Speaker 1: Or fifty five KR CD talk station fifty five krsee
Speaker 1: dot com for podcasts when you can't listen live hour
Speaker 1: and a half with Congressman Brad Winsterrip now retired, on
Speaker 1: the whole COVID investigation. Scary scary stuff. Get it at
Speaker 1: fifty five cars dot com. It's well worth to listen
Speaker 1: if you didn't listen live, and of course my conversation
Speaker 1: right now. First of the year, in a very happy
Speaker 1: new year, it is time for the Daniel Davis Deep
Speaker 1: Dive with retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis. Great to see
Speaker 1: your face, my friend, and a happy new Year to you.
Speaker 2: I'll mean twenty twenty five to you, bron been missing you, man.
Speaker 1: I know I listen, man, I read the news, and
Speaker 1: every time I see a story, most notably about Ukraine
Speaker 1: and Russia, which were going to talk about it again today,
Speaker 1: it's like, God, I wish I had Daniel around it
Speaker 1: just exchange ideas about this, because you know you and
Speaker 1: I have been back and forth on this, and let's
Speaker 1: start with the article you afforded me to talk about
Speaker 1: as a springboard. Ukraine is bringing war back to Russia,
Speaker 1: as Lensky says after New kurse offensive, And there was
Speaker 1: an observation in here because you have pointed out time
Speaker 1: and time again that you know, Ukraine can't beat Russia.
Speaker 1: They don't have the equipment, they don't have the guys,
Speaker 1: they don't have the hardware.
Speaker 2: What in the hell are they doing in Russia? Anyway?
Speaker 1: And I see this line here the Institute for the
Speaker 1: Study of War think tank report of the Ukraine intensified
Speaker 1: its offensive operations in Kursk through Monday. Here's the point,
Speaker 1: with Russian forces elsewhere in the region launching their own
Speaker 1: fresh attacks on the Ukrainian salient, So you're not minding
Speaker 1: your own backyard. You're busy going into Russia for reasons
Speaker 1: unknown to me, while the Russians are making advances in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Does that make any sense from a strategic standpoint? Daniel Kind, That.
Speaker 3: Didn't make any sense from any viewpoint. And it's actually worse.
Speaker 3: I did an update literally just minutes before joining you
Speaker 3: here right now to get the latest tactical updates all
Speaker 3: in that situation, and it's gotten really ugly, really fast,
Speaker 3: because I knew already what was reported was that roughly
Speaker 3: a company size element and that means maybe twenty five
Speaker 3: total combat vehicles, tanks, on our personnel carriers, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Everybody in the West was calling this a big offensive.
Speaker 3: Zelensky was talking about it like it was an offensive.
Speaker 3: This was a small tactical counter attack. Really, all is
Speaker 3: what you can say that used to be in some
Speaker 3: circles is considered normal in any kind of a fight
Speaker 3: where you have one side on the offense and on
Speaker 3: the defense, but the defensive side will launch local counter
Speaker 3: attacks to try to reposition the defense or to try
Speaker 3: to blunt something that the offensive side is doing, et cetera.
Speaker 2: The Ukraine hasn't.
Speaker 3: Been doing any of those anywhere for most of the
Speaker 3: year of twenty twenty four, and they tried one here
Speaker 3: at the last minute. But here's the problem. It made
Speaker 3: a very small incursion. It was blunted almost immediately overnight.
Speaker 3: Part of that what they had captured has already been lost.
Speaker 3: And then because they had to take forces from one
Speaker 3: part of the Kerk salients to the other part, Russia
Speaker 3: immediately recognized it, launched a fresh attack of their own,
Speaker 3: and last night headache huge swath in the northern part
Speaker 3: of that to further knock them out of the Kursk saleant.
Speaker 3: So the net is a loss in Ukraine, in the Kursk,
Speaker 3: and as you pointed out, it's still continuing to be
Speaker 3: a loss in the.
Speaker 1: Eastern Front and in the meantime in the fog of war.
Speaker 1: I constantly mention that during our discussions, because honestly, I
Speaker 1: don't know what to believe anymore. I never have known
Speaker 1: what to believe. You hear a X number of people die,
Speaker 1: this number of people died. This one says thirty eight
Speaker 1: thousand Russian troopsmen killed or wounded fighting in the western
Speaker 1: curs region. Seriously, I don't know that there doesn't since
Speaker 1: a pro Ukraine article I suppose leans that way. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't know how many of the Ukrainians have died
Speaker 1: in that particular offensive either, But do you think there's
Speaker 1: any legitimacy to that figure.
