Scott Ritter: Alaska Viewed From Moscow (Transcript)

And they were wondering why Putin was going there, knowing that the President was saying you have to accept a ceasefire that Putin would never accept. It was like, are you setting yourself up for failure?

But the one thing I said while I was there over and over again is that Vladimir Putin is as steady as anything in the world and he has already made his position very clear and he will make this position very clear to Donald Trump. And I’m confident that Donald Trump, once he’s exposed to the Russian reality and not the garbage he’s getting from everybody around him, that Donald Trump will do the right thing if his true objective is peace.

Sure enough, a short car ride with Donald Trump in the beast and suddenly Donald Trump did 180 degree flop. He said no more ceasefire. Remember if Putin didn’t accept the ceasefire from the start, he was going to sanction. And suddenly Trump comes out, goes, yeah, no ceasefire.

Trump’s Dramatic Policy Shift After Meeting Putin

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: On the flight from Anchorage, from D.C. to Anchorage on Air Force One, two hours before he met President Putin, he told Fox News, “I’ll be very disappointed if there’s no ceasefire and there will be consequences.” I suspect it was the bonding in the beast. Plus that hour long lecture that President Putin gave in the presence of the President, Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff and Sergey Lavrov. I’m going to guess the neocons around the President had never even told him the Russian understanding of the genesis and causes of the special military operation. And it resonated with him.

SCOTT RITTER: And the truth about the war the President was told the Russians were losing, that the Russians were taking horrific casualties. And I think Putin just set him straight. We’re killing 20 Ukrainians for every Russian dead. Russia’s lost a lot of dead, but we, and now we know the truth. They, 1.7 million dead Ukrainian soldiers. That’s from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Putin set him straight on so many things. Witkoff, when the briefing ended, Witkoff left and sat down and he was ashen faced. He had to leave the debriefing. Marco Rubio couldn’t speak because Putin basically took control and basically said, everybody who’s advising you is lying to you. Everybody is lying to you. Here’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And he brought that.

Trump, Putin has a way of doing this. It’s his thing. You remember with Tucker Carlson, when Putin gave him the history lesson.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: It was 45 minutes long and it was textbook. It was practically with footnotes. It was so well articulated.

SCOTT RITTER: Right? But he also brought, he said, I went to the archives and I pulled out the original documents and here’s copies of them, museum quality copies that he gave to Tucker, saying, when I speak, I’m just not making stuff up. This is the history and these are the documents. When he met with the President, he gave him a presidential daily briefing. The CIA’s equivalent with the documents with the facts could not be refuted. This is why the President did the flop, because he was presented with the real information.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: And Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth and John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA, all of whom were with the President in Alaska, should have been humiliated for the lousy job of preparing him and for feeding him with data and information demonstrably false.

SCOTT RITTER: I agree, I agree 100%. But we see the reflection now in what Trump is doing. First of all, the 180 degree flop. Trump made a bold commitment. As you said on the airplane. If Putin doesn’t immediately yield to my demand for a ceasefire, there will be consequences. This will not be pretty. And suddenly he’s saying, yeah, no ceasefire. We’re going long term conflict resolution, root causes, the whole thing. And I think you’re going to see as this goes forward. Look at Trump, the way he handled the Magnificent Seven that showed up in the White House. Dismissive, because he now knows the Russian truth. He knows the Russian reality.

Security Guarantees and European Wishful Thinking

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I have to ask you about the Magnificent Seven. It is clear from whatever he said to them, perhaps privately, because Chancellor Scholz said this back in Germany and President Macron said it that evening on NBC News, that the United States would participate militarily in a security guarantee. So there’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, what is a security guarantee? And secondly, I can’t imagine any circumstances under which the Russians would agree to EU, UK, US Troops anywhere in post war Ukraine, whether on the ground or in the air.

SCOTT RITTER: Lavrov just said that. I mean, you’ve met Lavrov. You know, he’s a serious man. Lavrov just said, no, it just is not going to happen. No European presence at all. No security guarantees. The way they’re talking about; Russia is the security guarantee. He said, if you want to do all that, Russia gets a veto over it because the Russians are pretty marked down. Ukraine belongs to us.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Why would Trump have – unless he’s just wanting to, he sometimes listens to whoever speaks in his ear last, sometimes, unfortunately, that’s Lindsey Graham. Sometimes he’s the opposite to that. Sometimes he tells the audience what he thinks they want to hear. Why would he even have said what Macron said and Mertz said he said?

