Judging Freedom - UPDATED - LIVE from Ukraine at 10_30a Matt VanDyke

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, January 17th. I'm sorry, Wednesday, January 18th, 2023. It's about 1035 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. Our regular correspondent, if you will, Matt Van Dyke, founder and head of Sons of Liberty International,

joins us from Kyiv, Ukraine. Matt, thank you very much for joining us. The last time we were together, you expressed some concern that the Ukrainian armed forces might not be aggressive enough or take advantage enough of the retreats of the Russians. Do you still have that concern? Have you seen the aggression that you counseled in favor? How do things look from your vantage point today? They don't look any more promising in that area. I was really hoping to see a winter counteroffensive, continuing the success that Ukraine had in the fall. In the winter here, when the ground's hard, is a good time to move. The same soil that makes Ukraine the breadbasket of the world also creates incredibly muddy

conditions in spring, which make advances difficult. In addition to the fact that Russia is just reconstituting its military, recruiting more soldiers, training them, and will be coming in force in the spring. So this is really a great opportunity that I feel is being lost to get off the defensive and go on the defensive and make some gains here before spring. Why is it being lost? Does the Ukraine military lack the manpower? We know it doesn't lack the will. Does it lack the manpower or does it lack the equipment that it needs? I mean, Putin's people are no fools. If they are aware of this lull, they're going to keep moving westward during it. Right. I think Russia has been fixing Ukraine's forces in Bakhmut, keeping them engaged there.

Mostly it's a Wagner operation, but Ukraine has committed a lot of personnel and resources to that fight. And the mentality is a defensive mentality here for a large part, unfortunately. There's also all these rumors about Russia is going to do another round of conscription. There's video of T-90 tanks coming out of a warehouse on their way to Ukraine. There's rumors that the Russia and Belarusian joint military exercises are a prelude to an invasion from the north. So there's a lot that Ukraine has at risk of losing everything, is the fear that another rush could be done on Kiev or even as far west as Lviv to cut off borders. But I suspect that some of this is designed to keep Ukraine in a defensive mentality and keep them from continuing an offensive.

When Russia is the weakest it'll ever be right now. And in the spring, that won't be the case. All right. So Russia has not hesitated and in fact has, has targeted residential neighborhoods. We have some videos showing there was just two days ago. That's Dnipro. You can tell us in a minute where that is, but those are residential apartment buildings.

You can see there are still people in those apartment buildings. What does this do, A, to the morale of the public, Ukrainian public, and B, to the morale of the Ukrainian troops when they see what's happening back home? Well, it's designed to break morale, but it really only enforces morale and increases morale. Actually, in many conflicts, attempts of targeting civilians and breaking the will of military force by attacking civilians rarely actually works. It just makes people more angry, more determined. And scenes like that of devastation of residential areas, I mean, that's a video reminiscent of Oklahoma City bombing, for example, in the United States, or other acts of terrorism around the world. It's definitely, if anything, going to increase the resolve of Ukrainians for this fight. We have recently learned that French, German,

and American tanks, you know, the Americans originally said they'd never send tanks. Joe Biden is still saying we're hesitating about tanks, but I myself have seen pictures of American tanks being unloaded from ships in either Denmark or Norway, and they can only be intended to go south. You have three different countries sending tanks. They're each sending two or three different kinds of tanks. Each tank uses a different kind of and size ammunition. Each Will they be technically qualified enough even to operate this equipment once it gets there? tanks without training. They're quite technically adept here. I'm not concerned about the maintenance, but I hope that this is coming with combined arms training and training and tactics to be able to actually use these tanks effectively on the battlefield with supportive infantry and not just roll them out and use them as mobile artillery like the Russians have tended to do,

and that has been done here in the past. As far as the Abrams, if the Abrams are being sent to replenish the supply of T-72s that Poland sent, for example, I think that was a deal with some European countries that they would send their old Soviet stock and be moved on to U.S. equipment and NATO standards. So that might be what the Abrams were. One of our viewers asks a very good question. You have intimated that the offensive is going to come in the spring. Isn't that the muddy season? Isn't it easier for troops and equipment to move when the ground is rock hard like it is now? It certainly is. And that's why I hope that there still is a winter offensive,

but time is running out. I really thought that they were going to push an offensive in winter. You know, Russia, Russia, Russia's case, they don't really have a choice. They don't have the manpower right now. They don't have the troops trained. They need to get equipment. They need to sort out all their logistics issues that they've had as they start to adjust to Ukrainian tactics. The weapon systems that have come in like HIMARS. There's a lot of adjustments that Russia has had to make to the way that it fights war, and specifically this war, that they're still in the process of doing. So for them, a real winter offensive isn't an option. For Ukraine, it is, and they should be taking advantage of it.

