Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter - Russia Ukraine War Latest

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Ukraine's Zelensky calls on NATO to launch "preemptive strikes" against Russia to "eliminate the possibility" of a Russian nuclear strike https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1578097733860065281 #Ukraine #Putin #Biden #RussiaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, October 7th, 2022. It's about five or ten minutes after two o'clock in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. You can see who our guest is. Scott Ritter, of course, needs no introduction to the Judging Freedom audience. His background in the U.S. Marine Corps, particularly in military intelligence, is well known, highly regarded and well documented. Scott, welcome back to the program. Thank you. Right off the bat, given all the conversations we've had about this can russia lose this conflagration with ukraine anything's possible i mean you know if there's

total corruption total lack of competence uh inability to mobilize uh all the russians wake up in the morning forget forget how to walk. Yeah, they could theoretically lose this. But as things currently stand, with the facts set currently available, no, Russia is going to win this conflict. As I've told you often, throw the calendar away. Russia doesn't operate based upon the artificial realities of time. They operate on the accomplishment of tasks. And as we, again, previously spoke, it was clear come September to the Russian authority, it was clear to me earlier that they had insufficient resources to accomplish the task. They are now in the process of accumulating those resources. And once they do that, they're going to finish the mission. That mission is demilitarization, denazification, destruction of the Ukrainian military,

the elimination of the Zelensky regime, and pretty much the elimination of Ukraine as a modern nation state. I'm not gloating over this. It's not an outcome that I prefer, but as a professional intelligence analyst, if I were briefing the President of the United States on down, this would be the conclusion I would give them, and I would be able to articulate exactly

why this is going to happen. You said the elimination of Ukraine as an independent nation. Do you mean the destruction of the government, the total takeover of Ukraine, or do you mean the neutering of the government so that it's no longer aligned with the government, the total takeover of Ukraine, or do you mean the neutering of the government so that it's no longer aligned with the West, but the only territory Russia wants is what it maintains has been Russian all along? There's a difference between the elimination of Ukraine as a nation state and Russian territorial acquisition. I personally believe that Russia will probably acquire four additional provinces or oblasts in Ukraine that are dominated by Russians today. That's Odessa, Nikolayev, Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkov.

No, no, no. Kiev is separate. But the Russians have said that they will accomplish all of their stated objectives. Nothing has changed. One of their objectives is denazification. And President Putin, in his most recent speech announcing the mobilization, called the Zelensky government a Nazi regime. And I'm a simple Marine. Math isn't my forte, but two plus two equals four. If you call the Zelensky government a Nazi regime and your policy is denazification, that means mission is not accomplished until there's a... What does he mean by a Nazi regime? Is there a Holocaust

against the Jews? What does he mean? There's a Holocaust against the Russians. There's a genocide against the Russians. The genocide has been ongoing since 2014 when the Ukrainian government forcefully evicted victor yanukovych the legally elected president of ukraine replaced him with a government that was dominated by right-wing people who embraced the ideology of step on bandera a ukrainian nationalist who fought alongside adolf hitler in world war ii who killed tens of thousands of jews slaughtered hundreds of thousands of russians in Poles, I'm sorry. They passed laws banning Russian language, banning Russian culture, basically banning Russia. If you replace the term Russia from the existing Ukrainian laws

and insert a Jew, you would have the same legal foundation as Nazi Germany in 1930s. Okay, let's get back to your observations about the Russian military. If you read mainstream media, big if, if you're concerned about the truth, you get the inescapable conclusion that Russia's army is no longer invincible. Is that a rational conclusion from what we've observed in Ukraine in the past two months? No, it's not a rational conclusion. The rational conclusion is that Russia had insufficient resources for the task. You can't have a 1,000-kilometer front manned by 30 to 60 men per kilometer, in some cases, 15 men per kilometer. Russia didn't have enough men to accomplish the task, especially when NATO in

the United States infused Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of equipment, provided training, et cetera, allowing the Ukrainian military, which Russia largely destroyed over the course of the summer, to be reconstituted in a more modern, more capable form. But the Ukrainians have burned out their reserves. They've, you know, in the recent fighting, the Russian casualties, probably a high number in the high hundreds. Ukrainian casualties, according to Ukraine themselves, are 20 to 50,000 dead and wounded. So how you turn this into a de facto war of NATO and the U.S. versus Russia? Yeah, it's a proxy conflict. I mean, the one thing that's lacking is direct NATO American boots on the ground with American,

