Judging Freedom - Ukraine Offensive - From the Inside w/Matt VanDyke Ukraine military enlisted

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

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Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, July 27th, 2023. Matt Van Dyke joins us in just a minute on his way to Ukraine to enter the battle. But first this. Hi, everyone. Judge Napolitano here, and let me give it to you straight. I've personally seen what goes on in Washington, D.C., and what we could be in for some very difficult times ahead. Congress can't stop spending money.

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and thousands of five-star reviews and a 24-hour money-back guarantee. Your phone call will educate you. You'll get a free booklet about buying gold and silver, and you'll find out if you can qualify for a $15,000 gold bonus. That's 800-511-4620, learjudgenap.com. Matt Van Dyke, welcome back to the show, my dear friend. I know you've been traveling all over the world and it's nice to have you back here. Why are you going back to Ukraine

to join a military unit and enter the battle? Well, I've joined a unit to take part in the counteroffensive. So I'm picking up equipment to take back to the unit. We'll be deployed in the coming weeks. It's a squad of mostly Americans within a Ukrainian battalion. And we're going to get out there and do whatever we can to help liberate Ukraine. How is it that Americans have been able to join the Ukrainian military, or stated differently, are you actually, or will you actually be a member of the Ukrainian military, subject to the command structure and the discipline imposed by Ukraine superior officers? Yes, we're enlisted in Ukrainian military, just like a Ukrainian would be essentially.

How many Americans will be there with you, Matt? Our unit, we have about a dozen in our squad so far. We're authorized to recruit more and go larger than that, but we're starting out with about a dozen. And with the spring offensive having sputtered, with the Russians resisting the spring offensive mightily, what is your goal in entering the battlefield? I mean, why are you doing this?

Well, we bring together a group of experienced individuals that all are highly motivated. We have some special capabilities we're working on with technology and some other things that'll make us a valuable contribution on the battlefield beyond just a gun in our hands. It's what we believe in, and Ukraine needs every person it can get to go to the front now, so that's what we're going to do. I'm going to run a clip of President Biden. This is two weeks ago. He's in Helsinki right after the NATO conference in Vilnius, Latvia. I want you to tell me if you agree with what he says. Here's the president.

The issue of whether or not this is going to keep Putin from continuing to fight. The answer is Putin's already lost the war. Putin has a real problem. How does he move from here? What does he do? And so the idea that there's going to be what vehicle is used, he could end the war tomorrow. He could just say, I'm out. But what agreement is ultimately reached depends upon Putin and what he decides to do. But there is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine. He's already lost that war. Imagine if even if anyway, he's already lost that war. Any of your Ukrainian military commanders agree with that? There's no possibility of him winning and he has already lost the war. Well, depending on the definition of him winning, yeah, I mean, there's no way that he's going to subjugate Ukraine, that he's going to overthrow the Ukrainian government or that he's going to maintain all the territory that that he's currently in possession of in Ukraine.

He's really in a difficult situation because if he withdraws or ends the war, he'll probably be killed by his own people or overthrown. And if he stays, he's going to be ground down and probably killed by his own people and overthrown. So, you know, he's just clinging on by his fingertips at this point. But President Biden's claim that he's already lost the war. I realize there's wiggle room in in the word lost or the phrase lost the war as to what that means. But I don't know of any realistic observer who can come to that conclusion and give support to it. Do you agree with what Joe Biden said? Vladimir Putin has already lost the war. I mean, he's certainly lost the war in that it's been a loss for Russia and for him personally. I mean, it's, you know, war is a means to political end and there's no political end that leaves Russia in a position that's better than it was before it started this war.

So regardless of what territory or how many battles Russia wins or loses, in the end, it's already clear that this is revealed, that the Russian military is a paper tiger, that its Russian equipment is not all that its third world clients buying thought it was, and that the U.S. and the West still remain the most powerful force in this entire planet. I got to push back on you that the Russian military is a paper tiger, Matt. They've killed or wounded 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers. How can you call that a paper tiger, Matt. They've killed or wounded 300,000 Ukrainian soldiers. How can you call that a paper tiger? They occupy 20 to 25 percent of what Ukraine says is Ukraine and what Russia says is already Russia. How can you possibly call that a paper tiger? Well, those figures you cited are quite high and not the figures that I have. You look at what was regarded as the world's second best military being ground to a halt very quickly against a much smaller adversary, even before Western weapons flowed in.

You've seen them unable to really do well with combined arms warfare. You've seen their logistics are a mess. Their morale is bad. Their training is not that good. You're describing the Ukrainian military or the Russian military? Describing the Russian military. I'm being a little snarky with you. I know what you're talking about. Look, the U.S. has run out of artillery shells. So they're giving you, they're giving, I said you, they're giving the Ukrainian military cluster bombs, which, as you know, you, the humanitarian that you are, are illegal in 90 percent of the earth, not Ukraine, not the United States and not Russia. But without artillery, without artillery shells, how can Ukraine possibly push the Russians back? The production is being increased on the artillery shells. The cluster munitions will provide a way to sustain Ukraine until that happens.

