US Mulls Iran Ground Invasion As Options Run Out; Israel- Larijani Dead; Lavrov Kiev Regime Must Go

Good day. Today is Tuesday 17th March 2026 and before I proceed with this program let me remind you

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Now this morning the big news at least the big news in the media, the story that is dominating

the media and up to a point rightly so is the claim from Israel that the Israelis

over the course of an overnight strike managed to kill the Secretary of Iran's National

Security Council and the person who has been in charge or overall charge of the conduct

of the war by Iran Ali Laryjani. Laryjani was of course Iran the previous Supreme Leader Ayatollah

Hamanay's National Security Advisor. He is the person who apparently was given overall control

of the security agencies in Iran by the previous Supreme Leader Ayatollah Hamanay during the

protests which took place in January. He is the person who coordinated the suppression of those

protests. He is the individual who flew to Moscow in February and met with President Putin

and with other Russian officials and from reports I have heard also with Chinese officials

at the Chinese Embassy. We've had very sketchy accounts of that meeting but of those meetings

but all of the information that I have heard suggests that the meetings were extensive

and led to all kinds of agreements and arrangements which came into effect the moment

the current conflict between Iran, Israel and the United States began and Laryjani also is the

person who perhaps masterminded but certainly supervised the conduct of Iran's military response

to the American and Israeli attack on Iran which began on the 28th of February and Laryjani

has had an important record in Iran's politics. He is very well connected to various senior

members of Iran's clerical establishment. He has obviously been close to Hamanay in the past.

He has been, I believe, the speaker of Iran's parliament. He has been the chief negotiator in

some of the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States which led to the agreement

to set up the JCPOA and of course he's had many extensive contacts with the Chinese and with the

Russians. So we are indeed talking about a very important very senior official but that is not

the same as saying that he is an irreplaceable official and this in my opinion has been the mistake

that the United States but Israel especially have been making in all of their various attempts to

destabilize the government of Iran. The belief appears to be in Israel that if they can kill all of

the top officials or all the top officials or as many of the top officials of the Iranian government

as they can find, this will at some point in some way precipitate the collapse of the Iranian

government. We saw that in the first day of the June 2025, 12-day war, when Israel successfully

tracked down and killed a large number of senior Iranian military and science officials,

though not Laryjani or Pezish Gyan or the Supreme Leader himself Ayatollah Hamane.

And we saw this again on the very first day of the current conflict on the 28th of February

when the Israelis launched a powerful missile strike on Hamane's residence in Tehran,

killing Hamane several members of his family including children and also various other senior

officials who were gathered to meet with Hamane on that particular day. Now in relation to that

particular strike a recording has now been circulating of a report about that strike that was made

by the Iranian authorities themselves providing an account of what happened

over the course of this strike and explaining why Hamane, the current Supreme Leader,

and by the way, apologies for mangling for my pronunciation if he's named in previous videos.

Anyway, how he came about that Maktada Hamane survived that attack. He apparently was also president

present at that residence, in the meeting itself at the time when the attack was taking place.

And the report say that Maktada Hamane, as it happened, left the meeting to

walk in the garden of the residence even as the missiles, the Israeli missiles,

struck the residence, killing everybody inside and he did suffer injuries, injuries to his

foot, injuries, other injuries as well apparently. The report, the recording says that overall, however,

he is in reasonably good condition. There's no word about him being in Moscow, by the way, just to say.

But anyway, that he survived the attack, but of course he's father and other top Iranian officials

and members of his immediate family did not, including his children.

Well, anyway, Larry Johnny himself was not at this meeting and well, again, the expectation

perhaps in Israel and in Washington was that after this devastating strike, which took place on

the 28th. The February, there might have been an expectation of the opening up of a power vacuum

and of a collapse of the Iranian government and of a regime change or of a regime change crisis

in Iran, but it didn't happen. And the Israelis have made the same calculation with Hezbollah.

