August 20, 2025 • 33 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
What does life look like in war torn Ukraine? How has the ongoing war with Russia impacted financial, cultural, and political institutions in Ukraine? Jason Jay Smart is a special correspondent for the Kyiv Post who is currently living in Kyiv. Jason checked in to paint a picture of what life is currently like for those living in Ukraine.
What does life look like in war torn Ukraine? How has the ongoing war with Russia impacted financial, cultural, and political institutions in Ukraine? Jason Jay Smart is a special correspondent for the Kyiv Post who is currently living in Kyiv. Jason checked in to paint a picture of what life is currently like for those living in Ukraine.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's nice side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boxton's
Beech Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Great to be with you. I'm Bradley J. For Dan.
Our next guest, Jason J. Smart, is quite a guy.
He lives right now. We're going to be speaking with
him alive from Kiv, Ukraine, and if you call in,
you will be talking with someone who is live in Kiev, Ukraine,
doctor Jason J. Smart. He's a reporter with the Kiev
Posts and much much more. He operates a podcast to
(00:30):
focus on getting information out about the conflict there, and
it's more direct than usually you get. It's more firsthand.
I mean, he lives there. He's been banned from Russia
for life, which is probably fairly easy to do. And
I have him with us because I've long wanted to
speak directly with someone to make us understand what life
(00:54):
is like there. I feel like Americans would be more
supportive if they they took if they got more information
than the abstract of what life is like there, than
the abstract of what's going on, then the abstract of
the horror and the death of what's going on there.
I would say it to folks who live in Massachusetts,
imagine if your neighbor, New Hampshire. We're trying to wipe
(01:20):
you out. What that would be like. You remember, we
had a tragedy not too long ago in Boston that
involved a bombing. Imagine if that happened every few days,
Imagine the PTSD. So that's why I have Jason J.
Smart here. And by the way, I listened to you.
(01:41):
I watch your podcast all the time, and I really
appreciate what you do. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Thank you so much for calling me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
How did you get banned for life from Russia?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
About fifteen years ago? I was working with the Democratic
opposition to Vladimir Putin and that's it doesn't go over
very well with the Kremlin. Where's open of that? I
was manned for life from ever entering Russia.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
How do they let you know? Did you get a letter?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yes, actually got a letter. I applied for a work
visa to go to Russia, and I got a letter
indicating that I was considered to be a threat to
the national security of Russia and hence would not be
allowed to enter the country.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
All right, it'd be a great service to me and
to the folks here. And I guess to Ukraine, if
you could help me make people understand what life is
like there? What light? How do you sleep? Do you
have to run to the store and run back? How
normal is life? And how not normal is life? And
(02:42):
is there PTSD? Does everyone have PTSD? How can you
sleep at night?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So you know, it's six 't ten in the morning here,
and I'm standing outside of one of the bomb shelters.
There was explosions all night. It was a very loud
night and I guess there's probably eight nine different air
raid warnings that went off. And I'm watching just now
a lot of the families leaving the bomb shelter, the
children leaving them. They're carrying mattresses and things like this,
(03:14):
and it's you know, for the children. Imagine it's particularly terrifying.
Is there's a confusion as to what's going on as
a whole. It's for the society. Yes, I guess there's
a certain degree of PTSD that comes with that. You know,
it's not particularly normal that you wake up to explosions.
And the thing that I've told people before, I think
(03:34):
it's sort of surreal about it is that you get
an air raid alert, let's say, and your phone will buzz,
and you'll hear the air raid warnings starting to wail,
and then within a little bit of time you start
to hear explosions of the air defense trying to shoot
down the drones. Then you hear the machine gun fire
as they're trying to shoot on the drones or shoot
them the incoming drones. And as time goes on, you
(03:57):
hear getting louder and louder and louder, and then you
start to hear in structures, and then you here's a
lot of explosions. You didn't hear the the the fire
alarms and the police arriving. It's it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Do you get used to it?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I mean to some extent, I guess one does get
sort of used to it. I mean, air raid warnings
are just so common. Every single day it seems there's attacks,
so that that is allotting per se the explosions. I
don't think you ever get really fully used to that.
