Hi, everyone. My name is Glenn Dyson, and today I will speak with Alexander Mercuris and

Ambassador Chas Freeman. And, well, for those who are not familiar with Chas Freeman,

he was the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

He was also the U. the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

He worked with Kissinger to open China in the 70s.

He worked with developing the European security architecture after the Cold War.

Well, the resume is perhaps too long and impressive to go through everything, but it's a great pleasure to be speaking again with someone, well, such a

political heavyweight.

So I thank again for taking time.

I've actually done some dieting and I've lost some weight, but I appreciate the thought.

So, well, I thought since the last time the three of us spoke, there's been great changes

in Ukraine, the Middle East, also the wider world.

And I think as a result, it appears that the NATO narrative, as well as NATO unity, appears

to be cracking to some extent.

And again, in the past, to argue that the coup in 2014,

and NATO expansion provoked the Russian invasion was considered propaganda. Now, NATO Secretary General

Stoltenberg more or less admitted that this, well, explicitly admitted this is why Russia invaded

in the past, you know, to suggest that Ukraine was losing

or that this was a proxy war was also dismissed this propaganda. Now it's widely accepted.

It's also become common knowledge that the Minsk agreement was sabotaged for seven years,

also the tentative peace agreements in early 2022. And yeah, it even used to be controversial to argue that NATO aims to fight Russia with Ukrainians.

But again, when Stoltenberg recently visited the U.S. to sell the idea of continuing this losing war,

...