Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter: Russia’s Unseen Victory in Ukraine

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Scott Ritter: Russia’s Unseen Victory in UkraineSee 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 Monday, April 29th, 2024. In just a moment, Scott Ritter on Russia's unseen victory. But first this. How do you really feel about your financial future right now today? Stable or uncertain? Despite all the happy talk that the Fed and the banks want you to buy into, I believe that 2024 is going to be a very unstable year, politically and financially. That's one of the reasons i decided to buy physical gold and silver and i suggest you should do the same and do it now why because throughout times of economic uncertainty gold and silver have rightly earned a reputation for stability owning precious metals has made me feel more stable and it can do the

same for you. Reach out to my friends at Lear Capital and get their free wealth protection guides. You can reach them at 800-511-4620. Lear has earned an excellent reputation by helping thousands of customers just like you move portions of their retirement savings into Lear gold and silver IRAs. It's easy to do and it's tax and penalty free. Don't be caught off guard. Experts predict the markets may tank again. You'll be happy if you have protection in place. So call Lear at 800-511-4620, 800-511-4620 or go to learjudgenap.com and tell them your friend the judge sent you. Scott, my dear friend, welcome back to the show. Thank you for your time. What is Russia's unseen victory?

Well, it's, I mean, the unseen victory aspect of it is what Russia has done outside of the battlefield. You know, the war is just sort of the physical manifestation, the shooting on the ground of a larger conflict between the United States and Russia that goes back decades. A conflict which the United States has sought to destroy Russia, to bring it down. We had succeeded in basically having Russia submit to us in the 1990s after the Soviet Union collapsed. The presidency of Boris Yeltsin will go down in history as one of the most hated periods of Russian history because of what the West did to Russia, what Yeltsin allowed to be done to Russia. Vladimir Putin, of course, has reversed that trend, but that doesn't mean that the U.S. wasn't trying to get him done. The wars in Chechnya were American-driven conflicts designed

to break up Russia. The United States has been engaged in economic warfare against Russia for some time now. We've been articulating to our European allies well before the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline to stop buying cheap Russian energy, even though that's what made the European economic miracle possible. And then we have been engaged in the expansion of NATO for the sole purpose of bringing down Russia. In 2008, William Burns, U.S. ambassador to Russia, wrote a memorandum about war in Ukraine and likely force the Russians to make a decision whether to militarily intervene, costing Ukraine at a minimum the Donbass and Crimea. Every single word of that came true. But this was, we invited Ukraine to join regardless. That memorandum was written in February of 2008.

We invited in November, knowing what the outcome would be. The ambassador warned us, we've been searching for war. And then we economically sanctioned Russia at the beginning of this, sanctions designed to destroy the Russian economy, bring down Russian domestic political society, and engender a revolution against Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin has won across the board. The sanctions have been reversed. It's the West that is collapsing. Russia is not diplomatically isolated. In fact, this year, Russia is leading the BRICS forum in Kazan, Russia in October, where we're going to see the continued expansion of BRICS to the detriment of the United States, the G7, the G20, NATO, the European Union. This is the unseen victory. Russia has emerged from this conflict. One of the most powerful nations in the world, its defense industry today is churning out products like you wouldn't believe. Just to give an example, 150 tanks a month minimum. That number could

probably go up to, it's probably closer to 200, could reach 300 in surge production capabilities. United States, 44 tanks a month. Germany, maybe 100 a year. The bottom line is the Russians far outproduce anything the United States and NATO can bring to bear. Artillery shell production, the Russians are probably producing between 16 to 24 million rounds a year. They're expending around 10 million rounds a year, but that means that they have plenty left in storage as they rebuild their army, expanding from 900,000 to today, officially in their military, about 1.3, designed to go up to 1.5, but there's another 600,000 or so troops that are in the special military operation that aren't counted. That means that Russia's put in into the field close to 2.1 million