It's it's because you don't know where it's coming from
and how much closer it's getting. But you can hear
it marked. They just cann't goloser and closer to where
(04:34):
you are, which then is just a little bit unsettling.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Does everyone sleep in a shelter or do some Are
they just too crowded and not everyone can get in.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Well, a lot of people, I think don't go to
the shelter because at the end of the day, they
have to go to work in the morning. You know,
there's there's what they prefer to do and what they
have to do, because it's if you have to go
to work at seven am. You can't simply just sleep
on the floor of a shelter all night, every night
and still continue to function.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And these explosions happened nearby. Folks must see other people
dead and injured and have to live with that, and
a lot people mustn't all know people that have been killed.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Sure, of course, I mean there is people have been
killed in that side of it, just the drone attacks,
the missile tacks by Russia. And also you look at
the huge number of veterans are here in the country.
As I've described the people before, you just increasingly see
the day more and more young men that are empty
tees in downtown area, and it's just it's like a
(05:39):
frog in hot water. You don't really notice it all
at once because it's just every day drip by drip.
But when you're away for let's say a month to
come back, or a couple months you come back, you
start to realize it seems disproportion that what you would
see in a different country.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
We're speaking live from Ukraine from Give Ukraine to Jason J. Smutt,
and we'll talk about your podcast in a bit. I
want to know if the people you talk to, the
people who are going through this would like to see
a negotiation, if it an a peace treaty, if it
(06:12):
means you have to give up, they have to give
up territory. Are they willing to keep on toughing this
out until they win?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Pulling in Ukraine indicates that the people are willing to
continue toughing now. And the reason is very simple. Everybody
understands that if Russia is given some sort of a
deal for right now, it will just be an opportunity
to rearm, relocate, and then eventually reinvade. So that's the way.
Any sort of a deal right now is not serious.
We all understand that the Russians have not changed their desire.
(06:40):
Latimer Putin has been explicitly clear as to what his desires.
It has not changed since twenty twenty two. He made
that clearing the means with the American leadership. He made
that clear in the assessments that the CIA has put
out that is exactly the same what his objective is now.
He repeated those objectives just a couple of weeks ago
to Saint Petersburg Economic Form, where he said that our
objective is exactly the same is what it was. Nothing
(07:02):
has changed. So even if there was a deal in
the short term, nobody thinks the war will actually end.
It'll just be a short term break, which actually be
disadvantage to Ukraine because simply the Russians would put all
the resources into preparing to re made, whereas the Western
countries would try to stop helping Ukraine, and so the
Ukraine's invasion will become actually easier for the Russians.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
There are many people in the United States who have
been convinced that it is this is somehow Ukraine's fault,
that Ukraine threatened Russia, that there was a promise that
NATO would not expand that there are other reasons that
this is the fault of Ukraine. Can you explain to
(07:45):
them why that is not the case.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Well, it's not the case because one there is never
a promise that NATO would not expand. And secondly, anything
in international relations, you can sign a treaty. It's very simple.
If there had been a promise of this sort, there
would have been a written agreement. Anyone who says, oh,
but we had an agreement, and when there wasn't, it's
reasy to look up these agreements. There's never such an
agreement that NATO would not expand more important than that,
this is nothing to do with NATO. There's absolutely nothing
(08:09):
to do with NATO. Because Latimer putin give mine. He
did not invade Finland or Sweden after they join NATO,
just in the last two years, and the reason is
very simple. Though they share borders with Russia, walt borders.
This has nothing to do with NATO. The reality is
he is invading because he wishes to crush Ukraine as
a country and they take over the land. He wishes
(08:30):
to take the natural resources, and from what we've seen
in occupy territories, the facto enslaved the local population.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Your assessment of Russia's situation is more dire than we
hear in Western media, and your assessment of Ukrainian situation
is better and more optimistic than we hear in the
Western media. Can you explain why that is and can
you give some reasons why Russia is in a harder
place than we seem to understand and Ukraine is in
(09:01):
a better place than we seem to understand.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So in the case of that, it's a really good question,
because I think one thing that disadvantages Ukraine in the
information space is simply that it is a liberal democratic society.
