Judging Freedom - Tanks, Ukraine & red tape - Larry Johnson

Episode Date: April 27, 2023

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, April 27th, 2023. It's about 2.30 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Larry Johnson joins us for his weekly time with us. Larry, deeply grateful as always. Thank you, Jim. For all the insight, sure, for all the insight that you bring us. So here we are a week from May, week from May 1st, actually just a couple of days from May 1st. May 1st is this weekend. Whatever happened to the Ukrainian offensive that

President Zelensky has been promising? It's being announced like a summer blockbuster coming soon to a theater near you. It just keeps getting postponed. The problem they have is they've got the concept. They know what they want to do. It's like you living in a one-room house and saying, you know, I'd love to live in the penthouse in Trump Tower. It's one thing to have the want, but do you have the money? Do you have the material? Do you have what is required to carry out that offensive? And Ukrainians don't have it.

They just can't magically produce soldiers. And just because they're throwing warm bodies into the mix doesn't mean that those guys that have been pressed into service actually know how to conduct military operations as a unit and interact with other units, much less not having artillery, fixed wing air support, et cetera. What about NATO and the U.S.? Has this war shown NATO to be a weakling, incapable of producing armaments at a time and at a place when its leadership thinks it's needed? Or does the war show that the United States no longer leads NATO?

Both. What the war in Ukraine has exposed is that one of the reasons the United States and the rest of the NATO partners kept wanting to expand NATO is they recognized they didn't have the resources on their own to sustain it. They did not have the troop strength to create the manpower levels that they wanted. So how do you fix that? You bring in more members. This was sort of a salesman's marketing plan. Increase the number of customers that you're bringing in under your roof. At the same time, none of the industrial systems in France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States have ever been tested in the way that they are being tested now.

That, oh, my God, we need to produce 20,155 military shells a week. Let's get going, guys. And they go, well, yeah, we can get you that 20,000 a month in about a year. So, you know, it becomes all of a sudden the revelation that what was once a robust industrial capability in this country has disappeared. I mean, I thought, I grew up in Independence, Missouri, and the industrial companies, the Sheffield Steel, later Armco Steel, Standard Oil, Bendix Corporation, Alice Chalmers. The General Motors had two plants at Leeds and Fairfax. They're all gone.

So that industrial base is gone, and with it goes the skilled machinists, the mechanics, the electricians, the people who know how to build things. That's what has been missing in the United States right now over the last 30 years. Does NATO or do any NATO countries besides the U.S. and the U.K., as far as you know from your sources, have troops in Ukraine? Poland does. Okay. There are also some Germans. I'm not sure that the, none of the NATO countries have officially sent folks in Submarosa. I think more and more often than not, with the exception

of Poland, I think Poland has committed some of its own military force to go in and dress up as Ukrainians. But there are a number of mercenaries and they're getting killed from Spain to Italy to France to Germany to Finland, Sweden, across the board. So this morning on Judging Freedom, a mutual friend of ours, Alistair Crook, was discussing, as he loves to and can do so well, the cultural and ideological woes of Europe. And he segued into your field and Colonel McGregor's field and said his understanding from his perch in Italy and his sources is that the Ukrainians have been reduced to getting four-week, five-week, six-week wonders, 16, 17-year-old boys, shipping them to the front in the dark, in the nighttime, telling them to get a good night's sleep, usually in a trench filled with

water. And then when they wake up, they can see the Russian guns. They see how close they are. They don't fight. They run away. If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt Alistair, how can a military survive? Well, it cannot. Anybody that's gone into the U.S. military, whether the Marine Corps, the Army, even the Navy and the Air Force, understands there's that initial period of basic training. I believe in the Army now it's like 13 weeks. And in those 13 weeks, you learn how to do personal hygiene in the field. You learn how to assemble, disassemble your firearm.

