Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Russia’s Strategic Advances

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 30th, 2024. Scott Ritter joins us now. Scott, my dear friend, it is always a pleasure. I want to talk to you in general and bore down into some specifics about your understanding of the Russian strategic advantage over Ukraine and over the West. But let's start with setting the stage, so to speak, how stable or unstable is the government of Ukraine as we speak? How stable or unstable is the military of Ukraine as we speak? Well, the Ukrainian government, President Zelensky has eliminated all viable political opposition. And so it's not as though there's an opponent hanging in the wings waiting to pounce on a weakened Zelensky. At this juncture, there is no civilian, no viable civilian replacement for Zelensky. He and his allies have created this environment. So

as long as the West continues to posture in support of Zelensky, Zelensky, from a political perspective, is relatively secure. I mean, the positions he's tried to defend are absurd, and we're going to see him come under increasing pressure as this peace conference in Switzerland collapses around him, produces nothing, as the West continues to flail and trying to come up with a militarily meaningful aid package. The military, again, we're talking about a very large military that has, you know, very well established infrastructure. It's not a military that, you know, is going to disappear anytime soon, but it is being stretched thin, very thin, just like the Wehrmacht in World War II. You know, it maintained a viable, you know, military capacity up until the very end of the war, but it was outclassed, outmanned, overstretched, and was losing across the front. This is the case of the Ukrainians. They lack the manpower, they lack the military equipment, but it is still a structure that's just not going to go away. You don't defeat the Ukrainian army overnight. But there will come a

tipping point where the military professionals realize that all is lost, that there's nothing that can be done. There's no magic formula, no cavalry to the rescue that's going to resolve this situation. And at that juncture, the military will be called upon to make a decision. Do they follow Zelensky to hell, or do they try to salvage what's left of Ukraine and intervene to remove Zelensky from power? I think that's where Zelensky's greatest threat comes from, is the military. If he loses the military, if he loses the security establishment, then all is lost for Zelensky. All right. As usual, you're a couple of steps ahead of me. I was going to ask you what will bring about the end of the war, because if

you listen to Zelensky, he will never concede anything. He doesn't regard Vladimir Putin as a legitimate person, even worthy of communicating with. But when you mentioned the government, is not the government of Ukraine really a vassal state of the State Department? I mean, if Joe Biden or Tony Blinken say to Zelensky, you're gone, isn't he gone? If the United States abandons Zelensky, then Zelensky is finished as the president of Ukraine. How that end game comes about, whether it will be assassination, whether it will be exile, whether it will be a coup. I don't have a crystal ball to point that out. But the moment the United States abandons him, and if NATO abandons him or Europe abandons him, then it's over, because that's the only thing that keeps him in. He is the conduit through which billions of dollars of resources, cash, and material that

can be sold on the black market finds its way into Ukraine. Remember, Seymour Hersh wrote a story that has shown to be accurate. William Burns had to fly to Ukraine in the fall, I believe, of 2022 and tells Zelensky, you're stealing too much. The United States knows he's corrupt, but I think the number that he was skimming off the top was 400 million. And Byrne said, that's just too much. We can't hide that. It becomes too obvious. Ukraine is just one big giant con game. It's a money laundering machine. And Zelensky is that vehicle through which all this happened. So even though they're losing on the battlefield, Zelensky still enriches a whole bunch of very powerful people, including people in the military.

And as long as that money is flowing, those people have a vested interest in keeping Zelensky in place. But eventually, and I think it's going to be sooner rather than later, his number is going to come up. We'll see what happens in July with this peace conference. I think, you know, people don't want to get ahead of the game. But when this collapses and the absurdity of Zelensky's position is exposed to the world, he will be told at that point in time that he has no choice but to find a path to peace. And if he can't find a path to peace, Он будет сообщен в тот момент, когда у него нет выбора, но он должен найти путь к миру. И если он не может найти путь к миру, то они должны найти кого-то, кто может.