They conducted a succession of devastating strikes against Hezbollah in 2024, starting with a

pager attack, then with a strike on a meeting of senior Hezbollah officials, including the leader

of Hezbollah, Hassan Nazrallah, and then a subsequent meeting in which Nazrallah's immediate successor

was also killed. Now, of course, in relation to all of the strikes that I've just been talking about,

the ones the one in Iran at the start of the June 2025 war, the one that took place in Tehran

on the 28th of February and the strikes against Hezbollah which took place in the summer of 2024,

according to reports and rumors, the Israelis obtained the information about these meetings

from the former head of the Kudz Special Forces of Iran's IRGC, General Kani, who supposedly has

been exposed as a Mossad agent and has been arrested and executed or perhaps has committed suicide

as discussed in my previous two programs. Anyway, the point is that Hezbollah is now back in

operation. Apparently, the Israelis have been surprised that following Israel's own attempts to

conduct a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon over the last week or so and in response

to Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah has been putting up far more

and far more effective resistance than the Israelis expected and this Hezbollah for its own part

has also conducted missile and rocket strikes against Israel again to a greater extent

than the Israelis apparently expected. So we see that the decapitation strikes that were carried out

by the Israelis against Hezbollah were unsuccessful and the decapitation strikes that were carried out

against the Iranian leadership in 2024 and in 2025 and on 28 February of this year

have so far been unsuccessful as well. So why I think that killing LaRijani is going to change

the overall picture. We've heard that Iran anticipating attacks upon itself and

a Iranian plan to assassinate its leaders has decentralized its leadership, has created a

mosaic defense organization that Iranian regional governors have been given wide autonomy

by the central Iranian government to make decisions as they see fit. We've seen no evidence that

the previous plan of decapitation or assassination has paralyzed the Iranian leadership

or led to the collapse of the Iranian government and we see no evidence that it is

causing Iran to reconsider either its military or political approach to this crisis. Iran continues

to conduct missile and run attacks across the Middle East. Iran continues to conduct missile

strikes on Israel itself. Iran continues to maintain tight control over the straight of

Hormuz. It seems that even the claim that Iran has lost control of the sky over its territory

is only partially true as I discussed in a recent program footage that I have seen of American

bombers B-52s show them carrying jasams missiles which suggests that the ongoing strikes that both

Israel and the United States continue to conduct against Iran are conducted from outside

Iranian airspace. So I don't see why the assassination, the killing of LaRyjani and

apparently of another senior Iranian official the head of the busage militia is going to make

any fundamental difference. In fact I would go further still. I suspect that the reason that

the Israelis were able to find and kill LaRyjani is because a few days ago LaRyjani together with

other prominent Iranian leaders including Pezish Gyan and Arakshi participated in big

demonstrations which took place in Tehran. They walked together with the various other

demonstrators. They made themselves publicly visible and though the Israelis and the Americans did not

attack them then which was perhaps because any attack on these people at a time when they

were surrounded by civilians in the way that they might have resulted in enormous numbers of

civilian casualties which would have been politically embarrassing. I've stopped I'm afraid thinking that

inhibitions that there are moral inhibitions about the deaths of civilians in this conflict.

I don't think that enters into the calculus in Israel or Washington at all. I say that

with a heavy heart but it seems to me to be true. Anyway the fact that LaRyjani made himself

publicly visible in that way would have meant that the Israelis would have known where he was

at a particular point in time and that would have made it much easier for them to track his movements

back to wherever it is that he was and sooner or later that meant that the Israelis were able to

catch up with him. Now I can't help but wonder whether LaRyjani himself would have known that

in advance whether he knew when he participated in that big public demonstration that

the Israelis would identify him and would be able to establish his location. In that case more so

than Ayatollah Hamanay on the 28th of February. LaRyjani basically set himself up for death

all as he as a devout sheer Muslim would presumably say. He himself embraced martyrdom

in which case that must logically mean that LaRyjani has already selected his successes,

has already picked the apparatus that will continue the campaign.

Once he is gone presumably they're all agreed as to the plan and to the approach that will be

taken in which case all that the Israelis have achieved by killing LaRyjani if by the way he is

indeed dead or that the Israelis will have achieved will have been to gift Iran or at least the

Islamic Republic of Iran with yet another martyr. So I do not understand the logic of this decapitation

strategy. Now I've touched about my own massive ethical qualms about this but I must also point

to the incredibly ruthless way in which this decapitation strategy is being conducted.

Once upon a time not so long ago if Western intelligence agencies had identified the presence

of civilians in a location where somebody that they were targeting was likely to be they would

have avoided conducting that attack because of the presence of those civilians. That may seem

idealistic but I happen to know it is true. This time the Americans and the Israelis are showing

no such inhibitions. When they attacked Hamine's residence on the 28th of February they would have

known that Hamine had his family there. There would have been wives and children and other people

entirely innocent of any political activity. Hamine's granddaughter for example who was only two

years old that they would all have been there with a high probability that they would have been

killed as well. And yet the decision was nonetheless made to conduct the strike

and to carry out the killings. I have to say that this type of ruthlessness shocks me.

