Judging Freedom - Ukraine Update - Live from Donbas

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, June 15, 2022. It's about 1.30 in the afternoon on the east coast of the United States. My guest today in a repeat appearance very much demanded by those of you who are regular viewers of Judging Freedom, is Matt Van Dyke. Matt Van Dyke is the head of Sons of Liberty International. He comes to us from Ukraine. I will let him tell us, if he can, exactly where he is, but he's on the ground in Ukraine and has been there for a while and has been eyes and ears, not only for Judging Freedom, but for others in the West as well. Matt, it's a pleasure. Welcome back to Judging Freedom. Thank you for having me on the show.

Okay. Can you tell us where you are? And if you can't tell us precisely for security reasons, can you give us an indication of generally where you are? I am in the Donbas region of Ukraine, which is where most of the fighting is now occurring. I am, I'd say approximately, let's say within 30 miles, perhaps a lot less to the front line, close enough that we are hearing artillery all day, every day. Lots of air raid alarms as well. And yeah, it's definitely the sounds of war constantly. And our unit that we've been training has been deployed. They've done well so far. They've actually been in combat, both in small arms combat against the Russians. They

performed very well. We've had some injuries. Mostly it's an artillery war, but we're very proud of the Ukrainians we've trained and others as well. All right. So just to set the table here for our viewers that may not be familiar with you, Sons of Liberty International is a non-combat, non-profit group, mainly ex-military, which train people and assist people in the use of military arms and equipment. Fair summary? Yes, yes. We're a 501c3 non-profit. We recruit mostly American veterans, but also veterans from other countries. Okay, but you guys are not fighting. You're not shooting at Russians. You are training Ukrainian soldiers, militia, and I guess maybe even civilians in the use of the equipment that NATO and the United States have made available to the Ukrainians. Right. Right now, it's a training mission. It'll probably almost always remain a training mission. I mean, in some past missions, we've been in combat, but that's mostly defending us or the town that we're in if we're attacked. But we are training

and advising and supplying organization. All right. The first time you were on the show about a month ago, you were very optimistic about the likelihood of success for the Ukraine military and militias in repelling the Russians. Do you still share that optimism now in the middle of June? I have the optimism, the timetable. I thought it would take about three years. I think it may take a little bit longer. They're running low on ammunition. This has been publicly reported. A lot of Soviet weaponry, the spares that were available from former Soviet countries have already been given to Ukraine. There's not much more to give. They're going to have to switch over to NATO weaponry. That's going to take some time. launching as many as 50,000 artillery rounds per day, which sounds unbelievable, but true. Ukraine can do about one-tenth of that per day. So, well, the Russian strategy right now is to basically destroy any town or city that they want to take and try to move in forces. And unfortunately, Ukraine has to keep soldiers in those cities and towns to hold them under artillery barrage. And we have about

a thousand casualties a day, about 200 of those killed, the rest wounded, and it's become a World War I style war of attrition that will go on at least until NATO gets long-range artillery and missile launchers over to Ukraine and gets them trained on it so they can hit Russian artillery all right so if the long-range artillery does not come isn't it just a matter of time or a matter of numbers I guess if they're shooting 50 000 a day and and the Ukrainians are shooting a thousand isn't it just a matter of math or correct me about one tenth about five thousand okay five Correct me. About one-tenth, about 5,000. One-tenth, okay. 50,000 for Russia. 5,000. Isn't it just a matter of math and the passage of time before Russia wins? Or do you still see such fierce determination, which you told us about last time, and expect such massive assistance from the U.S. and the U.K. that this can turn around?

I think they could turn it around once the long-range artillery and missile launchers arrive, and they're able to hit the Russian artillery at a long enough range, which they're not really able to do now. They're just outgunned, and artillery is the problem. Once they can neutralize that, they'll be in a much better position. Russian ground force morale is very low. the problem. Once they can neutralize that, they'll be in a much better position. Russian ground force morale is very low. It's hard to get them to go in and take areas even once they've been hit by artillery. The Russians route very easily. They're not particularly organized, and they don't want to die for Ukraine. Ukrainians, on the other hand, will fight to the last man.

