 live on the fly on WBAI and Progressive Radio Network. This is my first video of the day. I am getting close to the Donbass region. This is what would be a Red Army soldiers that liberated Donbass and 43 a major victory over the Nazis and the Soviets push westward to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Welcome to CN Live season five episode five witness to destruction. I'm Joe Lawyer, editor-in-chief of Consortium News and I'll be joined by my co-host Elizabeth Voss. Randy Kretiko is a radio host, an activist and a political comedian. He has spent two weeks in Russia and in Donbass as the war in Ukraine continues to rage. Randy Kretiko joins us tonight from Moscow to tell us what he's witnessed and what the mood is like in the Russian capital. This is Randy Kretiko. Randy Kretiko live on the fly for WBAI and Progressive Radio Network and the Pacifica Network. I am here. This is an open market in downtown Doniesk. This place yesterday, this open market. It's an open market like we have in New York City, the farmer's market. That's what you have here and two bombs, two hymors were shot, launched from the Ukrainians to this spot here killing nine people yesterday just down the block at the university. Another one person, maybe two died there but they hit indiscriminately civilians here and at the university. Two bombs. They come and 20 minutes later another one hits as the emergency crews are cleaning up. That's been the MO and the mainstream media is not talking about it but we are. We'll have more on this. Randy Kretiko live on the fly in Doniesk, People's Republic of Doniesk. See you. We are in Mariupol in the DPR, the Donas People's Republic having what is one of the most delicious pizzas I've ever had in my life and it's a little stand here. They have coffee, they have sandwiches, they have hot dogs, they have hamburgers. We're on our way out. We just saw what was the destruction of the city by the Azov battalion with their NATO advisors. I want to show you close up some of the destruction that took place here in April and March of 2022 and the kind of tactics that the Azov battalion used. They would occupy a building like this with civilians. They actually used civilians as shields which is totally in violation of the Geneva Convention. It was such an outrage that when the regular army came in from Ukraine and saw what was going on they were astonished. What they did to this city, to this city and why this city is totally in support of the DPR, it will never give up. Did you think you were going to survive? Did you think you would survive all of this? No. Did you have a lot of friends that did die? We're joined now by Randy Krediko from Moscow, Russia. Randy, welcome to CN Live. A pleasure and honor to be on CN Live and I hope that the transmission is good from where I am here in Moscow. Yes, I think everything should be fine. So Randy, how long you're in Moscow now but you've also been to Dumbass. How long have you been in Russia and give us an overall impression to begin with? Now that maybe you've had a few days to think about what you've experienced. How do you feel about it? Let me just begin. I came here on April 2nd. I spent a few days in Moscow and then reluctantly, I mean I was all enthusiastic about going then I got a little nervous but then I went to the Don't Ask People's Republic, both the city of Don't Ask and to Mary Opal for six days altogether. That included the train rides and the trip down there from Rostov in an armored vehicle. When I was in an armored vehicle I said, wait a second, where am I going? All together I've been in Russia. I think it's a total of 12 or 13 days. And how much longer is thanks? I'm leaving Sunday to Dubai and then back to New York City next Tuesday. And to be met by a couple of FBI agents and other secret agents at the JFK airport. So I'm actually bracing myself for that eventuality. So all together I've gone almost three weeks when I left on the 29th from New York City. Well along that question, Randy, were there sanctioned specific sanctions that they might say you violated? Are Americans allowed to travel to Russia right now? Well I'm a journalist and I'm working for WBAI in Progressive Radio Network but I'm sure within the laws they could find something there to charge me with. The same way the 1917 Espionage Act has been used to you know to contrive charges against Julian Assange, the Justice Department is very creative when it comes to revenge against those people who do things that runs against the grain. I remember talking to you before you left, Randy, that you yeah you had some trepidation as anyone would going to a war zone. As you told George Gallo, you're not a war correspondent so you're not used to that. But do you have any regrets now having gone on this trial? No, you know what? The day before we were to set sail to, don't ask, I had said I'm not going because we took a first aid course the day before for the red zone, the yellow zone, and the green zone. And we're talking about tourniquets and you know being hit by a shell and losing a leg and all of that. We spent hours and hours and first of all I'm incapable of practicing any kind of first aid. And so when I saw that, how serious the situation is, this is a war zone. I said I'm not going but then that night I said to myself if I don't go and you know John Pilger had to urge me to go, he says whatever happens you've got to do it. And so did other experience war correspondence, which I am not. I'm kind of like Zeleg or Forrest Gump in this situation. But I said if I don't go I will regret it the rest of my life. And so the five days I was around that area, I was you know I'm no hero. I was scared. I was looking over my shoulders. I was in every restaurant that I would go to any hotel I would go to. I would try to find a spot in that place that wouldn't be hit by a Heimer. And it was very difficult to find a spot like that. So I didn't sleep much. Everyone knows that I slept one, two hours a night until I got back to Moscow. But you know I'm not a citizen of Donetsk. They live with this every single day. For me I'm a newcomer. I don't live with it. You know people who are tourists come to New York City and they hear about the shootings in the Bronx and pushing into the subway in Brooklyn and all sorts of other spontaneous crimes that you can't avoid. But I never think about that and neither do you. Well we're in New York we're not looking around to be pushed into subway or to be shot. So we've gotten used to it and people here are in a much worse you know it's not a good comparison but they've actually you know are able to go on with their lives. Like in Donetsk the first night I was there there was a shelling of a university and the next day a shelling of an open air market like the Chelsea market or the Union Square farmers market and that killed you know eight or nine people and the worst thing about it is they foist this hymer into indiscriminately into civilian populated areas and then 20 minutes later when the emergency services show up they do it again. Moments after within 20 minutes of the other side that you saw the bombing in the open market which is across the street this happened over here saying that's the MO of these I don't know what kind of special units they are with the Ukrainians but they're launching in civilian populated areas. There is no military value to this it's only civilians and it's to strike terror in the public here. I mean I'm nervous right now being here all right so I understand what their tactics are but it killed my people and so you can see the damage that was done with these these hymer rockets they blast it once and they come back and they blast it again as you can see look at the damage that has been done here look at the floor here I've got to go these are quick videos we'll have more I'm ready critical ready critical live on the fly on 99.5 FM as you can see there it is in New York City and for the Progressive Radio Network and the Pacifica Network we'll have more thank you I'm talking with right now Pasha