Russian Strategy in Ukraine and NATO Capabilities to Counter it | Scott Ritter

Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union, implementing arms control agreements, and on the staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf during the Gulf War, where he played a critical role in the hunt for Iraqi SCUD missiles. From 1991 until 1998, Mr. Ritter served as a Chief Inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, leading the search for Iraq’s proscribed weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Ritter was a vocal critic of the American decision to go to war with Iraq. His new book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union, is his ninth.

let’s start with Russian offensive in kov pun is saying that they’re trying to make a buffer zone in this northern part of Ukraine and at the same time we know that this was a response from what has been going on for quite some time that they were attacking this this civilian areas in belgrad but beyond that do you think is CaRu a strategic area for Russia you know it’s interesting the way that um the Russian president has phrased this because what he is outline outline is an operational objective uh that is to push ukrainians back from the border with Russia uh so that the Ukrainian artillery systems can’t reach Russian cities belgrad this is something that the Russians have been warning about for some time now they they have said that this is uh this is what will happen if Ukraine continues to attack you know Russian cities um but there’s more to what’s going on in kov than meets the eye first of all when we’re talking about some of the ranges that that are involved um the buffer will take you right to the city of cff um so even though it’s not a stated objective we’re going to capture the city of card it becomes an implied objective based upon the operational parameters of the um of the you know the Russian operation as defined but it’s also the timing of um of this attack um it’s time to coincide with a moment of maximum pressure being put on the Ukrainian Armed Forces along the Eastern line of contact stretching from uh Ukrainian territory in the north down through lugans donet zapia keron um the ukrainians have reached sort of the this culminating point of um Manpower and material depletion um they’ve run out of men they’ve run out of equipment they have no strategic reserves left so at this moment of Maximum stress on the Ukrainian Army Russia opens a new front in a place where Ukraine wasn’t prepared despite the fact that Ukraine had been saying that uh they’re going to prepare you know defensive lines that uh are better than the ones that the Russians built in zapia that defeated Ukrainian counter offensive Ukraine’s going to have their own triple layer of Defense there is no defense uh and the Russians are coming through um and again the the Russian attack is designed [Music] to not just acquire territory of course the buffer zone but to continue the war of attrition to deplete Ukrainian resources and they’re doing that on a grand scale uh Ukraine had to take troops away from the Eastern line of contact uh in critical fronters including chos of Yar which the Ukrainian are desperate to hold at all costs they had to take units away from that send it up north and these aren’t just any units these are the best units Ukraine has the mobile reserves um where they’re being destroyed um so the Russians are also viewing what’s going on in COV as you know part and parcel of um their spring and summer offensive um they’re shaping the battlefield uh I can pretty much guarantee you that the CLE of offenses is is not the main direction of the summer of the spring and summer offensive of the Russians um that has yet to be revealed and it may not be revealed until two or three additional offenses later Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops that have not been committed to this battle uh strategic reserves Russia will open up another front shortly I believe um in a place where Ukraine is ill prepared to receive it forcing ukrainians to strip their forces even thinner and then Russia will open up another front and another front and the last front will probably be the Strategic direction that um you know many people are looking for some are speculating that it will be um through MV into Odessa and on the transia um you know the the kig so to speak of uh of Ukraine so you know is it in is it in is is it in Russia’s interest to launch that attack right now no Odessa and N are well defended the koson region is well- defended um but if you continue to stretch the Ukrainian resources thin by launching attacks that threaten important regions uh COV Sumi is a is a place that can be threatened a breakthrough in the Zaria area all of these require Ukraine to divert resources or strip other fronts away and since the Odessa front is relatively quiet right now one can expect that uh the brigades that are there would be sent to plug the gaps up there thereby creating a vulnerability that Russia is prepared to uh to exploit so I think this is part of a larger chess game that Russia’s playing that will unfold um in its totality this summer The Russians have been loathed to put um dates and Link dates to their operations they’ve always been objective driven as opposed to calendar driven but many many Russian uh Military Officers political figures um analysts all have said the same thing in regards to what’s going on now that the month of May will be a decisive month in terms of uh major transformations in the U the map of the war and that um they don’t expect Ukraine to survive the year that they fully anticipate that this war will be over this year and that the Ukrainian forces could be defeated as early as the end of this summer do you think if they attack nicv and adessa are we going to have some sort of different strategy on the part of the United States well I don’t know what else the United States can do um we’re not going to deploy troops uh we’re not going to deploy aircraft um we can do what Tony blinkin is suggesting which is to uh authorize um the ukrainians to use American provided weapons to strike uh Targets in the Russian strategic depth um but all that does is guarantee that Russia will Target Ukrainian decision-making centers and Ukrainian leadership and perhaps even depending on how the expansion of the conflict unfolds Target NATO decision-making centers in Romania and Poland and elsewhere um bringing about the direct conflict between Russia and NATO that the United States has always said it doesn’t want to fight and Frankly Speaking it’s not prepared to fight so I I don’t expect any um dramatic moves by NATO they simply don’t have the resources to follow through um you know would be a gesture um a futile gesture that would only result in a lot of dead NATO troops so and the other thing too is if the Russians see if the Russians attacked Odessa direction today while the ukrainians still have some viability uh at least perceived viability in terms of the state of their Nation um when you do your you know risk reward analysis um some people would say look we can still save Ukraine if we intervene now but if Russia holds off on the Odessa operation until the very end when Ukraine is in total collapse when there’s nothing to save everything’s finished the anybody who’s talking about intervening intervening to do what to save what um you know if you are in a car accident and your body’s thrown through the windshield and you’re laying on the ground broken and battered but still alive it’s worth my effort to stop and attempt CPR to stop the bleeding to see if I can save your life but if you’re in a car accident and the car’s on fire and you’re stuck in the driver’s seat burning um and I pull you out you know no it’s not worth you’re dead um and so Russia I think is gonna wait till Ukraine’s dead so that the risk reward calculations that would be done by nato in regard to any potential intervention strategy would come out overwhelmingly on the risk side and very little or no reward whatsoever and it would you know help prevent an escalation of the conflict so I think that’s what the Russians are probably the direction they probably headed yeah there is an interview with a Ukrainian National Guard Commander with CNN in which he says that how he Praises professionalism of Russian forces near kov and at the same time we hearing that France is training ukrainians to fight and do you think that France has anything to offer them because it seems that they have been in this war for two years and they had lot of experience in this world what how much France can contribute to Ukrainian Army you know I’ll answer the question this this way the United States Marine Corps sends training missions abroad so as a US Army we we train foreign forces um the the special forces the US Special Forces go in and they they they train skill sets um they they they train people on how to use weapon on certain tactics they adapt it to the reality so they tried to come up with a skill set that matches the needs of the client um the Marine Corps has a different approach we we bring a culture of a warrior spirit so our training isn’t just about teaching a skill set but about imbu the people were training with a warrior ethic a warrior Spirit a mentality and approach to war we trained the Georgian Army prior to 2008 the Marine Corps was involved now the Georgian Army was too small and had insufficient Firepower but the Russians who fought the Marine Corps trained units all said the same thing they said those are some of the finest light infantrymen we’ve ever faced they operate professionally they have good tactics but they also are aggressive their their their way they approach the battlefield is very aggressive