Height sixteen fifty five kerrc DE talk station. Better a few minutes late than never. Welcome to the inside scoop Ladition, Oliver Lane Lennonbia chief to talk about. Well, you're up on the brink of war. Welcome to the morning show, Oliver. It's a pleasure to have you on.
I'm London story to delay, but glad to be on them.
Oh, like I said, better late than never, I was just going on a little bit of a spleen vent. We the United States of America have given Ukraine these longer range missiles which have thus far been launched into the interior of Russia. But it requires US Armie personnel or military personnel to operate them, given the security clearance and all the other information they need from the United States military. So we are actively engaged in war right now.
What's the point of this when those missiles typically get shot down by the the Russia's version of the Iron Dome. And are we really on the brink of war with this activity? Oliver?
Well, there's so many things here to which we could append allegedly. Indeed, you say that these missiles can only be fired with assistance.
From US troops.
I do believe that to be true, but I don't think we've ever had exact confirmation of that. However, that is in line with what we know about the other missile systems that have been given to Ukraine, for instance by the United Kingdom the storm Shadow, a very potent bunker buster missile, and also the Skulp Upper by the French, very similar system, and in terms of them being shot down, well, a.
Lot of this we have to rely on Russian claims.
And I was looking at yesterday almost like a classic day in this conflict, where we have the Ukrainians on one side boasting that they had these fantastic strikes against Russian airfields, Russian military installations, but complaining of course that
the Russians are bombing civilians. Then on the other hand from Russian state media, you have the boast that they have struck successfully Ukrainian airfields and Ukrainian military installations and complaining of course that Ukraine is bombing pavilion Pavilian places in Russia as well. So we really do have to rely and of course both sides of course saying those
stripes the enemy claims they were ineffective. We shot down all the missals, we shot down all the drones, So I think we do have to take with a pinch of stalt the claim that Russia is shooting down all of these missiles. Some inevitably will always get through and attack ems.
As it's called. The Army Capital Missile.
System, which is what is now being fired into the Russian interior, is a modern, sophisticated US weapon system, so we will expect it to achieve some stripe. But you know, you're talking about the escalation that we're seeing here allegedly, what does this mean for us? And I think the really sort of key thing to think about here is how is Russia going to be interpreting this and how do we feel about it, particularly in the light of
the US presidential election. I know, just a real change in the tone of Russia's coverage of the Ukraine War and the US involvement.
Of it as soon as the election results were in.
And I know it's a bit kealy ready, and I apologize to that.
They used to call it kremlinology back in the Cold War.
Do you remember that?
Yeah, long long time ago now, And I think, but what I'm trying to divine is this, I think there's an idea inside the Kremlin that actually the Biden era is over, and even if Biden is doing stuff that is not strictly logical or wise, like signing off on these sticks, when actually for months and years, the very clear Biden White House line has been this is dangerous
as an escalation, we probably shouldn't do this. And then as soon as he loses the election, he changes his mind, or whoever is in charge of Joe Biden changed their mind. And I just wonder whether there's a view inside the Kremlin which is okay, we just got to put up with it for two and a half months, and then we can speak to somebody who is saying, aka President Donald Trump.
You know, I think that's a very thoughtful and excellent analysis because clearly, and in your riot, I mean you sort of in passing reference something that we talk about all the time here in the United States, which is Joe Biden's not in charge of Joe Biden. Somebody has
made this decision on his behalf. Now is it designed to screw around with in advance of Trump taking office, mess with the upcoming Trump administration, which to me I find absolutely immoral, horrific, and that anyone would do that just to at as a measure of spite, put tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people's lives at risk just because they don't like the having lost the election. I just hope that is not the case, but it
sort of seems that way. But if you're looking at it, as you point out, from the Kremlin standpoint, kremlinology great line from the past. If you're looking at it from Putin's standpoint, it would be wise to just say, all right, all right, all right, we can manage this situation. Will take a wait and see approach. If they shoot some missiles at As, we'll try our best to knock him out of the sky. But this war is not going to go away anytime soon. So let's just take a
wait and see approach. Because Donald Trump has promised he's going to solve it, and let's see what he proposes. Because I presume any resolution of this war, and Oliver correct me if you think I'm wrong, is going to be at least some land concessions to the Russians.