who is with the defenders of the onslaught by the Ukrainian what I consider to be Nazi battalions why are they shelling shelling civilian areas here in Donetsk oh because Ukrainian regime think Russians or non-bus people not a human they say Russians is a orcs so that's what you're facing and since you don't know where these are mobile units these Ukrainian what I call the Contras remember the Contras in Nicaragua that's what they got here in the Ukrainians have it's their Contras the Azov battalion shooting off these missiles to strike fear in the public well they certainly struck fear in me and I don't think I'm ever going to get over it to be honest with you I see you know it's like I don't sleep with what night and and and that's that's what that's the whole purpose is to strike fear in the two million people that live in Donuts two million people and all I can tell you is they're resolved they're not giving up they're not allowing Ukraine to come in there at all they're the last person they will fight back and you saw the next day in that opener market the very next day when I was there there were you know 20 30 stalls because it's Easter Sunday coming up here and there are flower people women selling flowers they've set up their their stands people selling electronics as if nothing happened the day before they just go through with it so it's it's quite astonishing and it's impressive to see except for what's not impressive is my cowardice in the wake of all of this well Randy you decided to go I don't know if that would qualify as cowardice well you mentioned Nicaragua you were there how do you compare situations in terms of the danger that you faced I mean how first of all how close were some of the explosions you heard in in Donetsk or any other part of Donbass you may have been in and how does that how did that compare to the danger you faced when you were in Nicaragua well I was in Nicaragua from 85 to 90 and you know that was the time when Ben Linder was murdered and a lot of civilians and foreigners were murdered that were helping out the Sandinistas and so there was indiscriminate shootings bombings you know ravages and rapings of villages by the Contras and so that's what we're I think they're facing right here rather than face the military one-on-one I mean there is a military presence here in Donetsk but the the Ukrainians that are 10 kilometers away don't want to face them one-on-one they'd rather strike fear in the public rather than facing them one-on-one that's exactly what the Contras did back in the 80s and yes I was down there I was in in in Mayagüez and I was on the northern front that was the last war zone I was ever in was in Nicaragua back in 86 87 88 89 and it's been a long time since but this is this scared me more the last week had more of an impact on me now than what that did back in the 80s on me but the similarities between the Contras that we supported and the Ukrainians that we are supporting right now these these you know I don't I don't know how to describe them but this is the regular army the regular army in Ukraine what's left of it when they went into Mariupol where I was you'll see the other video and I'm digressing here a little bit when they came in in March and April of 2022 and saw what the Azab battalion from the Azab stall up there where there's this huge steel mill and they had NATO NATO advisors up there shelling the city and then their tank shelling the populated areas these building schoolhouses and churches and whatever the regular army was astounded that they were doing this Randy critical here here in this is Nicholas street and I am in this wonderful used to be a beautiful city called Mariupol but as you can see it was completely destroyed during the fighting back in March and April of last year look at the street it's amazing the amount of destruction all the way down and they were hit hard they were shell hard from over there that's called Azab stall way over there it's a it's a steel area where they produce steel and so they were shelling from there and you can see the damage it just is all around a lot of civilians were killed and I don't know what's going to happen reconstruction as you can see it's like trying to rebuild Dresden in a day in 1945 we'll have more on this I'm Randy critical Randy critical live on the flight it completely blown away I hate to use that term but the mesmerize by the amount of destruction when you see this firsthand you see it on television but when you see it firsthand it will have an impact on you please continue to listen and watch WBAI 99.5 FM New York City also the progressive rate on that word thank you very much so the regular Ukraine army defense forces were astounded by the Azab attack which was was 90 percent of the fighting here in the city which is 100 percent Russian this is a Russian city so I don't I don't know how to compare it with except for the fact the fact that there is the similarity is they use terror tactics whether than doing things militarily and fighting one-on-one with the military they are resorting to terror like the Contras did the Contras never would engage in battles with the Sandinistas because they were better fighters and they had support in Nicaragua so they had to resort to terror terrorized the communities that supported the Sandinistas and that's what they're doing right here these special forces whatever they are you know but these Azab battalions they they are not part of the regular military maybe they are but they're resorting to terror tactics rather than fighting militarily and going after military targets this one I really got wrenching to take a look at this one of the oldest buildings in Mary Obala and you see these big holes there that was Azab battalion 10th shell with huge millimeter shells in May 18th and March 20th they said this was the oldest building it looks like the Alamo 1837 and it's terrifying to think back at what it was like for those people living in this building or going to school in this building that's all I can take right now credit code live on the fly wbai and progressive read on that one as of jihadists and Contras there's a long line directly from Central America in the 80s to today with the Middle East in between and how the US uses such awful groups to pursue the American interest Elizabeth yeah Randy thank you so much for sharing with us your experiences and also these clips that you took at the time you talked about the the people that you were meeting and the way that they're just going on with their lives almost as usual can you tell us more about the individual people you've met and you've spoken with and what they had to say well you know I I don't want to reveal too much but you know I've reset various meetings here and not here in Moscow but don't ask and the conversations there were and in one spot where there were eight or nine individuals from various sectors was not uh if and when Russia ends this war but do they do it without using nuclear forces all right does it is it going to have to rely on that is the west going to continue to intensify the it's it's I mean Orban said today from Hungary said that there is no Ukraine left anymore financially it's it's only the US in the west pouring like a a drunken you know an alcoholic in a gaming casino a bunch of money into a slot machine that's not ever going to hit except for the pockets of Zelensky all right he's going to get it but it's doing no good for this force is defeated back moot you will see it's it's it's over there and so what happens now to keep this this zombie a float the Ukrainian defense forces which is to pour in western western military forces they've already got at least 100 if we can believe this latest leak and the only way they can continue to defend you know what's left of Ukraine whatever is Ukraine now I want to go back it's Russians fighting Russians all right and that's what they're exploiting these are Russians fighting Russians Ukraine fought with the Soviet Union they they were part of of all of the Soviet states that fought against Nazi