Larry Johnson: End of Negotiations & Launch of Oreshnik (Transcript)

And, you know, it wasn’t just the failed drone attack on the Putin residence, official residence on the 28th. It was then the capture and boarding by the US of the Russian flag tanker.

And it wasn’t as the west tried to portray it, that this tanker just quickly, in the last minute, flagged itself as Russian and not really being Russian. The Russian Foreign Ministry came out with just a scorching statement yesterday condemning this as piracy, condemning this as illegal.

What was fascinating is the crew consisted of two Russians, one of whom is the captain, eight Georgians and 20 Ukrainians. Now think about this: here you got Russia and Ukraine at war, but you got the Russian captain of a ship with 20 Ukrainian crew. And apparently they weren’t fighting each other at sea.

But I just learned this morning that the United States has released the two Russians, sent them back. But meanwhile the eight Georgians and 20 Ukrainians are facing criminal charges in the United States. So you can’t make this stuff up. It’s bizarre.

But the United States is showing they’re not thinking this through because they think that they can bully just as we did in Venezuela. We can go in and flex our military muscle and get away with it without paying a price.

One of these days, NATO, the US and or NATO will cross the line and Russia will be compelled to strike outside of Ukraine. At this point, they’re content to hit the targets inside Ukraine, including any NATO facilities.

Two days ago, three days ago, Russia hit facilities in, let’s see, Dnipropetrovsk, in Odessa and farther west in Ukraine. They were all US owned factories, US owned facilities, and Russia attacked and destroyed them. So, you know, I think Russia also is sending a message to Washington. I don’t know if they got it, but at least, you know, Russia’s not now trying to avoid attacking any targets affiliated with the United States and or Europe.

Targeting Russia’s Nuclear Command Structure

GLENN DIESEN: Well, the last time we spoke, I mentioned that Zelensky’s former adviser, Oleksii Arestovich, he made the point that in the bunkers beneath the residence, they do have, or nearby at least they have, the Russians have a nuclear command center. And this was allegedly one of the reasons why the Russians were so angry. They see this is a direct US strike on their retaliatory capabilities.

Now, I’m not, again, I don’t have any way of verifying whether or not this is correct, but it would fit within a wider pattern. That is the strike of the Engels base where Russia has its nuclear armed strategic bombers. Many times, by the way, one can add. It also is consistent with the attack on Russia’s nuclear early warning radars, which is supposed to warn them if there’s a nuclear strike coming their way, which is a weird thing to hit because nothing to do with Ukraine.

And it also makes the Russians, I guess, more worried, less preparation time. So they’re going to have to hit that button, retaliatory strike button much faster, less time to consider. And also, of course, as I saw back in June of 2025, the attack on Russia’s nuclear bombers, which FSB said MI6 was behind, but I assume also the CIA had a role in this.

LARRY JOHNSON: So how do you…

GLENN DIESEN: Again, if this attack on Putin’s residence fits within all of this, what is the purpose here for the United States? Is it to prepare for a nuclear first strike? Is it to signal escalation dominance, that they’re telling the Russians, “We can go up this ladder and we can go further than you so back down”? Is it to pressure the Russians to accept some concessions or is to provoke a response so the Russians will get further pulled into a direct war with the Europeans?

How are you assessing this? Because this is beyond provocative. This is, I mean, when Russia responds, if our leaders dare to say it was not provoked, this is beyond comprehension. I mean, imagine something like this happened during the Cold War. It would have a separate chapter in the history books.

The Abandonment of International Law

LARRY JOHNSON: Well, I put myself back in my sitting back at CIA headquarters in the analytical role that I had, and the question comes down from the seventh floor. Seventh floor is where the director of CIA sat. And they said, “Okay, the White House wants to know, what are the Russians? What are the Russians going to do? What is the real intent?”

Or I reverse it. I’m now doing that position for Vladimir Putin as part of the FSB. And so the first thing I have to assess is, does the United States respect international law and international agreements? And I’d have to say no.

