Judging Freedom - LIVE from Ukraine - Russian Offensive, Matt VanDyke

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

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. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, February 17th, Valentine's Day in America, 2023. It's a little after 12 noon on the east coast of the United States, a little after 7 in the evening in Kiev, Ukraine, where Matt Van Dyke, founder and director of the Sons of Liberty International, joins us now. Matt, of course, is a regular on the show.

Matt, welcome back and thanks for joining us. The last time we talked, you seem to be, have maybe just a little bit of hesitation in your view that Ukraine can successfully defend itself? What's the status of things as you see them now? Has Russia gained an upper hand as Ukraine pushed them back, or are things the same as they were? Or is there some other state of affairs from when we spoke last, about seven days ago? Things are largely the same. There's more pressure on the town of Bakhmut, which has seen fighting for the past several months. There's reports today that Ukraine blew a bridge

leading from Bakhmut to Kostantynivka, which is actually the city that I did a live appearance with you from when I was deployed to the front line several months ago. So that city looks like it will fall. The Russians are pushing a little bit of offensive at numerous points along the front line, but they haven't massed tanks and artillery for a major push yet. They've been sort of doing probing attacks and mostly getting repelled, except for around Bakhmut, where it really looks like the city is going to fall in a week or two, I would say. Does it appear to you that this massive force that intelligence has been saying publicly, it's not secret, is coming, this 300,000 to 500,000 troops, some conscripts, mainly National Guard, all trained, that President Putin has amassed this

enormous army. Does it appear to you that they're in Russia and ready to move into Ukraine? You know, they could still be in Russia. We haven't seen them come into Ukraine. There's not amassing of forces for a major push. It looks like they are coming, but they're coming in a slow roll rather than a mass and one giant push. So until there's reports of large formations getting ready for an offensive, we haven't seen it yet. There's speculation it could be coming on the 24th, but really I'm not sure Russia has the logistics to really put everything that they put together into the field yet, but they're moving stuff forward for sure. What is the story with the weather and the ground conditions? You know, for a while we were told tanks will only operate well when the earth is frozen, so my question to you now is, it's the middle of February, it's a mild winter here in the U.S., but is the earth frozen?

And then we were told the Russian offensive is going to come in the spring. Well, I would imagine in the spring the earth is not frozen and it's muddy, and that's obviously not the conditions you want for tanks. Can you educate us on that, please? Right. Well, the peak time of the ground here is usually January and February. That would be the ideal time for an offensive. This is part of why Russia tried to launch the campaign last year, late February. They are running out of time.

The ground is going to start getting mushy. It's been kind of a mild winter lately, so a lot of snow has fallen in areas and it is getting a bit muddy in some places. But really, the clock is ticking for the ground conditions to be good. Another issue is that part of why a Russian offensive will be complicated is because Ukraine has spent a lot of time mining anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines along these front lines, which is also going to complicate the advance in addition to ground conditions. We want to run a clip from the Secretary General of NATO, Secretary Stoltenberg,

and ask for your comments on it. He's discussing, it's a brief clip, a clip, maybe 15 or 17 seconds. He's discussing the inability of the NATO countries to meet the demand for ammunition that Ukraine is using. The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of ammunition and depleting allied stockpiles. The current rate of Ukraine's ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production. This puts our defense industries under strain. Many times higher than our current rate of production. So if Ukraine is using a thousand rounds of a given type of ammunition every day and NATO can only resupply that with 100 or 200 or 500, he said many times, pretty soon they're going to run out of ammunition and NATO is going to run out of its ability to supply Ukraine. So a couple of questions. Is Ukraine getting ammunition from any sources other than NATO? Does Ukraine produce its own ammunition or have the Russians destroyed

Ukraine's ability to do so? And you can't get blood from a stone. So how can they keep using more ammunition than what's coming in? Here's the first question. Ukraine has been getting some Soviet ammunition. I believe Pakistan is sending 10,000 Grad rockets, for example. Ukraine had some ammunition manufacturing capabilities, but I believe those were in the east and they might have only been for small arms and that's in territory that's either been destroyed or captured by Russia. The ammunition depletion is an issue. Part of the problem is that this is a military that was on Russian and Soviet standards in history,

which is a large ammunition-consuming force that now is trying to transition to NATO. So while Ukraine uses, I believe, the estimate of 6,000 artillery rounds a day compared to Russia using 20,000, last I heard, all of Europe's artillery shell manufacturing capacity is about 20,000 a month. So every four days, Ukraine might be using as much as Europe usually produces an entire month. So that's the concern.

This is largely an artillery war, and Ukraine will not be able to compete in artillery ammunition unless Europe really increases production. Well, it's got to be able to compete in artillery ammunition unless Europe really increases production. Well, it's got to be a very serious concern. I mean, Secretary General Stoltenberg is President Zelensky's strongest, maybe after the President of Poland, strongest supporter in Europe. So he's not going to hold back, and he's not going to hold back and he's not going to lie and he's not going to exaggerate for him to say, hey, you're using many times, many times what we can supply you with has to be a very serious concern for the Ukraine military. No? It's certainly a concern. I'm not sure what the solution is. It's a force that has a limited amount of training, fights wars largely the same way Russia fights wars.

