The President's Daily Brief - May 27th, 2022. The Escalation in the Ukraine, a Special Brief.

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

It’s May 27th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. I’m your host and former CIA Officer Bryan Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. This morning we’re going to talk about escalation and the odds of World War III, sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  Because whether you realize or not, we are at the closest point we’ve been to a global war than at any other time recent history. So I’m going to make the case to you this morning that that’s true. And what’s likely to come next — including a warning yesterday from a US General that we may have to fight the Russians ourselves. Plus, your emails. All up next on the President’s Daily Brief. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's May 27th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. The brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief, which is a top secret summary of the most critical events in the past 24 hours, all delivered to the president each day by the nation's spymasters. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy, and this is your special brief. This morning we're going to talk about escalation. And the odds of World War III all sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Because whether you realize it or not, we are at the closest point that we've been to a global war than at any other time in recent history.

So I'm going to make the case to you that that's true and what's likely to come next, including a warning issued just yesterday from a U.S. general that we may have to fight the Russians ourselves. All that, plus your emails up next on this special edition of the President's Daily Brief. If you're wondering how serious things are in Ukraine this morning, I want you to listen to this. Yesterday at a U.S. Senate hearing, there was an American general who slated to become NATO's next commander. And he said that Russia's blockade of Ukrainian grain exports, that might require us, the U.S. military, to intervene directly. Now, those are really big words, because what he's talking about is the direct fight between Russia and the United States, both nuclear armed and neither ready to back down. But his statement, and this moment in history, is really amazing because it's not where we were just four months ago.

See, back in January, the U.S. intelligence community said that Russia would invade Ukraine and that Kiev, or Kiv, would fall within three days. In other words, the country was completely lost. Joe Biden actually encouraged Ukrainian President Zelensky to flee. But do you remember what Zlensky said? He said, quote, I need ammunition, not a ride. right, that was back in February. The point of all this is that neither the U.S. nor Europe was interested in defending Ukraine but four short months ago.

We didn't have any battle plans ready. There was no thoughtful debate about what weapons that we should provide or how we'd track all those weapons once we actually handed them off, nor was there any real deliberation about red lines for what equipment would be too much for the Russians that might cause a nuclear response, for instance. I want you to remember that. because it tells us that we are flying by the seat of our pants on this thing, and that'll be made more clear in just a few minutes.

At any rate, we all know that Kiev didn't fall in February. Russia clearly miscalculated. Now, all credit President Zelensky, he used the power propaganda to convince us that his fight was our fight. And so we changed our strategy to escalation. I call that the big pivot. And I want to present to you three key elements that prove that the big pivot towards global war is real. So let's explore each of those three elements with the first being weapons. In early March, we started providing a whole bunch of new weaponry. At first, it was basic guns and ammo, if you recall, defensive in nature. But then anti-tank missiles started coming. Those were the javelins. And then we had anti-helicopter and plane missiles. Those were the stingers. With every passing week,

Joe Biden would authorize more money for more weapons and more lethal at that. A perfect example were the drones. We started off giving drones that had a very limited range and very limited firepower. And then we gave them switchblades. Now, those were basically drones that are suicide bombers from the sky, they're kamikazis. They can hover for quite a while and carry a much bigger explosive. The point here is that our weapons have been escalatory in nature. They're not just defensive, but offensive too. One more important thing. We have no idea what happens to any of the weaponry that we give once we handed off to the Ukrainians. And that's incredibly dangerous. I'm not alone in thinking that, by the way. Do you remember the general that I just mentioned at the top of the brief he's going to be

the new NATO commander? Well, here's what he said about that issue just yesterday. Quote, establishing accountability over where all of that equipment goes, that's a vital task for us. He added that doing so is a challenge right now because the United States has no military presence inside Ukraine. He went on to admit that all that weaponry could be sold into smuggling rings or elicit terror groups that could use that somewhere else in the world. But the point I'm trying to make here is this. The more weaponry we send, the more advanced and more offensive in nature it becomes. And that's been the pattern since March. And the Russians know that. And that's alarming to them, as it would be to anyone. The more that we push these aggressive and offensive weapons systems,

we increase the chances that we cross a red line that causes some sort of direct confrontation with Russia. Now, to be clear here, I'm not arguing that Putin doesn't deserve what he gets. He doesn't deserve to be punched. In fact, he does. The question is, what do we punch him with? Because it really matters. All right, let's move on to the second element of the big pivot, and that is intelligence. So as all of our weapons pour in, Ukrainians obviously have to figure out where to point those weapons,

who to point them at, and then the exact moment that they need to pull the trigger and hit the target. All of that is called tactical and operational intelligence, and we are absolutely providing it. That intel sharing started in early March, according to press reports and things that I've heard. And that's a really big deal, because I want to emphasize, not only are we giving the Ukrainians bigger and better weapons, we're helping to fire those weapons as well. We are effectively pulling the trigger. Now, starting in March, our intel has helped to shoot down, for instance, a Russian transport plane. That was full of 200 Russian troops, and all them died instantly. We've also killed at least 12 Russian generals.

Now, that's 12 that we have acknowledged or that the press has found out about. And that, by the way, is an absolutely jaw-dropping number. But I can tell you that that number is actually a bit higher. I'll leave it at that. Anyway, the last piece, we are also helping sink Russian ships. sunk the flagship Moscow. It was a huge vessel and a massive loss for Russia. It was their crowned jewel in the Black Sea. The point here is that we are sending Ukraine a lot of intelligence from our satellites and our human spies, all of it. And Russia knows that we're doing that.

