Judging Freedom - Scott Ritter - Ukraine Sept Counter Offensive

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Ukraine’s surprising counteroffensive forces Russian troops to flee https://www.vox.com/2022/9/11/2334730... #Ukraine #Russia #BidenSee 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 Monday, September 12, 2022. It's about 3.35 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. My guest, of course, is no stranger, our regular, one of our two regular military folks. Scott also opines on intelligence matters. Scott Ritter. Scott, it's always a pleasure. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me. You have consistently been offering the views that the Russians will win, that this ought to have been known from the outset, and the assistance that the American government is giving to Ukraine is doing nothing but extending a bloodshed. Do you still hold that view in light of recent events, which appear to be

scenes of Russian soldiers leaving weapons and heavy equipment and fleeing, and Ukrainian claims of capturing hundreds of square miles of territory back from the Russians. Absolutely. Look, you had me on, I believe, in May, and you held me to account for words that I spoke on a radio interview when I talked about the $53 billion that the United States was providing in military assistance. And I spoke of NATO opening up their training facilities for Ukrainian soldiers. And I said, this is a game changer. It was. I mean, I wasn't making it up. You don't inject $53 billion worth of equipment and provide, you know, strategic depth and training and not have an impact on the battlefield.

I warned about it then. I've been talking about it ever since. But I also made it clear that it isn't going to change the ultimate outcome. What happened? Why will it not change the ultimate outcome ukraine won a battle whoopty-doo i mean hats off to the ukrainians i i'm not i'm not trying to to to a marine phrase whoopty-doo that's the phrase i'm allowed to use on tv uh or radio or podcast it's uh trust me in a bar there would be completely different words. You know, war is cyclical.

War is violent. And when you inject 53 billion dollars in a lot of training and intelligence support and command, this was an attack planned by NATO. I mean, that's just the reality of it. What happened on September 1st is Russia stopped fighting a Ukrainian army that was trained and equipped by NATO, and they started fighting a NATO army that was manned by Ukrainians. There's a qualitative difference. And Ukrainians... You don't mean soldiers or troops, I should say, from NATO countries, boots on the ground. No, manned by Ukrainians. The people doing the fighting are Ukrainians, but the army isn't Ukrainian.

The army is a NATO army. It's organized, trained, equipped. They've adapted new tactics. They're getting straight up NATO intelligence. It's NATO commanders in Ramstein and in Poland who are planning this operation. NATO advisors on the ground in contract form. They're not wearing the uniform. They've been sheep dipped. That's an old CIA term.

But the fact is, this is the army that I warned about back in May. This is what was going to happen. And what happened? Ukrainians launched what we call a fixing attack in Kherson initially. They threw in a couple brigades and they got waxed. I mean, they got annihilated, wiped off the face of the earth. Even the Ukrainians acknowledge we got hit hard. But that was their job. I mean, that's what a fixing attack does. A fixing attack locks the enemy into a course of action and compels the enemy to divert reinforcements to the area of interest. Is the introduction of American intelligence and even NATO intelligence helping the Ukrainians to pinpoint with more accuracy where the Russians are located and where they've stored their equipment?

100%. It enables precision planning and and like i said when the ukrainians then went up north they used brand new tactics instead of the old ukrainian tactics of dismounted infantry supported by armor of moving their way across the battlefield to be wiped out by russian artillery they kept their infantry mounted uh they rushed the Russian positions. They sent deep commando units, mobile commando units into the rear areas. And the bottom line is the Russians had this front. The Russians, I mean, let's just be straight up honest. They made mistakes. They thinly manned a critical area. They had insufficient troops. They let the Ukrainians trick them into the fixing attack. They diverted their reinforcements. And the Ukrainians trick them into the fixing attack.

