Mike Whitney – The Unz Review March 21, 2022
Question 1– Can you explain to me why you think Russia is winning the war in Ukraine?
Larry C. Johnson– Within the first 24 hours of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, all Ukrainian Ground Radar Intercept capabilities were wiped out. Without those radars, the Ukrainian Air Force lost its ability to do air to air intercept. In the intervening three weeks, Russia has established a de facto No Fly Zone over Ukraine. While still vulnerable to shoulder fired Surface to Air Missiles supplied by the U.S. and NATO to the Ukrainians, there is no evidence that Russia has had to curtail Combat Air Operations.
Russia’s arrival in Kiev within three days of the invasion also caught my attention. I recalled that the Nazi’s in Operation Barbarossa took seven weeks to reach Kiev and the required 7 more weeks to subdue the city. The Nazis had the advantage of not pulling punches to avoid civilian casualties and were eager to destroy critical infrastructure. Yet many so-called American military experts claimed that Russia was bogged down. When a 24 mile (or 40 mile, depends on the news source) was positioned north of Kiev for more than a week, it was clear that Ukraine’s ability to launch significant military operations had been eliminated. If their artillery was intact, then that column was easy pickings for massive destruction. That did not happen. Alternatively, if the Ukrainian’s had a viable fixed wing or rotary wing capability they should have destroyed that column from the air. That did not happen. Or, if they had a viable cruise missile capability they should have rained down hell on the supposedly stalled Russian column. That did not happen. The Ukrainians did not even mount a significant infantry ambush of the column with their newly supplied U.S. Javelins.
The scale and scope of the Russian attack is remarkable. They captured territory in three weeks that is larger than the land mass of the United Kingdom. They then proceeded to carry out targeted attacks on key cities and military installations. We have not seen a single instance of a Ukrainian regiment or brigade size unit attacking and defeating a comparable Russian unit. Instead, the Russians have split the Ukrainian Army into fragments and cut their lines of communication. The Russians are consolidating their control of Mariupol and have secured all approaches on the Black Sea. Ukraine is now cut off in the South and the North.
I would note that the U.S. had a tougher time capturing this much territory in Iraq in 2003 while fighting against a far inferior, less capable military force. If anything, this Russian operation should scare the hell out of U.S. military and political leaders.
The really big news came this week with the Russian missile strikes on what are de facto NATO bases in Yavoriv and Zhytomyr. NATO conducted cyber security training at Zhytomyr in September 2018 and described Ukraine as a “NATO partner.” Zhytomyr was destroyed with hypersonic missiles on Saturday. Yavoriv suffered a similar fate last Sunday. It was the primary training and logistics center that NATO and EUCOM used to supply fighters and weapons to Ukraine. A large number of the military and civilian personnel at that base became casualties.
Not only is Russia striking and destroying bases used by NATO regularly since 2015, but there was no air raid warning and there was no shutdown of the attacking missiles.
Question 2– Why is the media trying to convince the Ukrainian people that they can prevail in their war against Russia? If what you say is correct, then all the civilians that are being sent to fight the Russian army, are dying in a war they can’t win. I don’t understand why the media would want to mislead people on something so serious. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Larry C. Johnson– This is a combination of ignorance and laziness. Rather than do real reporting, the vast majority of the media (print and electronic) as well as Big Tech are supporting a massive propaganda campaign. I remember when George W. Bush was Hitler. I remember when Donald Trump was Hitler. And now we have a new Hitler, Vladimir Putin. This is a tired, failed playbook. Anyone who dares to raise legitimate questions about is immediately tarred as a Putin puppet or a Russia stooge. When you cannot argue facts the only recourse is name calling.
Question 3– Last week, Colonel Douglas MacGregor was a guest on the Tucker Carlson Show. His views on the war are strikingly similar to your own. Here’s what he said in the interview:
“The war is really over for the Ukrainians. They have been ground into bits, there is no question about that despite what we hear from our mainstream media. So, the real question for us at this stage is, Tucker, are we going to live with the Russian people and their government or we going to continue to pursue this sort of regime change dressed up as a Ukrainian war? Are we going to stop using Ukraine as a battering ram against Moscow, which is effectively what we’ve done.” (Tucker Carlson– MacGregor Interview)
Do you agree with MacGregor that the real purpose of goading Russia into a war in Ukraine was “regime change”?
