Think Differently. Solve the Impossible.

Show Notes

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ALEX CRAIU:

https://youtu.be/jkh_GpYqRoc?si=ntmzpwM87BJN4-lr
https://www.tiktok.com/@nuvreiaici?_t=8rAB1rYCoEA&_r=1 

Transcript

My guest today is Alex Craiu.

Alex lives and works in Ukraine as a war correspondent.

He has a documentary and cinematography production degree.

In 2017, he completed an internship with the BBC in London and later started creating videos for social networks, collaborating with various publications.

He has traveled to most of the regions in Ukraine, except those fully occupied, and has an online presence in which he reports on the situation in Ukraine, including conflict zones.

Currently, Alex is based in the capital city of Ukraine, where he analyzes and documents people's lives during the war.

Welcome to my show, Alex.

Hi, thanks for having me.

So real quick, I always like to ask people their story.

You got a degree in cinematography, so you're interested in film and reporting.

What's your background and then how did you get to, I assume, part of your motivation for covering Ukraine is you live there.

That's where you're from, right?

No, no, actually, I'm from Romania, and the first time that I ever visited Ukraine was in 2022.

We can probably get into that later on.

But I came here out of curiosity, purely out of curiosity as something that I don't support right now in hindsight.

But back then, I came out of curiosity as a war tourist.

And war tourism isn't really a thing, but I think I was one of the first people to come to the country because I had this terrible curiosity of what it's like to be in Ukraine or in a country at war, for that matter.

Oh, that's great.

Well, that's in line with your interest in getting the film and reporting in the first place.

So tell me about the header and small print on one of your YouTube videos.

These images were carefully selected and censored in order to comply with Ukrainian laws following lawful and correct journalistic principles.

What's that about?

So all journalists in Ukraine, particularly those who have an accreditation from SSU, which is the Armed Forces of Ukraine, need to comply with some rules.

There are some laws and some rules that it needs to follow.

And we can, by the way, we can freely discuss those because they are somewhat public and they are of public interest.

So there's nothing kept secret in regards of what journalists can and can't show, because the same rules apply to actually everybody, to the civilians.

Back then, when I made that video, I was not accredited by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

So I was not officially a journalist.

I was just a vlogger.

But basically, that disclaimer is there for many, many reasons.

One, because I didn't want people to confuse the fact that I can show all of those, you know, defense systems at work, things that you're not allowed to show usually.

I didn't want to confuse it for lack of or negligence, to be honest, or ignorance towards the laws of Ukraine, because the law of Ukraine clearly states that you cannot show the air defense system at work.

And that's because I'm told that as soon as you do, the Russians will find out where it is and attack it.

The same thing with the civilian home or something.

Yes, yes.

So basically, if you see where the defense comes from, it becomes a target.

And by the way, you might think that if you just show an image of the aftermath of an explosion, and particularly if you live like me, on the 20th floor of a building, which is really quite common here, the building tends to be really quite tall, unlike Europe.

And so people have a very, very good overview of what's going on in the city.

And if people post those pictures, you can quite easily look at buildings.

You have points of references.

Yeah, AI will figure it out, like pattern recognition, visual recognition with the artificial intelligence will figure out exactly where you're on the map.

They'll line it up with Google Maps and space.

Yeah.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't, you couldn't talk about something.

Of course you can't.

Yes.

Of course you can talk about many, many things, but all of them have, I actually studied all of those things that we received probably four pages.

There's an annex of four pages that we all receive as journalists.

And it explains to you in detail what you can and can't show.

And I studied that.

And actually all of those things make total sense.

It's, if you think about it, it is an extension of the common sense that you would normally apply in a country at war where there's martial law.

And they basically, all of them go down to don't give information to the Russians or anybody who can use it for, you know, to attack our country.

Yeah.

OK.

So what do you believe the war is really about?

There's a lot of disinformation.

In America, it's actually, it's almost like entertainment when you turn on the news.

Our news reporters, most of them are puppet heads.

They just want to look good, make a lot of money, be on TV.

Some of them are intelligent.

Most of them just tell the official story that's fed to them from Washington.

What are we not being told that the war might be about?

Well, first of all, I'm not entirely sure what, what reaches, what information reaches the average American.

And I'm not, I don't mean here people who have a keen interest in politics.

This is not the average people.

This is not the average American as much as it's not the average Romanian or the average British person.

The average people don't necessarily dive deep into the subjects and they go by what mainstream media says.

And quite often, quite often, those informations, this information is true because I cross check it.

For example, whenever you see the big publications like, you know, the CNN and the BBC and whatnot reporting about attacks in Ukraine, I have checked and all of those reports were real.

For example, when there was the attack on Poltava a few months ago, I was there with all of the big publications like Al Jazeera.

We were all in a big place.

And mind you, I'm quite a small journalist compared to those big publications.

I do not represent a big international news corporation.

I merely report Romanian television, which for many is big.

But, you know, when you think about it in international terms, I was nobody.

But we were all in the same situation.

And I saw the reports that they were giving on that.

And they were very, very factually accurate.

They were giving some information that was incredibly true.

And this was actually a very interesting thing for me to see as well, to see how other people are reporting this.

But we were all in this together.

We were all in that street because nobody was allowed to actually go in there to film inside.

Everybody was trying to get shots.

And these people, they were the giants, they were representing the giant companies.

They were coming at me and they were like, hey, do you have any information?

I see that you're a journalist too, because I had the accreditation on me.

And so the information is correct.

What I mean, Alex, is I'm sure the wreckage and the suffering, how horrid the conditions are, especially as we come up to winter and people there have to probably even worry about having heat because they'll bomb the power plant they just rebuilt the second time.

That clears a bell on American TV, because the idea is support this war.

The Russians are terrible people, and we need to support Ukraine.

But what I mean is, as an American, I've got to ask myself, this is like the pandemic.

Why is it taking so long if we're that smart and powerful?

And what people have told me in America is, Dan, it's taking so long because it's disinformation.

Our government's clouding it.

So I'll give an example.

Do you know who Joe Rogan is?

Of course.

Yeah.

So I didn't know that he basically said, what gives Ukraine the right to fight back?

So, okay.

So that's one example.

Another is our Fox News personality, Tucker Carlson, which is right.

I'm very familiar with him, of course.

Okay.

So I'm not probably everybody else is.

Real quick, he's a Fox television reporter, who's also kind of close to Donald Trump, and he's just over in Russia to, quote, we need someone to moderate this war.

Is that correct, Alex?

They're sending him over there to talk to the Russians, right?

Am I correct on this?

Probably the starting point of this is the fact that he was the only Western journalist to be allowed into Kremlin, which is, you know, the headquarters of Putin.

So to put it in simple terms for everybody, so it's, you know, him going to Moscow to interview Putin as the only journalist.

Probably this is the starting point of that.

Okay.

So the thing is, maybe as a journalist, you're not supposed to give your opinion, but Tucker clearly gives his opinion a lot historically on a lot of things.

And yet it doesn't come across in the news anyhow.

If he did, we didn't get the message that his message from America to Russia should have been, you want to end the war?

Walk out of Ukraine.

It's that simple, right?

See, the thing here is multilayered.

This is and probably it depends on people's stance on this because it's all down to opinions.

I think there is two categories of things.

There is the opinions and there is the fact.

Of course, the fact it has to it goes two ways.

It is false or it's or it's true.

Right.

But the opinions are different and they vary.

And of course, there is the the opinion that America is maintaining the war in Ukraine by helping Ukraine.

And the thing is, this is actually not true.

Right.

However, however, it is true.

I'm sorry.

Back up for one moment.

What's not true?