troops. The United States, meanwhile, can't meet recruiting goals. We were 15,000 short two years ago, 10,000 short last year. We had to reduce the size of the U.S. Army by 24,000 billets. We're shrinking as Russia's growing. This is part of the unseen Russian victory. And then the lessons they've learned from this conflict in terms of drone warfare and electronic warfare, the basic tactics of modern warfare, you know, Russia is adapting these on a daily basis. They are the most combat-hardened military force in the world today. And the United States military is still stuck in the Cold War. So again, the unseen victory of Russia. Now, what you've just articulated, is it not known by the Pentagon? Is it not known by the CIA? Is it not recognized

by the Biden administration? Again, when we say known, the way this, for instance, in the CIA or in the U.S. military, the way things work is you have low level analysts um people like me who write these things up but we want to get promoted i want a good fitness report and i know that my mid-level manager has told me ritter don't come in with any of this russia's winning nonsense the boss doesn't want to hear it now my job as an intelligence analyst is never to tell my boss what he or she wants to hear. It's to put the hard truth down. Unfortunately, when I was in the military, that survived. But we've seen the politicization of intelligence to the extent now that junior analysts are afraid to put the truth in front of their bosses. So they shape it without

lying. They shape it. It's given to mid-level management, who of course wants to become senior management. So they got to keep the boss happy. They shape it again, and it gets to senior management, who cher at the lower levels where the pencil meets the paper, they know the truth, but it doesn't get to the senior levels because we've allowed everything to become so politicized. Everybody knows that Joe Biden wanted the 60 billion, 61 billion for Ukraine, two thirds of which stays here to sort of carry him through election day. But to the serious planners and intellectually honest people in the intelligence and military communities, understand that Russia has won, Ukraine has lost, NATO has lost, the war is over, our involvement with it has been a disaster. Yes. I mean, the people who know, know the reality.

We're talking about, what, $13.8 billion. Look, that's a lot of money. I mean, there's a lot I could do with $13.8 billion. I might be able to even cure cancer if I applied to it. But the point is, that's what's going to Ukraine from this $60.1 billion, $13.8 for weapons. But many of those weapons still have to be procured. Now, we have front loaded the system. We, in violation of everything, expended taxpayer dollars without congressional approval to forward deploy a lot of this equipment, which is sitting on the Polish border right now. Now, why is it sitting on the Polish border? Why is it in Ukraine? Because we've learned the hard way that as soon as it crosses the border, the Russians blow it up. And we're loathe to send all of our attack missiles, all of our artillery shells,

those new Bradley vehicles across the border, because as soon as they hit a warehouse inside Ukrainian territory, boom, it goes, it dies. That's the reality. Russia has such dominance over the battle space right now that we could give Ukraine infinite amounts of military equipment, hardly any of it would survive. Let's take a step or two back in our Q&A. Of what value is whatever portion of the $61 billion, you say it's $13.5 billion, of what value is that to Ukraine in the long run? In the long run, it's not. Look, we spent 23 billion to get the Ukrainians up to speed for their counteroffensive in 2023, which they lost. And they had a better army then than they have now. More troops, more equipment,

better trained. They had air defense. Since that time, Russia has eliminated Ukrainian air defense. The morale of the Ukrainian army is such that as we speak, today as we speak, Ukrainian units are just dropping their weapons and running on certain parts of the battlefield. Others are just surrendering. And the ones that stay are dying because they don't know how to fight. They don't have the equipment to fight. This equipment means nothing. First of all, it's not that good. It's not the best of the best that we

have. The Russians have a counter to everything. Second of all, most of this equipment is more technologically advanced than even the best trained Ukrainian soldier was prepared to deal with, especially when it comes to maintenance. We don't have those best trained Ukrainian soldiers around anymore. They've been killed. They're wounded. They're prisoner. They're gone. We have poorly trained people with poor motivation, and we bring them this equipment that they can't use. What happens to this equipment is it just gets set aside, because the Ukrainians know that to use this equipment is a death sentence. And so, again, this equipment pleases only American politicians. It allows an American politician to fool an American public, but it

doesn't help the Ukrainians one iota. Colonel McGregor reports that last week the Ukrainians lost 8,000 troops in one week. And this week, you may know of this person, Russian General Alexander Lapin, L-A-P-I-N, has arrived with 100,000 new Russian troops. How can this possibly last much longer where one side loses eight and the other side gains 100,000? Look, I'm a simple Marine and I'm not a mathematics expert, but my basic military math tells me that when you're losing men and equipment at a rate significantly greater than you can replace them with, you're not doing well. On the other hand, if you're accruing manpower, trained manpower and material at a rate greater than you're losing it, you're getting stronger.