These cluster munitions, the American munitions, have a failure rate that's only a couple percent compared to a Russian failure rate of 20, 30 percent. So they're concerned on a humanitarian level of civilians being wounded by bomblets after the war is quite low with American cluster munitions. But you, the humanitarian that you are, you're not concerned that some child as yet unborn is going to pick up one of these bomblets 10 years from now and think it's a baseball and end up losing his arm? It's certainly a concern with a failure rate of 2% or less. It's an acceptable risk for the amount of lives it can save. Ukraine's already the most mined place in the world right now. Chances are before that would even happen, that child would be going through a lot of anti-personnel mines before even getting to a bomblet. So really, there's a large task to be done after the war. But at this point, we have to be focused on winning the war first.

Gary, let's play Admiral Kirby. So Matt, this is Admiral Kirby, the spokesperson for the National Security Council on Fox News with my friend and former colleague, Martha McCallum. This is about 12 days ago. What they really need are the four A's, artillery, ammunition, air defense, and armor, tanks. And on all four of those, we have provided an extraordinary amount of support at, quite frankly, unprecedented speed. Those are the four capabilities they need most. And if you look at the packages, just we just announced one yesterday, and there's going to be one here in coming days, you'll see that we are really trying to get them those kinds of capabilities. Now, look, the F-16s will get there probably towards the end of the year,

but it's not our assessment that the F-16s alone would be enough to turn the tide here. What they really need more than anything of all those four A's is artillery. And that's why the president made a difficult decision to provide cluster munitions as a bridging solution as we build up our production capacity of normal conventional artillery rounds. That's what they're firing thousands of them a day. It's really a gunfight. So two key phrases there, and I can play it for you again if you want to hear it. Bridging solution, because the U.S. has run out of artillery shells. So the bridging solution until we can make more is the cluster bombs.

And the other phrase, which I've never heard out of an American official before, I don't know if you caught it, is turn the tide. So here you have a former admiral, the spokesperson for the National Security Council saying we need to turn the tide. The same person saying we have effectively, I know I'm putting words in his mouth, challenge me if you want, we have effectively run out of artillery shells. So as a bridging solution, we're going to send cluster bombs. Add to that the documents that were revealed two months ago, allegedly by Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts National Guardsman on Cape Cod, the authenticity and accuracy of which the government has never challenged, which show that senior command in the Pentagon expects Ukraine to lose. Where are you going? Look, he's absolutely right in that

there is an artillery shortage, and the Colossus munitions are a way to fill that gap until conventional artillery rounds can roll off the factory floor. But what Ukraine really needs, I don't agree with this assessment that F-16s aren't as important. F-16s are very important. Part of the reason that the counteroffensive has been slow so far and not meeting some of the lofty optimistic expectations that some people had is because Russians had all these months. I was saying before this offensive had to be done in winter. Russia was given several months to entrench, to lay minefields, to lay dragon's teeth, to dig trenches. And now Ukraine has to push through the minefields. And while they're doing that, Russian artillery is hitting them. And counter battery fire from our own Ukrainian artillery against Russian artillery can't always respond quickly enough. So really,

the F-16s are needed. We're trying to do a combined arms operation without the key element of airfare, which means that this might have limited success for now. But once we do have air power later this year and going in next summer, it should be a completely different scenario. Where do you expect to get air power from, the American F-16s? The American F-16s, yes. Well, General Miley himself has said they're not going to be there for another year. Yeah, it's going to be a very difficult summer and fall. And, you know, this war is not going to be over anytime soon.

This counteroffensive is not going to be over anytime soon. I believe we're looking at fighting this again next summer and in the time leading up to it. Gary, play the clip of General Miley that this is going to be a long and bloody slog. These are real people in real machines that are out there really clearing real minefields, and they're really dying. So when that happens, units tend to slow down. And that's rightly so in order to survive, in order to get through these minefields. So they're working their way through it. It is far from a failure. In my view, I think that it's way too early to make that kind of call. I think there's a lot of fighting left to go. And I'll stay with the what we said before,

this is going to be long, it's going to be hard, it's going to be bloody. And at the end of the day, we'll see where the Ukrainians end up vis-a-vis the Russians. You agree, it's going to be long. It's going to be hard. It's going to be bloody. And at the end of the day, we'll see where the Ukrainians end up vis-a-vis the Russians. You agree it's going to be long, hard and bloody? Yes, he's absolutely right. That's what I've said from the beginning of this conflict. I mean, fighting Russians in artillery war. You've been on this show probably 15 or 20 times. And with your travels and with my travels, the fans have been asking for you, and I deeply appreciate you coming back. But when you first came to us,

