogs of the land. Get a'@lemonade.com pet soon my tummy will be unburdened, and we shall frolic once more. Yours, Jerry.
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A
Well, at the start of Russia's special military operation, it became pretty apparent to all of us in the journalism world that it was going to become increasingly difficult to get any kind of truth out of this war whatsoever. Certainly not from the mainstream media, the Mockingbird Media. If you flipped on cnn, we lived in Portugal at the time. If you flipped on CNN Portugal, this was a propaganda arm, of course, of NATO. Same in the United States. Same with the New York Times. Same with any major publication. And then it became apparent that there was a massive money machine and a propaganda machine behind this war. All you needed to do was go into the London underground or walk into the marinas of Portugal or downtown Lisbon and see Ukrainian flags that were suddenly printed and hung everywhere as if there was a big money machine behind it in order to rally support. So it became apparent it was going to be very difficult to get factual information from the front lines of this war. What was actually happening? Was the ghost of Kiev real? All of these stories seemed like they were total fabrications. So where did you turn as a journalist? Well, one person I turned to was Shea Bose, independent Irish journalist based in Russia, based in Ireland, based all over Europe, on the ground at the front lines, trying to provide factual information. Of course, they would vilify him and come after him, and that means, you know, that he's over the target. Well, now it seems we've entered a very interesting moment in this war. Are the gloves about to come off on the Russian side? Are we about to see a tipping point sway one way or the other? Well, if you listen to the mainstream media, they're telling us that Ukraine is winning this war. Listen to Lieutenant General Kellogg yesterday on television telling us that Ukraine is winning. Russia is on the ropes.
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B
So I think there is a turning point.
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A
I do think that most people are
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B
starting to realize that even the hardcore opponents of Ukraine now realize that they've held their own and are starting to turn that. And they're starting to strike deep within
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A
Russia, which is important, whereas nothing could be further from the truth. And one of those journalists, Shea Bose, who's been on the front lines trying to get this information out, joins us now. It's a real treat to have you here on the show, Shea. We've been huge fans of your work for many years, so thank you for being here.
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B
You know, it's a pleasure. Great to be here.
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A
So, as I mentioned in the intro, it seems like we are in this, you know, tipping point moment right now in this war. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems like if you, if you can kind of read the tea leaves or read beneath the sort of mainstream media propaganda, all sort of coalescing around this idea that Ukraine is winning this war. And then of course, we're seeing these long range drone strikes inside of Russia. It seems like to me, it seems like we are at a tipping point moment. I want to get in all of the pieces of this, but how do you read it right now as we enter July of 2026?
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B
Yeah, well, hello and thanks for asking me to come on and hi to all your viewers. I suppose something that you have to understand is, and it's, it's something that you really only get the perspective on when you sort of have lived in Russia among the Russians. It takes years really, you know, to, to get to understand how the Russian, number one, political machine works and number two, just how skewed and dishonest and how deliberately inaccurate Western media is. You only really see that when you're moving between living in Russia and experiencing life in Russia, being in places where the war is impacted, and living in Russian society among the Russians and then coming back to Europe and living in Europe, you only really get to see that incredible, you know, dissonance between the two things when you do that. And I've really seen that, as you mentioned, I've seen that really lately, really, really defined by the ramping up in the Western media, which I watch, you know, like a hawk, of course, in the last two to three months probably. And what I have to point out to your viewers is the reality that this tends to happen in cycles. It's a cyclical thing. Western media, as you've mentioned, is very much tasked by the same corporate and political masters. Like you say, the mainstream media, cnn, BBC in the uk, RTE in Ireland, the French media, Spanish media, the pro European state funded media, they are all tasked by the same political machine which is, remember, supplying weapons, money and cash to an exceptionally corrupt country in Ukraine, okay? We've had two things that have sort of aligned recently. We've had a huge city in Donetsk or Donbass region, which is the center of the conflict, if you like. And that's the part of the of Ukraine that the Russians say we are going to take. It's our territory now. They voted to become part of Russia. We're going to take the, the Donbas region. We're going to denazify, we're going to demilitarize Ukraine. That was the initial statement. 24th of February, 2022. A big city there called Konstantinovka has now been surrounded and it's been penetrated by the Russian army. And this is one of three remaining fortress cities in Donbas. And you're not hearing about this in the Western media, on cnn, on nsnbc, on BBC. You're not hearing about it for a reason, is because they've been tasked to distract European taxpayers from the reality that this big fortress city, Konstantinovka, is about to fall, which will open up other cities like Sloviansk, and it basically opens up the plains between this fortress line of cities and Kiev, essentially. So this is a huge military disaster for Ukraine. Now, isn't it interesting that you probably haven't heard of Konstantinovka, but you've certainly been told Ukraine is winning because they bombed some oil refineries outside of Moscow. Now, I've done a lot of work about this. I have a lot of research into the impact these attacks have other than the big PR reach they have. Of course, it's good PR for the Ukrainians, but they don't have any impact above maybe between 3 and 10% at a maximum on Russia's oil refining capacity. They're very quickly repaired. But they do give a sort of a propaganda coup for the, for the Kiev regime, which, by the way, hasn't had an election in seven years. Right. This is the bastion of democracy and freedom.
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A
Just right.