and and things like that if you have the time um and the you can you can change a culture but it takes time it took the Marine Corps years of working with the Georgian Army and only a segment of the Georgian Army to transform the mentality away from maybe Soviet style thinking or thinking that was uh crafted During the period of the uh Georgian civil conflict in the early 1990s to purged the Georgian mindset of that way of thinking to bring in this new way of thinking um it took a lot of time so now here come the French to the ukrainians ukrainians have already said they need a very specific skill set one that is adapted to the reality of the battlefield that they’re facing they’ve been very critical of some of the training that’s been provided by NATO trainers including the British um you know British paratroopers they’re not bad soldiers but they’re trying to teach a skill set it’s a skill set focused training that um is a skill set that is derived from the paratroopers own experience in Afghanistan and Iraq it’s not related to the reality of the battlefield that the ukrainians think for instance um the the British and and even American trainers uh put a lot of emphasis on patrolling patrolling is a very important skill in um especially low intensity conflict uh you know it’s how you assert control over a region it’s how you collect information it’s how you project power through patrolling it’s a very specific skill set the United States and the British have a patrolling package that’s uh that’s trained the Marine Corps has it we’ve adapted it from the ranger patrolling package which is a very sound thing but if you try to do classic p rolling in on the Ukrainian Battlefield you’ll just die because the new fpv saturation uh of these suicide drones is such that as you are patrolling the Drone will detect you and kill you one of the things about patrolling is to collect intelligence and information well you don’t need to physically put a platoon or a company out on a patrol when you can do that with a drone right now so the skill sets that have been transferred the patrolling package is an intensive package um that that takes a lot of time and so what happens is the ukrainians were receiving this training that’s of absolutely no use to them on the battlefield uh now they were trained in some trench clearing operations but again that’s not how it’s done uh you don’t clear trenches by you know bringing in um you know a squad or a fire team and assaulting through the trench you are prepping the trench with drones uh as you come in you have a drone operator there throwing an fpv drone up there flying it in and boom hitting it that’s your fire support now the drones are the fire support plan um the enemy has drones coming at you so you can’t be concentrated you have to scatter this is why when you see the videos you’re looking at you know five men eight men they’re not flooding The Zone I mean it my you know when I was in the Marine Corps if I were assaulting a trench line like that I’d be coming at you with you know a reinforced platoon I’d have a base of fire I’d have you know one unit fixing trying to envelop here and I’d have Marines bringing Firepower in um in this Warfare all my Marines would die because they’re too close together the fpg drones are going to hit them suppress them artillery is going to come down instantly available it’s all Blended in you have to have not just the drones you have to have your fire support people so the moment the ukrainians fire artillery on you you have counter battery fire going in to suppress that because if you allow the ukrainians to continue to fire they’re going to kill you all um completely different War than what the T West is doing France doesn’t have this skill set France is teaching the old way now you could do the old way if France had time because they’re trainers come from the French Foreign Legion they have a culture of violence a culture of warrior spirit that is from their opinion Second To None um I will tell you Marines who have gone and trained with the French Foreign Legion are very impressed with the warrior Spirit of the French Foreign Legion but it takes a long time to impart that the French trainers are not going to impart the French Foreign Legion Warrior Spirit on the ukrainians there’s not enough time and the skill set that trying to transfer the ukrainians is insufficient to the reality of the battlefield so the French will have no impact whatsoever on the ukrainians in fact they’ll probably hurt ukrainians more than they’ll help them because they’re they’re they’re teaching bad it’s like anything um you know if you’ve ever taken martial arts or boxing um there’s the right way to do something and there’s the wrong way and the wrong way to do it usually sets you up for somebody taking you down because you’re not positioned right you’re not applying the right sequence of moves um but it’s muscle memory so if you’re taught the wrong way and it becomes part of your muscle memory you’re screwed um your muscle memory has to teach you how to do it the right way so that when you’re under stress your body automatically responds the way it’s supposed to respond if you’re being taught a skill set that requires repetition of action you’re you’re teaching muscle memory to ES skill set that’s going to get you killed so much of the NATO training that’s going into the ukrainians is going to get the ukrainians killed it’s not helping them it’s a waste of time ukrainians would be better off forming their own training acmis based upon the Lessons Learned on the battlefield get their own trainers in and train the skill set necessary to the Ukrainian soldiers so they can survive and function effectively on the battlefield to rely on NATO to do this job for you as a death sentence you talk about the French army how about the German and the army of the United Kingdom do they have any sort of skills that it’s outstanding in your opinion as you’ve mentioned about the French army well I mean the look the British um you know have a lot of tradition tradition is very important but again um it’s not assumed it’s uh it’s there it’s it’s imbued in everything uh British paratroopers are very hard troops they’re very strong they very solid soldiers um but it’s their tradition um I will tell you that British paratroopers put on the Ukrainian Battlefield will all die I will tell you that American Marines put on the battlefield will suffer heavy casualties before we adapt we’re not ready for this we aren’t trained for this we’re not prepared for this it doesn’t matter how good you are the first time you run into an extraordinarily lethal situation that you don’t understand because in order for me to survive on the battlefield I have to have a counter for everything you hit me with first of my job is actually to get out there and make you react to me which means I have to have a fundamental understanding of what you’re doing I have to have sufficient tool sets so that I can take control of the decision-making cycle so that I can act make you react know how you predict your reaction so I’m responding to that you respond and I’m taking control of the situation to Firepower maneuver until I am in a superior position and you either surrender Retreat or die that’s what happens on a modern Battlefield I have to be totally familiar with my environment to make instant decisions Marines are going to go into this fight not knowing what to expect they’re going to get hit with something and not understand the consequences of that what that means how it’s setting them up they’re going to react in the wrong way further exposing themselves to additional things coming in they don’t understand and so what’s going to happen is a whole bunch of Marines are going to die now hopefully there’s smart people in the back sitting there looking at it going oh no no no no I see what’s happening okay pull back now let’s do it this way you’re not g to get it right you’re gonna get hit lose more cat but eventually adapt you know who’s very good at that the Russian army the Russian army is the best in the world of adapting to the be the the reality of the battlefield they make a lot of mistakes just like everybody but when they make that mistake they take their losses they pull back they immediately assess and retrain they have an instant feedback cycle that gets their troops pulled out retrained sent back in and uh and they move on the Russians are very good at that the Germans are just a joke there’s no military um Spirit Elon in German they got a couple good units they got but they they model themselves off of others it’s not their own Traditions it’s they say you know we are trained like Navy Seals we are trained like American Green Berets you know well what about being trained like you know Germans um but the most the German Army for the most part is a Barracks Army it’s an army that’s become accustomed to peacetime uh living where you know they view it as a nine-to-five job you go to work in the morning and you sort of do what you do you don’t want to get too sweaty because you know you you got to look good in uniform you got to go home and be at your kids soccer game and um you know so let’s physical fitness I’d rather eat sausages and drink beer and so the German Army is a very soft Army a very out of shape Army I can guarantee you that I could take a German infantry battalion right now put a 100 pounds on their back Force March them 25 miles and they wouldn’t make it to the end as a cohesive unit they lack that skill set they lack the endurance they lack the combat mentality it’s a peacetime military um it’s also a military that much like much of NATO has become addicted to technology they like things that go whiz and and um it looks great it works wonderful in peacetime