Вот что он сказал вчера к Наталье в Бельгии. И это только 22-секундный клип. Это, очевидно, от длинного речи. Это привело к ему миллион долларов. Пос brought him a billion dollars. Listen to this. Cut number two. Even from reconnaissance, you get maps, satellite images, but you cannot respond. I think it's unfair, but we cannot, and this is a fact, risk the support of our partners. And that is why we do not use the weapons of our partners on the territory of the Russian

Federation. Please give us the opportunity to retaliate against their military. Put up the Time magazine headline, Belgium commits a billion to Ukraine amid Zelensky's whirlwind European tour. What motivates them? Don't they see through him? Don't they know defeat is coming and is inevitable? And whatever this billion is, cash, equipment, borrowed, rented, not yet built, it's gone forever. Judge, they, I mean, you're speaking like a rational man. These are politicians who have, you know, backed a losing horse, but they can't. You know, the race has started. You can't. Your ticket's been purchased. You can't go in and say, I choose a different number.

And these are politicians who can't admit that they were wrong on something as fundamental as this. And so they're going to continue doubling down on this bet in hopes that some miracle happens that either changes the fortune on the battlefield, which isn't going to happen, or which they're hoping will happen, gives them a political out where they can blame because the whole game in politics is to shift blame onto somebody else away from you. So they're buying time until they can shift blame onto somebody else away from you. So they're buying time until they can shift blame onto somebody else. Maybe the United States, maybe Europe's waiting for the opportunity to say, this is America's fault. Why do you think all the pressure was put on the United States to get that $60 billion package released from Congress when they did? One of the reasons is Europe was starting

to play the blame game, starting to say, it's not us, it's them. And the Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike looked around and said, we don't want to carry that. And so right now there's a contest between the United States and Europe on who's going to end up, you know, holding the bag when this is all over. But certainly they know that this is lost money. But politicians have always spent money on losing causes if it helps them politically. Tell me if this helps Emmanuel Macron politically. Cut number one, Chris. So how do we explain to the Ukrainians that we're going to have to protect these towns and basically everything we're seeing right now around Rakiv if we tell them

you're not allowed to reach the point where the missiles are fired from? The missiles. In fact, we're telling them we're them you're not allowed to reach the point where the missiles are fired from. The missiles. In fact, we're telling them we're giving you weapons, but you can't defend yourselves. So we stay exactly within the same framework. We think that we should enable them to neutralize the military sites from which the missiles are fired from, and basically the military sites from which Ukraine is attacked. But we must not allow them to hit other targets in Russia, obviously civilian capabilities or other military targets.

When it's from identified targets in Russia that Ukraine is attacked, well, I think we have to be able to allow them to do that if we really want to retain our objective. So he's saying, I'm giving you long-range missiles. Go ahead and attack military targets in Russia. Professor Sachs reports that the Ukrainians have attacked and partially destroyed some very serious high-end radar warning systems in southern Russia. Does the West not understand the legal and moral authority of President Putin to retaliate against Western sites when they do this and when they announce it? First of all, I'll start with the two early warning sites. Those were attacked by Ukrainian drones, but it wasn't just Ukrainian drones that attacked them. It was Ukrainian drones married to American and NATO intelligence. These are drones that are pre-programmed. I think everybody has seen those fantastic shows where all the drones

take off and then they go up in the air and then they turn on the lights and get a walking man, and then it turns into a whale and it turns into something. That's not something, somebody's not sitting there flying it. All those drones have been pre-programmed to fly that pattern. You can take a strike drone and do the same thing. When you get the intelligence about where the radar is, what the terrain masking is, you can have a drone pre-programmed to fly beneath the radar, masked by a hill, pop up here, come down here, come around here, and then show up at a place. Because everybody's going, why aren't the Russians shooting it down? I thought they had great air defense. Well, there's some things that you can defend against, like airplanes, missiles, cruise missiles, some things you're not ready to defend

against, like this new weapon system, this drone pre-programmed with the intelligence to evade radar. So the Ukrainians have done that and attacked these two early warning systems. I will say this, had those sites, these two early warning radars been attacked by scalp missiles, which is the French missile or storm shadows, we would be in a completely different game. And this is why, and this is where Macron needs to really start putting his thinking cap. You give the Ukrainian scout missiles, but he knows that the final technical details of the targeting is done by French technicians on the ground using intelligence from French satellites. He knows

Ukrainians play no role in this whatsoever. And we know this because the Germans, when they had their telephone call intercepted about the Taurus missile, admitted this was the case. They gave up the farm. It's all being done by the French. Now, they were talking about hitting the Kerch Bridge. They were talking about hitting sites in Crimea. And Russia has basically said, you know, we're not going to go to World War III over those kind of attacks.