They diverted the reinforcements and the Ukrainians outmaneuvered them, outplayed them. But this is what the Russians did. And a lot of people are picking up. They traded territory, but they saved their lives. All right. How demoralizing is it for the Russians and how exhilarating is it for the Ukrainians, for Russians just to drop weaponry and leave heavy duty, expensive equipment and flee to the East. Yeah. Look, anybody who's watched the band of brothers knows that episode in Holland where the Germans counterattack and the paratroopers are forced to leave and they

run and they get on the trucks and the, and the sergeant says, this sucks. It sucks. Getting beat sucks. Living is pretty cool though. So the Russians, they can be demoralized, but they know their units are intact. Their men are alive. They'll be re-equipped. And the Russians are professional and they'll know that all they did is lose a battle. The Russians opted not to stand and fight. They could have, but they would have lost a lot of guys. So they didn't. And look, the Ukrainians lost a lot of people. I don't mean to smile. This is that military smile where you're just going, why aren't people getting it? The Ukrainians shot their bolt. There's nothing left. It's going to take them five months to rebuild what they just lost. Meanwhile, the Russians, not only are they rebuilding, but the Ukrainians may have fundamentally

altered the reality of this war because right now the Russians are talking about changing it from a special military operation, which has tied their hands with the 200,000 troops, which has been insufficient. Another thing I've said all along, 200,000 is a tough number to try and do this with. And they may switch it to what they're calling a counterterrorism operation, which legally opens the door for everything. And we'll have this conversation. Let me put it this way, Josh. We can have this conversation in, say, November. And I think we're going to be talking about a completely different reality. The Ukrainians want to battle.

Hats off to the Ukrainians. Good job. They're losing war. What will President Putin likely do? First of all, a couple of sub-questions. I'm sure you already know the answer to the main question. Is Putin himself, unlike Biden, the type of micromanager where he makes military decisions, or does he have top flight senior military people that he can trust to make the decisions for him? Putin is an executive leader. He leads as an executive leader should.

He gathers in his senior advisors. They have a conversation. And then he sets the strategic direction. And Putin has shown straight up nothing. He's not going to get put on tilt because of this. He's as calm and smooth. You know, the day that the Russians were retreating, he celebrated the 875th anniversary of Moscow. They did a fireworks demonstration,

you know, played judo. There's no panic in the guy. Then he held an emergency session of the Security Council, where he was briefed. And he gave instructions. And the instructions were, we're not going to fight and die there. I want these guys pulled back. And then we're going to reorganize, regroup, and we're going to reorganize regroup and we're going to kick their butts we're staying the course no objectives have changed we won't negotiate with the ukrainians i mean the man has been consistent as the day is long his military there was i'll tell you this if you study military history 1973 the israeli army a good army, had one of the greatest intelligence failures in history where they failed to project the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal. And the Egyptians won a battle.

The Israelis ended up winning the war, the Yom Kippur War. Right. I will tell you right now, what happened in Kharkov was an intelligence failure on the part of Russia. I believe, you know, we talked about how in America, junior analysts sometimes have the right answer, but then the answer gets watered down as it goes up. Right. Putin has made it clear that this is a special military operation and he's not going to allocate resources beyond the 200,000. That just isn't going to happen. Does he need more men, more troops? Does he have them? Will he have to conscript them? Will he have to implement a draft, which will be very unpopular in Russia?

I don't believe we're going to see general mobilization. That would be a strategic deviation. There's a reason why Putin did a special military operation, and that is recognition that the big war being fought here is economic in nature, and he's winning decisively. So he's not going to do a general mobilization which would cripple his economy at a very critical time uh do they need more troops yes uh he knows this too and um he is actually have them or are his best people already there are we going to get grunts that are poorly trained and are there against their will? Or are we going to get people fighting with the zeal with which the Ukrainian forces are fighting?

Oh, no, the Russians have good troops and they'll bring quality troops in. We already saw it. I mean, the Chechens have been bringing in tens of thousands of volunteers, but they never brought in their regular forces. Thechens just dispatched their two best uh battalions and um and we're going to get more of that we're going to see more uh units coming in um we're we're seeing you know specific volunteers uh recruitment for specialized infantry units um and this is going to happen so you know the russians have the troops they don't need to mobilize what you're not going going to see from Russia right now is panic. There's just no panic at all. Ukrainians are having their moment. Enjoy it. It's not going to last long. by the city council of St. Petersburg calling President Putin a traitor and suggesting he should resign. And you said this would be like the city council of Berkeley, California calling Donald Trump a traitor. Since that time, the city council of Moscow itself has done the same thing.