there are guys wearing American flags, but officially wearing the American uniform fighting for the United States. But the bottom line is the army that Ukraine is wielding today is a NATO army. It's not a Ukrainian army. It's organized, trained, equipped by NATO. It receives instructions from NATO. It receives intelligence from NATO. The logistics are provided by NATO. It's a NATO military. The Guardian of England is reporting that not only is the CIA present, but that U.S. special forces are present in large numbers. I don't know what that means on Ukraine. So my question to you is if U.S. special forces are there, what's the minimum that would be there?

Do they go out in groups of six or in groups of 600? I've been saying that the U.S. Special Forces have been in country since April, and I'm correct. Now the news has caught up and they're saying, yes, there's a presidential finding that's done that. We pulled out the CIA and we pulled out special forces in February when the invasion took place. And in March, they were still not there. But once the decision was made to supply this materiel, U.S. special forces returned for two functions. One, to facilitate the covert routes that would be taken. I mean, there's a reason why Russia is not blowing all this stuff up at the border when it comes over. That's because the United States has carried out a very concerted effort to break these things down into packages, get them across the border,

assemble them covertly in warehouses, get them forward deployed to the units necessary. This is being done by United States states special forces they're also responsible for overseeing the integration of this equipment communications and the intelligence with the ukrainian forces the ukrainian forces are using these um ipads at special forces it's a technique developed in iraq and then later on in syria where we provided these iPads uh capable of secure communications to forward deployed Iraqi forces and Syrian forces so they could receive direct intelligence feed and communicate back to their special forces handlers so their special forces teams in Ukraine who are communicating directly with Ukrainian commanders on the front sharing

intelligence and tactical advice with them in real time. That's what they're doing. All right. So what you have just said, what the Guardian reported, even going all the way up to a presidential finding, meaning Joseph R. Biden himself signed an order authorizing and directing this. Surely President Putin knows it. Why is it that no American has been injured, harmed, or captured? They're not even wearing uniforms, are they?

I would hope they're not, but I don't know. Generally speaking, they don't. Generally speaking, even when joint special operations goes in in a situation like this, they'll be wearing civilian clothes, operating under some sort of cover, whether it be a contractor or some foreign cover. The Russians know this and the Russians are actively targeting it. We don't know that we haven't suffered casualties. Generally speaking, in covert operations like this, when Americans die, it's reported as a training accident or um you know somehow it's it's it's pushed we don't just acknowledge that an American died in Ukraine uh in a covert operation so who knows you know if we've lost anybody who knows that the Russians are deliberately avoiding targeting Americans out of concern of uh escalating this conflict

um I don't know But what I can say with near certainty is that Americans are on the ground operating the manner that I've articulated to you. Russia knows about it. And Russia's factoring this into their response. I believe that the Russian response is this. There's no need to kill an American operating 50 miles behind the front lines when all we have to do is destroy the Ukrainian forces, Ukrainian slash NATO forces that are in front of us. That's where we get victory. We don't get victory by killing an American. We get victory by destroying the Ukrainian military. And I think the Russian focus is on that, not on scoring some political points by killing a JSOC or a CIA person somewhere in Ukraine. All right, back to my former question, and I guess this is an unknowable number unless you

know it from your own experience as to how these special forces work. Do we have any idea how many American boots are on the ground? Are we talking about five people, 50 people, 500 people, 5,000 people? We don't know. Generally, something like this would be handed to, on a scope and scale of this, you might see a Delta squadron being given this task. That's 60 some odd people backed up by some JSOC assets. So you're probably looking at a couple hundred people operating in Poland and over the border. I don't imagine these guys stay long in Ukraine. I imagine they go in and out. The CIA could probably have another 50, 60 guys doing the same thing.

Maybe the CIA staying a little bit longer. If this thing's really gone big, then we're going to bring in the Green Berets themselves, the guys who specialize in this kind of activity. They might be sheep-dipped as CIA paramilitaries. I don't want to get into it, but there's a way to do that.

