The Team House - The Truth on the Ground in Ukraine w/ Nate Vance | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

today we're joined by former marine Nate Vance. Nate spent the majority of the last 3 years in Ukraine initially helping the Mozart Group then serving with the Davinci Wolves for the last 2.5 years.New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.sociMusic by - Karl Casey @ White Bat AudioBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Yeah, I mean, the reasons, obviously, you know, you took her heart because three years ago this month, almost to the week, maybe to the week, you showed up and I got a message from you, text message saying you were showing up in Leviv with a group of British grunts. And then a few days later, I saw you in Kiev. So, and as we said, not inaccurately, you were one of the plankholders of the Mozart group. I mean, right at the beginning with the Russians knocking on the gates. And we were, we were setting up that, at the time seemed a hopelessly inadequate training course for, you know, for these guys. Yeah. IT workers, students, kids, remember. Is that the five day one?

Yeah, it was like five days, if that, right? Nate, I mean, it was, it was, I can't do somewhere between three and five days. Nowhere near enough. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes On here with Andy Milburn and Nate Vance and myself, Nate Vance, you might have heard. He's been in the news a little bit. Former Marine, of course, because we can't go at one show without having at least one former Marine on the show. He's been spent the last few years in Ukraine, fighting with the Ukraine.

fighting with the Ukrainian military, part of the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion. He was involved early on in Mozart. That's how Andy got to know him. And Nate, thanks for coming on the show, man. We really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, Nick, great's again.

Why don't you catch us up? Begin wherever you want to, man. First of all, let me just say, welcome home, and how's the last two weeks been for you? Well, the last week has been interesting. certainly not what I'm used to. But before that, I was camping in the mountains in the West. That was nice.

And then I opened my mouth and then that kind of ruined the camping trip. So here we are. We've become, I was always a fan of yours, of course, but even more so in the last week. How did all that kick off? Well, so I was with that unit that you mentioned. and there was a photographer, if I remember correctly, he was Spanish. But he was a good guy, and he followed us around for a while and, you know, took some pictures. And then, you know, he left and went off and did his own thing.

He was a freelance photographer. And then he got a job at LaFiguero. And then, you know, he went back to that unit. And I think those guys were like, hey, isn't it crazy that Nate's cousin is the VP now? And he was like, holy shit, what? You know, so he knew me, but he didn't. It's not like I walked around and introduced myself and said, by the way, you know, this is who I'm related to. So a lot of people probably didn't know.

And I generally like just kept my mouth shut about it. It's not really something you want to be telling people over there. You know, obviously like my commander, I knew because I was like I figured it was appropriate for him to know. And then obviously any of the American, you know, Westerners that were right near me knew because they knew what my last name was, right? they figured they'd figure it out. So anyway, yeah, you know, you know, the thing about is, look, I said what I said. They were pointed words.

I'm obviously kind of emotionally attached to the issue. But my goal is not to be adversarial with the White House for many reasons. not the least of which is that it's counterproductive. So, you know, as it pertains to that issue, I'm kind of like, I mean, I get it. Everybody's interested. It's one of those like headline kind of quotes. But moving forward, I think the goal should be less adversarial and more just like, how do we get to where we, you know, help these guys get what they need and solve the Russia problem as efficiently as possible. and honestly in this last week i've seen what appears to be things moving in the right direction

as far as you know like i was never under the any illusion that like you somebody's just going to wave a flag and be like i will really appreciate it if you guys stop shooting at each other and then both sides go yeah that sounds like a good idea and then they just stop it's going to be a process and this 30-day ceasefire is i don't honestly expect russia to honor it, but at least it shows, at least it'll show which side is the impediment to peace and which side isn't. And I think that's important. Yeah. And, you know, and honestly, what I saw of your comment was quite, it was fairly innocuous. It was simply, hey, just because I'm related to the vice president doesn't mean that I share his politics, you know, and it wasn't. And as, as you,

you know, as you pointed out, that you've certainly been emotionally involved in the war in Ukraine, involved. I mean, it's in, you know, without being emotionally involved. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I thought you were quite circumspect. Well, I think that, I think the headline grabbing one was the useful idiots one. I think that's the one that obviously is like, it sounds, it sounds like, you know, a hateful thing. I'm not calling my cousin or the president an idiot.

But looking at that meeting and some of the concessions that were made, it's, you know, a lot of what politics are involved with is perceptions. And the perception, it was kind of scary at that moment in time. And that's what I was, I was worried about the perception of being,

you know, being perceived as, as that title. So, you know, Has that been blowback since that? I mean, I don't really talk to anybody. So, you know what I mean?

I was out in the middle of nowhere, and I'm playing on staying there. There's a, there's, there's kind of a, you know, obviously on like Twitter, there's going to be, there's going to be people that don't like you on Twitter, no matter what the hell you say. So I don't really give it,

I don't really care if some idiot on Twitter's mad at me. Yeah, again, my only, but like, solitary goal really is to get those guys what they need and quit you know if we're going to allocate money quit wasting it on shit that is not involved with killing people and breaking things

and that may sound like a cold statement like an almost inhumane statement but that's what war is it's killing people and breaking their things and you can't kind of half-ass to support that effort if that's what you're doing if you're supporting their ability to defend themselves that's what you're supporting is their ability to people and break shit. And I just think we need, you know, like I'm very critical of the Biden administration and the way they kind of figured out how to spend $60 billion to deliver $20.