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B
You know yourself that pesky thing called elections. So all of these things are coalescing. Massive, you know, corruption scandals in Ukraine in the last six months. A man called Mr. Mindich, Mr. Zelensky's banker, sold 100 million, went to Israel. Then you had Andre Yermak, this man that was heroized by the Western media as the man in the shadows, the real power behind Zelensky. He's been arrested and detained for stealing $10 million in cash. Massive scandals in the energy sector in Ukraine. That happens. This big city falls and suddenly Ukraine is winning. Now, there's absolutely no independent or objective military, military analysts that will tell you Ukraine is winning. Other than Mark Carney coming out and saying it, Emmanuel Macron coming out and saying it, no independent military analyst will say that. Even the Institute of Study of War says Russia is advancing in Kharkov region, in Sumy, in the north, in the south, in Zaporozha, small Ukrainian counterattacks have been turned over. We know this. But yet the media has picked up the ball to try to distract ordinary people in the states, in Europe, the people are still funding this war, that there's still some value in this, frankly, you know, terminal conflict where Ukraine just simply can't win a war of attrition. So to me, the only logical thing I can say and see happening is that this is a purely massive deployment of the media to distract people from what's happening in Konstantinovka. Because in Russia there's a sense of what are they talking about? Are they living in the same reality as the rest of us, of what's actually happening? And that's not to say that, you know, attacks on logistics and attacks on civilians in the Moscow region are terrible. We had a baby, six month old baby killed yesterday. Her mother died today when a Ukrainian drone hit that building. We don't hear about that. I was recently in a place called Luganski in Don and the Donbass region where 21 school kids were killed in their dormitory. I was there, I, I walked around and I did a lot of work showing that off. That didn't even get mentioned in the, in the, in the western media. So you gotta remember, you're really, you're kind of asking this when you're talking about the western media and you're talking about what's actually happening on the ground in Ukraine. They're already pre tasked by their governments who fund them and control them and this client media to have a truth. There's a single truth, and that truth right now is that Ukraine is winning. I suppose the only rational sort of reality about suggesting Ukraine is winning, it's not losing as fast as it was because of the drone. Drone warfare paralyzes the battlefield to such an extent that it's very difficult for anybody to move rapidly. Nonetheless, Russia has done so in Konstantinovka, which is, as Ukraine has proclaimed, this is a fortress city that couldn't fall, like Bakhmut, like all the other cities they said wouldn't fall, which did fall. So this is purely a masterful deployment of the client media to distract people from the reality and try to convince them that there's some value in the hundreds of Billions of dollars that have gone down the golden toilet in Kiev.
- [10:52]
A
We'll get back to the show in a second. But first a word from our sponsor of today's show. And that is Rumble Wallet. And I've got a quick question for you. How many of you right now actually control your money? Like have control of your money? Does a big bank have control over your money or do you actually have control of it? Technology has really changed everything and now it's changing exactly how money works. Crypto started out as a niche, but now it's going mainstream. Faster payments, more control, fewer middlemen. This is in hype. This is where things are going right now. And getting started today is easier than you think. Taking control of your own money. So with Rumble Wallet, you can buy bitcoin, you can hold dollar backed stable coins, even own your own gold backed digital currency backed by real gold all in one place. It's a non custodial crypto wallet, which means you, not a bank or a platform, control access to your funds. And I just did an interview the other day where, I mean, debanking is happening in real time and a lot of people aren't even like, you don't even hear a lot about it, but people are being debanked just for social media posts, just for their political views. And that's where Rumble Wallet comes in. It's super simple. It connects you with Moonpay. So you can actually use your debit cards, your credit cards, your bank account will be up and running in minutes. And for a limited time, you can start your wallet with just $10 in US stablecoin by downloading the Rumble Wallet and entering our exclusive promo code. That's redacted 10 when you sign up right now, you can even use your Rumble Wallet to support your favorite Rumble creators like us here at Redacted directly. So do this now. Scan that QR code on your screen or click the link in the Description. Go to wallet.rumble.com redacted download rumble wallet and from there you can set up your wallet. Enter promo code redacted10 to get your $10 in US stable coins. This is a limited time offer, so act now. Take control of your money. Get started with Rumble Wallet today. Terms and conditions apply. See the description or visit rumble.com promoofficial rules for more details. And today's show is brought to you by our friends at American Financing. In today's uncertain economy, American Financing is helping families find a way out of those high interest traps that they're stuck in. Obviously, we're in the dog days of summer right now. But the economic clouds aren't clearing for most middle class families. In fact, between persistent inflation, the cost of life, daily life, you're feeling more pressure than ever. You've worked hard for your home. You might live in a home that you even bought a few years ago. And most people have more equity than they possibly think. Yet the summer surge is forcing many people just to rely on credit cards. It's an exhausting cycle. But American Financing understands that in 2026 you need a real strategy. That's why they have salary based mortgage consultants. Not work. They don't work for the banks, big banks, they work for you. With mortgage rates in the fives, their customers are saving an average of $800 a month by wiping out high interest debt. That's money that stays in your pocket to fight against the rising costs that are out there right now. No upfront fees, no pressure at all. And if you start today, you could delay up to two mortgage payments. So call American Financing today. That's 866-890-8434. That's 866- 890-8434 or just visit american financing.net/redacted. You know, propaganda can only work so long as people believe it. Do the Ukrainian people believe that they're winning? Like you talk to the average Ukrainian who sees Russia advancing in Carcinogenovka about to fall all of what was eastern Ukraine, which could have been still part of Ukraine had they come to a peace agreement way back when, until Boris Johnson parachute it in and scuttle the entire thing that is now all part of the Russian Federation. Odessa could soon be next and this country will cease to exist because it'll be a landlocked former puddle of itself if that happens. But do the Ukrainian people believe this? Like Western cnn, New York Times, Fox News propaganda about Ukraine is winning?
