- 5/28/2025
As NATO deepens its involvement in the Ukraine conflict, former U.S. diplomat Jim Jatras joins Rachel Blevins to ask the pressing question: Will Russia finally take the gloves off in its response to Kiev? With rising Western support for Ukraine and growing military pressure, Jatras offers a sobering analysis of what could come next—and the global consequences of continued escalation. 🌍⚔️
#JimJatras #RachelBlevins #RussiaUkraine #NATO #Geopolitics #UkraineWar #RussiaResponse #MilitaryEscalation #Kiev #USForeignPolicy #DiplomaticAnalysis #WarUpdate #GlobalConflict #NATOWar #UkraineCrisis #ColdWar2 #WesternInvolvement #EasternFront #RussiaStrategy #WorldNews #TakeTheGlovesOff
#JimJatras #RachelBlevins #RussiaUkraine #NATO #Geopolitics #UkraineWar #RussiaResponse #MilitaryEscalation #Kiev #USForeignPolicy #DiplomaticAnalysis #WarUpdate #GlobalConflict #NATOWar #UkraineCrisis #ColdWar2 #WesternInvolvement #EasternFront #RussiaStrategy #WorldNews #TakeTheGlovesOff
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NewsTranscript
00:00It is May 27th, 2025, and Russia has continued to launch its largest drone and missile attacks
00:08yet in Ukraine, as the Russian Defense Ministry is also reporting that Russian air defenses
00:14have shot down hundreds of Ukrainian long-range drones targeting Russian territory. We are
00:21watching this war escalate. And yes, that's despite the Trump administration's attempts,
00:27as they say, to further peace talks. Well, at the same time, the U.S. is continuing to send
00:34weapons. And according to Germany's new chancellor, everyone, be it the U.S., Germany, the U.K., and
00:42France, they have all decided to drop their restrictions on the use of long-range weapons
00:49targeting Russian territory. Now, we know this is, of course, those Western countries. They are
00:54directly involved and required to be involved in order for those strikes to take place. It's not
01:00as if they're just sending the weapons off to Kiev. But all of this is happening at a time when the
01:05Russian Defense Ministry has also confirmed that the helicopter that President Putin was flying in
01:12was targeted in an attempted drone attack that was then thwarted by Russian air defense. But what if
01:19they hadn't been able to stop that attack? What if those drones had targeted and had blown up the
01:24helicopter that Putin was in? Well, we would be having a very different conversation in a very different
01:31world today. But even though we're kind of seeing Russia downplay this news a bit, it does raise the
01:37question, was Kiev directly trying to target Putin in his helicopter? And just how involved was the West,
01:44especially the US, given the prevalence of their military intelligence sharing, and how much we know that
01:52the Ukrainian military relies on it. We got into all of the latest with a special guest earlier. So let's take a
01:59listen to that conversation now. Joining me now to discuss is Jim Jatris, a geopolitical analyst and former US
02:07diplomat. Jim, thanks so much for taking the time to join me.
02:11Jim Jatris, howdy, Rachel. Great to be here. It's always good to have you. Now, I want to get your
02:16take on the latest here as we have Germany's brand new chancellor Friedrich Merz, who revealed on Monday
02:24that there are no longer restrictions on Kiev's use of Western provided weapons to strike Russian
02:31territory, saying, quote, there are no more range limitations for weapons delivered to Ukraine,
02:38neither from the Brits, nor the French, nor from us, not from the Americans either. Now, Merz did stop
02:46short of saying whether Germany had given in and provided its tourist cruise missiles, which have a
02:51range of over 500 kilometers to Kiev. But how do you view his comments? Obviously, with a little bit of
02:59alarm. I mean, it seems like last time there was talk, and remember when we had attack comes and
03:04storm shadow, and I forget what the French version of that is, the storm shadow, going into pre-2014
03:12Russian territory, and the Russians indicated that these countries could be directly held accountable
03:18for that. They backed off of it, and it appears that they took those Russian warnings seriously. Now,
03:25Merz seems to be saying that's been reversed. He said the Americans have also gone along with this
03:30decision. I've not seen that affirmed by anybody in Washington, nor have I seen it disputed. You'd
03:36think if he was wrong about that, somebody in the administration would be coming out and saying,
03:40hold on there. No, we didn't buy onto this. I haven't heard that. And maybe there's some talk
03:47going on inside the apparatus of the government trying to figure out what our position should be.
03:53But if it's true, and it appears to be true, this is extremely alarming. We'll have to see if they
03:59actually follow through with this. Yeah, I would think that the Trump administration would want to
04:03come out and say, no, we didn't do that, if that is the case. But yeah, instead of just letting this
04:08new chancellor of Germany make this revelation to the world. Now, the timing of it does come as we've
04:16seen Russia and Ukraine escalate their attacks on each other, with Kiev launching over 100 drones in
04:22attempted attacks on Russia over the weekend, and Moscow launching its largest ever drone and missile
04:29attacks on Saturday night, and then again on Sunday night. And commenting on the latest strikes,
04:35Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, quote, we see the Ukrainian strike, our social infrastructure
04:43facilities, civilian infrastructure. This is a retaliatory strike, and the strike is aimed at military
04:50facilities on military targets. So what do you make of the latest escalations here?
04:56Well, there are a few things there. One is, you notice when Trump got very upset in his statement
05:02about the Russian strikes, which as you say, were retaliatory strikes, he didn't seem to be aware of the
05:08barrage of Ukrainian strikes on Moscow, airports in Moscow, and so forth. And let's remember too,
05:13there's some speculation that some of these swarms of drones were directed in Korsk at the time that
05:22President Putin was there, and maybe even were trying to target his helicopter. This, you know,
05:27could have included an assassination attempt. Again, I don't think that's confirmed, but there's
05:31some speculation along those lines. I mean, the recklessness of those strikes is beyond belief.
05:38And of course, then Trump is reacting very, very violently that you're killing lots of people,
05:42and by all accounts, I've seen the, at least the civilian impact of these strikes in Kiev and
05:49Odessa and other places has been fairly minimal, which would substantiate the Russian claims that
05:53they're targeting legitimate military targets. But again, you know, this is very serious. I guess
06:00the real question is, what does this indicate in terms of Russian intentions in a broader sense about,
06:06you know, a possible offensive that everybody's talking about now, and what they are reading from
06:12the bigger picture about any prospect of a negotiated settlement to this thing, which at this point,
06:19I think is slim to none. And to tell the truth, Rachel, as we've discussed before, I don't think
06:23there was ever much of a chance of. Yeah. And it reminds me, you know, as we, and I know we've been
06:28kind of having this conversation as we've been watching these talks unfold. And even though, yes,
06:35we saw Moscow and Kiev get together with their delegations in Istanbul a couple of weeks ago,
06:41yeah, they were able to agree to the largest ever prisoner swap of, you know, 1,000 prisoners of war
06:47and civilian detainees, which did take place this last weekend. But that seems to be the only thing
06:53that they're really able to agree to, right? When it comes to the terms for a ceasefire or neutrality
06:59for Ukraine or recognition of these additional regions, these are things Russia has made its
07:05demands clear. And Kiev has also made it clear that they're not going to agree to those demands,
07:10at least if they have any kind of say about it. So where does that leave us in terms of the
07:16possibility of a deal, even as we see these talks continue? Well, as you know, as I said,
07:21basically, since even before the Trump administration took over, that the game plan would be to try to
07:30trick the Russians into a ceasefire that, you know, it's Charlie Brown and the football and Lucy all
07:36over again, and hoping the Russians would fall for it. And I think it's becoming increasingly clear,
07:42even to, you know, people who don't want to see it, that the Russians want a comprehensive settlement,
07:49the West wants a ceasefire, and those two things just don't line up. And they're just having two
07:55very different discussions. And I think that explains a lot of what the frustration with
07:59President Trump personally, aside from the fact that he seems to be very ill-informed
08:03by the intelligence he's getting. And it makes you wonder, what is Tulsi Gabbard doing? Has she
08:08been sidelined? Or has she been compromised in some way? Because he doesn't seem to be getting the
08:13straight dope on what the situation is, that, you know, he's done all the zigging and zagging and bobbing and
08:19weaving like a cobra he can do to try to be the big peacemaker, the guy who's going to bring all
08:23the people together and get a deal. I think it's becoming clear to him that just isn't going to
08:29happen. And now that he's dug himself in and made himself the star of the Ukraine show between Putin
08:39and Zelensky, I think he's feeling the frustration and he's getting angry. And, you know, that's not going
08:47to bring us any place good or help create a settlement where one is really not possible.
08:53Yeah, Trump loves to play the role of third party observer, right? We're just here to help Russia and
08:58Ukraine get along and resolve this dispute. Meanwhile, the U.S. is still sending weapons.
09:03Yeah, and that he can be the big man, too, that his ego, his personal presence is a thing that's going
09:10to fix everything. And I don't think he wants to admit that that's not the case.
09:13Yeah, exactly. And now when it comes back to what you were saying earlier about how far Russia is
09:20willing to go in all of this, right, we've seen them engage in talks both with the U.S. and directly
09:25with Kiev. But when it comes to that question of, OK, how far are they going to go into this? Yes,
09:31we are seeing these new attacks launch. We're really seeing a ramp up on the offensive end on
09:38Russia's side. And then we did see, I don't know if you saw it, but RT editor-in-chief Margarita
09:44Simonian took to X after the last talks between Moscow and Kiev. And she said that, oh, there was
09:52some back and forth where, you know, Kiev's delegation did not want to recognize these four
09:57additional regions as part of Russia. And that the reporter who was there said that Moscow's delegation
10:03said, OK, that's fine. Next time it will be eight. Now, it's obviously going to take time and a lot of
10:12fighting in order to get to that possible point. But do you think that Russia is in a position where
10:18they're actually looking at going that far at possibly overthrowing the Kiev regime and doing away
10:25with Ukraine as we know it at some point? You know, I'm going to catch some flack for saying this
10:31on all sides of the discussion. But I think they would look at that only as a last resort. And
10:37this is where I think Moscow is still trapped by its own illusions, that if they keep up the
10:43pedagogical pressure, so to speak, on Ukraine, inflict more pain on Ukraine, that Ukraine and
10:48their Western sponsors will finally, finally, finally come to the table with a reasonable agreement,
10:54maybe four oblasts now, maybe in the future, it'll have to be eight oblasts. But the last thing they
11:00want to do is actually impose a military settlement that overthrows the Kiev regime, and probably erases
11:08the Ukrainian state as we've known it since 1991, either entirely or maybe creating some kind of a
11:15puppet state or rump state, which is under Russian control. I don't think they want to do that.
11:20Unfortunately, in my opinion, that would be the safest and least bloodthirsty way of bringing this
11:25to an end. Because if what we're doing now is simply killing more Ukrainians, which is what they're
11:31doing. I mean, think about this, Rachel, they're killing like 1000 Ukrainian soldiers a day, right?
11:36Ukraine is a country of 20 million people now, if that under Kiev's control, that's one tenth of what we
11:42were losing in what our population in Vietnam was in 1970. Suppose we had been losing pro rata 10,000
11:51men a day in Vietnam, 70,000 a week, which is more than we lost in the entire war. That's the kind of
11:57carnage that's going on here now in Ukraine. But it seems the Russians are basically killing off
12:03the muscle of the Ukrainian regime. They're not targeting the brains of the arteries, they have not
12:09hit the bridges on the Dnieper. They're not, you know, looks like the Ukrainians just tried to kill
12:13Putin. Do you see them taking out the presidential administration in Kiev or the SBU or the Rada or
12:19the rest of this regime that will never come to the table and make the kind of deal that Russians want?
12:25So I think they're still proceeding with this idea that eventually, eventually, eventually, if we keep
12:30killing enough people, they'll come to the table and make a deal. And I don't think they want to admit
12:35themselves that that isn't going to happen. And they just have to do what is necessary to put an end to
12:42this war, which, as I say, would probably involve a lot less bloodshed. I think they're afraid that it will
12:47offend some of their friends like India and Brazil and China, above all, I think there may be unduly
12:55concerned about what kind of panic attack or panic reaction they'll get from NATO, which would cause a larger war,
13:02which, look, I don't discount that that's a possibility, given the kind of lunatics that we
13:06find in Western capitals. But I think they're not really weighing the, let's say, the complementary
13:12dangers of how to proceed. So there's a lot of uncertainty now. It's going to get worse and worse
13:17now as the illusion of a deal is dispelled. Yeah, yeah. And I want to highlight a point that you just
13:24made there because it kind of emphasized to me what I've been seeing in the way that Russia has handled
13:30things. And that's that, you know, at the end of last week, we get this statement from the Russian
13:34defense ministry. And yeah, they mentioned that, oh, yeah, the helicopter that Putin was flying in as
13:40he was leaving the Kursk region, that that was targeted by Ukrainian drones. But oh, oh, Russian
13:47air defense was able to take care of it. And it's like they wanted that to be the end of the conversation.
13:52But if we're looking at a possible scenario where and whether Kiev knew it or not, right,
13:59whether they thought that they were just targeting this helicopter, whether they knew that Putin was
14:03in it and they were trying to go after him, that's something that needs to be amplified a lot more and
14:10would require a very harsh response. I would think when it comes to how hesitant Russia has been to kind
14:19of go all in beyond just where they are right now, is that kind of based on this premise that
14:28there is still a little bit of sanity in the West? Or is that also based on almost kind of the fear of
14:34what the U.S., what the Trump administration and all of his NATO buddies could try to do if they could
14:39still escalate towards World War III? I think it's both of those, actually. And I think you really put a
14:45finger on something important here is that if that was what really happened in Kursk, obviously,
14:51the Ukrainians could not have identified that themselves. In other words, if it was an assassination
14:57attempt, they could have done so only with intelligence fed to them by Western governments,
15:02almost certainly the U.S. government, because we have the greatest capabilities in that area.
