Judging Freedom - Ukraine w_ Col Doug Macgregor

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, January 10, 2023. It's about 10 after 1 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Our guest is our go-to person on military matters all over the world, but in particular with respect to Russia and Ukraine, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Colonel, always a pleasure. Welcome back to the show. A few minutes, maybe a few hours before we came on air, the Pentagon announced that it will be training Ukrainian technical crews in Oklahoma on the use, operation, and maintenance of the Patriot missile system. How impractical and how slow is this going to prove to be? Well, normally it takes three months of formal schooling for American soldiers

to effectively master all the tasks that are expected of them to work on this very complex anti-missile system or anti-aircraft system. So I would think that for the Ukrainians, it might take a little bit longer simply because of the language barrier. But the point is, the way things are developing right now, I'd be surprised if they had much of a Ukraine to deploy to in three to four months. You know, I don't even know if it's lawful for the American government to train foreign troops at American expense on American military property. Do you have any, in your long career in the military, do you have any familiarity or experience with this, Colonel? A little bit. Obviously, with regard to Latin America, we've done this for decades.

We actually established formal schools for it. The so-called schools of America used to be characterized in the most hostile terms by our opponents as having schooled most of the terrorists and so forth that they dislike. So no, this is nothing new. We've done this before. The CIA has done it for forever. My point is, I just don't think this is going to make much difference to the outcome on the ground in Ukraine. It simply won't. It's not going to happen fast enough. And then, of course, you've got to push everything over there, all the equipment. Then you have to provide lots of missiles. Remember, you shoot two missiles at every target. You could go through a thousand missiles in Ukraine in a few days. So the patriots that the Biden administration is sending are not there. And when they do, I assume they're in Germany. I mean, they're not in the U.S., but it's going

to take three months before the Ukrainians are prepared to use them. Where's the war going to be in three months? In three months, winter will be a little bit behind us. Well, I think this is really the most important question today, because of all the information that's pouring into us right now. There's a great deal of information that the entire Ukrainian front facing the Russians in southern Ukraine is now severely weakened and in many parts simply crumbling. On average, the brigades that have been fighting the Russians in and around Bakhmut and surrounding towns, right now their casualties have reduced them to about 30% of their normal strength. 30% of the Ukraine normal strength. Ukrainian 4,000-man brigade.

So if you're talking about 4,000 men, that means that you've lost 2,800. We're talking in the space of the last few months, 15, 20 brigades have rotated in and out. They've now had to disband some of these brigades and consolidate them with others. I mean, frankly speaking, it's not the perfect analogy, but I would compare it to the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring of 1865. They've simply been bled white.

And they're now building what they hope will be effective defenses in a town called Krematorsk, a line that is much further north and west from where they are currently. They may be able to retreat to it. But I think once the offensives begin, Ukrainians are going to find that their backs are up against rolling open terrain, which is the perfect killing ground for the Russians against the Ukrainians. So I think we're really coming into the end phase of certainly the war in eastern Ukraine. All right. So I know this is your field of specialty, which is tank warfare.

The Ukrainians are still begging for tanks. The chancellor of Germany has indicated he's willing to send German tanks to Ukraine. I don't know how easy it is for the Ukraine troops to operate German tanks or if tanks are interchangeable, if the Germans are unique and requires a lot of training. However, he says he doesn't want to do that if German tanks are the only tanks in Ukraine. Hint, hint, he wants American tanks there. So a couple of questions. How practical or impractical is this for Ukraine troops to use German tanks? Is this the right time of year for tanks in Ukraine? And how crazy is the idea that the Americans would send tanks? Well, you know, my view is that we should have stopped this a long time ago.

So obviously I don't support the idea, but ideally you want one type of tank. You don't want to have to deal with four or five different kinds of tanks because truthfully, the sighting mechanisms, the firing mechanisms, the training that's required for each one is different. So I do understand the desire to stick with one. The Leopard tanks are more exacting in their demands on the crew than on an M1 tank. So Leopard is American or German? No, the Leopard series tanks are German. And having been on both of them, they're both excellent tanks, let there be no mistake about it. Of the two, I would choose the Leopard simply because it has a

good diesel engine on it. You don't have to refuel it every six to eight hours. So from that standpoint, I would do so. I would opt for the German thing. But I understand the German position. I think the Germans are worried, and justifiably, I would add, that they're going to be hung out to dry, and their equipment will not only be destroyed, but in many cases captured. I think that's also a concern on the U.S. side. I think we know that the Ukrainian armed forces are crumbling. Is this a mechanism for introducing German troops and American troops on the ground? Well, the equipment's there and you guys can operate it better than we can, and you don't need the lead time for training to use it because you already know how to use it. Is that what's coming?

