LARRY JOHNSON : Putin takes the gloves off

Russia is taking the gloves off in Ukraine, and the targets tell you more than the speeches do. We talk through what it means when a conflict expands from grinding down forces at the front to hitting the systems that keep a country running: bridges over the Dnipro, rail engines and warehouses, power distribution, and the pressure campaign that can empty a city before an assault. My guest, Larry Johnson, lays out why this shift signals acceleration, not stagnation, and why “retaliation” narratives miss the larger operational design.

From there, we zoom out to the flashpoints that could turn a regional war into a wider one. Kaliningrad is the kind of place pundits love to posture about, but it’s also the kind of place where deterrence and nuclear signaling are baked into the geography. We unpack the rhetoric coming out of NATO countries, Russia’s explicit warnings, and why misreading red lines in an exclave can create a crisis faster than anyone can walk it back.

We also tackle the uncomfortable ethical core that sits under modern warfare: proportionality, civilian risk, and the slippery slope into collective punishment. Then we pivot to the Middle East, Yemen’s shifting battlefield, and the real-world fuel behind geopolitics: a diesel shortage, export restrictions, Europe’s energy dependency, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and how all of it collides with US midterm politics and troop movement rumors.

If you want grounded, big-picture analysis on the Russia Ukraine war, Kaliningrad, energy security, and election-year foreign policy incentives, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Chapter Markers0:00 Cold Open And Florida Weather2:15 Russia Escalates Strikes On Ukraine7:40 Targeting Bridges Power And Logistics14:35 What The Endgame Could Look Like20:25 Kaliningrad Threats And Nuclear Warnings23:35 Collective Punishment And War Morality36:01 Yemen’s Battlefield And Diesel Shortage48:31 Midterms Force Decisions In The Gulf54:10 Final Thoughts And Tomorrow’s Guest

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