Germany but there were groups not see affiliated groups in the what would be kind of like the Azov battalion they were called the nightingale or the Galatian of battalions that were pro-Nazis and fought and killed 100 000 Poles and 40 000 Jews and countless Russians they were those elements under the leadership of their spiritual leader steppin bandera and others all right so there was that element there but the majority of Ukrainians are Russian they're Russian Ukraine is a is a philosophy it's not a state there are all everyone's a slavir so they're pitting Russians against Russians here for whatever interest they have in the west to keep this this horrible situation going there's already 300 000 Ukrainians that are dead and I mean that means 300 000 Russians are dead all right they're not Ukrainians they're Russians so it's it's like all right do you think that do you think that Blinken or Jake Sullivan or Victoria Newland gives a rat's ass about any one of these Ukrainians that have died not on your life tell us more about the what the conversations were that you witnessed and heard and what what kind of the word was sure let me go back so so they they are the conversations are it's like that woman I I was in a little place the other day across from where Wyatt Reed it was staying I was there for one night at a hotel and right across the street there's a beautiful park in a traditional Russian restaurant and I was in there with four or five other individuals and the conversation was about even though I kept walking away from the table looking for a spot that might survive if a Heimerware to hit this place and it was a legitimate target for for for the Ukrainians because it was a traditional Russian restaurant I said why are you guys taking me here but it the conversations conversation centered on the the the prospect of nuclear weapons it's going to go to that and so how much do how much how much do Raytheon and Lockheed and these other corporations and these congressmen who get money from these corporations how much do they gamble before they pull back to try to make profits off of this before it becomes nuclear because that's what they're doing by expanding this war by not expanding accelerate not accelerating but you know exacerbating and escalating this war it means it's the escalation not only of the war but the acceleration of the doomsday clock we're going to get closer to doomsday because they're not giving up Russia is not going to give up this territory they've lost too many people and everybody that I've been around support the the Russian military operation and even if I say that special military operation I get branded as a Putin puppet or the Kremlin comic with a K but I'm not I'm a puppet of peace and the only way to get peace and to avoid a nuclear war is to stop it public has got to stop it they they're not they're not going backwards here in Russia and in the US and the west uh I can no longer keep this uh this you know this corpse alive really it you can't you cannot keep this going you've got to negotiate right now there's got to be dialogue to end it otherwise it will end up I really believe this because a lot of people out here do believe it they will there will be a nuclear exchange one nuclear weapon and and then there's two and then there's three and that's enough you know Hiroshima is a firecracker compared to the nuclear weapons they have today and but I can tell you that the since here in Moscow where you know you would think if you go by the western press CNN Jake Tapper and and the other clowns there barbara star ms mbc erie melbert and chris haze and the rest of these operation mockingbird hacks reside that this this city in this country is suffering from the sanctions I can tell you this there's no suffering here I have been for nine days in Moscow there's traffic all the time uh the restaurants are full the markets are full I would suggest that everybody but it's difficult to get here travel yourself to Russia and come back with their own conclusions rather than depending on a corporate uh talking head that's all I can say be objective come over here you don't have to listen to what I say just come over and see for yourself I suggest it because planet earth is at stake if you want to look for spots where the sanctions are having in fact go to Berlin or go to Hamburg and you will see or go to England where that's either heat or oil for your car uh that's where the sanctions are working they're not working here in fact I just want to go off on a tangent here I was at this wonderful place called the depot uh food mart yesterday where they had this most beautiful place and I put it online uh but they have you know because of the sanctions craft beers craft beers from the US are no longer allowed here so guess what they have a huge craft beer industry here in Moscow and I guess the rest of the country uh but it's had absolutely no effect whatsoever the lights are on it's more beautiful the city is clean you see the uh the street cleaners come by washing not just like going by uh like to do in a cursory way in New York City but they actually wash the streets here you could eat off the streets of Moscow it's the cleanest city the most beautiful city and the busiest city I've ever seen in my life wow and now we you talked about the targeting of civilians in Ukraine uh by the eyes of Italian we don't hear about that in western and US media almost ever and then it's always the other way around how are those attacks being attributed to them I mean I know that you saw a shell in person I mean are you able to see on that where it's from I mean what how are you determining that that's where those attacks are coming from well you can tell by the they're Heimer missiles right by Lockheed they're Heimer missiles made by Lockheed and you can tell I'm not going to tell you how I know but everybody knows they're coming from 10 miles from the west 10 kilometers where the front line is that's a red zone all right that's that that's the front you know I thought I was going to be buried 100 miles behind the front but I was only 10 kilometers which is not even between uh you know where Joe and I were in in Washington Square Park and on the upper west side at 110th street so it's it's very close and so they have these mobile units they're coming in they're Heimer missiles the Russians don't have them but the the Ukrainians do they're they're supplied to them you're Lockheed's not given to the Russian army they're giving it giving those weapons to Ukrainians so they're coming in from the the front line over there and they're landing and they're hitting specific spots and there's always civilian spots but that's what don't ask us it's all civilians there it's not like a big military enclave yeah Joe did you have a follow up on that one yeah Randy um first of all I think you'd probably get an argument from Ukrainians about whether they're Ukrainians or not there is the language is different um closer to Polish than Russian it sounds like uh Ukrainian and certainly in Donbass where you were is majority Russian there's no question about that and that's was the cause of this conflict they didn't support the coup in 2014 that overthrew the president that they had backed Viktor Yanukovych and they declared their independence and Russia took eight years to even recognize that independence and mostly our viewers know this history so uh let me ask you about Moscow what is the mood there uh in terms of the war have you heard criticisms or support or are people just ignoring it you you described a normal functioning city is do you are you do the people there you sense that they're aware are talking about the war yeah well definitely uh that's something I ask a lot of people where I am I've asked workers here that are Russian and they totally agree with the the position of the the Russian Federation government's policy particularly when it comes to Donetsk People's Republic they agree with all of that and and they agree with with the policy to people I've spoken to and these are not