Judging Freedom - Ukraine from the Inside - Matthew VanDyke

Episode Date: May 21, 2022

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Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here. Welcome to a special Saturday edition of Judging Freedom. Today is Saturday, May 21st. It's about 11.15 in the morning on the east coast of the United States and 6.15 in the evening in Kyiv, Ukraine. The reason I give you the Ukraine time is because our guest today is Matthew Van Dyke. Matthew is the founder of Sons of Liberty International, a non-profit security and contracting firm that goes around the world helping and protecting people who are being attacked. Matthew and his company and his colleagues are gracious enough to give us their time and their perceptions from what they're actually literally seeing on the ground in Ukraine,

today in the Ukrainian capital, in the midst of Vladimir Putin's war. Matthew, it's a pleasure. Welcome to Judging Freedom. Thank you for having me. So give us, we're glad you're here, give us the big picture, what you're doing there, how long you've been there, and what you've seen, and then we'll slice and dice it up a little bit. Well, my nonprofit organization, Sons of Liberty International, has been Ukraine for over two months now, training forces to fight against Russia and to both defend Ukraine from further Russian incursion

and to liberate lands taken by Russia. We've been providing free advising, training and supplies to forces here, both in Lviv, Kyiv and in another city outside of Kyiv. We continue to expand our operations. We have several trainers on the ground. We've been training at this point hundreds of men. Right now we're doing training of a few hundred at one time in one location. We have another location where we're training a highly specialized elite unit for offensive operations against Russia within Ukraine. Are your trainers military? Do they wear uniforms and carry weapons and do they fight? Most of our trainers are former US military. Some of them are former European military as

well. On rare occasions some of them might be professional firearms instructors without a military background but with a strong training background. We have our own uniforms for our organization. We are able and willing and have provided frontline combat advising in the past. And we are willing to fight along the units that we train, but our primary mission is training people to fight their own wars and giving them the tools to achieve victory for the pride of their own people. Who pays for this? Does the government compensate you or do you work on the basis of donations or some other source of money? We work entirely from donations, almost all of which are made for our website,

SonsOfLibertyInternational.com. We've been operating as a 501c3 nonprofit since 2014. We've had missions in Iraq, the Philippines. We've done advising for rebel forces in Burma. We have a long history of doing this. We do this very well. We're the only organization that does this on a non-profit basis

and a non-profit model. The forum is funded by people that believe in the mission from around the world, mostly funded by American donors, monthly donors, one-time donors, a good mix of people who believe in freedom and wanna give money to something

that will have a tangible impact on the ground, provided by mostly American veterans who are volunteering their time and services. Does the United States government, either the Department of State or Department of Defense, know that you're there? They certainly know we're here. Every indication we've had is that they're okay with it.

You know, over the years, it appears that the U.S. government views us favorably, from what I can tell. We haven't been told to stop. And all of our missions have been in support of U.S. policy anyway. So we have no worries there. What are you seeing in the field? Who's winning? Who's losing? Where is this going? I'm seeing highly motivated Ukrainians who are joining forces all around the country

under the authority of the Ukrainian army. There's the National Guard, there's reserves, there's territorial defense forces. There's all sorts of forces that are formed with the authorization of the Ukrainian government. Ukrainians are stepping up to defend their country. There's more people who wanna fight than there are weapons and ammunition

to go around for them. We've been training a variety of forces since we've been here. Their morale is extremely high. They're determined now to not only defend their country and not only to liberate territories that have been seized by Russia in the past few months, but also to liberate all of eastern Ukraine, all of Donbass, and even Crimea. So the morale is very high. Ukrainians are convinced they're going to win. We believe they're going to win. It may take years.