The fact that America is maintaining its funding the war in Ukraine.

And I'll explain to you why.

Why?

Why this is that's not true or that is true.

I do not believe that this is true.

No.

However, with America's support, the war goes on in Ukraine for longer.

Why?

Simply because Ukraine is able to defend itself.

Of course, the war would have come to an end a long, long time ago if the Western countries didn't help Ukraine.

This is another piece of, there's misinformation and disinformation.

Disinformation is you're being manipulated.

Misinformation is it's just taken out of context.

This is a perfect another example is when I ask, what's taking so long?

I was told it was Donald Trump's logic.

If we stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, then nobody can fight.

But that makes no sense because if the problem is, we have a deeper problem, it's not a long-term solution.

And that's what you're referring to, right?

It's cut off the money we're spending to support.

Look, the thing is, if the war in Ukraine ends in two days and Russia captures the entirety of Ukraine and Ukraine falls under Russia's rule, we can call this and we can all agree on the fact that the war has ended.

But what's the result?

At what cost?

And the cost is losing Ukraine.

So there is a good in keeping the war going as long as it is for the purpose of Ukraine defending itself.

However, and this is something that I can't stress enough.

And I don't know how much people from outside of Ukraine understand this, but the fact that the war goes on in Ukraine is probably one of the worst things that is happening to Ukraine.

It is by all means Ukraine's interests for the war to end.

However, the war shouldn't end on Russia's terms.

That's the only thing.

But if the war was to end with Ukraine being taken by the Russians on your terms, you'd be okay with that.

You're basically, you're sick of being killed and tortured and you just want peace.

Are you saying that's true even at the expense of living under Russia again, that you'd be okay with that?

So what we're looking at is what people who are, because more than 20% of Ukraine is right now controlled by Russia.

And we're talking about the eastern parts, okay?

And we are looking at life there, okay?

And we can probably assume that whatever is happening there would happen all across the border, all across Ukraine, if Ukraine were to surrender to Russia.

And what we see there is that people have lost a lot of freedoms, right?

That the quality of life for those people is incredibly lower than they were when they were at war, actually.

Why?

Because Russia lives now in somewhat of a seclusion to all of the western countries that Ukraine has looked up to ever since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In other words, Ukraine has significantly culturally and ideologically aligned itself with America, with the western countries, while Russia remained stuck there in the east.

Right?

And this is ideologically, this is the main problem that people are facing.

And so that's why people don't, in Ukraine, they don't want, it's not about just the change of flag.

It's about a change of a lot of things.

And at what cost are those things?

Yeah.

So Alex, I'm seeking clarity again, because I totally understand this, that you nailed it on the head, on the real, one of the real reasons that we're at war.

It's not about land.

It's about the culture, how well Ukraine did without Russia, and how they became like a regular country, like the United States.

They're prospering.

So it's bigger than just want this territory.

But now I'm confused because it sounds like you're suggesting that people in Ukraine would be willing to end the war, be occupied by Russia again.

Is that just because they're sick of being, being slaughtered?

That's quite the opposite of it.

It's quite the opposite.

People don't want to surrender to Russia, and actually they would rather keep fighting because their logic is, and this is something that I've spoken to many, many Ukrainians, and I said, why do you really want to keep those territories?

And he said, first of all, it's not about the territories, it's about the people who live in those territories.

Great.

So let's jump to the real solution then.

As an American, I cannot, again, it's like the pandemic.

After two weeks, I'm kind of like, okay, why are we still fighting this?

After two years, I'm like, that's ridiculous, we're smarter than this.

America is huge and powerful.

What's the real reason we don't just step in, and we could do, and the rest of the world push the Russians out?

Well, because first of all, and the main thing is a fear of escalation.

If Russia sees this as the US getting directly involved into the war, it'll be a war between the US, which is basically NATO and Russia.

And this is something that NATO wants to avoid.

We need to remember that NATO is a defensive alliance.

In other words, NATO doesn't attack.

In all of its history, NATO didn't attack other countries, right?

And so it is there for peacekeeping, and it is a defensive alliance.

And it's not just America that will enter a war with Russia, it's the entirety of Europe.

We're talking about multi-countries who all have bothered with Russia.

We're talking about Romania.

We're also talking two things come to mind, fear tactics, like nuclear war, for example.

That's another thing I wanted to talk about, which by the way, America is the only country that's ever used a nuclear weapon ever in the history of the planet Earth, on another country.

It's a fear tactic.

We've been through this with the Soviets in the arms race, and people are getting stuck up on that.

So more or less, Alex, what do you, help me with this, figure this out.

It's like they're making us all afraid.

You guys are afraid.

You Ukraine, Americans are afraid, even though we're not there, about World War III.

But yet, who is to benefit from this?

I mean, we have, I just made this little saying here, if Trump keeps Putin, Trump gets his tower.

Apparently, Trump wants a tower in Russia.

There's a lot of conflicts, interest here.

I think we're all being manipulated.

What do you think about that?

Because I honestly think the long term solution is get the Russians out.

That's simple, right?

It is, but it is also a matter of being really cautious with the kind of things that we do to get the Russians out, just so Russia doesn't see this as an escalation.

And let me go back on those nuclear threats that you were talking about.

And this is something that truly benefits Russia because those threats that they will use nuclear weapons actually benefits them.

How?

Western countries are cautious, and sometimes overly cautious, about fully helping and truly helping Ukraine to get the Russians out.

Why?

Because they are afraid of a nuclear war.

And we're talking about the latest missile, which is an intercontinental missile that Russia has tested on Ukraine.

Why?

Because they needed that missile.

No, it was just a threat to all of Europe.

Look, we can use these missiles, and we've used it in Ukraine.

We might as well just use it in America or in other countries.

Do not mess with us.

That's what Russia says.

And this is their way of ensuring that Ukraine just doesn't get the support it needs to win the war.

Yeah, OK.

I feel like we're getting stuck in the box now.

I'm both afraid as a civilian and an American.

I don't want global nuclear war, and I can't sort it out.

As an engineer, whenever I think things are too complex, no, you're not looking at, I mean, Einstein's equation, E equals MC squared.

How beautiful is that, right?

Whenever the news gets too complex, I'm like, what's the real problem?

To me, the real problem are our leaders.

Whether you want Trump or Biden, it's not the person, it's the politics.

The people are good people.

It's our politicians.

They're billionaires.

For example, I didn't know what this word is.

I had to look it up.

The Ogilites, what do you call it?

The rich billionaires, the Russian.

Probably an oligarch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And as I'm Wikipedia-ing it, because I don't know what the term is, I'm looking for the definition here in my notes that came up.

When the definition came up is basically billionaires that are involved with the government.

I didn't Google Ian Musk, his pictures next to the definition.

We have billionaires in America close to politics, and then we have this term that you just said in terms of the Russian mafia.

To me, that's the bigger problem.

Right?

The biggest problem that we have in this war is the fact that Russia is still incredibly powerful, and so is Ukraine, with the help that it receives.

But let's not forget that Russia is also not fighting this war alone, it is joined by Iran, who is producing all of those drones that I personally see flying quite a lot.

And when we're talking about drones, we're not talking about just some FPV drones that they use near the trenches.

No, we're talking about big mini planes.

Yeah, so I don't know what that is in feet, because you have different measurements in the US, but we're talking about 2.5 and 3.5 meters, which is really quite a lot.

And it's probably twice the size of the average human body.

And so these are huge drones.

They weigh a lot of kilograms, so they're massive.

And so these are Iranian made, and Russia is not fighting this war alone.

It needs its allies to produce all of those things.

And the problem is Russia is incredibly capable.