Now I don't know whether there were any civilians with laryjani where he was killed. I would like

to believe that there were none but I have to say based on everything that has been going on

in this conflict up to this time that if there were I doubt that it would have made any difference.

Just saying. Anyway there it is. That's all I'm going to say about laryjani after this point.

I fully expect that there will be someone else to take his place. I don't see that this is going

to change the calculus of the war. The calculus of the war remains exactly the same as it was.

In fact if anything my guess and it is only a guess is that his death will further harden

the leadership in Iran. It will mean that younger people will take over. Laryjani himself was 67

just to say that people perhaps more trusted by the Iranian leadership will be in overall control.

Laryjani seems to have been a deeply committed official, a loyal servant of the Islamic Republic

but on two occasions the clerical leadership rejected his bid to stand for president of Iran

something which has never been fully explained but which suggests that the word doubts about him

and that the work criticisms of him within the high reaches of Iran's leadership.

Anyway it's likely that we're going to have a younger, tougher, more hard-line leadership

as the veterans who formed their views during the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s and during the

Iran Iraq War of the 1980s are replaced by younger leaders who perceive the world through the

framework of the conflict, Iran's conflict with Israel and the United States.

Anyway that's where I think we are at the present time. I'm not going to say very much more

about this so nothing in my opinion of substance decisively has changed. The key thing that continues

to happen, the two key things that continue to happen is that the energy prices continue to rise.

This morning they were trading or was trading at well above $100 a barrel just to say

and that the Iranians continue to maintain their very tight control of the state of Hormuz

letting only ships that they agree to pass through, to pass through. The Gulf monarchies

are increasingly feeling betrayed and abandoned by the United States. There are now increasing

comments and commentaries from senior citizens of the Gulf states so far the governments themselves

have not joined but more and more of them are asking where was the protection from the United

States that they were promised, why were they catapulted into a war which was none of their choice,

why is it that it is their cities and their communities and their energy complexes that are

being targeted and which the Americans are unable to protect, why is it that the United States,

despite its overwhelming power or what they were repeatedly told was its overwhelming power,

seems unable to reopen the straits of Hormuz. Anyway the Gulf states appear to be going through

a crisis of confidence in the United States which is deepening. I get the sense that this is

starting to happen in the energy markets as well and for the record I don't see that the military

campaign against Iran, contrary to what Pete Hegseth and others are saying is making any kind

of progress at all and the Iranians for their part continue to reject all proposals for a cease

fire, all proposals for negotiations, the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araxi, one does wonder how

long it will be before the Israelis come after him by the way. Anyway the Iranian foreign

minister Abbas Araxi has refuted stories that were circulating in the media yesterday which I

assume had their origins from within the administration that Araxi was in text contact with Steve

Whitgoth. Araxi said that he is no interested talking or communicating to Whitgoth at all that he

feels that he and Iran were deceived by Whitgoth and he's not interested and Iran is not interested

in a ceasefire or in negotiations or any of that sort of thing. So it seems to me that the calculus

of all of that has not changed up to now at all just so. Now on the American side we are starting

to see the first public signs of dissent. Joe Kent, director of the U.S.'s national counterterrorism

centre has now announced his resignation and this is what he says as I'm reading this when he's

posed on X after much reflection I have decided to resign from my position as director of the

national counterterrorism centre effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war

in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and it is clear that we started this war

due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. It has been an honour serving

under the president of the United States and DNI Gabbard and leading the professionals

at NCTC. May God bless America. Now Joe Kent is the first resignation that I know of.

Maybe we will be seeing others but for the moment at least there is no sign of any concerted

attempt to force open the straight-of-war moves. The U.S. Navy according to reports and apparently

satellite sightings is moving further away from the Iranian coast rather than closer to it.

