Will Putin resort to nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Europe thinks so.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today is Mario Konomo, and he’s a former banker in New York, London, Zurich, a large money center banks and he’s a quasi car correspondent in Europe. To let us know what the heck is going on at WABC, Mario, there’s a lot of things happening in the world. Give us an update of what’s going on in Europe and

0:24 how do you see things.

0:26 Speaker 2 Yeah, it’s good morning, mister Katsimatidi. So we’re gonna touch on the Ukraine and Russia of course today, and we’re also going to discuss President g of China’s recent visit to Europe and some interesting thing developments that happened there.

0:40 Let’s start off with the fact that this past week, of course, President Putin in Russia once again inaugurated and sworn in as president. There were several countries from the West that did attend, not many. The countries that did attend were France, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, Slovakia and Malta. And it’s interesting that France did attend and did have a

1:03 representative president considering the very belligerent rhetoric that we’ve seen coming out of President Macron. In France. With respect to Russia, the UK has actually expelled a Russian defense at Tache who had been in the UK for many years, and they’ve expelled them on the grounds of spine. The Germans are pretty much one step away from essentially closing down

1:27 their embassy and their diplomatic relations with the Russians. We’ve seen that in the Ukraine rather interesting development has happened there. It coincided between the foreign Minister Cleba and their military. The head of their military, their armed forces. The head of the armed forces basically said that they’ve essentially had to withdraw on three fronts because they’re unable to hold

1:55 back the Russians. The Russians are essentially overpowering them fallen back, And this was actually said in roughly the same time as Ukraine’s Foreign minister who said that Russia is essentially over producing the West and that there’s no way the West will be able to catch up with them with respect to the weapons productions. So it’s interesting that a

2:20 lot of people in the Ukraine are slowly beginning to come to the realization that many people have known for a long time now, but refuse to admit that the war is essentially over, and it’s time to sit down and speak to the Russians before this thing escalates into something in somewhere that none of us want to see.

2:36 It go.

2:38 Speaker 1 Understood. And Ukraine, I mean, there’s thousands of people dying in Ukraine, There’s Russians dying. How far away are we from the end? I mean, then, is the United States supplying to Ukraine enough weapons or they’re doing what they’re doing to Israel holding back?

3:01 Speaker 2 Well, I think the United States is supplying everything that it can supply. You have to understand that a lot of the weapons systems that the West is sending to the Ukraine are not an integrated weapons system. There are multiple systems which require multiple skill sets. The Russians have a distinct advantage. They have one weapons system which they

3:22 can use comprehensively against the multiple Ukrainian systems that are being provided to the Ukraine. But I think the real problem is in there. I think the real problem is the fact that the West just doesn’t want to admit that Russia. Russia has essentially conquered twenty five percent roughly of Ukrainian territory that it will never give it back.

3:41 And I think it’s important that the West sits down and realizes that when President Putin has told us that he does not really see a need for a world without a Russia in it, that he’s being very serious.

3:53 And I think everybody in the West needs to take him to his word for that, asking me, how long can this go on? It can go on as long as people are prepared to let Ukrainian soldiers die. We know for a fact that the Russians are not going to walk away. In fact, earlier this week we had

4:11 the Victory Day celebration in Moscow where President Putin said that the Russians will see this war through to the end. So he’s prepared, and I believe the Russians are too, who support him, that they are not going to let the casualty count deter them from continuing the war to its completion, which in my opinion, is already there. It’s completed.

4:36 The Ukrainians have essentially sustained what I consider to be losses that they can never come back from.

4:44 Speaker 1 How is the economy in France in Germany? Are are they doing okay? Are they recovering? Are they suffering?

4:52 Speaker 2 Yeah? So this is a very interesting point and it brings us to our next topic to end our discussion today, and that has to do with China’s President G’s and visit to Europe. He was recently in Paris where he met with France’s President Macron and the European Commissioned President Ms vonder Lyon. It was a rather unpleasant meeting in

5:11 the sense that the Europeans need to wake up and smell the coffee burning. You don’t invite people to Europe to sit down and to speak with you on a diplomatic trip and then start browbeating them and threatening them with sanctions. That’s not going to work too well. People don’t like that, and especially if the person sitting across

5:28 the table from you, as President G. You can’t threaten him with sanctions if he does not stop selling Chinese products cheaply in the European Union. And you can’t threaten him and tell him that he’s going to be sanctioned if he does not actually interfere, intervene rather and ask the Russians to stop the war. He was very gracious,

5:51 in my opinion, far gracious than most other people would have been. He sat there, he listened them to them. He said that we need to have trade and we need to have diplomatic relations. He subsequently left, and this is the interesting part. He went to Serbia and he went to Hungary, and in Serbia he had essentially a

6:09 huge welcome, not only by the government but of course by the people. Now you’re going to ask why is this investments. China is going to actually be building a rail link between Belgrade in Serbia, the capital of Serbia, and Budapest in Hungary. They’re going to invest roughly two and a half billion dollars in this effort. They also

6:30 are going to be building what’s essentially going to be the largest electric battery factory in Hungary, and they’re actually can also be setting up shop in Hungary to build an electric vehicle from one of the brands that China has, which is essentially the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in the world.

6:51 So President Ji came to Europe. He was in Western Europe threatened, and he went to essentially Eastern Europe, where he had a hero’s welcome and where he’s pledged to engage in massive investments which are going to actually keep people employed, are going to bring wealth and development, and or essentially what everybody in Europe would like to see

7:15 happen in their countries, but you can’t threaten people, especially people at that level, and then expect them to be nice and to say that they’re prepared to invest in your country as well.

7:25 Speaker 1 Mario Ukuamu, thank you for the update and catch up with you again real soon.

7:30 Speaker 2 Thank you and enjoy your day