There's tons of journalists in from every newspaper, from every
international organization. There is a journalists here, So the bias
would be in favor of reporting anything ac that goes
wrong in Ukraine, whereas in Moscow there's very very few journalists.
(09:28):
And the fact is if you say anything that offends
the government, they'll throw you out of the country, and
so there is very little reporting of the real situations
side of Russia. However, if you just read the Russian news,
especially in things like Telegram, which is a social media
sort of application, and you see what people themselves are saying,
you realize the situation is far worse. When you look
at the raw numbers the government produces, you could calculate
(09:51):
that things are out of control. For their economy. You
can look at the fact that the military can not
keep up, and I give an example. We see increasing
numbers of videos, I mean just starkening increased videos of
Russians who have let's say armed personnel carriers which they
park out in the open field, let's say, with all
the hatches open. Now, typically you would try to park
(10:11):
these things underneath trees or underneath some sort of coverage
to prevent them from being struck by drones. But the
Russian soldiers realize the drons are gonna get them one
way together, it's better to just parking open space walk away,
allowed to get blown up, but then it prevents them
from getting killed, and as there well to sacrifice, their
vehicle gets sent back to Russia to wait for a
new one. That's becoming increasingly common, which is not very
(10:32):
good signs of morale in the Russian military. The number
of Russian soldiers that have been surrendering in the past
few months, actually it's really increased a lot. And it
seems that the Russian soldiers themselves, every company increasingly wary
of the idea, has been sent into meaningless meat assaults
where they just get sent into machine gun fire doesn't
(10:52):
want to work out for them and they know that.
So it seems that the Russian side has a lot
of problems. The Ukrainean side, there's definitely resolve, there's a
desire to win, and it's a much more ideological nature.
The Russian side, it's a very small number of soldiers
i think at this point who have any sort of
ideological identification with this. They're generally people who have significant
(11:13):
debts or other problems and they need the cash the
government now pays them. I've lot thirty thousand dollars to
sign up. Keep in mind, the average monthly income in
Russia is about nine hundred dollars, So if your averaging
comp per month is nine hundred dollars and you get
paid thirty thousand, that's a significant amount of money, and
that justifies for a lot of people the necessity of
joining the military.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Wow, because it's pretty much certain death to join the
military right now in the Russian Army.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Correct absolutely case. And the payout now Russian military, if
you get killed in the service, it's about one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. So once again, that's more money
than most Russias could ever dream of making in their life.
That is just a huge amount. And so people desperate times,
desperate decisions, and so there's people who are joining not
(11:59):
for anything of idea jup, simply because they need the cash.
But that also makes some not the best soldiers in
the world, because as soon as there's a moment to
skip out, they do. So.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
All right, we'll have to take a quick break, and
I want to ask you when we come back, whether
or not you think Ukraine can win without the United States.
It's a tough question. And hold that answer till after this.
On WBZ it's Night Side with Ray on Boston's news radio,
we continue with guests Jason J. Smart, who's coming to
(12:31):
us live from outside of bomb shelter, and Key Ukraine.
Believe it or not. My question to him just before
the rake was and it is now, can the can
Ukraine win this without the United States? In the beginning
didn't seem like they could, but making so much progress
now I feel like, and when I listen to you,
(12:51):
I feel perhaps some optimism that they can.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, they can definitely win. It's much harder, let's be clear,
but it's not possible. And to put this all in
the perspective, because I think people have this impression that
Russia's gaining large swaths of lands. Russia in the course
of the last years has lost over a million soldiers,
have been casualtied, that has killed or injured over a million,
(13:16):
and incredibly enough, they've taken less than one percent of
Ukrainian territory. To put us in another way, since twenty
twenty two, Russia controls less of Ukrainian territory today than
it did then. To put this in a different way,
Russia controls less of its own territory today than it
did three years ago. This Ukraine occupies parts of Russia.