I don't know how they did that. That's some funky math. And trip feeding weapons systems. And getting the Russians time to adapt. And talking about it beforehand, right? Like, shut the hell up. Just one day, Atacem should have. just shown up and nobody knew about it and then it was there right yeah so you know keeping your

mouth shut delivering things in sufficient quantity and at the same time to actually have an impact is a big deal and i you know so i have i have significant complaints about them and did the entire time but i didn't have the same last name as anybody in the white house so certainly would have been as interesting to anybody when i said yeah Nate Harris yeah yeah maybe i should have changed my name to Nate, you know, Nate Biden and then fucking complained about it online. But, but, you know, so obviously that's why it's, it's more topical that I, that I, that I, that I made a complaint. And then, you know, I don't know. There's other reasons besides just getting those guys what they need that I think the Biden administration did a really piss poor job at explaining.

And some of it is messaging. And I don't think the general mass of the American public realizes kind of consequences of how it would affect American life if Russia were to, you know, emerge successful. And it's not, you, you would feel it, right? It would affect trade things. It would affect a lot of things. It would affect the dollar. So there's a lot of reasons besides my just emotional connection to it. And I don't think the Biden administration wasted three years trying to explain what those

reasons are. Yeah, I mean, the reasons, obviously, you, you know, you took her heart because three years ago this month, almost to the week, maybe to the week, you showed up and I got a message from you, text message saying you were showing up in Leviv with a group of British grunts. And then a few days later, I saw you in Kiev. So, and as we said, not inaccurately, you were one of the plankholders of the Mozart group. I mean, right at the beginning with the Russians knocking on the gates. And we were, we were setting up that, at the time seemed a hopelessly inadequate training course for, you know, for these guys. Yeah. IT workers, students, kids, remember.

Was that the five-day one? Yeah, it was like five days, if that, right? Nate, I mean, it was, it was constantly. I can't do. Somewhere between three and five days. Nowhere near enough. Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show.

If you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this. You can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com slash the teamhouse. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of the team house, add free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast, Eyes On, with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, McMulroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad-free. And you support the channel and the show, and we really appreciate it.

The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business, survive, especially during our early years. And you are what continues to help this thing going, even as we navigate the turbulent world of YouTube advertising. So we really appreciate all of you guys. There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page. And there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop. So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers and we also have patches. And I should mention, if you sign up for Patreon at $10 a month, we will mail you this patch as well. So we really appreciate that. But they're also for sale on the merch shop. And

additionally they got t-shirts up there water bottles a tote bag coffee mugs all that good stuff um so please go and check them out and support the show uh we really appreciate it guys thank you so you know i think it was either three or five days i can't remember we'd just got in the keve and then i had to turn right back around and go back to laviv when we decided to do that trading thing um but uh the that's one of the things too after I went and joined an infantry unit which looking back at my risk assessment you know strategy it was probably I probably have too high of a risk tolerance especially for my age but after doing that for a while that's one of the things that I really started to think about was like you know it like let's say I go out and every day you know I'm

engaging and eliminating 10 enemy right that would be a six significant amount of people. The Russians don't care. They don't care, right? So ultimately, any personal contribution in that regard is somewhat limited. And, you know, I am no super soldier, right? Like I was a basic infantryman and, you know, wasn't in 20 years. But I do have some like management experience. And between the military and that management experience, running a business is no different than running a military. It's just that the problems are different. So after the initial days of the Mozart group, you went back to Leviv and then you returned.

And when did you join a Ukrainian infantry unit? So, you know, I don't know if you recall, but we, I went with your guys and we went to Leviv and did that like three to five day training. Yeah. And then we came back to Kiev and we did a few other things. And I mean, gosh, this is a little long ago. It's hard to kind of keep track of exact specifics. But then I was actually scheduled to go home, right?

So I did. I went back to the U.S. for a couple weeks. And then I came back again. And then that's when I started getting linked up with that infantry unit was when I came back. And it actually had something to do with, I can't remember if the connection to that unit was through you or through some other people, but I think it may have been because we delivered some equipment out to Keeve.

And they were kind of the same thing. They had a bunch of new guys that were like, you know, soccer hooligans the week before. And good, eager kids, you know, I say kids, they're, you know, young enough to be my kids, but grown men. Extremely eager. And I think we did some, you know, again, like another short training evolution with those guys, nowhere near enough. And then they were headed to Donbass and they kind of extended an invite, so to speak,

for me to go. And I agreed to go. And that's kind of how I ended up out there and then decided to keep doing that. But what I was saying, though, was like, you know, we talk about sending equipment and technology and things like that over to Ukraine to support them. and information transfers the oldest form of technology that humans possess, right? Just transferring information from one human being to another is as old as time. But when you're talking about doing that on an organized level, it has to be systematized and things like that. And one of the things I've noticed is that each unit kind of has its own training protocol for a new recruit.

