A twenty nine at fifty five KCD talk station. Love this time of the week because it's when we do the Daniel Davis Deep Dive with our friend, retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, talking about well, of course war Russian Ukraine the subject matter again today. Welcome back, my friend. It's always a pleasure having you on my show.
It's always a pleasure to be here, Brian, thanks for having me back.
Happy to do it looks like you got a change of venue there. I have a video conference call going on with Daniel Davis. Every week we do this and you have a different environment now we do.
We're kind of upgrading our studio here a little bit. There'll be some changes even probably next week too. All right, Well, so just trying to make you better for the viewer.
Fantastic.
I'll encourage my listeners to get your podcast Deep Dive or Daniel Davis Deep Dive. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. Well, Daniel, what is going on in Ukraine right now? I see NATO is chimed in talking about maybe peace talks. We gotten to the point
where they're gonna be talking peace. Some North Korean soldiers or troops got captured by the Ukrainians the other day, and I still can't figure out the whole idea about North Korea being involved, except, as you've noted before, because they're there to get some genuine fighting experience, which I suppose is something people need to have if they're going to plan on getting into a war with South Korea. But where are we at this stage of the game.
Listen, I'm more optimistic now that this thing can come to an end that I've been in quite a long time, and that's based on comments by both the Russian side as recently as earlier today, as well as some of the official statements from some of the incoming Trump administration officials, because I think everybody is zeroed in on that this
war has to come to an end. Lavrov this morning actually said the Foreign Minister for Russia said that he was encouraged by some of the comments coming from the Trump team that they're eager to talk to him on an official basis after the twentieth of January, and they said they're encouraged by the fact that the Trump team is talking about realities on the ground, which is the term that the Russian side has been used and said that without a common understanding of what the reality is,
that it's impossible to make a deal. And it looks like they're starting to coalesce around that. Trump, for his part, has said he just wants the war and the killing to come to a stop. And applaud him for that, because I think that's exactly what we need. That's got to be your first focus. Then you can worry about
the details after that. But listen, I just got to make sure everybody understands the deal is not going to be good from the Ukraine side, but it's going to probably be the best it can be attained here because if a deal isn't resolved and found, then Russia will simply keep fighting until they went on the battlefield and more Ukrainians.
Will die, right, And that seems to be the most likely scenario absinte deal.
But is it possible?
And I'm just throwing this out that a deal and you're optimistic more so than ever you have been for a while. Anyway, the new Trump administration and the idea that it would foster and encourage a deal is because it's going to have far less of an appetite to continue funding billions of dollars to arm the Ukrainians.
Well, that's a huge part.
Of it, without question, that's something that many I mean, you know, Vice President elect Advance said in an April of twenty twenty four op ed in The New York Times, he said, look that the numbers just don't add up. He said, this doesn't make any sense to continue shoveling billions and billions of dollars into an empty hole that
can't succeed and banned. Was he ever proven right because he was talking about at the time, this sixty one billion dollars that the administration, current administration said was going to change the course of the war. And it's really ironic when you look at the tracking how much territory the Russians gained through that year once that money became available at starting with June, the amount of territory lost
every month rose after that, meaning it got worse. So Trump is very focused on just I mean, he's a businessman at heart, right, So he's you know, pros and cons the profit and lost balance sheet, and he sees this is not good, this is not helpful. And then you add in the human cost to that, and it doesn't make any sense at all to keep going down a path that can't win, and instead he's like, we
need to get this thing off the table. Cut cut the losses, not just of our losses, but the Ukrainian physical losses as soon as possible, so that rebuilding and recovery can start. That's so important for the Ukraine side, it really is, and it's important for you know, the globe as well. I mean, we kind of look the fact that Ukraine was previously described as you know, the bread basket of the whole region. It fed and provided
you know, food for multiple countries, not just Ukrainians. And of course maybe it would go a long way to solve the ongoing and self inflicted wound that is the energy problem their experience in the European Union. And Brian, let me just point out something on that point there. It's really important and hardly anybody thinks about this. They will later in the future, but right now they it's
not on the radar. If the Biden administration had taken the advice of then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Millie in November twenty twenty two, it said because of the successes that the Ukraine had had then that that was the perfect time to negotiate from a position of strength. Then the Russians were at their weakest. They would never be weaker than they were at that time.
He said, they could have gotten a good deal, but the Biden administration and Zelenski said no, we're going to keep fighting. As a result of that, they did the twenty twenty three offensive, which literally destroyed that bread basket and now it's sowed with millions of minds that are going to take probably decades to undo, and it's going to be a long time before that bread basket starts producing them to the level it did.
And you know that is so heartbreaking. Those land mines and anti personnel minds. I just it seems to be some sort of Geneva Convention violation when it comes to
those things. And I mean, hell, they're still blowing up in Vietnam from the conflict, right, So what do you And we've talked about this before, and I think my listeners are well aware the Russians have controlled the Crimea region formerly part of Ukraine but filled largely with Russian and Russian supporting, Russian leaning, Russian aligning population, so they're not unhappy necessarily be under Russian control, assuming and I think the way our discussion is going here, we're talking
about Ukraine having to give up more land as a mechanism to resolve the conflict. Are there areas like Crimea that we would be talking about or they would be negotiating with where the people would be more inclined and more desirous of living under a Russian rule than the Ukrainian rule or.