environment the second it gets out in the cold the mud where there’s no maintenance the things break and you got it it all bogs down and the Germans don’t have the the logistical ability the skill set to keep that functioning in a combat environment because they don’t train in a combat environment you know the Russians have been in ukrainians and Russian been in war for two years their unit have been in the field they’ve mastered these things now what Germany and everybody else should be doing is putting advisors right in the front there not to teach the ukrainians but to learn from the ukrainians I would be sending guys in there dress them up as ukrainians and say your job is to live for three months and I want you to take notes of everything you’re seeing there how they’re doing this then I’m pulling you back here and you’re going to work with people to capture what you’ve done in writing so that we can start you know adapting to all this that’s what the Germans should be doing they should be having units in the front not to pretend that we can teach the ukrainians anything but to learn from the ukrainians the Russians will never say anything bad about the combat capability of the ukrainians they will condemn the Nazis they’ll speak ill of the leadership but I have yet to meet a Russian soldier officer General who will tell you that the ukrainians can’t fight what they’ll tell you is ukrainians are Russians and they’re the same people we’re fighting ourselves ukrainians are very brave they adapt um they’re courageous they’re tenacious um the West should be learning from them we should also be learning from the Russians we should be doing everything we can instead of trying to come up with politicized talking points to put the Russians down sit there and say wow that was Innovative how did they do that what’s going on here instead of you know I I see so many you know I’m gonna really irritate a lot of people by saying this but I don’t care um America today has our our military culture has been taken over by Special Operations types because the Iraq War the war on terror Afghanistan was dominated by the Special Operations community so we got a whole bunch of seals out there we got a whole bunch of Delta Force guys we got a whole bunch of Green Berets out there who spent their time in Nahar Province dropping the mother ofall bombs on Isis caves and they think that they’re God gift to the world because they were big and bad and wonderful and they had beards and they have tattoos and they have muscles and all this kind of stuff they don’t know anything about Modern Warfare they know about low intensity conflict but they know nothing about Modern Warfare and uh these guys have you know have a tendency to look at what’s happening on the battlefield and say we’d never do it that way well no kidding you never did it you never did what’s going on here I would never do that you never did it it’s not part of your skill set your job was never to come up with a you know armored supported assault on a heavily entrenched defensive position your job was always to go out and kick down the doors of defenseless Iraqi villagers Gunn down unarmed men terrorize the women and children snatch some people and leave or to sit back in the hills and call in an air strike on an Afghan wedding party and reclassified as a Taliban Gathering that’s what you did for a living you never engaged the sustain combat the heroes of aabad s team six red team you know they went in and they got a 57y old diabetic hey bravo bravo you idiots uh you know they trained in an airconditioned environment they lifted weights they ate food they got a good night’s sleep until the moment came when after they got perfect intelligence from drones electronic warfare they got on helicopters and did something they already rehearsed a million times they went in and did they still screwed up the helicopter pilot uh went in and you know didn’t predict the what would happen when the the fence line wasn’t the way they built it when when the CI put together the model uh and they practice on one type of fence they came in the lift wasn’t the same they dropped they crashed huh I thought you guys were the best in the world no they make mistakes like everybody else but my point is that was an operation that’s been you know everybody says the seals are the best in the world well anybody can be the best in in the world if all you do is lift weights take steroids um train air condition sleep eat and then get perfect intelligence and go launch an operation how about sitting in the mud you know who were the perfect Soldiers the Infantry men of World War II the guy sitting in the foxille dirty filthy hungry everything was wet and cold and miserable and they functioned they weren’t sexy like the Ste seals when they took off their shirt you didn’t see ripped muscles you know go oh my god look that Still’s got the perfect six-pack that’s not what you saw when they took out the shirt it was pasty they had boils they had sores uh their muscles were not well defined they were hard because they lived a hard life but their bodies weren’t impressive they were pathetic specimens of human beings probably a little too scrawny um you know but perfect Warriors because they survived in horrific conditions Marines we pride ourselves of being physic physically fit you know but the perfect Marine Warrior was the marine going through the island hopping the guy who had ding fever it was had diarrhea uncontrolled diarrhea was puking his guts out didn’t have any sleep skin was yellow had malaria had the shakes his uniform hadn’t been changed in three months he did his ass was hanging out because he doesn’t have any underwear and his pants are ripped off everything’s ripped off over there but he had a helmet he had enough Deon he had a rifle and a bayonet and he couldn’t be stopped because that sick pathetic skinny scrawny dude was a warrior a warrior the same kind we had in Vietnam the guys who went to the Jungle all the time not the sexy Special Operations guy not John Wayne and the green beray the guys that were in the jungle all the time the Army the Marines those are the Warriors and those are the guys who have done it who can sit there and tell you yeah no that I what he’s doing here that’s smart not these Special Forces types because they don’t understand it they’re sitting there today commenting on things they just don’t understand and um and yet Americans are going well he was in a ranger battalion or he was in a ranger regiment who cares well he was a Delta Force operative who cares he was on still Team Six who cares wrong skill set different War shouldn’t listen to them should listen to people that have appropriate skills I said early on in this conflict if you have done a schedule of fire of two artillery battalions are greater then don’t go on TV and talk about this conflict because if your scope of conflict involves a jtac you know joint detal air controller sitting there with all of his radios calling in Satellite guided bombs against a Target doesn’t have any air defense you’re in the wrong War you’re talking about the wrong thing and that’s the problem with Americans today now we have generals who know only know those Wars or if they’re old enough they were back in the Cold War General Hodges uh you see him all the time um what does he know he doesn’t know anything about the fighting that’s taking place right now nothing about that he his brain was programmed for a different War a different time and shaped by you know what uh what what he experienced in the you know Iraq conflict and the Afghan conflict we we don’t have any Americans right now that are capable of speaking intelligently about the war that’s taking place between the Russians and ukrainians none whatsoever we should we used to have these things called foreign area officers now they have them today you see them all the time I’m a foreign area officer with a Eurasian specialty that’s the new way of saying Russia because we don’t want to highlight Russia it’s EUR Asian specialty Eastern European and EUR Asian specialty but they’re Experts of nothing of nothing first of all they’re not Russian expert you’re not allowed to be a Russian expert anymore so they become an expert in hung they become an expert in the Czech Republic they become an expert in Germany in Kosovo but they’re not Russian experts we used to have guys who were Soviet experts the Soviet foreign area officer was a true specialty somebody who could speak the language knew the culture studied the tactics studied the culture would come together and his whole purpose was to basically be the Russian on the staff of the officer that he was assigned to his job was to think like a Russian and when they’d say well the Russians he’d say this is what the Russians would do and how would he know well a he studied them B he talked to them his job was to go out to his Russian counterpart and talk with them learn from them now the Russian was doing the same thing learning from the from him about America that’s the way the game works I have been to the Russian Embassy a couple of times uh people mock me because I tend to I go there on uh you know defender of the Fatherland day and I hang out with a bunch of Russian colonels and um I talk to them what do I talk about well we’re all military guys we talk about military things and they sit there and it’s not top secret but I’m getting an idea of feel for them I talk to them I have a drink with them we Bond we talk we talk we talk I am at my Advanced age today and the fact that I’ve been separated I’m a better qualified Soviet or Russian foreign area officer than any Russian foreign area officer out there today in the US military why because I have more relevant conversations with Russian military