So like in the Marines, if you're going to go to 3-1, you go to boot camp first and then the school of infantry. And then by the time you show up at 3rd Battalion First Marines, you have at least achieved a minimum basic standard of an infantryman. And, you know, every squad leader will say, yeah, those guys are still idiots. But he's an idiot. If he's an idiot that knows how to load his magazine and get into a proper formation and move properly. and he knows basically how to communicate and things like that. And that takes a lot of stress and relief off of those individual unit commanders that they don't have to provide that basic level of training.

And then also one of the things that kind of Marines are known for is their consistency. So let's say, you know, an SF team calls for support or a QRF. And I've heard this many times is that when they hear its marine infantry coming, they know that it it's consistently going to be good and that Marines are consistently going to smash the fuck out of everything they see. And they're so when they hear that,

they're like, okay, that's a good thing. And it's not just good for those reasons. It's good because commanders know that when they pick on a unit to go do something, they know they're qualified to do at least X, Y, or Z.

And I think because a lot of those training, you know, training systems, are left up to individual units, just like anything else, you're going to get some that are really good and some units that really take a, you know,

in-depth dive into that training program, and then you're going to get some units that either because they're complacent or don't know how, just produce troops that don't know what the hell they're doing, right? And that gets people killed. And in terms of training people, if we were,

if we had in 2022, implemented and organized kind of train the trainer program, the Ukrainians would already be self-sufficient. So that's another kind of gripe I have with the Biden administration. It was an opportunity that was wasted to say, look, we're going to give you this aid, but you have to systematize your training program, and we have to know that the people that are going to handle these weapons are handling it and using them as efficiently as possible. and that's not to discredit the Ukrainians or say they haven't done incredible things with the amount of resources they've had and the problem that they're facing

but maybe it is the marine infantryman in me that just constantly thinks it's never fucking good enough and it can always be better what uh what was what was it like in the unit that you were with Nate I mean you talked about the the very inadequate training that we're able to do. I mean, did the unit, what was your general feeling about its competence, about its ability to regenerate the leadership? I mean, like, obviously I think things could improve, right? But it's difficult to criticize them because, like, it's weird. I want to criticize them, but in a constructive way. I don't want it to seem like I'm beating them over the head. and they're very open about their shortcomings too like internally.

I don't want to specify them because obviously they're still, you know, out there doing things. But one of the things that I've noticed that's very difficult to, how do I put this? So there's when it comes to mission planning, I think sometimes it needs to be more organized and structured. I think sometimes there's a lot of elements left out where if, you were looking at it from the standpoint of a of a u.s soldier you'd be like there's a lot of information missing here and sometimes i think younger troops might think like why the hell do i need

to know what the back as myth is back to friendly lines right well until it's a night time and you don't have you know you don't know how to get back and things go wrong right so there's a lot of those little details in a in a in a u.s mission plan that if everything goes if everything goes well 90% of that may be irrelevant to you. But when things start going wrong, it's like, oh, shit, I'm glad I had a pace plan. Right. You know, if the enemy kills one of your guys, it takes the radio. You know, a pace plan is a pretty big deal.

And I've seen that happen, right? And some of the things like pace plan in general, that's one of those deals where military-style comms, instead of just running with Motorola's, that could solve a lot of that right but you got 10 different units in an area and you got motor roller radios with 10 channels and if you switch channels you're on another units freak right so you know the the comms makes it difficult to make those planning things and then I'll give you another example of one where in a salt element kind of got dropped off at

the wrong place and there was some kind of confusion and telling the guys where to go. And they ended up not going the right way, right? And I remember I carry, I still carry a compass and ranger beads on my gear anytime I leave the house and I'm really going to do something, right? And I'm constantly looking on a map like, okay, what's the magnetic asthma to get to this next safe place and things like that? And that was one of those situations where had it been a U.S. squad, everybody has

a camanga fucking compass on their shit on there hanging off their their chest and you could have just told somebody just go you know 270 degrees for 400 meters and you're going to be right where you need to be and there's no thought there's no confusion discussion right and it just happens um and by by virtue of that confusion and those guys not going to where they went things ended badly right so um it's little details like that that you you don't think of and and even now in modern times you know things like Landnav people go why would I need that way of GPS but it doesn't always

work right and in that case maybe maybe that GPS was getting jammed there maybe that's why they went the wrong way because they had their little tablet that they were working off of that was GPS based so those little details

that most people would think well just teach them out to shoot a gun and teach them out to dig a fighting hole and they're good to go that's not enough right right like I can teach you how to shoot a rifle in a day but that's not enough when you've got to start moving around

and doing things like that and that when I say communications I'm not talking about radios it's how to how to speak to each other to deliver a message as quickly and concisely as possible we are you the only American in the unit name

no no but there wasn't very many there was just a handful of Westerners it yeah the normally it was about three of us and then guys would kind of come and go and do different things but it was primarily a Ukrainian unit can you talk a little bit about so when you first joined the unit what what were you guys doing I mean where roughly where were you and

what was like a typical daylight when we first joined the unit they were not actually part of the Ukrainian army proper yet right they were one of those like religious groups so to speak so what they were doing was more like going out and finding things and then reporting that to proper army units. And the reason that worked that way is because you couldn't get organic artillery as a part of your unit unless you were part of the Ukrainian army, right? So you could work adjacent to other, you know, actual army units. And then what happened is, you know, the battalion commander at the time, which is Da Vinci. That's how the unit got its name.

