8/27/26: Putin Escalates War In Ukraine, CIA Secret Cartel War in Mexico, Recovered UFOs?

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2:10So as Ukrainian drone attacks continue to pummel Russia's oil industry, the CIA director traveled to Moscow to warn Putin against an attack on NATO interests in Europe while Bloomberg is reporting, put this first element up on the screen, that Putin is considering ways to escalate the war against Ukraine with a lot of people kind of around him starting to talk about the actual use of tactical nuclear weapons. And so this Bloomberg report doesn't say that anybody close to Putin is saying, anybody in Putin's inner circle is saying this. What they're saying is that kind of the hardliners who are influential in Putin's world are increasingly talking about the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

3:05Right. Which Professor Mearsheimer has been saying here for months on the show and has been warning about this. Now, the reason that a lot of other analysts think that that's not an immediate concern is something else that Bloomberg alludes to, that Russia has significant escalatory options at its disposal that it has not used yet. And that the thinking is that before you take the political hit from breaking the taboo and becoming the first country to use nuclear weapons since the United States in 1945, you would do these other things. And the other things include, you know, major ballistic missile attacks, particularly on the downtown Kiev, as well as striking, you know, infrastructure targets throughout Ukraine.

3:50Right. And other in other major cities. Putin has said Putin has said in recent days that Russia is going to attack the kind of, you know, beating heart of the Ukrainian economy. And it comes as Ukraine is effectively out of ballistic missile interceptors. Exactly. Partly as a result of this war going on for four years, partly as a result of the United States launching a war against Iran and using the ballistic missile interceptors to defend its positions in the region as well as to defend Israel. And so now when there is a ballistic missile attack, even with conventional ballistic missiles, you often are seeing, you know, dozens or scores of casualties in Kiev.

4:39And that's before, you know, they've kind of climbed up this escalatory ladder. There seems to be, in the U.S., there seems to be very little focus on what's going on. It's like, oh, that Trump said he was the war. He didn't end the war. Oh, there isn't just focus. Let's be honest. Like they support this security establishment in Washington. And frankly, most of the democratic voters, they're like, Oh, this is good. Ukraine's taking the war to Russia. Like they have Republican voters. Now that Trump has flipped, right? Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Good point. You know, I have to update my priors when it comes to the cult, but you're exactly right.

5:17And of course, everybody's, Oh, Putin shill. No, I'm a humanity shill. Like, I don't want to see, uh, I don't want to see the normalization of tactical nuclear weapons. And this is actually exactly fulfilling the exact prophecy which we saw from the destruction of weapon stockpiles in Iran. Because let's put D5 up here on the screen. This really colors in the lines of what we knew about this shady meeting, which everybody knew had taken place, but we didn't know the exact details. So the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, flew to Moscow in a surprise trip was, quote, to warn Russia not to attack NATO.

5:59Now, the reason why I think we should all take this very seriously is the last time that a CIA director flew to Russia was right before the invasion of Ukraine. Warn them not to attack Ukraine. Yeah, where the – I forget, Bill Burns, I think was his name. Bill Burns sat across from Putin. He's like, we know you're going to attack Ukraine. Please do not do that. And Trump actually tried to downplay this as, quote, a routine, a semi-routine visit. Sorry to disappoint people. We actually saw just yesterday there were pictures snapped of the CIA director, Secretary Hegseth, and the entire National Security Council who met with Trump apparently about this meeting.

6:36So you can see they see it clearly important enough to summon full National Security Council situation room meeting. And for him to fly to Moscow, there's obviously at least some intelligence which shows that this is a potential possibility. But I specifically want to read this one. A shortfall in critical munitions driven by expenditures in Iran could also factor into Putin's thinking. The U.S. has degraded its stockpile of certain weapons because of transfers to Ukraine after Russia's 2022 invasion as well as the Iran conflict. And so the neocons, ironically, who are obsessed with Ukraine and then also are even more obsessed with Iran, have now created a reality where Kiev has no interceptors left.