Yeah, the demographics are really important in terms of where these lines are and what the Russians are even seeking, because they are only seeking areas where it's predominantly ethnic Russians or Russian leaning people in the Ukraine side, But the crime In side, if I'm not mistaken, it was somewhere around ninety five percent Russians are ethnic Russians going back,
so that one was like the easiest one. The other ones they're talking about now, you know, Zaparija, Kirson, Luhans, Donetsk, those are a majority of ethnic Russians, but not to the extent as before. So whatever these lines get drawn, there will be more percentage of people on the Ukraine
side that don't want to live under Russian control. And that's going to be a part of the negotiations too, because they've got to be able to migrate over to the West if they don't want to live there, and then those that do want to live there will remain.
Well as the ones that remain.
And I keep thinking along the lines of, well, you know, if the if the Chinese Communist Party came in and took over my neighborhood, I might be inclined to, you know, wage my own individual guerrilla war or independent war against those forces, because I don't believe in that philosophy. I don't want to be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Do you do you see any of that sort of militarization of the remaining Ukrainians if the Russians do take over other areas.
Yeah, I have no doubts that there are those already actively planning on doing that sort of thing and whatever ends up in the Russian side, because I think that they have the exactly the mentality you're talking about, that they just will never be satisfied living under those conditions and they'll just do whatever they can just to you know, inflict a pain and a cost on the Russians as far as they can see. I mean, there's no end
date on that. It can go a long time. And you may recall that before the invasion, the initial invasion in February twenty two, there was a lot of talk that, hey, the Ukraine side can't win a conventional war against Russia,
so they're already planning with CIA help. Back then, by the way, it was publicly reported that they're trying to help them foment and start these you know, these kinds of gorilla activities inside there that got shelved when they thought, oh, wait a minute, we actually did good on the battlefield. I doubt very seriously that there will be any doubt
that a lot of people on that side. Whether the CIA is involved this time, I don't know, because now Trump's in charge, but there will be many, and certainly in Ukraine that will do everything they can to, especially those on the western side.
We'll try to support that. I suspect.
I don't know how big it will be, but it's hard for me to imagine they would just say, all right, let's just move on with their lives.
Does the president really have any control over what the CIA does? I just have to ask that, Daniel, all.
Right, Well, ostensibly he does, he's putting his director in there. I'd like to think that there is some, but I can't say that with the full throat at affirmative.
I had to insert that little joke there, if you don't mind. A quick pivot over to now resigning FBI Director Christopher Ray and his comments on sixty Minutes the other day about China and the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses, talking about, you know, pre positioning on America's civilian infrastructure, lying in wait for those networks to be in a position to wreak havoc and inflict real world harm at a time and place of their choosing, noting
that they have infiltrated and it's been documented. I've read multiple articles in Soviet water treatment plans, transportation systems, he said.
We're talking about our energy sector, the electric grid, natural gas pipeline, as well as targeting of our communications systems with that most recent virus sault typhoon as I stare upon and hate to draw a parallel with Los Angeles and the gross and competence of elected officials out there and not doing anything they promised to do by way of fire breaks, and you know, im creve water supplies and lessening the fire risk. We know this is a problem.
It's well documented. An FBI director raise out there and telling the world about it. We've goten other reports recently from the FBI and the DHS warning about you know, copycat attacks and attacks on our infrastructure. Do you have any faith that they're actually trying to get ahead of the problem and doing something to batten down our hatches and our resources to prevent this from happening or otherwise getting any virus or hacks or attacks out of our systems.
Well, look, I mean I will just look on the broadside first. I certainly hope that the incoming Trump administration will actually do something, but gracious, I mean my first comment was like, wait a minute, you're telling me that you on the way out the door know about all this stuff, and what have you done about it? I mean,
we're not talking about one or two things possibly. I mean, there was a big laundry list, and so my obvious question is, why the hell did you not do anything to resolve this issue?
Why you've had the power to do so.
So, if the problem is as big as he says it is, then there needs to be some hearings to find out why you didn't do anything about it and what has been the plan so far. You know, we don't know obviously from outside here, it's very plausible because it's logical from the Chinese perspective that if you know there's possibility, because Biden three times in his administration said yes, if China takes how one, we will fight China for it.
So then their minds are going, Okay, then we're going to prepare for war and that could mean domestic you know, trojan attacks, however you want to characterize them.
And so it's logical they would do that.
But it should also be freaking logical that we would see that potential and be on the extra care to find and root out those kinds of things.
And that's where I have a big problem.
And that's where I do too, and that's why I drew the parallel with Los Angeles. I mean, they've been talking about these fires for years and years, there had been multiple fires, years and years. They had passed billions and billions of dollars of money in budgets to deal specifically with the forestry work and cleaning up the mess
and everything out there, only to not do it. So you know, I'm seeing this is a huge red flag, and I can only pray to God with very little hope that they're actually trying to get ahead of it and and and stop it.
And then's certainly let's hope that the Trump administration does two things. Number one, to find out what the true scope of the threat is, take action to get rid of it.
And then also to not.
Follow with the path of the Brieous administration and get us into a war with China that cannot be won. And while defending our interest in Rotchet and our freedoms everywhere else, we don't have to get into a war with China to remain free.
I'll just tell you that categorically.
And I agree with you on that as I read the headline from Fox News, China directs largest military build up since nineteen thirties Nazi Germany just put an exclamation point on it there. Daniel Daniel Daniel Davis Deep Dive every Tuesday here in the fifty five Carce Morning Show Again search for them online wherever you get your podcast.
Daniel.
Until next Tuesday, my friend, have a great week. Always my pleasure. See you next time with a new president. Take care. Eight forty two. Right now fifty five car see de talk station. Exclamation point on that too. New sheriff in town. Don't go way, folks, get a little bit more to talk about. I hope you can stick around.
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