Ukraine & Russia: Fighting For Another Year. Mike Lyons Talks to A&G.

a toll on some of that. But right now you have a case where people keep talking about an offensive that's about to happen, but so far very little in the way of gains. If that offensive is indeed already underway, If the Russian offensive is underway, it's not impressive so far. A couple of things on the war in Ukraine and the one year anniversary of this whole awful thing starting.

I'm into this story for geopolitical reasons, for student history reasons, for personal reasons of just the humanity, I mean, just awful. But if you're not into this story, you should be into it, at least as a taxpayers. We've now spent one hundred and thirteen billion dollars, and it looks like, you know, we're going to continue down that road for

some time to come. Two big developments today, on the one year anniversary, the Biden administration puts out a list of two hundred entities they're going to sanction harshly for continuing to do business with Russia when they're not supposed to. And China put out a peace plan for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. And blah blah blah blah blah, speaking of entities that have been getting around the sanctions, Excuse me for not acting like a kid on Christmas

morning receiving the gift of the Chinese plan. Let's discuss the past year and what's likely to come. With military analysts, my clients, Mike served with various military organizations both the US and Europe throughout his career. You know them from a number of publications and networks. Mike, how are you, sir? Take away, guys, great to be back. A year ago, our own government was saying Kiev could fall in ninety six hours. What were you thinking a year ago? And

looking back on what you thought, how do you respond? Yeah? Probably the same Russia had tremendous capability capacity with their military. They had maneuver space, they had all the things going. They wound up their military machine, put about one hundred and eighty thousand troops surrounded Ukraine. Came in from Belarus, came in from eastern Russia. It should have been over in three or four days. It should have been a

desert storm had they fought a combined arms fight. But they instead did what Russia does best, and when a military perspective comes, they just kind of slug it through, and they did not use their combined arms advantage, and Ukraine was able to hold off and hold out for what was the first few months, and then equipment starts pouring in, and now we're left with a year later, with a true stalemate, a war of attrician taking place

on both sides. Well As not only an analyst, but a man who commanded troops in combat, how would you describe to the layman the level of underperformance of the Russian military in this so far? Oh my gosh, it's hard to think about anything less than what they've done. I mean, I you know, they had they outnumbered them the Ukraine military six to one in some areas, to go on the offense with artillery rounds with combined arms forces. The fact that you're later the Russians don't control the

airspace is amazing. There was there was no real coordinated plan on how they were going to take Ukraine down. I mean, it's talking brass tacks here. But the first thing the United States hasn't any of these kind of wars is we go off to all their air defense platforms and make sure that we own the sky. Now we have air superiority. Now we roll in the troops from behind. And they didn't do any of that thing.

They just literally thought that the Ukraine military was just going to roll through and got punched in the nose and then and then in the fight when the fight started happening. Unfortunately, Russian soldiers you know, didn't didn't answer the bell. I was looking at your Twitter feed. That picture you put out, is that a young U in nineteen ninety know of the two privates in my Celcu lefting well and two privates from my company. We fired.

Everybody claims they fired the first round of the war, right, so that we fired. We were one of those units that did. That was a day before the ground war. Started at Desert Storm. We fired copperhead rounds on targets, so we were already two miles inside of Iraq before the war actually started. I remember listening to the VBC saying, Oh, yeah, the war's going to start here for your son. I'm like, nah, Actually, the war is already on. We're getting up tomorrow morning,

we're rolling, we're rolling north. So that those are the two of my good privates there that let's shut that round. And Russia thought they were going to pull off that sort of thing where you just you roll in and take over in a couple of days, and it's a it's a yeah, it's at the Allures Battle. And this is where Desert Storm gave this impression that other countries and other militaries can do this. And the thing about it is the United States literally practiced for that battle

for the for ten years. They sent units to the National Training Center. Anyone who's listening knows what I'm talking about. You go to the National Training Center, you fight that fight there, you practice. We've practiced that for about ten years. We showed up from Journey. We showed up with five hundred thousand troops and that's why that went that way. Ussia thought that the same thing was going to happen. They didn't put the same number of troops. They're about

one hundred and eighty thousand or so. They thought the same thing was going to happen. Didn't recognize you have to practice that and you have to plan on on things going that way. So my clients, where are we now and what's likely to take shape in the next six months or so. So the history gets to this spot where both sides are at a stalemate in this war of attrition. Now, in the past, either side starts attacking the other side's capability to wage war. Now Ukraine

doesn't have that capability. They can't go on the offense into Russia. They can't attack you know, tank factories and ammunition depots inside of Russia where their story where they're made. Now Russia can. Russia is trying to do that to Ukraine, but Western supplies keep pouring in. So classic war by proxy on our side and the West is supplying Ukraine propping them up. Without this happening, that Ukraine would be in real big trouble. I think you're going to see

also a six hundred mile front. Just talk about the offense and about I'm listening to analysts say, oh, Ukraine's getting ready to go on the offense. I sit there and say with what they have to have? One hundred and twenty thousand troops themselves, plus six hundred plus artillery and turanks and mechanized infantry vehicles, bulldozers. There's so many things that are still lacking from their kit in order for them to expect the success or. We have the

same thing on the other side. We have this hamburger machine where we don't want to see Ukraine soldiers getting thrown into the Russian hamburger machine because the Russians can defend just as well as anybody. So I think we're going to see to kind of nt it out here a North and South Korea. I'm going to see a DMZ between occupied land. Russia is going to take some of this Ukraine land. The question is what they take

Crimea or not. That's how this ends. But it's not ending anytime soon because Russia is going to continue to fight for at least I think at least for another year. So is that an argument for arming the Ukrainians more, giving them the F sixteens, giving them more so that they can not have it be a war of attrition, which seems like it's in Russia's favor, but they can launch it offensive. Well, I still don't think the F

sixteens matter. They don't get there on time, they're they're not close air support, the kind of um you know, they need four hundred tanks and then the crews demand them. They need artillery, you know, five times more artillery. They need a whole lot more. They need divisions worth of equipment that we really can't give them. And the other side that is ammunition. They're already starting to run out.