like poor people these are like middle class people that I have at the market yesterday or a couple of women there that don't support Putin and they speak out they don't support the war but he's got 80 percent 82 percent in recent polls support here for the policies so he's a very popular figure here now that doesn't mean I support war I'm a peace anti-war activist all my life as you know but this was going to come to a head sooner or later as the West continued to expand with NATO and encroach on the sovereignty and threaten the the frontiers of Russia so if they had not had that coup that you brought up and yes I know there's a separate language uh in Ukrainian language but at the same time Ukrainians are in Kiev uh are stamping out uh you know any kind of dissent they don't let any western journalists there or domestic journalists there who question the policies of the Zelenskyi public government uh and they don't um and I shouldn't say that or this we'll just say that Zelenskyi's operating on his own if you want to believe that that that's your prerogative uh but you know what they're doing to the church there uh you know we remember the remember Nicaragua how they use the Sandinistas are desecrating uh the synagogues there and they use that as a reason to foment opposition to the Sandinistas well let me tell you this they're doing what the Sandinistas are doing in Nicaragua they're doing that and in reality here they're they're stopping they're stanching out uh any kind of uh of uh eastern orthodox practices you know closing down uh uh these mosques or these cathedrals and they're preventing people who practice uh you know that kind of religion and not only that they're burning books they're burning books they're collecting books on by Tolstoy on on uh Chekhov uh Pushkin uh and Dostoevsky uh they collect these books and they burn them now when it was the last time you saw something like that I think it was like 1934-35 in Berlin uh so uh they're not tolerating Russian culture in Kiev in the eastern uh western part of whatever you want to call it Ukraine I just want to show you the damage John this is a uh a piece of uh this is an apartment building Stalin era apartment building which was totally destroyed you'll see a lot of this in the city and it definitely cannot be rebuilt and you can see on the southern side more apartment buildings that were destroyed but if you can if it's if it's repairable you'll see what they're doing right now there's a lot of construction going on in the city trying to salvage what was hit but could be repaired so um like uh this has been uh an amazing city to see it it's almost like Dresden a small Dresden in 1945 there's been so much destruction uh a lot of hand-to-hand combat that took place here what is your uh hope going forward she will not speak about Ukraine because she doesn't know what will happen with Ukraine but she can tell about Mariupol she hopes that it will be reconstructed and repaired you trust the Zelensky government coming in here and giving you the respect that you've gotten so far no she thinks that uh he's uh that's bad comic yeah i like that i agree with you he's a terrible comedian i'm a good comedian you know i'm a comedian too but i'm a good comedian did you uh experience any anger towards you from any russians or any people in dumbass because you're american uh no uh that woman there uh valeria uh who's 19 years old had no animosity towards me i think the only animosity i got was at the market yesterday from these two elderly women uh who hated putin and uh for whatever reason never got into the into the bottom of it but uh most people have been so gracious no matter where i go here people don't hate americans they hate american foreign policy they can distinguish between it's like you hate russians the u.s wants you to hate russians when they get over here it's impossible to hate russians because they're just like us we're all god's children they're highly educated uh they are culturally educated i mean they got kids here you know 12 13 years old that go to uh watch opera or watch tchaikovsky or shostakovich they actually go they know uh this is a highly intelligent culture uh they make it look like we're dealing with the samongrels or something the u.s this is a smarter culture than we are overall i mean you know intellectually i mean they produced the greatest literature uh in the last 200 years the greatest music in the last couple of hundred years uh and the the only uh full-scale revolution 19 ever since that revolution in 1917 in october and i'm going to see john reed's uh body and bill big big bill haywood's body tomorrow and the uh moscow wall uh necropolis where they are both buried in one other american but ever since that day 2017 2018 uh russia has been the victim of this unrelenting ridiculous bigoted propaganda uh demonization vilification and it was uh that was the first red scare 1919 second red scare was in the 50s late 40s early 50s in the mccarthy era and now we've gone over that it's no longer the red scare it's the bear scare all right so the same kind of uh ad hominems and uh nasty vilifying uh uh characterizations of the russians continue today continue today but you got to go here just come here on your own and say wow this is the remote one of the most remarkable civilizations you will it's like uh you know the astex and the thousands and years ago come here right now see how clean the streets are see how intelligent the population is here this is a uh this is a remarkable culture and i'm not i'm not being like a russia file i'm just telling you laying out the facts here i had to see it for myself because if i believe the western media if i believe the western media when i showed up i would be expecting bread lines uh soup kitchens and people pushing apple cards and selling apples uh to to to make a nickel and apple it's just the opposite of that it's just the opposite of that so if they're lying about that what else are they lying about and i'm sure i'm repeating myself i'm becoming redundant but uh you know culturally culturally who i mean who who compares with rock moderna in tchaikovsky and rimsky korsakov and prokofiev and u.s music nobody who who erin kopland uh george bergsman not uh not a patch on their asses i'll tell you how smart the west is you all those composers rimsky korsakov and tchaikovsky and rachman you can't hear them in the west they even tried to ban dostoevsky in italy that backfired so that's the way uh the west has been dealing with this the i've saw an nbc report early in the war about the burning of books in kia you don't see that anymore in the media but what you now are seeing is uh proof that the western media was lying about this war with these leaks these leaked documents of the washington post reported the other day that the the so-called spring offensive that the ukrainians have been planning that they can't do it they have they don't have the equipment they don't have the trained personnel they're not ready for this offensive that the ukraine is losing this war and we've been uh told here in the west how much ukraine is winning and of course those of us were following the war very carefully and listening to both sides knew of course the facts that russia was not losing the war and that their strategy is to grind down ukraine and not necessary to go in there full blast like the americans would do in iraq and just kill hundreds of thousands of people to try to get a quick victory this is not the russian strategy obviously but the western media was lying and they've now admitted it with these leaked documents that the that they've been lying to us all this time um let me just say one thing joe yeah i couldn't say it better than what you just said i would take what you just said and put that as a clip and i would definitely um definitely retweet that that as a clip and what you just said encapsulates the entire situation here i'll give you another one that could be a clip uh you said come to russia i've been twice in russia in 1995 november 95 and november 2015 