Under Donald Trump, the United States has abandoned any pretext of recognizing international law, international treaties as valid. Instead, the United States under Trump has now made it very clear that they’re going to take what they want, they’re going to do what they want, they’re going to kill who they want. They’ll do whatever they have to do if it serves their interest.

So that’s the first danger now that Russia is saying, okay, if you’re Vladimir Putin and you’re hearing this, so I can no longer depend upon any promise or anything written, whatever the United States has agreed to in writing, they no longer respect it. And you’ve got Trump saying very clearly, not just Trump, Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, you have the top members of the Trump administration saying, basically, “Your international agreements and your international law, we wipe our a with that, okay? It means nothing.”

Russia’s Strategic Assessment

So from that standpoint, then, when you as Russia have been trying to abide by international conventions and uphold international laws, including agreements to limit production of nuclear weapons. You know, again, you’ve got to step back and say, okay, over the course of the last 25 years, George W. Bush has walked away from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Agreement, Donald Trump has walked away, unilaterally abrogated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Agreement, and right now has declined our offers to pursue or try to keep START, New START intact so that we control intercontinental ballistic missiles.

So with all of that as background, if I’m Russia, you know, we have to prepare for war. The United States is going to, the only thing the United States will understand is force. And, you know, negotiations are a dead end. That’s if I was, if I was the analyst, that’s what I’d be telling Vladimir Putin now. It’s up to him to figure out what to do.

The ABM Treaty and Hypersonic Development

GLENN DIESEN: That’s a great point. Because the only reason why the Russians have these hypersonic missiles, the reason why they’ve been putting so much work into their missile systems is because, well, they warned that they would do this for more than 20 years.

And it was when the United States announced in 2001, and then of course, it came into effect in 2002, the withdrawal from the ABM treaty, that the Russians said, “Well, now we have to develop missiles which can circumvent your anti-ballistic missile shield.”

Because the concern was it’s not as if the ballistic missile shield could ever prevent a Russian first strike because there would be too many missiles, it would be overwhelming. It’s more or less fear that it’s intended to enable a first strike. That is, instead of having nuclear weapons as a deterrent, that it has an offensive purpose because it only needs to be powerful enough to absorb the retaliatory capabilities of the Russian Federation.

This is a concern. And even if the United States wouldn’t launch a first strike, the concern would be if they think they have the capabilities, this would essentially make them more aggressive. Because now they feel they can go up the escalation ladder and the Russians would have to step down. I mean, this was the entire reason why there was an ABM Treaty, that nuclear weapons shouldn’t have this offensive purpose.

LARRY JOHNSON: Right.

GLENN DIESEN: So it is strange that we just…

LARRY JOHNSON: Yeah.

GLENN DIESEN: That we put all these incentives in place for Russia to develop these weapons. But why do you think the Russians haven’t put warheads on them? Because this is the first time the Russians had developed the Oreshnik, I think was back in June, they launched one without a warhead as a warning. And this time they launched one without warning in Western Ukraine, near the border of Poland.

The Oreshnik Launch Protocol

LARRY JOHNSON: So, well, let me correct you on that, actually. What I’ve read is the Russians did warn the United States three hours before launching because they wanted to make sure that the United States, who has satellites that monitor launches of what could be an intercontinental ballistic missile, would understand “What we’re launching is this intermediate missile. We’re not going to tell you where it’s going in Ukraine, but it is confined to Ukraine.”

So they were warned in advance. And then the United States started calling around people saying, “Watch out, something bad’s coming.”

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, I’m not sure if that was related to that warning, but I did see that the US warned…

LARRY JOHNSON: It’s…

The End of International Law: America’s Lawless Approach

GLENN DIESEN: I think it’s embassy staff or something to correct. Was that related to this warning?

LARRY JOHNSON: Well, that was unrelated. That was unrelated because that happened like a couple of days ago. I think they may have. The embassy may have been warned by the Russians saying, look, we are going to retaliate, and we’re going to retaliate, but it will be within Ukraine.