You learn how to march as a unit, to move as a unit. You learn to communicate. You learn what the chain of command is. There's a lot of things that you need to learn in order to be able to operate in a combat environment. You don't learn how to run away. Yeah, well, that comes naturally. People are born with that natural desire to survive once they realize they're in a difficult situation. And what we're seeing Ukraine do is they're even short-cutting the basic training part because they don't have secure locations within Ukraine where people can show up. Apart from that, you don't have Ukrainian boys and men lining up at recruiting offices to fight for the cause.

They're just the opposite. They're having to go out and press gang these people into service. And oftentimes what the Ukrainians are doing is they're taking people from the Russian-speaking areas, forcing them into the army, and then sending them to the front lines where they're killed. It's a form of genocide, if you will, to eliminate the Russian speakers and to have the Russians do it for them. A Ukrainian general, I don't know if he's active duty or retired, by the name of Sergei Melnik, M-E-L-N-I-K, was quoted just a few days

ago as saying, this is a startling number and a startling statement from a Ukrainian general. Kiev needs up to six times more troops and firepower than Russia for its counteroffensive to succeed. Kiev needs more troops, ammunition, and equipment to continue its military conflict with Moscow. Kiev is now relying on, quote, this is just what you said, Larry, people without military training or experience. Do you know of this, General? How could he get away with saying this? Yeah, no, I'd heard of him. I think he was retired a year or so ago. Look, it's a simple math problem. And I know there are some people in our country now, Judge, that have a problem with basic addition and subtraction. But just do the addition and subtraction. Right now, Ukraine has a

population, total population of about 25 million. The other 15, 20 million have abandoned the country. Russia's population is 180 million. So let's just assume that everybody's getting killed at the same rate. Ukraine's going to run out of manpower well before Russia does, number one. But number two, Russia is firing six to seven times the amount of shells that Ukraine's able to fire. And that means they're going to cause six to seven times the amount of casualties simply by virtue of the volume of fire. And Ukraine can't replace that. That's just the unalterable fact. According to the documents that the government claims were solely released

by a 21-year-old part-time Air National Guardsman. The Russians are killing six to seven times the number of people. That kill ratio is mind-boggling. Of course, according to our friend Jack Devine, it's the other way around. It's the Ukrainians are killing six to seven. I don't know where he gets this from. I've never heard it from any other source. The Ukrainians are killing six to seven times the Russians.

Again, it's just a simple matter of who's shooting what. So the Russians, not the Ukrainians, are flying fixed-wing combat aircraft. Ukraine is not. Russia has ample artillery and artillery supplies and is firing at a rate of six to eight, some say 10 times the rate of Ukraine. And that's not my opinion. That's acknowledged even by NATO, the fact that they're running short of shells to supply to Ukraine. So I've asked simply, Jack, how in the world does the side that's firing seven to eight times more shells is the one that's suffering eight times the casualties? The Ukrainians may be brave fighters, but they're not, you know, we're not dealing with Annie Oakley here in terms of accuracy, being sharp-ears. So this General Melnick, even if retired, is this a dangerous statement for him to make

in a society that's crumbling and whose leaders might view this as though truthful, traitorous? As people like Tucker Carlson have learned, telling the truth is a dangerous profession. It is just, there's no reward for it when a government has opted for a particular narrative, a particular meme, and anybody who dares counter that ends up being attacked. I mean, that's why the old fable, the old story about the king with no clothes was written in the first place, because they recognize this is part of the human condition, that there is a tendency to worship those in power and tell them what they want to hear. And it takes the innocence of a child to speak up and say, wait a second,

he's naked. He doesn't have anything on. We're in that kind of situation, Judge. I just had lunch with an individual who was one of the ones predicting the collapse in 2008, the 2008 economic collapse. And he was with a group of people making that prediction in 2007, and they took appropriate actions to protect themselves. We're in the same kind of situation now, but it's a political collapse, a military collapse that we're on the verge of. A few of us, you know, Doug McGregor, Scott Ritter, Phil Giraldi, Alistair Crook, we see it coming. That's why we're trying to warn people. That's why we so appreciate you putting out the warning. And yet so few are listening. So few are listening. How can

