- 6/2/2025
In this explosive interview, George Galloway unpacks the latest escalation in the Ukraine conflict . As Ukraine launches a massive drone offensive and blows key bridges 🛩️🌉, Chay Bowes joins live from the epicenter to reveal how Russia is striking back ⚔️. With tensions at a boiling point, military responses are intensifying—this could get very ugly 😬.
Don’t miss this deep dive into the chaos, geopolitics, and potential fallout of these high-stakes maneuvers 🌍🧠.
#GeorgeGalloway #UkraineWar #RussiaResponse #DroneAttack #UkraineCrisis #MilitaryConflict #RTNews #WarUpdate #BridgeAttack #ChayBowes #BreakingNews #JetStrike #Geopolitics #RussiaUkraine #NewsToday #GlobalTensions #LiveFromUkraine #WarCoverage #MilitaryNews #WorldConflict
Don’t miss this deep dive into the chaos, geopolitics, and potential fallout of these high-stakes maneuvers 🌍🧠.
#GeorgeGalloway #UkraineWar #RussiaResponse #DroneAttack #UkraineCrisis #MilitaryConflict #RTNews #WarUpdate #BridgeAttack #ChayBowes #BreakingNews #JetStrike #Geopolitics #RussiaUkraine #NewsToday #GlobalTensions #LiveFromUkraine #WarCoverage #MilitaryNews #WorldConflict
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Che Bose, a great friend of the show, was already one of my heroes. But he's especially so now
00:08because he's come on the show despite two nights without being asleep. He was called out to report
00:16on the terrorist attack on the bridge in Brianst and witnessed the terrible, awful casualties and
00:25destruction wrought by that terrorist explosion. And he's been working on that story flat out,
00:32but he's definitely across what else happened today, which, if anything, is even more serious.
00:41And he's agreed to be with us tonight. Che Bose, a very warm welcome and a big thanks for
00:49exceptionally making this time for us. I'll try not to keep you for long. First of all,
00:56tell us about what happened at the bridge and how many bridges were blown up by terrorist action
01:03over the last 24 hours. Well, George, thanks again. Thanks for having me on. Your show is an
01:11exceptionally important platform for people who want to share, you know, the other side's view. It's a
01:17remarkably important thing and it deserves all support that anyone can give us. And yeah, so I'm in
01:25Bryansk. I came here, you know, as soon as I heard the news, I was dispatched here. And I was the first
01:34reporter on the scene, if you like, of the actual catastrophe. It was the only thing you can call
01:41it. There were two bridges that came down last night, about 24 hours ago, a little more. One in the
01:52Korsk region, which adjoins Bryansk, where I am, and one here in Bryansk. Now, these areas of Russia,
02:01south of Moscow are very close to Ukraine, of course, and they're very liable to infiltration
02:07from Ukrainian DRGs or, you know, disruption groups, saboteur groups from the Ukrainian military.
02:16And not so long ago, about four kilometers from the bridge, one of these groups was engaged with by
02:21the Russian security forces and firefights opened up about three, four days before this bridge came down.
02:29Many people are suggesting that these may have been the people responsible. The scene
02:35I came across was shocking. I mean, in this job, I've seen a lot of things. I've seen a lot of
02:41conflict. I've seen a lot of human trauma. But this was on a scale of a war zone. The brain had
02:49been essentially upended. The engine, as you mentioned earlier, carrying the crew had been
02:57completely crushed, maybe within half a meter. You know, it was impossible to survive that.
03:04I posted a video of what I saw online on my x channel. People are free to have a look. Very
03:13shocking. A huge response from the Russian emergencies ministry. About 180 people went there
03:21to assist. Very luckily, there was a very small roadway running alongside the track at that point.
03:28You can see that in the video. Very difficult terrain. The start of the summer here in Russia,
03:33people making their way to Moscow. Absolutely no military use for this rail line. You know,
03:40these are just ordinary people. Children, babies. One eight-month-old baby, critically ill now in Moscow,
03:45flown to Moscow with critical injuries. You could be heard screaming inside one of the carriages as
03:51it was trapped there. The horror of this is remarkable. Anybody from London 7-7, these assaults that have
03:58happened on ordinary civilians should be acutely aware of what is being done, potentially in their name,
04:04and who's funding it and who's the architect of it. It's a very traumatic day for us to witness that,
04:13feel a little bit helpless to see it. But it's also quite, it makes you feel quite angry. It makes
04:20you feel quite angry about the narrative within the Western media, BBC, CNN, the client media,
04:26as I like to call them, and as you are more than familiar with. This is two bridges collapsed,
04:33despite the fact that the SBU admitted in the last 20 hours blowing up a bridge in Melintipol,
04:41in Donbass, in that region. And this stuff has happened before. We know how they're operating.