The Ukrainians are getting weaker, the Russians are getting stronger. But when you said the general's name, I have to laugh because he you know, he was relieved of command back in 2022 in the fighting of Kharkov, or at least that's the way it was portrayed, relieved and disgraced, although he had won the, he was a hero of Russia for heroism. This is a very brave man who personally led counterattacks and is responsible for saving the lives of many Russian soldiers. But in America, they went, oh, he's gone, he's gone. And I'm like, he ain't gone. He's just simply been sent back to the Combined Arms Academy and the Russian General Staff Academy for a little bit of retraining, because this is one heck of a good officer. And guess what? This very dangerous man who knows

the war firsthand, who is a hero in every way, shape, and the form, is now commanding 100,000. And these aren't partially mobilized. These aren't conscripts. These aren't guys beaten up on the street, thrown into vans and stuff. These are 100,000 volunteers who have been through the best training possible, equipped with the best equipment possible, led by one of the best generals possible. It's not going to be a good day for Ukraine when this force gets committed to the war. The $13 billion, is any of it cash or is all of it equipment sitting in Poland and to be replenished? My understanding is that the $13 point whatever billion is equipment. There was an additional nine billion in cash.

And that money has gone to the Ukrainians. And that money is in the pockets. Already we have Ukrainian officials fleeing the country with hundreds of millions of dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when you give the most corrupt government in the world access to cash. It didn't go to what your politicians said it would. It didn't go to pay pensions, pay salaries, and prop up the Ukrainian civil society. It went straight into the pockets of the most corrupt people on the planet, and that's the Ukrainian government. Transitioning to Israel, I want to play a clip for you of Prime Minister Netanyahu

complaining about the freedom of speech on American college campuses. The short version, Chris. Watch. What's happening on America's college campuses is horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now fortunately, state, local, federal officials, many of them have responded differently, but there has to be more. More has to be done. We see this exponential rise of anti-Semitism throughout America and throughout Western societies as Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists.

And what is important now is for all of us, all of us who are interested and cherish our values and our civilization to stand up together and to say enough is enough. We have to stop anti-Semitism because anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine. It always precedes larger conflagrations that engulf the entire world. So I ask all of you, Jews and non-Jews alike, who are concerned with our common future and our common values, to do one thing. Stand up. Speak up. Be counted. Stop anti-Semitism now. I don't know when the last time was that a foreign leader attempted to intrude himself in the exercise of the freedom of speech on American college campuses, but I do know Joe Biden, zip, Tony Blinken, zip, State Department, zip, nobody said a peep about it. Nobody in the government said a peep about it.

I just want to remind your audience, Judge, that this man, the Prime Minister of Israel, presides over a country that has been found to be carrying out policies which are more than likely genocidal in nature. This is by the International Court of Justice, the senior legal body in the world regarding the United Nations and international law. The International Criminal Court, a lesser court, is on the cusp of issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army for genocide against the Palestinian people. So this is a criminal writ large. And what's happening on American campuses, look, I'm like everybody. I'm getting a little old, a little long in the tooth. And

student demonstrations weren't my thing when I were in college. And today I just, but you know what? That's where it's supposed to happen. We send kids to college and we teach them to think and become better citizens. We send kids to college and we teach them to think and become better citizens. We want them to become involved in their country. And right now we have a whole bunch of citizens who say Benjamin Netanyahu is a genocidal maniac at the head of a nation committing crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people. And God bless these students, they're speaking out. And now what he's saying is he wants to suppress free speech in America. He wants to suppress free, he is encouraging cops to go on campus and beat up students and faculty that dare speak out. Now, I'm not someone who

believes that you should be calling for violence, but it is free speech if I simply say, destroy Israel. Somebody could say, I disagree with that. And I can say, fine, I have a right to say it, freedom of speech. And I have a right to say it with whom I want to, freedom of assembly. But I will tell you this, there has been no examples of these students that has been documented yet of them physically attacking a Jewish student or physically attacking faculty. What I've heard is that the faculty and the Jewish students are uncomfortable with what these people are saying, and they deem that to represent a physical threat. I'm sorry. Freedom of speech sometimes means people get to say things that you don't like.