Now, that should be a secret that we're doing this, but it's not. And so to Moscow, that's an escalation, because it's not just the Ukrainians who are doing the killing, it's us too. And that increases the chance of a direct war between the United States and Russia. And that gets to the last element of the big pivot. It's a new mission. In January and February, our involvement in Ukraine was supposed to be very much defensive in nature to give the Ukrainians just what they needed to hold off the Russians to bog them down for a bit. But that changed during the big pivot. On March 26th, Joe Biden said of Vladimir Putin, quote, for God's sake, this man cannot remain in power, end quote.

A month later, April 25th, Biden's Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, quote, we want to see Russia weakened. However this ends up, Russia will be in a much weaker position. That's not articulating a defensive strategy, folks. That's absolutely offensive. Now, Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin weren't alone in saying these kinds of things. During that same time, there were leaders in the House and the Senate who were echoing the exact same rhetoric. On the Senate side, Chris Coons of Delaware said on April 18th that U.S. troops may be needed in Ukraine because not doing so, not sending them, will only invite another level of escalation by the Russians. I don't understand that logic, but nevertheless.

By the way, Coons, he sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His words have influence. On the House side, Representative Kinsiger, he introduced a bill on May 1st that authorized the use of U.S. force in Ukraine if Biden thinks that Moscow had used chemical or bio or nuclear weapons. Now, Kinsiger is a major warhawk, and he absolutely wants Biden to declare war, so he's making the push in the House. Okay, so let's put those pieces together of Joe Biden and Lloyd Austin, the House and the Senate. Putting those pieces together, you can see very clearly that Washington, D.C. has a new mission, and that is to weaken Russia and then decapitate

the leadership. And that, folks, is regime change. So that's a lot to consider, isn't it? So let's quickly recap before we finish the brief. Just four months ago, America and Europe had totally abandoned Ukraine. Joe Biden actually encouraged President Zelensky to flee. Right. Neither the Pentagon nor the CIA had a game plan on how to fight any kind of war in Ukraine. But then, a big pivot happened, all because Kiev didn't fall. Our leaders saw an opening for a new mission to weaken Russia and remove Putin. And you got to do it with escalating weaponry and intelligence. And that is, ladies and gentlemen, war by any measure, even if it's not declared. So that's where we're at. And it's why I opened up this brief by saying

we are now at the closest point to World War III than we have been in recent memory. So if you agree, and even if you don't, what comes next? My assessment to you is that I think that we're going to see more of these big three elements in the coming weeks and months, and they're going to get even bigger. I'm going to give you case in point. The anti-ship missiles in the Black Sea. To refresh your memory, last week I briefed you on the Black Sea blockade, where Russia's Navy is basically not letting anybody in or out, certainly the grain products. And that's a bad deal for a lot of reasons, most especially because that grain feeds the world, and people are going to starve unless it gets out. There was one solution floated by the U.S. and European nations, and that was to provide.

anti-ship missiles to Ukraine, all so that they could sink Russian ships, and that's obviously a very big step. Well, I have an update on that. On Tuesday, Denmark agreed to give harpoon anti-ship missiles and a launcher to Ukraine. That was confirmed by Defense Secretary Austin on Tuesday as well. So there's the big pivot, or at least the weaponry element anyway. We're escalating with harpoons, and it's a really aggressive option, and it will absolutely be seen as such by a model. And oh, by the way, harpoon systems need targeting intelligence, especially when trying to shoot ships at far distances, and they're going to get that intel from American and European sources. So again, there's more of that increasing intelligence element of that big pivot. And for what it's worth, I thought that your suggestions on what we should do in the Black Sea were really good, in fact, better. Now, if you recall, I asked you all to email me with your ideas last week, and you all sent some great ones in. For instance, your first idea was having U.S. or NATO-flagged escorts to guide those weep ships from Ukraine, out of the Black Sea, and into the marketplace. Now, there were some complications with that idea, some of you mentioned submarines, but it's a really good and bold suggestion.

That came from Ron in American Fork, Utah, Richard, and Medellin, and then Laura, Rob and David. I'm not sure where you three were at, but hey, I am really glad you wrote. others of you all thought that we could make some sort of, well, drug deal of sorts with Putin. We could agree to drop some sanctions or even give him a cut of the wheat deals if he just would let the grain go through. Now, none of you who offered this up liked that idea a ton, but you just wanted to make sure that people didn't starve. That idea came from Bert and Montauk and then Richard, John Alexander. Not sure were you all are at, but thank you again for writing. Finally, a group of you wanted to just get whatever wheat we could via shipments to Romania.

You all recognize that it probably wouldn't be enough wheat, but at least it was better than nothing, and we could avoid the escalation down in the Black Sea. That idea actually came from Vince, Jim, Brooks, Tim, and Terrellin. Again, appreciate you all writing in. So I've given you all a lot to consider this morning. But I think that the key takeaway is this. There's a big pivot underway in Washington, D.C. This thing in Ukraine isn't just about defending Kiev. we are four months into something far more aggressive and far more dangerous. And it doesn't matter if you

think Putin is a bad man and deserve to get punched because for what it's worth, I do. But we have to be smart about it. And from my optic at this moment, we are just not. We are escalating with bigger weapons and sharper intelligence, and then we're bragging about it the whole time. And meanwhile, we're escalating with our words about regime change, like we didn't just try that in Iraq and Libya and failed absolutely miserably, by the way. And we're charging forward on all fronts as though Putin will never strike back with cyber attacks or nukes, God forbid. And all of this, all of this is happening with teams at the Pentagon and the CIA who led us into absolute disaster in Afghanistan, a war that ended not even nine months ago. So there you have it. It's a brief delivered to you not as though

you were in the White House this morning, but rather sitting wherever you might be, surrounded by your families and your communities, all of which will have to sacrifice by blood or treasure, if this big pivot escalates into a big war. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John, Chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Good day.

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