Are you and your colleagues still training Ukrainian soldiers in the use of this equipment? And if so, are you training them in the use of the tanks? Or have the tanks not yet arrived? I haven't seen the tanks here. I believe they're en route. We don't provide training on tanks. It's something that we could do. I mean, we have trainers available who are willing to do it.

We primarily do infantry training and infantry tactics training. The tanks, a lot of that equipment that's being sent, they take Ukrainians out of the country, train them on it, on train crews before they send them in. So they're not just dropping off a tank and saying, have at it. What's your gut feeling in the middle of January 2023? The war is almost to the day, 11 months old. What's your gut feeling as to how and when this ends? I think we're years away from this ending. You know, that Ukraine will fall to Russia, I don't believe that will happen. The West has made a commitment to support Ukraine and to make sure that Ukraine stands.

The question of victory is how do you define victory? Does victory include all of Donbas? Does it include Crimea? If they wanted to include that, they have to start thinking a little more strategically, I think, about how they're waging this war. They need to flood supplies here. And I would like to see more advising from Western countries, I believe, on things like winter offensives. One of our colleagues who speaks to us regularly, who has a profoundly different view from yours, Colonel Douglas McGregor, reports that Putin has 500,000

troops available to him. We're talking about the people he called up in the fall who are veterans, but reserves, now fully trained. We're talking about conscripts and we're talking about the people they've let out of jails. but 500,000, wouldn't that simply, if the number is accurate, Matt, wouldn't that simply totally overwhelm the Ukrainian military? It would certainly be difficult. I don't think the Ukrainian military is going to be overwhelmed. For one thing, we're on the defense. Those Russian troops are not trained. Russian logistics can't even support what they put in Ukraine already. I don't see how they could possibly feed, clothe, house, and arm that many soldiers. But if Putin wants to do that, he just

needs to make sure he has an order in for 500,000 body bags, because a lot of debt are going to be coming back to Russia if that happens. I don't know if this war is going to end with the liberation of Crimea, but I do know that Russia will never be able to subdue this country with the way people feel about this war, with the amount of Western support, and with the resolve and the victories that we've had so far here. Tell us what you and your colleagues have been doing to detect explosives before they explode. Well, today we started a EOD and demining program. We had instructors who taught a class on doing surveys, non-technical surveys specifically. What are we looking at now, Matt? That's some EOD equipment.

There's mine detectors. There's probes for when you detect something. I believe there's a hook and line kit there for moving explosives from safe distance. Typically, what are you looking for? Is it an area once occupied by the Russians, now vacated by them, but they left hidden explosives behind? Do I have that right? That's one of the situations. There's minefields,

there's booby traps, there's unexploded ordnance. Ukraine is now one of the most heavily landmined places in the world. So this is a problem that that will plague this country not just now but long after probably every few months for years a farmer is going to hit a mine or a child is going to step on a mine. You know it's it's a lot it's a lot to be done and that's why we're trying to make an effort here. One of our emailers asks I'm going to paraphrase the question. Matt when you're on the emailers ask very very direct questions and comments um i don't always agree with you but i'm very fond of you for your personal courage and your

willingness uh to come on the show but anyway this emailer asks is it true that uh the ukrainian military is conscripting children young teenagers 13 14 15 years old and if that is Ukrainian military is conscripting children, young teenagers, 13, 14, 15 years old. And if that is true, isn't that against international law? And how can you train a kid that young? That's absolutely not true. I haven't even heard of that here. There's no evidence of that. You know, there's still plenty of adults. If they're going to start conscripting people, there's still millions of adult males who could be conscripted. There's a lot of people who still want to fight, but just haven't been able to get into a unit yet. So there's no shortage yet of manpower here that are ready to take the fight against Russia. Anything that there's no child soldiers, it's ridiculous.

What is life like in Kiev today? Do people go to mass on Sunday? Can you visit a museum? Do orchestras play? Can you buy food in a shop? Can you drive your car down the road? Do elevators and high-rises work? With the exception of power outages, which are a huge inconvenience,

especially to people who live in apartment buildings and then can't use the elevators or get stuck in them, and occasionally shopping malls having to shut down during power outages, things like that. But other than that, life here goes on. You wouldn't even know there's a war on most of the time, besides the occasional air raids, sirens, and the power outages. Ukrainians have been incredibly resilient resilient and they know that this war will take years and they're prepared for it and they're doing the best with what they can to keep life going as normal.

Matt Van Dyke, Sons of Liberty International. Always a pleasure. Thank you very much for joining us, my friend. Always good to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future.

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