Ray McGovern assesses Putin's strategic patience and the pressures on Russia to escalate against NATO
Glenn Diesen interviews former CIA analyst Ray McGovern on Russian strategy, NATO escalation risks, and the political dynamics shaping the Ukraine conflict.
Summary
Glenn Diesen interviews Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who chaired national intelligence estimates and prepared the president's daily brief, on the pressures facing Vladimir Putin to retaliate more forcefully — not just against Ukraine but against NATO's direct involvement. McGovern argues that Putin is a consummate gradualist who will not be provoked into reckless escalation while Russia holds the strategic upper hand, and that drone warfare has temporarily slowed but not reversed Russia's advance. He assesses the Anchorage talks — which he describes as a US initiative in which Trump promised to use his influence to bring the Europeans and Zelensky into line — as having effectively broken down, with Russia's senior officials Lavrov and Ushakov now openly stating only one side is adhering to the agreement and that Russia is pivoting to pursuing outright victory. McGovern also addresses the growing rift between Poland and Ukraine over Zelensky's decision to rebury and honor Ukrainian nationalist figures responsible for the massacre of 100,000 Polish civilians during World War II, arguing this reflects Zelensky's dependence on neo-Nazi elements as his last reliable military constituency.
A significant portion of the conversation is devoted to McGovern's personal experiences in Russia — including reciting a Nekrasov poem at the 75th anniversary ceremony in Yalta before an audience of Soviet war widows, and recounting being embraced by a Russian general who said only the word 'Studebaker' to express gratitude for American Lend-Lease trucks. McGovern uses these experiences to argue there is a profound gulf between what Americans understand about the cost of war and what shapes Putin's strategic thinking. He also discusses Karaganov and Medvedev as useful 'bad cops' in Russia's signaling posture, while dismissing Karaganov's substantive arguments as having been exposed by Mearsheimer.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: Assessing the Pressure on Putin to Escalate
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We are joined again by Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, who chaired the national intelligence estimates and prepared the CIA's daily briefs for the president. Thank you for coming back on.
Ray McGovern: You're most welcome, Glenn. Glad to be with you.
Glenn Diesen: You and I have done some communication back and forth, and I've also talked to other people on this topic, which is the pressure that President Putin is currently under — again, I'm not sure from where, the public, the military, the security services — essentially a lot of pressure to retaliate more forcefully, not just against Ukraine but also possibly against its Western backers, who appear to have crossed the line between a proxy war and a direct war. I was wondering how you are assessing the situation. What are the dilemmas now for Putin, and which way do you think it's going to go? Because in some regards we've already seen the attacks on Ukraine becoming much more fierce. But will Ukraine be the only one that pays the price for these attacks on Russia, or will Russia go after the Western backers as well?
Ray McGovern: That is the question, Glenn. I'm glad you set it up that way. This all depends on my concept of what a cautious person Vladimir Putin is. I don't see that he would take extraordinary risks, even if there's only a small chance that NATO would make good on Article 5 protection — whereby if one state is hit by Russia, the others are pledged to come to their aid.
The way I look at it is this. The Russian advance in Ukraine has been slowed down. That's undeniable. If you look at the map and you look at the history of the last year, I infer that the slowdown is temporary. It's due to something called drones. Drones have been very effective against troop concentrations and everything else, and the Ukrainians have lots of them.
Putin's Meeting with Frontline Soldiers
This came to the fore at a little-noticed meeting — perhaps you saw it because you follow these things closely — but I think it was on Russia Day. Putin arrayed about twenty non-commissioned officers, people who are in the infantry or the assault forces. It reminded me of when I was an infantry officer: everyone bragged, "Look, it's the infantry that wins the war. All these guys that fly in airplanes and drive tanks — no, it's the infantry that wins the war." Well, that was all infantry around him. And what was remarkable about that? It was Putin and Belousov, the defense minister, and then all these sergeants and privates, some of them pretty middle-aged.
And Putin said, "Okay, thanks for coming here. I thought this is the way I'd like to celebrate this special day. Now tell me what you need. Tell me how it's going on the front." Did you see this, Glenn?