Well, on the German side, I can tell you that if they were trying to secretly or surreptitiously introduce their equipment that could be manned by Germans into the theater, the German government would be thrown out of office within 24 hours. There's no support in Germany to send German troops, certainly not to Russia, certainly not to fight Russians. On our side, I don't know. I suppose that's a possibility, but I've seen so little evidence for a coherent strategy, so little evidence for serious pre-planning and preparation that it's hard for me to believe anybody's thinking that far in advance. Earlier this morning, you sent me an email that you had received from an Australian colleague

and observer of what he saw on the Ukrainian front. Here's what he said to you. According to an Australian source near the Bakhmut area in daily contact with the frontline Ukrainian soldiers, in my opinion, that talks about a Ukrainian offensives are nonsense. They deluded dreams of the Kiev cabal to continue their push for more money, weapons, and support. The mood on the ground here is not good. Soldiers are severely under-equipped. Morale, from what I can see, is very low, and there is resignation among the ones that I talk to that they will fight on bravely, but that outcome is not in question. Interesting, Colonel, the outcome not in question. They know that they are facing a well-equipped,

disciplined, and strengthening, another interesting word, strengthening Russian army. Confidence in the government or their leadership, that's the Ukrainian government, seems low, and there is rising anger amongst them. The same is true of ordinary people. Many are now speaking up. Many are openly critical of the Zelensky administration. They're openly angered at the West and feel betrayed. This will not end well. Okay, let's unpack this and let's start with the statement that was highlighted at the end. Are the Ukrainian people getting sick and tired of this and do they no longer support the government's military resistance of Russia? I think there's a great deal of evidence that people are frustrated,

angry, exhausted. There's no question about that. We see a lot of evidence for the Ukrainian secret police, the SBU gearing up operations, for instance, in Kherson, which was recently seized, and down in Odessa, where they are arresting people, and in some cases, I'm told, torturing or even executing them for ostensibly pro-Russian sentiment or expressions of defeatism. This sort of thing, I think, is an indicator that, yes, there is growing discontent. On the other hand, I do admire the Ukrainian soldiers who are prepared to fight on, even though they recognize that they have no chance of winning. What is the nature of conscription now in Ukraine? Have they

lowered the age? Are they still going door to door looking for males, young males? Well, my understanding is yes, that they're going to press into service anybody they can find who looks capable of carrying a weapon. And the problem, once again, is even though you're picking up hundreds of these people each day, putting them in uniform, handing them weapons, giving them modest training, if any, they just don't have the non-commissioned officers and the officers with experience to lead them anywhere. And so most of these people are literally lambs being led to the slaughter. You have talked at length about the significance of the call-up of previously active duty, but then on sort of National Guard civilian life, Russian soldiers coming back to active duty. And you've opined that that number

is about 300,000. They've been in training since September. Here it is January. Are they ready? Are they there? Have they entered the theater of war? Does General Zeluzhny, the commander in chief of therainian military know they're coming i think zeluzhny excuse me actually does know and he made that very clear in his uh interview with the economist where he said they their mobilization quote-unquote has been effective the numbers are indisputable they are well well trained. They are well equipped. He's made that very clear. I think that, frankly, the Russian forces are ready. But keep something in mind. Any commander you ask on the eve of war is always going to tell you, well, I wish I had more time.

In 1991, the unit I was with, the 2nd Cavalry, we were extremely well trained. And as we discovered, probably over-trained for the tasks that we were assigned, but we had no way of knowing. So your predisposition is always to say, well, if you can give us a little more time, I think we'll be that much better. I'm sure that some of the Russian commanders have a similar attitude, but the truth is, I think they're more than ready for what needs to be done. There's very little facing them up north. And that has to be done. There's very little facing them up north. And that has to be understood. There are very few brigades, three light brigades.

And if they're at full strength, that's 12,000 men. And you're talking about an offensive that will consist of 80 to 100,000 men just in the combat force. That is the people that are going to roll in to western Ukraine. So, no, I think they're ready to go. Plus, remember, there were also 80,000 Russian volunteers in addition to the 300,000 reservists. These are people that want to fight. Oh, boy. You'll never hear this in the mainstream media.