counterparts the the US guys don’t talk to them the Russians were saying we we try to we reach out they’re not allowed to talk to us if you ain’t talking to the Russians you ain’t learning about the Russians from the Russians so you know nothing about the Russians and that’s why we get it all wrong big Pro hint to the United States Department defense Unleash Your foreign area officers let them start talking to their Russian counterparts you may learn a couple things and you may Empower yourself with knowledge and information so that you realize that what you’re trying to accomplish on the battlefield ain’t going to be accomplished and maybe the Russians aren’t the threat you think they are once you talk to them and you learn from them you’re no longer afraid of them so fear isn’t what’s driving you knowledge is that would be my advice a little less time focused on trying to shove outdated tactics on the battlefield and more time talking with your Russian counterparts and learning from them about what’s really going on SC I want to talk about the conflict in Ukraine but since you talk about the German Army I’m so curious what has happened to German Army this was the Nazi Germany was fighting the entire world and right now you the picture that you’re giving us from the German Army it’s so pathetic why we cannot see the same tradition from Nazi Germany coming down to Germany today thank God we don’t we don’t want to see that we don’t want to see a militarized Germany that’s the last thing we want in the world I’m happy that the German Army is a bunch of fat pretzel eating beer chugging no good softies that’s the way I want them because that’s all they need who threatens Germany today who threatens Germany today is Luxembourg going to take the 150 men that it has in its one company of infantry and send them across the border to conquer nope are the Dutch gonna finally wake up and say screw it we’re taking over um you know northern northern Germany are the Danes gonna say let’s become Vikings again and move down and Conquer Germany um are the austrians gonna say we’re tired of this uh Germany dominating Austria it’s time for Austria to dominate Germany Poland po know better than to mess with the Germans they hopefully have learned that lesson a couple times but the French the French don’t want to mess with the Germans the Italians nobody nobody wants to mess with the Germans because there’s no reason to there’s no reason to if you’re G to interact with Germany today it should be economically that’s where Germany has this reputation of this modern industrial State uh that has you know well-trained Workforce uh puts out you know extremely well-made equipment high efficiency at least that’s the reputation it used to have until they allowed America to blow up the nordstream pipeline their economy is tanked de-industrializing as we speak um and they’re getting worse and worse and worse so how does Germany compensate by saying well we’re going to militarize um you know the the the irony here and I always getting I think you’re setting me up I I I I’m I’m sensing that you’re asking this question because you want a specific answer and um I will probably go ahead and give you the answer you’re looking for but I know what you’re up to here you little innocent question asker you um you know right now the German government you know they call themselves greens or they call themselves social liberals and they have all these terms that they use that disguise what they really are they’re Nazis there you Scott you said it that’s what you were looking for and now going to give it to you uh it they think like Nazis when the at the end of the day when confronted with a problem set that requires Germany to stand up and Define who they are what defines them what motivates them it comes back to if we’re going to reindustrialize it has to be done through a militarized angle um militarization industrialization unification you’ve just created the trifecta of what can help turn Germany into the modern incarnation of the Third Reich the fourth Reich now the fact that the Germans aren’t disgusted by the notion of having German equipment sent to Ukraine to kill Russians if they haven’t figured out that that is not just a bad look it’s it’s a it’s a disgusting look it’s a look that Germany can’t have can’t Embrace um but this is what we have here now the problem with the German leadership though is that uh you know the German military is not there yet and the other problem they have is that they’re trying to make something out of materials that let mean let me put it this way in World War II the United States we built battleships nice big battleships the Missouri the new Jersey when we U you know we put the Iowa we put them in into we mothballed them after the Vietnam War and um and then later on in the 80s we said man let’s get the battleships back out there because we want the big guns and so we brought them out but you know they’ve been sitting around some Rust here and there and so we gotta make some changes to them uh we got to repair this repair that and the Navy went well this is a very unique kind of Steel that we have here we don’t make it anymore not only do we not make this steel anymore we don’t have the people that know how to make it anymore they’re all like dead and retired this is in the 1980s we had to go out the US government had to go out and find um Sailors who had been on the New Jersey before and sign contracts with them they couldn’t bring them back day because they were too old but we also had to go out and find steel workers and chemists and people that were in you know in their 70s um and say hey how did you do it they had to go get their old notes you know it’s you know they my yeah now my basement I’ve got my uh wait my teeth just fell out I’ve got my uh my notes on the the formulas that I had and we had to take all these old guys in and sort of retrain ourselves to do this and even then we we couldn’t do it we lacked the ability because we weren’t focused on doing that um to become the Nazi army for the verok to become this Powerhouse remember they had their first of all they weren’t that far removed from the first world war so you had millions of Germans who had fought in a war understood War they were not generationally removed from conflict so as a nation Germany is still populated by people that new war fought in the War um and could be brought back to fight again second of all they had created this um this this 100,000 strong professional fighting force all it did was train and it trained with the mindset of expanding so it was a very topheavy fighting force so that you had a lot of officer and Ino cadres that could be broken out and then beefed up with new recruited troops uh newly formed troops so it was built for expansion expansion to go to war um and they were working on their tactics uh a lot of people don’t know that the Germans were in Russia actually um working with the Russians on combined armed tactics teaching working with the Russians about tank operations about aircraft uh flying learning how to do basic Blitz scree 101 was being done by that uh you know in in concert with Marshall tokachi who was one of the great Geniuses of the uh of the Soviet Army um such a genius that Stalin ended up putting him in the goog and killing him because he viewed him as a threat but um you know tuvi was working with the Germans um to do this so when the Germans made the decision that they were going to violate the Treaty of Versailles and the restrictions and expand their military the military that they they built was ready for war was with a mindset for war um prepared for war because they had been trained the German Army used to be a pretty decent Army let’s never forget that the West German military um was led by Nazis was when it was recreated literally led by Nazis um senior NATO leadership Nazis now eventually Nazis get old they die out and they’re replaced by people who aren’t Nazis but they might as well be because they never learned that being a Nazi was bad all they saw was well my Commanding General was a Nazi and uh when we get drunk in the bar afterwards he tell great stories about the battles on the Eastern front or how they fought the Americans or what that and and and so they stayed on West Germany believed that it was a Frontline State because it was a Frontline state in the Cold War and their army was trained to think like a Frontline state in fact it was a very aggressive military because the West Germans didn’t like the american- driven concept of trading land for time um and using nuclear weapons to slow down the Soviet Advance the Germans are going you guys do know that when you use that nuclear weapon on a map you’re dropping on German soil and that that soil now will be unusable uh for the rest of our lives you’re ruining destroying we refuse to do that we want a forward defense so the Germans were actually saying we’re going to defend every inch of our land we don’t want nuclear weapons used we’re going to and so they trained for that that was their mentality when German youth joined the military they put the German flag the West German flag on their shoulder and they were damn proud of that flag they were proud of being a German they were proud of being a part of NATO they recognized the front you know the that they were leading from the front then the Cold War ended and all of that went away and the Germans suddenly believed in peace first thing that happened is they absorb they got this East German Army full of East German Patriots they told the East Germans you can’t join our army you yall have to go away well pinch in some of you most are just going to be unemployed they picked a handful of people that would transition over I worked with a couple of