Glenn Diesen: I missed that one.
Ray McGovern: It was very little noticed. Anyhow, these sergeants — ramrod straight, and no one would volunteer to be the first. So eventually they got going, and the first one said, "Starlink is a real problem. These drones, they're hitting us, guided by Starlink, and we don't have anything like it." And Putin said, "Well, the good news is we do have something like it, but we don't have it deployed yet at the front. It's coming. Please just be patient. We're working on this."
The next one said, "They have night-vision goggles and a lot of other special equipment that we don't have." So Putin turned to Belousov and said, "Hey, what is this?" And Belousov said, "Look, they're on their way. We know about this. We're developing it." And then Putin said to the group of non-commissioned officers, "Look, this is the guy I made defense minister because he knows all this stuff. He's worked in the military industries, and if anybody can get this done, he can get it done, and he's going to get it done."
So anyhow, it was so frank, and as they eased up — what's my take? My take is that drones are a real problem. They have slowed down the Russian offensive. But the inexorable movement toward — I guess it's Kostiantynivka right now being occupied by the Russians — it's just a matter of time before the Russians develop those kinds of countermeasures that Putin referred to, and Belousov as well. And they make their advance — I'm not talking weeks, I'm probably talking months, but I am talking this year.
Drone Attacks on Russian Cities: Showmanship and Provocation
So with that as the backdrop — in other words, Russia continuing to have the upper hand no matter how many drones the West throws at Russia — how does Putin look at the general situation where these embarrassing drones come into St. Petersburg and other places, even while he's having the economic summit?
Well, they hit nowhere near the economic summit. They were embarrassing, but you had to look way to the horizon to see what they were. And this most recent wave of drones that were raided against Moscow turned out to be full of kerosene. Have you seen this? It's really interesting. I was watching this one night — I was on live with some other interviewer — and it looked terrible, what was going to Moscow. And then we learned the next day that these drones were specifically designed to carry kerosene. So when they were shot down, you got a real Hollywood effect. The other side of it is that there is pressure on Putin to wind this thing up.
The SVR Warning to Latvia
The Russian successor to the KGB in its foreign outreach, the SVR, put out a statement from their public relations department — I didn't know they had one — but it said, "Look, we want to call your attention to the fact that the Latvians have been persuaded by the Ukrainians that they can make five airfields available to the Ukrainians to come in and fire their drones and missiles from." And they assured the Latvians that they could do this and no one would ever know where they came from.
So the SVR says, "You know, this is a combination of Russophobia and naivety. We know exactly where these five — do you want the coordinates? We have the coordinates. We also have the coordinates of Riga and other decision-making centers." So, bottom line: membership in NATO will not protect you from appropriate retaliation for use of territorial space against Russia. A very specific warning.
Now I have not noticed any drones or missiles being fired from Latvia, although some come from that general direction, the Baltic area. And I dare say I'll be surprised if the Latvians make those airfields available to the Ukrainians, because then it will be a question of: what do the Russians do? Do they automatically strike Riga, or do they strike one of those launch pads? Not automatically. This is high-stakes stuff.
Putin's Internal Calculus on Escalation
The way I perceive Putin — consummate politician and gradualist — is he's got his people arrayed around his desk and he says, "Okay, now you guys want me to strike Riga, or some of you say just those launch pads that the Ukrainians are using or threaten to use. Okay, now is Latvia a NATO country? Yes. Is there a NATO treaty that would compel the other members to come to its defense and make war against us? Yes. But it doesn't mean anything."
"Okay, Putin, doesn't mean anything? Oh, you mean because NATO's fallen apart because they vote? Well, what are the chances that Donald Trump might invoke Article 5 if we hit Riga or if we hit one of those bases? Oh, 10%? What do you say — 15%? 20%? Too high. Much too high. You want me to risk everything we've achieved since 2000 — everything we've achieved in Russia — by depending on an unpredictable president not to invoke Article 5 when we don't need that kind of thing? Forget about it."
