Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 6/15/23 Daniel Davis on Ukraine’s Big Offensive

Episode Date: June 18, 2023

Daniel Davis joined Scott on Antiwar Radio to discuss the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive. Davis has been closely monitoring what’s happening on the ground. He shares where things stand and what it likely means for the wider war. Discussed on the show: “Ukraine’s Big Offensive” (19fortyfive.com) Daniel Davis did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan during his time in the army. He is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities and is the author of the reports “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort” and “Go Big or Go Deep: An Analysis of Strategy Options on Afghanistan.” Find him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Pacifica Radio, June 15th, 2023. I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all it is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm editorial director of anti-war.com. And I'm the editor of the book. hotter than the sun time to abolish nuclear weapons you find my full interview archive

almost 6,000 of them now going back 20 years at scott horton.org and at youtube.com slash scott horton show and you're going to want to sign up for the podcast feed at scothorton dot org because i got a big special project that i've been working on lately that's going to hit either tonight or tomorrow i think and you guys are going to want to tune in for that Probably. So that's at Scott Horton.org. All right, you guys.

Next up on the show is the great Daniel L. Davis, retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. And, of course, is famously the great whistleblower of the Afghan War

from 2012. And he is a combat veteran of Iraq War I, Iraq War II, and Afghanistan, senior fellow at defense priorities. And his book is called the 11th hour in 2020 America. Welcome back to the show. How you doing, Danny?

Doing good, Scott. Always a pleasure to be here. How are you? I'm doing great. Really happy to have you here. So time for an update on the war in Ukraine. You have a very important piece here. Ukraine's big offensive. What's happened so far and what might happen next. So it is on now. The spring offensive, now early summer offensive, the ground. I guess finally dried out and well a little bit of background they had been pouring according the wall street journal and others they'd been pouring the poorest most conscripted most ill-equipped forces into bachmute to drag out the loss of that city as long as they could while they're training up these other divisions in germany and elsewhere i guess on NATO weapons and with NATO trainers preparing for this massive upcoming offensive and so now it's on and so what do we got Well, that was kind of the intent, what they wanted to do, especially going back to Bahmoud a little bit, but it turns out that they didn't stick with that plan for reasons that we'll probably only find out many years into the future in that they didn't just throw the cannon fodder, the, you know, the guys that they just grabbed off the streets and threw in there. They also, in order to hold on to the city longer, put in some of their elite and well-trained brigades and ended up, at least according to.

to some credible reports, somewhere around 10,000 troops extra to hold on to it for another month or so before the beginning of this operation. And those guys were needed for the offensive operations. They pulled them from those troops that were set for that. So not only did Ukraine lose the city of Bakhmud eventually, but they also lost an additional 10,000 troops that they desperately needed to have any chance of success in this offensive. Now that it has actually kicked off, you can immediately see, you know, a good portion of the cost of the Bachmoot defense in that they, the Ukraine, have not been able to penetrate any of the forward defensive lines, the main battle area of the Russian defenses. And I mean any of them, at any point,

they have not penetrated the front defenses of the Russian side. So everything that Russia has been doing in preparation for this very well publicized offensive operation for Lex. six to nine months in some areas they've been digging very detailed four to five positions and those things and the shocking part that should send tremors to anybody who supports the ukraine side is that to date and this has been this is i think now day 10 of the offensive uh the ukraine forces have yet to penetrate anything beyond what's called the security zone i talked about in that article you mentioned from in 1945 which is basically the buffer zone between the two armies and the main line of defense and there's three to five belts that go you know 30 40 kilometers

deep into the occupied territories on the Russian side none of those have been penetrated yet and that is shocking and does not bode well for for even this offensive much less for the war for Ukraine all right Danny well one question that came to my mind right away when I saw these pictures of the destroyed German tanks and Bradley vehicles and so forth was don't the Ukrainians have a bunch of old Soviet tanks and why wouldn't they say they know they're facing these minefields and trenches and whatever thing why wouldn't they dump all of their older equipment in first and save their leopards till they created some kind of advantage for themselves especially if they or I guess