This war is going to go at a slower pace than some think. But with Russian morale being so low and sanctions hitting Russia hard and certain intrinsic advantages to the Ukrainian forces and supply coming from the West. We believe that they will eventually achieve complete victory here. Did you say the Ukrainians have their eyes on Crimea? That would be an invasion of Crimea. Is that what you're talking about? Well, Crimea was seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

So this is really a matter of getting back what was taken from Ukraine. It depends which Ukrainians you ask. Some of them, only other eyes on Donbass, have given up on Crimea, but there's a strong current of support for finishing this once and for all, liberating all of Ukraine from Russian occupation, and that would include Crimea. We fully support that notion. We think Ukrainians are capable of doing it. We'll do whatever we can to help them achieve that. This is a time to deliver a blow against Russia that will not only check Russian aggression in Ukraine and in Europe, but Russian aggression in the form of all the authoritarian regimes around the world that they support, arm, and cover for? A lot of the guests that Freedom Watch has on,

former high-ranking and well-respected intelligence and military people, have told us that Russia is destined to win, that its superior manpower and superior firepower and superior geographic position positions can never be overcome, no matter how much American aid Ukraine gets. What do you say about that? I'd say it's easier for them to make such assessments from a cubicle or from behind a computer desk. You know, what we see here is that Russian casualties, casualties inflicted on Russia far outnumber those inflicted on Ukrainians. We see Russia's great military devastated by particularly Javelin missiles supplied by the West. We see Russian soldiers that surrender and run, logistics problems. Russia wasn't prepared for this invasion. Ukraine is not letting men leave the country.

So there's a potential pool of, you know, it's a population of 44 million. Tens of, you know, at least 10 million of those are going to be fighting age males. So there's a far enough people to fight this war. There's enough weapons coming from the West. Ukraine has enough resources to fight this out as long as it takes. I think any assessment that Russia is going to ultimately be victorious in this is way off. It doesn't reflect the realities on the ground or what we're seeing here. All right. So the United States government is committed. I think the president signed the legislation in South Korea either today or yesterday. I don't know what the

time was when he signed it or what day it was, to about 53 billion in military equipment. That's an extraordinary number. That number is larger than the entire budget of the government of Ukraine, and it's larger than the entire annual defense budget of the government of Russia. Is all of that equipment making its way to Ukrainian soldiers? Is some of it being sold to Russians by unscrupulous Ukrainians, which is what we hear here in the United States? Is some of it old and garbage and breaking down and there are no parts or knowledge to repair it? Can you address those issues for us, Matt? There is certainly some aid that is not making it where it needs to go. We're not seeing in our personal experience

the massive influx of weapons ammunition that we should be seeing. I'm not sure where it's going, but we also don't work directly with the Ukrainian army itself since they already have training and support. So a lot of the resources go directly to them. That said, there are more weapons and ammunition coming in. There are more assets coming in.

But, yes, there's always going to be corruption. Things are always going to go missing. That's the case in any country that any weapons or anything are supplied to. That's just the way it is. But it's not a widespread corruption beyond what would normally occur. And it's definitely having an impact on the ground. The javelins are clearly decimating Russian armored vehicles. So, you know, it's the cause and effect of Western support and U.S. aid and the effect that's happened on the war is very clear. How many Americans are on the ground fighting for or training with Ukraine military? And are there any Americans on the ground on the Russian side?

I'm not aware of any Americans on the ground on the Russian side. Anybody who does that would be, that'd be a one-way ticket to Russia. I don't think they'd be able to return to the United States. On the American side, Ukrainian side, it's impossible to know. The number is far less than the media has reported. A lot of the media reports about the International Legion were greatly exaggerated, saying that 20,000 people would express interest. When I went and visited the International Legion, there were about 20 people there total. There are not many Americans

here fighting. It's hard to join a unit and fight here. And a lot of the war right now is artillery exchanges. So as far as training, the first month or two, some random people would show up and try to train forces for a couple weeks and then go back we have a strong presence on the ground we've had uh up to 10 trainers at once here um and we're constantly expanding so you know there there's there's not enough people here to help but those that are here we're working very hard to get it done. What is the risk to your people of being shot, killed or captured? There's always a risk. Even in the major cities, there's air raid sirens

pretty much every day from missile attacks on major cities. There's always the risk of being kidnapped or grabbed. When you're near the front line, there's a risk of being hit by artillery. There's always a risk of being kidnapped or grabbed when you're near the front line. There's a risk of being hit by artillery. There's always a risk in training of accidental shootings at a range. But it's a risk that we all accept. It's a risk inherent in any mission. And it's one that all my trainers who come here, they're all giving up their time with their families, giving up their time at work,

making money back in the States. They're risking their lives to do something they believe in. And no matter what the risk, we're not going to stop. So where do you eat and where do you sleep? Are there hotels open or is there traffic on the streets? Can you buy a newspaper and a bottle of water from a corner shop? At this time, Kyiv is slowly opening up, so you can. There are a lot of businesses closed, but there's enough open. There are grocery stores open. We have an apartment.

