Speaker 1: Hilodimer Zolinsky defiant, telling his people Ukraine cannot be intimidated.
Speaker 1: President Biden calling the attacks senseless and reaching out to
Speaker 1: Zelinsky yesterday to reiterate US support for Ukraine's defense against Russia,
Speaker 1: including a pledge to supply Ukraine with advanced air defense systems.
Speaker 1: President Zelenski is expected to press President Biden other G
Speaker 1: seven leaders for air defense systems White House, indicating that's
Speaker 1: something that the President is ready to offer. Unsurprisingly, as
Speaker 1: they pushed forward on the land here in the East,
Speaker 1: they want to know that they can protect their civilians
Speaker 1: back at home in the towns and cities across Ukraine
Speaker 1: have says. The missiles rained down on Ukraine for a
Speaker 1: couple of days in a row. Yet more missile defense systems,
Speaker 1: better missile defense systems what Zalinski's gasking for, and it
Speaker 1: looks like we're going to give it to them. In
Speaker 1: the G seven broke their meeting and made a broad
Speaker 1: statement of support for Ukraine, pledging undeterred and steadfast quote
Speaker 1: unquote financial and military help for Kiev, and reiterated that
Speaker 1: there would be severe consequences if Russia were to use chemical, biological,
Speaker 1: or nuclear weapons to discuss the latest. Please welcome with us.
Speaker 1: Mike Lions military analysts served with various military organizations both
Speaker 1: the US and Europe, and was indeed, uh, the aide
Speaker 1: de camp to a general officer in the NATO Command
Speaker 1: back in the day. As they say, Mike, welcome, how
Speaker 1: are you, hey, Guy's great to be back with you.
Speaker 1: So we haven't talked to you since Ukraine blew up
Speaker 1: the Russian Bridge, Russia rained down missiles on Ukraine. Where
Speaker 1: are we right now? Yeah, no surprise. Russia is from
Speaker 1: a from a tactical perspective, Russia continues to lose certain
Speaker 1: battles in the South, but because they have tremendous capability
Speaker 1: and capacity industrial capacity. Um, they've now decided for these
Speaker 1: long range missile strikes. Um, you know, we're going to
Speaker 1: cavil over. Whether they're outdated and precise, but they land someplace,
Speaker 1: they land in Ukraine, they create damage. They are stoking
Speaker 1: fear and terror inside inside that country. And that this
Speaker 1: is what they're going to continue to do. And as
Speaker 1: long as they have the industrial depacity to do it,
Speaker 1: and and uh, they're they're not going to stop. Um.
Speaker 1: I think this has a lot to do with hardliners
Speaker 1: in Russia are trying to get to put and saying, look,
Speaker 1: you better start winning this war here, because it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like that's happening. Losing the battles asn't mean you're
Speaker 1: losing the war, but fundamentally it's just it's not looking good.
Speaker 1: And I think he's got a mobilization issue with some
Speaker 1: of the what called the silent majority, the people within
Speaker 1: the eleven vast time zones of Russia, as they recognize
Speaker 1: that this is not really going any place, you know,
Speaker 1: in the real world. To mobilize, you know, large forces
Speaker 1: that would be effective, it would require six months to
Speaker 1: a year, but he's not doing that. He's We're seeing
Speaker 1: reports of literally soldiers showing up after being mobilized during
Speaker 1: four days after they're notified. So, um, Russia is going
Speaker 1: to continue to Russia as what I say, and we
Speaker 1: shouldn't not be shocked that they're going to go after civilians.
Speaker 1: From their perspective, it's total war and they're going to
Speaker 1: continue it. And as long as the West continues to
Speaker 1: at least match industrial capacity to Ukraine, the stalemate will continue. Well,
Speaker 1: this strikes me, this barrage of Russian Russian missile strikes
Speaker 1: me as the classic we need to do something, and
Speaker 1: this is something because the history warfare is that sort
Speaker 1: of bombardment doesn't terrorize people into submitting it, it hardens
Speaker 1: their will. Yeah, yeah, for sure, you look at history
Speaker 1: and um, they're you know dressed in all these other
Speaker 1: places that do get bombed. But until they're actually able
Speaker 1: to put people on the ground to take it, nothing's
Speaker 1: going to change. I don't think Russia has any plans
Speaker 1: on doing that anymore, but they're just going to contete,
Speaker 1: continue to just make it difficult for Ukraine to exist
Speaker 1: as a country. The areas that they've taken in the
Speaker 1: Dome Best regions they still have now a fifth of
Speaker 1: the of the land mass. Our industrial complexes and steel
Speaker 1: factories and nuclear plants and chemical factories, all these things
Speaker 1: are really important for Ukraine to make money now. Also
Speaker 1: a lot of the mental strikes are going after infrastructure,
Speaker 1: so um, you know, we haven't seen this arm again yet.