of them um you know because they knew about scud missiles so they kept a couple of these guys in to teach everybody else about scud missiles but vast majority none of the leadership none of the officers and almost all the enlisted were sent away so the the the post cold war bundes is a West German Army not a combined Army so the mentality still is all West German and it stopped being about how to because there’s no there there’s no more you know Ford defense doct there’s no Doctrine there’s no war there’s no enemy the Russians are gone everybody’s gone so the Germans just sort of stopped doing anything they stopped maintaining their aircraft if you take a look at the operational um availability of their nuclear capable tornado aircraft it’s very low percentage I remember as a weapons inspector in Iraq we used German CH 53s as our primary uh heavy lift transport um and the discussions that would be had in the German air force about how they can get enough operational CH 53s in there um because most of them didn’t have the spare parts they weren’t spending the money on that they didn’t maintain them they were Hangar Queens they stop doing anything they sto training real because training is very expensive people don’t understand that to train right is very expensive and to train right it has to be live fire training I mean if if you’re running around with blanks or you’re going up on computer screens thinking that that teaches you something it teaches you nothing bad habits remember we talked about muscle memory if you train people with bad habits by sloppy training um in combat in combat they’re going to fall back on a skill set they learned in front of a damn computer screen they’re gonna fall back on a skill set they learned firing blanks bad skill set you die um because and you make a mistake in front of a computer screen just reset it that’s the computer game mentality oh God I died it’s like World of Warcraft we wiped on that raid well if it was a real game you’d all be dead it’s over you lost your subscription and it’s done you have to start all over but no we wiped on that raid reset it let’s go and do it again well when you wipe on a raid in real life you’re just dead you’re just dead so you have to train realistic all time and it’s hard training is hard I was in 29 Palms for two and a half years and I spent easily 70 % of my time in the field I was married my wife never saw me this is peacetime Marine Corps peacetime Marine Corp might as well been wartime because all we did is train and we weren’t training we were preparing for training realistic day after day Warrior mindset um it’s expensive it costs a lot of money when the Cold War ended the first thing the United States said is we need a peace dividend we need a peace dividend now you can’t take your peace dividend away from the defense industrialists they still got to make their money they got to pay out their shareholders you take your peace dividend from the Frontline troops you cut their training so well we don’t need to train like that we we we’ll do other things you know oh well let’s train them about you know sexual harassment prevention transgendered rights whatever train them about anything but closing with the destroying the enemy through Firepower maneuver that’s the you know that’s the mindset the Germans became the same thing they became a Barracks military a 9-to-5 military with no Mission no focus and as a result they are incapable of doing anything the embarrassment the ultimate embarrassment was when the Germans provided this Kora uh computer gaming uh software in support of the Ukrainian counter offensive and the Germans went to graph andv and they sat down with the ukrainians and they’d open up the core thing and they’d lay out the maps they said this is how you’re going to attack and we’re going to computer game this thing and the ukrainians are all like um you want us to do what you go go here well shouldn’t we be learning how to drive uh the the Bradley before you or start drawing arrows on the map shouldn’t we know how to drive it don’t worry you’ll get to drive okay um but as you drive forward I see on that little computer thing it says um that there there will be um air power available to us over here is this little this little clicky click it brings in the close air support but you’re not clicking the close air support button oh no you don’t have close air support but if we don’t have close air support how can you make this line move on the computer how does that happen well well we’ve taken away the enemy threat but how do you take them away if you don’t have CL close air support to take away well we’re just assuming they’re going to run away I mean these These are the Germans sitting there just making up excuse my language making stuff up draw M because they don’t know anything about war they’re theyve spent their entire life playing stupid computer games that’s their training and they fake it to make it if you can’t get it done just program the computer to get it done for you and that’s the reality of the German military today they can’t fight the biggest joke right now is that the Germans have told the I believe the lithuanians or maybe the Estonian I think it’s the lithuanians one of those one of the Baltic countries that they’re going to reinforce their component which is a reinforced Battalion right now uh to a brigade you’re gonna get 4,000 th000 Germans now normally that would scare the living crap out of you especially if you’re a Baltic State you’d say wait a minute the last time I had 4,000 Germans they wore swastikas oh yeah but so did we Ah that’s right I forgot the the the baltics were all Nazis anyways Nazi sympathizers you know so maybe they all decide to get together and kill whatever Jews are left in the baltics who knows that’s what Germans and the bols can do but um the Germans are going to send this brigade in there but not today because they’re not ready they have to here’s an interesting they have to recruit recruit the soldiers specifically for this assignment because it’s outside of Germany and so they have to go they can’t just take a battalion it’s not like the American Military says you know hey first Battalion third Marines you’re going to goddamn Lithuania pack your move yes sir can’t do that the Germans are like he the uh 263rd mechanized Bal you’re going to Lithuania no we’re not why constitutionally we can’t deploy outside of the country without permission of parliament this is a voluntary Mission and you need to recruit new soldiers and we’re going to go eat schnitzel and drink beer um so they they’re not even guaranteed they’re going to get this brigade there and when they do they have to re you know re-recruit retrain two battalions to join the one battalion they have that are already there and they don’t even know if they can do that they don’t even know now if they can get the equipment because all their equipment these are barracks guys all of their equipment that they’re supposed to have they don’t have anymore they either sent it Ukraine it doesn’t function or they borrow it from other units for their training exercise so these guys are sitting there going yeah we need new new stuff hey Schultz hey Hitler thank you for answering um that militarization thing you want to do build some new infantry fighting vehicles for the Battalion oh you can’t why not oh the steel plant shut down because they can’t afford the gas the energy prices why because America blew up nordstream yeah you’re a genius I mean the Germans are such a pathetic country right now so pathetic in everything they do it’s a joke I’m enjoying watching them flip around on the ground like the fat pathetic turds they are trying to get this brigade over there and you expect the Germans to do anything to help the ukrainians you know what the best thing Germany could do to help the ukrainians dig up the grave of step on Bandera burn his body grind it up in the dust mix it with cow spread it all over the planet so nobody could ever again visit this man’s grave eliminate his memory um that’s the best thing they could do for the Ukrainian people is to get rid of step on Bandera but instead they allow the gravite to stay there and they make the ukrainians believe that s Germany is going to provide what to save the day there ain’t no German Cavalry first of all if there was a German Cavalry all the horses would die when those fat jumped in the saddle and tried to ride their way to Ukraine Germany can’t fight today Germany has zero combat capability none whatsoever their military cannot survive on the modern Battlefield and they know it that’s the only good thing here is that the actual leaders of combat units or units that are supposed to be combat units know they can’t do the job now they just need to tell Admiral Bower that you know he’s the loud mouth up there at the head of the military Commission of NATO who keeps talking as if NATO can fight hook and Jab with the Russians at least General Christopher cavoli the head of the American forces while he’s spinning politically he has come out and he said look um just so everybody knows the Russians right now uh they have a very big army backed by a very efficient defense industrial base and they are combat hardened um they’re probably the biggest baddest military on the planet today day at least somebody understands what’s going on here one of the companies in Germany Ry medal they’re talking about producing arms on Ukrainian soil do you think what would be the reaction on the part of Russians if they do that I don’t know answer the question yourself what do you think the Russians are gonna do that’s okay uh I tell you what guys show us the blueprints uh where you going to laid it out and we’ll make sure that we leave you alone do you guys have