Secretary General Stoltenberg say with a straight face, A, we are with you, Ukraine, as long as it takes, and B, I don't know how the Kremlin takes this, your place is in NATO. Yeah, well, it further confirms, at least from the Russian standpoint, that NATO is hell-bent on destroying Russia, and Russia, by recognizing it as an existential threat, is going to treat it accordingly and be prepared for combat across the board. I mean, there's some really crazy rumors starting to circulate in the West that Biden's thinking about putting U.S. pilots in F-16s, having them fly into combat. That the British Ministry of Defense has actually announced out front that it is sending the uranium rounds to Ukraine, to the battlefield. I'm sorry, I missed what you said. Sending what? The uranium-tipped round artillery shells that are going to be used to penetrate tanks

that the Russians have already indicated. That's a red line. And when they draw a red line, they mean it. So the potential of this to escalate out of control is growing with each passing day. And what I fear is that with the military collapse of Ukraine, NATO, instead of taking a step back, a deep breath and saying, OK, we need to recalibrate, are going to actually press harder and may do something extremely stupid. I want to put up on the screen a map that you sent to us this morning. Maybe you can describe what we see there.

So let's start with the left. What are the blue circles, Larry? This was actually April 25th at about 6 p.m. in the Ukraine time in the evening showing sites where air raid warnings were going off. So all of those are sites where there's either fixed-wing aircraft dropping bombs and or rockets, missiles, and drones coming in for the attack. When you look at that entire, you know, it's like a reverse sea, starting at the top and then going down and back to the left. That's 850, 950 kilometers right there. That's a pretty fair distance. And what that shows is that the Russians are carrying out attacks all along that line of conflict, which means it puts a great strain on the Ukrainians because the Ukrainians, just by virtue of numbers, can't match what Russia has.

What are the red circles? The red circles show either artillery strikes and or airstrikes. Russian artillery strikes and Russian airstrikes. Correct. Exactly right. So it is, you know, and it's particularly intense there in the middle where that's the Donetsk Republic where you have fighting in places

like Avdiivka, Bakhmut, and then further south, Maryinka. And so, you know, Russia's not just hung up fighting in one place. But, you know, Russia's not just hung up fighting in one place. But, you know, like, oh, the Russians are struggling as an army. The United States could never carry out this kind of military operation.

It was unable to. Failed to do so in Afghanistan. Failed to do so in Iraq. And failed to do so with more troops in place than what Russia is using right now. I mean, it's just, you know, those of us in America need to sort of wake up and stop lying to ourselves about our prowess and capability. We've proven that we can't, we have trouble dealing with goat herders with AK-47s. Right, right. Gary, you can take the map down. How many Russian troops are there at the area where the red dots were, where it shows the westward progress of the Russian military?

And how many Ukrainian troops are there to attempt to resist them? Do we have actual real numbers? No. The numbers per, no way to corroborate this, is that the Russians are sitting around 200,000 that are actually out there on the front lines engaged with combat all along that line of engagement. And that the Ukrainians are at about 175,000. What it neglects to point out is that the Russians are sitting on reserves well in excess of 300,000, 400,000. And by that, combat reserves that have been trained now, they've had six months of training, and

these troops then can be inserted and moved and deployed where needed. So that's why Russia, again, is looking at some clear tactical advantages on the battlefield that Ukraine just doesn't have. When you say in the article you sent me this morning, in every case, Ukrainian forces are retreating. Is this your opinion or is this a statement of objective fact? Objective fact. I defy anyone. Point to me one area on that map where the Russians are in a defensive position and that the Ukrainians have pushed them back, pushed them out, and seized control of that territory.

Hasn't happened. What happens is people like Jack Devine indulge in this piece of sophistry that they point to what happened in Kherson and what happened in Kharkiv. Well, Russia had border police in those areas, in the Kharkiv area, and the decision to withdraw to Kherson was to move the troops from one side of the river to the other so that they could not possibly be trapped and force the Russians to have to undertake a very difficult logistical resupply. Those were done because of Russian choices, not because they were forced militarily by a superior ground force on the other part of Ukraine. Since then, though, we've seen Mariupol, that, you know, the Ukrainians were crushed there.