7:21We've got no interceptors left to give them. And Putin is now thinking, well, you guys want to give them all these drones and all this technology and all this weapons manufacturing support, and they're going to be sitting here taking out my critical oil infrastructure? Maybe I'll hit you a little bit, and I'll undermine Article 5 because you and I both know that if they're going to go and hit some town right on the border of a Baltic state, nobody in America is going to say, oh, yeah, let's go to nuclear war. Nobody, including me. I would say we shouldn't do it. Yeah. And to give a sense of role D2 here to give a sense of like why Putin is being pressured and contemplating serious escalation.

8:03This is the Kostovo oil refinery that was that just fell victim to a Ukrainian drone attack. One of the biggest refineries in in Russia and put up D3 here. Reuters reporting and others as well that it's been taken offline, that a central node of the Russian kind of fossil fuel economy shut down as a result of this. And we could put up D4. This is part of a pattern. And so this is Ukrainian media, but this is verified. is report August 14th, Ukrainian drones attacked nearly one third of the large oil refineries in Russia. In addition, one of Russia's major oil refineries, which I can't pronounce, or Schneefrogez, I don't know, Sagar, if you can handle that one, completely stopped operations following Ukrainian attacks.

9:03They're hitting export capacity in the Caspian and the Black Sea. uh they're taking you know the russians are hitting ukrainian ships ukraine ukraine is hitting uh russian ships and that's on top of the this is harvest season uh ukraine and russia provide you know this region provides something like a quarter of the grain uh for the world uh and so both sides are seeing their economies getting getting battered uh russia is also there There was also yesterday another massive attack on basically what is Russia's Amazon. It was called Wildberries. What Ukraine has been doing has been blowing up these absolutely massive warehouses and destroying billions of dollars worth of goods that are held and waiting to be transited to small business owners.

10:03and I've seen a bunch of interviews with Russian people who, you know, they're living off of their version of Etsy or whatever. You know, they're just retailers who have seen their entire lives wiped out by these attacks on these warehouses. And here's the thing for the Ukrainians who are like, oh, but they've been attacking us for four years. Yeah, fair. No, fair. All's fair in war. But that's the problem is you can't claim, you know, some moral high ground when you literally invaded Russia like two years ago No one held a significant part of his territory. Now you're hitting their critical infrastructure and you're crying if they're going to hit your critical infrastructure.

10:39Your only defense is just going to be, well, they started it. Yeah, you're right. But you can't end it. You literally can't. You know, it's funny, too, because you get accused of being a Putin shill. And as usual, nobody who is obsessed with Ukraine ever actually even reads the news. Their own senior defense official, who Zelensky just fired, prompting mass protests throughout the country, wrote an entire thing about how Zelensky has no plan to end the war, how they potentially had a chance in some of these initial attacks, how the current attacks have no actual endgame. And, I mean, you could read between the lines for his own firing and say that he was fired because he probably was in the meeting saying, I think this is a real problem.

11:18We have no actual plan to end this entire thing, and we're eventually going to lead to disaster. So both sides of the conflict, it's very, actually, it's very Iran-US in a lot of the same ways, where it starts out in one limited way. Things dramatically change the security architecture. People hunker down. They're both trying to hit each other in a very painful way. Russia, though, has the manufacturing on its side. It has the population, obviously, advantage on its side. And Ukraine is increasingly reliant on a West, which is broke from munitions and can't necessarily help them. And so they're going to escalate in the only way they can with their drones, which, again, you have to give credit at least for being able to build them.

11:56But they're using them in a way that's going to invite a major retaliation from Russia. And then what happens? We're all living in a new world. And right. And we're all going to see higher gas and prices and inflation across the entire global economy. Plus, people are going to starve to death as a result of the food crisis it's creating. The one of the things that has been reported to be a major hiccup in the in the peace talks that just broke down has been apparently Russia's insistence on seizing towns and areas being given. You kind of Russian speaking areas that they haven't taken yet, that they couldn't take by force, which to me, like it's not something that's followed like extraordinarily closely.