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B
Very interesting. A good question. I was in Hungary recently for the elections where Viktor Orban lost the election and this new guy, Peter Magyar came in. More pro Ukrainian. A lot of Ukrainians in Budapest. Okay. Now when I was in Lugansk, myself and Rick Sanchez were there. We were talking to a bunch of ladies who were near the school and Rick went up to them and said, look, do you consider yourselves Ukrainian or Russian? And he nearly got his head bitten off by these old babushki, you know, they said, we're Russian. This is Russia. It's always been Russia. Of course, this territory was part of the Russian empire for hundreds and hundreds of years. Long before the state of Ukraine even existed. Of course, that's another discussion. But what do Ukrainians believe? I think the Ukrainians that remain in Ukraine, or what's left of Ukraine, like you say, more than 20% of Ukraine has been lost since the start of this phase of the war in 2022. More than 20% of 1 of the biggest countries in the world is in Europe. The biggest, probably. So a huge chunk of lost. The. The actual Ukrainian population has been cut in half, literally cut in half. So you've gone from like 45 million to less than 22 million in the country right now. You've got millions of Ukrainians living in Europe who, most of whom don't come from areas where the conflict is actually touched, because the Russians aren't prosecuting this war like the Israelis are prosecuting the war in Gaza, for example. Right. So you've got this real sort of sense of, sort of pragmatism among Ukrainians. Many of the Ukrainians I talked to in Europe suggest, look, we don't trust Mr. Zelensky because corruption in Ukraine is so endemic. Nobody believes for a minute that this guy is actually genuinely representing ordinary Ukrainians. They won't go back to Ukraine because Ukraine not only is facing a demographic collapse, but it's also facing a. A fiscal collapse. The Ukrainian currency is at its lowest ever against the US dollar. Like 45 of the. Of the Ukrainian currency now to the dollar, it was like six or seven when Zelensky took power, essentially. But there's been a collapse. Nothing that Ukraine has or capability has on the battlefield or technologically or economically isn't given to it now. So Ukraine has become essentially a beggar state on the fringes of Europe. The Americans have kind of pulled out. Trump has said, we'll sell you the weapons to kill as many people as you like. You can do as you please. So ordinary Ukrainians are quite pragmatic. They don't believe for a minute and that there's going to be some great victory, in my view. And the Ukrainians I talk to, the vast, vast majority of them, want a peace deal. They want peace now. They want what remains of their lives to be left to recover what's left and to try to move on. They don't want to join NATO. NATO was never going to happen for Ukraine. This was, you know, a real pup that was sold to the Ukrainians. I think the vast, vast majority of Ukrainians want peace, particularly those who come from regions near the front lines that have experienced the war. But the problem is the Most vocal and aggressive nationalists in Ukraine come from the far west of Ukraine. Places like, you know, Lvov, which border Poland, and regions of Hungary, for example, Turkeys that originally were Polish or Hungarian. So the radical nationalists who are sort of bigging up this idea of a great Slavic Ukraine and a greater Ukraine, the guys who were allied with the Nazis in the Second World War, for example, are all from the far west, which hasn't been touched by the war. The people from Donbass, Donetsk and Zaporozha and the regions where the war has been, you know, felt most keenly, they want, they want peace. They want peace.
- [18:51]
A
Will NATO allow them to have peace?
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B
Yeah, I see. This is the key question, I think something that's been realized now. And like, for example, if you and I had this conversation back in 2022 when I would have been saying, look, this is a proxy conflict. This was a constructed conflict. The CIA does this stuff. You very, very well. They did it in South America. You mentioned, you know, a mockingbird, Operation Mockingbird. You saw the, the US Machine, Victoria Newland, operating in Ukraine to try and pull Ukraine away from Russian influence, overturning the legitimate government, placing and, you know, funding radical neo Nazis into, into the military and into positions of power. So, you know, we were told we were conspiracy theorists. If we suggested that this was a proxy conflict, it wasn't something that you could say you were called a conspiracy theorist and this was misinformation. NATO has nothing to do with this war. Europe has nothing to do with this war. United States has nothing to do with this war. This is Russia just picking on the poor, virginal Ukraine. Now NATO, the European Union, heads of state from all of these countries are openly saying we are essentially at war with Russia. Ukraine is defending Europe. Ukraine is defending NATO. Ukraine is defending democracy. All this ludicrous stuff, which we were told wasn't the case. We were told that Ukraine was a completely neutral state, essentially on the borders of Russia, which was attacked by this aggressive state, which is, of course, radically untrue. So will NATO allow the biggest deployment of NATO power, money, influence and weapons in its history? Will they allow that to collapse? They've shown that they won't allow that to collapse. They've shown that they're willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. I know it's a well used phrase, but they've shown that the average age of a soldier, a conscript soldier now in the Ukrainian army is probably 44 years of age, which is quite remarkable. Massive what they call bossification in Ukraine, which is the, you know, forced attention, the press, ganging of men from the streets. You've seen the videos. This is all ignored in the eu. It's all ignored in NATO. The massive amounts of amputees, the huge stress on Ukrainian society, which was already a basket case when it came to health care. When it came to the Social Security state in Ukraine, it was a basket case in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now it's in a perma crisis. So you've got the NATO has completely backed the wrong horse here. Politically, the EU and NATO have become essentially the same organism with people like Ursula von der Leyen, the completely hapless and incapable Kayakalis, on the tiny Estonian state, who is now the head of Democr. You know, diplomacy. It's. It's becoming like almost a comedic tumbling disaster for NATO. How do they get out of it? They have to admit they backed the wrong horse or they have to really countenance the idea that they would try to push Russia to the point where it would strike or impact or target something on NATO territory, potentially triggering Article 5. Whether Article 5 would actually happen. Would, for example, Turkey go to war with Russia? If Russia struck a target inside Estonia, which was making drones or firing drones at Russia, would. Would Turkey, France, would the United States go to war, Russia over that? I don't know. We hear a lot about Article 5, but the reality of whether all NATO countries would immediately see themselves at war. Russia, Russia stuck inside a NATO country. It's a moot point. We don't know. But I don't think personally it would. Will NATO allow it to fail? There's two things will happen. They won't. They're seeking further, you know, antagonizing moves with Russia. Escalation seems to be the order of the day. And that to me suggests that they just don't know what to do next. The only avenue they have of forward motion seems to be to push Russia further and further. Keir Starmer bombing a factory in Voronezh with Storm Shadow missiles. Constant talk about, you know, everything being game. Now, you know, the Russian triad, nuclear triad, was targeted by a strike by drones. The red lines are getting pushed further and further back. Russia's being more and more reserved. The conversation in Russia, of course, is, you know, well, at what stage do we have to step over the line into NATO and maybe, you know, strike a military target in NATO or manufacturing target? I actually don't see that as happening because it would be Russia doing bidding of NATO. Because, remember, when you, when you are an organization that was formed to counter Soviet union, I think 1847, correct me if I'm wrong, about eight that. And, and, and you didn't disappear when the Warsaw disappeared in the Soviet Union disappeared. You have to kind of become a self fulfilling prophet in some way. Right? You have kind of say, well look, the reason we spent trillions, millions of dollars defending Russia was there is a threat. So in the absence of that threat, you got to manufacture that threat. Right? To an extent. So there's an element of that as well. So, you know, I think we're in a very dangerous place. Do I think that Russia will, you know, act according to a script written for them in Brussels or in Washington or in London? I don't think so. I think Mr. Putin is smart for that. But that brings internal pressure on him, brings internal pressure within Russia. We got to act, we do something. I mean, in the aftermath of the Star attack where these 21 kids were killed, there was huge angle. We should strike back, we should, we should hit them back. But in reality, what the Russians are doing is they're doing, they're talking on the battlefield in places like Konstantinovka, taking these cities inching forward very slowly. It's a very Russian thing. The psyche is very much, we keep going, we keep pushing forward. Remember, these are the people who defeated
- [25:19]
A
the Nazis, right, and lost 23 million, if I my numbers are correct in the effort to defeat the Nazis. When you see you mentioned the Ukrainian soldiers, the average age now pushing 44. We've often said on this show that, you know, an entire generation of young men has been destroyed in Ukraine. Destroyed, killed and also amputated. Brain injuries, just horrible things. Maybe we could talk a little bit about the families and how they've responded to their sons. A few years ago we've covered on the show the quote, unquote, missing in action soldiers who were really not missing at all. But it was in an effort for the Ukrainian government to not pay the families any kind of death benefits by labeling them as missing. But the Ukrainian government knew perfectly well that they were killed. And then of course, we also covered on the show a couple of years ago the massive organ harvesting and the transfer of organs from some of these soldiers, Many of these soldiers. And can you maybe walk us through this is a story of course, that I've been fascinated by, but the Western media has totally ignored but the massive sort of organ harvesting and trafficking operation that has unfolded out of Ukraine, right under NATO's noses, by the way, and probably happily facilitated by NATO.