And going back to what you've said about what is not getting to the American public is the fact that even though...

So compared to the COVID, right?

We saw that at the beginning of the pandemic, things were really, really bad, and they started to get better.

And probably now the effects of this virus, they're hardly felt by anybody.

Like we're not talking about massive waves of infected people and so.

But the difference between that and the other crisis, which is the Ukraine crisis, the fact that here the situation didn't really get much better.

It got stabilized and it got a little bit more predictable.

But the war is the same.

I can probably say the same things about the intensity of the attacks and how badly they affect people's lives.

The same thing that I would have been able to say at the beginning of the war.

What has changed really is how much the media is talking about it.

And my assumption is, it's not much because people have better things to do.

But the situation didn't change.

Situation is the same.

I see it.

I'm here.

Well, the news in America basically picks.

They do two things.

If there's a real story that people would really be upset about, they cover something else because they don't want you to see the other story.

And yeah, they cover it for, it's like entertainment.

How many people are watching?

Oh, they're tired of this.

Let's try something else.

It's not about what's really important and good for the world.

That's, I think, part of the problem.

That's what I'm saying, Alex.

What's the real problem is not just disinformation, it's misinformation on the news, because here in America, the news is not driven by something bad is going on.

Let's help these people.

It's that, but only there's always another underlying reason.

Why?

Because I'm president and I want to get elected.

And I'll say, I'll end the war.

Why?

Because I, you know, I'm a billionaire and I want to put a tower, my hotel tower in downtown Russia.

All these conflict interests, I think, are the real problem.

They're not going to go away and will always be at war, as long as there are those problems.

That's what I'm getting at, what the real problem is, how to solve it.

And following this train of thoughts, let me ask you this, since you've probably heard a lot of news and things like that.

What were probably, if I were to ask you, what are the top three questions that you had about Ukraine and you just couldn't get out of your head, probably regarding some things that you felt that there was some kind of manipulation going on, and you just wish that you can ask somebody who lives in Ukraine what the real situation is.

What was the thing that really confused you the most about what you've read about Ukraine?

Well, I wondered, for one, if being there, since you were getting different news, you were there, the people are there, you can talk word of mouth to each other, you don't have to watch it on TV.

Right.

If there was something that we in America weren't aware of, not because of censorship, because of, it's quite common, actually, in America, in the way we live.

You go over to Europe as a tourist, all the Europeans get it, but if you're an American who's never been there, you're like, oh, this is what's really going on.

This is what's really happened in the world.

That's not how in America we view a war or we view an energy crisis.

This is that like everybody else knows what's going on except in America.

And again, as a logical person, I'm like two years is a long time for a world as powerful as this, for something as tragic as Ukraine happening, for all the technology and power, for there not to be a solution.

And then people will stick in nuclear war in there to make us afraid, like, oh, we better slow down on logical thinking your solution.

Now, I'm like, seriously, my chat GBT can write me a book, a report for work in 10 seconds.

This does not make sense, Alex.

That's why I'm having on my show.

Something is not making sense to me.

And I don't know what it is exactly.

But to me, it seems like it's as simple as if you don't get the Russians out, let's break it down.

Even though it's complex, even though you say, well, the Russians will start World War III.

Let's still break it down to the solution is Russia has to get out, correct?

Right, right.

But the matter is, and this is something that I can, it's a question that I can extend to you as well.

Let's look at the possible scenarios that we can kick the Russians out.

Because obviously this is the goal of Ukraine, and this is probably of America and Western countries.

And it's true.

I can definitely confirm this.

This is definitely the goal of Ukraine.

If Ukraine doesn't want something that's Russian on their land.

Okay, but let's see how we can do it.

And what is the possible scenarios that all Russians can get out of the Ukrainian lands?

And by the way, are we talking about Crimea too?

So we're talking about the freshly occupied territories, or are we talking about the territories that were occupied in 2014?

By the way, people don't know that...

Most people don't know that the war actually didn't start in 2022.

It started in 2014.

It's just that Ukraine was like, okay, we can't really defend ourselves.

We don't really get a lot of support to defend ourselves this time.

That was back in 2014.

We're going to...

Okay, this is occupied territory.

Crimea is occupied territory.

We're just going to leave it.

We're just not powerful enough to attack Russia.

And by the way, even then, Ukraine did not escalate the war, did not attack Russia.

Not that it could, but it didn't attack.

It didn't fight back.

But now, when it's the full scale invasion, you know, this is a different kettle of fish.

And so how are we getting the Russians out of these territories?

Let's look at possible scenarios, and we can break them down if you wish.

Oh, are you asking me?

Yes.

Yes.

Let's see what's the first scenario.

How we can actually get the Russians out.

This is what in terms of laws here in the United States, where we're debating laws.

This is why I pay elected officials.

This is why I have a president of the United States.

This is why we have a Congress.

They're supposed, this is their job to do this.

So basically, you're asking me, even though I have to work every day and have other things to do, to study the news, watch the war, become an expert on politics and global everything.

It's not my job.

So I'm going to frame it that way to start with.

Ask your question again.

How to get Russia out of Ukraine?

Yes.

Since this is probably, we can agree on the fact that everybody wants that.

Let's look at the possible scenarios that we can do that.

I actually, so again, break it down to the root cause of the problem.

It's those, I say this word, I got to look at my notes, ogulites, the rich billionaires in the mafia in Russia.

That have, because Putin, if correct me if I'm wrong, he's balancing what he wants to do, but he's got to make these billionaire mafia people happy and the rest of the Russian government.

Otherwise, he looks weak, they take him out, right?

So he's got a conflict of interest.

He might not even want to attack Ukraine, but he's got to if they want their oil and so forth.

He's got to follow them.

He's not.

He's a puppet, too.

It's these puppets and players in mafia and rich billionaires that are the problem.

Look, the first thing to remember is the fact that Putin deeply hates the West.

It is a deep hatred in Putin's mind or America or NATO, even for the Western countries.

We see Russia trying to interview with the Romanian elections now.

Why is that so hatred?

Well, because probably ideologically, going back a long, long time, they were not really on the same page.

But Russia really wanted to keep hold of its influence in Ukraine.

That's why Russia started this war.

Not because they wanted to get terribly rich in this war.

They knew that they would lose a lot of money.

Not because they wanted to expand their land.

Hell no, Russia is the biggest country to buy land in the world.

And it didn't need all those things.

It has resources, probably everything that there is on this planet in terms of land resources.

Russia has some.

Why?

Because Russia stretches away from Finland to China and North Korea.

Can you believe that between Finland and North Korea, there's only one country and that's Russia?

Okay, so real quick, just so I don't get distracted by this, because I haven't asked you about the natural resources, the oil and the natural gas, is what you're saying is, is this is a bit of misinformation then.

I am led to believe in America that part of the war is about Russia and these rich billionaires that are Russian mafia, are wanting the gas and oil and the resources and the wheat of Ukraine.

You're saying that's not true.

Russia has plenty of that elsewhere.

That's not the real reason for the war.

I'm saying that there are many, many reasons, but in my opinion, in my personal opinion, the one of the real reason and probably the number one reason for this war is because Russia wanted to maintain influence over Ukraine.

Russia was somehow so stuck in the mentality of that former Soviet Union, where it was all a big, well, big state with many, many, many countries incorporated that Russia just didn't want to let go of those things.

And by the way, we're looking at Moldova, which was part of the Soviet Union, and which was basically taken away from Romania by the Soviets and incorporated into the so-called Soviet Union.

And so we're seeing that it has separatist regions, for example, Transnistria, Pridnestrovia, which is a region that I personally visited.

It's Russian-controlled.