Exactly. But that's what makes America great. That's exactly, exactly right. Freedom of speech does not protect the speech we love. It doesn't need protection. It protects the speech we hate because it has a right to challenge us. We have a photo, we actually have the clip, but we can't run the clip. It's so horrific of police on the Emory University campus. Chris, do we still have that photo? So the police were exceptionally brutal,

taking kids and throwing them to the ground and kneeing them in the back and zip tying them with the hands behind their back. An economics professor, a woman, on her way to teach, sees this, recognizes one of her students on his back, zip tied and screaming for help. She leans over to ask him if he's all right. She's attacked. Now you're going to hear the yelling and screaming. We can't run the video, but we can show the clip with the sound. This is what she looked like after the police came to her, notwithstanding her saying, I'm a professor. I'm a professor. I'm looking out for one of my students. Get on the ground! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!

Give me some cups! My hands! My hands! I'm the concrete! Oh my God! You people are fascists! You are Hitler! You are a happy dog! Stay in my field!

May he never have another day. I am a professor. This is a history professor. They cracked her head on the cement. In the University of Texas, Greg Abbott, into a group of students that were protesting, that weren't harming anybody. And for Netanyahu to say these students are attacking Jewish professors and Jewish students, there's no evidence of that whatsoever. It's all speech, speech that the powers that be hate and fear in which they will use force to suppress.

If you notice on that officer's arms, he had sergeant stripes. You can't blame this on a rookie mistake. This is a seasoned law enforcement professional. He should be relieved of his law enforcement duties. He should never be allowed to be a law enforcement officer again. She attacked nobody. She violated no rules, no regulations. This was simple physical assault on his part. And he should be charged with physical assault and convicted in due time if necessary, or at least probation. But he should never be a police officer.

Police officers today on these campuses are showing up wearing military style uniforms. They are deploying snipers on the rooftop. They are treating these students as enemies of the state. These students are American citizens or citizens of other countries coming to America because of our freedoms, the freedom of speech, and that which is accrued, the ability to express oneself, to learn, to expand your mind, to become better citizens. And this is what they're being taught, that if you speak out in defense of a cause that's not just righteous, but represents more closely American values than the values of the governors and the cops on the campus, you'll be treated as a criminal. You'll be treated as the enemy by American law enforcement officers who dress as

if they're going to war, because frankly speaking, they are going to war. They're going to war against the United States Constitution, against the freedoms that our forefathers fought and died for to guarantee us. And if the American people roll over and allow this to happen, I'm not promoting violence. All I have to tell you, if that professor had been my wife and I had saw that, I'd be in jail right now and that cop would be in the hospital because you don't allow, law enforcement officers don't get carte blanche to go around and beat up American citizens. There has to be a reason for it. And if they are taking the law into their own hands and they can't be law enforcement

officers anymore, but we have to stop this militarization. We have to stop a culture that has police officers viewing the American public as the enemy. A lot of these officers did time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that's where they learned the basic mindset of what they're about. Then they're given veterans preferences to come in. There's very little training, so they transition from warrior to law enforcement officer without anybody making the distinction between the two. And then they're put out on the streets to interface with American citizens exercising their constitutional right. These cops don't even know what the constitution is. They have been trained

on it. All they know is to close with and destroy the enemy through superior firepower or superior muscle, which is what they did to that Emory professor. That's her campus. She owns that campus. She is top dog on that campus. She's the one who runs that stuff. She and her fellow professors, and they threw her down like a doll rack. No, this isn't what America is supposed to be. The police response to the faculty and students, here's where I will agree with Benjamin Netanyahu, more closely represents what was taking place in Nazi Germany than anything else. It's not the students that are at fault here. It's the response that's at fault. If we,