Russia is not winning on anything. And one of the
(13:38):
keys to that, one of the keys to why Russia
is not able to advance despite these incredible casualty figures
is simply because Western weapons, weapons from the United States
do weapons in the United States, things like Kai lars
and other things, keep the Russians at bay. It doesn't
allow them to gather, to get closer and to attack
positions of the Ukrainians. And because they're top the way,
(14:00):
it allows Ukrainians to preserve the lives of their soldiers.
For the Ukrainians came out. It's a much smaller country Ukraine.
Before the war, there's only about forty million Uinians, it's
about one hundred and forty million Russians.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And now the.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Unoccupied territories of Ukraine combined there's probably only about twenty
five million people, So the country twenty five million versus
the country of one hundred and forty million. And yet
the Russians are not advanced. And that's simply because one
of the biggest reasons the Ukrainians have these advanced weapons
from the west that allows them to attack the Russian
(14:32):
positions before they're able to muster, before they're able to advance,
and to preserve the lives of their soldiers. And it
continue fighting.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Ukraine seems to be getting more and more effective at
hurting Russia when it comes to oil production capabilities, which
is their economic lifeline. Without that, they're done. Can you
give me an idea of how much of the production
the percentage of production has been destroyed or reduced the
ability to to make money selling oil, and give me
(15:02):
an idea of how much of their military hardware and
also personnel has been taken out of action.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So look at it this way. In the past two
weeks since the I guess third of August until yesterday,
between thirteen to twenty percent of Russia's oil producing capacity
has been destroyed. The oil refineries have been destroyed. Thirteen
to twenty percent is a huge Remember this of Russia's
national economy, oil and gas are about forty or forty
(15:34):
five percent of the national budget. So if you're destroying
these refineries, it has a significant effect on their economy.
More to those ends, when you look at the situation
within Russia today, to their banks have significant problems, are
being bailed out by the national government. We see that
they have a liquidity crisis. We see businesses are seizing up,
and the situation is significantly worse than it was the
(15:55):
United States before the two thousand and eight economic proms,
significantly worseference that the United States one is a superpower,
has the US dollar. There's always demand for US dollar,
but there's no demand for the rubles. Don't interested in
getting more rubles, and so for them when their banks
finally start to be in collapsing, which, by the way
Kremlin think things. These are thinkings directly along with the
(16:17):
Kremlin have said that they think for the next year
there is a high to very high probability. I've seen
cascading bank collapses within Russia due to the financial situation
just becoming simply untenable.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
In your estimation, how much longer can Russia continue this?
Especially if the United States would at least say they
wouldn't even have to do it. All they would have
to do is convince Russia, you know what, we're in
this to the end. Would that make them quit and
go home? If they if they thought, you know, the
(16:51):
United States is not going to go away. If President
Trump would be consistent with support for Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
If President Trump was consistent, no doubt the Russians would
be scary form. And let's be clear, Russia's entire economy
before the war, before the sanctions, was smaller than Italy's.
It's not a big country economically, so the United States,
which is more than twenty three of the world's GP,
if it were to put pressure on Russia, real pressure,
(17:19):
put real sanctions on Russia, to put sanctions on the
countries that buy Russian oil and gas, which is seventy
five percent bought by India and China. If we're to
put sanctions or to threaten to put sanctions of the
countries to buy Russia oil gas. It would it would
collapse the Russian economy.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
About your podcast, I watched the most recent episode today
and you covered a number of things. Perhaps you could
go through the items that you covered in your podcast,
starting with this new app that is being introduced into
Russian society that spies on them.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yes, it's called Max. So Max is the system that
the government is forcing everyone to put onto their fronts.
You cannot communicate, for instance, with your school of your
children almost you have this application on your phone. You
cannot buy real fit or sell let's you have this
application on your phone. Everything requires this application, the same
way as security experts have already broken down what's behind
(18:12):
this application and what it does is it records on
your cell phone all your photos, all your videos, all
of your calls, as well as your keystrokes. Even if
you sent the message, it copies them and the Kremlin
gets all this information. This is for them to spy
their own population, to suppress their own population, and within
Russia it's sort of Orwellian through Frank It's really like
(18:35):
nineteen eighty four. They've banned a lot of the social
media's most of the social medias have been banned. They've
banned foreign news broadcasts and things like this. So if
people have very limited resource to other things. But now
with this application like max, the tunnel control the society
is there because it's not just preventing you from seeing
what on TV they would be in opposition to government,
(18:56):
or preventing you from seeing on something like Facebook because
they've banned it, or it's they've found it, but it's
now where they can check your phone and it's preventative.
