Judging Freedom - BREACHED Russian Defensive Lines in Ukraine? w/Scott Ritter

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

BREACHED Russian Defensive Lines in Ukraine? w/Scott RitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, August 29th, 2023. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you for joining us. You have written a long and interesting analysis of Wagner and Prokosian and Prokosian and his relationship to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin and Wagner and its relationship to the Russian military. Give us your take on the significance of Wagner and give us your take on the death of Yevgeny Prokhorin. Well, I mean, let's put Wagner in perspective. It was a private military company that was given a unique opportunity to have a meaningful role in russian national security not only in ukraine which it has done so successfully since 2014 but also in the middle east in syria libya in africa the

central african republic mali potentially in niger wagner is at the center of russia's national security outreach in these in these areas uh In the war in Ukraine, even though Wagner numbered 30,000 fighters in a war where the Russians have mobilized 300,000 troops on top of a quarter of a million, they already have 200,000 volunteers. It might seem to be an insignificant number, but the role that they have played and what they've accomplished on the battlefield is, in fact, meaningful. The Battle of Bakhmut, when this war is done, will go down as one of the major battles of the war. Russian victory, won by, in large part, Wagner, but Wagner will also forever be tainted by the insurrection that was mounted by Yevgeny Prokofiev, its civilian director, on June 23-24, in which they put 8,000 troops on the M4 highway

moving towards Moscow. It eventually was brought down under threat by Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin is somebody, logically speaking, who has a grudge against Prigozhin. The guy's a traitor, committed treason. And in the course of this, he murdered 13 Russian service members. So the first thing people think when they say Prigozhin's dead is that Putin did it. But as I point out in this article, while there's a lot of reasons why people might think Putin could have done this or should have done it, When you look at the reality of Russia today, there's no way that Putin was involved in this. You're familiar with the law, the notion of quibono. I might be saying that wrong because I don't speak Latin. It's a Latin phrase meaning to whose benefit, who gained by this.

And Putin gains nothing and loses everything by this. By Prokosian's death under these circumstances. Correct. Under the circumstances where Prokosian died, the timing of Prokosian's death, Putin gains nothing. It puts everything at risk because it rips off a scab that had been, you know, the wound that was trying to heal from the June insurrection. You know, Putin could have crushed Prokofiev at that time. He had the forces available. They were positioned to slaughter the Wagnerians. And it would have been a bloody but one-sided fight, meaning every Wagnerian would have died, including Prokofiev. Putin chose not to go that route because he didn't want to disrupt Russian

society, create the potential for civil conflict, to weaken Russia at a time when they're dealing with a major Ukrainian counteroffensive backed by the collective West. So he opted for the non-violent diplomatic approach, sending Prokhorin into exile in Belarus. Why do that? Why go through the angst and anxiety, the finger pointing, people calling him weak, all that, if you're just going to turn around and kill him anyways in Russia, high profile at a time when you just had the greatest diplomatic victory in modern Russian history with BRICS, the expansion of BRICS. And I don't think the American audience totally understands what happened in South Africa last week with the expansion of BRICS and how this fundamentally changes the world we live in, but that's a different topic.

Russia played an important role in that. Why would Putin suck all the oxygen out of that story by bringing proggosian down over Russian territory under suspicious circumstances? It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And yet Intel, Western Intel, CIA, MI6, has been feeding Western media, front page, top of the fold, New York Times, to persuade Western thinking that it was more likely than not Putin's order or someone doing it because they thought that's what Putin wanted. If we eliminate that, if we eliminate that as just propaganda, and then we'll move on to another topic once we finish with Prokosian. What is more likely than not the cause of this? It was his private jet.

There were six passengers. They were all, including him, high-ranking Wagner people, and there were three crew. What is more likely than not the cause of the downing of this jet? Okay, well, let's make this as easy as I can. There were two jets carrying Wagner personnel. One jet assigned to Prokosian, Utkin, his senior military commander, and then the man who ran all the business for Progozhin, and then four others who were the personal protection detail. So they weren't senior Wagner. They were mid-level Wagner, a lot of experience, but they were the personal protection detail in the three crew members.