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B
Yeah, yeah, well, this is the thing. I mean, two. Two things, two sort of headline statements. I think everything is for sale in Ukraine, which people might find that remarkable. Everything is for sale in Ukraine. For $20,000 cash, you can buy Ukrainian citizenship, okay? Ukrainian passport, citizenship, backstory. You can buy a military ID for five grand. You can buy an exemption from service in the meat grinder, as it's called, for between 15 and 20,000. You can buy a medical exemption. You can buy passage out of the country for in and around the same kind of money, about $20,000. Okay, so everything is for sale in Ukraine. When it comes to the medical system in Ukraine, this was. Even the British Guardian, I think, like, you know, 10 years ago, wrote a very comprehensive investigation into the corruption within the Ukrainian medical system. When it comes to cancer treatment, for example, you have to buy, you know, your way into any kind of treatment to survive. We also saw Tulsi Gabbard recently releasing the files on bioweapons. I was called a conspiracy theorist for suggesting what I had heard and what I'd seen and what the Russian military had shown me. This was a conspiracy theory. The actual Kov, the general in charge of this, was assassinated in Moscow. I was there. I saw the place where he was killed. The night he died, he was assassinated by the Ukrainian secret services because of the work he was doing to expose this. Now the US Head of national intelligence coming out and saying, yeah, it's all true. So the first statement, everything is for sale in Ukraine. And the second statement is any attempt to sort of uncover and expose that, you'll be killed. You will be killed. You could very simply be killed. I've personally spoken to several Ukrainian politicians. Someone is in prison at the moment in Ukraine for speaking out again about Zelensky. We saw in Monaco, I think, in the last 48 hours, a Ukrainian oligarch being assassinated or attempted assassination of him, his wife and his son. His wife or partner lost her legs in that attack. And that has been blamed by the Figaro magazine on the sbu, the Ukrainian secret services. It's a row about call centers that are run from Ukraine scam call centers that he was going to expose. Some of that I've personally spoken to people like Dimitri, another politician from Odessa, who told me that Zelensky was stealing millions and millions of. Of dollars a month from Odessa city from the budget there. He was attacked, he was abducted, beaten, threat, his life was threatened. I've spoken to Diana Panchenko, the top Ukrainian journalist who again had to flee the country because she was warned she would be killed as well. So not only is everything for sale, any attempt to try to point out the reality of that will be met with. You could be killed. You, you probably will be badly injured if not killed. And the evidence is there to suggest that. So this is a, an all encompassing sort of perfect storm when it comes to Ukraine. Remember, Ukraine was an exceptionally corrupt country before Maidan happened in 2014.
- [30:39]
A
Well, I should point out, right on the State Department's own website in the United States, even, even up until the year before the special military operation, you could clearly, even after the special military operation began, you could go to the State Department's website and read about the massive corruption inside of Ukraine. I don't know if they've since scrubbed the website or tried to hide it, but the U.S. state Department,
- [31:05]
B
I think it's true. And what's interesting is you have this exception. Exquisitely corrupt, dangerous country which was the crossroads for people trafficking. I mean international organizations who look at people traffic in 2022 said that 300,000 women and children have been trafficked through Ukraine. This is a UN based report into what would happen in you. This is before the war. So into this sort of exceptionally dysfunctional ecosystem, you pour hundreds of billions of dollars overtly and black money, the CIA has probably pumped half a billion dollars into the Ukraine, which is completely black on top of the hundreds of billions that the U.S. state Department has put in the military have put in USA put in. So in that ecosystem, it's no better than Afghanistan where you've got warlords different from different regions who are essentially the oligarchy of Ukraine. People like the man who sponsored Zelensky's presidential run, you know, he, he was probably the most corrupt of all oligarchs in Ukraine. According to the U.S. state Department, he stole a billion dollars from the Ukrainian state bank. So into this maelstrom you pour all this money and all these weapons. I actually spoke about that at the UN when I mentioned that all these weapons were being distributed into this country with no tracing and no tracking, that this was going to all wash up on the doors of actual democracies and actual societies with rules like Europe and the United States. Also when it comes to places like South America, we've got the Colombians serving in Ukrainian army getting training on drones and anti aircraft weapons. So it's this almost sort of incalculable mass of energy around dysfunction, which, which also suggests to me you're saying like, will NATO allow it to end as long as there is a huge market to sell into, into Ukraine for weapons for any reason. I see absolutely no motivation politically, militarily or morally for these people to stop this war. And the problem is it will run out a road when the Russians keep advancing. And that will be the real danger point, will be when the only mass escalation left could be a huge false flag against Russia. It could be a dirty bomb. I've heard lots of, of sort of people who I respect talking about the fact that the Ukrainians have on many occasions tried to acquire the components for a dirty bomb to strike Russia with this type of stuff has a huge impact not only on Russia and Ukraine, it also has an impact on Europe and by default, it has it on America. And when it comes down to the, to the crunch or down to the brass tax of what this is all about, the reality is, is that the Western media has justified and sold this as a very honorable sort of crusade against the evil Russians. When in fact, if you actually look at the reality, the people that US taxpayers and EU taxpayers should be worried about shouldn't be the Russians. It should probably be this oligarchy and this exceptionally corrupt criminal cabal that's run in Ukraine right now.