They had no answer. They couldn't send reinforcements. They could do nothing to stop the Russians. Russians took control of it. We saw it in Lysychans, which is one of the predecessor battles last August, which is to the east of Bakhmut. So the Russians have been steadily moving forward. People want to say, oh, well, they're not moving quickly enough. They're on no time clock.

This is not like March Madness Final Four game where, you know, you've got 15 seconds left and you've got to score three points. The Russians have plenty of time. They're not running out of artillery shells. They're not running out of weapons. Going back to where we started, is it safe to conclude that there will be, because there can be, no Ukrainian spring offensive, no matter what President Zelensky preaches to the West? Yeah, it's going to be, what's going to happen will be a slaughter. Whatever force is assembled, and we know from the leaked CIA documents that it's going to be between 25 and

60,000 men. It just depends on the manpower that they can assemble. As they push forward, they're not going to be covered with air support. They're going to have minimal, limited artillery support. They're not going to have, limited artillery support. They're not going to have any kind of integrated air defense that could shoot down Russian aircraft that are coming to attack them. And in fact, the Russian aircraft had the advantage with these glide bombs that are in the size of 500, 1,500, and 3,000 kilograms, they can launch those from a distance of up to 50 kilometers, and it glides in, and the effect is devastating. So any force movement and any kind of concentration is going to be met with a barrage of artillery and bombs. And this is before they get to the

defensive positions, the razor wire, the minefields, the dragon's teeth, that the Russians have spent the last six months building. It's a suicide mission. And we now know that senior American military, we know from the documents, the leaked documents, that senior American military officials know what you just said. Yeah. At least the information is there for them to know, whether they choose to read it and understand it and comprehend it, a whole other thing. What do they choose to tell the president? What do they choose to tell Jake Sullivan? Well, having been involved in the past with the job or the task of trying to brief a president on unwelcome news,

sometimes those with the information will just back away and not do it because they know that they're going to be shut down, turned away, or shut. It's just a sad reality that these people don't embrace getting bad news. And yet starting to see the signs that they recognize it may not quite be the rosy picture that they thought. And word is leaking out of publications like Politico and others that are very friendly to the Biden administration that in fact this offensive is likely to fail. What is your take on the very well-publicized 90-minute long telephone conversation between President Xi of China and President Zelensky of Ukraine? I think it had two basic messages. Because note, Xi Jinping has not returned any phone calls from Joe Biden yet. The Chinese have not called back Lloyd Austin or General Milley.

The Chinese sent word finally to Zelensky, okay, we'll take your call. And the essence of that call was you better not do anything to meddle with Taiwan. Taiwan is ours. If you're going to be involved with anything that is going to undermine the rightful ownership of the government of China over Taiwan, that's going to be a problem for you. Number two, China put out a safety line, if you will, to try to rescue Ukraine from certain destruction. They know we'll be happy as we did with the Saudis and Iran to try to broker a truce and a settlement. Now, no, what's interesting in this, Zelensky did this without the permission of Washington. You anticipated my next question. I can't imagine that Washington is happy with this.

Furious. Furious. Because they see this for what it is. This is Zelensky starting to prepare his own escape route. You know, I think Zelensky even privately now realizes that they're coming to the end of this. So it's get the money you can, get out while you can, and try to figure out an exit plan that's not going to wind up with you getting killed. I think it's that simple. The Chinese are in a remarkably strong position. They're playing their hand very smartly around the world. You don't see China bullying or

threatening anybody. China hasn't said, you either do see China bullying or threatening anybody. China hasn't said, you either do what we want or else we're going to post sanctions on you. No. The only person who's doing that is Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, Janet Yellen, Anthony Blinken. United States is coming across to the world as nothing but a contemptible bully. That's not how you win diplomatic wars. Larry Johnson, always a pleasure. No matter whether the news is good or bad, it's always right on.

Thank you so much for joining us, my friend. Thank you, Judge. More as we get it. Scott Ritter at 3.30 this afternoon, Eastern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the bay with WGU WGU is an online accredited university that specializes

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