SCOTT RITTER: Because they, first of all, I think Macron and Mertz are guilty of wishful thinking. First of all, Trump goes into verbal diarrhea. I apologize, but that’s just the way he does. He starts talking about something, you have to listen to what he says very carefully.

He says, “Yeah, security guarantees. We think it’s a good idea.” Then he said about the Europeans, “Yeah, they want to do this, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen.” That’s the reality. Trump didn’t commit to anything. I can guarantee you 100% Trump did not commit to putting US air power over Ukraine. And I can guarantee 100% he did not commit to putting U.S. boots on the ground.

What he told the Europeans is, this is your responsibility. You have to do it. We’ll be sort of there in the background monitoring this. But no, Trump did not commit American military power to Europe. This is wishful thinking on the part of the Europeans who heard what they wanted to hear and eliminated the parts of Trump’s response, such as the one that I just said, that make it clear that he didn’t agree to this.

Lavrov’s Strategic Messaging

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: All right, Sergey Lavrov has made a number of newsworthy statements in the past four days. I mean, the first newsworthy statement he made was his sartorial choice when he arrived in Alaska wearing a CCCP sweatshirt. That was enough to get the attention of the international press. And in a brilliant way, we’ll put that aside because you and I both love that kind of snarkiness. Here is Foreign Minister Lavrov. I’m not sure when this was, but I know it was very recently. It was either yesterday or this morning. No strategic guarantees.

Russian Response to Alaska Summit and European Opposition

Sergey Lavrov: Following the summit of Russia and the United States and Alaska, where we have achieved significant progress in moving towards defining the future shape and parameters for conflict settlement. And following this event, the European countries, together with Mr. Zelensky went to Washington and there they tried to promote their own agenda which is aimed at making sure that the security guarantees follow the logic of isolating Russia, the logic of uniting the Western world and Ukraine in order to continue the aggressive confrontational policy of holding Russia back. And in mind of the goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia.

We completely reject such proposals and initiatives. Besides, the Ukrainian regime and its representatives are making quite specific comments on the current situation, directly showcasing that they are not interested in a sustainable long term and fair conflict settlement.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: There you have it.

Zelensky’s Political Miscalculation

SCOTT RITTER: Look, the Russians said to Trump, “we’re, you know, if you can open the door for peace on our terms, we’re willing to walk through it.” But the Russians haven’t even put their shoes on because they know that Zelensky and Europe won’t play ball. Zelensky’s already undermined himself.

I mean, one of the key Russian demands is that whatever post conflict Ukraine looks like they need to respect the rights of the Russian people who live in Ukraine. That means that Russians have to be able to speak their language, practice their religion, the Orthodox faith, which is being violently suppressed by the Ukrainians today, and that their history and culture has to be respected.

You know, Russian literature has to be allowed in the libraries. The Ukrainians have to stop going in and toppling Russian monuments. And yet Zelensky today just straight up said they will not allow Russians to speak Russian. In game, set, match, it’s over. That Zelensky just committed political suicide.

Russian Military Progress and Strategy

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Well, how close? Your colleague Colonel Schaefer says 30 to 45 days. How close is the Russian military to achieving its military objectives on the ground?

SCOTT RITTER: I’m not going to dispute that time frame. I’m also not going to commit to it because one thing I’ve learned is that the Russians don’t care about calendars, they care about results. And that the Russians, as the Ukrainian casualty figures showed, the Russians are in the business of killing Ukrainians.

For all the military geniuses out there who say, “well, the map hasn’t moved very much,” well, it doesn’t need to. Demilitarization means destroying the Ukrainian army and that’s what’s happening. And when they’re fully destroyed, the Russians will advance, as they are doing right now, across the entire line of contact.

But the Russians aren’t going to be in a position where they say, “oh, my God, we said we’d have this done in 45 days. And now we have to put the pedal to the metal and lose 100,000 guys.” This isn’t the Battle of Berlin. Russia’s winning. Russia will.

Right now, they’re basically setting the Ukrainians up for a disastrous winter. They’re taking out the Ukrainian energy infrastructure, letting the Ukrainian people know that this idiot that you have in office right now is going to ruin you. There’s no gas reserves for Ukraine. Europe doesn’t have enough gas for itself. This is the Russian concept.

So if it’s over in 45 days, that’d be Abdi Aladinov, who’s the lieutenant general commander of the Akhmat Special Forces. He thinks there’s going to be significant changes. He basically said, “take a snapshot of the front line today. Take a snapshot in 30 days and you won’t recognize it. It’ll have changed that much.”