No kidding. Yeah. So, and he was like the equivalent of a Medal of Honor recipient in Ukraine, right? Like he had the nation's highest award. So he wanted his own organic artillery. So then they ended up getting rolled up under another unit. But prior to that, it was like a lot of drone stuff and just finding targets and relaying those to, you know, bigger units. and then letting them smash the hell out of stuff with artillery.

And then as we got rolled up into the Army, you know, it's like, okay, now you're an infantry unit. And I was like, well, things are going to be a little bit more, things are going to get a little bit more spicy because they're going to ask, you know, once you get tasked with starting to take positions, that's a different ball of wax altogether. So then that's what they asked us to start doing. So things got a little bit. Interesting.

I got a question. What does it mean to take up positions? I'm sorry. No, that means there's bad guys in a spot and you have to go kill them and occupy the space that they're currently occupying.

Got it. Sorry, Andy. Yeah, we, so are you rotating out of, out of the trenches and then back to the rear? I mean, what was? Yeah, I mean, so like, if you look at it, it's almost like, almost like the U.S. military where you have like a deployment system right so you know a unit will go to the front and you'll

get assigned a position that maybe maybe it's already held by ukrainians and you're just relieving guys or maybe there's russians in it and they want you to go kick them out and then and then hold it right so you go on your deployment and then you drive out to whatever area of the front they were sending you to and you'd either occupy your position or take your position and then within that deployment you would have like a little rotation system where you might spend it you know like one day on two days off right and you you'd kind of take turns doing that and each unit has their own little different kind of system of rotations where they would put guys out there and uh that's what you do until you either got relieved by another unit or unfortunately you experienced enough casualties where you kind of had to pull off the line and and then go get kind of, you know, new recruits and repopulate and retrain and

get back after it. So it's, it's, you know, I don't want to give the impression that you're just sitting there in a hole in a gunfight 365 days a year. That's not, if that's your life, it's not going to be a very long life. You know, so. So they are, at least in that unit, they did take, they did go to pretty good lengths to make sure guys weren't getting burnout in positions and just sitting there, you know, because it will wear you down. I mean, you can't just stay there in that environment for too long.

How long were you with them, total? With them from the time I left you until just recently. So, you know, two years. Yeah, I mean, I didn't. There was a couple. times where I did kind of bounce around like I I met some guys in a drone unit and I was like hey why don't you just what you know they were they were pretty good dudes and like really fucking adept with that drone stuff so I kind of talked those guys into letting me almost be like a

foreign exchange student with them for a while you know what I mean so I was like you know it wasn't very long but I went with them and just kind of you know tried to see what they were doing and pick their brains on their drone in and they're very gracious about it i mean they're very eager to share information and but but it's interesting that a lot of the developments and like ttps are happening at an individual unit level and not i mean i don't speak the language so there's a lot of that i miss right yeah it didn't seem like you had ttps being driven from top down where if one unit learns it. One unit learns something valuable and then it goes up the chain and then gets disseminated back down to everybody. It didn't seem like that was happening as efficiently as it would

in the US. But then again, I could be wrong, right? Like there's certain elements of stuff that I don't have access to. So Nate, you won't mind me saying, but you're in your 40s, right? I'm 45. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, how are you integrated into this unit? Were you at squad level? and I mean, were there enough English speakers in the unit? There was some in the unit. So typically, I was a machine gunner in the Marines. So I'm pretty handy with machine guns. And, you know, trying to explain to a layperson what, like, grazing enflage fire is,

is confusing enough in English. It's extra confusing in a foreign language. So, but what we did is because, like, you know, If you're assaulting a position, right, where you're having to communicate dynamically and, you know, scream orders rapidly change and things like that. That's not a good place to have somebody who's speaking their second language, try to communicate with the one idiot that came over from America. And so because I was good with machine guns,

I typically ended up in that support by fire role. Because you don't really have to, you don't really have to know. There's not a lot of communication. It's like, hey, suppress. this area. Yeah, Roger that. And then you surprise, you know, or if the enemy advanced, it's pretty easy to know what to do. It's like, well, there they are, you know, do that thing you do with the machine guns. And, and then we'd usually have like the one of the English-speaking Ukrainians in the unit that would be our chaperon that would communicate with headquarters

on the radio. And then, you know, that guy didn't really have to do anything except keep communicating with them. And typically, like I said, the machine gun thing's pretty easy to do. Sometimes we were doing support by fire with just rifles because we didn't have machine guns all the time. So. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. What kind of machine guns did they have when they had them? We started out with just PKMs. And then we got some French 50 calibers, right? A couple of them. And I remember when they got them, I was actually back in the States. And these were the old style. They're not like the A1s where you don't have to do the headspace and timing.