Why does Russia want to keep hold of that tiny piece of land in Moldova?

Because it's strategic.

It's all about strategy and influence.

And I think that's probably the number one reason, in my opinion.

It's strategy and influence.

It's philosophical.

It's the idea, like, you can't leave me.

I own you.

Right, right.

Good point.

Good point.

Yes.

Is that it?

I'm asking.

If it's not the oil and the gas, you say they have plenty of oil and gas.

I'm not saying it's not oil and gas.

It's what I'm saying is Russia has a lot of resources.

And probably the number one is that it wanted to keep hold of this influence over Ukraine.

And by the way, the way it does that is exactly what you've said.

You know, maintaining this foot into Ukraine and saying, look, you can't do anything.

You can't be an independent state.

By the way, this is something that Russia never wanted to recognize.

The fact that Ukraine is an independent state.

The way Russia sees Ukraine is part of it belongs to Russia.

The biggest part becomes Russia.

The other one belongs to Romania.

The other one belongs to Hungary and the other one belongs to Poland.

So what's left of Ukraine in Russia's eyes?

Well, pretty much nothing.

So Ukraine doesn't exist as a state.

This is the way Russia sees Ukraine.

But the truth is that Ukraine has been, ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, has been, before that too, a self-governing country, which is in its sovereignty.

It is an independent state and it's a real country.

And nobody ever questioned that apart from Russia.

Yeah.

So back to our solution.

And let's just do make believe for a moment, forget about the threat of nuclear war.

We'll consider that next.

To start with, break it down to the core.

What is the solution?

The the ideal solution will be Russia says, look, we're withdrawing our troops from Ukraine.

And that's that's that's the end of the war.

If Russia withdraws all of the troops from Ukraine right now, the war ends.

This is the clear solution.

But this is the ideal solution.

It will not happen.

So then where we get stuck is what is where do we get stuck on that?

What needs to in that?

What we need to do to make that happen?

We are afraid to do.

Is that the sticking point?

Russia will never withdraw its troops from from Ukraine.

But now the likely scenario is the following.

If Ukraine says, look, you can keep those territories that you've already invaded.

We just don't want you to advance even more.

And Russia says, okay, we can we can do that.

But the problem is what guarantee we have that Russia in a few years will not say, hey, look, we actually want more territory.

We just messed up with you.

And you might think Russia wouldn't do that.

That sounds like a drug dealer or you're you're you're speaking, you're making an agreement with a criminal.

It's that's first of all.

Yeah.

And we see this this criminal that we're putting in our analogy here who has disregarded all the previous agreements.

Yeah.

You know, we were talking about the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, where Russia said it will never.

So we checked that one off as not a good path to take.

What's what's another option, another potential way to do this?

So in Ukrainian's eyes, the way to ensure long term and very long term peace in Ukraine will be, OK, we're going to see what we do with those territories that were already taken by Russia.

But whatever is left of Ukraine needs to join NATO.

Russia cannot afford to go into a war with NATO.

And that's why Ukraine wants to be NATO, not to attack Russia.

You know, I didn't know this, Alex.

What's to stop?

Would this help if Ukraine as a whole, entirety joined NATO right now?

Oh, it will help tremendously, but it just can't.

Why?

Well, first of all, because Ukraine is at war, OK?

And when you have Ukraine, there's many, many problems.

So it will mean unless there is an agreement with the Russians that they will stop the fire.

OK, if I'm not understanding, I don't have the NATO playbook and rule book.

To me, there shouldn't be any rules such as this.

Are you telling me that NATO will not allow a country?

What is the reason that Ukraine can't join NATO right now?

Well, well, first of all, when when Romania joined NATO, OK, let's just give the example of Romania, which joined NATO, you know, in not so long ago.

I mean, we're talking about.

So when Romania joined NATO, it needed to make sure that it has good relationships with the neighbors, meaning no ongoing wars, OK, because, of course, you cannot incorporate into NATO, which is a defensive alliance.

You cannot incorporate a country that is at war.

So the solution of Ukraine joining NATO is stopping the fire in.

So stop freezing the war, basically.

And then Ukraine, as a peaceful country, as a country that is not at war with Russia, joins NATO.

OK, at least whatever is left of Ukraine and those occupied territories, we keep them aside.

I gave you an analogy.

This is like health insurance in America.

You can't get it if you have a preexisting condition.

Right.

If someone is dying of cancer, clearly you should help them.

And it's a broken system because it doesn't make sense.

I can't get health care unless I'm already healthy.

Then why do I need it?

Because they want your money.

To me, you just opened up a new thought in my head that while it might sound logical when you say it, that you need to be at peace, it doesn't make sense logically.

If a country in the world, the state of the world is at stake, war and everything else, why is the NATO just sitting and saying, oh, you know what?

In our rule book, it says you can't join unless you're at peace.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

That doesn't make sense.

Look, it makes sense from the standpoint of, look, if Ukraine somehow joins NATO right now, it means that NATO is at war with Russia.

So you basically just got America into war.

That's literally what you've done.

You got America into war, and that's the problem, that NATO doesn't want to get itself into war because you got so, so, so many countries.

I got a simple solution to that too.

If it's because of the word war, and technically someplace we have announced that we're at war, just say we're not at war, join NATO, and then figure it out.

It's all semantics.

It's all paper.

It's all somebody's rule somewhere written in the book.

Just change the wording.

Do the right thing, and forget about the nomenclature and the writing on the wall.

But the problem is the practical implications of that.

Let's suppose that Ukraine right now just became NATO, right?

In this moment, Ukraine became NATO.

Let's just pretend.

So what's going to happen?

Probably, like they did today, Russia will continue the war in Ukraine, and they will attack Ukraine.

All of a sudden, all of the countries that are part of NATO, including Turkey, including all of those countries in Europe and America, they have a responsibility to attack Russia, because Ukraine will be part of NATO.

Any country that is part of NATO, that is getting attacked by another country, means that the whole alliance, the whole of NATO, European countries and America needs to attack Russia.

Well, we skipped a step, Alex.

And we made a lot of pre-assumptions as NATO.

I'm assuming I have to do this.

Like, no one's making me do anything.

We're a group, a collaborative.

We don't just, one plus one doesn't automatically equal two if we want to change it to three or one and a half.

We have the power to do that as NATO.

So what I'm saying is, let's back up, because I recall you said the solution is to get Russia out and asked you, how could we do that?

And you said, if Ukraine was part of NATO.

So to me, it seems we're making progress when you suggested a solution, Ukraine was part of NATO, there would be peace.

So to me, it seems if we did that, that we could have peace.

This is what happens to all of us.

This is what happens in America is on TV.

The news reporters tell us, no, we can't allow them to join NATO because this will happen.

Every country will have to defend Ukraine right away.

How do you know what's going to happen?

You're making that up.

No, no, no.

So if Ukraine joined NATO, yes, that's true.

Universally, all of the countries that are part of NATO will have to defend Ukraine, which means that every country that is part of NATO, including America, they will be at a direct war with Russia.

What does that mean?

That if Russia wants to strike the US, it will automatically will.

I'm saying do it step by step.

Allow Ukraine to join.

OK, now I'm pretending that I'm in a NATO meeting and all my countries are with me.

And now we're like, OK, Ukraine is at war.

I already feel without them being a member of NATO, it's a responsibility of America to help Ukraine, whether they're a member of NATO or not.

We are helping them and they're not a member.

How has things changed just because you're a member now?

Because officially on the books, we have to do this.

And again, we're presupposing Russia doesn't just leave then because they're like, oh, oh no, they're a member of NATO.

How do we know that Russia wouldn't just leave once they become a member and we wouldn't even have to worry?

