natasha, the north stream. pipelines is back in the headlines in a big way. american and german media hint that some so called pro ukraine group might have been behind the attack. little evidence was provided is the west starting to have 2nd thoughts about the kid regime. a key target and several ukranian cities, including in the countries capital of p, as a response to terrorist attacks in russia bring our region. according to the russian defense ministry with fascination attempt in moldova transistor region targeting senior officials has been forwarded, according to local authority to say ukrainian agents were behind the plant. out the political opposition and the republic of georgia says it will only end its mass

protest if the government quit just by parliament pulling the controversial legislation that ignited the demonstration. we report from the nation's capital a coming to you live from the russian capital. this is our t international. i'm rachel blevins here with the top stories and be our welcome to the program. and we begin with the latest from the conflict in ukraine, where the russian armed forces have struck key targets and several cities, including the countries capital of the russian defense ministry, says the operation was in response to key terrorist acts inside of russia earlier this month or his own, if at all, in response to the terrorist actions organized by the cube regime on march, 2nd, this year, and the brians grecian, the armed forces of the russian federation inflicts at a massive retaliation strike high precision, long range, air, see,

and land based weapons including the dagger hypersonic missile system hit key elements of ukraine's military infrastructure enterprises of the military, industrial complex, as well as facilities that provide energy to them. the target of the strike has been achieved. all assigned objects have been hit. according to the defense ministry, rochelle launch the massive retaliatory strike using hypersonic missiles. officials say that some key elements of ukraine, military infrastructure companies, or the military industrial complex, as well as energy facilities that supply them with power. we're hit now apart from that, the defense ministry says that ukraine in attack drone vase is we're also destroyed . also the strikes disrupt to the rail. a transfers of ukrainian army reserves and foreign weapons have destroyed maintenance and repair facilities of military equipment as well as disabled the production of ammunition. ukraine claims that 11 people were killed. however, russia's defense ministries has said time and again that it own it's august critical, military infrastructure now and thursday. afternoon. air raid alerts remained in

place throughout ukraine earlier and thursday morning. online footage showed smoke rising and the one of the districts of the crate in capital mayor and form a professional boxer vitale, clinical confirmed explosions and emergency electricity blackouts were introduced. now, a dis, a harkell fall were also without energy, according to local authorities. explosions were also recorded in the various places across ukraine. basically, the entire country is under air arrayed alerts. now several trains of the ukrainian railways have been delayed for hours due to the absence of power. meanwhile, here in done ask ukraine used american maids multiple launch rockets systems called hi marcy and civilians. one person killed and 2 were wounded. at a civilian bus depot near the nets got hoardings. officials, 6 high marsh rockets were launched, hor were intercepted and to reach the civilian target

and to the break away moldova, in region of trans, nice dirt right along the ukrainian border. where authorities say they have stored at a terrorist attack, the head of trans knees, dirt claims that ukrainian national security agents were not only targeting several senior local officials, but also asked to cause mass civilian casualties. then that it is, he should get aka, this terrorist attack was aimed directly at the elimination of officials of our republic. at the same time, this place was not chosen by chance. this is the intersection of one of the central streets of the city of terrestrial nearby. there is a chain of shops to school and even out of rush hour. there were still a lot of people there. this suggest that the calculation was not only the death of the official, but also on the mass. death of people come up according to available information. this terrorist attack was sanctioned and prepared by the security service of ukraine. all persons who had detained and wanted a also directly related to the security service of ukraine. renaissance harris as

hack or assassination attempt was supposed to take place in the sensor of terrace ball, which was the capital of the breakaway region trans. mr. and it was targeting the leader all flaw transistor. vadim accustomed sail ski that wanted to use a land and landrover. and that's where they had the explosives, 8th kilograms of hexagon explosives, as well as wire screws analysts to basically maximize the impact. and according to sources were spoken to the impact would have been the radius hundreds of meters and it would have, would have seen dozens of casualties if in fact this happened. and it wasn't only that had all the trans they strip, but also other high level officials that there were targeting. now it's multiple arrests had the made, one of them in particular, 40 year old man who was already a local criminal who moved to odessa some 12 years ago in ukraine. and apparently