And so, you know, there's the potential of hundreds of Americans rotating in and out of Ukraine. Okay, you mentioned Poland. The president of Poland made the statement that Crimea is part of Ukraine and that a part of the military thrust should be to win back Crimea, as absurd as that sounds, but that's what he said. He's the popularly elected president of a NATO ally. So

is the goal of the nationalists and the State Department to defend Ukraine or to retake territory for Ukraine? Neither. The goal of the United States, unfortunately for Ukraine, is to bleed Russia dry. And they'll do that to the last Ukrainian they're not here to preserve Ukraine they're not here to recapture Ukrainian territory they're not here to sustain the existence of President zielinski we're simply willing to sacrifice Ukraine as a nation for the singular goal of inflicting harm on Russia. That's our goal and objective. I think Poland's frustrated by that because Poland's looking for a more decisive outcome. And I think other European nations are likewise looking for a more decisive outcome.

They're not, because they live in Europe, they understand what it means for a European nation to, frankly speaking, disappear, because that's what's going to happen to Ukraine. So I think Poland is expressing its frustrations, articulating, but Poland is part of a 30-nation alliance where it's consensus-driven. So the desires of Poland are irrelevant when it comes to the policies of NATO. You recently interviewed a formerly high-ranking Russian general who's now a member of the Russian Duma, their parliament, and who is either in President Putin's inner circle or close to it. So two questions. What does he say to you or what did you learn from the interview, whether he said it or not, about the Russian military tactics and how they're perceived by military experts? And number two, did you learn from him how stable or secure in his job and in his mortal life President Putin is? Either question first. Well, we'll start with Putin. Putin's 100% in charge, and he has extraordinary support amongst the Russian people, and he has extraordinary support amongst his inner circle. He's not under threat, under attack. He is stable. He's not in panic. Surely a Western narrative that's part of an overall information warfare effort being run that includes mainstream media actively participating,

designed to create the impression of an unstable Putin so that there could be what they call a Moscow Maidan, a repeat of the February 2014 revolution in Kiev that ousted Viktor Yanukovych, right now the policy of the United States and Ukraine is to try and facilitate a similar uprising in Moscow that could oust Putin. But this exists in fiction only. The reality is Putin is as strong as ever. Having said that, the general, now currently a parliamentarian, has voiced frustration with the special military operation. He feels that Russia went in too soft early on, that Russia should have gone in harder. He also feels that once it became clear that the Ukrainian government wasn't going to fold like a house of cards, that there was going to be a fight, that that's the time Russia should have begun to mobilize, that this mobilization is coming late in the game. And as a result, it's resulted in some embarrassments for Russia.

It's cost Russia some lives. But he's also confident that the mobilization will be seen through and that ultimately Russian forces will, as he said, reach the border with NATO, meaning this war doesn't end until Russian forces are staring Polish he said, reach the border with NATO, meaning this war doesn't end until Russian forces are staring Polish soldiers straight in the eyes right across that border checkpoint. Is it surprising or is it a standard operating procedure that a civilian, President Putin, former KGB, but not former military, as far as I know, at least not a former general, would be making day-to-day battlefield decisions. Is this common for a Russian? Did Joe Stalin make day-to-day battlefield decisions in World War II?

Or is your general interviewee, the person you interviewed, critical of this? Does he want the military to be making the decisions? Well, first of all, I don't think the gentleman in question, Andrei Gurilov, said that Putin was making day-to-day decisions. That's not an accusation that he's put out there. Is it true that Putin is making day-to-day decisions? Who decided to be so tentative on the part of the Russians early on, which resulted in these PR embarrassments? Well, this would have been a decision that Putin would have, like any leader, would have sent through his cabinet, his staff, with the primary briefers being the

Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff. This would be Shoigu and Gerasimov. But also there would have been a heavy say by the Russian intelligence service and Russian security services about the state of play in Ukraine. And Putin would have outlined the objective, which is his job, to say, this is what I want accomplished. Now they would, you know, Putin would have outlined the objective, which is his job, say, this is what I want accomplished. Now he would turn to them and say, how do we accomplish it within the framework, within the constraints that I've set forward, meaning we don't want to slaughter the Ukrainians. We want to treat them as brothers. We want to, you know, only liberate the Donbass. We don't want to destroy Ukraine, etc. And then they come up with

the answer and they brief it to him. He would then push back where necessary, as leaders are supposed to do, challenge certain assumptions, accept others. But at the end of the day, there will be a consensus reached on a plan that he then turns over to his military leaders, who then turn over to their field commanders, who then brief downwards. And Putin isn't part of any of that. Putin simply gives the initiating order and then sits back and waits to be briefed on the outcome. He's not managing this day by day.