The United States' European allies are saying that they have no intention of becoming involved

in any military operation to open the straight-of-war moves. Friedrich Mertz, Chancellor of Germany

and perhaps in some respects the U.S. is most important ally in Europe. Maybe it is most outspoken

ally in Europe in relation to this particular conflict with Iran. Mertz is a strong supporter of

Israel. He has made no secret of his dislike of the Iranian government. Anyway he has come out

and said that as far as he is concerned, as far as Germany is concerned, the conflict in the Middle

East, the conflict with Iran, is not Europe's war, is not Germany's war and they have no

intention of getting involved in it. So the Europeans are refusing to participate. The Japanese

are refusing to participate. The Australians are refusing to participate and we've now seen

the first significant resignation from Donald Trump's administration. Donald Trump himself

has now had to ask China for its agreement to a postponement of his trip to China at the end of

this month. As I've discussed in several programs, my strong impression is that this trip

at the end of this month, which supposedly came out of the meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping,

which took place in South Korea at the end of last year, that this meeting was actually

lobbied for or pressed by Trump himself. Indeed, I got the strong impression that it was actually

Trump who basically invited himself to China. Following this very difficult summit meeting

between himself, difficult for him, summit meeting that he had with Xi Jinping

in South Korea, where basically the United States had to grow back on its tariff and other policies

towards China in light of China's restrictions on exports of rare earths. Of course, since then,

Trump's position has been undermined further still by the Supreme Court decision, which

ruled that his original tariffs were illegal and unconstitutional. Anyway, so at the moment,

as I understand it, China is subjected only to the 10% flat tariff, was it a 15% flat tariff,

that Trump is simultaneously imposing or the United States is simultaneously imposing on everyone

else, just saying. But anyway, whatever the fact is that on the American side of the fence,

things continue to look. Sure, we say complicated and difficult, the allies are not coming to help,

the situation with the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, remains as intractable as ever,

the idea of deploying large numbers of ground troops remains deeply controversial and

unpopular in the United States and very high risk as well. So all of these problems are still

there and they continue to mount. Now, before this conflict began, before the United States and

Israel launched their attack on Iran, Alex Christophero and I on our respective channels

and on the Iran warned that Trump was at great risk of finding himself in Tukzvang. Tukzvang,

being the situation in chess, where a party is obliged to take to make a move,

which whatever that move is, is going to put that party in an even worse position than the one

he was in previously. And well, it looked like it was already Tukzvang before the conflict began

in the sense that for Trump not to conduct an attack on Iran would have resulted in significant

political damage with Israel, the United States, the near cons in the United States, including some

of the people within his administration. And the media supporters of a war against Iran

all furious with Trump, whereas of course pressing forward with the war was likely to put Trump

in an even deeper Tukzvang position that he was already in. And to my mind, this is exactly where we are.

If things just are allowed to continue in the way that they are, then it seems to me that we're going

to see eventually inexorable increases in energy prices. These are already causing stresses on living

standards in the United States and to a much greater extent, by the way, around the world.

In Europe, they're starting to create problems. I was reading in the British media this morning

that there are apparently the first suggestions that Britain might have to consider energy rationing

in a few months time. I don't know whether that will actually happen, by the way, but anyway,

it has been talked about in a few programs ago. I actually said that I thought it would be

unlikely that we would see energy rationing in Europe. And yet here we are, and it is now

apparently been talked about in Southeast Asia, in the Indian subcontinent. Of course, the situation

is much worse. It will presumably get worse in other places, in Africa, in South America, wherever.

Anyway, we're starting to see increasing pressures in the energy markets, and of course continuing

with the military campaign, as it has been conducted at the moment, continues the process of

depletion of America's and Israel's already reduced arsenals of air defense interceptors,

long-range missiles, and other precision-guided weapons. And apparently, the damage already done to

the American radar stations across the Middle East is already enormous and very costly to repair,

and likely to take anyway a great deal of time to repair. The alternatives, however,

of forcing open the straits of Hormuz, the strait of Hormuz is extremely difficult,

and very, very dangerous. I mean, you also have reports about how if there was an attempt to

escort tankers through the strait of Hormuz, all it would take would be one mine attack or one

drone attack on a single tanker, and the crisis would be much worse. In my opinion, what is

deterring the U.S. Navy and Western and Japanese Navy's altogether is not worries about

attacks on tankers in the event that they were to send their warships into the strait of Hormuz

to conduct escort operations. Much more serious is potential attacks on the warships themselves,

and the potential damage to these warships, which would have a very significant political impact,

which of course would be greater still, depending on how bad the damage to those warships as a result

of those attacks might be. So I think it is fit for the warships rather than the tankers that is

keeping the Western Navy's away, just saying. So that option doesn't look an attractive one,

and I read somewhere over the last 24 hours that an operation to force open the strait of Hormuz

using ground forces might require a force of around a hundred thousand men,

and well, that would be a challenging force, challenging number of troops to put together

in any short period of time. We're probably looking at months, perhaps even by the end of this year

before a deployment of that kind of scale could take place, and well, of course,

seizing the strait of Hormuz, making it possible in theory at least for tankers to pass through,

would only perhaps be the start of the problem, because Iran would still be there, presumably.

