Putin is Playing Us. Mike Lyons Talks to A&G

be back. How was yesterday news this morning Russia reporting that they killed five Ukrainian soldiers that had crossed the border to attack Russians. I have my doubts. Also, a Putin has called an emergency meeting of officials on whether or not they should de glare various regions of Ukraine independent, and just moments ago, a couple of separatist leaders appeared on television asking Putin to recognize the independence of their territories.

A couple of it look like uh, thugs and suits, saying we are I want to be president of new independent what you might call it, and that charming Yeah. Exactly. After graduating from West Point, Mike Lyons had a distinguished career in the United States Military award the Bronze Star for his actions in combat, and is a well respected and loved around here military analyst. Mike, welcome, How are you, sir? Hey when guys, great to be back with you. Hey,

has it started? Well, we know when it started? Is this the start? Yeah? I think so. I mean usually artillery starts these kinds of combats and these kinds of conflicts, and I you know, we could We're sitting there. We got this report over the weekend about how the commanders on the front have got their orders and the like. I mean, we're just ignoring all principles of war about

surprise or or or or the like. Um. But from from bradmar Putin's respect, if he controls everything on the ground there, so I think from all practical purposes that has and in his eyes, and this is just a way of extending it out before the rest of the world recognizes it. I think that's really what this is all about. As he's just controlled the narrative from top

to bottom. We saw yesterday, Um, we couldn't get out this press really is fast enough about how Joe Biden is going to meet with him you don't know where or when or whatever. And then all of a sudden this morning that that's been canceled for I think, I mean the Russian um uh communicate says we're not so fast on that. So so I I do think that now at the Olympics over, you're going to see a

lot more stepping up. But from from my perspective on what's happening on the ground, this is this has already started. What's interesting while watching this unfold in real time, and it's so reminiscent of various similar incidents in history, is that it's not clear at all what Putin's goals are. Does he want a little? Does he want a lot? You know? And that's part of the way expansionists keep those would intervene, you know, off off balance. I guess

I think he wants a lot. I think that he the kind of forces he's gathered there means he wants a lot. I think that um, he's going to have that capability, especially to the north and Belarus, and and the fact that he can easily close off the boundary of western Ukraine. UM. But this is going to be more than just a boundary. The physical boundary that exists on the ground, it's gonna be a cyber it's going to be all the infrastructure, it's going to be the

things that the controls there. Um to take a look at the amount of pipelines that run through Ukraine from from Russia that he's going to have to strategically get a hold of right away. I also think that that he doesn't want to destroy Ukraine to take and I think that's why he's proceeding very carefully. Um, when he does finally launched, let's say, a larger attack where it's more obvious to people already here we go things a wrong.

He's going to really go after the Ukraine military and in their bases and places that are likely away from built up areaus, knowing full well that the Ukraine military is guarding important things, but for all practical purposes, again, they're going to be a target in this whole thing. Yeah, that was the reporting CBS had yesterday that that he has so many troops because he wants to occupy the country.

He doesn't want to destroy it. He wants to have a working, you know, economic asset of a country to be running. Yeah, it looks like right now this is going the way of you know, we could do this harder, we could do this easy, and um, you saw over the weekend also the Zalinski, the the Ukraine minister basically challenged the West, saying, you guys have all these sanctions, you won't tell me what they are and you won't start them in place. Now you know he's bombing me

right now and you guys are aren't doing anything. And you know we sent our crack vice president over there to make a statement or two about something about something. But again, this he letter of Putin runs this whole thing top to bottom, and um, we have to be careful. I also think about looking for transactions on a daily basis of of you know, one thing is going to happen that's gonna cause some something else. And that's because if you just look back at it, he's been planning

this for the last eight months. The amount of troops that are there, the amount of seeds that have been planted, the amount of things that he's done over the past eight nine months, go back from the past fourteen years. This has been going. This has been a long time coming, which is why he's just not gonna all of a sudden pull the plug and saying that forget it, We're not going to do it. So here's something you know

a lot about. We have been the dominant military force rolling into a smaller country and you know, and you would think, Okay, we're just gonna roll them over and take it over. But then you have, you know, a whole bunch of people that are really unhappy that you're there shooting that yeah and bomby alongside the road for years to come. Is that what Putin's looking at. I think that's one of the the terns. There's there's two

of them. He's got that one an insurgency that could take place, knowing that we would try to fund that and supply weapons to those people if we can get them. This is why he has to steal that border. Um. But I think that second thing is that the terns of the fact that the Ukraine military you can inflict some damage on Russian troops and sending a bunch of Russian body bags back the other direction is not going

to go well with Russian people. Um this and say, since let's say the sanctions do work and they do somewhat strangle off the Russian economy and Russian people feel it, so there's there's still there's slight bits of the terrence still left, which is why I think he's trying to squeeze this thing out to make it more of a fate to complete, because he really doesn't want to go full force a hundred ninety thousand troops occupying there. But the other thing is these things never go as intended.

Look at look at the Gulf, will go back to that. So I'm saying, never thought that the United States would do anything, never thought the United States would put an ally together like we did, and never thought we would finally do anything, and look what happened there. There's so many examples in history of where things once the shooting starts.