04:49This was quite an isolated stretch of railway to suggest that this bridge fell, a modern,
04:55very modern-looking bridge, just collapsed on a train at the exact moment that train was
05:00going underneath it. Or, in the other case in Kursk, that this freight train that was
05:07blown up, essentially, just happened. And they both happened to happen within hours of each other.
05:13It's fanciful, to use the term that Oscar Wilde was fond of. And of course, it comes in the context,
05:20I should say, of a lot of other things happening here in Russia, in relation to what happens next in Ukraine.
05:26Well, let's turn to that, not in any way to diminish the horror of what you witnessed and reported on
05:34peerlessly. The attack and the apparent destruction of four Russian Air Force nuclear bombers,
05:46I don't know if they were actually totally destroyed, but if I was an insurance broker,
05:52I'd definitely be expecting a write-off on four essential parts of Russia's nuclear defense force.
06:03Now, no nuclear-armed country can tolerate an attack on its nuclear force, because that potentially
06:12changes the nuclear parity with adversaries and leaves the country open to complete destruction.
06:20So it's a very, very serious matter to attack aircraft that are nuclear-capable and could
06:28even have been nuclear-armed, but weren't, thank God. This is being hailed by the propagandists
06:39of the Ukraine as a turning point. I'm sure that it is, but probably not in the way
06:47they hope it is. What's your take on that, Jay? Well, I don't think anything happens by accident when
06:54it comes to what's happened in Ukraine, particularly actions within Russia. So this strike or this
07:00attempted strike on, I think, four Russian strategic bomber bases, only one, maybe two, had any kind of
07:08impact. We think objective observers say that the maximum of six aircraft have been impacted,
07:15probably four, damaged, maybe destroyed, we don't know.
07:21Several of the other attacks were thwarted, the drones were shot down or disabled by electronic warfare.
07:25This doesn't happen by accident. This is being portrayed by Ukraine as, you know, we told you
07:33so. We told you to have a ceasefire. We demanded it of you that you would commit to a ceasefire unconditionally,
07:41despite the fact that you're winning, advancing at the most rapid pace in Donbass in several years of war,
07:49essentially, that Russia would be in some ludicrous reality, obliged to agree to a ceasefire with a
07:57country openly sponsoring the assassination of senior military figures, journalists,
08:03threatening other journalists, myself included, with debt on a daily basis. So this idea, this fanciful
08:11notion that Russia is obliged to engage with Mr. Zelensky's regime is remarkable, quite remarkable.
08:19A man going into probably the seventh year of his term as a president of five-year presidency, quite
08:24remarkable. But it doesn't happen by accident. I think that's what's important for the viewers,
08:29that this operation was highly technical. It was a long time in the planning. And it struck at a very,
08:37very, as you say, pertinent part of Russia's triad, nuclear triad, which is quite remarkable. Can you imagine
08:44a Mexican drugs gang doing exactly the same thing to American strategic bombers? Because the other
08:53reality of this is these actions and these tactics can be deployed by anybody with access to drones,
08:58the internet, a lorry, and some explosives. Remember, this is not that complicated. It was audacious and
09:05it was successful to a degree in PR. But that's about it. Because remember, Russia has well over 70
09:12strategic nuclear bombers. Four have probably been damaged, maybe lost. Even if they were,
09:16they can be recreated. And they will be done. Same with the fleet in the Black Sea. Ukraine,
09:21remember, was briefly winning the war in Ukraine because it had sank several Russian ships in the
09:26Black Sea. We're not hearing about that anymore. Ukraine was also winning the war when it invaded
09:31Kursk in a catastrophic suicide mission, which caught the lives of probably 100,000 men and incalculable
09:39material and war treasure. They were also winning then, remember, all forgotten. They were winning
09:45in 2023 when they embarked on this cataclysmic counteroffensive, which was going to drive the
09:51Russians out of Crimea. So you have to take this stuff with a pinch of salt. It might be something
09:57of a PR victory. And as you say, with the completely delusional think tank fantasists online talking about
10:05about the entire nuclear arsenal, Russia is now a cripple. It's almost laughable. I think
10:12what this is about and the fingerprints, the DNA of another foreign power are certainly all over this.