Second, do you agree that Ukraine is being used as a staging ground for the US to carry out a proxy-war on Russia?
Larry C. Johnson– Doug is great analyst but I disagree with him—I don’t think there is anyone in the Biden Administration that is smart enough to think and plan in those strategic terms. In my view the last 7 years have been the inertia of the NATO status quo. What I mean by that is that NATO and Washington, believed they could continue to creep east on Russia’s borders without provoking a reaction. NATO and EUCOM regularly carried out exercises—including providing “offensive” training—and supplied equipment. I believe reports in the United States that the CIA was providing paramilitary training to Ukrainian units operating in the Donbass are credible. But I have trouble believing that after our debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, we suddenly have Sun Tzu level strategists pulling the strings in Washington.
There is an air of desperation in Washington. Besides trying ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line. I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle.
I am shocked at the miscalculation in thinking economic sanctions on Russia would bring them to their knees. The opposite is true. Russia is self-sufficient and is not dependent on imports. Its exports are critical to the economic well-being of the West. If they withhold wheat, potash, gas, oil, palladium, finished nickel and other key minerals from the West, the European and U.S. economies will be savaged. And this attempt to coerce Russia with sanctions has now made it very likely that the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency will show up in the dustbin of history.
Question 4– Ever since he delivered his famous speech in Munich in 2007, Putin has been complaining about the “architecture of global security”. In Ukraine we can see how these nagging security issues can evolve into a full-blown war. As you know, in December Putin made a number of demands related to Russian security, but the Biden administration shrugged them off and never responded. Putin wanted written assurances that NATO expansion would not include Ukraine (membership) and that nuclear missile systems would not be deployed to Romania or Poland. Do you think Putin’s demands are unreasonable?
Larry C. Johnson– I think Putin’s demands are quite reasonable. The problem is that 99% of Americans have no idea of the kind of military provocation that NATO and the U.S. have carried out over the last 7 years. The public was always told the military exercises were “defensive.” That simply is not true. Now we have news that DTRA was funding biolabs in Ukraine. I guess Putin could agree to allow U.S. nuclear missile systems in Poland and Romania if Biden agrees to allow comparable Russian systems to be deployed in Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico. When we look at it in those terms we can begin to understand that Putin’s demands are not crazy nor unreasonable.
Question 5– Russian media reports that Russian “high precision, air-launched” missiles struck a facility in west Ukraine “killing more than 100 local troops and foreign mercenaries.” Apparently, the Special Operations training center was located near the town of Ovruch which is just 15 miles from the Polish border. What can you tell us about this incident? Was Russia trying to send a message to NATO?
Larry C. Johnson– Short answer—YES! Russian military strikes in Western Ukraine during the past week have shocked and alarmed NATO officials. The first blow came on Sunday, March 13 at Yavoriv, Ukraine. Russia hit the base with several missiles, some reportedly hypersonic. Over 200 personnel were killed, which included American and British military and intelligence personnel, and hundreds more wounded. Many suffered catastrophic wounds, such as amputations, and are in hospital. Yet, NATO and the western media have shown little interest in reporting on this disaster.
Yavoriv was an important forward base for NATO (see here). Until February (prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), the U.S. 7th Army Training Command was operating from Yavoriv as late as mid-February. Russia has not stopped there. ASB Military news reports Russia hit another site, Delyatyn, which is 60 miles southeast of Yavoriv (on Thursday I believe). Yesterday, Russia hit Zytomyr, another site where NATO previously had a presence. Putin has sent a very clear message—NATO forces in Ukraine will be viewed and treated as combatants. Period.
Question 6– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been lionized in the western media as a “wartime leader” and a modern-day “Winston Churchill”. What the media fails to tell its readers is that Zelensky has taken a number of steps to strengthen his grip on power while damaging fragile democratic institutions in Ukraine. For example, Zelensky has “banned eleven opposition-owned news organizations” and tried to bar the head of Ukraine’s largest opposition party, Viktor Medvedchuk, from running for office on a bogus “terrorist financing” charge. This is not the behavior of a leader that is seriously committed to democracy.
What’s your take on Zelensky? Is he really the “patriotic leader” the media makes him out to be?