exactly 20 years apart and the russia the moscow that i saw in 1995 this was the yeltsin years this is when wall street moved in when they uh partnered with a new class of oligarchs they asset stripped the formerly state-owned industry enriched themselves and impoverished the russian people there were i saw about 50 homeless people in front of a train station burning fires it was devastating um two guys tried to rob me of my camera how to run into the metro the cab driver was stopped by the cops i saw him paying a bribe it was total chaos under yeltsin in 95 20 years later i flew in from berlin and i flew into another european city it was just as clean as you're saying as orderly as beautiful and i went to st petersburg which is far more beautiful than moscow uh than that a western european city is and that explains why the russian people have an 80 percent approval rating of prudent whatever else they may disagree with them about and i know there's a lot of disagreement in russia that he's not going hard enough that he's pursuing that strategy i just said of grinding down rather than going full bore that he also waited eight years instead of moving right after the coup when it was clear and he let himself be hoodwinked by merkel and orland and the others who admitted that they never intended to implement the minskic chords it was time to build up to nato to train to make ukraine a de facto nato nation but i saw a russia that uh it explains why he's popular because he's brought stability to russia and he brought back the people from the brink of absolute poverty and desperation what did the u.s want in my opinion randy you may agree they go back to the 90s and they can't do that without with putin there in the 2007 that's what they want they want to get rid of him and put in a guy like yeltsin they can go back to exploiting that country which is enormously full of wealth as you know you natural well well i gotta tell you something joey that's two clips that i would use uh you've summarized it better than i could and i concur with every point that you just made and i'm glad that you made those points because i may have missed them but the analysis is right on uh that they would like to return to the days and we've we've read a lot of these articles by in consortium news by john pilser exactly what the designs of the west are and that is to make this go back retrogressively back to the the days of yeltsin but it's not going to happen and the people uh how he was able this is almost like reconstruction after the civil war how he was able to take what yeltsin gave away and the exploitation by the west and bring it unlike reconstruction it came to an end uh in 1873 uh 78 uh when haze uh got in but here you have a leader that is continuing he's not going to go back to the days of yeltsin he's made this country a proud country and so there's a lot of appreciation 80 percent approval rating is unheard of 83 what if even if it's 60 you would never get that when was the last time you saw a president have a higher approval rating and then putin has here in the united states biden once he got 30 40 percent i don't know who supports them what policies they support i can't imagine anybody supporting accelerating this war escalating this war that will lead to a nuclear war what is he doing if he wants to win this if the democrats want to win the next election that they have one way of doing it that is to sit down negotiate bring this to an end and not be beholden to break down mcdonald's august lockheed and general electric and uh and all of the other uh ghouls that are looking to make dough off of this conflict uh if he would just say all right if he is a real statesman he said it's over we got to preserve the human race and sit down negotiate because it's going to get to the point where russia will be in tf before long and then it's totally over uh for the west well given the uh the lies that uh the media has been telling about this war repeated i see unbelievable articles about the russian economy just about to collapse and then the imf comes out report saying there's growth actually a small amount of growth in russia right now i mean they just ignore western sources about what the economy is like in russia uh i want to ask you a question about uh how you work there i'm sure there are going to be a lot of critics who are going to sell critico was a puppet there of the russians because they uh they had minders they just bought them to see people they wanted them to see and there was their interpreters and so how much freedom did you feel you had moving around wherever you've been so far to do and see whatever you wanted i have nobody looking over my shoulder in fact when i was in don't ask there's a curfew there and don't ask and the people that you know they got to protect nobody wants to see me killed nobody in this government wants to see me kill they knew i was going down there but you know i was on dubai time when i was there was just two hours later and the curfew is from 11 to 5 and i got up you know what i thought was 5 30 in the morning and it was actually only 3 30 in the morning and i went walking around with i just want to get a breath of fresh air and then when i got out like 50 or so i realized the curfew was still on i said wait a second i want and i started walking back and i fell down i still have a lump in my head and i violated uh the curfew and the rules i mean people here don't want to see me get killed there uh because i'll get the blame uh so but they there's never been anyone monitoring what i say i go out and do my own thing every single day you can see it on twitter i put out the 40 or 50 uh two minute reports i did wba i last week nobody's there monitoring me uh and they may not agree with everything that i have to say but i have total total um um what's the word i got i liberty to say what i want to say here and if i disagree with something uh i will say it uh i i wouldn't have that i would go to qiab but i know i would not have i would not have the uh the freedom to say what what what i would like to say here i do nobody's monitoring me i've been paying for my flights have cost me a fortune coming out here the hotel rooms are not that expensive uh you know the the armored car i didn't pay for the armored car from uh rostov uh to the dpr uh but i've i've been paying for it myself and nobody is like i said nobody's monitoring me and looking over my i don't have to look over my shoulder to see if somebody's watching i do what i want to do and i got total freedom here uh so uh but i am i like michael isikoff said that i'm uh yelled at me today because i'm not out there screaming about this wall street general reporter i don't know enough about the case i have heard information about the case i don't want to see any journalists uh uh behind bars you know you know me i'm free speech guide if he hasn't done anything they should let him go tomorrow but if they have proof and we'll find in the coming days but this country is at war right now at war if the us was being attacked right now and we weren't even attacked in 1917 but those who opposed the war were put in jail people like eugene debbs we weren't attacked at all and they were putting people under the espionage act in jail back then 2000 people were put in jail because they opposed the war okay uh so uh really it's really hypocritical uh to condemn uh russia for like uh they're not didn't shoot the guy he's he's under investigation right now and i hope that he's he's cleared and he's free but if he did commit espionage uh then um i'm he he's he's in russia julien assange let's go to that he didn't commit espionage he's not an american citizen he wasn't in america and he's being uh prosecuted and tormented for years now so the u.s mediate doesn't have a leg to stand on here when they're calling for uh an immediate release of a wall street general reporter who was out in the in the eastern part of russia instead of where i was i was i could go to the eastern part that would be easy that would be easy for me to go uh east all