Speaker 1: When it comes to cyber or shutting down the electricity
Speaker 1: inside of the Ukraine, I think Russia is going to
Speaker 1: start to do that as Ukraine won't be able to
Speaker 1: sell some of that electricity Europe, which has been doing
Speaker 1: in order to supply some of the worst supplies it
Speaker 1: needs in order to fight the Russian So it's all,
Speaker 1: it's all very you know, a complex economic statecraft that
Speaker 1: I think Russia is now going to engage in because
Speaker 1: they just not win any tactical battles on the ground.
Speaker 1: So lots of people Leon Panetta, former Secretary Defense, David Petreus,
Speaker 1: who was our whatever, he was Supreme Commander in the
Speaker 1: Middle East for a while. Uh, they and others saying
Speaker 1: this is irreversible for putin the ground war. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's never going to go the other direction.
Speaker 1: You agree with that, Yeah, you know, Um, he's gonna
Speaker 1: run out of time. He's not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: do anything. It depends on what the rest of the
Speaker 1: world does. He's he's going to do whatever he can
Speaker 1: to hold those reasons he has. Crimea for example, is
Speaker 1: something he has to have. The Black Sea Fleet is
Speaker 1: out of that naval base there. It's the only one
Speaker 1: war report. It's it's he cannot suffer that that kind
Speaker 1: of loss. I think he'll do whatever he can to
Speaker 1: at least, you know, hold what he has. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not going to make Ukraine joined Russia. That doesn't
Speaker 1: look like that's going to happen. But that's not to
Speaker 1: say he still can't wage war against its neighbor by
Speaker 1: launching bombs into it every once in a while. The
Speaker 1: question is what what is the rest of the world
Speaker 1: going to do about it? Is the rest of the
Speaker 1: world actually going to isolate um, isolate Russia? Is they're
Speaker 1: going to be that economic pressure for them to uh
Speaker 1: to to not be able to sell their products. The
Speaker 1: problem as long as the Chinese they are in the game.
Speaker 1: The Chinese is there. You know, Russia has become a
Speaker 1: client state of China. Now the Chinese really holds a
Speaker 1: key to this. In fact, uh thing is, you don't
Speaker 1: think can be a peace caper. He can, he can
Speaker 1: look like he's a good guy in this if he
Speaker 1: gets Russia to stop, because that's really that's all anybody
Speaker 1: wants wants to have happened right now. So there's still
Speaker 1: you know, assisilings the ways to go. Russ is not
Speaker 1: stopping Ukraine and also wants that land back, so they're
Speaker 1: not going to stop. So you have both sides in
Speaker 1: this prolonged stalemate that that until one side shows lesser
Speaker 1: capacity on industrial side. You're gonna see, you're gonna se
Speaker 1: this going for a long time. Well in Ukraine has
Speaker 1: the industrial capacity of the Western world, particularly the US.
Speaker 1: Although as the G seven made brave statements about how
Speaker 1: their their support is unending and undeterred blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: The word is Europe is still doing a terrible job
Speaker 1: of holding up the end of the bargain. Right, So,
Speaker 1: and what the United States is providing his money in
Speaker 1: a bank and and we're we're hyping these precision weapons
Speaker 1: systems and they've made a difference, but they still Russia
Speaker 1: brings untill ten x ten times the amount of tubes
Speaker 1: artillery tubes to the battlefield, and they're still fighting, you know,
Speaker 1: World War two. I You know that anyone who says
Speaker 1: that that the technology advantage on the West is going
Speaker 1: to win out is just just purely speculating that, because
Speaker 1: history has shown that in warfare in particular, that NASS
Speaker 1: still ends up, you know, winning the day. And if
Speaker 1: Russia can get the West to get weak in the needs,
Speaker 1: let's call new NATO old NATO, right, the old NATO
Speaker 1: countries of Germany and France, if you know, they still
Speaker 1: believe that everybody wants to go back to I think
Speaker 1: we talked before. Everybody wants to go back to seb
Speaker 1: every twenty three, like nothing ever happened. And I think
Speaker 1: you know that that would make them happy. The people
Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe are like, Nope, this is it. There's
Speaker 1: a pretty bright line now that exists in the world.