But if you start attacking inside Russia, it's not Ukraine doing this. It'll be an attack planned by France using French intelligence, using French resources. And Vladimir Putin has come out and said just the other day, he said, we know this. And the way he talked about it, he said it's space reconnaissance, satellites. If Macron gives the Ukrainians the green light to use French weapons programmed by French technicians using French intelligence to strike Russia, it's the same thing as France attacking Russia. And Russia has made it clear that it's going to treat it that way. And that's what Macron doesn't understand, is that Russia isn't bluffing. In this case, the French satellite will go goodbye, the French ground control station

will go goodbye, and any target outside of Ukraine that was involved in this will go goodbye. And this is a very serious thing, Judge, because at that juncture, France will scream bloody murder. They won't acknowledge that this was a Russian retaliatory strike. They will claim that Russia has attacked it and seek Article 5 protection from NATO. And the moment NATO votes for Article 5, Russia will nuke everybody because they'll just assume it's now a general war and they're not going to wait. And so this is the stupidity of Macron. This is the danger of Macron, the danger of Schultz, the danger of Richie Sunak.

This is the danger of Tony Blinken saying the same stupid thing. We're going to give him a green light. Don't they know that the Russians know that all of the intelligence that goes into these precise weapon systems aren't done by Ukraine? Ukraine lacks the technical capacity to program these weapons. All Ukraine does is launch them. But every other aspect of this weapon was done by other nations that, and here's the other thing too, Macron shows the map with Russia. He said, we must strike these, I have a very bad French accent, I won't even try, these sites up here. Doesn't he realize that in the Kremlin, there's a Russian general that says, you know, look at Poland, look at the Baltics,

look at France, look at Germany, look at England, look at Romania, look at the Baltics, look at France, look at Germany, look at England, look at Romania, look at Italy. These are all places where the Ukrainians do things that would normally be subjected to strike. They were just in Belgium. Do they not know that when a Ukrainian pilot is being trained at a Belgian airfield on weapon systems that are designed to be used against the Russians, that that is a legitimate target. And so if they start attacking Russia and say, well, Ukraine has a right to strike those targets, you're sort of saying that Russia now has a right to strike all of Europe. This is the stupidity of the West. We just don't comprehend

how serious this game is and why we're playing, you know, brain-teasing games at this stage in the conflict is beyond me. The time to have done this was at the beginning of the conflict when maybe you could have made a difference. But right now, Russia is so far ahead of everybody. They've lapped the field 15 times. There will be no catching up, and all you're doing is committing suicide. Here's President Putin saying exactly what you said. Now, this is part of a long press conference. It's just a 20-second clip, but it's the essence of what he said and what you just summarized. Cut number four. Representatives of NATO countries, especially in Europe, especially in small countries,

they should be aware of what they are playing with before talking about striking Russian territory. In general, this constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. He doesn't bluff, does he? There's no bluffing Putin. He's the most responsible leader on the world stage today when it comes to avoidance of conflict escalation. We have crossed so many red lines over the course of the past two plus years. And Putin has come under a lot of political criticism inside Russia for allowing these red lines to be crossed, but he's kept his

eye on the ball. The eye on the ball is, of course, victory in Ukraine. And one way that you deny yourself victory in Ukraine is to expand the conflict so that it's now not just a proxy war with Ukraine, but you are actually fighting NATO. That's what Ukraine wants. That's Ukraine's goal and objective right now is to get NATO in this conflict. And Vladimir Putin has been masterful in avoiding that. But at some point in time, you reach that final line. And the final line is attacking Russia with these Western weapons. And I don't know what you heard, but I heard a guy basically saying, do so at your own risk, that you will pay a price. This is no longer a subject of debate.