We're going to just continue our advance. If the Latvians do let the Ukrainians fire missiles or drones from Latvia, we'll deal with that. It won't be automatic. That SVR statement was a warning. We can retaliate, and maybe we will, but not just now. We're winning, for God's sake. Have a little patience.
The Collapse of the Anchorage Agreements
Now, on the political side, there's also some heat that you can see. Finally, over the last couple of months, we've learned what agreements were reached — the Anchorage agreements — and they have to do with Trump giving up the idea of an immediate ceasefire and Trump promising to use his influence with Zelensky and the Europeans to kind of knock it off and come to a sensible negotiated settlement, maybe giving some flexibility on their territorial demands and so forth. And for Putin, that was enough to say, "Okay, we will make concessions as well." The Russians actually used that word — concessions. Now, they don't spell them out. I have some guesses, but that doesn't really matter.
So that was the deal. Now, what happened? Well, clearly I was misled — three days after Anchorage, Trump in his royalty conveyed what I call the seven dwarfs from Europe and read them the riot act. In the middle of it, he said, "Pardon me, I promised to call Vladimir Putin just now. Could you guys just have some coffee or something for a while and leave the room? I'll let you know when you can come back." That's the tone of the thing.
I thought Zelensky had been read the riot act and the Europeans got the message. But the Europeans, for whatever reason, decided they were going to encourage Zelensky — give him 90 billion dollars more — and they just keep going. So from the political aspect now, Lavrov, Ushakov, all the main people are saying, "Look, this was the deal. It came at the Americans' initiative, and they haven't been able to or haven't been willing to bring the Europeans and the Ukrainians into shape." And so, as Ushakov said two days ago, there's only one side adhering to the Anchorage agreement. So what we'll do is go for victory, and that's inevitable. It's coming. Just be patient.
We have these people raiding drones at St. Petersburg during our celebrations, threatening to ruin the May Day parade. We couldn't get Zelensky to stop until we called Donald Trump, and in that case he came through — he persuaded Zelensky, as was admitted by Zelensky, to have a four-day pause. So the parade went ahead. That's how it gets kind of fuzzy. The US has certain leverage on Zelensky to do some things, but it doesn't have enough leverage, or it's unwilling, to do what Trump promised in Anchorage.
Glenn Diesen: I think the Russians got somewhat less faith in Trump's diplomacy after Iran as well, because there too you saw the first initiative for a ceasefire — which was on the US side when they accepted the ten-point plan of the Iranians — but then walked it back right away. Overall, the trust in his diplomacy has diminished.
But about the risks — you mentioned the 10–15% chance of ending up in a direct war with NATO, and that is a big risk. But if the alternative is the status quo, the problem is that the status quo is not available. The escalations only continue.
And my thought when I watched this massive attack on Moscow was that someone would have to pay a very big price for this. But that someone will likely be Ukraine. And it does seem a bit unfair, because a majority of Ukrainians did not want the regime change that NATO instigated in 2014. Most Ukrainians voted for a peace platform in 2019. NATO countries essentially reversed it. Most Ukrainians want immediate negotiations. The Europeans are boycotting diplomacy. Most Ukrainians also want Zelensky gone. It's NATO that's pumping billions of dollars to fund the corruption to keep Zelensky and his henchmen in power. And it's NATO that's providing all the weapons and intelligence and working on these attacks on Russia. So it does seem unfair that it's Ukrainian cities that will burn as a result of this. When does the escalation essentially become too risky for Russia to ignore that 15%?
Putin as Cool Hand Luke: Why He Won't Be Provoked
Ray McGovern: We're human beings and we should look askance at the kind of cruelty that is being visited on the Ukrainians. That's for sure. But the Ukrainian rulers — Zelensky — look at what he's done in exhuming the bodies of Nazis and giving them full honors. Whether he's been bought into this Nazi sort of attitude toward things, or whether he feels constrained by the only viable divisions in the Ukrainian armies that are left — the Nazi-led divisions — I don't know. But he does seem beholden to these people, and so the Ukrainian people don't really have a chance here.
