Judging Freedom - Ukraine Offensive_ Why It Won_t Beat Putin - Lt Col Daniel Davis (ret)

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 16th, 2023. It's about 2.35 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. Colonel Daniel Davis joins us again. Colonel, always a pleasure. Thank you for coming back to the show. Thanks for having me. President Zelensky, in his most fervent dreams and, in his view, most eloquent oratory, says that the Russians can be driven out of Ukraine. Is this even conceivable, much less feasible? I argue that it is not even theoretically possible. I mean, I suppose theoretically it could be, but in any practical measure,

there just does not exist the fundamentals necessary to form that much combat power and to drive out an enemy that is dug in and equipped as well as Russia is right now. It's just not a realistic military objective. When Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, posits that the Ukrainians should invade Crimea and the U.S. should assist in the invasion. She didn't say what she meant by that. I don't know if she means air power, equipment, or boots on the ground. This would be, A, impossible to achieve, and B, turn a border dispute into World War III. No?

Yes. I mean, yes on both counts. That's correct. The only way that the Ukraine could even put Crimea at play would be to basically cross the Dnieper River and attack south all the way to Melitopol or come through even farther north than that, and to have to cut through hundreds of kilometers of Russian-held territory at the moment, survive all of that, and then launch another attack into Crimea, which is even more heavily defended with defensive works on the ground than in the area around Zaporizhzhia currently.

They just don't have the manpower to do that. And if some chance they did succeed, hypothetically, like, I don't know, like the U.S. maybe sent several squadrons of F-16s, for example, and somehow just obliterated the path in front of them, then yes, that's exactly right. In my view, there is no chance that Vladimir Putin would allow his forces to be driven from the field in the occupied part of Ukraine and then Crimea taken from his grasp and not escalate to nuclear weapons. I don't think there's any chance that he would withhold. Colonel, do you expect that the Ukrainians will wage a so-called spring offensive, even though we are two-thirds of the way through spring. Call it what you want. Are they prepared,

equipped, and ready for some sort of a major, massive offensive? It appears that they are going to attempt some, because if they don't, then Zelensky is going to lose his own population, his own military, because he has been saying ad nauseum about how he's going to drive Russia out. And he said, you know, he's not going to negotiate until he gets all of his territory back, you know, almost on a daily basis. And if he then never even conducts an offensive and he just stays on the defense and continues to lose 100, 200, 300 meters per day, like Russia has been doing in the Bakhmut area, especially that he's going to lose any credibility. So I think he's going to have to attempt it. But the answer is that he just doesn't have the force capacity and the combat power or the knowledge to be able to execute that mission

and succeed anything. So I think that by doing so, he's actually going to end up in a worse place than he is right now militarily. Here's a clip of President Zelensky being interviewed by the BBC about seven or eight days ago on this very topic, Colonel. Take a listen. Are you ready for this counteroffensive? Mentally, we're ready. In terms of how motivated our military are, we're ready. In terms of enough personnel in our brigades, we're ready. In terms of enough personnel in our brigades, we're ready.

In terms of equipment, not everything has arrived yet. That's my answer. So you're still waiting for weapons and for the kind of military equipment that have been promised to arrive? Yes, we're still expecting some things. They will reinforce our counter-offensive and most importantly, they will protect our people. We're expecting armored vehicles. They arrive in batches. We can advance with what we've got, and I think we can be successful. But we will lose a lot of people. I think that is unacceptable. We need to wait. We need a bit more time. Now, I know you're a tank commander and not a psychologist, but are statements like these made to keep his political opponents at bay, to make the military feel good, or because he really believes that they are ready, willing, and able? They just need a few more guns and a few more bullets. Truly, I can't answer the last part of the question about what he thinks,

but I sure can tell you that these kinds of comments, they play well to the domestic audience because that's what they want to hear. They play well to the Western audience because that's what we want to hear. People eat that up in the West and they love to say that and cheerleading and all that. And as long as Russia continues to withhold its biggest striking power and is not making these big, bold moves, it can continue to play. But the minute that he tries to act on it by launching an offensive with insufficient manpower, insufficient training and insufficient weapons and ammunition, then it's going to be exposed as being nonsense. And I think that he may end up losing more credibility by doing it than he is by even withholding.