12:41I understand Ukraine's point there. they're like like okay it's one thing for you to ask for the territory that you already control yeah you tried to take this stuff you couldn't and you want us to give it to you like that that's like come on get out of here like what are you talking but on the other hand if if there if there is an ability of the entire world china the united states europe africa south America, everybody to come together and be like, guys, we have to figure something out here. Yeah, I think you're right. Like, something has to give here. Now is the time. Someone needs to end the war in 24 hours.

13:21Somebody needs to do that. Somebody needs to end the war in 24 hours before they even take office, hopefully. And apparently Chairman Xi telling Putin, don't even think about using nuclear weapons. We'll see what that matters. And they're going to meet next week. Yes, that's right. Good point. I think SCO or some meeting is happening soon. Let's get to Mexico. We've got Juan David Rojas standing by. 16 years ago, I started working as a CNA in the hospital. I loved it. On the day I decided to enroll in the nursing program at Rasmussen University, it was afternoon, my 35th birthday. I was hanging out with a friend and they had just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life.

13:59I immediately had said, I want to go to nursing school. So I actually had contact information from an advisor at Rasmussen, contacted her and actually end up starting like three weeks later. My name is Cherish Adams and I'm a Rasmussen University graduate. Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Bite into a stacked sandwich made with Hero Bread or a fully loaded bagel. And the only thing you'll think is delicious. You won't think it's up to 19 grams of protein, but it is. You wouldn't believe it has 11 to 32 grams of fiber, but it does. Hero Bread makes loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles, hacked with taste, but without all the net carbs.

14:37We're talking zero to five grams net carbs per serving. With Hero Bread, there are no compromises, just flavor. There's none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from better for you brands. There's just the soft, fluffy bread you crave. Plus, small batch drops of indulgent favorites like the popular two gram net carb Hero Croissant and three gram net carb Hero Pen au Chocolat. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10 % off your order. Go to Hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's code IHEART at H-E-R-O dot C-O. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See Nutrition Facts on Hero.co. Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

15:18The Summer Savings Event is here at Apple Vacations. It's the perfect time to bring everyone together for the getaway you've been dreaming about. Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings. From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, Your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at AppleVacations.com or through your travel advisor. AppleVacations, where your story starts. All right, joining us now is journalist Juan David Rojas to discuss the question, has the CIA launched a secret war in Mexico?

15:53Juan David, thanks so much for being here. Good to see you, man. Good to see you guys, guys. All right. So has the CIA launched a secret war in Mexico? There's been a number of disturbing allegations. Ryan, you, Emily, and I, some months ago, we talked about how there were these two CIA deaths in the state of Chihuahua, which is on the border. And, you know, the story there was that these two agents died in a car crash. At the time, I was a bit skeptical that we were getting the full story. since then and talking to people with you know close to the matter i i find it to be more believable but uh after that we started to get these whistleblowers anonymous whistleblowers within the agency telling us that uh there's apparently a secret this covert assassination campaign by the cia against cartel operatives and in march in mexico there was a lot of confused reporting about this car bombing against supposedly a Sinaloa cartel operative.

16:56And apparently what these anonymous sources have said is that this was a hit by the CIA. And there's a number of really, what's odd about it is that these anonymous whistleblowers here, I have the quotes, like CNN said that, quote, the March car bombing was a targeted assassination facilitated by CIA operations. And then for the time, someone told them that the agency provided intelligence and support but was not on the ground when Mexican authorities killed the operative. So, you know, there's a lot of ambiguity, leeway there to interpret what's being said. Apparently, you know, the second quote kind of like gives a hint that like Mexican authorities are involved.

17:35There's some degree of coordination, which could be better, frankly. And this is the last thing. This has all come in tandem. There's a lot that's been going on between the U.S. and Mexico just this year in tandem we've seen like this campaign of like targeted lawfare against sitting uh um mexican politicians specifically and exclusively from the governing um morena party so we could go ahead yeah go into it yeah yeah so the basically they indicted like the whole state of sinaloa which you know per like the famous cartel sinaloa state like it it's you know every governor ever is like involved in the drug trade, you know, going back to like Kiki Camarena, the DEA agent's assassination in the 80s, like the governor at that time, like supposedly sheltered the head of the Guadalajara cartel after he ordered Camarena's killing.