Glenn Diesen: When does Russia essentially reach the conclusion that doing nothing is more risky than retaliating against NATO? Because the collapse of its deterrent is seen in Moscow as a key problem. And I agree with you — I think Zelensky, you know what he's doing. The reason the polls are so angry with him is he's become quite a horrible character, but that's not how he was elected. If it were up to the Ukrainians, he would be gone. But the NATO countries are paying very big bills to make sure he stays exactly where he is, that he continues to kidnap his own citizens and ship them to the front. So back to my question.
Ray McGovern: I remember the question now. There is an analysis that those drones going into Moscow — well, it wasn't the whole area, it was on the outskirts, where nothing much was happening, and they were full of kerosene. In other words, they weren't really bona fide attack drones. And the reason they were set up that way is so that the Ukrainians and others could take photos, and people like me had to watch it live talking to another interviewer, thinking, "Oh my god, what's going on here?" The next day we found out what these things really were. So a lot of this is showmanship, a lot of this is Hollywood.
But your point is quite valid. Most people phrase it the way you did: how much can Putin withstand? Well, my notion really derives from my appreciation of Putin as — well, he's atypical of all the Soviet and Russian leaders I've watched over six decades. He's unique. He's not going to be provoked. When he has the upper hand, he recognizes it. He's willing and not bashful about letting these sergeants complain about the drones that Ukraine and the West are using and hurting their advance. He holds that open and it's videographed. In other words, I see a confidence in Putin that belies the notion that he feels he has to trim his sails to those who say, "Aren't you tired? We've got to go faster."
The other thing is that, as you know because you've been in Russia probably more recently than I, life goes on there. Life hardly recognizes the special military operation. And that of course was the deliberate objective of Putin — not to get a big war going with conscription and all that kind of stuff.
The last thing I'll say on that is there is retaliation, there is escalation. The Russians have fired so many missiles and drones at Ukraine that they can whittle down what's left of Ukraine's ability to assemble some of these drones and so forth.
In my view, Putin does not have a real hard time saying, "Look, we've come this far. We were disappointed by what Trump thought he could promise. We know that sometimes he can come through, but he didn't come through on this big one. He wasn't able to restrain the Europeans." And that's a constant theme now — he was unable or unwilling, but mostly unable, to restrain the Europeans.
Are the Europeans a threat? For God's sake, no. Starmer is going now. Scholz is in line for going. Macron will be gone next year. Just be patient. We've got it made in Ukraine. There's no need for us to do anything drastic. And if we find out that the Latvians have been persuaded to actually let the Ukrainians use their bases, we'll deal with that. We've already threatened them. We don't think they're going to do that. But if they do, we'll deal with that. We've got lots of other ways. After all, it was the SVR that ran that warning, not the military. There are plenty of ways to deal with the Latvians without risking — even if it's only a 10% risk — getting into a war under Article 5 of the NATO charter.
So I may be wrong. I'm sort of an outlier on this. Most people see a lot of pressure on Putin. Sure, there's Karaganov — and you've interviewed Karaganov. I'm not impressed by Karaganov. I thought Mearsheimer pretty much asked him all the right questions and pretty much did him in by exposing the lacunae in his arguments. So I think that Medvedev and Karaganov are useful — they're the bad cops. They remind people from time to time that there is this change in the nuclear doctrine that came about — wow, what was it, about two years ago? — when some Ukrainian drones hit a strategic bomber site well inside Russia. My god, I remember everybody at that time: "Oh my god, that's it, that triggers the new Russian nuclear policy. Oh my god, what's going to happen?" Nothing.
And then they droned the president's residence at Valdai. And what happened? Oh my god. Well, nothing — except they got a piece of the drone and ceremoniously gave it to the US military attaché in Moscow and said, "Take a look at this. This is what you said. Take a look at the guidance system and where it comes from." And they did. What came of that? I don't know. I don't think the US ever responded, but Russia didn't make a big deal of it either.