Speaker 1: The world's completely different and there's there's a and we're
Speaker 1: not going back to that spot. We're not going back.
Speaker 1: We have to rely on Russia. My clients on the line, Uh, Mike,
Speaker 1: the big question, how concerned are you about the exchange
Speaker 1: of nuclear weapons? So tactical nukes don't make sense for
Speaker 1: Russia because they're they're used in the defense. And I
Speaker 1: was an artillery officer in the eighties. We had tactical
Speaker 1: nukes that were used in the We would have used
Speaker 1: in the defense as the Russian Horde was supposed to
Speaker 1: overtakecome our positions on the North German plain on. You know, women,
Speaker 1: the Third World War was going to take place there
Speaker 1: and that obviously never happened. But but to use them
Speaker 1: first of ll convinced it'll fix the conventional forces in place.
Speaker 1: But to use them now they're too short range. His
Speaker 1: truth will be in too much of an area where
Speaker 1: they could possibly affected by it. So I don't see
Speaker 1: them being used there in that regard, unless he decides
Speaker 1: to go after you know, the energy plants and the
Speaker 1: infrastructure with it, because it'll you don't have to have
Speaker 1: way about precision, you don't have to worry about those
Speaker 1: kind of things that it'll render those places uninhabitable for
Speaker 1: a while. I think that's where he possibly uses it,
Speaker 1: And what we'll do is it will create kind of
Speaker 1: like a border, more of a border between Ukraine and
Speaker 1: Russia because the technics don't have that same impact. Now,
Speaker 1: if he's launches something from Russia into Kiev on a
Speaker 1: nuclear side, that that changes the equation, That changes everything. Um.
Speaker 1: I still I'm not sure specifically how we would respond
Speaker 1: to that because we'd have to be concerned about escalation.
Speaker 1: We really would have to recognize that Russia is an
Speaker 1: existential threat to the US full stop. Whether we want
Speaker 1: to say he would or wouldn't do it remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. I'm not sure I would bet on our
Speaker 1: missile platforms to take anything out, but the kind of
Speaker 1: the kind of technology they have to do that, I
Speaker 1: think that he it's possible he does that, but he
Speaker 1: goes after critical infrastructure and knowing full well that that
Speaker 1: that would mean regime change, that that would mean that
Speaker 1: every every NATO country, every country in the world would
Speaker 1: take a special loss to try to go after him
Speaker 1: and take his regime down. Wow. Interesting. My clients military analysts, Mike,
Speaker 1: great stuff. We appreciate it very much. Thanks. Yeah. The Uh.
Speaker 1: One of the outcomes that I don't appreciate enough probably
Speaker 1: is because the whole thing and the war has been
Speaker 1: going on since we weren't paying any attention to it
Speaker 1: whatsoever until February. The Ukrainians had lost many thousands of
Speaker 1: soldiers over that period of time while the world was
Speaker 1: paying no attention. It could drag on like that. Would
Speaker 1: the world go back to not paying attention to it?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, And that's what I've been saying.
Speaker 1: Is uh making me pessimistic about an end of this
Speaker 1: anytime soon, as you're pre borders is going to take
Speaker 1: an enormous effort. Uh. And and you know, the Russians
Speaker 1: are losing plenty of men, but they have a lot
Speaker 1: of men, maybe maybe good ones, maybe trained ones, maybe not.
Speaker 1: But the Ukrainians have lost a lot of guys too,
Speaker 1: and they don't have nearly as big a reserve. So um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how strong the will
Speaker 1: is to take back every inch or if they figure
Speaker 1: out Okaysen, we hated it, but we gotta live with
Speaker 1: it now. What about CRIMEA? I just I don't know.
Speaker 1: Start strong,