so these were the old ones and i remember sending messages and i was like do not fucking shoot them right like wait until like and they shot them and they had problems like from that point on i think they didn't i don't know maybe they could have been screwed up and old to begin with yeah but i i i i we got them to cycle but they just they were they were never quite that you know quite running the way of audous should properly run and then we ended up getting some a ones later which were great but another thing is like you know you have to run the barrel that's assigned to that receiver on those A1s it's got two barrels and you can't mix and match them and just swap them out and that was one of the

things in the battalion the battalion got a bunch of them and all of them were having problems and I was like all right look at the serial number on the barrel and I'll look at the serial number is it the same number and they're like no and I was like all right take all the fucking barrels off right now before we break these things. You know, and I mean, you know, the M2's an incredible weapon, but she's a little bit finicky. Yeah, yeah, she can be, you know what I mean? But as long as you treat her right, she's great. And then we ended up getting a few

Mark 19s, which are, God, I love that thing. But I don't like carrying it. And that's that's you know i finally got to use a mark 19 in an environment where it was like appropriate right where it was like that's that's the perfect place for martin 19s is over there and it was also the place where i'm now in my 40s and you can't afford to drive a vehicle anywhere where you can use the mart 19 so it's like god damn it you know what i mean now i got to carry this heavy bitch everywhere um So, but, you know, if you can get that thing in a position and know how to use it, it is, it makes a difference for sure. So I ended up, like, that's another thing, too, is like, you got to be careful at telling them what you're good at, or demonstrating what you're good at, because we did use the Martin 19 one time to great success.

And then the Martin 19 became the solution for everything. And I'm like, well, slow down. You know what I mean? I'm not carrying this bitch every. You know what you know? Let's not get carried away. But, but, you know, after a while, it just gets to a point where when you're in that support role, you know, some of the guys, the guys you're supporting are in significantly more danger than you are. So, as heavy as that piece of shit is.

Sure. You know, you get, you really feel obligated to get it to where it needs to be and get it up and run it. Yeah, it's a perfect role for you, really. I mean, given, given, you know, I mean, given your age, given, but given your expertise and given the fact that they did. That was within, within that unit, that's where I, that's where I belonged, right? Like, that was the right place to happen. And then, you know, after a while, I started training the guys on the, on the, on the Martin 18. Again, Martin 19 is a simple machine itself, but understanding the mill system in the T&E.

and how to use it and how to calculate it. And then, you know, things like time of flight, you can't shoot where the guys are. You got to shoot where they're going to be. Because it's, you know, it two clicks. It's 15 seconds of flight time. You can cover quite a bit of ground in 15 seconds. So, but, you know, those guys are quick studies and they're eager.

And they want to, they're like sponges, man. They want to soak up as much stuff as they possibly can. So. What were you impressed? Of the Russians. You know, I know in the first year of the war, the Ukrainians were very scornful of the Russian infantry. You know, their general combatants.

Did that change? Look, there's always the kind of natural dehumanization of your enemy, which I completely understand. But when you're, if you're being logical and you're trying to, you have an opponent, you have to realize, like, They don't want to die either. Their ability to deduce things and calculate things are just as good as yours are. You know what I mean?

And you're much better off if you presume your enemy is better at doing this than you are. You know, that will affect your planning if you think these guys are really good. If you think they're idiots, you'll wander right into a trap. So it's like my outlook on it was always assume that the enemy, element that you're going up against is the best they have and treat them like they're better than you are and you'll tend not to forget as many things or take as many shortcuts if you do it that way but you know if i'm giving an honest assessment about the russians some of them are terrible troops like some of them are just cannon fodder that they throw out there but trying to paint

the the russian military with a broad brush and just saying they all suck if they all suck that bad. What are they still doing in Ukraine? Why haven't you pushed them out? And they're very much, you know, kind of in the same vein of the Ukrainians, they have really effective units and then they have, you know, some pretty dog shit units. The problem is you don't know which one you're coming up against on any given day. So you may as well just assume that it's their best and plan accordingly. And that's... It's really good with artillery. I mean, from the beginning of the war they could bring down artillery very quickly they could yeah yeah um artillery is something that

they will not hesitate to use mortars are also they're a really good mortar men i think on both sides of the on both sides of the conflict you probably have some of the best mortar men and some of the best artillerymen on earth right now um they've certainly had enough practice um i think the russians suffer a little bit from the same communication problem right i don't think they have enough like military style communication to kind of go around and that sometimes kind of saved us a little bit because there were times where I was like it's coming any minute and it never it never came you know

so and the only thing I can kind of chalk that up to is the message didn't get to where it needed to be or there was just another higher priority target somewhere else it's hard to know you know I mean it's really hard to kind of figure out why why something didn't happen. But I have heard, you know, that, like, we've intercepted communications that they were using and they were like, you know, civilian radio. They weren't frequency hopping or encrypted. So some of those units are using just civilian radios, which that kind of indicates to me that there's not enough real military comms to go around.

And then I've also found places that have been liberated where I saw old style comms. wire laid everywhere. So in some places, they're using field phones, which is not necessarily a bad idea. But, you know, with as much artillery is going around, those wires are going to get cut fairly often, you know, which interrupts their ability to call out for that kind of support. It's a weird. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say it's a weird conflict.

You know what I mean? Like, in some ways you're surprised in multiple different directions, right? you're surprised by how seemingly inefficient the Russian army can be. And then in other areas, you're surprised. You're like, man, they didn't know they could pull that off. So, you know, it's a weird mix. Pockets of unexpected excellence. Just when you don't need it.