So long as there is a hostile government in Tehran, there could still be rocket and missile attacks

on tankers and ships, there could still be drone attacks on tankers and ships, and the troops trying

to keep open the strait of Hormuz might themselves be subject to long-term attack also.

I am not a military expert, and it may be that there are things about this, which I do not know,

and that there are military solutions to this problem, but they are not obvious to me,

and I have not seen any single military official or military expert up to now,

who has offered any remotely workable solution, or any solution, which I see as workable.

Whereas attempts to negotiate with the Iranians at this time

runs up against the problem that the Iranians themselves don't seem to be interested in negotiations,

and if negotiations were to take place, they would happen on a completely different basis

than was the case before, with Iran, not Israel, or the United States,

being in the position of strength and advantage.

The President is apparently now becoming increasingly offended by some of the media reporting.

He is probably annoyed, because reports are appearing in the media,

that the intelligence community in the United States warned him that an attack on Iran was more

likely to strengthen the existing government than to weaken it, that were apparently warnings

from the intelligence community that the Strait of Hormuz might indeed be closed,

that there might be disruptions in energy markets, that there might be attacks on US regional

allies in the Middle East. The President clearly does not want it publicized,

that he simply ignored all of these warnings and decided to press on regardless.

But what we now see is with an official of the US intelligence community,

Jo Kend, now resigning and leaving the administration, it is possible that we might start to see further

resignations, and with every person who resigns the risk of the President increases,

that these people will start to turn up at the talk shows, and we'll start to give interviews

to the media, the media in the United States, which has never liked Donald Trump,

and we'll start to provide further details about the warnings the President was given,

and which he chose to ignore. So there it is, that's the situation today,

assassinating Laryjani doesn't solve anything, as far as I can see.

Maybe, maybe, if he'd been killed in the strike that took place on the first day of the 12-day war

in June 2025, it might have been different. But by now, the Iranians have their strategy,

they have no obvious reason why they would want to change it, and I'm not sure exactly what it is

that the United States is able to do, that is going to change it either, which is going to persuade

the Iranians to alter their approach to this war. So it is Zugtsvang. Now, of course,

let me say this again, it may be the case, it's possibly the case that the President

still knows things that I don't know. I've discussed in my two last programs the importance,

the possible importance of General Karni in the lead up to the war, the person who is

widely suspected now, of having been Mossad's man at the heart of the Iranian leadership.

It may be that there are other such people, it may be that there are other pressures that the

United States can bring to bear against Iran and the government there that I am not aware of.

It could be, for example, that the President and his officials try to do what Richard Nixon did,

try to do during the Vietnam War. Nixon faced with a similar intractable crisis in Vietnam,

tried to put pressure on the Vietnamese by establishing contacts with Vietnam's key allies,

the Soviet Union and China, in the hope that these two countries would put pressure on Vietnam

to bring the war, the conflict in the war, the conflict in Vietnam to an end,

to enable Nixon to say that he had taken the United States out of that conflict and secured peace

with honor, which is, of course, what he said. Well, the reality was, in that case, that yes,

the Chinese and the Soviets did put a certain amount of pressure on the Vietnamese,

that never, however, went so far as to limit arms deliveries to the Vietnamese or economic

deliveries to the Vietnamese. It was purely political and diplomatic pressure, which the Vietnamese

did pay a certain amount of attention to. But of course, the Soviets and the Chinese,

in return for doing that, extracted very significant concessions from the United States,

which I have talked about in previous programs. And ultimately, of course, as we all know,

the Vietnam War did act, but not with the kind of settlement that Nixon and Kissinger

perhaps intended, but with a clear cut and decisive Vietnamese victory.

Well, once you'd be careful, events are not going to repeat themselves in the same way,

but yes, perhaps the president, perhaps Donald Trump, does have some plan

who are trying to persuade the Russians and the Chinese to put pressure on Iran,

and perhaps given the fact that these two countries do have leverage over Iran,

that might have some success, but of course, doing that will come with a considerable political price.

Which will inevitably shock the very same people in the United States who propelled

a no doubt very willing Donald Trump into this war with Iran in the first place.

So, there it is. Now, this is a difficult war to anticipate what the eventual outcome will be.