That's where I'm talking from right now in Kyiv. In other cities, we can get hotels. We stay with the units. We're training sometimes. Sometimes they feed us. You know, the logistics vary based on where we are and whether we're staying on base or we're staying in our own apartment. But life is surprisingly normal in at least Kiev right now. You know, life goes on and it's this very large city and a lot of people come back and they're ready to actually keep volunteering and pushing the fight east

against russia a lot of people uh loyal uh watchers of this program are emailing me now and they're kind of outraged uh at what you're saying and they're asking me to ask you how you can fight along with Nazis and how you can fight along with people who kill their own countrymen who try to leave the country. Okay, I've never heard of anybody being killed for trying to leave Ukraine. That's, I mean, at the border, males aren't able to leave. It's not a violent situation where anybody's being killed for trying to leave. Like the Nazi issue, we don't work with Nazis, we don't train Nazis. The Nazi thing in Ukraine is greatly overblown. It's also, it's not, there's a historical legacy here of nazi germany fighting against the soviets and the view

against the soviets was stronger because of that because they suffered under soviet uh dominance for so many years that there's a a historical misreading among some people that the nazis were at least not as bad as the Soviets here in Ukraine. And that's sort of where that kind of very minor culture within parts of Ukraine comes from. It's not really an anti-Semitic thing. It's not really a racist thing. It's them, their historical legacy of picking the lesser of two evils. You know, it's a strange thing. At times it's disturbing. At times it's comical, but there are not Nazis running around here fighting this war. These are good people.

These are people who just want to liberate their country. And they've welcomed us. They've welcomed us. We have trainers of all races and all nationalities, actually. We've had, in this mission, we've had trainers from South America, we've had Chinese American, we've had Latinos. We have all races. We've been welcomed by everybody and I've encountered nothing really Nazi-ish here at all. How long can this war go on? Years. You know, I think at least three years, maybe. It could be done quicker. It depends how bad the sanctions hurt Russia. Depends if Putin dies or is removed in a coup. Pretty much the war ends, I think, when Putin is removed from power or when just the cost of Russia become unsustainable. Russia has a lot of problems now with supply,

with, you know, the West can supply Ukraine faster than Russia can rebuild its supply. So really it's just, in some ways, it's a war of attrition. In a lot of ways, it's looking a lot more like World War I than World War III over here. People are digging trenches. There's a lot of artillery exchanges, even soldiers coming back with trench foot.

Um, and it's a war of attrition of equipment and personnel that will grind on perhaps for years. But in the end, um, really everything is pointing to a Ukrainian victory here over time. What do you say to the argument that by Americans supplying, uh, Ukrainians, we are causing the deaths of innocents that would be Ukrainian civilians by extending a war, making it bloodier than necessary, a war that Russia is not destined to win the war and by that argument that would just mean that we capitulate whenever there's any aggression by any power in the world. That would be just stepping aside and allowing Nazi Germany to take over Europe. That would be just allowing any aggressor around the world, particularly ones who have nuclear weapons, to do what they want, and us saying that we're not going to get involved because we want people

to live in oppression, we want nations to be conquered, we want democracies to fall, because the larger ideals of people living free are less important than the body count. And I refuse to accept that. There will be sacrifice and lives will be lost, but this is a fight that has to be won, not only for Ukraine, but for the future of Europe and of the international system. Do your guys, I assume they're all males, do your guys fight or do they just train? Do they shoot at Russian soldiers? At this time do they just train? Do they shoot at Russian soldiers?

At this time, they just train. Again, frontline advising is a service we offer. We anticipate that we will be on the frontline, potentially in combat with the people we train. We're willing to do that. But our mission is to train people to fight their own wars, not to fight it for them. Matthew Van Dyke, Sons of Liberty International, coming to us from an apartment in Kyiv, Ukraine. Great insight. I'm not sure that a lot of our viewers believe what you're saying, but you are the first person that we've spoken to and hopefully not the last. And hopefully you'll speak with us again from the ground in Ukraine.

Matthew, stay well and thank you for joining us. Thank you. It was great speaking with you. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.