18:28But it was really unprecedented to indict a sitting governor. It was never done because it was always thought that it would be counterproductive. It would really screw up relations. And also, you know, like you're messing up like this entire, you know, like security security ecosystem, you know, you need to work with these guys to some extent. And the problem is in Sinaloa, actually, it has been counterproductive. I'm good friends with a journalist there. And he said that since Rocha Moja, the governor there resigned, the security situation has gotten worse. You guys covered back when how Joaquin Guzman, one of El Chapo's sons, tricked El Mago into flying over to Texas, and they both got arrested.

19:09And this kicked off this horrific civil war within the cartel. It's created a lot of violence within the state. So now you have like loyalists of Majo, the Majos, and then the Chapo, the Chapitos going at it. And Rocha Moja supposedly was like on the side of the Chapitos. So once he was out of the way, the Majos moved in, they've been settling scores, and it's been a complete disaster. Yeah. Go ahead, Ryan. Yeah. So talk us through the politics of this. Why what what is what would the CIA objective be? And what would the U.S. objective be in only targeting officials that are linked to Claudia Scheinbaum's government?

19:50Are the kind of opposition party conservative figures just so above involvement with drug trafficking that they can't find anything on them? Or what is what are they actually going for here? That's the big question. And a lot of like former like intelligence officials have been asking that question, too, with no good answers. So and look, this is the drug trade in Mexico, like, you know, cartel corruption. This goes way back, like once upon a time, like under like the one party pre that, you know, the government of the country for 70 years. The country really was basically a narco state. It was really the pre in charge, like telling the traffickers what to do.

20:33Now, the funny thing is that back then the CIA was like okay with drug trafficking. Historically, the CIA didn't care in general about the drug trade in Latin America. One, because they thought it was useless to oppose it. And two, they cared more about, you know, like opposing leftists and communists. And so that's now where we get the whole like narco-communist thing come in. But so, you know, what we've seen in the rest of Latin America is that the Trump administration is really willing to condone corruption from like right wing politicians. And, you know, going talking about like the drug trade, like Trump pardoned like gangster disciples, kingpin Larry Hoover.

21:11So it's hard for me to make a case that he really what they're after is like, you know, gains on security in the drug trade itself. but so um what i've noticed that and after the the sinaloa indictments they seem to have taken like a softer approach they seem to be trying to co-op certain uh morena governors specifically on the border mind you so mexico has six border states with the u.s and three of the governors there all the the three the three that belong to morena specifically they've all had their visas revoked some of them have investigations against them in the u.s and all three of them are supposedly cooperating with U.S.

21:50authorities as informants. So there's questions there of if they're trying to build like a bigger indictment. But the other three governors are all opposition and notably Chihuahua, which is opposition governor, is where we saw the deaths of those two CIA agents. Right. And yeah, like I can tell you, like one of those governors is very like tainted with corruption to like narco corruption. So what I think... One second, just to step back a little bit, because you said that this is all. Let's put your piece up on the screen. You had said, will Trump target Mexico next? The forever war logic demands it.

22:29Can you link kind of the World War Three element that you had worried about here with what you're talking about in these corruption scandals? Exactly, exactly. So the thing is, like, really, the key bit of interest between both countries is the border. Everything that matters between the U.S. and Mexico is the border. It's Mexico's ultimate source of leverage, both for immigration and trade. And so what I think they're trying to do, and again, this is speculation on my part I laid out in the piece, they seem to be trying to co-opt governors that they view as unfriendly from the governing party that's left wing.

23:06and they seem to trust the ones from the opposition. And I think a lot of this is geared towards kind of safeguarding the CIA operations along the border. Down the line, there's elections, midterm elections next year in Mexico. The three Morena governors are actually, well, there are elections in their state, so maybe the idea is to try to get opposition governors in there. And beyond that, well, you know, this is an administration that, you know, declared a war in Iran, is escalating the Ukraine war, kidnapped Maduro, wants to invade Cuba. And in their own stated words, they also would like to bomb Mexico.