It may be that if it goes on, if it stretches on for months or even years,

then the continued pounding of Iran that is taking place will eventually cause some kind of

a breakdown there. I received further reports, however, not directly from people in Iran.

I mean, not in direct contact with anybody in Iran, but with people who have friends and family

there, well, by the way, almost to a person. In fact, I would correct that to a person,

very strong critics of the Iranian government. But anyway, all of them are telling me the same thing,

that despite the bombing, normal life mostly goes on, even in Tehran, most of the city,

so far, has been unaffected by the bombing, which tends to be concentrated in a specific area,

that the shops continue to be full of goods, that yes, there are economic stresses,

the currency situation remains as bad as ever. Inflation continues to be a huge problem,

but Iranians have up to a point managed to cope with all of this. And so, normal life continues,

economic activity continues. We are nowhere close in Iran to see the sort of breakdown

that might lead to a collapse in Iran of the kind that might bring about a rapid end to the war.

But perhaps if the pounding goes on long enough, if the Israelis manage to kill even more Iranian

officials, then maybe at some point, maybe at some point, that will provoke some kind of

internal crisis, but I wouldn't count on it. To me, that looks a little bit like magical thinking.

Anyway, that is what I see up to this time. Now, anyway, let's move on. I will just

quickly add one thing, that as this crisis continues and remains unresolved,

as pressures on the global economy grow, and inevitably sooner or later, the energy price

pressures are also going to start affecting the financial markets and the other commodities markets,

and they're going to inevitably lead to falls in industrial output and perhaps consumer consumption,

just saying. Anyway, as these economic pressures go, there will be inevitably less and less

interest in that other great conflict that is taking place at the present time, which is the

conflict in Ukraine. Up to now, in many programs that I have done, I have said that the single

biggest most important geopolitical event that is taking place in the world is the conflict in

Ukraine. It has been around the conflict in Ukraine that the entire global geopolitical

environment has up to this time been shaped. I am obliged to say this now. Yes, Ukraine, to my mind,

remains as important as ever. It continues to shape the geopolitical environment,

but it has been overtaken in importance as a crisis by the crisis that we are seeing in the

Middle East, and it is a far more intractable crisis than the crisis that we, the crisis in the

Middle East, is arguably a much more intractable crisis than the crisis in Ukraine,

if only because the Russians have a very, very different approach to the way that

conducting this war, then the Iranians have a product of Iran's much weaker position

and of Iran's sense that it has far less to lose, and dare I say it because of the passions

that exist whenever there is a conflict in the Middle East of any kind. Anyway, what is going on

in the conflict in Ukraine? Well, the first thing to say is that a Russian official, very senior

Russian official, so to get over off, for example, has now given a further interview

over the course of which he has spoken in utterly scathing terms about the Europeans.

First of all, I should say that these comments were made over the course of a press conference,

which Lavrov hosted in Moscow, on the occasion of the visit to Moscow, of the Foreign Minister of

Kenya, but as always happens when Lavrov gives a press conference, the topics quickly changed

instead of being focused on relations between Russia and Kenya, important as those are, by the way,

they are important. They focus instead, shifted obviously to the Middle East and to the situation

in Ukraine. I am not going to discuss what Lavrov said about the situation in the Middle East,

which is very much in line with what the Russians have also and already been saying.

But Lavrov did discuss the situation in Ukraine, and he said some very interesting things.

First of all, he confirmed, well, he didn't confirm, the Russians have for some time confirmed,

and of course we know the Europeans have confirmed that Macron sent envoys to Moscow in February,

his national security adviser Mr. Bond, and that they had their meeting with Ushakoff,

and that this was apparently a disaster. Lavrov said that the Russians were startled to find

that the French had absolutely nothing new or original to say, that they were repeating

the same talking points that they make in public discussions, that the Russians saw no point

in wasting their time with these tires and people from whom they were hearing the same thing.

He did not confirm, despite many reports now that say this, that Ushakoff told the French to air

for, but effectively, well, he made it maybe, it wasn't quite as coarse as that,

or at least Lavrov did not confirm that it was as coarse as that, but the, in a set, the essentials,

the essential points that Lavrov's made is that that was basically what happened.

Anyway, Lavrov then went on to say that the whole idea of the Europeans becoming involved in

the negotiations is absolutely absurd, that they have completely discredited themselves as media

and he used those exact words. He said that the Europeans repeatedly betrayed the negotiation

process, they purported to broker an agreement between President, the former president of Ukraine,

Viktor Yanukovic, who was overthrown in the Maidan events, and his opponents, that within hours

of the agreement between Yanukovic and his opponents, that agreement was breached,

and so far from standing by that agreement and insisting on implementation of it,

the Europeans immediately and enthusiastically supported the forcible change of power.