Look, when Ukraine joins NATO, it will mean an immediate responsibility of NATO to send soldiers into Ukraine to fight against Russians.

This is not happening currently.

This is the main difference.

Yes, Western countries have supplied Ukraine with ammunition and things like that.

But who is actually fighting on the front lines is the Ukrainian soldiers.

The main difference is the fact that America will have to deploy soldiers to Ukraine to fight against Russia.

And also, again, and I can't stress this enough, is the fact that America, along with the other NATO countries in Europe, they will get attacked by Russia.

They will have the same faith as Ukraine right now.

So the solution is not for Ukraine to join NATO right now.

It's not possible unless there is some negotiations with the Russians.

And the negotiation with the Russians is, look, probably you can keep those territories.

Nobody will attack you in the future.

NATO will not attack you.

But let Ukraine do whatever it wants.

And if Ukraine wants to join NATO, it's just to guarantee that it will not get attacked in the future.

Because, of course, Russia will not attack Ukraine while Ukraine is in NATO.

That will be stupid.

They can't pull that war with the whole of NATO.

And so that is the negotiation that will take place in the next few months.

Okay, before I give up on this path, and we talk about the other path we were just speaking of, what if or has it been done already that we ought, that NATO and America, and Tucker, he's the first journalist to visit.

Has he or could he, what do you think about this?

Seriously tell Russia, we are going to let Ukraine become a member in 30 days.

You have 30 days to decide.

Throw it back on them.

Well, let's clarify the fact that Tucker Carlson, even though he's the only journalist who, by the way, he's not the only journalist who wanted to interview Vladimir Putin.

He's the only one who was allowed to.

Why was he allowed into Kremlin?

Because he aligned himself ideologically and politically a lot closer to Russia than anybody else.

In other words, he was a journalist that positioned himself in a position that is friendly to Russia.

That's why he was allowed, because he's comfortable.

He will not advance a proposal that could disadvantage Russia in any way, shape, or form, because that's not what he stands for.

Yeah, you know, the trouble with that, though, Alex, is a lot of Americans love him on TV, and they get sucked into that same ideology, and they think he's a smart, brilliant person.

That's why he's over, kind of like Henry Kissinger.

Do you know Henry Kissinger?

Vietnam War, all the 70s, 60s?

I do not know.

My grandmother, I could never figure out why this guy was getting so many kudos in the press.

He's a genius.

Everywhere he goes, a celebrity.

And it's because he's not.

He's like he's doing what you're saying.

He's being the friendly guy.

Well, you know, friendly doesn't work.

With your enemy, sometimes you just know it.

So people thought he was the smartest guy ever, and he's not.

That's what's happening with Tucker.

People don't get it.

They lose track of the fact that he's doing his own thing, being friendly, and that's not straight up face, like straight information.

Look, if you want to get into Russia as a journalist, and I'm speaking from the standpoint of a journalist who is highly interested in getting into Russia, think about all of the opinions and perspectives that I can get from there.

It is not easy to get into Russia, especially as a Western journalist.

So you have to be vetted somehow.

You have to pass some filters, some checks that the Russians have.

And one of them is to represent the interests of Russia, and somehow have a history of echoing the propaganda in Russia in one way or another.

And if Tucker Carlson was allowed to interview Vladimir Putin, it's just the proof that Russia considers him a journalist that is friendly to Russia.

Yeah.

So as long as we're on this track, tell me about Donald Trump.

I inadvertently came up with this saying, as I'm making notes for today.

If Trump keeps Putin in power, Trump gets his tower.

Keep Putin in power, I get my tower.

Trump wants a tower in Russia, right?

Did you know that?

No, I don't know that.

That's not an information I have.

No, you can tell me.

Okay.

So and I get this from family because I asked them, help me with this.

I've got a reporter on tomorrow about Ukraine.

My brother all day long, he watches the news, the YouTube channels like yours.

He's trying to get to what's really going on.

And he also watches politics and Trump and stuff.

And he's like, yeah, Daniel, and this is what's taken so long.

Think about it.

He's soft on the war.

And mind you, this is someone who voted for Trump and believes in a lot of the things Trump stands for.

But he wants a tower in Russia.

They're businessmen.

They're our political leaders.

It's all about the money, which is similar to Tucker.

It seems to me that, well, if I want a tower in Russia, I'm a little too friendly with the Russians.

How am I going to lead the world and solve this global conflict if I actually want my hotel to be an enemy state?

This is not common sense, Alex.

Right, but what we should remember about Donald Trump, that this is an individual that is highly driven by his own emotions and by his own, well, personality, which is a rather particular personality.

And this can go two ways.

Let's just fast forward to what we think will happen after January.

Of course, Donald Trump will initiate some kind of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

But you know, paradoxically, probably, you know what is a very good scenario that can come out of this, very good for Ukraine and for everybody, to be honest.

If Donald Trump, and when Donald Trump will become president, will be the following thing.

We see that Vladimir Zelensky has kind of loaded the idea that he's willing to probably solve the problem in the east diplomatically.

In other words, to leave those occupied territories, to leave it to Russia, if Ukraine can join NATO.

OK, so this is a very good starting point for a negotiation.

Look, this is a compromise.

The president of Ukraine is willing to make this compromise.

Let's see what compromise does Putin want and what compromise is Putin willing to make.

And Donald Trump goes to Putin and he says, no, we don't want to make any compromise.

That will upset Donald Trump like crazy, because this again, this individual, Donald Trump, is an individual driven by his own emotions, by his own ego, and in that big ego that he has, he said, look, I want to fix the war in 24 hours.

It's not going to happen.

And who will be to blame for that?

It will be Vladimir Putin, and all of a sudden, the friendship between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump may break.

And what can result out of this?

Well, the US may say, you know what?

We're going to give Ukraine the help it actually needs to actually and for good get rid of Russia.

There's a problem.

You said friendship between Donald and Putin.

OK, I get, you know, you're a leader of America.

You're the most powerful country.

You're going to know everybody.

Everyone should be on your rolodex.

Why did you use the word friend?

Well, this is I'm quoting Donald Trump anyways.

He keeps referring to Putin as a great friend of mine.

That's what I mean.

That's part of the problem.

But I mean, how if you're my friend, you're my friend, Alex, and you just invaded another country, how am I going to tell my people to go and kill you?

You are my friend.

How am I going to?

I'm going to have a conflict of interest psychologically.

I'm going to have biased whether however you want to.

You can't sort that out.

You are my friend.

I have a conflict of interest mentally on sending my troops to kill you.

But this is because you, Daniel, you're following a logical path.

The fact that Donald Trump is making those statements, ignoring this logical path, it just means that he's less logical than you, for example, right?

And that's actually what it means.

Yes, that's exactly what it means.

Logic is not being used to solve this war.

That's exactly what I'm talking about, Alex.

It's driven by emotions, ego, politics, billionaires and not logic.

Logic is simply get Russia out, period.

Right, right.

And this is something that will benefit Ukraine.

And the conclusion of this is breaking up one of those myths that I've seen, not only in American media, I've seen it even in European media, the fact that Ukraine wants this war to go on.

And the truth is, and the reality is, that Ukraine wants the war to be stopped right now.

If you knew how many people suffer here.

For example, today we had-

Oh, I do.

My brother, every time I go over his house, I've got to watch the YouTube and I'm like, you know what's happening.

How much of this do you need to watch?

How is that helping you?

What are we doing about it?

Yeah, I know.

I see the pictures, the video.

Things are changing.

I'm sure we don't see the real blood and guts, the real sad stuff.

Yes.