that was what I had read that they were holding these thousands of old tanks and reserves still for just this occasion, but they're not using them? Well, they certainly have them, and that's an open question. It's a valid question that, again, I don't think we'll find out an answer for many years to come. Because in the Washington Post, in the first few days of June, there was a detailed analysis of what's they call the 47th Armored Brigade, Meganas Brigade of the Ukrainian Army. They talked about how it was completely staffed with their youngest, hot. troops. They had a 28-year-old brigade commander, and they were talking about how young, all of them

were. And, you know, they had lots of combat experience. They were all trained in NATO countries. They were equipped with all the NATO gear. And they outright said, this would be the vanguard of the offensive. So everybody knew that these guys were going to lead off. And sure enough, the 47th Brigade did lead this charge in the Orichov. It's called. That was the main area of attack and they were just cut to ribbons. I mean, all those tanks in Bradley's you're talking about were from the 47th brigade. And I guess because they wanted to say, hey, this is our most capable force. We want this to be the penetration force that cuts into the Russian defenses. And they had mine rollers and they had other mine clearing operations. And I think they vastly

underestimated how difficult it is to penetrate minefields. And so, And plus, they just didn't have any practical experience, and I mean at all, of how to clear a minefield. So everything is, you know, they got some training on it in the NATO side. But until you actually do it under fire, it's just hard to conceive of how difficult it is from training to real life when people are shooting at you. And that's what they've discovered now is that it was so much harder. And all of their mind clearing vehicles were blown up. There's a lot of very famous pictures that have made the rounds on all over social media and regular media of these mine plows being blown up in their tracks. And then Russia, of course, was targeting them because Russia knows that, you know, they're sending their attack drones, their artillery, their rocket fire.

Everybody's looking for these mine sweepers and the mine clearing because they know that if you don't have the mine clears, you're not going anywhere. I mean, you can't penetrate anything. And the Russians went after them, they found them, and they destroyed them. And so now then you see that since the fourth day of the attack, there hasn't been any additional attempts in this area as Ukraine's trying to figure out what to do and probably trying to get more mind-breaching equipment. And until they do, that that thing's still born. Sorry, hang on just one second.

Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for Tennessee hot sauce company. Man, this stuff is so good. They get all different flavors. Garlic habanero, honey habanero, pineapple, Habanero, Poblano Halapeno, and the Blood Orange Ghost. They're all so good, I swear. And for a limited time, Tennessee hot sauce company is featuring official Scott Horton hotter than the sun thermonuclear hot sauce. It's full of Carolina Reapers, Scorpion Peppers, Dr. Pepper, Hydrogen isotopes, and all kinds of things that'll burn your tongue clean off. Seriously, it's really good.

Get yourself a hot sauce subscription. Spend $40 or more and use promo code Scott to get a free bottle of hotter than the sun, hot sauce. That's tnhot sauceco.com. Hey, y'all got to check out these awesome busts of our hero, the great Ron Paul. They're made by the renowned sculptor Rick Casale, the 13 inches tall,

hand-painted bronze resin based on Casale's brilliant original. You may have seen mine in the background on my bookshelf in some recent interviews. The thing is unbelievable. Check out this incredible piece of art at Rick Casale.com slash Ron Paul,

and you'll see what I mean. Use promo code Horton and you'll save 25 bucks. And this show will get a little kickback too. That's Rick Casale.com slash Ron Paul. Casali is C-A-S-A-L-I. Rick Casale dot com slash Ron Paul. And there's free shipping too. And don't they need air cover if they're going to send in a bunch of tanks? Well, yeah. And Scott, this is, I'm pretty sure the last time you and I talked, that was one of the things I pointed out. I said, the Ukraine side was being asked to do this operation with every disadvantage you can imagine. The most difficult ground offensive operation on the planet for any army is to attack a well-prepared, mechanized

defensive entity. If you don't have air superiority, if you don't have strong air defense and a robust capability for artillery, and of course, obviously the mine clearing of equipment, you're just not going to have a chance. That's exactly what's happened here because Ukraine has almost no air defense capacity beyond their front line. And I mean, like their front lines are not even into the battle zone. And the Russian Air Force has been operating with impunity as has its drone force. That's been one of the more remarkable things that you've seen all of these videos from the Russian side about their drones just watching every step of the way and showing every movement. The Ukrainians did run out of air defense missiles, like they said, they were going to in the Discord leak there?