23:47So I think that really what they're doing, they're kind of laying the groundwork for if they're interested in the future, really trying to secure the border. And if they ever decide to take kinetic action in the future. I mean, this is a very dangerous and real possibility. Yeah, no, fascinating stuff. Really scary. All right, Juan, continue to stay on top of the story and we'll hope to see you again in the future. Thank you. Thanks, guys. My name is Tuva Nguyen and enrolling at Rasmussen University was essentially a handshake to a lifeline, a career, stability and a future for myself. I found it important to be able to speak with instructors and staff outside of office hours and to have that support system was essential because they believed in me.

24:37Rasmussen University. Are you ready to rewrite your story online and on campus? Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Bite into a stacked sandwich made with hero bread or a fully loaded bagel. And the only thing you'll think is delicious. You won't think it's up to 19 grams of protein, but it is. You wouldn't believe it has 11 to 32 grams of fiber, but it does. Hero Bread makes loaves, buns, tortillas, bagels, and noodles packed with taste, but without all the net carbs. We're talking 0 to 5 grams net carbs per serving. With Hero Bread, there are no compromises, just flavor. There's none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from Better For You brands.

25:21There's just the soft, fluffy bread you crave. Plus, small batch drops of indulgent favorites, like the popular 2-gram net carb Hero Croissant and 3-gram net carb Hero Pen au Chocolat. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10 % off your order. Go to Hero.co and use code IHEART at checkout. That's code IHEART at H-E-R-O dot C-O. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See Nutrition Facts on Hero.co. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The Summer Savings Event is here at Apple Vacations. It's the perfect time to bring everyone together for the getaway you've been dreaming about. Book between July 24th and August 27th and enjoy up to 55 % instant savings.

26:01From relaxing beach days to unforgettable moments with the people who matter most, your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at AppleVacations.com or through your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Joining us now is great friend of the show, Ben Schreckinger. He is the publisher of Paradigm.News. Let's put it up here on the screen, gentlemen, and there will be a link down in the description. He, Ben, previously at Politico, he wrote a great book on Hunter Biden. We interviewed him here at Breaking Points, has now decided to look into the UFO phenomenon and to uncover everything that he possibly can.

26:42So he writes, reality shock, a beginner's guide to UFOs, aliens, and disclosure. Big picture, Ben, before we get into the piece. Why did you decide to do this? You had a good gig going. You're a Politico, Hunter Biden, corruption guy. And you're like, you know what? It's UFOs for me. You know, for one thing, I just got sick of Washington. I took some time off. I haven't been in D.C. for a year and a half. I've decided to come back for the fall because the story is so good. But I'm inspired by what you and Crystal and Ryan and everybody have done here. I think that Internet media is still evolving.

27:15I wanted to throw myself into the middle of it. And I became completely obsessed with the UFO, UAP issue, the mystery. There's clearly room for investigative reporting to get to the bottom of this. And I think it's going to be a massive both political and cultural phenomenon over the next 12 to 120 months. And where did you find the immediate gaps? Like where does your journalistic capacity kind of fit in? Like, what's been what's been missing in this conversation? What are the first things you've kind of uncovered? Yeah, you know, to start with, I think just putting everything that's happened in the last three years, especially since David Grush gave testimony to Congress, since the first attempt at a UAP Disclosure Act started.

28:09lay that all out and then lay that out in the context of what's been going on on this topic for 80 years. I think that's sort of part one. Before you even try to add new information, I think you need a sort of a lot of context and sense making. And that's what reality shock is for. And then in terms of where there's room to investigate further, I think that David Grosh has been escalating his public claims. I think there's room to get to the bottom of what the basis is for him, for example, going on Dr. Phil and saying that people have communicated telepathically with aliens. I think probably there needs to be some work done trying to delineate between this UAP issue, which is a very real, concrete airspace security issue that not only is the U.S.