He's not telling battalion commanders, dig in here, do this, do that. That's not what's happening. Got it. Got it. Um, last area I want to explore with you, which is American intel. As we understand it, how do we know this stuff? You have people in the business. I have people that talk to me and we read the mainstream media and we read the non-mainstream media like you and our friend Colonel McGregor. But my understanding is that American intel told President Biden that the Russians would win this quick and early. If that is true, how could they have been so wrong? Well, it's just American intel. Remember, General Miley briefed U.S. Congress in about a week or so before the conflict,

the same thing. He said he thought Kiev would be taken within 72 hours. Yours truly wrote a tweet where I said this war would be over in a week or so. How did we get it wrong? I think none of us anticipated the constraints that were placed on the Russian military by the special military operation. Almost everybody who projected a war with Ukraine assumed the Russians would come in doctrinally, bringing the full weight of their military capability to play and roll over the Ukrainians. There were two assumptions there. One, that the Russians would operate doctrinally and two, that the Ukrainians would not resist. We were wrong on both. We were wrong on how the Russians would proceed. And I think the ukrainians shocked the living you know what out of everybody by putting up the fight they did you have to give

hats off to the ukrainians they fight like madmen they're doing a good job they're they're they're honoring their military service they're losing but that doesn't mean it's for a lack of trying they didn't surrender as everybody thought they would. They didn't roll over and play dead. They stood up. They fought. And because the Russians came in soft, because I think the Russians had the same assumption everybody else did, that the Ukrainians were going to chew hoy and surrender. And when the Ukrainians didn't, it became clear to the Russians that they had insufficient

forces to the task. And they've been playing catch up ever since. They had to go to a maneuver warfare scheme to try and shape the battlefield then phase two was to concentrate forces on the donbass which they were succeeding in grinding down the ukrainians killing and wounding over a hundred thousand of them but then nato kicks in with tens of billions of dollars which was unexpected by anybody changed the nature of the game and now russia is responding to it. jets, carpet bombing sections of Ukraine? Are we going to see the Ukraine military using American equipment to destroy supplies in Russia? Where do you think this goes? Well, I see the Ukrainian government attempting to do whatever they can while they can. They've already stripped their

reserves from everywhere to try and achieve these defenses. They've pretty much burned out. Now, as soon as I say that, we're going to wake up tomorrow morning and we're going to read that the Ukrainians captured another two or three villages. Everybody's going, oh, Ritter was wrong. No, losing two or three villages is not the war. Losing two or three villages is the Russians saying, I'm not willing to lose 200 guys for this piece of terrain. We're going to fall back on a more defensible terrain until we get the resources necessary to redefine the battlefield. I think the Russians are going to seize the initiative.

You're going to see a series of localized offenses, offensive actions designed to stabilize the battlefield, push the Ukrainians out of territory. The Russians don't want them in. Maybe pull back a little bit where they need to be because general mud's coming in and when that happens russia's going to solidify the line complete the mobilization everybody i've talked to says that russia will not achieve full mobilization capacity until sometime in december and at that point in time then we we're going to see Russia turn over to the offensive, and it's going to be a game-changing event, I believe. In the meantime, Russia will carry out a strategic air campaign, but that campaign has to be timed to the anticipated ground assault. You don't want to blow too many things up too early and give people a chance to repair. So I

think we're going to see a slowly unfolding air campaign as the Russians build up their military power and the Ukrainians are going to continue to try and achieve some sort of miraculous victory on the battlefield. They're burning themselves out. Tragically, tens of thousands of these brave Ukrainian soldiers and tens of thousands of, I guess I can't call them cowards, but mercenaries who shouldn't be there, but are, are dying right now. They're getting slaughtered. I mean, there's, there's stories coming out of what the Chechens did to a particular column that, you know, I looked at the video and if the video is accurate, anybody who thinks that Ukraine's winning this war, look at that video. They're not winning. Much appreciate your. Much appreciate your analysis and your courage. Always a pleasure. We'll see you again soon. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Judge. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.