right going going west into the war zone is difficult and that's where that reporter should be if he is a war correspondent i hope he didn't do anything wrong and that he's released and i'm sure if he hasn't done anything wrong he will be released but i have taken so much shit uh that i'm a putin puppet uh that i'm like i said the kremlin with a k comic uh because that's not the uh the focus of my work out here my focus of my work is to prevent a nuclear war in my own small way if there's a million people like me maybe we can stop it but i'm i'm a puppet of peace i'm the peace dub puppet that's it you know randy i uh i defined the difference between journalism and espionage in that the gathering information is the same it's what you do with that information a spy will just give it back to his government to his agency and it remains there because that's what spying is but a journalist gets the same in kinds of information and gives it to the public and that's what julie nissan did so he's certainly not a spy because a spy would not publish it and that's the proof right there that he did not commit espionage been away very sorry that's a very good point the way you said that now a clip joe should have another clip all right while you've been away there was a rally the other day at the department of justice you would have been there you were at the last one in october as you recall in front of it yeah we had one on april 11th the day of the arrest of julie nissan and i in my remarks i pointed out this uh bizarre psychological phenomenon that i have to call some kind of psychological appropriation i don't know what else to call it and that is and you may have heard this i don't know since you've been away during this period that mitch mcconnell chuck schumer and and then the state department all made statements about the bolster journal reporter saying journalism is not a crime now where have you heard that before that is yeah that is an assault obviously exactly it is a slogan owned and created by julie nissan's supporters how does mitch mcconnell and uh chuck schumer and the state department now say journalism is not a crime unless they're trolling assange trolling his supporters or they just appropriated this and the example i gave randy and you're old enough as i am to remember the 1968 in woodstock when jimmy hendrix played the national anthem the star spangled banner do you remember the outcry by conservatives in this country this was during of course the anti- vietnam war period during the vietnam war there was total outrage that jimmy hendrix had desecrated the american national anthem and then fast forward 34 years i'm walking into madison square garden to the national republican national convention and what do i hear on the loudspeakers jimmy hendrix's national anthem at a republican national convention so 30 years later they appropriated that for themselves takes them a while again with the popular coach wait a second you were there you were there were you with code pink at the republican national convention i'm joking here no i was not i went in i had a press pass and i got in i had a press get in the national to get in the garden i went into the garden for this and the first thing i heard was the jimmy hendrix so i'm i made that example to show that this is the what the state department and schumer and mcconnell have done they've taken what their enemies uh slogans or music symbol and and appropriated for themselves and it's just some weird psychological thing that they would actually say journalism is not a crime while they keeping julian in jail and they're going to do whatever they can to extradite him i don't have any confidence i'm unfortunately uh despite rashidah taib's letter which is great to garland that there is no way they're going to stop this extradition and and yet they could use that same slogan to talk about this russian uh this wall street journal reporter there uh so if he was intending to report this well i don't say then he's not a spy based on the definition i gave but it is a curious story to be uh writing about to try to find out what the american intelligence and government would want to find out which is what is the status of their new tank production but you know another example randy is in this in this guy that they just arrested in the united states a national guard from in uh he's 21 years old for leaking or not actually leaking but putting these documents in discord and elizabeth you remember we used discord in the early days of the uh the sange visuals i'd never heard of discord till then gaming i think it's supposed to have been encrypted i think that was the reason they were using it so this guy put it out there just to show off to this group of young guys that that considered him a god basically and eventually that came out but who led the investigation to find this guy the new york times not the fbi they're doing the job there's gambling going on here there's a whole lot of going on here it's like the media is not the media is not happy to just be you know second best to make to wiki leaks they have to be the actual anti wiki leaks they have to actively do the government's job it's it's a point i think that's a fourth clip elizabeth gets a clip yeah she does that's that's a good that's one that stands and it's and less is more i've learned that in 40 years in show business is less less is more you get five minutes make want make them want to hear more and so that's perfect what she just said you're right um uh mitch mcconnell and uh chuck schumer have never had a creative thought in their life they're both hack politicians they're not they have no ideology except for self promotion and and in self preservation and they want to be in the senate you know like strong therm in the rest of their lives they love it you know politics in the u.s is like show business it's for ugly people who want to be in show business and you take a look at that you take a look at the senate they're from charles grassley to chuck schumer there's a lot of fucking ugly people are there that want to be because where else would they be where else would they be so they go along to get along and uh and so um you expected that those two came out they came out to give us a big story they rarely agree on anything except for the fact that this is a persecuted journalist uh in russia without even know i don't know i'm reserving i'm reserving until i see all of the facts i don't want to see any journalist in prison but i've seen so many uh in prison uh that uh that the u.s did not support it seems like there are only two people they support this guy in the balmy that's it those are the only uh two individuals in the world that they they care about that are in prison the rest of them uh can rot in the hell as far as they are concerned but um i don't know i don't know it's like look you know what i have uh joe the the the five days i was there uh i'm i'm really i i admittedly it's like for me i'm a frail individual all right and uh it's almost like i have post traumatic stress disorder i don't sleep at night and i'm not going to be able to when i get back this had an impact on me being in the war zone for five days uh in the red zone the yellow zone green zone wherever it was i did not know what i was getting myself into i'm glad that i went down there but it has had a an effect that's going to take me a long time to get over you know i get very emotional thinking about it i was wondering if you wanted to comment on any of the videos that kathy might might show specifically talk a little bit more about what's in them i mean i know you've talked a lot about uh your discussions with this young girl but that or anything else you want to talk about i hate this i was god i might even say shell shock but just seeing these missiles in the ground into a black top uh you know cement that went down four or five feet uh and the videos of the beautiful monument on a 40 mile ride of a muddy dirt road called saua magia uh and it was all the russians it was one of the greatest battles of all