any special logistical support requirements or you going to have to bring in material from Germany to build this up let us know the schedule of arrival so that we don’t bomb the bridges that day um and you go ahead and build it all up and and get it all doing and you know put some child care facilities in there because we we we want everybody to be happy and we’ll never touch it or are the Russians just gonna say all right uh show me the photograph how much money you think you sunk at they sunk in that foundation so far a billion dollars let them keep building it okay where are they at now two billion yeah have they put any equipment in there no keep wait wait wait wait wait oh look they just brought in the the specialized heavy machinery the computer controlled U computer numerically controlled machines how much is that worth couple billion blow it off the map right now Bo Bo and that’s it which is why it’ll never happen because no insurer will ever ensure that German business it’s fantasy no investor where are they going to get the money you think the German government’s gonna go all right let’s sell some bonds let’s sell some bonds hey buy the bond of the German Factory that’s GNA get blown up three and a half months after it begins pouring concrete buy the bond nobody will buy that Bond nobody will invest in that this is just stupidity in the extreme um maybe he’ll get uh you know maybe he’s looking to get you know a hundred million so he can keep some of his engineering teams together so they can waste their time drawing up designs of plants that’ll never get built but they’re never going to put that factory in Ukraine it will never happen yeah the zalanski term came to an end and it seems that he’s continuing under the martial law and at the same time you’re hearing that penko the former president of you Ukraine he’s not happy with the situation in Ukraine do we know what’s going on right now in Ukraine considering these political parties inside Ukraine I’m sure we know I mean it’s difficult um to get precise information because there is no free press in Ukraine that’s that’s one of the you know byproducts of a dictatorial regime under martial laws they suppress the Press um so it’s not like we have a viable political opposition in there that’s um you know allowed to call out the government for its many failures that Ukraine says we are a wartime government under wartime conditions and so we have to do that which we need to do to survive uh so they’ve eliminated political opposition they’ve eliminated the Free Press they’ve eliminated elections so let’s stop talking about democracy and just understand what Ukraine is and it’s been for some time now it’s a military dictatorship it’s martial law where a civilian president rules um backed by not a constitution or the rule of law but by muscle of of of the Ukrainian Security Services of police state the ministry of interior Etc that’s the reality of it now you can make a case from the Ukrainian perspective that this is necessary in fact I would um to be honest I would make the case that it’s necessary uh democracy is ugly democracy is inefficient democracy uh creates fractures in society especially in hotly contested times that can be exploited by your opponents uh that the greatest weakness the Ukraine could put forward to the Russians would be to have a viable political opposition that the Russians therefore could then support and create deeper fractures within Ukraine that from a Ukrainian perspective in war you need unity of command Unity of leadership Unity of focus and that if you can’t uh support a democracy can’t support the elections the way they needed to be supported as they would be supported in peace time then you take that off the map and just focus on winning the war the problem is the man that’s the dictator um he’s not up to the task he’s not he’s first of all you’d want your dictator to be honest you’d want your dictator to be somebody who could not be corrupted uh either by power or by money uh a man who cares about Ukraine a man who cares about the future of Ukraine a man who cares about Ukrainian democracy who always keeps in the back of his mind that at some point in time this war will end and when this war ends I am going to step aside and I am going to because once you become dictator you can never be president you can never be president you can’t go back to being president because muscle memory you’ve learned too many bad habits and those bad habits are okay during war where you need the singularity of of focus to win the war to get defense production up to make the cuts necessary to mobile Iz when necessary but you should be singularly focused on winning the war zalinsky is singularly focused on sustaining corruption it’s all about corruption everything he does that talks about winning the war has a corruption aspect to it it’s about getting more resources knowing that a certain significant percentage of those resources are going to be skimmed off by by top by the political and economic Elite to enrich themselves it’s the way uh Ukraine works zinski is the first to take off from the top so you know he is the worst possible person for this job he is not a politician he’s a comedian he was brought in as a figurehead um and so people use him to enrich themselves the people below him aren’t singularly focused on winning this war they’re singularly focused on making money and when you build a team with that as their principal Focus they don’t want to populate their subordinate ranks with guys who are going to do the job because honest people will look at the corruption and say shoot them move up and say no we got to cure this thing so the entire edifice is corrupt there are no honest people in Ukraine none every single one of them is on the grift they’re all liars they sustain this lie some of them may be decent enough not to make fortunes themselves but they understand that should they speak out out should they squeak should they squawk they will be crushed and so they are complicit it’s like the you know I I I’ve said in America that once an American police officer is on the job for more than six months he’s already corrupted how can you say that well because in that six months I can virtually guarantee that he’s seen another cop do something that violates the law and he was silent about it that makes him a corrupt cop because a corrupt cop can tolerate no infraction of the law by a fellow police officer none whatsoever in the moment you do you’ve bought into the corruption so Ukraine may have people who aren’t taking the money but they are aware of those who are taking the money and they are silent they cover up for them they are corrupt the entire system is corrupt and it cannot be redeemed there is no hope for this again if you had a hard man an Iron Man a dictator you could even call him a brutal dictator who truly loved his country and was truly doing this to help this country his country get through this conflict with the understanding that he and his system will exit stage right when this is done you could tolerate this kind of stuff but and not not the corruption but you could tolerate you know no Free Press no no that but this fake democracy we have in place zalinski is no Winston Churchill never has been never will be uh but the West continues to promote in that but at some point in time you know the emperor has no clothes and zalinski is as naked as can be and the West can’t keep pretending that he is outfitted in this remarkable outfit um he’s naked for the world to see he has to be removed and um who’s going to replace him though penko he’s even more corrupt he is the epit of corruption if you remember when zalinski um did his before he became president he did this TV show a servant of the people and in it he’s supposed to be the great anti-corruption Crusader that’s going against the corrupt system who do you think the corrupt system was por shenko it was literally the TV show was about you know this this this wonderful little school teacher turned you know populist president taking on Petro poreno it was a scheme designed to insert to insinuate zalinski as a believable presidential figure to fight the corruption of Petro penko of the oligarchs of the corrupt government officials it was done on purpose to put that in the mindset of the Ukrainian people so that when the time came to confront poreno at the polls zalinski could say I would like to be the guy I play on TV I would like to be the anti-corruption Crusader I would like to be the man of peace now he was just a comedian playing a playing a part but the people didn’t know any better Martin Sheen there was a period of time where Martin Sheen could have run for the president of United States I would imagine if he was younger right now and West Wing wasn’t so long ago that Martin she could be the president of the United States today does he have any qualification to be president none whatsoever except one he played an American president on a popular TV show and many Americans when they see them say that’s the president of United States I believe that man could be the president of the United States that’s what they did to zalinski they put him up there but the corruption that he was fighting in his TV show is the corruption of Petra poreno so poreno is no alternative there is no other alternative you can go back and look for other people and previous thing but they’re all tainted by Ukrainian nationalism the ukrainians that came into Power after the orange Revolution were all Ultra nationalists the First Act that Yenko did was to elevate stepan Bandera to the national hero of Ukraine you want them in power Ukraine has no viable option the best political option for the ukrainians actually are the Eastern ukrainians who fled uh when the