And probably when people ask me, how's the war now compared to how it was in the beginning?

I would say it's probably just as bad as it was in the beginning, but now things have stabilized a little bit.

So we know that Kiev is the safest place in Ukraine.

However, it is a city that gets attacked really quite often.

The last time we got attacked was last night, for example.

We had...

And Kiev is, of course, the capital.

It would be like Washington DC or Phoenix, Arizona, or Denver, Colorado.

Yeah, yeah.

So we have the best air defense.

I see them at the work.

I just have to look out at the window.

I saw last night, I was looking in the direction of the air defense, because you can see those big lines, by the way, they have some huge, very, very powerful flashlights that they can actually use to look in the sky.

By the way, let me let you in on a bit of an insight from Ukraine.

The way they shoot down the drones, the Shahed drones, the only way to do it is literally, of course, they have the radars and they know the vectors and where they're flying from and what's the direction.

But to physically shoot them down, you need to be on the ground with some machine guns, with some rifles and literally use a flashlight to look into the night sky for the drones and shoot at them.

They have the tracer ammunition, so you can see the path of those of those bullets in the sky because they have some magnesium that lights up in the sky.

So you can actually see the trace of that.

And you literally have to shoot them down.

And I saw last night there were four or five of these flashlights up there in the distance.

So we are looking at a city that is basically a fortress, which is basically what Kiev is, is the safest city.

Why?

Because it has defense all around it.

And it's not a safest city because it gets attacked less.

Hell, no, it gets attacked really quite often.

But because the air defense is really so resourceful here in Kiev that it can shoot down most of those drones and whatever.

It's a winter setting.

And how is that going to slow things down for Russia, I take it?

It is doing really quite the opposite.

Whenever the winter comes, the attacks are intensified.

And that is merely for the reason that, well, first of all, first of all, nights are longer.

And most of the attacks happen at night.

Why?

Well, it is a lot more convenient for Russia to send out the drones, the Shahed type of drones that are not very easily seen in the night sky.

You can just attack communities a lot easier that way.

During the daytime, and by the way, I've seen those drones during the day, you can really see them and you can actually see them fly and you can shoot at them.

So the efficiency of the air defense is a lot lower at night.

Also, I just thought of another solution though, Alex.

And I know people tell me, no, the Russia have more hackers and computer.

We're the world, man.

Someone else in the world outside Russia has got to be smart enough to hack into these drones.

It's a computer system, it's AI, to hack in and just tell the planes to turn around.

Well, the way to do that, let's keep in mind that these drones are not controlled by any computer.

They're kind of cheap drones made in Iran, so they're not so digital.

The way that they work is, and by the way, this is how Ukraine is deterring many of those drones.

And I'll tell you something really funny that happened last night with those drones.

So, those drones use GPS in order to identify the target, fly towards that target, and ultimately crush into that target, and it uses GPS.

Now, Ukraine uses a GPS scrambler.

For example, right now, if I open my Google Maps history, it'll show me that last night I've been in Belarus.

That's not true.

I've never been to Belarus.

Why so?

Because the GPS is scrambled.

Many, many times, I open the GPS and it shows me that I'm somewhere in Moldova.

Moldova is far away.

So the GPS is scrambled all over the place.

Why?

So that these drones cannot use the GPS system in order to navigate.

And by the way, guess what happened last night?

Most of those 50 drones that were launched by Russia towards Ukraine, they were diverted to Belarus.

And Belarus, by the way, is a state that is friend of Russia.

They actually had to deal with Russian drones on their territory.

This is the consequence of the war.

And whose satellites are broadcasting, are helping with the GPS when you say it's scrambled?

Who owns the GPS?

Well, GPS is using the satellite technology, but Ukraine has some system to scramble the GPS.

Who's got the satellites?

Who's got the satellites?

Whose satellites are they?

Well, they're satellites.

They were put up there for the American satellites, their whatever satellites.

So they're the same satellites that we use in Google Maps, for example, or so.

They're the same satellites that we roll over.

What I'm getting, Alex, is collaboration again with the people that want to make things better.

It seems like we're a bigger team that want to make things better than the Russians.

At least I hope so.

Why don't we go to the satellites, and instead of you having to jam them, just change the frequencies, change the technology, so the Russians can't use it?

Well, that's not really something that is possible.

As long as those satellites are orbiting around the Earth, everybody is able to use the GPS, so you can't really, you know...

Well, kind of.

It kind of.

It reminds me of the first Iraq invasion, where GPSs for the public had just come out.

We'd use them for backpacking.

All they would do is simply, if you were not authorized to use the full GPS technology, you could use it for backpacking, you would get less resolution.

So you would know, okay, I'm a mile from my hiking trailer, from my campsite, but it's not going to tell you I'm 10 feet.

That basically took out the capacity, the ability of the enemy to tap into what you're talking about.

They would simply not be able to use the technology like that.

I'm just wondering why something like that.

But that's a matter of how the information from those GPS satellites is interpreted by the software that you have.

So the limitation doesn't come from the satellite itself as much as it does from the system that interprets it.

But the only solution to this is to GPS scrambling is local.

This is exactly what Ukraine is doing, scrambling the GPS locally, because, by the way, the range of those devices that scrambles the GPS is not really so big.

And so, you know, they just scrambled the GPS on a certain radius that the device is effective at.

And so basically what you're doing is it confuses these drones to the extent they can't follow their target.

I get that.

What about Ian Musk?

He has some satellites.

Couldn't he help out both ways?

Scramble the Soviets while at the same time giving you help in locating the drones so you could shoot them down better?

Couldn't he be helping out on this?

Look, Ian Musk is not a person who will support Ukraine in this war.

And this is something that is not a secret.

Looking at his ideology.

It's a secret to me.

Tell me about it, because I try to stay, not get sucked into that.

So tell me.

Look, the beef that Ukraine has with Ian Musk right now is the fact that you know Starlink, right?

So for people who don't know Starlink, there are a series of satellites that orbit the Earth, and they provide you with Wi-Fi internet pretty much wherever you are in the globe.

If you're in the most remote location in the US, or in Romania, or in Moldova, one of the most remote locations, you are still able to connect to the internet through satellites.

Ian Musk is, yeah, that's the Ian Musk, what's his SpaceX program and whatnot.

That's all part of that, right?

And Starlink satellites provide you with this internet.

Did you know that Russian soldiers can freely use Starlink internet?

This is what I'm talking about, Alex.

So tell me, why is this?

Why does Ian Musk, why is he not harder on the Soviets?

Or you're saying he even is a friend of the Soviets, like Trump is?

Look, he doesn't directly support Ukraine, and he never did.

And by the way, this is a question that I would, if Ian Musk was in front of me right now, this is a question that I would probably ask him.

Why exactly is it that he don't shut down the Starlink satellites over Russia to make sure that those soldiers cannot, at least this is the part that you can play in this war.

That's a solution.

That's the kind of solution I'm talking about besides World War III.

Yes.

Think outside the box, people.

What are Americans not asking themselves as other solutions than just military power?

And that's one of them that's in plain sight and quite simple.

And we, you and I, Alex, I guess we don't know.

Why is this, right?

Why is Ian Musk not helping out the Ukrainians?

Well, we can assume.

We can assume some things.

And first assumption that I think is probably the most logical one is ideology.

Simply, it is a matter of Elon Musk not aligning himself as a supporter of Ukraine.

And probably because he wanted to keep his neutrality for various reasons.

But quite frankly, Elon Musk's ideology is not in line with supporting Ukraine.

What's the ideology?

Are you talking about a bigger philosopher?

Well, we can dive into all kinds of things, but mainly I'm talking about the fact that he never positioned himself politically as an ally of Ukraine.