On the other aircraft, senior Wagner members, the commander's council and people of that nature. Progozhin's very security conscious. Those planes and Wagner's very security conscious. In order for that plane to be blown up by a foreign intelligence service or internal people or something, somebody had to gain access to that aircraft and place a bomb on that aircraft. Which aircraft? Prokofiev doesn't make the decision which aircraft he's going to be on until the last

second. So they couldn't have smuggled a bomb on earlier. It had to be instantaneous response. That's very difficult to do, especially when the airplane's protected by a four-man heavily armed personal protection detail who screens the aircraft as they're before Procosian gets on, after he gets on, et cetera. Like I said, at the last second, he could announce a manifest, swap it, something. This was the last second.

If this was a bomb, it was literally something this was the last second if this was a bomb it was literally put on at the last second because the right airplane blew up not the other airplane um i find that to be very difficult no i know how operatives i don't think the cia mi6 the ukrainians the british you know the french are that good to have somebody right there deployed because that means you have to have an assassination team already in Moscow with explosives, ready to respond instantly to a highly secure area, gain access, figure out which plane he's on, plant the bomb, then get away. Nobody's that good. Could mafia have done it? Again, the same thing. They have to have a team with explosives, packaged to go on an airplane, able to respond,

pick the plane, the right plane, get it on, get out. Or the bomb's already on the airplane. And what I mean by that is the personal protection detail carries ammunition, pyrotechnics, high explosives that are used. And personally, you know, the flashbangs, the smoke to break contact, the ammunition that's used, that's all on the airplane. And Occam's Razor suggests that the solution that is the least complicated is probably a solution. I lean towards this was a tragic accident, the mishandling or somehow the bomb that they brought with them, the ammunition, the pyrotechnics went off in that plane and brought it down. That's the most likely for me. It doesn't mean that that's the answer. Somebody could have actually done this. But as I said, all the hurdles that

have to be accomplished to be a targeted assassination, that's just a bridge too far from a logical. Is there a criminal investigation? And if there is, is it credible? There is a criminal investigation. I think it'll be credible internally, meaning that I do believe that Vladimir Putin is very interested in finding out what happened. Whether or not the results will be released to the public is a different game because I'm not a Russian. I don't play Russian politics. Be that as may. And also, you have to understand that if, I mean, I believe that this was an accident,

that it is easily determined. I think forensically, they probably have a good idea what's going on. When you go in and swab things, get the residue, run it through the gas chronometers and get all the high explosive details. It becomes obvious what set this off. When you look at the airplane, reconstruct the damage done, although the plane was badly burned, it's obvious. I think the Russians probably right now have a good idea of how it happened. Now, if somebody did this, then the question is, who did it? And that's a more complicated question and requirement. Did the other plane, the so-called second plane,

have the same type of explosive materials and ammunition on it? I don't know if the Commander's Council has the same level of personal protection that Progozhin and Utkin and stuff would have. My guess is, yes, there is a personal protection that um that uh progosion and uh and utkin and and stuff would have my guess is yes there is a personal protection because that personal protection detail also drives the cars and is responsive so i think they would have a similar level of personal protection that proportion had which means they've had the same package on board that progosion had Goshen had. Let's switch our focus to the war in Ukraine. Earlier today, I interviewed Patrick Lancaster, a courageous, intellectually honest, utterly fearless American independent journalist who's operating now from the Donbass region, who speaks Ukrainian and speaks Russian,

and is really the only Western journalist anywhere around there. I asked him, and he answered, about Western weapons being used to kill Ukrainian civilians in Ukraine. How much longer can the Ukrainian military last no matter what NATO and the Biden administration send there? The only thing that's holding them up is the Western supplied weapons. And that's why every day or every other day, Western supplied weapons are killing civilians here in Donetsk and across Donbass. This is just going to continue to go on until the West can't supply any more weapons.