There are people — and they may be proven right — who say, "Oh my god, when they went after Putin's residence near Valdai, they thought he was there. They told him to hold the phone while they got the missiles ready." I don't know about that. But even if they did, the calm reaction under these provocations — and let's face it, they are provocations — persuades me that this is Cool Hand Luke. This is a guy who's not going to be provoked. He's got a winning hand.
The US has discredited itself in Iran and elsewhere. Ukraine is running out of missiles and stuff. Sure, they get 90 billion dollars worth of weapons — where are they going to get them from? The US hasn't got a lot of what they need. And the Europeans are going to have to pay for them. So where's that 90 billion dollars going to go? Well, probably a lot of it goes right into the pockets of the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian leadership.
So chalk me up to being more relaxed than the others. It depends on one's view of Putin, what kinds of pressures he's under, and I may be completely wrong. But I think he's pretty much in charge. And Lavrov and Ushakov are able to say these things, and Belousov, the defense minister, is able to say, "Yeah, those drones are a real problem, but we're working on it. We're going to have our own Starlink equivalent. Just be patient."
Maybe it's partly a hope, but I think we can expect a cautious and perspicacious Putin. And I'll just say that he probably stands out in those qualities among all Soviet and Russian leaders that I have observed. I don't go back to Ivan the Terrible, but I know a lot about what happened after Stalin.
Trump: Unwilling or Unable to Restrain Europe?
Glenn Diesen: Earlier on you said that Trump is either unwilling or unable to rein in Zelensky and the Europeans. This seems like an important distinction, because for some people they took Trump at his word that he wants to put this war to an end. On the other hand, the weapons keep flowing and US intelligence is still present in Ukraine. And if you read the speeches of Elbridge Colby, one gets more the impression that the goal here is not so much to put an end to the war as to outsource it — just handing it over to the Europeans, so that the Europeans can keep weakening a US rival while paying the US for the privilege of doing its dirty work for it. So how do you see it? Is the US trying to put an end to this war, or simply outsourcing it to the Europeans, making them the next Ukrainians essentially?
Ray McGovern: I think in this case one has to look at the White House. I think Trump wants to put an end to this war. I don't know about those other guys around him — maybe they just assume, you know, go after the terrible Russians. And can Russia live with this? It's really amazing to me that Western journalists are saying the Russian economy is going to hell, that Russia is losing the war in Ukraine. Why are they saying all that? And why is it that the Ukrainians insist on firing all these missiles? I guess they just want to have the appearance of, if not winning, at least being able to damage the Russians. But I don't think it's any more than that.
Again, if you get down to hardware — the Europeans are going to buy weapons from the United States that the US is trying to produce, but they'll come online in a couple of years. And then the Europeans will not be able to pay right away, but they'll pay the United States and then get them into Ukraine. I mean, if I'm Putin, I'm looking at this and saying, "You know, they really don't have any weaponry left. They expended most of it against Iran of all places, and they've shown themselves to be very weak, without the industrial base — not only in the US but so far in Europe — to make up the problem."
The Weight of History: 27 Million Soviet Dead
Now, it could come to — I was thinking today, or yesterday was the anniversary, the 85th anniversary of the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, and it's a big deal. You may have been in Russia. I was there for the 75th, right in 2016. I was in Yalta. We were the first American delegation to come to Crimea since the coup in Kyiv in February of 2014. We were an unofficial delegation of citizens, but we had quite an experience there. And I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at the main ceremony in Yalta to mark the 75th anniversary of what Putin has called the day where one gets a lump in one's throat.
They asked me to speak. We were Americans, right? And I looked out there — most people were older than I was. They were widows, widowers, children and grandchildren of the 27 million that got killed during the years following that particular day. And my colleagues said, "Ray, you talk." And the only thing that could occur to me was to try to empathize with what happened in a way that would be appropriate. And I chose a poem from Nikolai Nekrasov — the poet Pushkin called "the poet of Russian sorrow" — appropriately called "Paying Attention to the Horrors of War." Glenn, it takes about a minute to recite. I'd be happy to recite it and translate it unless you want to move on.
Glenn Diesen: No, please go.