So, you know, the United States took that as, okay, hey, Americans, get the hell out, keep a low profile, etc. But the specific launch of the Oreshnik, apparently the United States was told about that two to three hours beforehand. So, again, Russia’s trying to avoid doing anything unilaterally that could be misinterpreted to, you know, spin this off up into a nuclear war.

GLENN DIESEN: Well, in terms of seizing the Russian ships, I mean, much like the withdrawing from the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty encouraged Russia to develop the hypersonic missile, we see that this new trend of either doing piracy, that is hijacking ships or attacking ships. You know, initially they pretend that it was. Well, they still pretend it was Ukraine who attacked all the Russian vessels, even in the Mediterranean. But it’s becoming more and more shameless, I guess.

LARRY JOHNSON: Yeah.

GLENN DIESEN: You know, less need to cover up what they’re doing. So it’s this kind of incrementalism. But given that they. That this is the new approach to Russia, it seems very predictable that the consequence will be that Russia will begin to protect its vessels more and more with military force. Which means that the Russian Navy is going to be much more active in the Baltic Sea. It’s going to be much more active in the Black Sea and also in the Arctic or anywhere, anywhere they go.

Where do you see this leading? Because, again, the US would feel more confident here, given that it’s a much greater maritime power, but this is the risk of war by miscalculations growing dramatically, though.

Russia’s Response: Armed Protection of Vessels

LARRY JOHNSON: Yeah. Well, let me go back to the illustration I was trying to use about being an analyst, a Russian intelligence analyst, having to inform President Putin or, you know, answer his questions about what are the US intentions? What are the US capabilities?

So to turn the question around, and President Putin could ask me, “Mr. Johnson, can you give me one example where the United States put a priority on international law in terms of limiting its actions?” And I’d have to say, no. The piracy at sea was. What’s the difference? That in piracy on land, when they abduct and kidnap an elected president, now, we can claim that he’s illegal and illegitimate, but, you know, it’s still within the confines of Venezuela. We may not like it, but he still was viewed internationally as the elected leader.

And so the answer is, well, no, I can’t. So you start with the presumption, you know, the United States is not bound by any kind of legal constraints whatsoever, and it’s instead, might makes right. They think they can get away with it, they’re going to do it.

So from Russia’s standpoint, they’ve in the past used a lot of these, you know, they call them ghost ships. But all that means is these ships are no longer insured by Lloyds of London. They’re insured out of either China or Russia. I think Russia and China are now coming to the point, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to flag these vessels with our own flags. It’s Russian and Chinese flag vessels.

And it wouldn’t surprise me that Russia would start deploying a platoon, you know, 15 to 30, you know, special forces on these ships to protect them. So that any inbound helicopter would face the potential of lethal fire. And similarly, any attempt by Navy SEALs to try to board a ship underway would face gunfire from onboard. You don’t want to get to that point, but that would be a better option than risking the confrontation once the ship’s taken.

There has been, I think, a gross overestimation of the importance of Venezuelan oil. To say, like China, that, you know, I look at what the Chinese was doing was they’re doing a favor for Venezuela to buy its oil. They didn’t need it. It’s like here in the United States every year we have this organization. It’s called the Girl Scouts. It’s for girls between, like, 8 and 13. And one of the things they do annually to raise money is they sell cookies.

Well, this is like. Think of China as, like, they’ve got their own cookie manufacturing company. But their next door neighbor, there’s this little girl, they’re going to buy some cookies from her. That’s what they were doing with China. They were buying cookies from China. Only in this case, it was oil to help the Venezuelan economy. But it wasn’t something that China was dependent upon, that China had no alternative source for such oil. Not the case, but it was again, China trying to build influence by providing money, providing assistance, as opposed to threatening and using military coercion.

The Eurasianist Vision: Looking East

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, well, it’s often been pointed out that the Chinese would, if they can’t buy oil, oil, other places they would be more dependent on Russian oil, which would only bring them closer. And if you read the work of Russian Eurasianists, especially in the early 20th century, the main argument was that our weakness is that we try to develop as a Western European country that has a maritime power, but we were a Eurasian power, so they’re controlling the seas anyways.