time on the right hand side there's a monument to those who sacrificed their lives against the nazis on the left hand side it's a monument to the 17 people on the hill on the saua magia let's say hill that was able to fight off two battalions of azab battalions that were trying to get through they they took over the hill and they have and one of them was a woman female commander and he got her picture on these beautiful beautiful statues and then you have this giant statue in front of it that was one of the most gut wrenching moments to to see what the the result of of those in the dpr and then in 1945 fighting off the nazis and they they blended these two monuments together and you look down the hill where 17 people 17 people they were able to get the word out to bring in some batteries to fight off these battalions two battalions of azab battalions trying to get through two don't ask and that's why there's two sides of this monument and you had to go through 40 40 kilometers of mud in an armored car to get there this is the monument i talked about earlier today one of them this is a tribute to the red army that won this big battle over here called um what was it called sir saua magilla saua magilla would that be it here uh in the uh don't ask uh people's republic uh so you got this this is new this part over here this facade and on the other side that is from 2014 after the coup uh in uh in kaiv uh people here did not want to be part of it they voted to stay out of it and so troops were sent up here and a group of about 17 18 uh very brave fighters were able to hold off and turn back these battalions that were sent in and they kind of destroyed this monument we're going to go there next how majestic and how like i said gut wrenching when you look at it what they did the heroics uh of the people fighting against the onslaught in 2014 joe alluded to it earlier uh the the coup in 2000 we haven't spoken about the coup much and i think joe knows more about it than i do uh even though i'm here but joe is really an expert uh on that coup and i maybe you can talk about it a little bit joe uh just to remind me uh of what it was about well uh it was a coup and that's in itself very controversial thing to say uh and in response to um news guard that said that we had po published false content about that i wrote turned out to be a 12 000 a long piece i can't remember how long it was about the existence of neo nazis or nazis in ukraine and the coup uh these are two things that we were told we had published was false and in the nazi article i found a us government funded study which tells the whole story about post-war period in which the cia the new cia formed a relationship particularly with this guy michole lebed who was at one point a right-hand man of step and bandera who the americans didn't want to work with funny enough this study says but the british did but they work with lebed they set him up in new york and then they would send him back to um ukraine for sabotage operations that lasted pretty much all the way until 1991 ukrainian independence so the cia used these uh bandera banderaites for almost 50 years after the war so that relationship is not new uh that they have as off it's going on it's continued and that's one thing as far as the coup um it's a lot of details i recommend people go and read my piece about that in consortium news because uh there are things that people say about when buildings were occupied for example by the protesters the official word is that it happened after yana coverage left but i found evidence in ukraine in newspapers for example that it was days before that buildings were taken over government buildings this was a u s back coup uh the man was fled for his life yana kovic he had agreed the day before he left with the european negotiators to hold or early elections so if they didn't want him they could have voted him out but the protesters didn't accept that um there was a lot of violence in the square and he fled for his life there uh it's called a coup d'etat i mean at the same time that happened hadi the president of yemen left yemen uh on a boat yana kovic left on a helicopter he left adan hadi did and i remember asking the spokesman of the u n security at u n uh spokesman and the daily noon briefing what's it what makes a coup and what makes him somebody run away because uh the the western diplomats were saying that in yemen it was a coup did the houthi overthrew hadi but and but yana kovic was not a coup he just ran away so i wondered whether if you leave in a helicopter you ran away and if you leave in a boat it was a coup because this is the kind of double standard we saw it we saw there so uh you read the piece because it's a lot of detail i can't call up right now but there's no question there was five billion dollars over 10 years that victoria newland admitted the u s had poured into ukraine the head of the n ed at the time the guy who found it gershwin his name was i believe gershin call gershin i think he uh said that basically threatened putin is next and that ukraine is the big prize that has to go into the western camp and when yana kovic chose a russian economic deal over the european unions that's when this was activated and as people know the n ed works with civil society in various countries to train them in protest method to create media the anti-government media it's a way to use uh soft power eventually leading to an overthrow of a government and david ignatius wrote a piece in 1991 i believe it's called saying that the n ed the national down for democracy now does in the open what the cia used to do covertly namely overthrowing governments that the united states didn't like so i mean there's tons of evidence that that was a coup but it has to be portrayed as a revolution and this is a problem um it was an anti-russian coup really and then right after the coup of course the potashenko government launched this so-called anti-terrorist war was basically a war to crush an independence movement in the in donbas where you've just been randy and that led to thousands of people being killed over eight years and that is excise from the west immediate reporting even though they reported it at the time and they even reported about the existence of asov and other nazi groups right sector etc that's all gone now this is just Putin woke up one morning and decided which country he was going to invade that day and happen to be ukraine i have to add to this right now before i forget what you said is right on and that's the reason why kathy or you will be receiving an interview i might have taken it with me i've deleted it but you will somehow get an interview i had last week with a guy who listen don't ask who's ukrainian who was the head of the emergency services in in kiev for ukraine in 2014 i did a he's ukrainian he listened don't ask i had a two and a half hour interview and i had an interpreter but what he says will verify everything that you just said with a lot more color to it a lot more detail i am not going to be able to take that interview back with me so we are going to give that to you and i know that kathy will do an incredible job taking the translation from this guy really a very important government figure in ukraine the only interview with him that's out there and uh that's going to you and it's an exclusive for consortium news you can take a week or two but it's uh it's an unbelievable uh i sound like san bediva student an unbelievable uh interview but i have a translator on the spot and what he has to say and he's ukrainian who lives in don't ask and then he goes back and forth he quit he quit uh when uh when the coup happened after a couple of weeks and saw what was going on uh this there's some detail there uh meetings that were happening uh and i i'm i'm unable i don't have the resources and the ability to do what i know you too uh can't do so it's going to you and i hope um you take it and put it out in the next couple weeks okay randy so uh before i wrap it up i had two very quick questions did you visit those steel