I don't think the American public understands, Scott, you have been saying this consistently, that the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian military is shelling its own people in Ukraine and killing them, civilians and children. And Patrick Lancaster witnessed that with his own eyes, and you heard and saw what he just said. Two things. One, this has been ongoing since April of 2014, when the Ukrainian government designated the Donbas as an anti-terrorist operation, and all of the ethnic Russians who were opposing the Ukrainian Nazis, Ukrainian nationals as terrorists. So they have given a green light to strike the civilian populations because they're considered to be terrorist populations. Two, look at Patrick Lancaster. Look at the emotion there. Understand where this emotion is coming from. This is a man who sees on a daily basis dead children, dead women, dead elderly people, innocent civilians doing their

life, going about their life, are slaughtered on a daily basis by Ukrainian artillery, our artillery shells. They're firing our cluster munitions, our high explosives that we gave them ostensibly to respond to the Russian military. They're deliberately targeting civilian areas because they don't view them as civilians. They view them as terrorists. And they're doing this on a daily basis with our weapons. And he sees it. You can see the pain in his eyes. Look at his face. This is a deeply emotional man. He wears his heart on his sleeve as he has every right to.

But there's going to be some people who look at that and say, well, he's a little unhinged. You would be too if you saw on a daily basis what Patrick Lancaster sees. He doesn't just report the war, man versus man on the battlefield. He reports the uncovered war, the reality that the Ukrainian military has since 2014 been waging a war against the civilians of the Donbass because they're not considered civilians in the eyes of the Ukrainian government. They're considered terrorists. Here's what he had to say about Western media lying. Do you see any reporters from the Western media, mainstream or not, out there at the front lines with you? There's not any mainstream or much, I should say, mainstream media. But as far as independent

journalists, there are some here. There's a woman from France and a man from Italy. And there's a few people here on the ground doing their best trying to show the truth of what the people in the West just aren't seeing and are being lied to about. What the people in the West are being lied to about. I mean, when I asked Patrick Lancaster how people can watch him, nobody in the West is really covering what he's saying. The Ukrainian military and government wants to suppress what he's saying. Ukrainians email him on a regular basis to pick fights with what he says. Sometimes he answers them. Sometimes he ignores them.

I'm sure you're not surprised at any of that. No, let's remember, people will automatically attack him because they're going to say, look, Patrick is operating in the Donbass. That's Russian controlled territory. And clearly he must be a Russian propagandist because two plus two equals four in their mind. Patrick Lancaster reports honestly and openly. I don't always agree with his interpretation.

For instance, he reported from Rostov-on-Don during the Wagner insurrection, and he was very, very sympathetic to Grosjean, to Wagner, etc. I didn't agree with his spin, but I respect the fact that he's on the ground doing it. But anybody who says that he's a propagandist working for Putin or working for the Russian government, they don't know Patrick Lancaster. He's there reporting the truth. On the other hand, all these New York Times reporters, Washington Post reporters, CNN, everybody else who comes into Ukraine to service the so-called free press, you do know that everything they do is controlled by the Ukrainian government, by the United States government. They're not allowed to report certain things. They're not allowed to say certain things. They are prepackaged stories where the story is already written before they go to the front lines.

Their job is to collect the information and come back and put photographs to a story that's written. That is controlled media. Patrick Lancaster is not controlled media. General Milley, as you know, is about to retire. I think his last day on the job may be this Thursday, and he's been doing a lot of interviews with media establishments all over the world. In an interview with an Arab media establishment, though the interview was in English, he actually defied what you and Patrick Lancaster and Larry Johnson and others, Matthew Ho, have told us about whether or not the Ukrainians have breached the first of the three rings of defenses that Russia has built. So we're going to play two tapes for you. First,

General Milley saying Ukrainians have breached the first ring, and then Patrick Lancaster, who's physically there, responding in very, very harsh, Scott Ritter-like terminology. They've attacked through the first main defensive belt. This is a defense in depth that the Russians had many months to prepare. It's got minefields, it's got dragon's teeth, it's got tank ditches. It's a very, very complex set of defensive preparations that the Ukrainians are fighting through. And they're fighting through it. The Ukrainians have a significant amount of combat power remaining. This is not over yet. So I think it's frankly too early to say whether it succeeded or failed. It clearly has had partial success.