15:06Think of the think of the magnitude of what, you know, possibly transpired then. I'm not saying it did.
15:12Now, a lot of people will say, you know, the Russians tend to come back with its very kind
15:16of chill response, you know, like tut tut, you know, business as usual. They don't make a big
15:20thing of these things. And I understand what people say. Oh, the Russians do not respond
15:25in anger. You know, they're not going to lose their temper and come back. You know,
15:28I understand that you shouldn't be angry about it, but you should understand the gravity of what we're
15:34talking about here. And that the longer this incremental pedagogical approach continues,
15:41the greater the danger of some horrible escalation coming from the lunatics on the other side
15:48is, you know, again, I don't think, I think they know they're dealing with lunatics. I don't think
15:54they really understand just how ruthless these people are when it comes to, you know, something like that,
16:01or some kind of a false flag or whatever thing they may do to try to retrieve a situation. And
16:08remember, too, I don't think even these Western governments think that Kyiv can win this war
16:12anymore. But they can try to engineer something where they get kind of a cold peace or, you know,
16:20cold war or hot peace, some kind of a static line of a war that's not really over, you know, kind of thing
16:26that existed in the Donbass between 2015 and 2022, but on a larger scale, you know, that is still not
16:34an unrealistic goal for the West if they play their cards right. And the Russians still try to pursue
16:41this, you know, nuanced and, you know, finessed approach toward the West when they're really dealing
16:48with a bunch of wild animals. And again, I'm not, you know, I'm not, again, I don't want to put
16:55President Trump under that heading, because I think on some level, his impulses are good.
17:02But I don't think he really knows what kind of apparatus of government he's dealing with or really
17:06has full control over it. Yeah, I think we're seeing that play out now as we look at Trump.
17:11And there are definitely times where exactly as you were saying, you're like, okay, are you getting the
17:15full picture, right? Are you being fed all of the information? Or is it kind of a tailored version
17:20of just, oh, Russia's bombing Ukraine, Putin has lost his mind, and not all of the Ukrainian drones
17:27that are possibly targeting Putin's helicopter and also all across Russia. And, you know, when it comes to
17:36the position that the US is in, I think one of the things that the US has always been very proud of is,
17:42of course, its military industrial complex, right? This idea that we don't have to put boots on the
17:47ground in Ukraine, we can just send them the latest and greatest from the US and they can quote unquote,
17:52defend themselves against a massive country like Russia, while the US is continuing this proxy war.
17:59But as we're seeing right now, we did hear from the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force. And in a
18:05recent interview, he admitted that Kyiv is struggling to keep up with Russian missile technology,
18:13saying that Russia's Iskander missiles perform evasive maneuvers in the final phase, thwarting
18:20the US-designed Patriot air defense trajectory calculations, and that the Iskander can drop decoys
18:27capable of fooling Patriot missiles. So, Zelensky has spent years begging for more Patriots,
18:33but what are the concerns when the US is in a position where it's not even being able to keep
18:39up with the technology? And now it's almost kind of taught Russia how to be even more of an opponent
18:46through the last, you know, more than three years of war. That's right. And of course,
18:51Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted something similar when he was pressed on why basically we're
18:57not giving more of this stuff to Ukraine. He basically said, we don't have it, we don't have it to give.
19:03Even such allies as have it, they're not going to want to give up their systems. And so I think
19:08they're really reaching a dead end on this, especially since the Russians can use up such
19:18missiles as the Ukrainians have by sending drones in, which are relatively cheap. And of course,
19:25things like the Oreshnik, the Patriot and other systems are no defense against at all, which then,
19:30again, raises the question, are the Russians going to step up their targeting of the nerve center,
19:36the command and control of the Kyiv regime, rather than relying solely on attrition at the battlefront?
19:42Yeah, that's got to be another major question that I think Russia needs to answer. And I get it if,
19:48you know, they're looking at the Trump administration coming in and they seem to want to be doing things
19:54by the book, right? They seem to want to be like, okay, we want to go through every possible avenue
19:59before we really escalate things. But as we're seeing now, we've got reports that the State
20:06Department has a series of new sanctions they're ready to impose against Russia. They've just been
20:11waiting for Trump's signature. And now we're starting to get these reports trickling in saying that, okay,
20:18Trump may actually sign it. So what are those concerns that Trump is just going to continue on
20:26with essentially the Biden administration's policy, which is we keep hitting Russia with new sanctions,
20:31we keep sending more weapons to Ukraine, and we keep escalating towards World War III?