He then went over the whole story, the whole upsetting story of the Minsk Agreement

of 2015, which again the Europeans mediated and which was never honored and how the Ukrainians

have said that they never intended to honor it and that it was an exercise in buying time

and how Merkel and Orland who broke that agreement knew that all along and aided and abetted

the Ukrainians in doing all of that, and Lavrov also dwelt on the role that the Europeans played

in sabotaging the April 2022 Istanbul Agreement, and for the first time he mentioned that it wasn't

just Boris Johnson, but other European states as well that apparently called Zelensky and pressured him

to walk away from the agreement that it seemed and been agreed between Russia and Ukraine

in Istanbul in April of that year. So Lavrov went through all of that and he said that these people

they really think that there's any point in them joining in these negotiations or participating

in these negotiations, they must be joking. The financial times spoke about

entreats from the Europeans to join the negotiations, and well, Lavrov clearly, and I'm sure he speaks

for the entire Russian government, they're not having any of it, they're not going to let the

Europeans in through the door, they think that the only safe place for the Europeans is locked out,

outside. But anyway, those were some of the things that Lavrov said, and he said it in his

usual pungent language, but he did say other things, he referred to this idea of deploying

European troops to Ukraine in order to enforce a ceasefire, Macron's and Starmus plan,

the coalition of the willing plan and all of that. He referred to such a potential European force

as an occupation force, and he said that the reason that the Europeans wanted to do that

and the true reason why the Europeans want to join the negotiations is because they want to

preserve and perpetuate the Kiev regime. And well, those comments to my mind clearly say a number

of things that in Lavrov's own mind, the government in Kiev, not only has no legitimacy,

but that any force that enters Ukraine, supposedly to enforce a ceasefire,

but in effect, propping up that illegitimate regime is by definition an occupation force.

And for that reason, it cannot be allowed to be there, not just because it threatens Russia,

but because it is occupying and by definition oppressing the people in Ukraine who want to be free

of that illegitimate government in Kiev. In other words, Lavrov is saying again that there has to be

regime change in Kiev, and he went further than he's ever done, he said that the very existence

of what he caused the Kiev regime is a root cause of the war. Now, this is important language

because the Russians have repeatedly said that in order for the to be peace in Ukraine and a peaceful

settlement of the crisis in Ukraine, the root causes of the war must be addressed. And well,

Lavrov saying that one of those root causes which needs to be addressed is the nature of the

regime in Kiev. So the Russians are coming close now or not coming close, they're now in effect

saying that the removal of Zelensky and the entire government and political structure in Kiev

is a precondition for the end of the war. They've come very close to saying this before.

In fact, they started to hint at this back in the autumn of 2023, three years ago, after the

two and a half years ago, after the defeat of Ukraine's summer 2023 offensive. But now they are

in effect saying it outright, though so far it is not a publicly stated negotiating position.

Lavrov always chooses his words very carefully and I am sure that this language has been

coordinated by Putin in advance. I've discussed in recent programs extending all the way back to

December and the Valday attack on Putin's residents about how the Russians looked to me to be in the

process of hardening their position. And it seems that these comments of Lavrov take that

a further step, a step further. So that is one thing. Now another Russian has also been speaking

and what he's had to say is also extremely interesting. And this is Valeriy Gerasimov, the Chief

of the General Staff and the overall military commander of the Russian forces who are fighting

in the area of the special military operation. Now, Gerasimov started from late summer early autumn

to provide regular updates about the state of the war, something that he had never done before.

But he's now doing it and he's now doing it on a regular basis. And what he had to say is very

interesting. But to repeat again a point I've made previously, the fact that Lavrov Gerasimov

is talking in this way that he is providing regular briefings about the state of the war

is in itself a clear indication that the Russians are becoming increasingly confident

about the way things on the battle lines are going. So anyway, Gerasimov had these things to say and

I'm summarizing it. We have a long account of his comments from the Russian defense ministry,

but briefly, what Gerasimov said was this. Firstly, in Konstantinovka,

he describes a situation that differs markedly from that of the mapping projects, all of the

mapping projects that I'm aware of. This is not the first time this has happened by the way.