You mentioned earlier that it is well known and understood that the French offensive weaponry in Ukraine is being operated by French soldiers. Is the American offensive weaponry in Ukraine being operated by American soldiers? There are certain aspects of the targeting to receive the intelligence and all that. First of all, we're not going to give the Ukrainians access to the encrypted satellite downlink. So as classified information is brought down from overhead onto a ground station. Ukrainians won't have anything to do with that ground station because of the cryptology involved, et cetera. So there's Americans there. Now they turn this into a targeting package. That targeting package will then go to the Ukrainians in the form of whatever, however they input it, it'll be done automatic. But there might be a Ukrainian technician who does that final stage, the hands on the weapons. We might not have

Americans there, but we might. Again, I'm not familiar with the classification and the sensitivity of the data from point A to point B on the missile. But I can guarantee you that the vast majority of it, Ukraine will not have a single eye, ear, hand, nothing. They won't know anything about it because it's extraordinarily sensitive information. So we have Americans on the ground doing that, which means that we are picking the targets. It means that we have sat down and said, this is what we want to hit. Collect the intelligence, download the intelligence, turn it into a target to get to Ukrainians. And then they push the button. But it's not the Ukrainians attacking. It's the United States attacking. And again,

President Putin is fully aware of this. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk more about Russia's strategic advantage and how the Eastern European countries want to go with a winner. And that's why they're looking toward Russia. But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123.

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Earlier today, I spoke with Professor Gilbert Doctorow. He made some rather interesting conclusions with which I expect you'll agree. Here's one of them. No, and I would like to take this back to something that's happened. He's made three visits abroad since his election or re-election. The first was to Beijing. The second was to Belarus, Minsk. And the third was to Tashkent, which is where he made the press conference that you've just shown.

And I take it back a couple of weeks to his stay in Beijing. detailed discussions with Xi gave him additional confidence to proceed with the direct challenge to the United States-led NATO that we heard in his Tashkent meeting. Let's bear in mind that the United States under Blinken has made trips through Central Asia in the hopes of dislodging Kazakhstan, dislodging Uzbekistan. These are the largest, most populous and important Central Asian countries from the Russian orbit. The nature of the meeting that Putin had in three days, it was a day longer than was planned, in Tashkent, during which a number of very important commercial agreements were signed, including for the building of the first nuclear power station in Central Asia, a small one, but nonetheless.

This type of warm greeting without any side glances to those who are giving the come here, come hither note, like Mr. Blinken, tells you that Central Asian countries are behaving as normal countries would. They go with winners. And they have sensed that Russia is the winner in the war with Ukraine and NATO. This is very consistent with what you said at the outset of this interview, Scott, that Putin is the smartest guy of the bunch? Well, he's not just the smartest guy. He leads a very capable nation, a nation that has healed itself for the past 25 years, a nation that has tremendous resources. One only needs to reflect back on a speech made by Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980s about how powerful Russia was. She claimed that, of course, the West wins because of the strength of democracy. But, you know, the point

is Russia is largely self-sufficient in its natural resources. It can export tremendous amount of energy resources, a sustainable flow of income. And it has a leadership that has been stable for a quarter of a century. And it's built institutions that are likewise stable and capable. People don't understand Russia. But once you do understand Russia, you are immediately struck by the competency of the people who occupy every position of government. Extraordinarily competent. Judge, next week is the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. And what the participants at this forum are going to see is that Russia is the center of the world during this time. This is the most influential economic forum in the world, more influential than Davos. They will have a more diverse group of people.

National leaders from around the world are showing up because they don't just want to hang around winners and be on the winning side. They themselves want to succeed. And St. Petersburg is the stepping stone for an even greater event that's taking place in October, which is the BRICS summit. And you're starting to see Bahrain, Thailand, Serbia, other nations are starting to gravitate towards there because they realize that the option that they've been given by the collective West, by the United States, is not a viable option. Russia and China together are a combination that is unbeatable at this point in time. Whose military is more capable? Whose offensive weaponry is more lethal, Russia or the West? I'm defining the West as Western Europe and the U.S.