the American people, we have to put an end to this. We have to let our elected officials know that this will not be tolerated. You're 100% correct. You're right on the law. You're right on the culture. You're right on morality, you're right on the history. Going to the other side of the Atlantic, is the Israeli defense dome a myth? You know, it's not a myth. It can shoot down, you know, $10,000 bottle rockets fired out of Gaza. It can shoot down unguided Katushka rockets fired out of Lebanon. It can shoot down ballistic missiles with a predictable trajectory, which is the definition of a ballistic missile. What it can't shoot down is modern advanced missiles that have hypersonic capability, maneuvering warheads. It can't shoot those

down. And unfortunately for Israel and the United States, because we have a ballistic missile shield that's based on the same technology that we've employed in Asia to protect South Korea, Japan, Taiwan. We've employed it in Europe. We've employed it throughout the Middle East. It doesn't work. The Iranians fired missiles, which proved that they can reach out, penetrate this missile defense dome and touch any space they want to, anytime they want to, with whatever force they want to. It's a hundred billion dollar, some people would say trillion dollar waste of money. spent, I guess it's American cash, I don't know, between $2 and $3 billion in one night in order to shoot down the Iranian drones. They can't do that every night. No. And first of all, we need to understand they spent that money in a failed effort because at

the end of the night, at least nine missiles, I believe up to 14 or 15, penetrated this dome and hit the targets that they wanted to hit. And these were the nine missiles or 14 or 15 that the Iranians wanted to hit. Everything else was designed to go there and clear the way. And, you know, the Iranians might have spent $600,000 on those drones. And we spent $3 billion shooting them down. This is crazy. And it's an unsustainable equation of money. And it just goes to show that this missile defense stuff is just prohibitively expensive. The missiles that the Iranians fired against them, the ones that worked,

the hypersonics with the maneuvering warheads, you know, may have cost a couple million each. But they easily defeated a missile defense shield that was hundreds of billions of dollars in the making. What happens if Netanyahu invades Rafah and slaughters another 30,000 civilians? Sadly, Judge, nothing. The United States isn't going to do anything meaningful. I believe that Egypt and Jordan, they're all talk, no action. I think the international community has not shown that it has the collective willpower to physically confront Israel, because this is what needs to happen. Israel must be physically confronted, and they won't be. There will be words, there will be wagging of the finger, wagging of the tongue. But until Israel is physically confronted, Iran physically confronted Israel for the crime of striking the Iranian consulate,

and Israel learned that lesson. Until Israel is physically confronted, and I have to tell you, if I'm the president of the United States, I'd be making the call saying, understand if you go into Rafi, you become an enemy of America and we'll start killing your guys. We can't sustain this. We can't support this. You have become a criminal enterprise and therefore you must be treated like the rabid dog you are. The Atticus Fence solution puts you down because that's what Israel will be, a rabid dog on the international stage if it attacks Rafah after everybody has told them this cannot happen. This will not be allowed. If Israel does it anyways, it has to pay a price or else there is no deterrence value.

And right now I don't see anybody willing to make Israel pay the kind of price that it would need to pay for the crime. And, of course, if Israel does this, Joe Biden will pay a price, too, because he could stop this with a phone call. He could stop this right now with a phone call. He has to do, literally all he has to do, he doesn't even have to call Israel, just stop the shipments. The other thing he can do is pull the U.S. ambassador out. The other thing he can do is pull out U.S. military advisory teams, shut down the X-band radar, bring down the FAD missile systems, and just tell Israel, we're packing up and going home home and you are on your own. Watch the Israelis panic at that point in time.

Scott Ritter, thank you, my dear friend. Everybody loves it when you're so passionate, foremost among which your humble host. God bless you, my friend. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for your analysis. We'll see you again soon. Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. Passion is right. Coming up tomorrow, just let me check my calendar here. I should have had it out, but I didn't. Matt Ho at two o'clock. Oh, excuse me. Kyle Anzalone at noon Eastern. Matt Ho at two. Karen Kwiatkowski at three, and the rest of your favorites coming up before the week is out. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.