Yeah, well, yeah. But, I mean, you know, you got to think that somebody in there knows what they're doing, right? Like I think there are dumb Russians. Some of them are high-ranking officials in the Russian army. But Russians are not by definition dumb people, right? They're really smart people. And honestly, it helps you more to recognize their intelligence than it does to constantly speak about their stupidity. If you think they're stupid, you'll take them lightly and lighter than you should.

right so you need to recognize like i get the dehumanization thing i get making jokes on social media and making fun of the other side but if you're a planner you need to plan like they're like they're dangerous because they are i mean they're they're good at a lot of things nay what was the uh what was medical support like i mean i i asked that because i know certainly during the first year of the war, the Ukrainians were struggling with having enough trained medics. I mean, how was it in your unit? The concept of training medics, that got corrected fairly quickly. The problem then became certain supply issues, like whole blood products.

And, you know, like one thing that I was never able to get my hands on was an easy I.O. kid. which could have saved a lot of people right like you know sometimes you just can't start an IV on somebody so little things like that but I mean you also have to think it's it genuinely is a supply and demand issue there's a lot of demand for medical kit and it's getting it's getting used up it's not like it's just sitting in a stockpile right it's getting used constantly um and then the the the main issue with medical that I see now is evacuation. So a lot of those areas where guys get wounded, it's just really hard to get a vehicle in there.

And sometimes there's just not enough time to, you know, carry a litter out or you can't carry a litter out because you can't move quick enough to avoid the gauntlet of artillery and mortar fire that's going to come your way if you try. And there's times we did try. and it didn't work and we just couldn't do it. So evacuation and whole blood products, like if you can't take the time,

having whole blood products in a lot of cases will keep guys alive long enough to figure something else out. Yeah. You know, if there's a system to get whole blood products all the way up to the zero line in an efficient manner, save a lot of lives.

And I, you know, you know, I did back away from the front once my cousin got the shoulder, tap to be the VP just because, you know, I was like, well, I need to, but, you know, so I don't know if anything's dramatically changed in that time frame or not, but I haven't heard anything like the situation's improving there, but, yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I remember when, you know, just during the first year, when we were trying to teach them about casualty collection points, and they were saying, are you crazy? If we set up a casualty collection point, it's a

That's swat. That's insanity. Yeah. You've got to evacuate the guy from point of injury as, you know, and all the way back. All the way outside of artillery range is where your CCP needs to be. And it's really hard to do. You know what I mean? Like there's legitimately not really an answer for it.

You know, a lot of those areas are just getting laced up with like, you know, ATGMs all the time. time, right? You hear them whizzing over your head all the time. So you're like, dude, if we bring in a, if we bring in an N1-1-3 to this spot, it's just going to get smacked and we're going to have more casualties, right? And still no evac, right? So it's one of those shitty decisions you have to make, but you're like, we can't bring a vehicle up here. And this guy needs it. We can't do it. We've got to try to figure out another way or just keep them alive long enough until we can figure something else out and it doesn't always work and it's a it's a shit spot to be in but that's the reality of it

Nate what's what's your uh what's kind of your your um i was going to say prediction there's no other way to put in but i mean what what do you think will make a a good peace deal at this point in the war i know earlier on when you were talking about your your comments and the fact that you didn't want to be too critical the white house because it wasn't about that But I know you tried to make constructive comments about what you envision a working plan to look like. Do you mind going over that for us? Unfortunately, I don't think there is really a – there's no lasting peace plan that doesn't involve significant teeth. Because I don't think Putin has any – I don't think he has any – I don't think he has any –

like for me that I have no illusions about the fact that Putin intends on continuing this at some point, right? I think the only reason Putin might be, you know, amenable to a temporary peace plan or something that kind of halts hostilities is because, you know, his industry and his forces need to rearm and regroup. I think in this, they have a similar necessity to do so that the Ukrainians do. you know like you don't see any more mtlbs on the line anymore right that's that's a significant thing that the goddamn russian army ran out of mtlbs right that's that's like they had thousands you want to just explain with mtlb is is it mtlb is like uh it's kind of like the russian equivalent of what we would look at as you know just an armored personnel carrier and kind of colloquially we refer to them as like a combat taxi.

So if you're going to send assault troops up to the front, you might send BMPs to kind of give them some fire support. And then MTOBs with a bunch of dudes in the back and they pile out. And you know what I mean? It's just a poor casualty evacuation, right? So you might just send them up there. They're cheap, not particularly heavily armored or armed. But it's armored enough to protect you from like small arms. And you can haul ass up to the front line, pick up a casual.

as he turned around and haul ass back. And the Russian army had thousands of those things at the beginning of the war. And you're seeing the Russians use don't replace them. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that, I don't know how wide scale it is, but you are starting to see videos that the Russians are putting online of them using donkeys to bring supplies up to the front and bring them back. That was the typical role of like the MTLB all the way up to this point. So you're starting to see them less and less.

There might be a few of them still out there. I'm not saying they have zero. But if guys are having to resort to using pack animals, it's almost like that scene in Patton, in the movie Patton where George C. Scott says, you know how I knew it was the end for them? It was the carts. And then he goes into some diatribe about how he was present with Napoleon.