I have long believed that the situation in Konstantinovka is very different from what the mapping

projects assume. I think the Russians have been taking a very controlled, have been

toughly controlling information from Konstantinovka. But anyway, Gerasimov said that the Russians

have broken into Konstantinovka from the northwest, northeast and the southwest, and that they now

control 60% of Konstantinovka and that they continue to advance there. And the clearing

pressure is that the battle of Konstantinovka has passed its pivot point and that it is

when I'm moving towards a position where the town is going to fall under Russian control.

I believe that the battle of Konstantinovka has been very similar to the battle in Pakrosk

and Mirnograd. I think that the Russians have mostly encircled Ukrainian troops in Konstantinovka.

I did a program in which I spoke about a cauldron having developed there. It seems to me that

Gerasimov's words are consistent with that. I think myself that that is what is happening. He also

had some very interesting things to say about the situation in other places. He said that

Grishino has almost fallen to the Russians. In other words, there's still some residual resistance

to the Russians there. Grishinov, important village to the northwest of Pakrosk. He said that

most of Leman is now under Russian control. Again, what he has said here is ahead of what the

mapping projects are saying. But he says that most of Leman is now under Russian control.

He confirmed the capture of various villages around Leman. He spoke about the Russians

being close to capturing Aleksandrovka. We've done programs with Stanislav Kapivnik and he's

explained how the capture of these places gives the Russians the high ground and enables the Russians

to create the giant cauldron that they're working towards in Slavjansk, Kramatorsk.

We are at the end of the thought. The thought has been very fast this year.

There continue to be reports of the Russians having taken the offensive in Zaporozhya region.

Surprisingly, Gerasimov had very little to say about the Zaporozhya offensive, but it does

appear that it's been reactivated. But the big advances I suspect are going to happen.

The bigger attacks from the Russians are probably going to happen in April.

I think this is the timing. This is when we're going to start to see things begin to move.

In the meantime, the Russians see the situation in Europe. They see the Europeans

increasingly bewildered at a situation that is spiraling out of their control.

They have no control over this conflict in the Middle East. They know that their own military forces

are inadequate to fight the Iranians. Where, as Boris Bestorius, the German defense minister said,

the US Navy fears to go. It is unrealistic to imagine that the European Navy's can go instead.

So, the Middle East out of control. They are acutely worried about rising energy costs,

but they have no control over this issue either. They continue to harass the Russians. They continue

to try to seize tankers in the Baltic Sea and look the other way as the Ukrainians conduct

attacks on tankers in the Mediterranean. Actually, they're not looking the other way. They are

assisting the Ukrainians to conduct attacks on these tankers.

Lavrov, another comment that Lavrov said is that there's been all this talk in Europe

about freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

But nothing at all than the people who have been talking about this, about freedom of navigation

in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the Baltic where tankers have been attacked

or ceased. Here's of course right, but don't expect that to be reported in the media in the West.

Anyway, this harassment of Russian tankers by the Europeans and their Ukrainian allies

is not going to meet with much favor around the world. Now, at a time of energy shortages

and rising energy costs, I suspect that before long the administration in Washington,

which is already itself under acute political pressure, is going to start to push back against

it and is going to tell the Europeans and the Ukrainians to stop. Whether they will pay any

attention is of course another matter. But anyway, the Europeans have no real strategy. The Americans

have lost interest in the negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine. I discussed all of that

in the article in the financial times that I said all of those things. That same article,

by the way, said that the Russians were also frustrated by the negotiations,

by and this is my own take Trump's failure to deliver or whatever it was he promised in Anchorage.

And that the Russians are losing interest in the negotiations themselves, as by the way they

have all but said. And the Europeans know that without the United States, they can't keep on

arming Ukraine and they also know that with the high energy costs, their ability to pressure

the Russians economically, which was never very straight gone. That's all melted away. Also,

meanwhile, the IMF is now again warning about major financing problems

faced by Zelensky and by the government in Kiev. And the Europeans have also now discovered

that the Russians are not interested in talking to them. The Russians instead are now talking about

regime change in Kiev. It's impossible to interpret Love Roth's words any other way.

And Putin for his part is remaining silent. Well, who can doubt in this situation,

especially given that Zelensky continues to impose, oppose all concessions that we're going to

see a military end to this war. Anyway, that's where I'm going to finish today. Let me remind you

again that you can find all our programs on our various platforms, Locals, Rumble, X and Substack.

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to this channel. That's me for today. More from me soon. Have a very good day.