war when when this conflict began they are in Russia today they have formed a u a government in Exile uh the extent to which the Russian government actually um you know listens and um and absorbs what they have to say I don’t know I can’t say that but um these are the people I’ve talked to several of them and um you know it’s interesting they say that when this war is over um you know they believe that Russia will be in control political control of the totality of Ukraine and that there will be a Purge of all of the western Ukrainian based nationalists and um all of the corrupt oligarchs Etc and The Purge could take three to five years but when it’s done um the Russians will actually turn the system over to the ukrainians and say you elect your own officials have a presidential election elect somebody and maybe at that time Ukrainian people will be able to elect somebody who isn’t an ultra nationalist or a corrupt oligarch or beholden to a corrupt oligarch or threatened by Ukrainian nationalists to elect a real leader a servant of the people who can actually build um genuine Democrat institutions in Ukraine you already know what has happened to Afghanistan at the end of the day the United States left it to in the hand of Taliban and right now in Ukraine I think the future of Ukraine would be together with Russia not with the United States because United States doesn’t belong to that region and Russia would be interested to have a prosperous Ukraine on his border because so important for Russia as well that’s why it seems that pu didn’t decide to destroy everything on the western part of Ukraine it’s interesting I um I I talked to again uh some of these Ukrainian politicians in Exile and I asked them I said um you know many in Russia consider COV and Odessa to be Russian cities NEP nepos to be a Russian city mol Sumi all of these to be Russian cities and that you know they believe that um War can’t end until Russia takes over the totality of the territory that historically has been known as no Russia new Russia um and these are ukrainians um they are some of them are ethnic Russians some aren’t um but almost to a person they went well that’s not necessarily the model that is going to happen and I went really how do you explain this to the Russian people who think that it has to happen understand that Putin right now is only talking continues to only talk about consolidation of Kon zap of the Nets and Lans he wants all of those territories to be um you know evicted of um Ukrainian forces and those are part of Russia but there’s no talk right now of Odessa cumi nepos becoming part of Russia none whatsoever um there could be but here’s the thing when this war War is Over what does Russia want do they want a Ukraine that hasn’t been totally defeated continues to believe in um NATO and EU as the direction they need to have uh where ultr nationalism continues to reside uh that kind of Ukraine will just be a cancerous tumor attached to Russia that is going to cause problems down the road you hav’t cured the disease um you know you may have caused it to go into remission but it hasn’t been cured I don’t think there’s anybody in Russia that will tolerate that outcome not after the sacrifices Russia has made so the tumor must be removed um now you can you can do this by cutting Ukraine apart um in a way that um destroys its viability as a modern nation state but when you do that understand that the cancer cells these ultr nationalists they’re going to go into diaspora they’re going to come in they’re going to go down to Elin New York where there’s already a Banderas base they’re going to go up to Canada where Cynthia Freeland has all of her Nazis in place they’ll go to Australia they’ll go to Germany they’ll go into diaspora where the intelligence Services of the United States in Western Europe will provide them money to funnel resources back into Ukraine to keep the nationalism alive and because you’ve created Ukraine that’s not a viable State there will be unemployment there will be poverty there will be political unrest and so the Nationalist ideology cancer cells can take root and begin to metastasize and once again you have the tumor that’s not an option either the Ukraine that needs to exist has to be a viable nation state it has to possess access to the Sea and it has to possess a VI industrial base that hasn’t been destroyed people say why aren’t the Russians taking everything out because at some point in time there will be a Ukraine a postconflict Ukraine and it has to be able to survive without a backbreaking investment of resources to rebuild it um one of the best ways to get Ukraine to revive is through self Revival that means that COV NE Petros Odessa need to be working for Ukraine now how can you do that if Ukraine is becoming a cancerous tumor again you can’t you can’t allow this industrial capacity to empower the cancerous tumor so you eliminate the tumor you have the industry now become viable and creates wealth and prosperity um so that Ukraine is healthy there is no disease tissue that the cancer cells can attach to all the ca money is bouncing off because there’s not a desire for it this requires Ukraine to be whole functional but it also requires in for safety that Ukraine to be connected to Russia not the west and the thing that these politicians told me is that the solution is a union such as exists between belus and Russia a political economic military Union and that the solution is to have a Ukraine a viable Ukraine that is in political economic and social or military Union with Russia and belus an independent state but an independent state whose future is only connected to Russia um there’s no path the EU there’s no path to Nato only to Russia because only by integrating the industrial base of Ukraine into this economic Union can Russia allow that industrial base to exist outside of its um Sovereign control Russia can’t allow this industrial base to exist to sustain a cancerous tumor it can only do it to revive a Ukraine that’s part of a Russian berus Union that um is promoting and you know some people say well that’s just a return to the Soviet Union yeah but the Soviet Union didn’t wasn’t wasn’t a member of bricks Soviet Union wasn’t a member of the Shanghai cooperation organization you see the Ukraine that would be in Union with Russia would have connectivity through Russia to the global economy it would be it wouldn’t be this um you know this Singularity uh that’s attached to this this larger dominant state it would be part of a team process of engaging with the world where its industry not only revitalized its own Society but strengthened Russia strengthen belus strengthen the world a whole different approach um and I think that’s the direction that the Russians are heading in right now again this is purely an assessment on my part I know you probably have a lot of people who watch this show go Ritter doesn’t know what he’s talking about maybe I don’t I’ve been studying Russia for a long time I’ve been talking to a lot of people and scenario seems to be in the long term the one that provides the best range of options for a positive outcome for the people that promote taking COV taking Odessa taking NEPA Petro those are short-term outcomes but how do you prevent the cancer from coming back because the moment the cancer comes back you’re just going to be doing this all over again um if you promote the destruction of Ukraine who’s going to pay for it and again by destroying Ukraine you create the disease of poverty of um of of you know of social collapse political U disengagement disenfranchisement that allows cancer cells to come in and create the tumor all over again you got to keep the Banderas out you can eradicate the Banderas inside Ukraine but they exist everywhere they exist right down here by my house and you cannot give the West the chance to reinfect Ukraine with the cancer of ultra nationalism of bandism and the only way you do that is to bring in all of your appropriate I don’t want to use the term vaccine because people say you’re a pro vaccine person but you need to create the conditions where you have a healthy Ukraine that can fight off the cancer cells and the healthiest Ukraine is a United Ukraine with a viable economic base that has a mission that doesn’t promote the Resurgence of nationalism but promotes stronger ties with Russia belus and the global South yeah considering The Summit in Switzerland they’re talking about they want to talk about Ukraine at the same time we’ve learn that Lula from Brazil the head of South Africa they’re not going to be there because they don’t believe it that is any outcome coming out of this Summit and we still don’t know if China would participate in this Summit but how do you think when it comes to these type of summits on the part of the United States and European Union is all PR for them or what why they’re doing this it’s a self-licking ice cream cone it’s just there to please themselves um there’s no how can you have a peace Summit to talk about bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine and not invite the Russians so it’s a joke it’s a 100% joke if you allow zalinsky to come to the table and promote the zinsky formula which the Russians have said doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever becoming reality even the West understands that then this is literally an exercise in futility if China comes understand China will come um after president X and Putin met um where Putin said look I support the Chinese Initiative for peace but the Chinese themselves are looking at saying well but we got to have Russia at the table we can’t be doing this uh so you know even if the Chinese participate it won’t be because they’re snubbing Russia it’ll be because Russia gave them not