there he joined ukraine security services. this is what he claims now because the suspects are confessing from what we hear from the regional minister of defense. and they claim that it was ukraine security services who organized this and also coordinated this out. but of course, as we know, ah, it was afford said, now let's hear some more from what the secure of trans, this sale that he had to say about this attack. mr. de those room would solution the place where this terrorist attack was supposed to occur shows us that it was meant to target top government officials and to no less extent, inflict numerous civilian casualties. the terrorist attack was prepared to be conducted in the center of the city of t ross, paul, among a large number of our citizens. now a criminal case has been opened and also when know that the head of trends mr is back in his office with maximum security, as you can imagine. and they are planning for possible scenarios of a repeat to make sure that they are. busy ready,

they also want answers from ukraine based on what the suspects have told them, are in mainland moldova, the government, they're. busy so they have no idea what is going on, they, they've heard nothing about any terrorist attack and trans leister. so this is where we're at right now. but political opposition and georgia is now demanding the current government resign. this comes after 2 days of coordinated violent protests, which they say won't end despite the countries parliament scrapping a controversial foreign agents bill. the legislation was cancelled after 2 nights of unrest with western partners condemning the theory that n yos and the like need to show where the money is coming from. the demand from demonstrators to release, all those arrested during the 1st 2 days of protests, was also met by the government. the number of those gathering near the georgian parliament this hour is currently growing by the thousands and what appears to be so far a peaceful demonstration we heard from locals about what brought them to the street

. we know that they often light up and we've seen that they have made big promises before and they've lied to us so we don't trust them anymore. and we want to make sure that it, they have a history, a strong background to lie to us. and unless they put that in action and take away that a law that project that they're trying to enforce on us, we're not gonna believe in those slides just now is also like go recommended from 0 to peer, new new to be withdrawn. so, but our government again, uh we, we its own p. oh, approved to slow, so we demanded, we demand the withdrawal of zillow to slow and go, we might go remind you in a resignation of governments of true. well, i'm here in the capital of georgia,

and as you can see behind me, that's the parliament building where demonstrators have been organizing protests for the 3rd day in a row to protest. a proposed draft law that the parliament was able to pass the 1st round of that would see a non governmental organizations in the country that receive over 20 percent of their funding from foreign sources register as foreign agents. but recently we got word from the interior ministry of the country that the government has agreed to. the 2nd demand of the protesters, which is to release all of the people detained in these protests over the last 3 days. that was after they also came into the 1st demand of the protesters earlier today to rescind this draft build. but after that happened, the protesters said that they were going to go out on to the streets anyway. and now, as you can see, even though the government has said that they will release the detained protesters, the protests are still going on. now, right now, you can see behind me there's not any violence going on. it's a relatively

a peaceful demonstration right now. but this was anything but the case yesterday and the day before yesterday i saw with my own eyes protesters throwing molotov cocktails, random objects at the police shooting fireworks at them. there were their police responded with tear gas. the protesters also made barricades in the streets and they even tried to storm the parliament both yesterday and the day before a number of people have been arrested and the number of police have also been injured as well. now, in terms of this law, this is coming on the backdrop of threats of sanctions from the united states. if the parliament did not rescind their support for this law, after all, the protesters are actually calling to say, russia style law, we've seen a lot of ukrainian flags, a lot of american flags, a lot of european union flags in the crowds. a lot of anti russian sentiment, and that's despite the fact that actually, the russian style law that exists in russia that this proposed george in law was

based after is not even as harsh as the one that exists in the united states. the united states has had a similar law that requires foreign agencies to register which has been around since $938.00, and the penalties for violating that are much harsher. they include criminal punishments, including jail time, whereas in russia and this proposed georgia law only threaten of organizations that fail to register with fines. now it's also important to understand that the government is divided on this. the parliament obviously wanted to pass this law, but the president has come out against the parliament supporting the protesters. she was actually in the united states and released a video supporting the protesters with on the backdrop of the statue of liberty. when these protests broke out. so i've been caught in the crossfire of the tear gas in the molotov cocktails in the rocks that the protesters, i have been throwing, we're going to have to see what's going to happen today because around this time