Well, it's not that they've – we don't know for sure. I don't think it's that they've run out. I think it's that they just don't have enough systems to both cover the strategically important locations in the western part in Kiev and some of these other major cities and where they have their troop concentrations. They have to have those things because Russia has not stopped with the strategic coming situations and missiles. The bottom line here is what? The Ukrainians have how many more divisions? They're what percent likely to succeed in severing the land bridge, so-called, from Don Bass to Crimea? And then what?

You told me last time we spoke that even if they win here, this is their last stand. But it looks like you're telling me they're not going to do much better than they already have. Yeah, I doubt that they go much beyond where they are. Maybe they decide to mask the remainder of their combat power in one area or another. And maybe they can get 10, 12, 15, maybe 20 kilometers. But the problem is, that's it. Then they don't have any more striking power. And now Russia, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services back in February, said that Russia had about 300,000 troops fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, 150,000 of which were in the Zoparisia area, exactly where this offensive has taken place.

Well, is it that many? I didn't realize. Between 150 and 250,000 more Russians on the Russian side of the border waiting to go on the offensive somewhere. Now, once this thing culminates is the military term there, and they've run, Ukraine has run out of striking power. What are they going to do if there really is, you know, 150, 200,000 Russian offensive troops ready to go on the offensive? So they've got nothing to stop it. That's the big risk that Ukraine has taken right now.

I guess I wonder if you can read. the mind a little bit of the NATO war planners in Germany who tabletop exercise this all out, what they were hoping to accomplish here. You mentioned how they said exactly what they were going to do in the press for months before they tried it. Yeah, it turns out that the Russians were apparently reading all of that press because all of their defenses are exactly lined up to defend against what they're facing. I mean, it's astounding that the lack of operational security and in a design. to want to have, you know, what they call information operation success. And I don't know what

their intent was to try and make the Russians afraid or something. But they've done exactly what was expected. And so the Russians are as ready for it as you could be, both psychologically and physically. And, you know, so far they haven't even bent, much less break. And I just, it puzzles me as to what the western side and the Ukrainian side, what they can have intent, because It doesn't take much in analysis knowledge to be able to look at the balance of power and the forces between. And you see, at the absolute most, you apparently have 30,000 offensive troops to go into 150,000 Russians in their strength. And then you think that you're going to accomplish what? I mean, what do you think this is going to accomplish?

Cutting the land bridge, that is a fantasy with 35,000 troops. You cannot go into a defense with 35,000. against $150,000 and think you're going to cut them in half. I mean, it's irrational to think that, and yet that appears to be what they're trying to do, and I just can't explain any further. Well, even if they had somehow severed the so-called Lambridge, now they'd just be surrounded. How long would they be expected to hold that territory before being forced right back out again? Well, that's the other part that's never even been explained, is if you did cut the land bridge,

how would you hold it? Because if you somehow managed to penetrate all that way down there, now then you've got in front of about 80 kilometers where you have troops on your left and right flank, and you've got no way to defend yourself against an incursion in either side. I mean, you'd be literally cut to ribbon. So even in their success, if they had succeeded in their objective, I don't know how they think they would have held it. And now, real quickly here, in your article you quote this guy, Ben Hodges, who's former

general, right? Retired Army General. He says, oh, yeah, no, Ukraine is going to win and even take back Crimea. And these people are just outright lying and they know it, right? What? Scott, do they know it? That's the scary part. The scary interpretation is they don't know it. I mean, I was shocked because he's been saying this. Hodges has been saying this for many, many months, four to six months. I mean, even into later last year, that Ukraine would be taking Crimea by the end of August. Now, I thought there's no way he's going to repeat that now. He'll probably just say they're going to try to get some success.

But no, right before this thing kicked off in the first part of this month, he again says, yes, I think they're going to defeat Crimea by the end of August. That's insane to suggest. And he mentions that they only have about 12 offensive brigades. And any armchair general would know, I mean, anybody who just reads a couple of text books would know that you can't defeat 400,000, 500,000 troops total with 35. Okay, listen, I'm so sorry we're out of time, but thank you so much for your time again. Great to talk to you, Danny.

Always my pleasure, Scott. Thanks a lot. All right, you guys. That is retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis. He writes at 1945.com. This one's called Ukraine's Big Offensive, what happened so far and what might happen next. his book is the 11th hour

in 2020 America and that's it for anti-war radio for today I'm your host Scott Horton I'm here every Thursday from 23 to 3 on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A see you next week