Larry C. Johnson– Zelensky is a comedian and an actor. Not a very good one at that in my view. The West is cynically using the fact he is Jewish as a diversion from the size-able contingent of Neo-Nazis (and I mean genuine Nazis who still celebrate the Ukrainian Waffen SS unit’s accomplishments while fighting with the Nazis in WW II). The facts are clear—he is banning opposition political parties and shutting down opposition media. I guess that is the new definition of “democracy.”
Question 7– How does this end? There’s an excellent post at the Moon of Alabama site titled “What Will Be The Geographic End State Of The War In Ukraine“. The author of the post, Bernard, seems to think that Ukraine will eventually be partitioned along the Dnieper River “and south along the coast that holds a majority ethnic Russian population.” He also says this:
“This would eliminate Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and create a land bridge towards the Moldavian breakaway Transnistria which is under Russian protection. The rest of the Ukraine would be a land confined, mostly agricultural state, disarmed and too poor to be build up to a new threat to Russia anytime soon. Politically it would be dominated by fascists from Galicia which would then become a major problem for the European Union.”
What do you think? Will Putin impose his own territorial settlement on Ukraine in order to reinforce Russian security and bring the hostilities to an end or is a different scenario more likely?
Larry C. Johnson– I agree with Moon. Putin’s primary objective is to secure Russia from foreign threats and effect a divorce with the West. Russia has the physical resources to be an independent sovereign and is in the process of making that vision come true.
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Bio– Larry C Johnson is a veteran of the CIA and the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. He is the founder and managing partner of BERG Associates, which was established in 1998. Larry provided training to the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. He has been vilified by the right and the left, which means he must be doing something right. His analysis and commentary can be found at his blog, https://sonar21.com/
Wonderful stuff. Amazing to hear such good sense from a CIA veteran.
Pick a fight with Russia – you lose !!!
A point that should be too obvious to make, but is never going to be made in the Western MSM (the Daily Telegraph is informing me this morning about ‘Putin’s Weaponised Lies’ – thank you for making up my mind for me again, as ever) is that the population of the United States could never be united behind Biden as the people behind him – unscrupulous Globalists – had to steal the Election for him :-
‘There is an air of desperation in Washington. Besides trying ban all things Russian, the Biden Administration is trying to bully China, India and Saudi Arabia. I do not see any of those countries falling into line. I believe the Biden crew made a fatal mistake by trying to demonize all things and all people Russian. If anything, this is uniting the Russian people behind Putin and they are ready to dig in for a long struggle.’
Another thing that must concern our leaders over the coming months and years is that as news of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine makes it clear Russia avoided countless unnecessary deaths, a lot of people are going to understand the cold murderous tactics employed by the west. Levelling a country by smashing it back to the stone age was always about cutting costs. Bombs aren’t cheap but used en mass they’re cheaper than putting armies in the field for numerous years. This will go to highlight their mass-murder instinct.
I don’t know what we can do about it, but these people consider themselves faultless and this new view by millions of people waking up, just as they eventually did over Covid, is going to irritate them no end.
It’s the “NAZIS” again and again and again. An infinity of Hitlers so whites have to hounded unto death because one nation in the last hundred years had a government that was good for white people and it drives the Jews to distraction. So they are still chewing on Hitler’s bone eighty years later and there is no end in sight. You would think that Hitler and his National Socialists were still hiding under their beds giving them nightmares. Or is it that Hitler and their filthy lies is all they’ve got to keep you from seeing them. Because once you see them you might try to do something about what they are doing. You might say no to the plan and the excuse they employ.
What he and the brownshirts actually did, was take a defeated and exhausted nation. being sucked dry by Rothschild’s Murder Incorporated and against all odds kick them out and turn Germany into a military and industrial powerhouse. The BIS, the Bank for International Settlements began as a tool to blood suck and loot Germany for the tribe. Fun fact: it bills itself as an international financial institution owned by central banks that “fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks”. Orwell couldn’t have given it a better name.