And they will always try to constrain our development by blocking us at the sea. What we should do is instead of develop, look east, form land corridors, connect with all the Eurasian and Asian great powers. It just seems that there’s some unforeseen consequences here.

LARRY JOHNSON: But let me just interject. This is providing more evidence to support our mutual friend Sergei Karaganov’s position of, hey, the future’s in the east, not the West. I mean, this is like Donald Trump’s making Sergei’s case for him.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, well, this is the problem when you weaponize the economic connectivity, because this, you know, if you want to predict how they might act now that the US is getting more involved in piracy, of course, not just against Venezuelan, but now going after Russian ship as well. You know, we had this problem before that it’s along the Somali coast and we just put a lot of soldiers and armed mercenaries on the ships and, well, we’re the Somalis now, it seems, hijacking ships, but also the other aspects, stealing the sovereign assets of countries, which is unheard of, banning access to banks and payment systems, blocking access to technologies.

It only works a little bit until countries will find ways of circumventing it. And once they do, everything becomes, I guess, a lot, a lot uglier. But I did want to ask you, though, about, you know, you said if you were giving advice to the Kremlin, how would you, what would you tell them about the intentions of Washington regarding the negotiations? I mean, where are the negotiations going now?

Negotiations: A Dead End?

LARRY JOHNSON: Well, negotiations are a dead end. They’re not serious. The United States is not serious about actually concluding an agreement with Russia if they were serious. And I would, you know, I’d suggest to President Putin at your next meeting with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, say, look, if we’re going to have any chance of these talks succeeding, we’re going to need some concrete measures, demonstrations by you that you’re serious.

And that means, number one, name an ambassador to Russia that’s a serious person that we know is going to have direct access to President Trump. Number two, drop, suspend all prohibitions on direct flights between Russia and the United States. That has to end. Three, end all restrictions on Russian consulates being able to be opened in the United States to facilitate travel between our two countries. Four, return the assets, the Russian property that has been seized from our diplomatic missions in New York and Washington, D.C. and lift the restriction on our diplomats being able to travel.

Do those four things, then we’ll know that you’re serious about talking. Otherwise, you know, we’re not going to waste our time. See, if the United States does that. I don’t think they would.

GLENN DIESEN: Well, yeah, because I often think about the negotiations they had with Iran and Trump was making point out they’re making great headway right before they launched a surprise attack on Iran. And, well, if you’re sitting in Moscow, you can’t help but, you know, as Trump brands himself the peacemaker and how he’s got great relationship with Putin and they’re negotiating, they will get an end to this war. They’re 90% done.

You can’t help but ignore that the war planners behind this are mainly American generals sitting in Germany. It’s CIA operatives who are behind attacks on Russian refineries, on Russian ships. It’s nuclear deterrent. It’s again, it’s American weapons launched by American contractors guided by American satellites, targets picked by, again, American intelligence. And of course, all the Trump’s argument that we have to put all these mass sanctions, pressure countries to stop trading with Russia, such as India.

The talk that we have to weaken the Russian war machine, which is a way of saying we’re going to destroy your economy. All of this talk and then there’s no advancements in the negotiations. It doesn’t make any sense. When why are the Russians still going along with this? Do you think it’s genuine? Or they’re just, well, against realizing that it’s a dead end, but just amusing Trump.

International Pressure and the Collapse of Diplomacy

LARRY JOHNSON: Well, no, I think there’s an element of pressure from China, from India, lesser extent Brazil, that Russia should try to make a good faith effort to negotiate with the United States. Now, I think that there has been in the wake of the attack on Putin’s residence and the abduction of President Maduro, that the pressure that would have come from China, India, Brazil on that issue has now abated and abated significantly.

I think they now recognize that the United States is a lawless country, and we see no reason whatsoever to abide by international conventions, international rules. There’s no such thing as. Listen to Stephen Miller. They blatantly say there’s no such thing as international law. We don’t have to follow that. We’re the biggest, we’re the strongest, we’re the superpower. Screw you. We’re going to do what we want to do.