It's that whole Mike Tyson thing. If you know, everyone's gonna plan to get punts in the face, and once the shooting starts on the earnest on both sides, he's going to lose control of the initiative at that point. Military analyst Mike Lyons is on the line this is less military and more diplomatic. But I don't think it's coincidence at all that She of China and Putin signed this gigantic new were best Buddies agreement on the eve of this happening. How important is China being willing to

bail rush out economically? Yeah, I think is the backstop is the net that he wanted in order to uh feel more confident that if he does this that at least they'll stay out of it. They won't say anything, let's say, but they'll also provide that economic support in the background. He'll lose some some energy exports over the next few months, let's say. Um, And you know, now we're seeing this alliance between Russia, China, Iran North Korea

that could contentstionally take place. And you know, here we go back to the future. We're back to having this these two poles again. The United States, it's done really a terrible job the past thirty years. All administrations to be blamed for this and not keeping together these certain alliances, I don't think. I think, um, the last you know what the last administration tried to do with NATO to pony at money to figure out how we're going to

get along was important. I think this administration is just still a day later dollar stort. When he got up there last week and said this alliance is really strong you see that Macron has been there to negotiate separately, that the UK have in there to negotiate separately. We're not really speaking with one voice. And you know, once again, once things become more evident that he's rolled. I think that you know that you're not going to see a

united front. Sometimes you don't recognize something as bad has happened until it's already over. Um, is the world about to wake up here in the next couple of days, a couple of weeks, whatever, and just and everybody recognized, Okay, the world is just we have a completely different world order going on than we've had for the last many decades. Yeah, that's it's gonna be that tipping point that we've seen

it happening often times. I mean, maybe we'll stop inviting Vladimir Putin to Davos and stop inviting him to you know, conferences and let him talk. You know, maybe we'll treat him like the thug and the dictator and he is and how you know, maybe that will happen. I'm not sure we we we can't seem to help ourselves though with this in terms of it's always about the money, it's always about economics, and I still sake my head.

How does Germany shut down all their nuclear power plants and decide to outsource their energy to Russia and knowing full well that you know, this is who they're outsourcing it to, even as we give away our energy and dependence, which makes me nuts. But uh, my final question, just as a devil's advocate, maybe a question given especially the Russian experience in w W two, horrific losses, the rest of it, Russia has a fair amount of you could

call a paranoia or just concern about invasion. Was there a way maybe, is there a way to to grant putin security assurances enough to settle this down? That's a great question. I don't think at this point he'll believe them. I think that's what we're talking about here. And even if we said, you know, you can, won't be in NATO, it's going to be that peace in our time. Analogy

we're all looking for. What's the historical analogy here? You've got the analogy of what happened in the Middle East in the in the sixties and seventies, of the ar countries coming to the Israeli border threatened war. That lots what this is to me more. But I think I think anything else like that as appeasement, because um, there's no way Ukraine ever is in NATO. The Germans wouldn't go for it, the Turks wouldn't go for it, So

it's not going to happen. But we're not going to say that quite part out loud, um And I don't think he's gonna believe it at this point. And I think for all practical purposes, he and he wants to get that that former Soviet Union and restore that power. They try to get that economic, um, both that he'll get when he takes over this country. Military analyst Major Mike Lions Mike, I hope we can stay in touch. Whatever unfolds, it's going to be significant, I think so,

thanks guys. Yeah, I agree it's going to be It's gonna be significant. Yeah, which is a gross understatement, but there you have it, Thanks Mike. A very serious sounding my clients there. So CBS is reporting s Day with David Martin. I believe he was the first one that reported that um Russian military leaders had been given the go ahead to start and he also reported that Russia is planning a shock and awe campaign similar to what

we did to Baghdad when we went in. And it's gonna start with cyber and then they're just gonna light up the sky, bombing the crap out of stuff. Um. And that's where I heard that. The reason they have a hundred troops and then they want to occupy the place quickly and have a you know, a functioning state. They don't want to destroy the country. They want to run the country. Right. Um, but Jake Sullivan are Secretary of State. No, it's a national security advisor. Just a

moment ago, uh said this. Um, Russia is planning an extremely violent operation to crush Ukraine. So I don't know, I don't know how you can do shock and awe

and not destroy a hell of a lot of stuff. Well, what I was picturing when Mike was talking Mike clients, was that picturing the Russian military decimating you know, X percent of the Ukrainian military in such short order that everybody from military leadership to you civilian leadership says, all right, this will be suicide if we don't come to some

sort of agreement see what Russia wants. Um, Well, we won't sacrifice, you know, the young men of this country in a need in a you know, useless mission, suicide mission, and then you know, Putin gets a quote unquote political settlement and installs his puppet regime and you know, a hundred and fifty thousand lives are spared. Uh, that's probably what he's hoping for. Just so overwhelming that they just say, there's no point in trying to resist this, right exactly exactly,

I don't know stuff. A lot of people interviewed on the street who say they're willing to fight to the death for this, but we'll see that is grim as I had like been saying all last week. Thank god, every day you live in the United States, where there's no freaking chance some country is gonna you know, roll tanks in and take over. You're gonna have to like get your hunting gun and hide behind bushes and see how long you can last against trained soldiers to try

to defend your country. Thank god, you don't have to do that. Yipes, yipes. And at the risk of driving the point into the ground. When we gave away our energy independence, we empowered Putin beyond. It's difficult to estimate accurately how much more hand to quote Seinfeld, we gave Putin, it's absolutely awful to appease the whackadoodle American environmental left, farming out energy production to countries that are way worse

to the environment than we are. It's just insane. You mentioned Seinfeld, speaking of Seinfeld, what I'm giving myself for my birthday is related to Seinfeld, among a lot of things we can talk about coming up our text line four nine five k FDC