In a conventional ground war, Russia has the West beat hands down. The West does have an extraordinary large arsenal of long-range precision strike cruise missiles and conventional weapons of this nature. So we are capable of doing serious damage to Russia. But understand that the vast majority of this weaponry has its capabilities because of connectivity with overhead. If there's a war between Russia and the United States, Russia has the best anti-satellite capability in the world. And they will shut down America's satellites, which means all of the weapon systems that we think are going to work as advertised no longer work as advertised, and we've lost

that advantage. The United States and Europe, let's not kid ourselves, they still pack a punch. This is why Russia's being careful. It's not just a nuclear punch. They pack a conventional punch. They have missiles that can strike targets in Russia. Russia doesn't want that war. It doesn't mean Russia's going to lose that war, but no nation invites that kind of death and destruction on a civilian population that it loves. The Russian government loves the Russian people, and they've worked very hard for the last quarter century to turn Russia around to be what it is today. And you're not going to throw that away overnight and create the opportunity for the West to destroy a lot of this infrastructure. So the West does pack a punch.

But on the battlefield where the hard fighting is done, Russia dominates. And on the nuclear side, Russia is a dominant power. But you don't want to ride off the West completely. This is a warning I give to a lot of people who keep saying, well, America is on the decline. Yes. Yes, America is. But, you know, Muhammad Ali was on the decline when he still won world championships. So, you know, we we can never forget that the United States, you know, we spend almost a trillion dollars a year on defense. A lot of that's wasted. But a lot of it goes to buy very capable weapons that are in the hands of highly trained professional warriors. So, you know, I don't want to be dismissive of NATO and the United States.

But right now, Russia has the advantage across the board. Do Rishi Sunak, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, and Joe Biden understand the essence of what you just said? They do. But one of the big problems is that they combine this Muhammad Ali and the decline phase cockiness with a lack of respect for their opponent. You know, Ali didn't get knocked out until he got knocked out. And up until that moment, he didn't think he was going to get knocked out. We continue to believe that Russia is bluffing, that Russia doesn't have this capability, that their military, this is just a passing moment, that they can't have this capability that, you know, their military, this is just a passing moment that they can't sustain this. This is all false. The Russian military is extraordinarily

professional. What they've learned on the battlefield has been incorporated by their troops. And logistically, and in terms of basic, you know, the establishment of the military, Russia is equally as professional as anything the West has. But we don't acknowledge it because part of the game, part of the political game isn't to deal with the reality of Russia, but rather sell the perception of Russia to your respective audiences. And so Biden and the Europeans continue to articulate a picture of Russia that's far from realistic. It's one that paints Russia as a nation that lacks the capabilities that we know that it has. And that's their job, is to create perception amongst an audience for political reasons. Because if you told the American people, told the Europeans the truth about Russia, you'd see attitudes change overnight. Once people realize that they've been lied to,

that they've been misled, that there isn't the chance of an American victory, they suddenly, I think, because I just interviewed Dennis Kucinich the other day, and he said something interesting. He refused to attack the American people. I mean, he's a politician, smart move on his part. But what he said to attack the American people. I mean, she's a politician, smart move on his part. But what he said is that the American people are trusting, and maybe they trust their politicians too much. And that's the problem is we have people that maybe don't question their leaders as much as they should question. They believe what they're told at face value. But the problem with that is the sense of betrayal that accrues once you realize you've been lied to is also real. And there will be a heavy political price to be paid

by those who have lied to the American people consistently over the course of the past decade or so about Russia. And those people are across the board. And, of course, you have to love Dennis. If Dennis gets sent back to Congress, he'll be the George Galloway of the House of Representatives. Well, more importantly, you're probably looking at as close to an evenly split house as you can imagine. And he's an independent. Right. So he actually could become sort of the Joe Manchin of the House of Representatives. I bet my money on Dennis on all the key issues, war and peace and civil liberties. Scott, thank you very much, my dear friend.

We'll talk to you again soon. All the best. Thank you. Coming up at three o'clock Eastern, Professor John Mearsheimer, and at 4.15 Eastern today, Max Blumenthal. Stay with us. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.