So once there's some parity in their artillery ability, the Russian artillery can be hit at long ranges. The ground game, the ground forces, Ukraine has them beat hands down. So it's really just being able to hold out that long and make the switch over to NATO equipment. When... Where is the Russian artillery? Is it in eastern Ukraine or is it in Russia? The reason I ask that is because, I mean, this may go to that it's all being launched from within Ukraine. So there's really no risk of that. Part of the agreement with Ukrainians that they won't use any of the systems given by the US or NATO to attack Russia, and there's really no likelihood that they're going to. They're so desperate for these systems, they'll abide by whatever rules that are put on them to use them. How much of the Donbass region has been destroyed to rubble?

A good proportion of it, especially the larger cities. 20% of Ukraine is now under Russian control. Russia is not really interested in taking and holding the cities. They think they can rebuild the cities. They really will just destroy everything and then move in. That's the Russian style of warfare. It's been a Russian style of warfare. It's really the only thing that they're capable of when their ground forces are afraid to enter urban combat with Ukrainians. And they should be afraid. I mean, not only the guys we've trained, except other ones are very competent on the ground. So does the Russian military bring with it

all the facilities, places to sleep, hospitals, religious people? Does it bring with it all of that to service the troops if there aren't even any towns for them to stay in after they keep moving west? Well, I mean, presumably there's a few buildings left in some places, but really, yeah, I mean, they're bringing everything. They're even bringing mobile crematoriums for their dead soldiers. And Russia in these territories they're occupying, they've taken over the control of the internet. They've issued Russian passports to citizens. They're trying to quickly absorb these territories into being part of Russia. But yeah, you wouldn't want to be a Russian soldier and nobody really wants to be a Russian soldier right now, having to pack up and

move everything in. But really, they know that they cannot win if they're trying to go into urban combat against Ukrainians. Their men just won't do it. So their strategy is to just destroy everything and hope that it either breaks the spirit of Ukrainians or it kills enough men that there's not enough small arms to go around so that Russia can just do that. or whatever the number is, billion in military equipment that the Congress has authorized. Has that arrived? Has it made its way to the people that you are training in Ukraine yet? It seems to be arriving now. We recently, the unit we're with, received anti-tank missiles that we trained them on. This is the first time we've ever done anti-tank missile training. But we are fortunate to be able to provide that to them.

The missiles arrived without any training and with a manual that was entirely in English. So fortunately, we're here to help them out with that. But that sort of equipment is clearly arriving. There's a good amount of body armor and other weaponry. There's, as I said, anti-tank systems. There's stuff that I am surprised that is here that I haven't seen made available in other conflicts to forces like this. So it seems to be going quite well, and I hope it continues. the Ukrainians being realistic think they can win this thing given the enormous imbalance

in forces and military materiel. What gives you hope? If you're looking purely at numbers in the abstract, that would be a logical conclusion. But if you look at the difficulty that Russia is having making gains in territory in Donbas, sure they fire a lot of artillery and they've inflicted a lot of casualties, but their casualty numbers are also quite high and their gains are incremental.

They use a lot of artillery and sacrificed a lot of Russian lives to just gain a mile to a territory. They've had street to street fighting in the cities they've been in. It's been so difficult for them and taken so long that it's really just a matter of who's going to stick it out. There's millions of Ukrainians who are expressing interest in serving. How do you and your colleagues know where to go in Ukraine? I mean, are you guided by the CIA?

Do you have your own intelligence sources? We have our own sources and we're heavily relying on the units that we work with. I mean, we live and work with the people that we train. We're close with them. They're our colleagues, they're our trainees, they're our friends. We accept the risks that they risk. We'll stand with them if we're attacked. You know, their intelligence, where it comes from their sources locally or from the West, that's where we're getting ours.

So, you know, we take care of them and they take care of us. The last time you were on the show, you were very confident of Ukraine victory. How have things changed in a month? Better or worse? Better or worse for the people you're training? It's definitely gotten worse. The artillery war has really taken its toll on people. We've had men that we've trained that have been wounded. We have men we've trained that have been wounded uh we have many ukrainians

have been killed um we've had many trains that have done very well in battle and put the casualties on russia so you know it's a war and that's what to expect um it's a difficult time in the war it's a critical time but i'm confident that ukrainians can do it i'm confident the west will come through the west has put everything into this war i really do not believe that the United States and NATO will allow this war to be lost again. The repercussions could go way beyond just Ukraine if that were to happen. Matthew Van Dyke from The Field in the Donbass region of Ukraine. His group is Sons of Liberty International. Matthew, stay safe, stay well. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me on the show. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.