works in rario pool because that's where the final battle was that was the major battle that dragged on for so long yes this is a significant uh point here this is the uh it's called azop spell and this is a huge steel plant over here a legitimate target by the russians that came in here uh back in march and april of last year not a civilian target this is a military target that's where azop was uh and during this intense battle nato advisors were here trying to extricate some of these azop Italian forces out of here but they failed because the place was completely encircled a one note i want to make is that this monument here is a monument uh to remember the uh the the red army that liberated uh donbas here in 1945 i believe uh so this monument was dedicated to them uh and um that's it for right now because i have a lot to absorb it's difficult for me to say the name of the city very oklah i've gotten so many different pronunciations but hey we're live on the fly that's what happens see you soon our ready to go on uh p r n and of course my home base for years that is wdai and there were a lot of military up there because uh that's that's called the azop stall uh still works and then it goes down four or five four to five floors and there are still uh possibly uh azop battalion uh you know troops there or even maybe nato troops who were trying to nato advisor trying to get them out but i i and and i i i deliberately did not take video of russian troops or d d dpr troops uh there who were going in and trying to find uh who was still inside uh where that shelling was from so uh yes i was at steelworks i and of course i was scared shitless and you can excite you can you can there you're a lot because i you're allowed to swear you're allowed to swear those are dead bodies of course you're talking about that well they were living in these tunnels for the longest time when they were they're still there there are still living people in those tunnels living and uh they think there's living people in the tunnels there a lot you saw a lot of d dpr personnel there on the spot on the spot and i would not take video of this i wanted to but i didn't okay uh if uh those were going inside very ballsy thing to do to go inside that steel uh factory there uh on the azop stall where all of the shelling was coming from and the nato advisors were there trying to extricate them uh there that's that's where i was that was my last day my last couple of hours was up there and of course i'm walking in circles trying to figure out where do i go if something flies out of that that that battery command inside of the azop stall uh battalion headquarters but they're still they they believe that they are still there i mean it goes down it's like one of those new york city parking lots it goes down four or five floors and fortified and equipped a lot of food and communication uh abilities so you don't know but i can tell you that there were plenty of military there to dig deep into it so you know that was it and then you know what can i tell you after that then i went the last thing before i left before i left and after i spoke to that young woman uh in the pizza place there are a lot of central asian workers there they get well paid and they are really it's like the mohawks that built um built the empire state building they built within three months within three months these beautiful apartment buildings and so there are eight or nine uh huge buildings that probably have five to six hundred units uh that are being constructed every three months a unit like that and and and it's not like you know someone will say well there must be slaves no they were walking around they were smoking cigarettes they were eating lunch and then coming back and doing the work there's just hardworking people that know how to construct uh edifices like these apartment buildings that i saw in in in as i was leaving it and there was this beautiful dog that stood on top of the rubble it stood on top of the rubble this dog that just looked down at the the entire affair going on with defiance and that that really represented and embodied the defiance of the people of the dpr they're not going anywhere they are going to fight to the very last man and woman and woman they're not going anywhere so you got it you know you have to realize that the result that they have sorry i understand those apartments are being given by the breshen government for free to ask to people my final question randy is in you've had a full life you've had lots of experiences where does this rank in terms of the significance of this experience to you well this Rockefeller drug was there's two year taxes there's uh nicaragua there were you know there's my comedy career would forget about that uh and and then the divestment of private prisons in new york state this is at the top because this is the most important it's it's it's this is the the most important that's what i had to do it i'm 68 years old 69 years old how much more time do i have how could i say no it's you know whatever i can do i'm not going to be able to stop because there's going to be millions of people like myself they're going to have to stand up and fight against what is a potential existential threat to humanity it's not it's not me it's everybody else i i'm i'm glad to be part of the fabric that is fighting this and that's what it's going to take a lot of stitching in that fabric to stop what is definitely possible which is the it's like the end of planet of the apes when when the charlton heston sees the empire in the state of liberty in the water that's where we're heading right now and and so my main i'm not i'm not supporting anybody i don't support war i'm supporting peace and this is right up there i like this if i had a cherry to put on my career this would be the cherry coming here there is nothing like this that i've done in my lifetime more important than this randy credit code thank you very much for joining us on cn live today it's my pleasure and thank you very much joe and elizabeth or kathy for having me on that's really an honor to be on this award-winning organizations broadcasts and my love to bob perry and see i should never have a shot of vodka before i say that here's to bob perry and you've done an incredible job all of you and thank you thank you for all all of the work that you've done and and having me on today thank you randy thank you she also wanted to ask you a question yeah she asked me a question uh what is the opinion about russia because the united states is uh another side i i love russia i love the russian people i love the dpr and uh it's an intelligent culturally advanced civilization uh that i have no i have i'm not at war with russia the the government may be at war but the american people like russians we like russians we like your food we love borsch we love your music we love tchaikovsky we love rimsy korsakov we love your literature we love vados de eski we love that you beat the nazis in world war two and save the world from nazism we have a lot of respect for russia and for the old soviet union for the contribution that you have made culturally and politically and militarily and defeating nazism good girl one and what is your opinion about mr putin i think he's a very um smart able leader uh that uh is definitely uh in support of the uh the people of russia he's got their interests at heart he's not a corrupt politician i do not think he's a corrupt politician i think he's much more uh stable and able than any of the politicians that we have in washington dc if you are a consumer of independent news in the first place you should be going to is consortium news and please do try to support them when you can it doesn't have its articles behind a paywall it's free for everyone it's one of the best news sites out there and it's been in the business of independent journalism and adversarial independent journalism for over two decades i hope that with the public's continuing support of consortium news it will continue for a very long time to come thank you so much