But, you know, the Ukrainians have shown themselves to be very tenacious defenders, despite the fact of their force mobilization. They still get several thousand primed volunteers or people ready to get trained and fight. They’re just not getting trained anymore. They’re being thrown to the front lines without adequate training and the complexity of this modern battlefield is such that if you don’t have training, you’re not trained to survive. You die again. Why? They have 1.7 million dead.

So the Russians are confident in victory. Every time, everything they said, peace through victory, meaning that there’s not going to be peace through compromise. I think Rubio’s got to get that term compromise out of his mouth. The only compromise getting made is from the United States, the Russian perspective. Peace through victory. Victory will be theirs one way or another. And this is the reality. It’s over for Ukraine.

Look every aspect. The Russians are now starting to play hardball. You know, there was an American factory, it was Flex. I think Flex Industries, Ukraine’s like. It produced coffee makers. Did you see that factory? It didn’t produce coffee makers. Flex… Flextronics here in the United States, before renamed them Flex, was a major producer of advanced electronics for American defense in aerospace technologies. That’s what they were doing. Ukraine, this was the place to produce the electronics for the Ukrainian drones and Ukrainian missiles. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been erased off the map by the Russians who are starting to play hardball. It’s an American owned company. They sort of had hands off on that one. But now the Russians are saying nothing you do that’s related to defense. Nothing you do that’s related.

Trump’s Latest Statement on Ukraine Strategy

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Chris is going to post a posting by President Trump in the past hour and I’ll read it. “It is very hard, if not impossible to win a war without attacking an invader’s country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense but it’s not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning. It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine fight back, only defend. How did that work out? Regardless, this is a war that would never have happened if I were president. Zero chance. Interesting times, Head President BJT.”

It’s hard to read, to analyze what he means when he writes like this. You think he means that Ukraine has no chance of winning or do you think he means it’s about time for Ukraine to attack Russia?

SCOTT RITTER: I think it means Ukraine has no chance of winning. You know, it’s funny, everybody thinks, “well, Russia’s attacking Ukraine,” therefore Ukraine, Russia is not attacking Ukraine. Ukraine still exists. There’s parties in Kiev, there’s parties in Odessa. Western Ukraine, much of it runs around as if there is no war. There’s electricity. The parliament meets in a parliamentarian building. The president meets, foreign dignitaries arrive.

If Russia was at war with Ukraine, which Russia would be if Ukraine was to carry out long range strikes against Russia, Ukraine would not exist anymore. It would cease to exist. No matter what Zelensky does the first time he throws one of his new falutin British made missiles into Moscow is the last time. Because then Kiev disappears. I’m not saying in a nuclear holocaust. I’m saying a Rushnik and other advanced systems that have now been deployed.

The Russians have been playing very tolerant strategic games with the Ukrainians, giving them every chance to end this war. On the front line, yeah, they kill a lot of Ukrainians, but they don’t do the damage to Ukraine that could be done. And frankly, if you want to win the war rapidly, should be done because they honestly view Ukraine as the same, is a branch of the same tree, the Slavic brotherhood, the Russians and Ukrainians. One People that have branched off the Russians aren’t in the business of killing their brothers, their cousins, their uncles. They respect the history. And so they’ve taken very kid glove approach towards Ukraine. Donald Trump doesn’t understand this, you know, because Ukraine can strike Russia and not pay a consequence. He’s higher than a kite.

Security Guarantees: The Austrian Model

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Let me ask you a technical question here. What is a security guarantee? I mean, in the case of Austria, which is a terrific model here, in 1955, the Soviet Union, the old Soviet Union, entered into a treaty with Austria and it required for Austria’s permanent neutrality. Among other things. The security guarantee consisted of a Soviet official physically present and permanently a member of the Austrian Security Council. It sounded outrageous. They all went for it. Fantastic effect. The Soviet troops were gone. Austria flourished economically, politically and stayed neutral. The security guarantee was not troops. It was a Soviet official in the hierarchy of the Austrian government.

When the British and President Trump talk about a security guarantee, I don’t think that’s what they’re talking about. I think they’re talking about troops.

SCOTT RITTER: The British are. I don’t think Trump knows what a security guarantee is. But let’s, they all say that they want it to be like Article 5 of the NATO charter.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: The Russians will never accept that. Lavrov could not have been clearer.

SCOTT RITTER: Right, but read it. Article 5 isn’t what everybody claims it to be. Article 5 requires no action. You know, it’s not. Article 5 as defined during the Cold War was backed up by a NATO that had front loaded the approval sequences so that you had troops on the ground in West Germany ready to surge from barracks to fight. They didn’t need to call back to their home governments and get permission. It all been front loaded.