And, you know, if any of these countries had harbored any lingering doubts that Russia may have been exaggerating or misrepresented in the US position, the United States has openly said it. You know, it’s sort of like that scene, you know, A Few Good Men with Jack Nicholson. And he’s been. He’s insisting that they had not carried out this abuse against this younger soldier. And finally, under cross examination, he admits, “God damn right, I ordered a Code Red.”

That’s just what Stephen Miller and Donald Trump did. They just admitted, yes, we did it, and we’re going to do it again. And the rest of the world is going, whoa, wait a second. This is so much for the U.N. they just, they admitted the U.N. is a joke, the U.N. not to be paid attention to. This is the law of the jungle.

And Dmitry Medvedev, I think, correctly observed and captured and commented on this within the last 24 hours. You know, it says, hey, it’s who’s the biggest and strongest in the jungle. It’s all about force. It’s not about right and wrong. It’s not about law now. And that, Listen, this cuts completely against Vladimir Putin’s approach, because as a lawyer, he has been trained to actually respect the law.

You know, people say, oh, that’s ridiculous. But no, he’s made quite a point about dotting I’s, crossing T’s and trying to proceed in a legal manner in accordance with international law. Now they’re being told in the course of the last 10 days that international law no longer matters and Russia should be prepared to act accordingly.

The Law of the Jungle: Might Makes Right

GLENN DIESEN: Well, this is problem. There’s no international law, and might is right. You’re sending a signal out to the international system. If you want to have any protection or assume that you can have security rights of any kind, it has to be backed by power, by weapons. And this can encourage a lot of balancing, though, of the United States.

If the US essentially tells the rest of the world, the only reason we’re going to follow rules is because you have power you can use against us. And I think this is awakening to many states because with Venezuela, the Europeans seemed shocked that, well, why don’t they just say the magic word of democracy and freedom? That’s why you went into Venezuela. Then, you know, then it’s legitimate and we can support it. But instead they just said, no, it’s oil we want. It’s our hemisphere.

LARRY JOHNSON: Get out.

GLENN DIESEN: It’s our oil. And then, of course, when they said, also we want Greenland, and the Europeans said, well, why? What claim do you have that’s, you know, it’s sovereign territory. Ah, we need it. It’s just there’s no even, at least in the past, used to be some kind of a pretense that, you know, well, it might be a law here or there. Now it just seems so like we’re ignoring it.

LARRY JOHNSON: These are the tactics of organized crime. You know, you’re the shopkeeper, you’re running a deli or a restaurant, and the local mafia guys come in and tell you, “Hey, nice restaurant here. You know, you’re going to be paying us. You’re going to be paying us 25% of your profits every month going forward because we’ll help you keep the restaurant nice. And if you don’t, restaurant’s not going to be so nice.”

Yeah, you got to pay up. You know, that’s what this is like, this kind of coercion and just the fact that, you know. Yeah, we need Greenland. For what? What purpose? So we can shut down Russia and China. Okay. Yeah.

The Disintegration of NATO Unity

GLENN DIESEN: And, well, when the Danes and, well, the Europeans in general say, tell the Americans, well, you know, we’re allies, you can have more bases here if you want. And they say, no, no, no, we need it under our control. It kind of signals what’s coming in the future as well. We might not be friends for that long, and, you know, it’s better to have it under our own control.

But in this negotiation. Well, in this… No, it was negotiations. Sorry. They keep calling negotiations. When the Europeans and Americans and Ukrainians talk among themselves, they call it negotiations. I think they forget they’re all on the same side against Russia.

But anyways, in Paris, the Europeans, they seemed very confident that they thought the Americans were going to give them a backstop that is on putting European troops. In other words, if they send troops to Ukraine, and not if, but when the Russians knocked them all out, that then the Americans would step in.

But, you know, this assumption didn’t come out of nowhere. It appears that the United States might have left them very deliberately with that impression before pulling back. So it kind of begs the question of why are they… Is the Trump administration trying to embolden the Europeans to send troops, even though they won’t be protected? So, again, is this an effort to end the war, or they just want to get the Europeans to continue the war into the next stage?