So if you even think about looking things up or
see that you're typing or writing about things to be
an opposition to government, they know about it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Even if you don't even type the entire sentence, even
if you type a few words that the algorithm's senses
is a non governmentally friendly search, then you're on the
hook for that. I heard you say on your podcast
that this is not a very secure system and that
the West might be able to glean a lot of
(19:34):
information from the use of this app.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Well, that is the funny part. So they have this app,
they're telling everyone they have to put on the phones,
and they're forced installing it. I mean, even if you
don't want on your phone. They could somehow to sort
of download to your phone. But what's incredible the security
experts have said there's a very good chance of this
data is not secure and that there could be a
massive leak of the data on everybody's cell phones in
the near term. And what makes me incredible is that
(20:00):
you would think that the government would be alarmed, that
they would say that they're how to improve this, but
they don't even do that. What they do is they're
heads it committee in the parliament. The Juma has said
that anyone who criticizes this should be investigated as being
a foreign agent and an enemy of the state. Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I have been considering the following. Even if Russia was
able to achieve its goals, it would then be occupying
a group of people that would be constantly fighting back
and couldn't then end up end up being another Afghanistan
for them. This is a no win situation for them.
(20:40):
It seems to me it's bad if they lose, and
even bad if they win.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Absolutely case, it doesn't not look good for the Russians.
Resurgencies are probably one of the worse things you have
to deal with, and they would have absolutely have to
deal with that, but more to those ends, these territories
are what it takes today understand that these are not
like downtowns of cities. These are destroyed villages. At this point,
they're totally unoccupied. Just everything has been destroyed. We're looking
(21:06):
at these, you know, empty fields, even ak famland and
just strewn with a litter of you know, things that
have exploded over the past three years. The Russians would
not be taking over the territory that's you know, downtown Kiev,
which has office buildings, things like this. No, it's not
like that. They're out in areas that have been obliterated
(21:26):
by the war.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It seems ridiculous now and seems pointless, and it seems
surprising that Putin would continue to pursue this. The loss
outstrips any potential gain, so the country is greatly diminished
in a number of ways. Why is he continuing.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
At this point? It's I think a fight of Will's
and he thinks that he will outlast the Americans, that
the Americans don't have the resolve to continue, and he's
kind of on that. He wants to make a point
of showing that Russia, despite being a significantly less significant
out of a country than the United States has the
ability to defeat America despite not having a massive military,
(22:08):
despite not having the resource of the United States, that
the United States themselves would choose to get out of this,
and that would allow Russia just cheer in Ukraine, but
globally to expand. Keep mind, Russia's major partners in this
world are countries like Iran, North Korea, and China that airlines,
they work with Venezuela, they work with Cuba. But then
you look at who their other allies are. It's Hezbolah,
(22:30):
it's Hamas. So when Russia gains here, it's cheered by Hesbal,
it's cheered by Hamas, it's cheered by North Korea, it's
cheered by China, it's cheered by Iran. So that's what
this is really about. This is a global conflict, and
so if we think of it in that perspective, this
is not just about Ukraine. This is not about NATO.
This is about the fact that Russia and its allies
have a desire of seeing the overthrow of the Western
(22:54):
order of governance globally.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
We've been speaking with Jason Jason Martt live from Ukraine
outside of a bomb shelter, and I want to make
sure people know how to find your podcast because I
love it. I watch it every day. I feel like
I get really granular details and you post a lot.
So how do people find it?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Sure? On YouTube? It's Jason J. Smart and that's Jay.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's right, Jason J. Smart J And the J is Jay,
just like mine, Bradley J. Jy. I don't know what
you're feeling like, you're cold, tired. I mean, I could
definitely do another ten minutes with you after this break
if you have the time, But if you need to
go go to bed or get something to eat, that's fine.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
No, it's delighted to speak with you.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh great, And we do have a caller named Ken
who's in Waltham, Massachusetts, who has a question for you.