And by the way, looking at the fact that he's a Donald Trump supporter, and by the way, Donald Trump was a critic of Ukraine many, many times.

And so even unrightfully, so many, many times, he spread some misinformation about Ukraine, and he made some statements that are more Russian friendly.

And so the fact that Elon Musk has backed Donald Trump, it just gives you a clear indication on his political opinions and political stance.

And this is what drives what he does and the decisions that he makes.

And so that's why he doesn't align himself with Ukraine.

Yeah, I see.

I'm thinking of the saying used to be vote with your dollar.

So for people who wanted organic food, they would buy organic, they wouldn't buy the real stuff.

For people that wanted to drive environmental friendly cars, they started buying the Tesla, right?

It's as simple people as you quit using your Starlink and quit watching the SpaceX program or don't buy into it.

Because it seems to me that's what you really hurt the billionaire, is his pet projects.

If you think about it, I don't necessarily think that Elon Musk is a person whose wealth at this point can be affected by people boycotting any of his companies.

Good point.

In other words, he's just too damn rich.

Yeah.

He's just too damn rich for that.

Yeah.

To which the other, I'm just thinking outside the box, if it was a Russia business, Russia would just take it.

So why don't America just take the satellites and go, you know, it's a wartime thing.

As a president, actually, I'm allowed to do this.

I can make any executive order I want.

I am taking over the Starlink for the war.

We get it back after the war.

The thing is, the thing is, since Elon Musk's companies are, you know, they're private companies, they're not necessarily supporting the war.

They're just don't, they're just no, but in America, the president can write an executive order.

We did, we've done this throughout the history of America for war.

Back in World War II, you know, there were these dictates, you can only have so much gasoline for your car because it has to go to the war.

So you're only allowed to buy so many gallons of gas.

We can take over a public utility if we need to.

The president can do anything he wants.

I suppose he might legally have to declare war then, but there's always a way, Alex, is what I'm saying.

We're just allowing it or we're ignorant.

People aren't even thinking.

I didn't think about it till a moment ago when you told me, oh, we're on the ground with lasers trying to shoot down the drones, scrambling GPS.

I'm like, there's got to be a better way.

There has to be.

There's always a better way.

And then it occurred to me, well, we got to, where is the getting to GPS?

I don't think people are really thinking.

And our people that know this, Eon and Trump, they're not helping, which means they're part of the problem.

If you're not helping to solve the problem, it seems they're part of the problem.

Look, probably the other side of the coin and the other way to look at it is the fact that Starlink satellites, if the Starlink satellites will be taken off, this is not something that will benefit Ukraine.

And I'll tell you why, because Ukraine uses those satellites.

By the way, I have personally delivered to the front lines, I've delivered to Kits, and Ukrainian soldiers are using those satellites, and they're incredibly useful for communication because you cannot use any kind of other.

So think about it in this way, in front line cities, there is no way to communicate with people even over the phone because the phone towers and radio towers and TV towers are shut down.

They don't have electricity, and they're literally destroyed.

So the only way to communicate is through satellites, and this is something that benefits Ukraine.

So I wasn't actually saying, shut the satellites down.

I was saying with Pacific to the drawings, drones and the GPS, specifically to that, it's kind of like your phone.

You have an authentication app.

You have security, you have ways of, is this your phone?

You simply, you absolutely allow, you support the Ukraine's with the Wi-Fi.

You at the same time, shut the Russian drones down from using the GPS.

There has to be a way to do that.

See, the problem, the major problem is even if somehow, somehow there was a way to shut down GPS over Russia.

OK, so let's see that.

Let's say that Russia has no access to GPS whatsoever.

We should keep in mind the fact that those drones don't use GPS from Russian territory in order to locate that target.

They actually fly over Ukrainian territory.

So you will have to shut down the GPS over the entirety of Ukraine, meaning that in turn Ukrainian defense drones, they cannot use the same.

No, you use back to the authentication app kind of idea.

You find a secure way to limit the technology and the service to those that you want to have it and to block those who don't want to have it.

Keep in mind that the authentication software that uses this GPS, where is it really?

Is it in the drones that are made by Iranians?

So ultimately, let's think about it.

What's a way to stop Iran from producing those drones in the first place?

That would be...

Yeah, now we're talking, Alex.

Now we're talking.

Let's get to the root of the problem.

I mean, it seems like we're stuck on this nuclear war, Russian invasion thing at the top level.

Let's get down to the basics.

That's exactly what I'd love to talk about more if we had more time.

So the soft ways to do that is sanctions.

The hard ways is basically direct involvement from the US or some kind of strong military power to literally stop and physically stop Iran from producing these drones and stopping Russia.

But this is a problem that will just trigger World War Three.

So, the soft ways of doing that is sanctions.

So, we sanction Iran, so we can deprive their economy from having the resources to produce those drones.

You mentioned the word sanctions.

I'm reminded also about the first Iraq war, and it was Margaret Thatcher.

Do you know Margaret Thatcher?

Does that ring any bells?

Of course.

For those who not, back in the day, she was the hero in Britain for saying, we need sanctions in Iraq.

But you're on the ground, Alex.

You see the suffering.

I saw the suffering during those sanctions of the Iraqi people being starved to death, and not getting medicine, and dying, and being sick.

I've never, whenever I hear the word sanctions, been a really big fan of it.

Are you saying you support sanctions?

Look, the sanctions that the West is currently applying to Russia, they're basically meant to really starve their economy a little bit.

The fact that, for example, Coca-Cola pulled out of Russia, is not something that really brings a tremendous amount of suffering to the civilians, but in turn, it has a negative effect on to Russia's economy.

The problem with any kind of war is that no matter what are your ways of keeping the enemy away, innocent civilians will suffer.

And by the way, right now, a lot of civilians suffer in Russia.

Let's not forget the fact that not everybody in Russia aligns themselves with Putin, and people suffer and people die in rock.

And what does this mean?

Well, it means the fact that Putin has caused a war that is affecting and it's killing its own people.

And we should keep that in mind.

And meanwhile, Putin is in a castle, I guarantee you, with heat and great food and a five-course meal every night and a glass of wine.

This is what I'm saying, Alex.

The sanctions, he's, yeah, sure, whatever.

Like nothing's changing for me.

I'll get what I need through the mafia from another country.

Anyhow, it's like you're just hurting the people.

Right.

And this is, by the way, you made a good point here.

The fact that many, many parts that Russia is using to build up drones or, you know, many, many products from Western countries actually make it into Russia.

How?

Through third-party middlemen.

And, you know, these can be states that don't have any sanctions from the Western countries.

They're friendly to Russia.

So they take all of those.

You can buy Coca-Cola, for example, in Russia.

You can buy a lot of things.

How?

Through these middlemen.

Of course, it's a lot more expensive now, but you can still do it.

Because there are many countries who don't have any sanctions from America, and they can get those things.

And the money is no object, as we spoke about.

We have plenty of money.

It's a small guy, the civilians that suffer.

Alex, this has been great.

I think, I don't know we solved the world's problems today, but at least I hope listeners understand that it's more than just bombs and nuclear war.

The stuff we're talking towards the end, the mafia, the billionaires, the satellites, the GPS, and as long as you keep saying, oh, we can't do that, we can't do this, because then you only left with nuclear war, you're going to be afraid of nuclear war.

You got to start questioning things, thinking outside the box.

Yes, and the bottom line of everything, if I was to do a summary of everything we talked about, we opened many, many doors here, but this is only barely scratching the surface of what's really going on in this war.

And this is exactly the reason why it's not as easy as doing, like Donald Trump said, that in 24 hours, he's going to fix the war.