You're there. Your eyes and ears and soul and heart are right there. He's in Washington. He's just playing word games. I mean, he's covering his, you know what, by just saying, oh yeah, they've gone through the first line. Now, if you actually confront him about it and say, no, they're nowhere anywhere close to going through the real line. Well, he'll say, well, look at this one little spot where they took 100 meters farther, say 500 meters, maybe took one village here and there when over here, Russia took three. It's just word games saying, okay, in one spot, maybe there is a little bit of forward action, but no considerable movement as far as the front line goes. It's just playing word games to confuse

people and to try to lead people into a certain way of showing them that their tax dollars aren't going to waste and their tax dollars aren't only killing civilians. Boy, you talk about emotion and passion, Scott. Confronting the senior American military official and accusing him of word games was profound. But the bottom line remains, you can address this better than I. There is zero evidence, zero, to support General Milley's claim that the Russians have approached or breached the first of those Russian, that the Ukrainians have approached or breached the first of those Russian defensive rings? Look, the defense that is laid out by the Russians in the Zaporizhia area, where the main fighting is taking place and on up, is, as General Milley said, in depth.

I don't think either General Milley is willfully lying or he doesn't understand the true nature of Russian defense. The first line of defense is not the forward edge of the battle area. The first line of defense is what General Milley alluded to, dragon's teeth. These are these concrete obstacles designed to stop vehicles from moving forward. Deep anti-tank trenches designed to capture tanks. These are a physical barrier in front of which is minefields. That is the first line of defense.

Ukrainians have not reached that. They are operating in the forward defensive zone, which is a crumple zone designed to break up the Ukrainian attack before they get to the first line of defense. The Ukrainians have not penetrated through the crumple zone designed to break up the Ukrainian attack before they get to the first line of defense. The Ukrainians have not penetrated through the crumple zone, this forward area. They have taken one village. When I say taken, it's Robitino, sort of the center of this fight. The Ukrainians come in.

They grab the village. Their vehicles are destroyed. The artillery comes in, crushes their infantry. They're pushed out by a Russian counterattack and then they come back. The Russians are screening this forward defense area with about 5000 troops who are confronting a Ukrainian force of around 20 to 30,000 troops. So I'm sorry, 500 troops the screening force for the Russians is 500 troops and they're screening against 20 to 30 000 Ukrainians doing it by pulling back artillery aircraft taking them punching back um this isn't the first line of defense the Russian the Ukrainians haven't reached it and

they're unlikely to reach it but here's the bad news for Miley General Alexander Romanchuk who designed this defense he's the master of Russian defensive warfare, the first line of defense is meant to be broken. I mean, that's what Miley doesn't understand. This is one giant trap for the Ukrainians. They're coming in, getting their forces attrited. When they reach the first line of defense, the Russians will hold them and hold them and hold them as they commit. They commit, and then the Russians will come back to the second line of defense. We need Ukrainians through a designated area, which is a fire cauldron. The hell will come down on them and wipe them off the face of the earth. But that isn't happening because

Ukrainians can't even make it to the first line of defense. But Miley doesn't understand, reaching the first line of defense and breaking it does not signify a Ukrainian victory. That's part of the Russian defensive strategy. But Ukrainians aren't even good enough to kick that part in. Two more videos I want to show you. We're saving the best for last. This is General Ben Hodges saying what he said before, but this is very recent. And I don't know where he comes up with this, but we'll let him speak for himself, arguing that there is a theory and there's a practical means for Ukraine to remove the Russian military from Crimea. I believe that the operational priority is to cause the Russian forces to leave Crimea. That, I think, is the most important thing that has to be done. In order to do that, of course, Ukraine needs more long-range capabilities

that could hit all the airfields in the seaport of Sevastopol, for example. But that also means they've got to get closer to the land bridge. So more progress that would enable them to bring up more HIMARS, for example, that could reach the road between Mariupol and Melitopol in Crimea to stop the logistics movement there. I think these are the kind of things that they're going to continue to do. I don't know exactly where the best place is, but the general staff knows where the best place or places will be to do that. When he says general staff, does he mean American or NATO? Is he suggesting that the West is preparing to do the impossible, help Ukraine invade Crimea?

