Ray McGovern

Why US promise “No NATO one-inch east” not put in writing, I asked Gorbachev aide Kuvaldin. He winced: “Because we trusted you.” Later, a fleeting moment of “growing trust” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html. None now.

https://youtu.be/UkxRa1M_x9A?si=UiqwbjLvVbnX8rfL

Nima and I discuss Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow and how his interlocutors must have reacted if he told them Russia is “losing” in Ukraine and its economy is crumbling. I look back a few years citing examples of Deep State hard at work — including on Fauci. 

Alexander Mercouris touts VIPS Memorandum to Trump https://consortiumnews.com/2026/08/28/vips-memo-dangerous-talk-of-putins-loss-in-ukraine/ as antidote for the drivel Trump is being fed about “Putin’s Loss” in Ukraine. Mercouris’s 4-min segment on VIPS starts at min 54:20.

In VIPS Memorandum for the President today, we list how many times the NYTimes (et al.) have announced Putin’s “loss” in Ukraine – most recently re CIA chief’s Moscow visit. We urge Trump to “kick the tires” this time around.

https://consortiumnews.com/2026/08/28/vips-memo-dangerous-talk-of-putins-loss-in-ukraine/

At the White House on Aug. 18, 2025, before the U.S. president met with with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and European and NATO leaders in the Oval Office. (White House/Daniel Torok)

Many thanks to Consortium News for this broadcast, LIVE at 10 PM EDT

A year after Anchorage, top Putin adviser Fyodor Lukyanov writes succinctly re lessons learned: https://rt.com/news/644511-what-russia-learned-anchorage/“Russia must end the present war, AND PREVENT THE NEXT ONE, without waiting for magical solutions or grand bargains imposed from abroad.”

After talking Israel-Turkey, we weighed whether the US military would obey order to nuke Iran. Adieu to Spirit of Anchorage – also to the (by-statute independent) Stars and Stripes. Labeling Ukraine corrupt is like calling the wreckage of the Titanic damp.

If you are already aware of my take on the wars in Iran and Ukraine, plus my wonderment at the spoiler role the Deep State continues to play, then go to minute 50:43 where I put Nima on the spot and he delivers cogently and correctly re Iran’s perspective.

I am longtime friend of Ann Wright, one of 3 Foreign Service Officers who quit at start of the US/UK war on Iraq in 2003. Good to engage with her and Joe Lauria on today’s issues, incl. the role of Intelligence in covering up Fauci’s heinous role on COVID-19.

A young historian (Glenn Diesen) and an old current-intelligence journalist (I) discuss the measured strength that Putin projects as he watches the US decline. His understandable angst re an unpredictable Trump-with-nukes counsels caution, not humiliation.