Ray McGovern: Okay. Well, that's the title and the first line:
"Paying attention to the horrors of war, and every new victim of the war, I feel sorry not so much for the victim's wife, or for his best friend, or even for the victim himself. Wives will be consoled, and best friends will forget their best friends. But somewhere there was one soul — one soul — she will remember to the grave. Those are the tears of poor mothers. They don't forget their children who perished on the bloody battlefield, just as a weeping willow tree can never, never, never raise up its branches."
I was so happy that that professor made me memorize that poem way back in 1959. It was poignant, and I could tell that the people ten years ago were moved by it — that some American could feel this close to the horrors of war and realize what the Russians had gone through. 27 million of them killed. On our side, the Americans — about 400,000. Big difference. And yet we Americans in our delegation thought enough to come to Crimea to help them celebrate that day.
The Studebaker Moment: A General's Gratitude
Now the reason I mentioned that is that just yesterday, on the 85th anniversary, Putin very ceremoniously laid a wreath and stood in sorrow and contemplation. The point is that the Russians don't forget. Now there are many fewer widows and widowers, but there are a lot of children, and they don't forget. The Russian rulers — first and foremost Putin — don't forget that the American people have very little sense for what real war is like.
Now, instead of holding that against Americans, Putin is perspicacious enough to think, "Oh my god, they don't know what war is like." JD Vance yesterday in Switzerland said, "I'm part of the millennials." Well, I looked up what that meant — that means you were born around 1983, 1984. So what does he know about real war? Real war.
So the Russians, and Putin, when they say — I had a copy of this. Here it is. This is what Putin wrote about ten years ago: "Why does life almost come to a halt on June 22nd? And why does one feel a lump in the throat?" And he goes through the whole of World War I, World War II, and how the Soviets were able to prevail.
Now, the other side of course is that a lot of people think they would not have been able to prevail without a lot of Western help. And that is true. And let me just put a little more color in here. I was celebrating the meeting on the Elbe where Russian forces and American forces met — in Moscow, gosh, it must be ten years ago — and it was really very poignant.
Oh yeah — I recited the same poem. There's no better poem than that. And then this great big 6'4" general — I could still tell what he was — comes up to me, doesn't say a word after I'm finished saying this poem, and he says to me: "Studebaker." Studebaker. And then he gives me a terrific big Russian bear hug.
I'll bet that JD Vance doesn't know what that was all about. But you know what it's all about. Studebaker — car manufacturing, truck manufacturing — the company was completely devoted to making trucks and cars, these famous deuce-and-a-halfs that could go over mountains and through rivers. About 750,000 of them went through Iran. And what General Abramov — that was the guy's name — was saying to me was, "Look, I don't know any English, but I was moved by the poem, and I remember Studebaker because they hauled my artillery, they hauled my men, and they really helped in the central part when we had finished at Stalingrad. They were just as important as those tanks."
So that was very moving to me, and it indicated to me that there is this big gulf between what Americans know about European history and what Putin knows.
Putin's Brother and the Siege of Leningrad
Last thing — you know, Putin had a big brother, right? Vitya. And Vitya was born during the Siege of Leningrad. Now I don't want to read too much into Putin's frame of mind, but he lost his big brother. I lost my big brother too, but that was to spinal meningitis, and nobody to blame for that except the lack of penicillin in those days. He lost his big brother because there was nothing to eat, and his mother had to give Vitya over to a kind of hospice where they had some claim to get something to eat. She did that. Can you imagine how wrenching that is? Tears of mothers again. She did that, and of course she never saw him again.
And so after one big celebration in Petersburg — old Leningrad — Putin was making a little speech. After the speech, one of the questions was, "Well, your big brother died here, Vitya, right?" "Yeah, that's right." "Where is he?" And Putin looked over at this enormous mound — you've probably seen it — where 750,000 people who perished in Leningrad lie. And Putin said, "Well, he's over there."
It was after the war that Vladimir was born. He was only born because his mother had been left among the dead bodies, and his father finally came home and saw that she was still breathing and rescued her. And so they had little Vladimir later on.