you represented that the Sons of Liberty were a humanitarian organization. Now you've become a military organization. Does the U.S. government have anything to do with the Sons of Liberty? We've always been a military organization. From our very start in 2014, we've been providing military training, advising, and supplies to forces. It's kind of a new take on nonprofit and your definition of humanitarian, but that's what we do. And that's what we've done for nearly a decade. U.S. government has no connection to us. We've never received any government funding,

no grants, not even when we had our demining program. We've remained completely independent. U.S. government doesn't tell us what to do. They haven't told us not to do something. So, you know, our missions are chosen very carefully that we don't run afoul of U.S. interests or U.S. policy. But we trot our own course and we're definitely all aiming in the right direction. How is it that you went from a training organization that didn't even carry weapons to one that now carries weapons and will be shooting

and trying to kill Russian boys? Well, that's a weighted way to put it. You know, in the past, we have carried weapons in Iraq during our training mission. We've been in combat. We were combat in Iraq against ISIS when they attacked our town. Right now, the organization will be supporting the battalion that I'm a part of. So we will be providing training services to the battalion, to the Ukrainian soldiers in the unit. We'll be providing resources to my squad and to the battalion. It's the same mission. It's just that now the unit we're working with is a unit that I also personally happen to be in, which will allow us to be even more efficient and effective in our application of assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces.

Why do you want to kill Russians? It's not about killing Russians and involvement in a war isn't only killing. It's a lot of different elements. But I want to do what I can do to be effective on the battlefield. And, you know, I never asked somebody to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. I wouldn't be training people to go fight in a conflict. I wasn't willing to stand on the front line and fight with them as well.

So this is just part of that component. When your unit trains, are you using American military equipment that the Americans have sent over there or Ukrainian military equipment or captured Russian military equipment? I don't want you to violate any Ukrainian intelligence on this show, but I want you to tell our viewers as much as you can. I haven't had my hands on any American equipment. Ukraine has a good amount of pre-war Russian equipment and captured Russian equipment. Not all units are being equipped with Western weaponry. Will you be wearing a Ukraine military uniform? Yes, I already have one.

I've already worn it. How is it that a young American becomes a member of the Ukraine military, particularly when the war is not going well? Take a step back. whatever happened to the spring offensive matt i mean the spring offensive was during the spring fall it's tough to move during the spring and now we have a summer offensive i mean i said from the start this needed to be done in winter when the russians were at their before they could entrench, before they built up their morale, before they could resupply.

I think this came late. It'll make it more difficult and make it take more time, but it can still be done. As for how did I join? I mean, the same way I joined when I joined the National Liberation Army in Libya in 2011. It's a cause I believed in. I enlisted, joined, and fought in the war. How long do you think the war is going to, there's some helicopters flying above, I guess. How long do you think the war will last?

Oh, I originally thought about two years, you know, after seeing the summer pace, you know, maybe at the end of next year. But, you know, it depends. It depends what the will is to keep going. We're still hoping for full liberation of the country. We'll see. But, you know, this war, the fighting part of this war hasn't even really begun. You know, we're just in the early stages of full-on conflict here. Do you sense an impatience on the part of NATO and even an impatience on the part of the United States to support the Ukrainians full-fledged?

Are you aware of the political leadership in Kyiv asking for President Zelensky to resign? Are there morale problems with the Ukraine military? Because this doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. I realize we have three or four questions at once, but address that area, if you will. NATO losing support and Joe Biden saying crazy things like Russia is already lost? I mean, Ukraine's a democracy. It's supported by democracies. And democracies are subject to elections and the will of the population. So, yes, appearances of how the war is going is important for voters

to back their country supporting Ukraine. That said, though, I don't sense the urgency and the weakness. I think that's being played up in the press a bit because they've run out of things to write about. As far as Zelensky, I haven't heard talk of wanting him replaced. Really, Zelensky is a true asset to Ukraine. His ability to engage with the West, him being the face of this conflict for a lot of people in the West, I think changing up and having somebody else at this point

would cause nervousness and uncertainty in the West, especially among the populations that are going to vote and support their governments supporting Ukraine. If there's suddenly a change of leadership in Ukraine, it certainly wouldn't look good to the average person watching this conflict unfold on TV and deciding whether to support it. Once you enter the field of battle will you have a mobile device with you and will you be able to communicate with

judging freedom viewers yes I'll still have communications ability I've been authorized by the Ukrainian military to speak to you and uh yeah I'll be able to continue updating you from what's happening out in the field does the ukrainian military appreciate the show i haven't asked i think they're fully aware that most of your other guests uh are not on their side in this but um but they didn't tell me not to talk to you so okay matt we uh we may disagree with you, but we wish you well and pray for your safety and look forward to your next broadcast with us. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Of course. More as we get it. Governor Chris Christie at 2 o'clock or 2.15 Eastern today. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Altyazı M.K.