This is incredibly foolish.

Like even a child wouldn't believe that.

And I don't think he even himself believes that.

But it sounds great, you know, when you say that to the people, it sounds awesome.

He's trying to win an election.

He's just trying to do his thing.

And he did, and he did.

But the thing is, we're exposing some problems here from the perspectives of two people talking about it, and we're in no way military experts.

But think about how many incredible minds have been put at work in order to solve this war.

And yet, after two years, almost three years, by the way, February is coming up, two years of this war, we have not solved it.

And that's not because people have money interests to make money from this war and whatever.

It's just because it's just damn difficult.

There are too many layers to this.

It's just too difficult to solve it at this point.

But negotiations should happen for sure.

On a positive note, I want to express my sincere sympathy and prayers for the people of Ukraine.

We're all caught up in this game of misinformation and politics.

And I just want to say, I feel sympathetic for people that are suffering in the war.

And I hope a solution comes out that the Ukrainians accept and that they want as soon as possible.

And I encourage listeners to always question the official stories and to go to other media sources such as Alex, which real quick, Alex, you have a TikTok channel and some YouTube videos.

Your TikTok, I have the link to text.

The audio is not English.

Right.

I wouldn't probably I wouldn't direct your listeners particularly to my channel due to the fact.

And this is the only reason why my TikTok is in Romanian.

Like I said, I'm Romanian and I wanted to give back to the people of Romania the information that they need.

There is a lot of information about Ukraine in English.

However, in Romania, particularly, and by the way, we are neighbors of Ukraine, so we should know what's happening in, you know, in the country.

And so they didn't really have a lot of good information on that.

And that's why I wanted to keep my channel exclusively in English.

However, there are many, many sources that we-

Your YouTube channel.

You do have-

is it just your shows on other people's channels, or do you have your own YouTube channel?

I work with some publications, so they usually post that.

Ultimately, there is-

Look, look, I'll give you, I want to give you a good channel that people can, that I can recommend to people.

And this is a good friend of mine.

He's American.

And I will quickly check the name of the channel, just so I can make sure that I don't mess it up.

But it's Ben.

He's one of my friends.

He's over in Herson.

So it's a very fiery region of Ukraine.

They're fighting a lot there.

And it's called World...

I'll put it in the show notes, too.

It's World Aid Runners.

OK, so on TikTok, World Aid Runners.

And he does a tremendous job over in Herson.

That's his account over here.

So it's World Aid Runners.

And this is a great channel that I can recommend people that they can watch because he shows the reality in Herson.

And he's an American from Kentucky, if I'm not mistaken.

And I've just sent five big boxes of help.

He has something called a free store at the front.

So he has opened up a store where everything is free for people there.

Because, by the way, you have money there, but you can't really buy much in Herson.

It's a front line city, so there's not a lot of supplies.

And people, by the way, it's 90% unemployment rate or something like that, because you have nothing to work.

And so he does a tremendous job there.

And this is kind of paradoxical that I'm recommending somebody else's channel over mine.

But really, this is a good-

Well, you're a reporter, so you'll be on my channel.

You're on someone else's channel.

You do what you do.

We do what we do.

It's all good.

Sure.

And there's no competition between me and the other people reporting from Ukraine.

As long as we're being truthful, we are on the same team, regardless of who we're from different organizations, something like that.

But Ben is a volunteer.

He's not a journalist.

He's a volunteer.

And that's why his perspective is incredibly raw and incredibly truthful.

Nice.

Well, thanks, Alex, so much for being on my show and taking the time to do this.

It's good work you're doing.

Appreciate it.

Stay safe.

Elon Musk could alone use his influence to at least, this is a starting point, to at least align himself with Ukraine, probably donate to Ukraine.

He's an individual.

So if he donates a lot of money to Ukraine, nobody's going to escalate the war.

Nobody's going to start a war on Elon Musk.

So he can do whatever.

So with the money that he has and with the resources, by the way, he's a smart guy.

So and with the information that he has, because I believe Elon Musk could be one of the people who could end this war.

Why do you suppose I won't?

You know, this is just like it's not a fact.

It's just like I'm just asking real quick, like off the top of your head.

Why do you suppose he doesn't?

Simply because this is not what he wants.

This is not part of his agenda.

This is not who he is.

He's not a supporter of Ukraine.

He just isn't.

He just doesn't want to.

Not a supporter of peace or just Ukraine?

Or is a conflict thing with something else?

Like, oh, if I support Ukraine...

I also think that he believes in a lot of myths about Ukraine.

And he...

Of course, this is an individual who has never been to Ukraine.

And by the way, there are many individuals who have never been to Ukraine, and yet they don't believe in a lot of myths.

For example, you don't believe in those things, and you've probably never been to Ukraine.

It's not a requirement to be in Ukraine in order to have the correct information.

But Elon Musk is a person who probably buys a little bit into the Russian narratives, and think, oh, if we help Ukraine, we're just keeping the war going.

So what you're saying is, even though he's got billions, and he's a smart guy and can do anything, he's still, like all of us, subjective to beliefs from watching stuff.

No matter how, it's the people you surround yourself with too, the people that tell him, oh, I start to get it.

He truly doesn't get it.

Look, you know what money can't buy?

Truthful information.

It can't buy the truth.

You can pay whatever.

You can have whatever money in the world.

I have way less money than Elon Musk, and I know a lot of truths about Ukraine that he doesn't know, just because he hasn't probably paid enough.

He didn't even care enough about this.

I don't know, but money cannot buy the truth.

Money can buy a lot of things.

You know, it's inspirational about that, Alex, then is we can fix that.

If on the other hand, it was like secretly he's in bed with the Russians, and that's why he doesn't like Ukraine.

We can't fix that.

But if it's just not understanding stuff or having misbeliefs or myths, like you say, there's hope for that.

Hope.

There is.

And he's an ever-changing person.

If you see how his opinions change from day to day, from one thing to another, and he wants to do something and then changes his mind and messes up the cryptocurrency, messes up everything just because he has those crazy ideas in his head.

I see that there is something in a very smart way.

I think Elon Musk is still very much of a child in many ways, and that is particularly when you're talking about this inconsistency of thoughts and ideas.

And yes, there is certainly a big chance that Elon Musk will come out and turn around in a few years and say, look, Donald Trump, even if I support him, he's probably the worst president in the history.

Whatever, we can expect anything.

Then on the flip side, if I'm Ian Musk for a moment, what did I get myself into?

I just should have stuck to rockets and satellites and not tried to save the world.

Probably he should have.

Probably she should have.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you know, it's the right thing to do.

I would do it if I was a billionaire, probably.

I don't know how long I would last.

He has nothing to lose.

That guy has nothing to lose anymore.

He can say whatever he wants.

Okay.

All right.

Great, Alex.

Thanks so much.

Keep in touch.

If you ever want to be on my show again, you know, a couple of months from now, whatever, if something big happens, just let me know.

I'd love to have you back.

Or we can make it just for a half hour or something short.

Yeah.

Well, I can't wait to see the podcast and see what people's response will be to it.

I hope it will benefit your show.

And this is kind of what I came here for.

It's really to bring something to your listeners.

That's the ultimate thing.

There is nothing that I'm getting out of this.

My audience is Romanian.

I'm not trying to extend my audience to the American public.

It's just for your listeners to get some information.

The butterfly effect.

You know what the butterfly effect is.

There is.

There is.

But let's keep in mind that I'm still a journalist from Romania in Ukraine, and I don't expect anything, and you can't be out of it whatsoever.

Okay.

Thanks, Alex.

All the best.

Bye-bye.