yesterday, it was the same deal. everything was quite peaceful, but come 11 at night or midnight and things are got quite violent. so we're going to bring you the details as we get them. ah, the u. s. withdrawal from afghanistan was a catastrophe. that's the heart wrenching testimony from a u. s. marine corps of veteran who was on the ground and cobble while american troops made their chaotic departure. to withdraw was a catastrophe in my opinion. and there was an ex inexcusable, lack of accountability and negligence. the 11 marines, one sailor, at one soldier, there were murdered. that day have not been answered for the withdrawal spurred or refugee crisis in the country. with many afghans trying to leave during the taliban would seek revenge against those cooperating with the u. s. i mid tragic scenes cobble airport where crowds of afghans were rushing the departing plains. the last

american troops withdrew from afghanistan in august of 2021. nearly $200.00 people were killed by a suicide bombing at the site, including us soldiers, the aftermath of washington's rapid exit resulted in the abandonment of $17000.00 arms, including military vehicles and rifles captured by the taliban left behind on the military airfield. let's get more perspective on all of this and cross live now to us air force, lieutenant colonel. karen, quite koski. karen, it's great to have you on the program today. now this really is devastating testimony we heard from not one marine, and we know that there are a number of others who testified. what do you make of it all and about what we're hearing right now. well it's, it's interesting that we're even hearing from this man and possibly others, you know, the republicans who have taken over the house have wanted to look into this because

it has been a point of complaint against the, by the ministration for 18 months, at least. so it's, it's good that we're hearing these things. on the other hand, you know, the 20 years, let's talk about the 20 years we spent in afghanistan or more. what was accomplished there was not the build up of trust, but the elimination of trust. and so this withdraw would have been hard in any case, but we didn't develop any institutions and good knowledge of what was going on in that country and how it worked in order to withdraw safely. and that's, that's really a, a crime if not a tragedy. right? and as you mentioned there, i mean 20 years that the u. s. was in afghanistan, and for all of those years you had why after lie that was told, saying that maybe there was a chance that the u. s. would win this war, that there was more more stabilization where the u. s. was concerned than there

actually was. so were you surprised by anything that you heard in this testimony? i mean, we know that the withdrawal was chaotic, but how much more powerful does it make it when it comes from someone who was there experiencing it themselves? well, it is, it's a powerful reminder. it also points out to me that the military leadership itself, it, you know, we like to blame the politics that the little, the politicians you make these decisions. but it appears to me that even the military side wasn't performing as well as it should. and i think in part, many military officers, career people looked at afghanistan as a way to punch their ticket. and you know, we need to do a tour and afghanistan before we go on to the pentagon or some other higher up, you know, assignment. and you know, it just, you know, there used afghanistan in many ways just to get promoted rather than some sort of comprehensive strategy that the pentagon might have put forward to end the

occupation of afghanistan. they never had that. and clearly they, they, i mean that's, that's what, that's what this testimony tells me. we never had a plan from the beginning. wow. and not as just mind boggling, especially when you think of the billions of nor trillions of dollars that the when spent in afghanistan knowing all along that there was no strategy. now, a key word from that marine that we heard was catastrophe. is that a label that you feel is fitting for really the entire u. s. war in afghanistan? spending 2 decades? oh, i think so for sure. a catastrophe. unless you are an opium grower or an opium seller, because before we invaded the taliban ran the country and i'm sure with an iron fist and i'm sure it was perfect. but they did achieve a great minimization of the opium trade, in part because it helped and being strict muslims are not, they didn't,

they didn't think they should make money from that. in any case, that was immediately rehearsed by the american occupation and within, i think it was just a few years there. opium, popular opium production was up, and it continued to go up every year. so that's a success story. you know, the trillions that were wasted plus all that opium on the market. yeah. that's, that's our success story on perhaps that was the strategy, but in any case, none of that aided. you know, this rapid withdrawal and again, i think we should have left afghanistan many years ago. but you know, the, we have a military that's not really competent. and i think we have to say that as americans, we need to recognize this, the soldiers that it, that this particular soldier and others who are testifying. they are critiquing our military or military leadership, the quality of their work, the quality of their planning, their abilities. we should criticize that because that's supposed to be our defense,