- [34:32]
A
There seems to be at least a wealth of understanding in America that Ukraine is massively corrupt. And why are we still continuing to fund them and to support them? And then of course, you have President Trump calling out Zelensky in the Oval Office and telling him he has no cards, but then a few weeks later continues to send money and weapons. So. But the American people, I think, are fed up with the support of Ukraine. I think it's pretty clear, at least in some of the poll numbers I've seen. So I think your Runway analogy is, is apt because if Russia takes Kiev, manages to take these other two fortress cities, manages to take Odessa, then NATO will not have a launching pad anymore. And without a NATO launching pad, they will have to revert to the dirtiest tactics possible, which NATO and of course Operation Gladio and Operation and NATO's stay behind armies are very good at creating false flag attacks like the operation in Bologna, Italy. So they are very good at creating false flags. If they don't have a Runway from which, or a launching pad inside of Ukraine from which to launch these terror attacks inside of Russia, then where will they go? That's what I really worry about is this next phase. That's why I believe we're, I've said at the beginning, I think we're at this like, tipping point moment for NATO and Ukraine. But where Will NATO go? I think dangerous people who are backed into a corner do dangerous things.
- [36:01]
B
Yeah. And remember, here's the other reality. When you see how quickly the scaffold around these countries can collapse. Look at Vietnam, the dictatorship that was propped up by the US And Vietnam. It very quickly collapsed in South Vietnam. It very quickly collapsed in Afghanistan. Like, essentially overnight. We saw the collapse of the Afghan national army, the, you know, the calamity that ensued with the US Withdrawal under Biden. People think that, oh, you know, Ukraine's going to fight on forever. Ukraine can't fight on forever. It's already lost half its population. It doesn't matter what weapons are pumped into Ukraine now. There's nobody left to operate those weapons. I mean, they lost three fighter jets last week. That wasn't mentioned in the, in the, in the media. There's no mention of that. You know, three very valuable, very important pilots. They don't have any pilots. So I think what happens is the Russians keep going, they keep applying the pressure, because in a war of attrition, which this is essentially becoming, it's a war of resources. It's a war of will. And this is an existential war for Russia. Russia can't turn around and say, oh, you know, we got it wrong, and leave Ukraine. That would be impossible. It just can't happen. Number one, constitutionally, these territories are now part of the Russian Federation. That's not reversible. You know, number two, the sort of political, sort of and historical sort of legacy of Mr. Putin is completely tied up in this conflict, okay? And he has support of around between 70 and 80% of the population in Russia as well, which is something that people in the west like to believe is made up or manufactured. It's not made up of manufactured. I can tell you that for a fact. So.
- [37:56]
A
Right. That's a piece of propaganda that the west loves to just put on Fox News or, you know, CNN or whatever in the US and they'll say those numbers are. That's got to be a joke that the state is putting out those numbers that people will fear for their lives. They must support Putin. Or someone's going to knock on their door and tell them, you better support Putin.
- [38:18]
B
No, you get in. You get in a taxi in Moscow and, you know, you know, usually if they hear that you're from the west or you're talking to somebody, they. They get that you're from a Westerner, they'll start to talk to you, either Russian or English. And I would say, you know, 30, 20, 30% of the people say, I don't like Putin. I don't like him. You know, I'm against the war, whatever, blah, blah, blah. They're giving out. They're very openly do that. They don't have a problem with that. The thing is, in Russia, I've actually seen a change. When I first got there for this phase of the war in 22, I think it was a bigger portion of the population who were sort of saying, no, no, it's a mistake. We shouldn't have done it. Now it's harder to find people who accept that they start. They've kind of accepted the wisdom of. Of Putin more. Now, this idea that Putin is under pressure or that, you know, there's a. A coup or that there's some sort of. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's so frustrating. Of course, no country, you know, profits or does brilliantly from a long conflict. Russia's facing a coalition of over 50 countries. Economically, militarily, you know, in the media, online, everywhere. Russia's fighting, but it's still advancing. Imagine that. Instead of people facing the reality that in the midst, in the face of this massive concerted effort against Russia, a global effort, economically, militarily, they're still advancing. Can you believe that? Instead, people are saying, oh, Russia is advancing too slowly. This is a front line which is heading for 2,000 kilometers long. The Americans have never fought on a front line that long. This is a country that's fighting a peer adversary in many ways. People who speak the same language as them, people who practice the same religion, who are well equipped, well armed to a great extent, have a lot of satellite imagery, have a lot of technical backup from the biggest, you know, warring powers on Earth in the United States, the French, the Germans, and the British. So the reality of what's actually happening in Ukraine is very much parsed towards the Western population, who are expected to believe that money they're spending to kill millions of people, millions of people in the center of Europe, basically, is money well spent. It's got to be the greatest scam ever perpetuated against the population before. And in order to do that, you must have control of the media, absolute control of the media and the narrative. That's why people like me aren't on BBC and CNN having this discussion.
