Speaker 1: It's that time a week for the day Deep Die
Speaker 1: with Daniel Davis, retire Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis on the
Speaker 1: program every Tuesday to talk about well sadly speaking of
Speaker 1: late war and I see World War thres on the list,
Speaker 1: Daniel Davis. That does not comfort me any bit at all.
Speaker 1: But let me wish you in an early happy Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: and hope that you do enjoy your Thanksgiving. And I
Speaker 1: fortunately get the rest of the week off, taking some
Speaker 1: vacation time, so I don't suspect we'll end in a
Speaker 1: happy note. Just got out the phone with Oliver Lane,
Speaker 1: the London bureau chief for bright Bar, talking about of
Speaker 1: course Ukraine. The fog of war came up. You know
Speaker 1: they did the missiles hit, didn't they hit? Did they
Speaker 1: do damage? They didn't do damage. One side's got a statement,
Speaker 1: the other guy's got a statement. But I mentioned the
Speaker 1: idea and my wonder, my wondering out loud over how
Speaker 1: much longer Ukraine can even continue to fight, regardless of
Speaker 1: the military hardware they are given and whether or not
Speaker 1: we're operating it. But there's a finite amount of people
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, and a lot of them are getting killed
Speaker 1: on the front line, and Oliver pointed out, you know,
Speaker 1: when you see photographs in the front line battlefields, these
Speaker 1: are old men. These are people in their forties or
Speaker 1: fifties with you know, gray beards, And I mean, are
Speaker 1: those the backup reserve troops? Are they going through the
Speaker 1: old guys first before they get what's left to the
Speaker 1: young people because nobody's having kids anymore. Where are we
Speaker 1: on this? And are I mean, I mean, you get
Speaker 1: where I'm coming from on this?
Speaker 3: Unfortunately I do.
Speaker 2: And listen, there's also a news out just this morning
Speaker 2: that puts a little bit more facts on this issue here,
Speaker 2: and that is that I think I may have mentioned
Speaker 2: maybe last month or so, there was a piece out
Speaker 2: in the New York Times that had a graph that
Speaker 2: graphically depicted how much territory of the Ukraine has been
Speaker 2: losing to Russia in the last six months, and there
Speaker 2: was a dramatic uptick. And as of October I had said,
Speaker 2: an old time record that was more than all of
Speaker 2: the games that Rush had made in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: which was pretty amazing since that initial invasion. And then now,
Speaker 2: as expected, the numbers out for so far in November,
Speaker 2: and you see we still got reporting.
Speaker 3: More than a week to go of the data from
Speaker 3: when it's again.
Speaker 2: It's already exceeded what they had lost in October. The
Speaker 2: last month, they have lost more square kilometers than any
Speaker 2: single month of the war. I mean, it's just unbelievable
Speaker 2: and of course commensurate with all of those territorial losses
Speaker 2: or human losses, and they're continuing to be killed in
Speaker 2: larger numbers. You're right outside of this issue with the
Speaker 2: hypersonic missile and the irashnik is it's called in Russian.
Speaker 2: It's a very real issue that by itself, but even
Speaker 2: off of that, by the headlines, off that on the ground,
Speaker 2: the ground is just continuing to go in Russia's favor,
Speaker 2: and no matter what anybody wants to say, if the
Speaker 2: war is not brought to a negotiated end pretty quick,
Speaker 2: then Russia will win militarily on the ground by force
Speaker 2: what they want. And that is a stark, cold reminder
Speaker 2: that most in the West just can't get their head
Speaker 2: around because they've been told stories the whole time about
Speaker 2: how Ukraine's winning, in Russia's losing, etc. Listen, I gotta
Speaker 2: tell you, I was on Fox News a couple of
Speaker 2: days ago, and the anchor actually said he must have
Speaker 2: believed this.
Speaker 3: But people are saying that.
Speaker 2: Russia is worn out and they're about to collapse at
Speaker 2: any moment. I can't believe people are still saying that
Speaker 2: in the third year of the war. But that's where
Speaker 2: we are right now, very different than reality on the ground.
Speaker 1: So absent and infusion of troops, which I imagine would
Speaker 1: come from NATO countries, they would have to enter into
Speaker 1: this conflict, turning it probably in the into a global conflict.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians can't rely on the North Koreans, the sent a
Speaker 1: bunch of people have to fight the war on their
Speaker 1: side of the of the field. So this is just
Speaker 1: a puftally going to slowly go in that direction. Do
Speaker 1: you think that Vladimir Putin with the new election with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump taking over, might take us a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a wait and see approach because he has
Speaker 1: heard Donald Trump say it. You've heard Donald Trump say it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how he plans on accomplishing it, but
Speaker 1: laying hands on this situation and resolving this conflict right away,
Speaker 1: obviously that is going to require, at least in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm going to rely on your learned opinion over mine.
Speaker 1: If it's wrong, it's going to require Ukraine to give
Speaker 1: up some land in order to resolve the conflict. They're
Speaker 1: gonna have to give back what they did in invading Russia,
Speaker 1: but also make major concessions on Ukrainian land. In any resolution,
Speaker 1: it doesn't involve well just losing completely.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first point, No, Putin is not taking away
Speaker 2: and see attitude he has is put on the accelerator
Speaker 2: and he is pressing harder and faster, and they are
Speaker 2: taking more and more territory. He is going to do
Speaker 2: everything he can to put on the table before January
Speaker 2: twentieth conditions for Trump to come and negotiate.
Speaker 3: This says, I've got all the big cards here. I
Speaker 3: want to negotiate. He's already said.
Speaker 2: But Putin has willingly I will definitely talk to him,
Speaker 2: would be happy to do so. He's never said anything
Speaker 2: different all throughout the war. We've had many chances to
Speaker 2: have this stopped with negotiations.