What's the condition of his army today in terms of the level of training, the numbers of experienced fighters, and the general physical health of the troops. You know, this whole issue with the Bakhmut meat grinder that's been going on, you know, for many months, I think is going to have an impact on this offensive that not a lot of people really understand. And to hold on to these, even the tiny scraps of buildings they still have right now, Ukraine has allegedly around 2% of the city left, but they keep sending in reserves. Well, all of these reserves were originally earmarked for the offensive. Now then there's tens of thousands that are no longer available. So

already you're going to be starting from the beginning with tens of thousands fewer troops than you had, plus all the ammunition that you've expended in the meantime so his overall force is weaker than it should have been but even if it had been at full strength uh given the enormity of the of the battle lines and the distance that he would have to go he just doesn't have an army that is is capable in in manpower or in training and I think that's a another less understood thing in the West because as someone who's done it, who's been to armored combat,

to his trained others for armored combat in European terrain, I can tell you it is a very, very difficult path to go down and a very difficult standard to reach with a fully organized and trained army that's filled with experienced people. But when you're just taking people that were thrown together, so many of the experienced people have been killed,

and now you're literally grabbing people off the streets and then expecting them to be able to do this complicated maneuver, it's just not fair to them. Colonel, can or will the West make good on its claims of assistance? We know they haven't so far, but can they? Are they reliable? Will their assistance arrive in time? Well, I mean, we certainly have been given a great deal of assistance.

Certainly not all that they've asked for. They continue to ask for things that they haven't gotten yet, like the long-range missiles from the united states or the f-16s uh they still have not been given any of those and they haven't been given all of the categories that they've asked for but they've been given some but look even uh the defense one just reported literally minutes before we came on air here that analysis shows that the amount of money the U.S. has allocated for Ukraine, all this will run out in about September. So they're going to have to have, Congress is going to have to have a new package of tens of billions, dozens of billions of dollars in additional aid. And then we're going to have to replace all the tanks and armor personnel carriers are losing. Now, I'm not sure that the West has that kind of stamina to keep going for another year.

I know at least a dozen Republicans in the House of Representatives who won't afford to give another nickel. So I don't know how this is going to... That's going to be a big issue. How this is going to happen. Presidential drawdown versus Ukrainian assistance. As I understand it, if the aid is under the

presidential drawdown, it goes directly there. It already exists and it goes directly there. If it's under Ukrainian assistance, you got to go through the bidding process and the manufacturing process and the delivery process, which will probably take too long. What is the procedure by which American military equipment gets there? Is it presidential drawdown or is it Ukrainian assistance or is it both, Colonel? We're doing both. Yeah, we're doing both. And the problem is for the drawdown ability that we're already scraping the bottom of the barrel on that. We're also trying to use drawdown authority to send large numbers of weapons to Taiwan. So now then we're also-

Wait a minute, let me stop you. We are sending weapons to Taiwan as well as to Ukraine. That's correct. Yeah, there was a recent, just in the last week, there was a story about that the presidential drawdown is now being used to try to send things to Taiwan in addition to Ukraine. The presidential drawdown gives the incumbent occupant of the White House total discretion. He could send that equipment to New Jersey if he wants to, but instead he's sending it to Ukraine and Taiwan. That's correct. And you can't go much more of this without cutting into the muscle of the U.S. military capacity. I mean, we have lots of reserves and some storage areas, and those things have pretty much been used up, and anything more

is going to start getting into our operational capacity, and again, I just don't see where we have enough of that to keep going at the same level for another year. Do you worry about that, Colonel? I do. Absolutely, I do. I think that it should be a concern to every American because, look, I can understand people wanting to help Ukraine. I truly can. They were invaded. But our number one priority has to be the American national security. And then the second to NATO national security because we have commitments there. But Ukraine can be third.

But right now we're making Ukraine number one at our expense. And I don't think that's something we can sustain or should do. As a general proposition, is attacking a foreign territory easier militarily than defending your own? Or is it easier to defend? Or is there no general proposition on that? Oh, it's, by heavens, yes. I mean, it definitely, it's much, much harder to fight any kind of a conflict, whether it's supporting somebody or actually fighting somebody when it's thousands of miles away from your shores, because you have all the logistic issues and then all the vulnerabilities that would come along with doing that as well. And yeah, I mean, we're supposed to

be designed for national security and for defending our borders. And we can probably do that mission very well, as long as we continue to have the capacity to do so. All right, the spring offensive, who has the odds? Russian defenses of the territory they occupy, or Ukraine offensive weaponry attempting to reclaim that land? And by the way, it's not even a contest. It's a hundred percent on the Russian side. Ukraine could make some inroads. They could make some penetrations if they find it. So a weak flank perhaps, or a seam in between, but then once they've done that, they're going to use up their striking power and Russia is just going to absorb that, and then they have a lot more capacity to return a counter-strike against that. But there is no

prospect in my assessment that Ukraine can drive Russia out of their territory at all. Let me play for you, you have Jenny Progozhin, the head of the Wagner group. First, we'll play his ranting and raving about where's my ammunition. He points to a pile of dead bodies behind him. It's blurred, so you can't see the bodies, which he claims are Wagner soldiers now dead. And they would be alive and their bodies would be replaced with Ukrainian soldiers. And of course, if you've seen this before, you know that he attacks by name and by lifestyle. The Russian defense minister and the Russian chief of military staff, it's pretty crude.