But then the Cold War ended and all those permissions went away and all those troops went away. They went back to the garrisons and now their economies are focused on other things. Article 5 just says that if an attack against one will be considered an attack against all and all member states will consider what their options could be. Not will be, could be, including military. But there’s no guarantee of a military option. There’s no guarantee of any response. You know, such measures shall be terminated. Well, that’s the Security Council. But the parties such actions as it deems necessary.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.

SCOTT RITTER: Including the use of armed force.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: But the very thought of this language I think would be rejected by the Russians. As I read what Foreign Minister Lavrov.

SCOTT RITTER: It has been rejected by the Russians. But what I’m trying to say is Article 5 isn’t what people think it is anyway.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: So agree with you on that agree with.

SCOTT RITTER: But now when they speak about it, every time you ask the European, for instance, the French and the British came up, they said, you know, 30,000 troops, but then immediately had to back down because they don’t have 30,000 troops ready to deploy. They said, “we’ll need some other help.” But there’s no logistical sustainability. So whenever Europe talks about putting troops on the ground to provide a guarantee, it’s always contingent upon America being there to back them up.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Okay.

SCOTT RITTER: In America to say, “we’re not playing that game, we’re not doing it,” and that. Which means there’s no security guarantees. The Russians have said that the best security guarantee is Russia, which is very much what you bring up the Austrian president. And this is what it’s going to be.

I spent a lot of time talking to people who will probably play a very significant role in post conflict Ukraine in terms of governance. Ukraine will not be governed by Zelensky, Zelus or anybody else who’s been tainted by the West. Ukraine will be governed by somebody handpicked by Russia. That’s the reality. And that’s the best security guarantee.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Because now you’re talking about Ukraine. That is not the Donbas. That is not the part that is Russian. You’re talking about what remains of Ukraine after the war.

SCOTT RITTER: Correct. What would be governed by Kiev by a government in Kiev. That government in Kiev will be 100% controlled by Russia. That’s just.

Gaza Conflict and Netanyahu’s War Hero Status

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I want to switch gears not to aggravate you. You have just said very nice things about President Trump’s ability to grasp and understand the genesis and origins of the special military operation. And we have both praised him for meeting with Vladimir Putin and breaking this wall that was built by the Biden administration that existed between Russia and the United States.

However, yesterday, the same President Trump told Fox News that Benjamin Netanyahu is a war hero. When asked if he would consent to the invasion and occupation of Gaza, the President looked at Mark Levin and said it on Fox News and said, “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war hero and so am I.” What will stop Netanyahu’s next move?

SCOTT RITTER: Hamas. They’re slaughtering the Israelis as we speak. Just this morning, an 18 man Hamas team emerged from underground and assaulted an Israeli armored column, killing the commander of the column, blowing up the tanks. And then they turned their assault, went into a building, caught the Israelis sleeping, killed them, got into a big gunfight. They took casualties, but they wiped the Israelis out. And this will happen over and over and over again.

Israel can’t win, can’t invade, can’t do anything. The Israeli people won’t put up with it. 300,000 people in the streets the other day demonstrating it’s been.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Somebody hacked the IDF files on their records of how many people have been killed. According to the IDF files, 8,900 Hamas fighters have been killed and 42,000 civilians. That’s according to the Israeli government’s own classified files. If this hacker has produced truthful information. This is reported on The Guardian about two hours ago.

Israeli Military Personnel Crisis

SCOTT RITTER: Yeah, but 8,900, I can guarantee you that for instance, one of those is the postman because Hamas controlled the postal service. So anybody who was employed in the Palestinian, in the Gaza postal service is considered by Israel to be a Hamas official.

Anybody who is in a school that had to register, you know, a teacher had to register with Hamas because they’re the government, becomes a Hamas official. So we need to drop that 8,900 number at a minimum. Cut it in half, probably cut it by two-thirds. Actual combatants killed by Israel is far less than that number. That’s just the reality of it.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: How crazy is this move by Netanyahu not just in the face of the resistance at home, but in the face of the resistance he will meet? And the absurdity of trying to occupy and govern the Gazans, it’s an act of desperation.

Netanyahu’s Legal Troubles and Desperate Measures

SCOTT RITTER: He’s being prosecuted right now. He’s probably going to lose. He’s probably going to be found guilty of committing gross negligence of his duties as prime minister during war, lying to the Israeli people. And you know, if his corruption case ever goes forward, he’ll be found guilty of corruption, he and his corrupt wife.