LARRY JOHNSON: No, actually, I think I’m going to look at it first from Russia’s perspective. You know, when you see your enemy, your adversary committing suicide, don’t intervene to stop them. In fact, you know, encourage them to continue. And that’s what I think Russia is seeing the United States now do vis-à-vis NATO.

One of the Russians’ legitimate concerns up to this point has been a unified NATO poses a significant threat to Russia. Now, with watching Trump’s antics and basically provoking confrontation with the rest of NATO, and we saw just in the last 24 hours, comments by Macron, and, you know, I think a member of the French legislature said, “Hey, we need to withdraw from NATO. We need to get out.” All of a sudden, the prospects of a disunited, divided NATO is very real.

If I’m working that issue from a standpoint of Russian intelligence, boy, I’d be doing everything I could to encourage that. The more of that, the merrier, because ultimately, it’s going to make us more secure in the long run. But Trump seems to be acting almost as an agent of Russia in that regard. Instead of promoting unity, doing what he can, he’s provoking confrontations with Denmark.

You know, in the United States, if you ask most people to find Denmark on a map, only those who watched a lot of Hollywood movies that featured Danny Kaye, remember, Danny Kaye was a… He was this actor, and he was known for singing this song, “Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. Salty old queen of the sea,” you know, and it was this upbeat. That was Denmark.

But, you know, here, now, Denmark’s mobilizing what small military force it has, sending it to Greenland to fight off the United States. Good God, this sounds like a Peter Sellers movie. You know, “The Mouse that Roared.” So if you’re Russia watching this, you just, you know, holler out, put another log on that fire. Because the more NATO disunites over this issue of US bullying, the better it is for Russia.

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, I think it’s… Well, it’s a quote attributed to Napoleon. He said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.” And I think that’s a good reason for not to keep a low profile. But the assumption is if Russia doesn’t, the more it pushes back, the more it will unite the Western countries. But if it just takes a step back, the whole thing will fall apart on its own.

LARRY JOHNSON: And I think that’s one of the reasons why you’re seeing restraint on Russia’s part with the use of, like the Oreshnik missile, not going outside the boundaries of Ukraine and hitting in Ukraine targets that minimize civilian casualties but maximize damage to Ukrainian infrastructure so that it won’t be able to continue to provide heat homes and provide fuel for factories.

Ukraine’s Deteriorating Military Situation

GLENN DIESEN: So, just as a final question, where is this war going now? Because we see the front lines are… Well, they continue to deteriorate, I think in the Zaporizhzhia region, it’s clearer than anywhere else, but also pushing into Dnipro, Kharkov, Sumy region.

But all of these military victories, as we see the military victories grow, there’s also more pressure on the, as I said before, the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, the ability to manufacture both for the economy and for warfare. And of course, now, as you also mentioned, when the mayor of Kyiv, Klitschko, encourages people to leave the capital, I mean, where are they going to go? I’m assuming he said more or less, if you have a different place to go, but for many people, that will be to leave the country.

Now, again, this is, I guess, many benefits for Russia. One, it shuts down the economy. It shuts down society a bit. It makes it more difficult for them to actually fight, but at the same time, it makes it easier to conquer cities if they’re not full of civilians that can be killed.

So do you see the setting up for a final showdown? I mean, are they looking for a collapse? Because it’s not as if this can go on forever. It looks the more holes there’s in the front line, the more the Ukrainians are propping or trying to plug those holes with the reserves. At some point, there is no more reserves left, and then all the holes will start to leak at the same time.

LARRY JOHNSON: Yeah, no, Ukraine clearly has a manpower problem. Russia has a surfeit of forces. They have been steadily building up. I think the total Russian ground force manpower now is 1.5 million. And they are pushing both immobilization and recruitment drives to expand it up over 2 million.

And this is not in order to defeat Ukraine. This is for the follow-on war with NATO that they are preparing for. It doesn’t mean they’re going to do it, but it does mean they’re prepared. They are thinking ahead and planning so that they’re not caught in a situation that, frankly, they were in 2022 where they hadn’t really planned this through. They had a good plan A, but they didn’t have a good plan B or plan C if plan A failed.