10:20We know that the British government is intimately related to the SBU, who have claimed responsibility
10:26for this. Mr. Budanov, the head of one element of that, awarded a medal by the Polish government this
10:34week, quite remarkably. And at the same time, Mr. Duda was telling us that the OUN-UPA, who are
10:40idolized in Ukraine, are Nazis and war criminals. So there's a remarkable psychosis at the moment
10:48around Ukraine. We know that Mr. Mertz doesn't really want to arm Ukraine with long-range weapons.
10:55So he comes up with this almost Arthurian myth that he's going to fund the development of a long-range
11:04Ukrainian weapon, excuse me, with which to strike Moscow. This is again obfuscation of a responsibility,
11:12when very quickly Russia said that if you did that, we would be obliged to strike the origin,
11:17the places of origin of those weapons. It's a very cynical move. And again, we're back again where we
11:25always seem to be, George, with the reality that in the West, the only energy of forward motion seems
11:33to be escalation. There's no real engagement, remember, from Europe or the British with the
11:37Russians. They're not really involved. They talk to each other, but they don't talk to the Russians.
11:42And this belief that they can force Russia's hand into some sort of radical, you know,
11:49escalatory move by doing this kind of thing, hoping Russia might do something out of character,
11:55the Russians will not do that. There'll be no nuclear strike from Russia. There'll be no strike
11:59on London or anywhere else at this stage, because the Russians understand the game that they're being
12:05forced into playing. And I don't think Mr. Putin is going to sing his lines according to
12:11what's written from in Whitehall or Washington. It's very clear that Russia is winning on the
12:16battlefield in Donbass day by day. There's less and less of Ukraine to argue about at the talks.
12:23The talks tomorrow will be very, very interesting, of course. And we wait to see what, if anything,
12:29comes from them. Hard to see when you would expect some sort of military response from Russia. But I think
12:35that response again will be measured to the frustration of many in Russia and to the frustration
12:41of many watching. But again, if you step back and have a look at this, why would Mr. Putin play
12:47a role written from in Whitehall or in Washington? I don't think it's going to happen, George.
12:52Is it being reported in Russia now that response is underway? Because on social media, it's full of
13:03Excalibur missiles raining down on Kyiv. There's air rage sirens going off throughout the country. Do you
13:12expect a larger than usual response to this particularly egregious act?
13:19Well, George, you know the Russians somewhat. I know them a little better after living and
13:25working among them. But as Mr. Churchill said, enigma wrapped in an enigma. I always get this
13:31analogy wrong, but they're not prone to drama. They're not prone to theater. And as I say, they will
13:41step back and look at this. They will find who was responsible. They will draw a response and it will
13:48be Mr. Putin himself and his security council, I'm sure, not that I'd be privy to that, will make
13:53that decision. And it is the difference between chaos and stability that the world has to thank
14:01Mr. Putin for, in my view, an exceptionally calm leader who is remarkably constrained and restrained.
14:09And the enemies of Russia know that there's a growing resolve in Russia to fight this war to
14:16its natural conclusion on the battlefield. So this is also an interesting strategy by them to try and
14:23put pressure on the Russian government to act in what would be very popular in Russia to strike
14:29decision-making centers maybe. There's a lot of senior political figures and media commentators
14:35speak in that way. But I still think Mr. Putin will maintain direction. And he's done this since
14:41he sat in front of us in 2022 and said they will denazify Ukraine and they will demilitarize Ukraine.
14:49That's happening day by day on the ground. Plains can be rebuilt. Tanks can be rebuilt.
14:56But territory once held by Russia is very difficult to take back. And that, I think, is the priority of
15:01the Russians right now. I think there will be a response. And I think, remember, this is also
15:07something that the Ukrainians could probably do once. It's like the famous party trick of being
15:12able to make your head blow up. You can only do it once because the Russians will now heighten
15:15everything, just like they did with Storm Shadow, attack them, everything else. The Russians learn
15:21very quickly. And in war, they become masterful at the game of war, about understanding how to counter
15:28these threats. And I think this is now one more trick the Ukrainians won't be able to pull up.
15:34Four damaged planes, even if four to ten of them were destroyed, Russia has 70 of these long-range
15:41nuclear missile carriers. They can manufacture many more. And anyway, these would not probably be used
15:48to deliver any kind of significant role in a nuclear conflict with the West, as that would be
15:54from a Sarmat missile deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, completely unknown to anybody except
16:01probably Mr. Putin in a select few. So the relevance of this, it's a PR victory in the minds of people
16:07who want to discount the failed counteroffensive, want to discount the catastrophe incurred, want to
16:12discount the fact that Ukraine is a dictatorship dragging its own people off the street. But elsewhere,
16:19it's seen as what it is, an act of desperation and an attempt to make Russia act in a very
16:23irresponsible, aggressive, knee-jerk manner. And I just don't see them doing that. As unpopular as it
16:29might be within Russia right now, after what's happened over the last 24, 48 hours, I think Mr. Putin
16:36will stick to his guns and continue on mission.