Speaker 3: It's really impossible to tell, because you have the Russian size,
Speaker 3: by the ways claiming there's somewhere around pardon me, fifty
Speaker 3: to sixty thousand Ukrainians who have been killed since saw
Speaker 3: I guess when they first made this incursion.
Speaker 2: And there's no way to independently verify either one of.
Speaker 3: Them, except that it makes sense to suggest that the
Speaker 3: side that is attacking into the other is the attacker
Speaker 3: almost always has a higher casualty count when you're especially
Speaker 3: making any incursion, but then once after block the third
Speaker 3: week of this, so so from late August on it's
Speaker 3: been kind of a skirmish back and forth, and the
Speaker 3: side that has the most firepower is going to inflict
Speaker 3: the most casualties. And so it's entirely possible that it's
Speaker 3: near equivalent between.
Speaker 2: The two sides, but that's just speculation. There's no way
Speaker 2: to know what it is.
Speaker 3: The only thing we can say because it's conclusive, is
Speaker 3: that we see that the territory is shrinking almost.
Speaker 2: By the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's one thing I have observed, which is
Speaker 1: a reflection of sort of the reality that you've been
Speaker 1: talking about since we've been discussing this conflict.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The other thing I observe in correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: there's so much of this information comes out. They use again,
Speaker 1: the were Ukrainians some of those longer range missiles that
Speaker 1: we supplied them with, and my reading of the information
Speaker 1: was that the Russians shot them down. And we've talked
Speaker 1: about this before. What's the point of giving them these
Speaker 1: longer range missiles. If they have the ability, the demonstrably
Speaker 1: proven ability to shoot them out of the sky before
Speaker 1: they land on anything. We're wasting money and resources giving
Speaker 1: them a tool of war that isn't effective.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean that's one of the things that
Speaker 3: I've been lamenting for quite some time now, because there
Speaker 3: is a disconnect between the heart what Ukrainians want, what
Speaker 3: Western leaders want, and then what is graphically evident on
Speaker 3: the battlefield and what is possible And you have to
Speaker 3: take the emotion out of it and do a cold
Speaker 3: hearted calculation military power, What is the balance between the
Speaker 3: two forces, what is the capabilities for offense and defense,
Speaker 3: et cetera, And then you can say, all what is
Speaker 3: possible here? Unfortunately, that calculation is never made in the West.
Speaker 3: It certainly hasn't been for a long long time, and
Speaker 3: they keep taking actions that they want to achieve a
Speaker 3: certain outcome, oblivious to the fact that as is going
Speaker 3: on right now in the Kerk Salient, the opposite is
Speaker 3: is being manifest on the battlefield.
Speaker 2: And look, they're losing everywhere.
Speaker 3: You're talking about Trump coming in here now less than
Speaker 3: three weeks and everybody's wanting him to have this great negotiation,
Speaker 3: but right now his hand, when the day he assumes
Speaker 3: power is going to be, is weaker by the day
Speaker 3: because of the unreality that's clouding the judgment of the
Speaker 3: people who are calling the shots in the war.
Speaker 1: Well, and not only that, you have I won't call
Speaker 1: it victories, but you have progress being made on the
Speaker 1: Russian side. The longer they this battle rages, the more
Speaker 1: territory they seem to be taking over. So you know,
Speaker 1: I can imagine Putin just saying, well, wait a second,
Speaker 1: why would have want to negotiate you with over piece
Speaker 1: unless you start giving me a giant chunk of Ukraine
Speaker 1: return for it.
Speaker 2: You got it. That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: That's the dilemma that's gonna face Trump when he comes
Speaker 3: in that his emissary for the Rush of Ukraine War,
Speaker 3: General Kellogg, was supposed to have landed in Kiev today
Speaker 3: to start setting the stage for that, but he was
Speaker 3: changed his mind.
Speaker 2: And was recalled.
Speaker 3: They didn't explain why, but I think it's because they're
Speaker 3: reevaluating what's going on in the Trump team, because they're saying,
Speaker 3: hang on, right now, we can't we might not even
Speaker 3: be able to get what I'm calling the June fourteenth
Speaker 3: line that Putin laid out this summer, where he said
Speaker 3: he's gonna have all of those four old blasts, even
Speaker 3: the parts they don't currently control, or they'll just keep
Speaker 3: fighting and take it by force.
Speaker 2: But here's the problem, Brian, if we go.
Speaker 3: Down that path, they won't stop at those four old blasts.