that we put great pride in our military and yet, you know, they, they did not perform and there's a reason they didn't perform for 20 years. they haven't been actually doing defense . they're doing things. they're not qualified to do, and that's what they were doing for 20 years in afghanistan. a, i certainly a lot of lessons that can and should be learned from afghanistan, especially when looking, as you noted at the people who profited from it. we're going to have to leave it right there, but retired us air force, lieutenant colonel. karen, quite koski. thank you. as always so much for your time and insight. oh, and let's take a moment to update you on some breaking news. we've been following in the past hour, 3 people have reportedly been injured in a shooting and televi. the exact number of casualties has yet to be confirmed. and a quick warning you may find the following footage, disturbing police have reportedly neutralized the assailant and security forces, say it's a suspected terror attack. one of those injured is said to be in critical condition

will stay across the story and bring you any updates as we get them. the european economic model for growth based on cheap russian energy suppliers is over and it's not coming back. that's the warning coming from the director of the international energy agency. that while the commission president praised the blocks policies with skyrocketing prices, just a side note, russia kat, its gas supply to europe by 80 percent in a to month sunday. now don't your process in europe solving last summer, our marriage rebels raised by 300 percent. however, pollutants like male was unsuccessful. we replaced, they showed pulling russian gas by increasing named puts from reliable suppliers looks like idiocy. finally, as a price tag, it's costing europeans, 300 per cent, more now for a front row seat to the brussels bureaucrats melodramatic spectacle featuring

bonder, lying clutching her pearls and pretending that europe was the big victim of big bad moscow. guessed that plays better on tour to places in north america like canada than the other act we've seen from brussels, which is a clown show where the genius is in charge like bonded line actually make gran proclamations about cutting off their own russian energy supply. being their deliberate strategy, we must become independent from russian oil, coal, and gas. we simply cannot rely on a supply who explicitly threatens us when he to act. now to mitigate the impact of rise in energy prices diversify all gas supply from next winter and accelerate to clean energy transition. judging by woodland or line said, they're almost exactly year ago, brussels actual strategy was to shove a stick into the spokes of its own bike wheels. and now that they've successfully launched their behinds right over the handlebars, they're blaming russia. but hey,

it's all good, wonder line says because they have reliable suppliers. yeah. the u. s. in norway price gouging them. and while vander line was in canada, the executive director of the international energy agency was giving everyone else in brussels, a reality check, mentor $23.00, trying to fall, march b, even much more challenging, done at the mentor vignati european, the industry is facing huge pressures. the european economic model, which is based on the abundant and cheap russian and i just supplies is what it is over. it will not go back there. so the good news for europe is that it's still able to buy russian fuel, but those molecules have to take the long way around and have their russian identity, laundered through other countries of the e hasn't sanctioned. and they have to co mingle with molecules from those other countries. so there authoritarianism is adequately diluted and doesn't dirty up

europe's prestige shores and values. poland was buying brushing gas at the same time as it was bullying every one. and that was still importing russian fuel, notably oil when the tax was turned off. now the ceo of this state's energy giant orlin said earlier this week that they're suing moscow. so now they don't have to worry about russia getting any more polish oil revenues. the russian foreign ministry also weighed on that particular situation is yellow, yet. i've said this is an ideology, clearly articulated and imposed by the west, which reposes the resources of our country, should not be managed by us, but by those who believe that these resources are theirs by some right of the resources of russia had become a goal to be aggressively attained, and there is a desire to take them away and divide them. among the chosen ones was that there is

this perception that our country must hand over everything to secure the west and they're gone, threatened, and will only get destabilization on our borders. in response. ashley, the united states contributed to this idea at the beginning of the story and that they believed that europe does not need a common energy agenda. it should not represent a single energy system and that american resources are the only ones who have the right to dominate in this region. so, so seems like this friday for both poland and the e. u is to try to sit comfortably with each half of its behind on a different chair. and they're basically finding of now what happens when one of those chairs just gets yanked away and they're both basically now left screaming at moscow as a result of their own poor choices and resulting consequences. this comes as western media outlets are promoting. the idea that are pro ukrainian group was behind the attack on the nord stream pipelines that were a key element of europe's energy security. moscow, however, doesn't seem to be eager to accept the narrative saying it's only meant to divert