- [40:55]
A
One of the ways that I've been able to transform how I invest is by buying precious metals. And of course, we are facing right now, which could be a major gold reevaluation. Again, I spoke to Brian Solarchuk, who's a mining Legend, a gold mining legend a few weeks ago here on the show, and he told me he believes gold is heading to $10,000 an ounce. Now, the gold that's currently sitting in Fort Knox, if it's there at all, is currently valued at about $40. Like, that's how the government values the gold that's on hand inside the government stockpiles, which is crazy. So the Trump administration has been toying with the idea of, of revaluations of gold to the current market standards or even higher. So if gold right now is trading over $4,000 an ounce, what do you think is going to happen if suddenly the federal government says, yes, the gold we have on hand is actually worth $7,000 an ounce? It completely changes everything. All that to say there is a real demand for physical precious metals, silver and gold right now. Real assets. Real assets. Heck, the bank of International Settlements, when it was dealing with the Nazi government during World War II, they didn't want paper currency, all that fake Reichsmark and paper currency that was worthless. As the US Dollar continues to become more and more worthless, what do they want? They wanted gold. That's how they were able to settle transactions, through gold. So that's why it's a huge part of our portfolio in addition to real estate. And I want you to work with our friends at Lear Capital. They're fantastic. They're an American company, and they will help you from soup to nuts. Learn the situ. You know, if you're totally new to the process of working on buying precious metals, they will get on the phone with you and have a great conversation with you and take you through the entire process. So what I want you to do is just go to learedacted.com that's the website. Or even better, just get on the phone with them, have a conversation with them. They can help you figure out where you are in your investing journey right now. And their phone numbers, 800-613-3557-180061-33557. Or once again, go to learredacted.com to learn more. Do the people of Russia believe that we hear the rhetoric coming out of Germany specifically about a militarization, massive militarization in order to fight Russia, they're openly speaking this way. The United Kingdom speaking this way as well. Obviously, we saw what Keir Starmer did on his way out the door. So is there a sense inside of Russia that Europe is serious about striking or going to war with Russia?
- [43:34]
B
Look, I think there's two elements to that. Firstly, The Russians kind of look at you sideways when you say, you know, is there going to be a war with the Europeans? They kind of say, well, why would we go to war with the Europeans? They don't get, they don't see that necessity for that at all. They see this as a sort of a regional fight with almost a first cousin. I mean, it's kind of strange. Most Ukrainians, Russian see this as a sort of a family argument that's got out of hand. It's kind of strange and it's hard to understand that as a Westerner given the brutality of the war. But of course, the Americans might understand it. They fought a civil war. Remember, the war in Ukraine is a civil war. That's the genesis of this, was a civil war. One part of the country didn't want to go with a European installed, US installed by a coup government. And they refused. And this is where the civil war came from. Wanted to be closer to Russia. So most people say, look at you, bemused, you know, a second level of people like it. I talk to people in the military maybe and I say, will there be a war? Russia with Europe? They said, there can't be a war with Europe because we'll just, we'll just destroy them. We'll just destroy. It will very rapidly. If they start to bomb, you know, Kaliningrad or they start to bomb St. Petersburg, we'll just nuke them. There'll be a nuclear exchange. We will, we'll have to use nuclear weapons to defend the country. The third part is the Europeans can't recruit anybody into their armies. Which is more worrying. The Germans couldn't find 5,000 troops to deploy into Latvia in. Nobody would go, nobody would join.
- [45:16]
A
They'll bring.
- [45:18]
B
Yeah. The reason they're talking about conscription isn't because people are delighted to join the army. Remember in Russia there is no conscription for the front. In Ukraine, they're all volunteers. They are all conscripted in Ukraine, dragged from the street, forced. I recently published an article on this particular Scala group called Scala, an assault infantry brigade. They were under the direct command of Alexander Syrsky, the Ukrainian general man in command of their army.
- [45:51]
A
Yeah.
- [45:52]
B
Where I think 26 people had been beaten to death in this training camp. I mean, I published all the data and the, the investigative piece was done by a Ukrainian investigative newspaper that isn't mentioned in the, in the, in the, in the media. So the reality is Russia now has probably over a million man combat veteran army, the biggest combat veteran cadre in the air force, artillery. It's got nearly 200,000 drone operators. Okay, 200,000. They're going to have 300,000 by next year. Who exactly is going to fight this army in Europe? The Estonians with 5,000 men, you know, the, the British with 70,000, half of whom are diabetic or taking a day off to go to the gay parade. I mean, there is no, there is no competent military in Europe or NATO other than the United States and Turkey, who could fight a war, a ground war, and maybe the Poles against Russia. And interestingly, in Poland, there is absolutely no appetite for a ground war with Russia.
- [47:04]
A
So then you hear, you mentioned Syrsky, who this week, last week, whenever, made comments in an interview which he completely looked downtrodden, dejected, and admitting that it's well known within the Russian military staff that they are preparing some sort of massive offensive to capture Kiev, to capture the capital, also Odessa. Where this move will come from, will it come from Belarus? Where will it come from? We don't know, but we are preparing for that. So openly admitting that this, this is well known within Ukrainian circles that this is going to happen. What's your sense of that? Are you hearing from Russian sources? Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
- [47:49]
B
Sorry. Yeah, no, no, I mean, look, here's the thing in these, every element of these pronouncements is, is a thing in Russia they call maskirovka. You know, if Sirski is talking about it overtly saying, we know it's coming, he may believe that, he may not believe that. This is my view. I mean, I don't speak for or have, you know, information that would, would. It would suggest one thing or the other. Now, remember, nothing that will happen on the battlefield now is unseen because of satellite intelligence and because drones are everywhere. It's very difficult to move an inch on the battlefield now without that. So I would imagine there would be big troop buildups in Belarus. Now, we've had this border argument with Ukraine and Belarus about alleged repeater stations along the border, Zelensky threatening to strike inside Belarus. Then we had Alexander Lukashenko going to Moscow for two days, then on to visit Xi Jinping in, in China, who very clearly said, look, we will defend and support the, you know, territorial integrity of Belarus. I mean, these guys are very friendly. So this is a bad idea for Mr. Zymanski to open a new front on the Belarusian border. Given the fact that he cannot hold the, the front line in the east against the Russians who are advancing. Why on earth would they want to stimulate conflict with Belarus? My view is, you know, what they want to try and do is draw NATO troops potentially in to say that they're going to come over the border with Belarus, they're going to take Odessa. Odessa is a very difficult nut to crack from any basic sort of military education point of view. It's in a very difficult position. It would probably need some kind of air, airborne and seaborne landing. Very, very difficult to do right now. So I don't think these things are going to happen rapidly. I think if they were going to happen, you would see a lot more evidence, physical evidence of that. I think, again, if you, if you recall, when, when Ukraine very foolishly invaded Russia in Kursk in 23, they went over the border and this calamitous invasion, they thought that would draw the Russians away from the front in Donbas. Instead, the Russians doubled down in Donbass and achieved much bigger gains while the Ukrainians were hemorrhaging men and machines and material in Kursk, where they were completely defeated. And the town now that the Ukrainians actually invaded Russia from invaded Kursk from a town called Sumy, is now very close to being, you know, becoming under Russian occupation as well itself, because Mr. Putin has said, we're going to, we're going to put a buffer along these borders. We can't let this type of stuff happen again. So I think when Mr. Syrsky says, we know what you're doing, I don't think he knows at all. Mr. Syrsky has been wrong about many things. Remember, we saw the Ukrainians tell us that they were going to have a counteroffensive where they were going to come and have their barbecue on the beaches of Crimea. We saw this sort of propaganda before. The Russians are doing their talking on the ground. They're inching forward very slowly. So I think what the Ukrainians are feeling right now is they may be winning the PR sort of war in the west, where people are still, well, isn't it great that Ukraine is actually winning? Again, zero evidence. If the Russians advancing and losing, over 22% of your country is winning, and then you're trying to get men to move back from Europe, millions of Ukrainian men of military service age, the EU saying, we're going to start sending them back. If you're winning, why would you need to do that?