Council members. Is this a surprise to you? No. look, there is an organized political opposition in Russia. It's small, but it's where, and you know what happened to the city council of Moscow, that the council people did it, they were arrested. They're going to be charged with treason because their announcement coincides with the Ukrainian offensive. And this is purely a propaganda ploy to gain headlines to, you know, so they're going to pay a price. They want to, you know, you play big boy games, you pay big boy prices. Okay. You also said, and I say this as your friend and a person who has the same ideological view about warfare that you do, that Russia is a functioning democracy. Well, it's not really a functioning democracy

if you get arrested when you criticize the president. It's not a functioning democracy if the president's principal opponents are in jail. It's not a functioning democracy if the legislature rubber stamps whatever the president wants. And it's not a functioning democracy if he's president for life. Well, let's take it step by step. Putin wins elections with 53, 60% of the vote. Dictators win elections by 98% of the vote. So there is obviously a significant opposition to people in Russia who vote no to Putin on a consistent basis. and they have rallies and stuff. What isn't allowed to happen is Navalny, who is in jail for corruption charges, but he could also be charged with treason. He could take CIA money through USAID cutouts.

We know this. They know it. Everybody knows it. Nobody wants to admit it. In America, if I decided to take Chinese communist money for the sole purpose of undermining the constitutional principles of America by running for office to remove somebody from power and our government found out, I'd be arrested. I'd be imprisoned. Why is Putin afraid to run against Navalny? He's not afraid to run against Navalny.

Navalny would never garner more than three to five percent of the vote. But you don't empower the CIA by giving a stage to somebody who's bought and paid for by the CIA. That's just a statement of fact. Why do other people get arrested? I mean, I think we're on the same page on January 6th. The Constitution is 100% untouchable. The 12th Amendment is sacrosanct, and any effort to violently disrupt that is wrong. And those who did it should be prosecuted, and maybe even charged with sedition. We are not. Pardon? We're around the same place. That's right. So I think if we take that same principle and find out that politicians are taking money from British intelligence who are working with the Ukrainians to create a propaganda ploy and the Russian intelligence has all the information, they find this out and they arrest them, that that's not suppression of the political opposition. That's arresting people who've committed treason and that's what's going on in russia um suppose ukraine has a couple more um a couple more attacks where they take a few more a few hundred more square miles well your russia's running out of territory to give up um

look it look if if that happens you and I are going to have a completely different conversation because I'll be happy to come on here and say I was wrong. I mean, obviously something was going on that I wasn't tracking that didn't come up on my radar and X, Y, and Z. I don't think we're going to be having that conversation. I think Barcove has always been a problem. If you go back to the things that I was saying in May, I specifically in the radio show that I had with Ray McGovern and Garland Nixon, I specifically said the Kharkov reason is problematic for the Russians because they're thinly defending and the Ukrainians are launching successful counterattacks there. This was back in May. I said, it's always going to be problematic.

Russia decided to get rid of the problem. Why hold on to territory that's causing you an issue? They did a strategic retreat. They consolidated defensive lines. And in doing so, they freed up approximately 10,000 troops that are now going to go back into Donetsk and finish the job of what they call liberation of the Donetsk Republic. And then they're going to turn their face. They need more troops. The bottom line is, you know, they can win one issue at a time. But the Russians are- Who needs more troops?

Well, the Russians do. If they want to, for instance, take Odessa, which I believe they want to, if they want to take Kharkov, which I believe they want to, they can't do it with the forces they currently have. That's a given, especially now that NATO is, you know, because right now there's about 40,000 more Ukrainian troops in the training pipeline. They're in Europe right now getting trained. So they're going to come in, they're going to marry up with this equipment,

and they're going to be, you know, another offensive force. And, you know, are we going to do this cyclically forever? I can pretty much guarantee you that the Russian high command is saying, that's the last time we're going to let that cycle run that revolution. We're now going to dramatically change the equation so that it doesn't have again, the Russians can make mistakes, but Russians can also learn from their mistakes and adapt to their mistakes. While you've been doing all the Judging Freedom podcasts and the other radio work that you do,

you've written a book, Disarmament in a Time of Perestroika. Tell us about it. Well, this is a book about the history of the INF Treaty, Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first three years of implementation that I played a prominent role in. I was the first inspector on the ground, and I helped install a monitoring facility outside of the gates of the Soviet factory. So I think it's a unique, well, I know it's a unique history. I've drawn upon sources that nobody else has. It's a unique history. It's a fascinating history. But even, I think think one of the benefits of this book is, you know, we're talking right now about a conflict with the United States and Russia.