The Germanic people gave more genius and beauty to the world than just about every other nation combined but the Talmud instructs: Kill the best of the goyim. Hitler can never be forgiven. He kicked out the bankers, arrested the Freemasons, issued a German printed currency instead of Jewish usury based Mark, ended mass unemployment and hunger, restored national pride and most importantly rid the nation of (((late Wiemar moral filth))). It was beautiful for Germany and France, not so much for Poland. For that, he and the National Socialists can never be forgiven. So the bankers and their English and American puppet governments revenge bombed Germany into rubble and made up the rancid lie about gas chambers and ovens. They firebombed some of the most beautiful cities on earth. True to form, Dresden was firebombed on the Catholic holy day of Ash Wednesday, they love to burn Catholic churches during Lent. Remember how they torched Notre Dame?
About four hundred pages into the 1961 edition of Raul Hilberg’s perjury, The Destruction of the European Jews, he makes passing reference to the same Jewish rulers of Ukraine who were doing the same things to the Ukrainian people ninety years ago that they are doing today. At least Hilberg wasn’t surprised that a lot of Ukrainians hated their masters and sided with the Germans. He didn’t say anything about how his tribe stole the farms and provisions and let them starve to death by the millions. Hilberg recounted how the Germans and Poles worked together to distinguish Jews from Poles. They agreed with the Polish saying: ‘Never mind to whom he prays, the rotten mess is in the race’. If you think that’s a little unfair remember the rape of a defeated Germany that tried to save Europe. You can believe the six million lie if you like but you can’t deny the depravity of the relentless enemy who murdered millions of defenseless Germans after the war and have been lying about them, living as occupying parasites ever since and with the help of America, Hollywood cultural filth, poisonous injections and billions of third world scavengers, leading them to a final genocide. They even poisoned the water supply and bread for the Germans they held in camps and they laugh about it. As one wag put it in a Bitchute comment: “If you don’t like nations being destroyed, open boarders, gay sex for first graders, transgenderism for toddlers, no free speech, sex with infants and children, free crack pipes and white genocide then you are a Racist, Anti Semitic, bigot.”
https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2016/03/01/holocaust-survivors-mass-poisoned-nazis-of-stalag-13/
Headline asks: ‘What’s left to mop up?
Thousands of dead Aryan white Ukrainians (‘Nazis’ as Commie Russia terms them) set up & slaughtered by the two anti-white yarmulke Communist-Chabad agents (Putin/Zelensky)
Guess who leads, or should we say led the Azov Battalion ‘Neo Nazis’? A very Jewish looking man covered in Swastika tattoos, he wears Swastikas and dresses up ‘Nazi’ and parades around ‘Nazi’. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FOYFU9CXoAM2etF?format=jpg&name=large
He would have worked with the ADL, B’Nai Brith and the government agencies snitching on fools who trusted him but his job done, he runs off to Poland for sanctuary. This is how the ADL/B’nai Brith operates. They see young white Ukrainians trying to live a healthy life away from Cultural Marxist indoctrination and they send in ‘leaders’ to spy on them and set them up for the feds. The media hounds them as ‘Nazis’ and dumps Africa and everything else all over them. Take a look at what happens when white men try to live as white men: https://www.bitchute.com/video/3PU4HgcrWwoN/
Even the Ottawa trucker protest got that treatment. Before the militarized police goons came in, the Jewish ‘leaders’ took off or met with the feds to arrange a photo op arrest and pretend trial. It always ends badly for whites.
I dont know what to believe about the war in Ukraine. We are being lied to about the events. You could be lying. During wwll news footage of the events was taken so that the world could see the atrocities for themselves. There are video cameras in our phones yet no footage of the atrocities or iconic moments – a war may not be taking place
I dont know what to believe about the war in Ukraine. We are being lied to about the events. You could be lying. During wwll news footage of the events was taken so that the world could see the atrocities for themselves. There are video cameras in our phones yet no footage of the atrocities or iconic moments – a war may not be taking place
I dont know what to believe about the war in Ukraine. We are being lied to about the events. You could be lying. During wwll news footage of the events was taken so that the world could see the atrocities for themselves. There are video cameras in our phones yet no footage of the atrocities or iconic moments – a war may not be taking place
“there was no air raid warning and there was no shutdown of the attacking missiles.” Hypersonic missiles are so fast there is no time for reaction. No warning, no nothing. One second you are alive, the next dead or wounded and you don’t even know what hit you. Something to ponder for the psychopaths in Europe.