attention away from what actually happened. the claims by the western media also contradict the recent investigation by award winning journalist seymour hersh, who pin the blame for the attack directly on washington. the western narrative to draw attention away from washington has raised some eyebrows. however, one american activist has asked a couple of inconvenient questions about the sabotage to the wife of the former polish foreign minister. seymour hersh has published his expos day that the united states was responsible for the destruction of the north stream one into pipelines. now, you're talking all of this stuff about ukraine. you're not mentioning that we had planned this attack on the pipelines in advance, much before the invasion. and this is an act of terrorism against germany and against russia. so how is it that you can lie to all of us and say, we're the be,

we're standing for democracy against this aggressive russia when we're just as bad, where terrorizing people all across the world and we've destroyed amazed their piece of infrastructure. why did your husband say that? it was a joke. why did he delete it right after then? it's a joke. i don't think they want to get the truth of it. there is what they call this rule based order. and you see, you know, the united states, western europe just voicing this on other nations, saying that you gotta follow the rules. well, obviously there are no kinds of rules. if you can go out and do things like this, the sovereign nations, i mean, now we see that the nato, the e u, they're not that high. the lion, which they protest themselves to be. i mean, this is just the united they selling countries less than we're going to violate your sovereignty. we're going to make you, we're going to put you under our boat, you know,

and there's nothing you can do about it. they don't care if the germans are going to freeze next winter. they don't care if they're going to be paying double triple what they usually do for gas. these people think that they can do whatever they want and not get away with it. heated debates rage on the floor of the u. s. congress of the house continue this probe and to the so called twitter filed the journalists behind the revelations mat tie, e b, testified on how the promise of a free speech space. when so wrong, what we found in the files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an interim instrument of censorship and social control. unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role. twitter, facebook, google and other companies develop the formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government from the f b i. d h s h h s t o d,

the global engagement center at state. even the ca have a comment come after he released another trove of previously confidential twitter documents relating to the company's moderation policy. the files document how the corporation arbitrarily censored online content working hand in hand with us authorities and other big tech companies. videos in tweets, we're also red flagged if quote, anti ukraine, pro russia or pro or ron narratives were found. perhaps surprisingly, most of their shipper was came from liberal and jose and not the u. s. government. to go further in depth on this. let's cross live now to us tv and radio host, steve malls berg, steve, it's good to see you. now in light of these latest revelations, from the twitter files, are we talking about an infringement on free speech right here when it comes to twitter and the way that moderated the content on its platform?

well, it's not only twitter, but let's focus on that. you know, may be, was one of 2 journalists who testify today before the congress, a liberal journalist who's making these accusations in these claims. and i think it's important to point out also that the right now the committee congressional committee holding these hearings issue to 16 page report at the beginning today claiming that the federal trade commission right now, the federal trade commission is conducting harassment of twitter and their purposes to, to go after elan must because they don't like what he has done to twitter. what he's done to twitter is, 1st of all, he handed over all these internal documents and e mails, enabling that t b and the other journalists to come up with the, the twitter files and all the information you relate. and he and matt t b is re lame, so they want it, they want to take that away from us. and also the f t c wants from twitter.

they want the names of every journalists, reportedly of every journalist who was involved in getting any information from twitter, with regard to the twitter files. and there were some of the republicans on the committee calling this mccarthyism all over again. so there is an ongoing effort right now to, to, to really harass eli mosque and twitter because they don't like that. he's opened up the platform to conservatives and freedom of speech for real. now as far as the, the other issues, this goes much deeper. i mean, what meant to testify today and we and we did out earlier today just just boggles the mind. and because we were talking about basically the f b, i meeting with social media companies and talking about hunter biden and claiming that, you know, this has the, all the markings of russian dis, information, blah, blah, blah. but he's talking about this about every government agency. you could imagine having an active role in deciding what gets on the social media platforms,

what does it? it's really, really frightening. yeah. and they love throwing out the labels of disinformation and misinformation, but it who is making the decision of what is dis, information that has a major factor at the end of the day. now i want to expand on one of the points that you made there. and i know that journalists not to be when he was testifying referred to twitter censorship policies as quote 21st century mccarthyism. do you think that it is as serious as that? and is there likely a lot more to it than even what we've seen so far? well, you know, i was surprised that we didn't know we hadn't heard everything all at once. so i figured that that twitter files were released and we got the reports. volume one, volume to volume 3 and so on. and i thought that was pretty much it. so i don't know what we will find out going forward. i don't know what my t b and the other journalists who are privy to this and have received it. i don't know what they're sitting on or.