No, I think he was implying that the Ukrainian general staff, together with the assistance of NATO and the United States, knows the best place. But hey, pro tip, General Hodges, we're looking at it, dude. The best place we know. It's been broadcast. Let me give you a hint. The Battle for Robitino, you pierce the first line of defense. You reach the second line of defense outside of the city of Tokmak.

You pierce that. Then you move to the third line of defense, which is the city of Tokmak. You pierce that, then you move to the third line of defense, which is the city of Melitopol. You have to pierce that before you can do what you say. Broaden the breach, bring in the HIMARS, bring fire down on the road that connects Crimea with the west of Russia. That's the plan, General. That's what they're trying to execute. It was supposed to breach the first line of defense back in June when the initial brigades approached Robitino. But they were all killed, General. They didn't even get to Robitino.

Since then, they've been trying to get through Robitino. Right now, the strategic reserves of Ukraine have been committed to the Robitino battle. The Robitino battle. Not the Tokamak battle. Not the Mariupol battle. You can sit there and have all the fantasies you want, General, but the reality is Ukraine isn't close to accomplishing what you say they need to accomplish to achieve the outcome you say they want to achieve. They're dying in Robotino. Robotino is the alpha and the omega of Ukrainian

counteroffensive. It began here, it will finish here, the same result. Dead Ukrainian soldiers, destroyed Ukrainian equipment, and an intact first Russian line of defense. Speaking of dead Ukrainian soldiers, and before I get to the tape that I have to apologize to your cardiologist for throwing you. Colonel McGregor reports that the Ukrainian operator of something called Kivstar, which launched a charity event, send a message with the word thank you to the number of fallen soldiers, inadvertently released the number of Ukrainian killed, Ukrainian soldiers killed in action. 400,000.

That number is very, very close to what you and McGregor have predicting it would be. And the Western media hasn't come anywhere near that. I'm comfortable with my analysis. I acknowledge that it is analysis. I acknowledge that it's based upon imperfect data. I would even say that the data that Colonel McGregor is relying upon is in itself inconclusive, but it just reinforces, it's corroborating. The fact of the matter is the scope and scale of the violence that's taking place in Ukraine today is beyond the imagination of just about everybody. The media can't imagine it. General Hodges can't imagine it. None of these people can imagine it except those who are fighting there and professionals who take the time to walk away from the emotion of the event and just look at it from a probability of kill

factor based upon artillery rounds expended the nature of the train things of this nature and then you look at the ukrainian forces committed uh and then the nature of the reinforcement because reinforcement implies that you are also doing replacement when you put all these factors in people who've crunched these numbers in real life or have done it as professionals i believe colonel mcgregor is one of those you you come up with numbers that are factors in, people who've crunched these numbers in real life or have done it as professionals, and I believe Colonel McGregor is one of those, you come up with numbers that are fairly close to reality. And that's why I've always been comfortable with my casualty figures. Since we started talking, we started with 200,000. And then it grew to 300,000. At the time,

the 300,000 people were going, oh, you're making that number up. And I'm like, nope, it's a good number. And now, based upon this current counter 300,000 people going, well, you're making that number up. And I'm like, no, it's a good number. And now based upon this current counteroffensive and what's going on, Bakhmut, we're up to 400,000. And if this fighting continues, sadly, we're going to see over a half a million Ukrainian dead before this is over. Here's another retired four star that can't see the forest for the trees because he asks, I'm going to say this with a straight face, when will the Russian military crumble? The big question in my mind, I think, is whether or when the Russians might begin to crack and crumble. They've been in the line for over a year in many

cases. Yes, they have actually established very impressive defensive belts, but they don't have the same motivation that Ukrainian soldiers do, who can look over their shoulder and see what it is that they're fighting for. They're very independent. They're survival. They're citizens. That's not the case for the Russians, many of whom have been conscripted, not volunteers, clearly. The question is, when might that moment arrive? And it's very hard to answer, having been in a number of battles where the enemy all of a sudden cracked, but you couldn't predict that until that moment actually happened. Did you hear what he said at the end, that he has been in battles where the enemy cracked? I didn't

know that he was ever in any battle. This is General David Petraeus, of course, but not to get too personal about him. What the hell is he talking about when the Russians will crack and crumble? Well, you know, there's this, one of the underlining premises of the current Ukrainian counteroffenses is that they'll be able to replicate what they accomplished last fall. If you remember last fall, the Russians were drastically overextended in the Kharkov area. They had gaps and there was no defense in depth. They had gaps in their initial defensive line of five, 10 kilometers that the Ukrainians with help from the West were able to penetrate into the rear.