16:40And finally, and briefly, because I know you need to get to sleep, there's a fella called John Healy. I've
16:47known him for decades, you'd be forgiven for never having heard his name before. I called him earlier
16:53an inky-fingered clerk, and that's what he always seemed to me to be like. You wouldn't have put him
16:59in charge of a quartermaster's store in a small army base anywhere, believe me. I'm not exaggerating.
17:11But he was at the Russia rostrum, I think yesterday, reported today, saying that Britain was preparing
17:20for war with Russia. It's kind of like the flea on the arse of the elephant, warning the elephant,
17:30it's going to get it. How do people in Russia, I'm sure they've never heard of John Healy, but
17:37what do they think of Britain? Well, interestingly, George, as you know,
17:44having spent some time in Russia, the Russians are exceptionally fond of the ordinary British
17:48people, very fond of them, very interested in British culture, as they are in Irish culture,
17:53Irish dancing very popular here, London, a beloved city among the Russians. So there's a sense of
17:59dismay and bemusement among ordinary Russians as to why the British have suddenly declared war on Russia.
18:05I mean, they don't share a land border. I mean, I think what the Russians believe, and again,
18:10as you know, the Russians are exceptionally well-educated politically, from the taxi driver
18:14to the politician. They see Russia or the UK as an empire in decline, scrambling for relevance,
18:22particularly now that it's away from the table in the European Union, another increasingly irrelevant
18:28and desperate organisation. So it's a war of distraction. It's a war of fear, of justification,
18:37because remember, Russia has very clearly shown in Ukraine that despite an amalgam of 55 countries
18:42and the entirety of NATO and the entirety of NATO's manufacturing capacity, Russia is still advancing.
18:50The war isn't over. 16,000, 17,000 sanctions against Russia. It isn't working. They have failed in Ukraine.
18:57NATO has failed. NATO is a very fractious organisation where Greece and Turkey are both members,
19:04but who would be obliged to invade each other if one invaded the other on the island of Cyprus, remember, George.
19:08It's a ludicrous situation. And the failure in Ukraine to end Russia's determined push to denazify
19:17and demilitarise this junta in Kiev demonstrates that. So what is the way out of this to accept?
19:25You're a seasoned politician. Do you expect anybody to stand up in the British Parliament and say,
19:29look, we got it completely wrong following our American colleagues into this catastrophic
19:34proxy war on the other side of the continent? Of course they're not going to do that. They can't do it.
19:41No more than Mrs. von der Leyen can do it and expose the egregious lack of foresight and
19:49obligation to the welfare of Europeans, much as Mr. Starmer, as you very correctly say, this pernicious
19:56man who has declared not enough money for pensioners fuel. He's tried to backtrack on it now,
20:02but there's plenty of money for new weapons, six weapons factories. The Russians, remember,
20:07manufacture more artillery shells, for example, heavy artillery tanks and fighter jets probably
20:14than the entirety of NATO does, four times over, four times. Is that from Washington? It's
20:21Istanbul, imagine. The Russians manufacture four times more, maybe more. It will take decades and
20:28decades for them to even reach any kind of remote parity. That's an exceptionally important thing.
20:33This is all talk. Britain, by the way, had about 200 aging Challenger tanks at the start of the
20:40Ukraine, this phase of the conflict in Ukraine. It gave, I think, a dozen of them to Ukraine.
20:47Several were destroyed very rapidly by the Russian and they were secretly and very quietly pulled away
20:51from the front. Britain has less than a battalion of battle tanks. It has less than 100,000 men in
20:57any kind of capacity to fight a war. It has no military manufacturing capacity. Its navy is in a lot of
21:04trouble. And it's a society which is exceptionally unlikely to volunteer its young manhood and women
21:11to die in a war for a man who seems to be the most unpopular politician that's ever graced the House
21:17of Parliament in a generation. Why would Britain's young people stir themselves from the monotony of
21:25trying to survive in an increasingly fractious society to go and die in a war for Keir Starmer?
21:31If anyone can answer that question, I'd be delighted to hear the answer.