Speaker 3: So that is the real dilemma for Trump. Either negotiate
Speaker 3: away something that Ukraine hasn't lost yet but stop there,
Speaker 3: or try to get a better deal and end up
Speaker 3: losing even more.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, let's pivot over to Zelensky. The name of
Speaker 1: the article. It's by Kate Surkhan. Zelenski takes on Putin
Speaker 1: apologists US skeptics on three hour Lex Friedman podcast. I
Speaker 1: guess we would follow the category of US skeptics this morning, Daniel.
Speaker 2: I mean I would.
Speaker 1: Say that we're US realists. But anyway, I like that.
Speaker 1: I like that a lot better because we are realists.
Speaker 1: We were only pointing out facts here. It's not that
Speaker 1: we want We don't want the Russians to win, we
Speaker 1: want the Ukrainians to lose. This is you're dealing with
Speaker 1: factual information. How does Zelenski respond to this? Conversation that
Speaker 1: you and I are having. I mean, when we point
Speaker 1: out you can have all the Atkam missiles that you want,
Speaker 1: but if the Russians can shoot down every damn one
Speaker 1: of them, how are you going to use it to
Speaker 1: your advantage? And to what end do you think this
Speaker 1: is gonna going to serve you? How does he respond
Speaker 1: to that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, I watch good portions of that three hour interview,
Speaker 3: and it was very illuminating because it just shows that
Speaker 3: Zelensky is his brain is just and I'm not saying
Speaker 3: this in any harsh way, only in observation. It is
Speaker 3: disconnected from the reality. And I think that the truth
Speaker 3: is starting to press in on his psyche and he
Speaker 3: realizes there is no good way out There is none,
Speaker 3: and instead of acknowledging that in trying to make the
Speaker 3: best of an ugly situation, he's still clinging to this
Speaker 3: fiction that there's a good deal to be had out there.
Speaker 2: And several times in that interview.
Speaker 3: Lex tried to say, and he's very much pro Ukraine,
Speaker 3: He's ford Zelenski. He tried several times to say, listen,
Speaker 3: but if you're not even talking to the Russian side,
Speaker 3: if you're not even giving them a reason to have
Speaker 3: that negotiation that you're seeking and that outcome. He said
Speaker 3: that Putin doesn't have to do it, and the guy
Speaker 3: just wouldn't the Zelensky just wouldn't listen. He would just
Speaker 3: run back to Oh, Putin is evil, he's vicious. You
Speaker 3: can't talk to him. And he's like, it doesn't matter
Speaker 3: whether you think it is. If you don't talk to him,
Speaker 3: he'll defeat your country and he just can't get.
Speaker 2: There, Okay.
Speaker 1: So it basically sounds to me like this boils down
Speaker 1: to a politician who's been backed into a corner, and
Speaker 1: it's gonna be known by history as the guy who
Speaker 1: lost a sizeable chunk of his country fighting a battle
Speaker 1: against the Russians, along with an almost uncountable number of
Speaker 1: human human lives.
Speaker 3: Or Brian, he'll be the guy that lost the war.
Speaker 3: If you don't negotiate an end now to that's not
Speaker 3: good terms, then you're gonna lose the war. That is
Speaker 3: the horrible situation that they face right.
Speaker 1: Now, and that means losing Ukraine completely to Russia.
Speaker 3: It's gone far enough, yes, because Russia has the ability
Speaker 3: and the capacity and definitely the will to do that,
Speaker 3: but if Trump can come in and make a negotiation
Speaker 3: short of that, that's still possible. So there is something hope,
Speaker 3: but only if Zelensky is ready to start.
Speaker 1: Dealing with reality. Daniel Davis Deep Dive. I enjoyed every Tuesday.
Speaker 1: I'm happy for the new calendar year and another opportunity.
Speaker 1: Need to talk with mister retire Lieutenant Colonel Davis every
Speaker 1: Tuesday at eight thirty my friend again, a pleasure to
Speaker 1: see your face. Just a wonderful conversation. It's engaging and
Speaker 1: quite often frightening. But again, like you said, we're just
Speaker 1: talking fat.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, God love you, sir. Look forward to
Speaker 1: next Tuesday. Take care, see you next week. A forty
Speaker 1: fifty five care ce DE Talk Stations stick around. We
Speaker 1: got a little more talk about. Plus my friend Steve
Speaker 1: from USA Intilation for Ask the Expert. That'll be the
Speaker 1: tail end of the program. I'll be right back.
Speaker 3: This is fifty five KRC an iHeartRadio station.
Speaker 2: Steve Perrins coordinated