permission but Russia said okay we we we’re not opposed to this but the Chinese will come with certain expectations that aren’t going to be met by this conference therefore this conference were never succeeding the other thing about the Chinese is they’re not big fans of futile gestures um if the Chinese sit down at the table they are sort of hoping there will be an outcome um they’re not there to play guesswork or to make people feel good they’re there to achieve a result so I don’t see the Chinese coming to this peace Summit unless they have done the Preparatory work where they have people saying that we’ve bought on to the Chinese peace uh deal but the Americans will never let that happen the Americans will never let a peace conference occur that actually achieves a genuine peace and I just want to remind everybody that the American strategic objective towards Russia is the Strategic defeat of Russia and the Ukrainian conflict is designed to promote that defeat by weakening Russia both militarily through a drawn out conflict and by continuing to justify um economic sanctions designed to strangle the Russian economy uh the combined effort of a strangled economy and an endless conflict are supposed to demoralize the Russian population so they rise up in a maidon type event uh the Moscow maidon to evict Vladimir Putin from power that is the Strategic objective of the United States and you can never forget that when you talk about anything the United States does visa Ukraine Russia or Europe they’re not there the United States does not exist to come up with an equitable outcome a peace outcome a you know a a stabilizing outcome the United States policy is to destabilize Russia and uh it needs this conflict to do that so the United States is not somebody you really want involved in this process because they’re not interested in true peace how did you find she’s visit to Europe and after that we had pun’s visit to China but before pun’s visit we had these new tariffs from United States and China and just increasing from 25% to 100% on China it was a tremendous gift I think to pu going to China right before that and when when you put these pictures together what’s your understanding and we saw something so strange that we haven’t seen before just she embracing pun I talked with Ambassador CH Freeman he said that it means a lot when it comes to International relationships between these two countries well I mean first of all we need to never forget that Putin and G have known each other for a long time and they actually have a very um strong relationship based upon genuine friendship now it’s very dangerous for Nations to allow the National interest to be driven by the personal friendship of their their senior leaders because um the senior leaders are there to promote the interest of their respective Nations and you never want to um have the potential of the interest of the nation being subordinated by um you know issues of friendship but uh we’re talking not about children here we’re talking about two of the most experienced uh leaders in the world leaders of major Nations uh the leaders who deal with uh issues on a um of a magnitude that um you know other leaders that we tend to you know when we when we say well you know the sunak the Prime Minister of Great Britain what has he done you know but no we’re able to sit there and say well he’s the Prime Minister of Great Britain he’s a great leader no he’s not you know macron’s been around for a little while but he’s the French leader um it’s France they they I don’t even think they’re going to pull off the Olympics I’m very concerned about a rad infested Bud bug infested Paris um you know R Putin has rebuilt Russia he spent a quarter of a century taking Russia from the brink of the Abyss into this Powerhouse nation that it is today uh X has overseen radical transformation of Chinese society and again in a way that the West hasn’t picked up I don’t know how many people in the west know that not once not twice three times G has implemented a um Five-Year Plan designed to bring 300 million people out of poverty into the middle class the population of the United States is just a little bit more than 300 million three times Z oversaw programs that brought the equivalent of the American population in totality out of poverty into the middle class three times and uh China today is a uh is is a nation transformed and we don’t understand it we don’t understand anything about it so we make bad assumptions and bad calculations Russia understands it very well Russia’s been working with China they’ve witnessed this they they’ve they’ve seen this Russia and China are in harmony with one another right now um you know it was a little bit dysfunctional if you took a look at their uh band that they were trying to put together in 2021 H the guitarist was a little out of step with the drummer who was thinking he was playing jazz he supposed playing a rock beat and the bassist was off doing something don’t know um they were up there they were trying but it h man it hurt the ears after two years of war everybody’s singing from the same sheet of music they’re all practiced rehearsed why because theyve both come to recognize that the threat set that Russia faces in Ukraine is the same threat set that China faces in Taiwan and that if China allows Russia to be bullied or defeated then that same threat set will now come and Bully and try to defeat China that the best defense for China is what Russia is doing in Ukraine uh to hold the Wolves at Bay in Europe so the Wolves don’t become empowered in the Pacific um the other thing is when you speak of this transformation to a multilateral world it’s done economically not militarily and you know China needs Russia everybody talks about China’s you know manufacturing potential first of all Russia is no slouch again we tend to ignore Russia I always advise people to go to Russia that’s why I go to Russia to learn um the prime prime minister of Russia just held a um he just attended a digitalization uh um Summit or Forum in N narat uh a city to the east of Moscow um where he talked about how Russia is going to be transitioning to the digital era um he in the city of sarov they’ve built the laser institute it’s one of the top laser institutes in the world to incorporate uh digitization and Laser Technology into the manufacturing sphere um as part of the sanctions thing Russia has empowered its own software developers and they have some of the finest software developers in the world uh everybody talks about Russian hackers you you know that oh the Russian hackers the r well what is a software developer a hacker who’s doing things legally um same mindset same skill set people who know how to do computer coding and things of that nature um the Russians have really good people and they’ve built their own software industry and so they’ve pushed Microsoft and Apple and all the other Western software makers out and Russia has its own and Russia Now is working with China here’s the beauty of it you see China isn’t just a Chinese economy China is the gateway to the global economy so Russia working with China is getting its products out to the world expanding its economic reach um it’s sort of a big deal uh the West just doesn’t understand it we don’t understand anything about Russia we don’t understand anything about China I don’t understand anything about China to be honest I’ve read about it I I I have a whole library of books that I’m reading about it but you know I think in order to understand China you got to go to China you got to see it for yourself and you got to talk to Chinese and have them show you what’s going on because we still have a lot of prejudice bias built into um whatever analytical models that we bring to bear even people like myself who are progressive in their thinking about China there’s a lot of built-in bias um a lot of filters a lot of assumptions being made because of my ignorance about China a lot of the books I read are 20 years old 10 years old and you can’t be reading a 20- year old 10- year old book except for historical relevance if you want to know about China you got to be reading the book that came out today because they are making uh advances you know we uh we tried to strangle China with chips you know the the computer chips they’re made in Taiwan and we wanted to keep the you know that technology so we uh again I’m not a chip guy I hope everybody understands I’m just a marine okay I have a very specific skill set and computer technology is not it um but I think I understand that there’s things things called chips I got that part computer chips um transistor whatever but um they’re made one of the ways you make him is through a technique called lithography I believe and that has something to do with printing um and and so you you will print silicone chips that are embedded with certain things and there’s different ways of measuring the efficiency of a chip and I can’t remember if the higher number is good or lower number good I don’t know but there’s a good number there’s a bad number the Chinese were able to do a medium number and we wanted to prevent them from doing the high number so we unplugged them we said they couldn’t have access to this lithography technology that comes from I believe the Netherlands which is available in I want cut them off strangle their thing we want everything to collapse but you can’t do that of a nation that 1.4 billion people because that nation has the ability to go who are our best chip people well we got a whole bunch of them many of them trained in America and in Europe by the way they go to those universities and they put them together and say unfuck this problem and all those little Chinese chip whiz kids sit there and they unfuck the problem quick l