You know, but that's like when I started seeing the donkeys, that's the scene the movie scene I thought of and kind of internally it was quoting was like Jesus Christ you know how bad does it have to be where you're like I'll get on a donkey and go out in FPV drone land

and make a resupply run you know the logistics problems have to be pretty bad for it to get to that point so I think the Russians do need a break but I don't think that their long-term intentions are to pause right like it's just a half-time show for them

and I mean And when you really... Sorry, going. And when you really look at it, this is not a three-year-old conflict, right? This conflict's been going on for a long time. Even before 2014, right? Before 2014, it was the, you know, the old school kind of so... You know, I know it's not Soviet anymore because the Soviet Union was gone,

but they were using those same tactics of kind of trying to destabilize the government and, you know, using subterfusion propaganda to kind of... turn Ukraine into a vassal state that pissed him off so then they said okay well we'll create a little rebellion in the east which was full of Russian troops right those weren't like rebels from Ukraine

some of them were you know what I mean but there was Russian special forces in there doing things which Russia denied and is obviously bullshit how did just random rebels get a hold of Russian artillery pieces right it doesn't make any sense like where did the BMPs come from so obviously that was a Russian operation. That didn't work. They took Crimea, you know, things still didn't

change, right? Ukraine's still progressively moving more and more towards the West. And finally, I think they just kind of jumped the shark in 2022, but the conflict's significantly older than that. And it just escalated from, can we do this the easy way? And they kept kind of realizing, no, this isn't going to work. This isn't going to work. So they kept doing it the harder and harder and harder way and now we're in a full-scale invasion and you know I think if there's a momentary momentary piece you'll there will be another sugar in the basement moment and they'll blame it on the Ukrainians and that will be their excuse to kick it off again when they're ready so you know the only thing I think they respect is force or the credible threat of force

that's insurmountable and if they don't see that then they'll do whatever they want. Yeah, two great points you drew from that. Nate, or rather I drew from what you just said. One is the point that lost in this whole strange conversation now about peace negotiations, not involving the Ukrainians, et cetera, et cetera, lost in that morass is the fact that the Russians are hurting badly. Their economy is hurting. The military has been decimated and the number of vehicles that they have lost is just a staggering amount and to say, hey, they have plenty of left now. It no longer applies.

Their industry obviously cannot keep up with the scale of losses. The war is very unpopular at home. It's too easy to forget that by focusing on Ukraine's problems. And the other part that anyone who's dealt with the Russians, knows it's true is the fact that no they do not respect a desire for peace they don't care about that they respect they respect fear and Putin especially no but look they also respond to fear as well right deterrence works it works it worked during the Cold War but that but that deterrence has to be credible and powerful enough to to to be effective as a

return, right? And it has to be powerful and effective enough to act as a deterrent five years from now after, you know, Russia's had the opportunity to to kind of rebuild and rearm themselves and implement their lessons learned over the course of this conflict. So it's a significant investment to keep them where they are. Because, you know, if you take Ukraine right now and we just like, let's say there was a piece and we just say, okay, good, you guys are good and we just leave, right? and their military kind of stays the same way it is right now well russas is not going to stay the same way it is they're going to continue to improve they are smart so they will implement those lessons learn they will rebuild and they'll come back you know stronger than they are today so you know whatever the teeth is that you put in there and i'm not a strategist right like i'm really not so i kind of loath trying to say what the specifics are that that that exactly needs to be But it needs to be something that's strong enough to where, you know, whatever Russia is going to have five years from now,

it's strong enough to make them pause and say it's not worth it. Right. Yeah. And, you know, I don't know what that looks like that we have guys with stars on their collars in the Pentagon, you know, they need to determine that. But if we are going to say, you know, and again, this is like, you know, this is all outside my wheelhouse necessarily but if we are going to say hey you know we're going to sign this peace plan and we're going to back it if Russia breaks it um whatever that backing is has to have clearly define strategic goals attached to it that if they break it what does that mean what are we going to do um what does that mean for russia do we push them all the way back do we make that does that now mean that you can't we're going to kick you out of primea you know and whatever that those goals are it needs to be something that's more than an executive order it needs to be like signed into law

almost because it passed you know like the the the bad part about this and what i don't want to have happen and i think this is bad for our like long-term you know foreign policy reputation is that if we say you know if america says we have your back we got to have it right and the first time you bail out of that the effort that it takes to get your reputation back with other countries that you may need to be in that area of the world is Herculian, right? You can damage your reputation in 10 seconds, and it takes decades to build it back up. So that's part of it where I look at like, you know, when people say, what is America's purpose and all this? Like some of it is just

salvaging our own reputation or just maintaining our own reputation. We said, as a country, we got your back. You know, more than one. right we said it in the budapest memorandum and then we said it in 2022 again even if it was a different president that's in there right now um the rest of the world doesn't care that there was a administration change right they just look at it and say well america's wishy-washy and you can't rely on yeah so containing an adversary is an important strategic goal no i mean it's and this is one of those things that i am upset with the biden administration because they did not clearly define to the American people why Russia is our adversary.