And it created the requirement for a precipitous withdrawal of the Russians out of the Kharkov area to their current line of defense, where once they consolidated their troops, eliminated the gaps, they held like a steel wall. But the feeling is that, you know, the Russians broke there, broke and ran. They don't, you know, I think that's a misinterpretation. I don't think the Russians are having a good day, but they didn't break and ran because they basically withdrew under pressure to their new defensive lines. But the interpretation was they ran.

And so the feeling is that now with these 300,000 mobilized troops, with volunteers, with troops, contract troops that have been there for a long time, that you could replicate the breaking and running aspect of it. It hasn't worked. Look, the best example of why this will never work and why General Petraeus is wrong is in the story of the Russian tank Alyosha. I think a lot of people are familiar with this. There's a video out there that showed this one tank charging into battle, taking on a column of eight Ukrainian vehicles, two tanks, six armored fighting vehicles, and destroying them all. One tank against that. And the way that tank went in, rode up, fired, pulled back, rode up, fired, pulled back. Well, the crew was

awarded the hero of Russia. Vladimir Putin personally gave this to the crew. Let's talk about the composition of the crew and their commander. The crew was a mixture of contract soldiers. Those are professional soldiers like our volunteers. There was one, a volunteer. That's a guy who just said, hey, I'm volunteering for this operation, for the special military operation. That's one. And two mobilized soldiers from Yat Kuts, by the way. They don't look Russian. They're very Asiatic in there. And then look, this crew came together in this one tank and performed magnificently. And when you interview them all, they're just all saying, we got to do this. We got to win. Why did you do this? Why did you carry out this suicidal charge?

It was our task. That was our zone of operation. This was how we this is the war we had to fight. Petraeus doesn't know Russia. He doesn't know Russians. He doesn't know anything about the Russians. And he's just dead wrong. The crew of the Alyosha tank is typical of every Russian soldier there. They're not all going to be decorated with the gold star of being heroes of Russia. They're not all going to have the opportunity to do this. But on a daily basis, contract soldiers, mobilized soldiers, volunteers are fighting heroically because they're doing the same. What he says about the Ukrainians looking over their shoulder, they look over their shoulder too. And General Petraeus, if you knew anything about Russian history, you know this. When they

look over their shoulder, they're looking towards the Volga River. And on the far side of the Volga River, there's a mound called Myrmaev Kurgan. And on top of that is a statue called the Motherland Calls. Research it, General. Google it. Look at the statue and look what it represents. Mother Russia waving the men of Russia forward to defeat the Nazi threat. And in Ukraine today, Russia is united with knowledge, the certainty that what they're fighting is nothing more than the modern day manifestation of Nazi Germany, of Adolf Hitler. Step on Bandera and the Banderas are alive and well and living in Ukraine today and Russia knows who they're fighting. They will never break. They will never run. This war won't finish until they defeat the same threat that my grandfather, my uncles fought

back in World War II. Why in God's name we're on the side of the Nazis and not on the side of the people killing Nazis still boggles my mind. All right. I was going to ask a few more questions, but I have to end with that because of the drama and the force of your argument, Scott. Thank you very much. Always a pleasure, my dear friend. Have a great coming up in three days, holiday weekend. We'll talk to you again soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. Boy, if you like that, and I suspect you did, like and subscribe. We're up to 190,000. It might Day. Help us get there. Like, subscribe, tell a friend,

remind them of what we do, remind them of our openness, remind them that they will get an understanding of what's going on in Russia and Ukraine here, but they won't get anywhere else from mainstream media. And on top of that, they get me looking out for your liberty. Thank you.