So these are experiences that — I lost two uncles in World War II, but they don't come near to losing a big brother, and his mother never had the solace of visiting his grave or knowing exactly what happened to him. She was forced to give him up. And I think that counts for a little bit of why there's a little edge when Vladimir talks about the Finns who enforced that blockade, killing 900-some thousand Russians in the Leningrad defense, and of course the Germans.
These are just little things that, on the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, I think reflect what actually percolates in the minds of people like Putin — who are old enough, not quite as old as I am, but old enough to remember things, and to have had his brother die, and lots of other things that his parents told him about. It's part of his makeup. And part of the Russian makeup. And he's not going to do anything so dangerous as to risk an outbreak of another major war. I hope I'm right on that. I think it's a big deal. I hope he stays around for a while.
The Poland-Ukraine Rift Over the Reburial of Nationalist Figures
Glenn Diesen: Let me just ask one last question. We almost touched on it earlier — the issue of the problems now between Poland and Ukraine. Poland on one hand has been one of the key sponsors in this war, not just a key logistics center but also sending a lot of their own troops as volunteers, and they've been cheering the war on since the beginning. But at the same time, the Poles are quite critical about having Ukraine in the European Union, for example, because of agricultural disputes and a lot of other issues.
However, we haven't seen anything like this before — at least in Europe as well as the US since 2014, we had to pretend as if the regime change had nothing to do with any fascist elements. But now with Zelensky essentially reburying fascists from World War II and giving them the full honor of the government, it has also created some annoyance among the Poles, because those figures slaughtered 100,000 Polish civilians as well. And Zelensky and his crew have refused to walk this back, and for Poland this is too much to accept. How do you see the significance of this?
Ray McGovern: The way I look at it is the Poles acted out of conviction and out of some historical memory. 100,000 Poles met their death at the hands of these guys, these Nazis. And to have them exhumed and buried with high honors is an affront that needed some kind of reaction.
Now, why would Zelensky feel that that's a good thing to do? Well, that's the real question. And I think the answer is that he's either thrown his complete lot in with the neo-Nazis, or he feels like he's under their wing, or he's not free from them. In other words, they are his last resort. He's got to depend on them. He's got to mollify them by gratuitous things like this.
Another question I had would be: most of that military aid comes through Poland, right? Why is it that the Russians haven't bombed those railroad tunnels and all the places where the Poles send that aid? Well, I think that's coming. That's Ukraine — they can do that.
And it just kind of illustrates that Zelensky is either lost it — they're picking a fight with the Belarusians now as well — or he's just trying to show that he's a tough guy, and that these Azov types, or the descendants of these Nazis who did that work during World War II, are where he's got to curry favor.
And you know, the weakness of what I call the three blind mice — well, now Scholz is going out, but you have Macron and you have Starmer — the three blind mice get all the attention because they meet every other Thursday for their men's group, and sometimes they have Giorgia Meloni come around. But the Poles don't count. The Poles are never in the pictures. If I were a Pole — I'm a Pole apart, I guess, so to speak — the Poles I know have a lot of dignity. So I think it's a kerfuffle, but I think the main lesson to be taken from it is that Zelensky feels he has to do these things to curry favor and stay in the good graces of these Nazis that the Russians have pledged to remove.
And that's going to take a while. But my notion is that once the battle on the battlefield is won and the Russians can deal with the Azov battalions or regiments or divisions or whatever they've got now — then without any real military support, the Nazis are going to flee to Argentina again, and there may be a prospect for some calming down in Ukraine. That's my best guess, and that's how I interpret it, Glenn.
Glenn Diesen: It is interesting. It's a difficult one to explain across Europe, because we've been spoonfed that there were no fascists — this is Russian propaganda — until the Poles had to push back. But it doesn't seem that it's going to put a dent in Europe's enthusiasm for the war, though Poland of course is a bit more shaky as a result of this. Anyways, I've taken an hour out of your day. Thank you very much for the time.
Ray McGovern: Well, thank you for indulging me in my poem and other recollections of my experiences there. Thank you, Glenn.