There are subtitles which translate his four-letter words. But take a look at this is crazy. I couldn't imagine Eric Prince, the head of Blackwater, attacking Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus that way. Is this something uniquely Russian, uniquely Progozian, or is there something else going on here, as you understand it? You know, I'm starting to believe that this may not be all that it appears to be, that it may not be as, meaning some of it could be stagecraft. Because as you pointed out, this is nobody in America, and certainly not in Soviet or Russian history, would be able to

survive being able to directly attack the senior leaders like that and still stay in his job. But then you also have to look at specifically what he's talking about, about the shell hunger and all that. But then you see on the uh that he has continued to methodically mow through uh bakhmut yes and according to the ukrainian side they say they don't see any evidence of a shell hunger when you see the pictures they are just decimating that city so it could just be trying to make the ukraine side think that they're vulnerable when really they're not, and maybe to send more reinforcements, which they can take out. That is something we have to give consideration to, because what we know is that he is continuing to move. Before I ask you a few more questions about him, Colonel, we're going to run another tape,

which is considerably calmer and more diplomatic. Take a listen. I'm going to talk over it so that we can at least understand the English. There are about 20 houses left to take and Bakhmut would be taken completely. But the occupation of Bakhmut gives nothing to the Russian Federation because the flanks are crumbling, the front is collapsing and attempts by the defense ministry to publish statements to make things look better

are and will bring an overall tragedy for Russia. They need to stop lying right away. If you have fled, build up new defense lines. Almost the same criticism, but a milder tone. What do you make of that? It is a milder tone, but it's also getting belied by what's going on in the ground. As of this morning, or as of this evening, Russian time today, Wagner has now taken

three of the final four, a little even, sub-districts of Bakhmut. They're now down to basically one. So these incursions on the north and south flanks, they have basically been contained and Ukraine is not making

a general progress there any further. So it doesn't appear that this is preventing either the advance of the Wagner or the defense of the shoulders on the north and south in any case. So again, it's a little odd because the ground doesn't seem to support what he's saying. You know, the Washington Post, which as you know, is a mainstream publication, but it's been pretty much a mouthpiece for the CIA for 60 or 70 years now, has published a scurrilous story about him claiming that he offered to reveal the location, size and movement of Russian troops to the Ukrainians in return for a unilateral Ukraine withdrawal of Bakhmut. I can't believe that he would do something like that. I would think the Russians would know he was going to do it before he did it, and he'd be shipped to Siberia before there's even a trial.

Either he didn't do this and the CIA has made it up, or this is some kind of a stunt intended to lull the Ukrainians into some kind of a false sense of security, a stunt infused with deception. Yeah, I think it's probably some sort of deception, maybe even to make the Russians think that they can't trust Prigozhin, maybe to make them them do something because there's two major reasons why I don't think this is accurate. Number one is because for all the friction between Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defense, I mean, they're still Russians. They're still all trying to fight on the same side. And he is Russian. He's not going to like literally hand over some

of his fellow countrymen to be killed so that he can gain personal gain. As arrogant as he is, I've not seen any evidence that he would literally turn on his country. But secondly, even more practical, if he did what's credited there is that, yeah, Ukraine would withdraw from the rest of Bakhmut and he would have that, but then he would give away his flanks. And now then at any time, they could just close that off and then completely destroy his forces. So out of self-preservation, it would be foolish to make such a deal, even if it were ever offered. Where do you see the war going? Where do you think this will be if it'll still be in the combating stage, let's say at the end of the summer by September or so? By the end of the summer, I think that there's a good chance that the lines

won't be a whole lot different than they are today. The body counts will be much higher, especially on the Ukrainian side, just because they're having more and more inexperienced troops that are trying to go into these things. But what we can't discount is the potential for a collapse, an unexpected collapse on some of the Ukraine front, because what you never can tell ahead of time is how brittle something is getting. And if the attrition gets too high, there could be a break. But it's also possible that Ukraine could continue to fill that with just even more troops and continue to maintain the lines. That would turn into a longer term battle of attrition which i distinguish from being uh a uh

what do you call it when the when the war is not going either way a stalemate some call it i think it's more battle of attrition that almost no way russia can lose even if they make some more big missteps they just have more capacity to wage war personally and as well as military equipment and ukraine can't face a battle of attrition and win with Russia. And as you see, they can't count on this never-ending support from the West, because it's probably not going to be there. So I think that at some point, Ukraine's going to recognize this, and they're going to have to do a negotiated settlement, whether they want to or not. Colonel Daniel Davis, always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you for joining us.

Thanks a lot, Judge. I appreciate it. More as we get it, my friends. Judge Andrew Napolitano for Judging Freedom.