When Scandinavia was iced up, the ancestors of the people there now were not far from the Ukraine, so the people in the Ukraine now do belong, if origins matter. The word Ukraine is describing Russia’s frontier land. It is united with Russia since the Ninth Century AD.
bob smith well said behind you 100% thanks for this
Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear.
BOB SMITH gets it and knows his stuff. This is ALL Jew created theatre on ALL SIDES. The purpose is to instill the bad Nazi, bad Hitler myths into the new generation. They co-opt every narrative or create it out of thin air for their benefit. The so-called holocaust, 9/11, and now convid are their greatest deceptions, aside from central banking usury.
Putin’s achievements so far:
1. In the space of a few days, he’s vaporized 200 years of anti-Polish propaganda (of Austrian, German, Russian and Soviet Russian provenance) in the Ukraine.
2. He’s led the Ukrainians to take up arms against their so-called Russian brothers in order to defend their country. The Ukrainians are now doing what the Poles did in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War, when relatively few Ukrainians were willing to fight the Red Army. Without the Ukrainian “brother nation” under its thumb, the Russian Empire’s days are numbered. Unfortunately for Putin, the Chinese general staff are watching all this.
3. He’s given a boost to the new European Union which is gradually coming into existence in what used to be called Eastern Europe. Britain and America now see that the best way to foil Putin’s scheme to set up a German-Russian Condominium is to make Eastern Europe “great again”. The huge influx of Ukrainian refugees to Poland goes a long way to solving Poland’s demographic problems.
4. In an age of smartphones and instant news reports, Putin’s shown the whole world that he’s (hopefully) the last in a very long series of monsters ruling from the Kremlin. Even the politically-correct BBC has now started to make the comparison between Putin and Hitler.
5. With his latest series of war crimes (the shelling of children’s hospitals as well as residential areas, the indiscriminate slaughter of non-combatants etc.) he’s dealt the final death blow to Marxist ideology. The only hope for Russia now is to return to real Christianity (which has nothing to do with the KGB version currently “in force” in Russia). This is bad news for all “leftists” and their “progressive” modern variants.
“100 local troops”. How many in each troop? One. 100 soldiers, then, but they do not like that word because it sounds like something substantial while “troop” is a mouth fart and won’t hurt the ears of the public, who need war to sound like a pop song.
@Bob Smith,
thanks for saving me time and effort to point to the same things and express the same sentiments.
and Larry Johnson’s dissection of military status on the ground and in general highlights the more general remark, namely, that white man when left unhindered by jew, cannot be beaten by paragons of sycophantic sleaze that is overlaying the western hemisphere like some toxic mucus.
existential angst galore under the floorboards where jews, rats and cockroaches huddle, shivering in brotherly misery.
On Question 3, I think you misunderstood Col. MacGregor’s comment. He was not saying that the current Ukraine war was a western operation to goad Russia into war, but commenting on US involvement in Ukraine since 2014, and asking whether the US/NATO were prepared to stop intervening on Russia’s borders.
POISON FOR ALL NATIONS ARE
SANHEDRIN;WORLD JEWISH
KONGRESS + WORLD FREEMASON
MAFIA . no jews should own medias or
write or speak in it !
@ BOB SMITH
provocation is always jewish game :
if they paint swasticas nightly on
jewish cemetaries or lead Antifa
provocateurs or clima activists
luisa bauer(a rothschild) + greta or
demonstrate more bombs on Dresden :
Bomber Harris doit again or for open
borders : No human is illegal . claiming
NAZI as ashkeNAZIS + leading NAZI
movements in USA . its all jewish game !
@ MAD MCS
i can only say : ALL NATIONS SHOULD
STAND UP AGAINST OPPRESSOR +
WORMONGERING USA + THEIR JEW
LIE MEDIAS ! ITS THE JEW WORLD
ORDER DIKTATORSHIP IN DISGUISE !
@ BOB SMITH
in order to reshape their ancient Kazaria
they need the Azow Nazis,Jihadists+ the
stupid foreign smartfon war gamers !
Thanks “Bob Smith” for that photo of the YOO-KRAINIAN…NAZI.
This PIECE OF FILTH IS 100% a crypto jew…..100%.
With a bit of practice it is possible to identify most of these FIENDS.
A photograph of Goebbels would be good…since this deformed monster was also Jewish….
No sensible nazi would have ever allowed the runt to run.