So he is desperately trying to make himself relevant and the last way to make himself relevant is to say that he’s going to occupy Gaza. Good luck. The IDF right now can’t recruit enough troops. They have a personnel problem because the Orthodox refuse to serve. So there’s a deficit in the recruits coming in.

They just put out a release. They’re asking all Jewish males of war age who live abroad to come to Israel and serve in the IDF because they have a shortage.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Wow.

SCOTT RITTER: That’s the appeal that they just put out.

Israeli Reservists Refusing to Serve

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Here’s a fellow named Antony Loewenstein who’s a well known Israeli author, a friend of our friend Max Blumenthal saying just what you said. Reservists are not showing up. Netanyahu is walking into his own Vietnam. Chris, cut number 10.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

ANTHONY LOWENSTEIN: There’s growing numbers of reserves who simply are refusing to show up within Israel. I’m not talking about the 18 year olds who simply refuse to serve because they’re utterly opposed to the occupation and the genocide. They are people I deeply admire. Sadly, there’s too few of those.

I’m talking about the hundreds and hundreds of reservists who have fought in Gaza and I suspect have committed numerous war crimes. They’re refusing to show up because they see the complete futility of what Netanyahu and his cronies are trying to do in Gaza. The idea of fully occupying Gaza indefinitely, which frankly has always been the Israeli plan, is guaranteed to be akin to Vietnam where you have overwhelming Israeli military force. But you have an insurgency and…Israel, like the US was in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are utterly vulnerable to… That, let alone the moral cost, the ethical cost.

You cannot occupy another people indefinitely forever, as Israel has realized in the west bank and Gaza, without collapsing your society morally. And that, sadly and tragically, is where Israeli society has developed over the last years, long before October 7th, but certainly since.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

Trump’s Support for Netanyahu

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Donald Trump’s going to continue to finance this because Benjamin Netanyahu was a war hero.

SCOTT RITTER: Same way Donald Trump’s a war hero. Donald Trump who never served his country in uniform. Donald Trump, who, I guess, you know, getting the divine intervention to the bullet nick in his ears made him the equivalent of a Medal of Honor winner in his own mind.

Donald Trump might want to take a look at what it takes to earn the Medal of Honor, what it takes to earn a Navy Cross or a Silver Star, Bronze Star. He hasn’t done any of that. He’s a politician, he’s a businessman. I hope he succeeds in his policies promoting peace. But Donald Trump a war hero? No.

Netanyahu’s Military Record vs. Current Actions

Benjamin Netanyahu a war hero? You know, at least Benjamin Netanyahu served in the military, served in the Sayeret, the elite Israeli commando force, when he was there, probably saw some combat. So you could make the case that at one point in time in his life, Benjamin Netanyahu showed courage under fire.

But right now, to call him a war hero? No, all he’s doing is condemning Israelis to die, to be wounded. He’s destroying Israeli society and he’s guilty of genocide. The mass murder of Palestinians on a daily basis. They’re killing women and children.

I just saw a video of a drone strike about a six year old girl carrying water to her family and the Israelis singled it out and killed her with a drone. Six year old carrying water. And they killed her. They do this over and over and over again.

Israeli Military and Intelligence Officials Oppose Gaza Operations

This is why there was a letter recently signed. I forget the exact number, but pretty much every retired military intelligence and civilian intelligence and national security official in Israel signed a letter saying what we’re doing in Gaza is wrong. Morally, we can’t win. And it’s stunning.

But you know, that’s the equivalent of, you know, the four star general of command, strategic command today, America’s nuclear deterrence. “We are, we stand ready.” What happens the moment every single one of these four star generals leaves that post? “We got to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Because what I saw is insane.”

That’s the reality of Gaza. Every Israeli who knows knows it’s insane. It’s bad policy, it’s destroying Israel. But when you wear the uniform on active duty, you have a choice. Not show up or obey your orders. Right now a lot of Israelis are saying “we ain’t showing up.”

Closing Remarks

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Scott Ritter. Thank you, my dear friend. Thank you for letting me go across the board from Moscow to Alaska to Gaza. I almost forgot while you were away how fabulous and insightful your analysis is. Don’t let me forget that. Thank you, my dear friend. We look forward to seeing you again soon. I did catch a lot of Ritter’s rants while you were away because, you know, I watched them.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, thank you, Judge.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: God, all the best. And still a busy day. Coming up at one o’clock, Professor Glenn Diesen on all of this. At 2 o’clock, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on all of this. And batting cleanup at 3 o’clock, Professor John Mearsheimer. Judge Napolitano for judging Freedom.

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