Interview with Senator Richard Black of Virginia. As background, he is a retired military officer, having served in VietNam both as a Marine foot soldier and also as a helicopter pilot. He is against an escalation in Ukraine, is aware of the duplicity, is sober in his analysis of Putin. Black is dead-set against any US involvement and considers the situation insanely dangerous.
At 8 minutes he summarizes the last 30 years, including the 2014-2021 runup and the final months before the war. NATO is only maintained because of the Russia-always-as-enemy myth. He is blunt about the corrupt 2014 Maidan, implicating US and Brit intelligence. Since 2014, the West has been openly training Ukrainians and priming them for a war with Russia. Russia's December 2021 petition for a peace proposal was entirely dismissed by NATO, as instructed by the US. By January 2022, 250k Ukraine forces had massed on the Donbass, preparing for an assault into Donbass. The Ukrainians fired 2,000 artillery missions in the runup to their planned offensive. Putin was forced to commit to battle with 190k troops versus 250k Ukrainians already mobilized.
Edit - I'd like to see more documentation about this January 2022 mobilization of 250k Ukraine troops. We are hearing more about it, but I haven't seen the evidence/first hand reporting.
At 21:00, there's a decent analysis of how the current situation is a mirror-view of the Cuban missile crisis.
At 28:00, the nuclear risk and irresponsible nature of American behavior and commentary is discussed. American officials are almost sleep-walking to WW3, declaring fealty to Ukraine. Retired GEN Breedlove has even advocated for US troops and tanks to enter Ukraine to the west bank of the Dnieper. Breedlove is reportedly a confidant of Biden administration.
At 35 minutes, he explains how after the US war in Vietnam (about 60k US deaths), we learned that it is better to find proxies to do the dying. First example of this was Afghanistan, with as many as 300k Taliban jihadis being financed by USG in order to force pain on Russia. Ukraine is our current proxy.
At 41 minutes, they link the war to economic issues, Davos crowd, and Great Reset. Breaking Russia is a great way to demonstrate to the World that even great nations are subject to destruction and economic re-assembly.
49:50 - Black explains how Russia is a massive exporter of key commodities. Cutting them off causes problems and leaves more money chasing the fewer resources that are in the mix.
At 53:30 - Moskva sinking incident and Russian General killings, with much US help
Putin is taken aback by such extreme actions, has had great restraint, but he is not Mr. Spock. He's a person, with emotions, and patriotic. Some day he may crack. The West sees Russia as a big resource target, ready for another 90s style shock-therapy robbery process. Putin knows it, and won't let it happen on his watch.
1:00:01 - claims there are 50 French and 20 Brits still at Azovstal
Zelensky briefly had said that he was interested in discussing peace with Russia, but his western masters got to him and told him to stop such discussion. War with Russia is the order of the day.
