Where did Azov come from, and what does a Nazi-era "stay-behind" network have to do with the war in Ukraine today?
On this episode of At the End of the Day, Jason Mironchuck is joined by retired US Air Force Colonel Roxane Towner-Watkins. She began her career in aircraft maintenance, went through ROTC at Indiana University, served at the Pentagon and at US Central Command, and was on General Franks' staff during 9/11. Since retiring she has worked through about 160 books on stay-behind networks, the intelligence services that ran them, and what she calls the "International Syndicate" that still uses them.
Operation Gladio is the name that stuck, but as the Colonel puts it, the proper term is stay-behind units: caches of weapons and trained civilians left in territory Hitler took, mapped by Reinhard Gehlen on the Eastern Front, handed to Allen Dulles at the end of the war, and repurposed under NATO. Italy's prime minister admitted Gladio's existence in 1990. Her argument is that these units were almost never used against a Soviet invasion, and were instead turned on people at home.
From there we follow the line she says never broke: Gehlen and Otto Skorzeny, the OUN, Bandera and Lebed, Yaroslav Stetsko at the White House with Reagan, and the units that appeared in Ukraine after 2014.
SHOW NOTES
• What Gladio actually was: stay-behind caches plus trained civilians, hidden inside NATO
• Operation Sunrise: General Wolff, Allen Dulles and Lyman Lemnitzer, and the ratlines that saved Gehlen and Skorzeny
• Detachment Alpha: swapping German caches for Western gear (declassified in 2014)
• The terror trail she ties to Gladio: Aldo Moro, Olof Palme, attempts on de Gaulle, JFK, Oklahoma City
• The narco network, Operation Condor and the "International Syndicate" run like a mafia family
• Indonesia and the cardinal sin of wanting to be neutral; the Rothschilds as bankers, not oligarchs
• The Vatican Bank, Sindona, Calvi, the Gray Wolves and the shooting of John Paul II
• Vietnam's mass relocation and Operation Peter Pan in Cuba
• From Bandera to Azov: Kolomoisky and the covert CIA stay-behind stations along the Donbass, 2014-2022
• Why Moscow may be rolling up a network rather than fighting a blitzkrieg, and where the war goes into 2027
These are the guest's and host's own views and research claims, discussed in conversation.
GUEST
Col. Roxane Towner-Watkins (USAF, ret.): https://x.com/ColonelTowner
X Spaces weekdays at 4pm ET · "The Colonel's Corner" on YouTube & Rumble · Substack: https://coltowner.substack.com
Host: Jason Mironchuck: https://x.com/MironchuckNOW
Intro Music: MIDNIGHT IN HARLEM
royalty free Music by Giorgio Di Campo for @FreeSound Music
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:02 Who is Colonel Towner-Watkins?
03:34 Where did Azov come from?
06:16 What Operation Gladio really was: stay-behind units
08:42 Operation Sunrise: Dulles, Lemnitzer & General Wolff
11:50 Detachment Alpha: swapping Nazi caches for NATO gear
14:02 NATO's secret committees & how 'Gladio' got its name
16:28 The terror trail: Moro, Palme, de Gaulle, JFK
18:14 Who are America's Gladio units?
20:52 Gehlen, Skorzeny & the Azov lineage
23:49 How the CIA captured the global narco network
26:15 The International Syndicate: spies as a mafia family
29:03 Indonesia: pure oil, solid-gold mountains & a coup
33:31 The Rothschilds were the bankers
36:45 The Vatican Bank connection
41:28 Gray Wolves & the shooting of John Paul II
43:10 Vietnam & Operation Peter Pan
46:58 Ukraine: denazification & Russia's slow war
50:03 From Bandera to Azov: the 2014 stay-behinds
55:08 Why the Donbass matters
1:00:59 Crystal ball: Ukraine, Europe & NATO into 2027
1:05:47 Where to find the Colonel
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