- [51:31]
A
Right. Well, and I liked President Putin's comments this past week. Well, if you're winning, as they're telling us you're winning, then NATO, you know, and all of the money that weapons you're pouring in, then you should probably just stop and just sit back and enjoy all of the winning that Ukraine is doing. And you should just sit back with your arms folded. I appreciated that because it's a clear, you know, it's a clear just needle at NATO and all of these countries. They're not winning at all.
- [51:57]
B
Yeah, no, they're not winning. Not winning.
- [52:00]
A
When you look at friend of the show and one of the few journalists like yourself who was incredibly brave and the remarkable in getting out information about the genocide that was happening, happening in what was eastern Ukraine in the four different oblasts of course, which are now part of the Russian Federation and they voted overwhelmingly to become part of the Russian Federation in the West. Of course, this genocide had been completely hidden and the tens of thousands of civilians that are were being killed on a daily basis. A friend of the show, Eva Bartlett, journalist who was on the front lines and spent a lot of time in Donetsk and all throughout that region and highlighting these civilian deaths, the targeting of, you know, just children walking through the parks with these pedal bombs or marketplaces where a woman is just going to buy some food and she's killed and targeted by, by Ukraine. Are these terrorist attacks still being carried out on a daily basis in what is now the Russian Federation? But what was eastern Ukraine?
- [53:04]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, thankfully the Russian army has pushed Ukrainian artillery further away from places like Donetsk, the city, but we still see it along the Russian border. I mean I've been in place like Belgorod and Bryansk. I was in Belgorod when the Ukrainians used Czech MLRs rockets to fire into the city center at Christmas and they killed over 20 people. Kids, people buying, shopping. I mean we see this stuff. It's insane. It's insane that it's happening in, in modern Europe completely. No reporting of that. Eva did fantastic work in Donbass, long, for a long, long time on the ground where this small scale war was going on with artillery shells fired at random by the Ukrainians into villages along the line of contact, people just torn to pieces. Regular shelling of Donetsk, this completely random murder, murderous behavior. We're seeing it now with drones much more where I mean even when I was in Lugansk recently, a drone just flew down the center of the, the city center and just hit the administration building. You know, so it's a very random thing. The Russian air defense is getting better and thankfully regarding artillery, the Russian army has pushed Ukrainians back from the line of contact so that the further the Russians push them back, the harder it is for them to shell or use these Petal mines, which were a terrible plague in, in Donbass and done yet particularly these green petals which are spread from a canister, which kids picked up thinking they were toys, causing terrible injuries designed to blow off a limb, not designed to kill you, which is so, you know, cynical. So frankly, we've seen less of those, but we're seeing a lot more drone attacks. So drones have become the new artillery to some extent.
- [55:04]
A
I was going to ask you, you've been there since the very beginning, watching this war unfold. How has it changed on the drone technology or otherwise? We keep, you know, we see the, the filament wires that are being stretched over areas to protect against drones. And this is obviously really the first drone warfare on a large scale that we've ever seen and watched it play out on television. But how have you seen it evolve since the early days to now look, it's completely changed.
- [55:34]
B
And I mean, I was talking to a guy called Murad Gazdiev, a colleague of mine in Lugansk a month ago about this. And we were talking about at the start of the conflict, you saw these huge columns of Russian armor, tanks and vehicles rolling across the border from Belarus towards Ukraine. Big arrow warfare almost where you saw these whole divisions moving rapidly. It just can't happen anymore. Nobody can move now in anything. You know, even armored vehicles are exceptionally vulnerable now, unless they've got huge cages on them. So you see the movements now of Russian infantry, for example, on the front line are probably two or three or four men in small groups, maybe on dirt bikes racing into an area to occupy it to harass local infantry. Artillery is still very important, but the war has changed completely. And it's changed in the fact that the drones have essentially paralyzed the battlefield on both sides to an extent. Even at night for a period was, you know, you could move at night because of the drones. Now you can't because the drones have night vision. There was a period when drones had sort of a shortened. They had to be in radio frequency sort of contact in order to fly them towards your enemy. Now you've got these optic fiber drones which can go for 10 kilometers on a spool. So they're completely impervious to electronic warfare. So we've seen a complete transformation of the, the battlefield on that basis. And I think most of the, the injuries now, the combat injuries are now caused not by artillery, which they used to be, but by, by drones, by drone strikes on vehicles. And of course, you've got both sides, you know, hitting logistics now on both sides. To try and ensure that there's no fuel on either side. So it's paralyzed the war, the. The battlefield to a great extent. To the extent that only the side that has the deeper resources to keep pushing forward through that sort of paralysis is winning. And right now, that's Russia.
- [57:45]
A
Maybe you can describe sort of the mental response to hearing, like, these drone sounds. I imagine, you know, we think about World War I and shell shock and the idea of hearing shells whizzing over your head with the, you know, just the sound of that. And now I think it's been probably largely. And then it was, you know, artillery fire.
- [58:05]
B
Then it's.
- [58:06]
A
Now it's been replaced by the sound of drones.