And one question everybody should be asking is what is the off ramp? I mean, someday this war in Ukraine is going to end. How do we improve relations with Russia? And a lot of people say things are so bad, we can never improve them. I'm here to tell you right now that in 1985, things were pretty bad between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was the evil empire. We were enemy number one. They shot and killed a major in East Germany. We almost went to nuclear war. And then two years later, we signed the INF Treaty. In 1988, Reagan went to Moscow and said, now he views the Russians as friends, not the evil empire. And we actually went on the path towards becoming, if not friends, at least people who could peacefully coexist.

It's a template. This book provides a template, an array of hope for anybody who's saying, I don't know how we're going to get out of this. What was the time period? In what years were you a weapons inspector for the UN? Yeah, the treaty was, no, this was with the United States. This is, I was a United States Marine Corps officer implementing a U.S.-Soviet treaty. The treaty was signed in December 1987. In fact, it'll be the 35th anniversary of the treaty signing on December 8th of this year, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to get the book out this year. And then the implementation began on July 1st, 1988.

So I talk about how we formed the group of inspectors, what our mission was. And then I talk about deploying to the Soviet Union in June of 1988. I was with the advance party. And then just the work of installing this factory at a time when we, you know, Vodkens, the city that we were in, was a closed city. No foreigners had ever been there. And if you want to talk about feeling like a Martian on a planet or something, try and be part of an advanced party of Americans walking around a city that hasn't seen a foreigner their entire life. And we transformed relations. I mean, and this was during the time of Perestroika, too, when the Soviet Union was undergoing a transformative phase. And arms control and the Votkin's factory is at the center of it.

Literally, when Gorbachev had his coup that pretty much marked the end, when they launched the coup against Gorbachev in 1991, August 1991. The reason for the coup was because of a missile being produced at the Votkin's factory that Gorbachev was trying to shut down. A little piece of unknown history. So this book is, like I said, it's a piece, it's a history that hasn't been told, and it's a story of hope that there is a path for peace. I know the book is on its way to me. I will read it and we'll have another, at least one and probably more than one conversation about it. I just want to go back to where we started this conversation. All this excitement in the media in the past 48 hours about the advance of the Ukraine forces and the recapture of areas of Ukraine and the chasing of the Russians running with their tails between their legs.

Is it likely that Joe Biden's going to ask for more money during this time of euphoria, however short-lived it might be? Absolutely. That's the whole purpose of this offensive. This offensive was timed with what they call a meeting of the ramstein group which ramstein air base in germany it's uh where the united states nato and the ukrainians meet uh and they negotiate um the provision of uh weaponry and basically the ukrainians were told that right now it's becoming more and more politically difficult to provide you with this weaponry you're going to have to demonstrate that you're able to do something with it. So this offensive was a political ploy. Trust me, again, I'm not taking anything away from them.

They won a big battle in Karpov. They did. They beat the Russians, and the Russians had to withdraw. Hats off to the Ukrainians. Enjoy the moment. And you're going to get more weaponry. But I'm here to tell you right now, i still believe that the russians adapt they overcome and then they they move forward and i believe that they're going to adapt to this they know what's

coming their way in terms of the weaponry um they know how to kill ukrainians and they're just going to um become better and better at it and that's to the detriment as we've said all along the only thing providing more weapons to the ukrainians is guarantee that more Ukrainians die, more Russians die, more civilians die. And this tragic war continues, a war that really did need to be fought in the first place. Scott Ritter, always a pleasure. Good luck with the book. I have a feeling we'll be chatting again before the week is out. Okay, thanks. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.