They'll try to transition to NATO standards and NATO standards of operating and training. But there's still, it's a large ammunition expenditure force. And there's not a lot of ways to change that mid-war. So Europe is going to have to increase production. It's not like Ukraine's really going to be able to limit the amount of ammunition they're using. It's just how they fight war here. And it's a hard habit to break. And, you know, it would require a lot of training on other systems and a real rethinking of how they wage war in this part of the world. stand you to say that the Russians sell ammunition to the Pakistanis and the Pakistanis have given some of that Russian ammunition to the Ukrainians? Is that what you said? Did I understand that correctly? I saw a report that Pakistan was sending 10,000 Grad rockets to Ukraine. These could have been bought by Pakistan in the 1970s. I mean, this is when I was fighting in Libya, we were using Grad rockets. They were manufactured 70s and 80s. I mean, this is when I was fighting in Libya, we were using Grad rockets.

They were manufactured 70s and 80s. I mean, this is old ammunition that's been sitting around. All right, so old ammunition for old equipment. Is this captured or deserted Russian equipment that the Ukrainians are now using against the Russians? I mean, if this stuff is circa 1970, it's older than most of the people who are firing it. Right. Well, a lot of Ukraine's weapon systems were inherited from the breakup of the Soviet Union. A lot of Ukraine's military

has been replenished actually by captured Russian tanks. I believe a few hundred Russian tanks have actually been captured by Ukraine or being refitted to be used against Russia now. Yeah, a lot of this is old, but they really don't go bad. In Libya, we're using weapons that had decades on them and the rounds usually worked, the weapons usually worked. The weapons I was using in Libya were 1970s and 80s, heavy machine guns and AKs. The stuff doesn't really go bad. Okay.

Okay, so America, as you may know, has been fixated on balloons in the past week, whether it's a Chinese weather balloon or they don't like this phrase, but I'll use it anyway, because we all use it. Unidentified flying objects in the military has shot them down. While that has happened, the investigative journalist, Cy Hirsch, he of My Lai Massacre, Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Americans Using Torture, Pulitzer Prize fame, the best known American investigative journalist in the country, Bob Woodward notwithstanding,

has reported that the Americans, with help from the Norwegians, destroyed the Nord Stream pipeline, the pipeline that enables Russia's Gazprom to sell cheap natural gas to Germany. That President Biden ordered the CIA and the Navy to line it with explosives and then he ordered the CIA three months later to detonate it and then the American PR machine said, well, Russia probably did this. So, A, do you with your inside knowledge of what's going on on the ground, believe that Cy Hersh is correct, that this was an American orchestrated job? And B, isn't this getting a little too close to an act of war, not only against Russia, but against an ally, Germany? Well, I certainly hope the U.S. was responsible

for it. It's what I always assumed was the case. I even assumed that they planned the explosives long before giving the order to detonate them. I mean, the main issue- Well, according to the article by Hearst, they did. They planted them three months before a detonation. Why do you hope the U.S attacked its ally germany that's absurd well it's not so much attacking germany as cutting off the supply of russian gas to to europe i mean germany's always been an issue with whether they were going to supply to supply ukraine and support european assistance to ukraine based on their deeds for natural gas and their energy needs and taking that off the table uh was actually a good move by the

United States to make that. This is a war crime to attack a non-combatant in order to drive somebody else's economy into the ground. The result is no natural gas in the Netherlands, no natural gas in Germany, and cold winters for innocent human beings. I mean, their natural gas needs are being met. People are not freezing to death in Europe, despite what Russian propaganda says. The issue was that Germany would be under a lot of political pressure, as well as other European countries, domestically, if natural gas bills went up. That would be used as an excuse not to give aid to Ukraine, possibly not enough political support for leaders to give aid to Ukraine. Taking that off the table was

something that was necessary to do to advance the cause of this war. You know, it's... So President Putin was right when he said, why would we blow up our own pipeline? The Americans did it. Right. It never means that he blew up his own pipeline. I mean, this is it's it's refreshing personally to see the CIA doing a little more James Bond and a little less post office and getting back to what they used to do best. I mean, if Ronald Reagan was alive, he'd be quite proud of that operation, I think. But you don't see it as a as a war crime, as an attack on an ally with which we have a treaty. I mean, the NATO treaty says if a NATO country is attacked, the other countries must defend it. I guess it never contemplated a NATO country being attacked by another NATO country. Well, it was an attack on an undersea pipeline that supplies Russian natural gas. I don't believe

Germany views it as an attack on Germany. Well, you might be right on that, because they've been mysteriously silent. Germany is the economic power... Are we still connected? We're not, Matt. Okay. Okay. Okay, you're back. All right. I want to run you another clip.