Speaker 3: We're unwilling to do so. Now Putin is going.
Speaker 2: To show both strategically with that orationik that was just fired,
Speaker 2: and tactically on the ground, I have all the cards
Speaker 2: and if you want to have a negotiated settlement, it
Speaker 2: will definitely require the succeeding of a large amount of territory,
Speaker 2: and then Russia had already has and probably more than
Speaker 2: the current line of contact in negotiation. If Trump doesn't
Speaker 2: agree to that, he'll just keep his foot on the
Speaker 2: accelerator and keep going.
Speaker 3: That's the hard part about this.
Speaker 2: I kind of had hoped that by the time Trump
Speaker 2: came in, if he had won, that he would be
Speaker 2: in a position to maybe freeze, to call along the
Speaker 2: current line of contact. But now then that's off the
Speaker 2: time table in my view, because Putin has the ability
Speaker 2: to say, no, I'm not willing to take any deal
Speaker 2: short of the territory that I think we need for
Speaker 2: our security. And so I think that we're going to
Speaker 2: be in a tough situation. And by the way, I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've seen, but there's been some really
Speaker 2: conflicting signals.
Speaker 3: Coming out of the Trump camp. Coming out you had won.
Speaker 2: Mike Waltz on Fox News, you know, recognized kind of
Speaker 2: what you said that there's you know, there's potential for
Speaker 2: conflict all over the place. We could be into a
Speaker 2: global conflict really fast if things don't get taken care of,
Speaker 2: so they want to have a negotiated settlement. Then you
Speaker 2: had Gorka Sebastian Gorka go on separately and say that
Speaker 2: Putin's gonna come or Trump's going to come in and
Speaker 2: demand that Putin to give him exactly what he wants,
Speaker 2: or if you think we've given a lot of stuff
Speaker 2: Ukraine so far as peanuts compared to what we're going
Speaker 2: to do, which is not a good signal, and it's
Speaker 2: a contradictory signal. So it's unclear exactly what Trump is
Speaker 2: going to do when he takes office.
Speaker 1: Well, the contradictory signal seems, you know, maybe low from
Speaker 1: some level to keep them confused, because that way we're
Speaker 1: not hardline in any one direction or another. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I find the idea of continuing to throw hardware at
Speaker 1: this to just be a wasted proposition, given there's got
Speaker 1: to be people behind the guns to use them and
Speaker 1: shoot them and defend the territory, and that's not happening
Speaker 1: right now, as you point out. So I know that
Speaker 1: there are areas of Ukraine who are pro Russia. I
Speaker 1: mean that was the situation with Crimea. Correctly, they weren't necessarily. Ah,
Speaker 1: so what is Russia. Let's look down the road. I mean,
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, Russia takes over and takes over the
Speaker 1: entire territory. What are they biting off in that regard?
Speaker 1: Because I think of, you know, the anti Russian people
Speaker 1: who would still be there, the pro Ukrainian the patriotic Ukrainians,
Speaker 1: you know, fighting a guerrilla war or constantly like you know,
Speaker 1: mosquitoes going after the larger Kremlin occupiers. How do you
Speaker 1: see that playing out over the long term. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: certainly could.
Speaker 2: And if you may recall, even before February twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: when all the Russian forces were massed around there, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of talk in the West that Ukraine couldn't
Speaker 2: fight a conventional war against Russia and win, so they
Speaker 2: were already planning even then for a guerrilla world war.
Speaker 3: I mean feel like that from the outset.
Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, Ukraine did a lot better
Speaker 2: in the first year than anyone thought, and that kind
Speaker 2: of tabled that. But I would imagine that there's so
Speaker 2: much hatred for Russia in the West that, just like
Speaker 2: we did in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded in the
Speaker 2: eighties that we would probably still support, you know, a
Speaker 2: clandestine operation just to keep Russia, keep people nipping at
Speaker 2: their ankles, et cetera. But I think that Putin is
Speaker 2: aware of a lot of this, and so I doubt
Speaker 2: very seriously he's just going to go and conquer all
Speaker 2: the country, because that would be botting off a huge,
Speaker 2: you know, hard headache for him long term, because especially
Speaker 2: in the western half of the country, there is intense
Speaker 2: hatred for Russia, and he has no interest in any
Speaker 2: of that. So I think that he would limit himself
Speaker 2: territorially to the other part, to the western part, as
Speaker 2: long as that what's left in the east, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: what's left in the western part of the country is
Speaker 2: non aligned and not going to be in NATO. I
Speaker 2: think that he'll be okay with that. We'll see how
Speaker 2: it works out. But that's what he says from the beginning.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably true.
Speaker 1: Well, and that speaks volumes to negating the whole idea
Speaker 1: that you know, his designs are on all of the
Speaker 1: eastern NATO countries. I mean, that's that's just not possible.
Speaker 2: That's always been a canard by the war supporters to
Speaker 2: try and fear cause fear in people to say, oh
Speaker 2: my god, it's Hitler again.
Speaker 3: It's never been that way.
Speaker 2: He still doesn't have the capacity to roll in and
Speaker 2: take conquer and territory.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have it, He has no interest in it.
Speaker 1: Daniel Davis Deep Die find him online podcast Deep Die
Speaker 1: with Daniel Davis. Daniel, I always enjoy our conversations. I
Speaker 1: look forward to next Tuesday in another one. Keep up
Speaker 1: the great work and.
Speaker 3: Always my pleasure. And have a good thanksgiving any.
Speaker 1: Thanks I'm giving to you and your as well. Take
Speaker 1: care of my friend. It's eight forty year, but five
Speaker 1: cars to the detalk station. Time for me to mention
Speaker 1: because I want to, and you're gonna be happy that
Speaker 1: I did covers since he