80,000 Russian volunteers? Yes. Why isn't that on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post or even my buddies at Fox? Well, I think we know that that contradicts the narrative that everyone in Russia is angry and wants to rid itself of Putin when the opposite How complex is this whole mess of the atmosphere and attitude of Nazism amongst the Ukrainians, their well-known reputation for financial and political corruption, the unwillingness of the United States to account for where the dollars go, the involvement of Ukrainian Americans and American banks in what's going on over there. Give us a handle on this. Maybe this is a little bit more diplomacy, skullduggery, intelligence than it is cavalry,

but you have a better handle on this than anybody I know. Well, first of all, let's keep in mind that the corruption has its roots in the collapse of the Soviet state. That doesn't mean that the Soviet Union was devoid of corruption. Absolutely not. Corruption has always been a fact of life in the Soviet world, much as corruption is a fact of life in much of the Latin American world. But the degree of corruption now is beyond anything that existed previously, and that's

because everything broke down in Ukraine. And Ukraine also possessed factories that produced everything from tanks to missiles and aircraft. There were things in Ukraine that the oligarchs wanted, the people that took advantage of the destruction of any kind of social or political order. Into this, we step with the goal of building a powerful force designed for one purpose, which is to attack Russia and harm it, if not dismantle it. Remember that the force when Putin sent his interventionist forces in, and initially only used 80,000 men, he was facing a Ukrainian force of over 400,000 that had been heavily trained and equipped to attack and ultimately retake Crimea. So you combine the corruption with this development, and the corruption actually makes things worse. And we had this experience

over many years in the United States, where we will go in and we will create deformed economic conditions. In other words, we'll create new economies that never existed, are entirely dependent upon the largesse of American aid and assistance. That's happened in Afghanistan. We did that in Bosnia and in Kosovo. We did it in Vietnam. In other words, our very presence just breeds more corruption than would otherwise have been there. Bush sent American dollars to Iraq, it was literally a truckload of cash. Right. How does the Biden administration get money to Ukraine? Do they just deposit it in a JPMorgan Chase account in New York and it shows up in a JPMorgan Chase account in Ukraine. They're not literally like Bush's people were doing flying dollar bills across the Atlantic, are they?

I don't think we have to do that because we have a semblance of a more developed financial system. And to answer your question, all you have to do is look at these photographs of President Zelensky sitting with Larry Fink, who is the chief executive officer for BlackRock, along with our friend Bankman Freed from so-called FTX, who was also at the table. I think if you look at these things carefully and you understand who controls the financial system in the United States that is in league with the Congress, it's not very difficult to transfer funds. Again, how many billions went there? Where have they all gone?

Nobody really knows. I mean, we can't even audit the Department of Defense. I mean, stop and consider that. How could we possibly audit Ukraine or anything in it that is hopelessly corrupt and considerably more backward in the way it does business than we do it? It's anybody's guess, but I suspect that whatever we've sent there, at least 40 to 50 percent has been siphoned off, probably ended up in banks in Cyprus or other countries where we know oligarchs maintain accounts. Let me go back to the quotation that I read, which you sent me earlier today, the observations from the Australian journalist at the front, and that is the demoralization of the troops. Even though I couldn't see your face because we had the full screen of the quote,

I thought I saw you nodding when he was saying it's an atmosphere of resignation. They still love Ukraine. They still want to fight for it. But they're becoming to accept the realization that they're fighting the valiant, brave and historic is futile. Agreed? Yes. And we've had these reports over the last two or three months.

They've simply become more voluminous now than they were before. And it's difficult for us. We live in the world, I would say, of Walter Mitty. You know, everyone in D.C. is some version of Walter Mitty. They live in a make-believe world, thousands of miles remote from reality. They're dictating the narrative. They're telling Zelensky and his friends the roles that they're supposed to play. None of it is connected to reality. I don't think any of it really was to begin with. I mean, anybody who thought that this would be a quote unquote walk in the park, I think we've heard that before, was crazy. But I think what they did is they miscalculated because, again, Mr. Putin went in there with the understanding that they was going to try and do minimal damage and compel some sort of negotiated settlement. He was dead wrong. He had no idea the depth of hatred and hostility Washington felt for him and Russia. Now he knows it. Now the so-called sledgehammer is beginning to fall in selected locations. And the thing to keep in mind is that, again, the forces fighting the Ukrainians,

not just Wagner, which is, quite frankly frankly looks a lot like the French Foreign Legion, which, by the way, are mercenaries and are also excellent soldiers, but also the Chechens and other forces that are down there. These are not the frontline forces. Now, we do know that the Russians have rotated companies and battalions forward to give them an appreciation for what it's like to be under fire so that they can see their enemy. That's a very healthy thing to do. We also know that they've sent their best commanders with the most combat experience up north to be able to Russia. So those men will be commanding the advanced guards of these attacks that are coming in the future. So all in all, again, to go back to your original question, I think these reports are accurate. I think to some extent,

it's also reminiscent of the tragic position of the Tsar's army in World War I. Eventually, they just discovered that they could not prevail against the superior technology and capabilities of the German army. And so they finally threw in the towel and started to go home. If I were Mr. Zelensky, I'd be very worried, first and foremost, about my troops coming back to deal with me long before the Russians get there. Colonel Douglas McGregor, always a pleasure, sir. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Judge. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.