Well, that's definitely an option that's on the table. And there's been all sorts of discussion, a lot of inks bill over what President Trump's options might be, but the fact is past and future President Trump really hasn't shown his hand in terms of what his plan is to bring peace. And of course I think it's fair to say that actually he won this election in part on a platform of peace, which is I think it's a great thing actually for America that people will actually vote on something.
It's so fundamentally important as that.
But he hasn't told us what the plan is, and there's clearly a good reason for that. But in terms of where it could go, yes, of course there's a discussion of a territory slot, and that being the case, I hate to say it, like I hate to see my friends lose, but Ukraine is kind of running out of time on that because I think it's dangerous what they did counter invading Russia. There's no doubt that is really bruly escalatory. And when I thought they'd done it,
I went ooh, criky, where's this going to go? But in terms of having it, when the negotiating table finally comes and Presidents Trubb be sitting at ahead of that table and Presidents of Lengthsky is sitting opposite President Pussin, I guess.
May may or may not happen.
Having a few hundred square miles of Russian territory in your hand is going to do you some good.
Fair enough, fair enough. From a military strategic standpoint, I don't know that it's doing the Ukrainians much good. But in a in a treaty and in a resolution standpoint, may provide enough leverage that they can save some face giving up some territory in Ukraine, most notably the territory that's occupied by people who are predominantly leaning Russia. Anyway, real quick here, I guess the other component of the fog of war, which you very clearly pointed out in
terms of are we really hitting that? Are they really hitting this? We don't know. It just seems to me that after all this time, the Ukrainians are going to run out of young men fighting the war, and that seems to be one of the biggest challenges that they have right now. Absent fresh boots on the ground, how are the Ukrainians going to maintain the battlefront?
Well, this is a real problem.
And if you look at the Russians having suddenly invited their friends in North Korea ye join the battle, I guess it's a problem that they're facing as well. So Ukraine I think approached this war when it started quite rationally, and it's a cruel decision for any politician to have
to make. But when they started, I mean, we're going to call it conscriptions as conscription, but it's I think it's close enough for us to use that as shorthand when they started bringing people into the military by hook or by crook at the beginning of this war, they actually started much further up the population pyramid. I believe even now, the average age of the Ukrainian soldiers in their late thirties or early forties. And when you see those photographs of active units in the field, a lot
of them are grizzled, bearded old men. And they've never really made a comment on this as such in terms of explaining their thinking, and I'm aware of but looking at it from the outside, I strongly suspect this is because they have an understanding that Ukraine has a finite number of young men, as frankly all western countries do. We're experiencing a demographic.
Collapse all across the wear and I.
Suspect they looked at them and said, well, the guys who still chance of having a family in the future, We're going to call those up last, and I believe that will happened, and that counts in Ukraine's favor in terms of like the core of your question, let's be honest, is how long do they really have to run with this conflict until it's not just a matter of you know, is Donald Trump going to stop stending missiles? Is the European Union going to run out of money to keep
the war machine running? It's when are they going to run out of bodies? Which is it's a horrible question to have to contemplate. But this goes back again to your your story of this or your point.
About the fog of war, which is absolutely right.
I cannot think of a conflict that I have covered or researched in my time, either as a journalist or was an academic before that where the fog war was so great And actually we have very poor information.
From both sides.
In most wars you can rely on at least one side, I mean small wars, not generally you do get one your reliable picture of what's happening, and that's it's not been so great in the Ukraine War.
Obviously, I don't feel like I can really trust anything that Kremlin has to to say.
I think you'd have to be mad to do so, right, But also, like Ukraine is a is in a absolutely generational wall.
It is it is a it's a fundamental question whether that country will continue to exist.
So I don't exactly blame them for doing the propaganda game that they've done, because they have to do that to keep themselves on the wall.
But my god, it makes it hard for the rest.
Of us and the rest of the world to really have a clear understanding of like, really, how many casualties have they actually had, how many of those were killed casualties, how many could return.
To the front line. You know, I don't want to call it lies. That sounds very uncharitable and very unkind, but we do not have a good picture.
Well, they've got to maintain some measure of propaganda to keep the idea of continuing to give them arms in play. Fascinating Oliver Lane, your wonderful job. I appreciate the time you spent my listeners me and I recommend as always people bookmark Breitbart b R E I T b a art dot com for Oliver Lane, his writing and everybody else there, keep up the great work. I look forward to having you on the program again real soon.
Thanks coming on staff, appreciate it.
Eight twenty seven Daniel Davis Deep dive.
Come up next.
We'll continue this war related conversation after these brief words. Fifty five KRC