This is from the network News Nation with my former colleague, Chris Cuomo, interviewing what he says are teenage soldiers preparing for war. So there's a little bit of Chris narrating, and then there's a little bit of Q&A with a young man, a young Ukrainian man. He appears to be about 16, 17, 18 years old. His English is quite good, but there's subtitles anyway. So take a listen, Matt, and give us your thoughts. Kids who have made a decision, 15, 16, 17, to put away their dreams and have only a single purpose of defending their country. What does it mean to you what you're learning how to do and then actually having to go do it?

Being out on the battlefield, you know what the reality is. Have you witnessed the scariest part of our country, like Bucha, Kharkiv, Izum? So definitely, I'm ready for that. But it's scary. According to this, he's been on the front lines. Now, you can guess how old he is. He's not 21 and he's not 13, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say he's 16, 17 or 18.

Has Ukraine felt the need to conscript, induce, entice, whatever, people that young to join its forces? No, they haven't. And it's against Ukrainian law. Ukrainian males 18 to 60 are eligible for military service. I mean, what Chris has done here is, I mean, I like Chris Cuomo, but really, this is a bit of sensational journalism. You could have taken that, you could have gone to a junior ROTC camp right after 9-11 and interviewed American youth in middle school and high school who were in junior ROTC and asked them the same questions, had the exact same report. It doesn't mean they're going in the military. It doesn't mean they're going to be deployed. It really is just the same program that we have in the United States, junior ROTC, middle school and high school. This young kid said he was on the front lines and he witnessed the destruction of cities.

Now, what would he be doing there? It's not a class trip. Well, he might have witnessed it if he came from those areas. He might have witnessed it on television. I mean, it's a kid talking. He was not fighting on the front lines. Nobody's being forcibly conscripted under 18. it's a kid talking. He was not fighting on the front lines. Nobody's being forcibly conscripted under 18. Nobody's serving under 18. It's just not happening.

Do they have, is there conscription in Ukraine for 18 and older males? There is some limited conscription. I actually know somebody who was my Uber driver, who told me how he didn't want to go to war. And then a few weeks later, I saw him on a street corner and he came up to me and said that the police had called him and he'd been conscripted. And then I messaged him a few months later and he was having the time of his life. So, I mean- Having the time of his life in the military or out of the military? In the military. Sent me photos. He was enjoying it, which shocked me because when he was in the Uber, he told me he never thought he would be able to fight or kill anybody.

And now he's, you know, living the life. So, you know, there's some conscription, but there's still mostly volunteers. This is a country with a population of 40 million people. You have a, and maybe it's from your personal observations, a radically different view of this than Americans. How could someone refer to a draftee in the Ukraine military as having the time of his life? That's just death and blood and gore. Believe me. It's not a summer resort.

Believe me, in most cases, that is not the opinion of most conscripts but the one conscript that i know he uh it gave him purpose it gave him camaraderie um he was actually pleased that that he was serving his country so it was a big change for him from driving an uber just a few months before to being on an armored vehicle with people having common purpose. I mean, anybody who's served in conflict knows that feeling. That's what I'm referring to. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Please finish. I assume it's not the average conscripts feeling, but for a lot, it actually could turn out to be their feeling. You'd have to talk to more conscripts. There's not a lot of conscripts compared to volunteers, though, at this stage in the war. In your travels around Ukraine, and of

course, we are deeply grateful for you coming on, particularly when you come on the program from places other than the relative safety of Kyiv. Have you come across your former colleagues? Have you come across American military out of uniform serving as trainers in the use of American equipment to the Ukrainian military? Nobody who's working for the U.S. government. I don't even think there's any contractors here working for the Ukrainian government. It's all volunteer organizations like mine. There are no U.S. boots on the ground. I honestly wish... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The president himself has admitted that there are troops there out of uniform, and so has Secretary of Defense Austin. Are you telling me they're gone? They've come home? They went back to Poland?

I've seen none that are here serving official capacity, doing any kind of training or other support. All the training that I'm aware that's going on is outside the country where U.S. forces are directing. You told me before we came on air when I said that my viewers love to hate you, but they watch you, which is why we put you on, and with, again, deep gratitude that you received a donation from one of them. Who or what funds the Sons of Liberty International? We're entirely funded by donations. Most of them come from Americans. Most of them are small donations. They're people that believe in this mission or believe in our past missions and have stuck with us for all these years. Do American intelligence agencies like the CIA fund Sons of Thunder International? No, we, we, I don't even think we'd accept the money, quite honestly.

We do quite well being independent with no strings attached. We, we obey laws, but otherwise nobody tells us what to do. And nobody's tried to tell us what to do. Matt, you're a good man. You're a brave, a brave young man. We appreciate everything you do. Come back and visit us next week. Thank you for joining us.

Anytime. Thank you. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. We'll see you next time. be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu.