Judging Freedom - LIVE from Ukraine 9_00a est - Patrick Lancaster indy journalist

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

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Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. There is a problem that affects many children that I cannot solve alone. It is called toxic stress. And this increases the risk of health problems. But there are steps that parents can take to overcome toxic stress. Se llama estrés tóxico y esto aumenta el riesgo de problemas de salud. Pero hay pasos que los padres pueden tomar para superar el estrés tóxico.

Aprende cómo en First5California.com everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, May 19th, 2023. It's about 9.05 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Patrick Lancaster joins us now. Patrick, as many of you know, is a United States Navy veteran who for the past eight years has been doing some of the most courageous, effective, and insightful reporting from the ground in Ukraine in the English language of anybody in the world. Patrick joins us now from Russia on the Russian side of the Ukraine-Russian border. Patrick, it's a pleasure. I personally have followed you. Many of Judging Freedom fans have followed you. This is a first for you, I hope, and a first for me that we're meeting. I hope it's the first of many encounters together, and congratulations on all

your incredibly courageous work. Well, thank you, Judge, for having me. It's a real honor to be here. Thank you. Before we run a montage of some of your more dramatic and effective and insightful reporting, I wonder if you could just give us, that's Chris, that's my dog. I wonder if you could just give us a handle on how you think things are going. The American government says it's going to support Ukraine. I just have to close the door. Bear with me. No problem. Now he's mad that I closed the door. The American government says it's going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes without, of course, a definable goal or a reasonable endpoint. Larry Johnson, the folks that we normally, Tony Schaefer, the experienced military and intelligence people that we put on this show, and I, of course, I'm not experienced military or intel, the law is my field, are of the view that the West is extending an inevitable defeat and causing more death and destruction than is necessary.

And President Putin is not going to stop until he achieves his goal. How do you see it? Pretty close to that. I mean, the major point is, regardless whether the West likes it or not russia has made a stand and said that four of the regions of what's internationally considered a part of ukraine russia says and by russian law the daniel lugansk zaporozhian herson regions are by russian law part of russia whether the West likes it or not. And there's no way Putin and Russia is going to stop until they have full control of those areas. Because it would just be too, there's no way they can let it happen and will let it happen. And if we could go into these different regions piece by piece and sit here for hours and if not days, but fact is this all started with, of course, Crimea in 2014, when the local population of Crimea had the referendum to break away from Ukraine and join Russia. I was there. I reported on that. And then- Let me stop you right here. Was that a legitimate referendum that legitimately

revealed the real preferences of the people there, or was it a fake and a fraud as the U.S. State Department claims? In the beginning of March in 2014, I was in Europe and I was seeing what was going across the Western news saying how the little green men showed up in Crimea trying to make the people accept Russia and accept the Russian forces are invading. And I went to Crimea as pretty much a neutral person. I didn't know a lot at that time about the interactions and the political differences between Ukraine and Russia. I just went to see something with my own eyes of what was really happening. And when I got to Crimea and started in Simferopol, I saw a sea of Russian flags and people crying in happiness of that,

in their words, going home to Russia. I mean, what the people in the West don't realize is people that were born in Crimea before 1954 were actually born in Russia. They've only been part of Ukraine since 1954. And many of the Russian population in Russia and in Crimea considers that as an illegal turnover of the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine. And much of the population considers that they never should have been part of Ukraine. Okay, let's get back to your summary of where you think this is going. Give us your belief as to why you believe this, that the West is just extending an inevitable Russian victory. By extending it, I mean forcing more Ukraine and Russian deaths. Well, as I said, by Russian law, the four regions of Ukraine that I mentioned are considered part of Russia.

Putin can't stop until he liberates those areas. He cannot stop until those areas are controlled by Russia. That's a fact. People's Republic as they voted in April of 2014 to be and voted as well in referendums to break away from Ukraine. I was there for those referendums as well. And that's a fact that the major population of the Donetsk and Lugansk areas or Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic are ethnic Russians and support Russia. And now that this war has started, it intensified over the last year because as many people think that the war has just been going on for a year. It hasn't been. It's been going on for nine years. It's just gotten, Russia had fully moved in a year ago, but the civil war in Ukraine has been going on since 2014, where the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic have been fighting, considered part of Russia. There's no way Putin or Russia can let these go with any negotiations or anything like this.

It just will not happen. And the fact that the West keeps pushing with more of this support to Ukraine just keeps, as you said, extending the fighting, extending the battle. I mean, I've been covering this for the last nine years, and I don't see any ending in sight here. I don't have any inkling that this might be over in the next year or two. Of course, it's war. Maybe it could be over tomorrow.

But things are not looking good for this to slow down. And the fact is, Putin is being pushed into a corner by the West. He and Russia cannot let these things go. And if the West keeps pushing, and if the West keeps taking more territory, things could get really, really bad because Russia cannot let these areas go. Or it might mean the end of Russia is a lot of Russians consider it because if they let these areas go, that NATO wins and NATO will, they can say, they believe that NATO will continue to push. Got it. Got it. Let's let's run. My producer, Gary Villapiano put together a great montage uh of your work let's run it it's

about 90 seconds long and i'm going to speak over a little bit of it because there's um uh people speaking in ukrainian or russian i'm not sure you can tell us uh afterwards and there are subtitles and some people listen to this podcast as opposed to watching it so for those listening who can't obviously see uh the subtitles i'm going to uh do a voiceover i'm not going to use the four-letter words uh which seem to be more common amongst ukrainians than they are amongst american teenagers but we'll we understand that here we go i'm patrick lancaster right now we are in the kievsky district of donetsk on the street of malidoy shakturus our young miner um and you can see behind me that this home not long ago has taken a direct hit from Ukrainian shelling.

Alright, now we're going to be taking off from Solidor and heading in the direction of Bakhmut. What we can hear, it's heating up. You can hear the gunfire not too far away, but we're going to keep going forward to show you some of the more of the destruction here on the edge of Soledad. My house, the military target, if it was war I would be Putin. военным объектами, а вот был бы Путин. Ебаный род. Если есть военные, лучше бы они шли лазить. Людей жалко. Что вы, блядь? Украина, Путин, хуютер.

Вот, 14-го года, нахуй было жито 14-го года под этими ебаными обстрелами, чтобы под конец жизни остаться бомжами. Идите, радуйтесь местами Байдена, хуяйден, ибо они обстрелы под конец жизни остаться бомжами и дети радуйте смесь милометр мордор шелс here now we know these are NATO because they're 120 millimeter not 122 like Former Soviet Union and of course that it says mortar shells in English So it's definitely not former Soviet Union Russian made their Western supplied

What can you say about Americans both civilians in the state Probably the Americans are exactly the same as peaceful Russians, peaceful Ukrainians like everyone else. We are very similar in mentality. These are ordinary people. The American government is completely different, a structure like any government in the world that acts on its own interests. And those interests are very far from the interests of Russia. In fact, they're often very far from the interests of Russia,

Ukraine, and America and any other country. Wow. Patrick, I've never seen reporting right from the belly of the beast like that. Let's start at the very end. Were those Russians or is that a Russian or Ukrainian couple that you were interviewing? Actually, that couple was part of a report that I did just on the Russian side of the actual internationally recognized part of Russia on what the Russians thought about Americans. And those were Russians from Rostov region. And they just kind of, as many of the others gave their opinions and like another Russian, a lot of Russians have that much bad things to say about American people. Of course, the governments,

the United States government and NATO, they have other harsher things to say about, but the Russian people get this subtlety between the American people and the American government and their animosity is toward, I don't want to make this political, but the Biden administration, the current American government, their animosity is not toward Americans, even though the American government is doing all it can to get Americans to hate all things Russia. Yeah, I mean, yeah, they think people are people, whatever country they're from. And every country has bad people.

And yeah, definitely. Biden is not very popular in Russia, that's for sure. As most countries around the world, Russians look at him as just kind of a puppet that doesn't have that much mental abilities anymore. Is he popular with the Ukraine people? Are they grateful for the American military aid, or do they see it as causing more destruction and extending a war that might have been over with a year ago without the entry of, you know, $60 or $70 billion in American military equipment? Well, when we talk about, quote-unquote, Ukrainian people,

there's quite a difference in what is internationally looked at as Ukrainian people because if you talk about people that live in the eastern territories like Lugansk and Donetsk. Those, quote-unquote, Ukrainian people are ethnically Russian and have been fighting to join Russia and break away from Ukraine, as I said, for the last nine years. And in those nine years, I'm pleased to talk to you, Patrick. Those Ukrainian people are totally against the United States government as well. OK, in those nine years, those ethnic Russians living in Crimea and eastern Ukraine have actually been at war with the Ukraine government.

Is that true? Patrick. Yes, yes. Yeah, for sure. And I've been covering that for the last nine years. I mean, a lot of what I do is covering the activities, the military activities, the military events in Donetsk area and the shelling of civilian areas by Ukrainian forces. I've been doing this for nine years. This isn't something that just started last year. I've been covering Ukrainian forces indiscriminately, in many cases, shelling civilian areas. I mean, it's not something that stopped in the last year. Civilian areas of Ukraine. You have been covering Ukrainian forces indiscriminately shelling civilian areas of what Ukraine claims is Ukraine. Is that fair to say? Yes, that is fair to say. Ukraine claims it is part of Ukraine.

Let's go back to 2004 or 2014 or just the election of President Zelensky. When did this start? May 26, 2014. The so-called colorful whatever revolution that the CIA fomented. Well, yeah. I mean, when Maidan, the revolution, as they say in Maidan, started in 2000, the beginning of 2014, and ended with the ousting of the president Yanukovych, the eastern part of Ukraine viewed that as their president was kicked out of office without them having any say about it. Got it. The president, which was actually from the eastern part of Ukraine, was kicked out of office without their say. And they felt that their Ukraine was dead and they wanted to leave that corpse of a Ukraine. Got it. Got it. Patrick, tell us a little bit about your life. I mean, where do you live? How do you eat? How do you go about entering these

incredibly dangerous environments and, forgive me, live to tell about it? Well, I mean, a lot of my, when I'm reporting, my base for the most part is the city of Donetsk, which is considered the capital of the Donetsk People's Republic and has been self-governing for the last nine years. Well, until it was taken in by Russia last September after the referendum where the people voted to join Russia, which I covered as well. But a lot of my work over the last eight, nine years has been showing the attacks on the civilian areas by Ukraine forces. But now in the last year, since things have escalated so much, I've been going from one hotspot to another. Like at the beginning in March of last year, went to Mariupol when the real fighting was going on there, and I was in the center of the heat in the Azovstal steel plant

and just up in front of the battle. And, you know, over this last year, but in many of the interesting areas that needed reporting that weren't getting any English reporting on this side because the Western mainstream media, as you know, they don't really cover this like it should be covered. And I try to give people as you know, I'm grateful that you're giving an insight to people on this as well. People need to see information on both sides. And all my reports, I say, I'm not in Kiev. I'm not in Odessa. I'm in where I am at this time,

and I'm showing you what I see with my own eyes so you can educate yourself on what's happening on both sides. Don't just watch my reports because the people won't get all the information, but don't just watch reports on that side in Kiev as well. They need to watch things on both sides and educate themselves to have somewhat of a better opinion of what's going on. Have you ever come across any of my buddies and former colleagues from Fox News, or are they nowhere near these hot spots where you are? I could say almost never. Fox News, definitely never, but almost never run into any um mainstream western media you could say i

mean it's very seldom especially in the last year they just don't uh come come over here there's a handful of um 400 journalists that are working in dunbass in the area, but there's no mainstream media really that comes here. Patrick, thank you for your time and your great, courageous work. We wish you well. We hope you'll come back here on a weekly basis. I can tell from the number of people watching and from the quality of their comments, they are ecstatic to hear you, and many of them are already fans of yours now you have new ones thanks judge appreciate your time and i'm honored to be here thank you

patrick uh we'll do it again uh very soon wow if you like that like and subscribe and tell a friend and then whenever patrick lancaster or scaster or Scott Ritter or Doug McGregor or Larry Johnson or Tony Schaefer or Phil Giraldi or any of our regulars are going to come up, you'll get notified. More as we get it. Back to you later today. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.