The sort of the unknown now or the variable that’s thrown into this whole calculation that changes the answer is Trump’s erratic behavior. If Trump pursues the confrontation with Denmark over the Greenland, that is going to accelerate the decline of NATO and further weaken NATO. In fact, you’ve already got Meloni, prime minister of Italy, calling for, “Hey, you know, maybe we need to start talking to Russia now.”

And the Russians would be happy to talk. They would rather get along with the Europeans than not. They don’t hate the Europeans, but it’s no longer something that they absolutely have to have a relationship with them.

So the military situation on the ground in Ukraine, though, I think it’s going to rapidly deteriorate. What we’re seeing now is going to accelerate, and Russia will finish purging Ukrainian soldiers out of Donetsk, and they will be well advanced. In fact, right now, they’re something like 20 kilometers from Zaporizhzhia. This is a huge city, the same in Sumy.

So they’re the point where they’ll be able to surround and envelop Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy. And all of a sudden, three major cities for Ukraine are in jeopardy of being lost. And at that point, Putin’s made it clear that the deal that’s been on the table, that’s going to be replaced by a new deal, which means if they occupy Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy and Poltava, then those oblasts are going to have a chance to vote to become part of Russia.

GLENN DIESEN: Yes. Zelensky, just recently now, I think within the last few hours, made a statement that the tactic of the Russians are now to shut down… This is more or less the word, to shut down Ukrainian cities. So if the cities are shut down, such as what you’re seeing now with Kyiv, then, well, essentially the country shuts down and the war is over.

And as you said, given, and this is just Kyiv, but given the proximity they now have towards cities like Sumy, Kharkov and Zaporizhzhia, then these are massive. These are the major cities. So, no. So, yeah, Kyiv is the largest. Kharkov is the second largest. I mean, this is kind of big. So, sorry, one last final question.

LARRY JOHNSON: Sure.

The Day After: What Happens When Ukraine Capitulates?

GLENN DIESEN: What is the next stage here then? Because the Europeans have made it very clear they’re not willing to put an end to this war. They think that if the war ends, then all of this massive Russian army, they will be able to deploy, you know, Baltic Sea or somewhere along our border. So better to keep the war going.

But if there’s no willing to end the war, what might it do? And, you know, the United States under Trump, they have a more accommodating tone. They want to reach a deal, all of this. But still, the intelligence agencies, it’s not as if they will be dislodged from Ukraine without a fight. The CIA isn’t going anywhere.

So what would happen, I guess, the day after, let’s say, Ukraine capitulates tomorrow? What would it actually look like? Would you have the different factions within Ukraine turning on each other? Would there be civil war? How would you… I mean, there seems to be a whole set of new problems the day after.

LARRY JOHNSON: Well, the key to that will be who has control of the guns, who’s got the military, who will remain with some capability to carry out military operations or paramilitary operations in Ukraine. They’ll be the ones who will be the deciders. And, you know, Russia, you know, Russia’s wise enough to understand they’re going to have to deal with them and, you know, killing them, they’ll kill them. You know, it’s the same as what happened with the second Chechen war.

I saw a fascinating commentary by Abdi Aladinov. And, you know, I’m also fortunate to have Abdi as I consider him a friend. You know, he’s sitting in front of a flag that symbolizes his Islamic faith and the Russian national flag. He’s a Russian patriot first and foremost. But he was reacting to the boarding of this ship to Marinera and basically seeing this as a direct affront, a direct attack on Russia that will have to be answered.

I think that the next step still will be Russia will confine its military operations to within Ukraine. But I would not be surprised to see them turn to the United States and say, “We’re going to put you on notice. Going forward, any US reconnaissance aircraft in the Black Sea or along our borders will be legitimate targets and we will shoot them down. So if you continue to send them up, we will shoot them down. We’re putting you on notice and deploying forces on Russian-flagged vessels that will resist any attempt by the United States to board those vessels.”