- [58:09]
B
Yeah. What.
- [58:10]
A
What kind of effect is this having on the Russians?
- [58:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I gotta say, the first thing is the Russians are exceptionally tough people. I mean. I mean, the guys I've talked to who've been in combat and have seen this stuff, these are. I mean. I mean, one of these dudes. Walk down after. These are exceptionally tall people. These are like a warrior race, very big mark culture, Remember, say tens of millions of people died in this. There's not a family that was touched by this great periodic war. The Russian military, I mean, this is a different level combat awareness. And I did a. I did a combat medicine course with the Russian Tree, with the instructors from. From this stuff. And, you know, I mean, the stuff you see and you hear and the training that engraved now this combat cadre and the. These. These veterans, it's. Nothing can torture the NATO. Nothing, nothing can touch it in any other modern army other than the Ukrainian army, which probably had the same experience. But the drone has a huge psychological impact. Right. A friend of mine called Patrick Lancaster, you know, who spent months and months and months on the front line. You know, we'd often talked about it. This horrible zipping sound and this horrible buzz. It's like. It's like, you know, a mosquito when you wake up at night in the dark. But this mosquito can kill you. It can blow you to pieces. So it's. It has a huge psychological impact on people, whether it's your drone, their drone, whether it's an observation drone, a Mavic, wherever it's, you know, it's coming to strike you. It has a huge psychological impact on the fighters. And I got to say, on both sides, because a huge proportion of the men, the Russian on the Ukrainian side, don't want to be there at all. They've been forced to go there, remember? And they're Living in this horrible reality that if they go back, they could be shot by these penal battalions who are behind the front. If they go forward, they probably die. And then all day long you've got this. So it's had a huge psychological impact. That's why you've had so many suicides, particularly the Ukrainian side suicides. Addiction, you know, it's. It's a different type of war. It's a very inhumane, bloody, sort of merciless war. And for me, I mean, the last time we were in Lugansk, you know, we were. We had the guys with us who are constantly looking at the sky, and every time you hear anything, you're. You're just tuned into this. This anxiety inside. You got to push through it. But it adds a real level of malevolence. It's a very, very spooky thing, you know, and luckily, you know, you know, you stay safe, but it's not something that you can experience without sort of really carrying it away. It's just a quick, quick thing. The first time I went down near the front was probably in 23. I went to a city called Belgorod and I went to a place called Shebekin. On. As soon as we got out of the vehicles, artillery shells were landing, coming over our heads and landing. And that's what you imagine modern warfare to be like. You know, the whiz crump of the shell that's almost disappeared now out of the. The narrative you're listening to sky, it's keep your eyes on the sky, watch the sky, watch the sky. That's what you're told all the time. Remark.
- [61:43]
A
You know, I guess I'll ask you this at the end here, Shay, which is, where do you think things go next? What do you think the rest of this summer looks like? Just a slow grind, capturing these three big fortress cities and then pushing on to Kiev or something else.
- [62:02]
B
I think. I think what's going to happen is, look, the Russians are going to keep doing what they're doing. And it's not a very popular, sexy answer. And people ask me to solve what happens next. Will the Russians start striking factories in Belgium, in blah, blah? Well, they start sinking tankers that are seized. And so my view. And you know, I stand to be corrected, I may be wrong. If the Russians will keep doing what the Russians are doing, which is winning on the. On the front line, why would they do something else? This would be the Russian attitude. You know, it's like people say to me, why have the Russians not taken out Zelensky and the Russian attitude is, why interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake? Why would you want someone intelligent in charge in Kiev? You know, leave Zelensky there? He's a liability to the Ukrainian people. So I think the Russians are going to keep doing what they're doing because they're moving forward on the front lines. They're going to keep searching for solutions to drones. They're going to keep plugging the air defense gaps that they find when the Ukrainians strike oil refineries. They're going to ramp up production of those air defense systems. The Russians aren't really interested in sexy PR moves. They're interested in results on the ground. And as far as the Russians are concerned, as far as I can see, they feel that they're moving forward. As long as the reports from the front are that this town has fallen, the next town has fallen, the next. There's no other way to take this territory other than fight for it hand over tooth and nail. There's no other way to do it. This is something that's not realized in the west, in the, in the sort of, you know, commentariat in the Western client media. Oh, the Russians aren't winning fast enough. You know, there's only one way to do this stuff, and it's infantry, assaults on buildings. It's drones, it's, it's very brutal, it's very bloody. And the Russians have set out a task. And I say the only alternative to them doing that and achieving it is unthinkable for Russia. So that's not going to happen. I think if Ukrainians make it to the next winter, it will be the last winter of this war. It has to be. Because I don't think Ukraine or the Ukrainian population or energy grid or political system can survive another winter. I don't see it going beyond next winter.
- [64:09]
A
Yeah, and it's existential crisis for the Russians, to be sure. And what would we do, you know, in the United States if we had this massive NATO monstrosity on our back, on our back doorstep, we would fight tooth and nail to try to protect the sovereignty of our country, that's for sure. But if you listen to the client media, as you call it, Ukraine is winning. I don't know how they account for that. And I, you know, next time you talk to somebody who says that Ukraine is winning, just ask them specifically how, how, how are they winning? I don't understand. I can't wrap my head around it. Maybe Mark Carney has some sort of an answer to that I don't know.
- [64:49]
B
Yeah, well, as you say, you know, you don't, you don't necessarily need evidence for anything when it comes to the, the client media, as we call it. You don't need evidence because you just move on to the next ridiculous allegation. Remember a couple of weeks ago, I was told, oh, Mr. Lukashenko has been kidnapped by Putin. You heard that? And I went, excuse me. He just, he's just got off a plane in China. He's talking to Xi Jinping. That's a fake. He's not. That's not the real Xi Jinping, and it's not the real Lukashenko. I mean, you know, what are you going to do?
- [65:21]
A
Cha Bowes, thank you so much for your bravery, your incredible journalism and coverage these past few years. It's been a long time to try to get you here on the show and to do this deep dive conversation, but I thought now was an appropriate time as we see this sort of tide shifting right now. Shea, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
- [65:43]
B
Thanks to you and all your viewers.