So we'll take this quick break. And I really appreciate
what you're doing this early in the morning where you
are in Ukraine. It's WBZ. It's Night Side with Dan
Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio. Quickly we go back
(24:00):
live to TV Ukraine and a gentleman who runs a
podcast there, Jason J. Smart. Great podcast I recommend you
sign up for is Standing Outside of Bomb shelter for
real right now, talking about the situation in Ukraine, it's
a lot more real, it's a lot less abstract when
you picture this guest standing where he's standing outside of
(24:24):
bombs shelter. Now, Jay, Jason, we have Ken and Waltham
who would like to say hello and ask a question
or make an observation. So say hi to Jason Ken.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, Hi, Jason, I did that good question for you. Hi.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
My question is when events happen here, like you know,
when Donald Trump has that terrible event that he had
with President Suleiski sits back in February in the White House,
or when Trump stopped the intelligence sharing for a week
(25:03):
and Pete haig Seth somehow mistakenly shut off weapon deliveries
for a week. Does that affect I wondered if that
has any impact on the morale of the citizenship in
Ukraine and the troops on the ground. Do they actually
see stuff like that happening and does that great effect?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
It is a good question, and yes, it does absolutely
affect both the morale of the soldiers as well as
the citizen population. And they're terrified by this. They don't
know how to understand this. Keep on. This is their
lives being played with as if there's some sort of
a game. Hag Seth just turns it off because she
decided to turn off. That means people are going to die.
I mean that means a family is going to die
in their apartment. He's got bombed because he doesn't have
air defense because heg Seth wants to make a show
(25:46):
for Fox News. That's what it means. And so yes,
it does affect around the population and in this country
in Ukraine, I speak Russian Ukrainian and I go on
television here a lot. And this top question I get
by far is why is it so callous? The laws
have no value for them whatsoever. We're willing to pay
for these weapons. It's not like this is just generosity.
They're willing to pay for them. You just kind of
(26:07):
off to make a show, a political show that there's
nothing but cost laws.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It's a lot different, folks, isn't it. When you hear
it from somebody there, it takes it out of the
abstract and makes it painfully real. Now it's Steven Pembroke.
You're on w Z with Jason j Smart live from
a crane.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Jason our prayers are with you and with your countrymen,
and hey, our president may not be with you, but
the American people are. I just want you to know that,
and I hope you know that. But my question is,
and you might have addressed this, and I apologize I
missed a little part of the interview, but it would
seem to me that I know you said it's been
a tough slog for potent, but it seems to me
(26:49):
like he could take Ukraine with one hand behind his back,
and is that just not the case or is he
deliberately holding back like death by a thousand paper cuts?
Or I mean, it just seems to be a powerful nation,
and you you sided the figures earlier. Is just what's
what's why is it taking him so long?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
A good question. I'm guessing they're just not as powerful
as you think. But what do you what do you say?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
It's much more of a paper tiger than we appreciate.
And the fact is that Russia's population is substantially larger
the Ukraine's and yet it's other in advances. Why is that?
Give mind, the casualties from the Russian side are about
one million, let's say, one hundred thousand at this point,
that's a huge loss of life, that's you know, killed
and injured. The fact is that the Russians, despite losing
(27:36):
that many lives, have taken a less than one percent
of Ukraine's territory, less than one percent, and this is exhausted.
They've sent off to die already. They're most elite sold
for a couple of years ago. The average life expectancy
once somebody departs Russia, they get sent in the Ukraine,
it's quite brief. They usually don't make it a musk.
And so the fact is, no, the Russians really don't
(27:57):
have the capacity to advance. And that's more incredible part.
If there was resolve to actually defeat Russia, that's something
to slow down the invasion, but to defeat Russia, that's
quite doable. The fact is with the technology that the
US has and European countries have which are given to
the Ukrainians, that technology is so far advanced, so much
different than what the Russians have, which is usually Soviet
(28:20):
arast productions. It's day and night, and so this has
been the decisive factor that has allowed Ukraine to continue
fighting this whole time and for Russia to not evance
the Russians, frankly, do not have the capacity to do more.