And they did a very good job talking about kind of the human, you know, the human interest part of it. But there's a certain amount of the population that is more transactional. I'm not saying that as a negative thing, right? They just look at it and go, what's the cost-benefit analysis of why we're in financial, in purely financial terms, which is. not even necessarily just financial terms, but like, okay, well, you know, how does this affect, like, why is this beneficial to America? They all, you know, a certain portion of the population that understands, like, I get it, killing people's bad, but there's lots of evil in the world. Why is it in America's interest to be involved in this particular part of the world? And I don't think they did a good enough job.

And the Russian propaganda machine was constantly churning out bullshit during the entire conflict. and, you know, they're not really responding to it effectively. They just go, you know, it's sad, but that's not some people are, that's not what motivates them to make a decision, right? And, you know, like it's not good or bad. I think that's what's great about our country is you kind of have those two conflicting things kind of working against each other. And somewhere in the middle is where the right answer lies.

If you're purely emotional, that's a bad place to be. That's how I made some pointed comments about my cousin the other day, and it got me a lot of unwanted attention. But if you're purely clinical, then sometimes you kind of lose your humanity. So I think that that's what makes us good as a country. We can be that marketplace of ideas and figure out a middle ground that tends to work. And we end up doing the right thing, maybe after we've done the wrong thing over and over again. But like Winston Churchill said, you know.

And be relied on. on to do the right thing after exhausting every other possibility. Yeah, yeah. Couldn't remember the exact quote, but, but, but, you know, as long as at the end of the day, we, we do the right thing, I'm happy. And, you know, honestly, like, I can't, I'm not in a position to move the needle or affect policy or anything like that. But if I see the country doing something and I think it's wrong, you know, I think we're

moving in the wrong direction. I think it's not only our right, but kind of our obligation to speak up. And in this particular case, and in this particular political issue, when I do it, it tends to gain some attention. Well, you continuously underplay yourself, Nate. I'll tell you that. And when I first met you and we were talking over a coffee in Kiev and asked you to help with training. I remember you saying, hey, I can't remember much about being a Marine at all. And yet, and yet I will say this, once you, once you, you threw yourself into it, it came very naturally to you, you know, so. Well, like I've said in some other publications that that's a testament to the Marine Corps, honestly.

That's one of those things. You know, I hadn't, I hadn't seen a Mark 19 in 20 something years. And I got one delivered to me in a box, set it up on its tripod, and the following day was engaging tar. gets two kilometers away that I couldn't see with a compass and a fucking bubble level. And that says something about the Marine Corps, you know, professionalism and their level of training. I wouldn't have thought I could do that, right? I wouldn't have thought that it would get back into my head. But, you know, when you have some surly sergeant being like, oh, I don't, oh, you're tired,

shut the fuck up and do it again anyway. You know what I mean? That's what happens is 20, 20 years later, you know, you can still remember to do. that and and you know it that was one of the things that's kind of weighed on me a little bit and what's made me think if we're not giving those Ukrainian troops those Ukrainian conscripts the that level of training we're doing them a disservice and it's something that can be achieved it's hard it's hard to set up the infrastructure for it but it can be done and it kind of must be done. And if you're not doing it, you're, you're not giving them everything that you can. And that's,

that's unacceptable to me. I got a question. How many weeks are like new Ukrainian recruits getting in terms of training before they're, man, I don't think that there's a consistent answer to that. Oh, wow. I don't know. You know, like I know sometimes there was some examples of guys that got like maybe two weeks and then thrown out there. And, you know, I'm not trying to cause a big stink or do anything like that. There is a certain assessment. involved, you know, with the Ukrainians. And I think they genuinely want to do everything they can. But I think that there's no, there's no singular like training kind of pipeline

and there needs to be, which is also very difficult to set up because you got an enemy that's slinging fucking missiles at everything strategically valuable. So you'd have to kind of break that apart and have like a bunch of little small training things and then maintaining a consistency between each little individual pipeline would be difficult, but it's, it's, it's not as difficult as going into the, going to the front lines, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, available bit of information that we can. Well, Nate, thanks.

Thanks so much. You know, I talked about you underplaying yourself as a trainer of Ukrainians, but you've also underplayed yourself in, you know, you're talking about your recent comments. I would say you're an articulate and credible voice, and especially, you know, with your background, not even talking about your relatives in the White House. I'm just talking about the fact that it's, you know, you're the right person, the right moment to say the things that you have said because people cannot argue with.

You're getting embarrassed now because, of course, you know, we don't flatter one another as Marines. But thank you. Anyway, that was great seeing you again. And I want to, I can't let you go without thanking you for your statements that helped me win that lawsuit against our friends. friend Michael Ryan Burke. Do you remember the, you know, the rapist? Yeah, I remember. Yeah, no, I mean, like, just, I don't know, like the questions, you know, I was asked some questions and that's the truth. And I was like, well, yeah, I'll make the statement on that. So that's, yeah, he's, he's, unfortunately, he escaped justice and he is back in the States and doing a job that would

horrify you to know but at least uh you know at least we did the right thing at the time so appreciate that no no no problem so you guys thanks for having me i do kind of got to get running i got to yeah absolutely matter today so but i appreciate it Nate appreciate it man thank you thank you all the best Nate drive safely all right thanks