20:37I think they're very significant. I mean, the one thing that would have been
20:41a potential accomplishment under the Trump administration, and it's not fully dead yet,
20:47is at least they could return to some kind of a, you know, gentlemanly correct diplomatic
20:55status between the two countries, restaff the embassies, reopen the consulates, reinstate direct
21:01flights between the countries, you know, have some hockey games, whatever they want to do to show,
21:06you know, basically back to the detente between Nixon and Brezhnev of the 1970s. At least that
21:12would be something that we're at least on correct diplomatic terms with Russia. But I think by going
21:17down that road, if they do go down this road, they will be scuttling even that possibility,
21:23and that we are looking at something, yes, really, really back to the future, back to the Biden
21:30administration's policy. And I think that's what they're looking at. And keep in mind too,
21:34we've got building pressure on Capitol Hill with Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham and all those guys,
21:39and their sanctions from hell bill. I saw something recently, I can't confirm this,
21:43because I just heard it, maybe I misheard it, that they have like 80 sponsors now in the Senate for
21:48that. You know, if they get close to a veto-proof majority in the House as well, and they pass that
21:54bill, Trump's hands are going to be tied. And there will be no prospect for any kind of improvement
22:01relations with Moscow, even if he wants to do that, aside from whether they can come
22:06with any understanding on Ukraine. And so that all bodes very, very ominously, I think.
22:11Yeah, it really does. And I know that, you know, for the last few months, we've kind of
22:16watched as there has been this attempt at saying, you know, Trump is done with Europe, right? He's
22:23done with working with all of his European allies in NATO, he's pulling back, he's going to let them
22:28handle the war in Ukraine. But looking at the latest updates, I'm questioning if that's
22:33even the case, right? It seems much more like, and going back to the comments from the German
22:38Chancellor that we started out with, if you do have the US and France and Germany and the UK
22:44all in lockstep when it comes to removing restrictions on the use of long-range weapons,
22:51which is basically done by them, not necessarily by Kiev, although they try to make it sound like it's all
22:56Kiev. I mean, that sets us up for an even greater chance at World War Three. And as you were noting
23:03there, I mean, Russia's held back, right? They have not used the Oreshnik again after that test fire of
23:11it. They've been very careful and they've tried to say exactly as we saw at the end of 2021 in the
23:17beginning of 2022. They've been like, hey, let's talk. Let's have a conversation. Let's make an
23:22agreement. They do not want to escalate this war. But could we see in the near future,
23:30being essentially under the Trump administration, Russia getting to the point where it almost is
23:35forced to escalate because of everything that the West continues to do?
23:40Sure. After that disastrous Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, there was a question whether Trump,
23:47since he saw himself as the mediator between him and Putin, was going to flip against the Russians or flop
23:52against Zelensky, which side is he going to blame when this all goes south on him? And I think it's
23:57increasingly clear it's not going to be Zelensky. It's going to be blaming Putin and that he may find
24:03himself going down that road whether he wants to or not. And again, this is where the apparatus of
24:08government and also the apparatus of NATO starts to kick in with a logic of its own. I saw a report in
24:14the Wall Street Journal that we're beefing up our presence in the Arctic in case there's a war with
24:19Russia up there. I mean, this is not going to be just confined to Ukraine if we go down this road.
24:25And again, I understand that the Russians are very nervous about that. They don't want to see an
24:31expansion of this conflict. But I don't think they've quite understood that the danger of that
24:38escalation, at least in my opinion, is even greater if they continue this incremental approach rather
24:45than if they were to end because that that is read by the West as weakness. And that is provocative
24:50weakness from the point of view of these Western regimes. Whereas if they were to end the thing
24:55decisively with extreme prejudice, I think that would scare them, the Westerners more than if they
25:03keep dragging this out and project weakness. In words, if the Russians finished this with a show of
25:08strength and decisiveness, I think that would cause them to back off. I recognize there's a risk there on
25:13both sides. The question, what's the balance of risks? Yeah. And what is the Trump administration
25:19or really the US establishment going to do on any given day? Certainly a lot at stake here all around.
25:25And I always appreciate you taking the time to join me to break down all of the latest here.
25:31Jim Jatris, a geopolitical analyst and former US diplomat. Thank you so much for your time and insight.
25:38Thank you, Rachel. I appreciate everything you do. If anything in this video resonated with you,
25:44be sure to like it, share it with your friends, leave a comment. And as always, don't forget to
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