You heard the NATO commanders say that we're running out of ammunition, artillery, ammunition, and we'd have to now ramp that up on our side because we're taking stocks out of Israel, We've taken stocks out of South Korea, We've taken stocks out of different places. So we're gonna have to start making our own ammunition here pretty soon. So I think that what we're going to continue to do as best we can as long as Ukraine is holding the line. From their perspective, I think that's let's just

be happy for Hey. I know, Jack, you want to ask your big question to Mike in a moment, but before we get there, just out of curiosity, Mike, because we have listeners who some not many, who are much more sympathetic to the Russians side. Then I think a lot of Americans are. Um, and and we'll say, what's the matter with you guys? Research it. There actually were Nazis in don Boss And then Putin's right there, d nazifying it. What's your take on twenty fourteen on in

the so called Nazis in the situation that part of Ukraine. Yeah, so that was a problem not solved in twenty fourteen those separatists that control those areas and the Donbass reason and then crimeas Russia takes it on again. Look at history, Wars start like this because problems they can get to kick down the road. And that's what happened here. Um, that's possible, that likely could have happened. There could have been pockets of those kinds of things. Um, it's hard

to project again our culture on anybody else's culture. Eastern European you know, the Nazification or so and the impact that that had over eighty years ago withinside of Europe still trickles out there. It's still out there, and it's

it gets accelerated with social media. But yeah, there's those two sides to every story, um and and there's those that want to believe Russia doesn't will come out losing here, and losing to them will mean likely they still keep Crimeia, they keep some of those areas in the East, but they've lost a tremendous face in the ground stage of the green world. How important is this conflict to the United States? If Ukraine lost, what would be the national

interest at stake here? Well, we'd have to define losing for Ukraine. Right, So Ukraine's not going to win by vanquishing Russia, right, that's not happening. So as long as Ukraine wins by having some kind of semblance of an agreement of a new border for whatever that is, and then the rebuilding of Ukraine starts, it's going to start with them being part of the EU first and foremost, and then perhaps five or six years down the road,

maybe they'll be now part of NATO. I think that's going to be on the table as part of any of these negotiations, so that I don't see Ukraine losing at this point because they win by not losing in some level because Russia now doesn't really have the capability to vanquish Ukraine in the same side, but in the same token, neither does Ukraine in the same side. With Russia, well, is keeping the world order in place at stake or as you have said in the past, do you feel

this is more of a regional conflict between Ukraine and Russia. No, it's a regional conflict still. I think that that's European regional conflict is still first and foremost, and we're fighting it by proxy. China is a big wild card. But you now see they want to negotiate a peace settlement. Why because they recognize their client state Russia doesn't look very favorable. It looks like they're losing, and now they

don't want to be part of a losing team. But at the end of the day, it's in both China's interest in the United States is interest to have a very weak Russian military. So that's all part of this. I mean, I know the people are a Pentagon are like, yeah, let's go keep it up, keep smashing them, because the more of the Russian military gets destroyed, the lesser threat they become. Down the road. I think the Chinese feel

the same way about Russia as well. Interesting, Yeah, we could talk for a day and a half about the China's relationship with Russia, not just the obvious day to day stuff, but the historical nature and their shared border and the rest of it. But perhaps another time military analyst to Mike Lyons, Mike, it's always enjoyable. Thanks a million, thanks guy, Thanks for me. Yeah, that's what you opened

the show with. As people, countries and people do what's in their national interest and maybe the whole war of attrition, we're in this for the long haul. Our national interest is wearing down the Russian military and depleting them, spending them into oblivion. Oh yeah, absolutely, that's absolutely a part of it. But you know, if I was going to say one thing semi complimentary about China in its leadership

is they do take the long view. They're often wildly wrong, but they have the discipline to think about their grandchildren in a way that American politics is just abysmal. At again, their system is unspeakably terrible communism and the way they see humanity, but at least they have some discipline to it. So yeah, it's entirely possible they're in bed with Russia to prop up Russia to get good and bled dry. China is clearly the hedgemon that means the hard ass

in that part of the world. Yeah, one thing, and I didn't I didn't want to get off track on this. But the one thing I don't get is the argument. And this has been going on for a year now. Now if we give them this it takes training and it would take two months to get out. Well, a year has gone by and everybody thinks another year or two or five is going to go by. So I don't understand the argument of it take and take month. It'd be a six months before they'd be in the

country and then you got a trink. But well it would seem that we have the time. Yeah, let's plant the oak tree today and see what happens. Yeah. I don't quite get that argument, but you hear it a lot