That will escalate this and the United States may try to fight back. So I think there is a significant risk both of this escalating into military confrontation. And then the other part is what happens when the United States and Israel attack Iran, that Russia is now in a closer military relationship to help Iran defend itself than ever before.

So we’ve got two, call it two big pots of gunpowder that are open and we’re walking around smoking cigarettes and flicking ashes. That’s dangerous conduct around open gunpowder.

The Dangerous Endgame

GLENN DIESEN: Well, that’s what seems will be the dangerous scenario now that as the war comes to an end, the losing side, that is NATO and of course Ukraine as well, will become more desperate. Meanwhile, the Russians might be, I guess, hubris might be a problem there too. They might get a bit too bold.

But beyond the boldness of it, the whole setup we’ve had over the past four years, like, “Oh, this is a great war now, we can essentially use Ukraine as a firing position. We can go after the Russian Black Sea fleet. We can launch missiles into Russia.” You know, is NATO willing to give up on this privilege once the war is over?

It seems as if, as you said, at some point the Russians will more or less say, “Why are we accepting these Western drones flying over the Black Sea, picking targets for striking us?” The more confident they are in the battle against the Western proxy, the more confident they would be in terms of pushing against the West.

Now, of course, the West is not one entity. I would assume that the first… try to punish the Germans, for example, given that they don’t have any nuclear weapons and they’re not… They’re very much despised. And it’s doubtful the Americans would come to their aid. But something’s going to change. It’s like it can’t continue like this anymore.

LARRY JOHNSON: What? Did you see Merz’s comment? I found it amusing. He said, “Yeah, no, well, we won’t deploy German forces to Ukraine without Russia’s permission.” I thought, “Hey, he’s not completely crazy.” He recognized that, you know what? If you got Russian compliance on it, that’s one thing, but if you don’t have that, you don’t do it. Which apparently that message hasn’t gotten to Keir Starmer and his crew.

The Normative Argument and Russia’s Exclusion from Europe

GLENN DIESEN: Yeah, but it’s this normative argument. We can put troops in Ukraine because Ukraine is a sovereign country. They invite us. Russia can’t say anything. I mean, it sounds morally nice and correct, but this has been our project for the past 30 years, in creating a Russia without Europe. We just make sure Russia doesn’t participate in any key European institutions, be it EU, NATO, whatever defines Europe. And now it doesn’t have a voice.

So now we can pretend Russia’s not there. The problem is Russia will assert itself in a different way. This idea that, well, we don’t need the permission of Russia. Well, you kind of do. If you don’t have that permission, then you will be greeted with an Oreshnik.

I don’t understand this political class. I think we need to bring back the old guard from the Cold War. Those leaders, at least they had some common sense and ability to show some respect for war and their opponents.

LARRY JOHNSON: Well, again, think back. They were coming off of a terribly destructive war. They had lost friends and family. They had seen their countries devastated. They knew what the cost was. The cost was not some theoretical construct. It was real, it was tangible. And they knew that.

They didn’t want to go back down that road again. So they had a strong incentive to actually get some rules to live by that we’ll all agree to, not color outside these lines, that we’ll stay inside those lines so that we can avoid this war.

What they’re confronting now with Donald Trump is somebody who’s not guided by that at all. He’s out of control.

The Curse of Forgetting History

GLENN DIESEN: Well, we don’t learn from history, and I guess this is the main curse many people speak of, that every generation kind of have to learn the horrors of war on their own. As the World War II generations died out, there’s no one anymore with the memory of the horrors of war.

Again, over the past 30 years, war is something that happens to other people far away. I think this generation will realize that war entails Oreshniks falling upon our cities.

But I already had quite a few last questions to you, so I want to thank you very much for taking time.

LARRY JOHNSON: I always enjoy your last questions. They’re always insightful and just keep up the good work. I particularly enjoyed your conversation with Sergei Karaganov. I thought that was very insightful.

GLENN DIESEN: Well, thanks. I appreciate it. And for those listening, I’ll leave a link to that conversation in the description. So thanks, Larry, and you have a great weekend.

LARRY JOHNSON: All right, my friend, take care. Bye bye.

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