They do not have the ability to do more. The
only hope at this point is to just wait out
the West, to hope that the United States lose resolved
(28:42):
or for whatever reason sides that it wants to help Russia,
which is incredible because the Russian media, when you read it,
they just sort of hope that listens. The Americans will
decide it's good that inv any other countries, and they'll
sort of help us to do it by the fact
that not.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Ukraine excellently question Steven Pembroke, Thank you now, John and Boss.
Hi John, you're on WBZ with Jason. Jason.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
Yeah, I guess you want to know why is the
United States helping Ukraine? And what benefit is to the
average paycheck Joe and Joe sphen in America. I see
no benefit to the average person in America. So what
is it has to be some kind of special interest.
It's a war between the United States and Russia. Really,
that's what it really is. Okay, happening in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, thank you very much, John, appreciate it. You know what,
this is something that a lot of Americans need answer
they don't get it, and can you make them get it?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I think that we have sure. I mean, I think
we have to understand. This is One thing is that
Russia believes that it's worked the net states. That's probat
of the first thing to start off us. Russia believes
currently it isn't worked the net stiates and has nothing
to do with Ukraine. They believe that currently what is
going on when you look at when they have all
different things that they operate with, and I give an example.
One of the top allies of Russia is Iran. We
(29:57):
know that Iran lovely, that's something that they do together.
But once that ends, you know they work through the
drug cartels in Latin America are tied to these things
like hasle Lah. They are washing money via the Russian banks.
So we talk about drugs in the United States, we
talk about legal immigrations and sances. We talked about crime
and gangs that actually has ties back to the allies
of Russia. Why do they engage these things? Why do
(30:19):
they want to see that in the United States. They
believe that they're riding out and destroying the United States
from within. That is objective of Russia, and they believe
that this is the decisive moment. If they're able to
take this country, the United States will then peel back,
stay in its territory and allow Russia to expand globally. Currently,
they engage in activities with other terrorists organizations which aim
directly to kill American citizens, and that's not just one off,
(30:42):
so it's easy to google they engage globally in this behavior.
Another reason is simple. They truly believe the United States
must be destroyed when American citizens are killed, where there's
terrorism in the United States, it is something that Russia
wants to see more of. And it's a mistake to
believe that this is about just Ukraine, and Russia said
it's not. This is part of a global objective that
though they're smaller, they believe with warfare that yes, Ukraine
(31:05):
is an open war with normal military technology, but there's
a global war where they have to grind down the
West and destroy Western countries.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Excellent answer to a question that needed to be answered.
The short version is Russia is the enemy and has
been for a long long time, working with other actors
to bring down the United States from within or from without.
Oh however they can and this what's going on here
is just a stepping stone in that goal for them.
(31:33):
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you taking
the time to join us, Jason, and again, your podcast
is great. Tell them again how you get to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Sure you just look for my name, Jason j j
Y Smart and so Jason J. Smart is my name,
And if you just typed it into YouTube or Google,
I guess you'd be able to find pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
And congratulations, you've reached two hundred thousand subscribers, Am I correct?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, two hundred thousand less than three months, correct.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Which is unbelievable. So he's doing something right. It's a
great source. And now, folks, you know him personally when
you see him on the podcast, it won't be like
other folks that you don't know. You know Jason now,
So so subscribe to that podcast. And thank you again,
my friend. I'm happy to send you a link to
this if you want to share it wherever. Take care, man, Sure,
(32:27):
sure we'll do.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Thank you so much. Great talk with you guys.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Likewise, there you go, I'll wrap you know, we'll have
a little fun for the final fifteen minutes. It'll be late,
but that was a big deal, and I hope that
Jason's words and his descriptions and his pleas did not
fall on empty years. I hope that you've been moved
(32:49):
to understand that this is a big deal, that Russia
can't win, and that we need to at least pretend
to have the resolve to stick us out so that
Russia realizes that, you know, our attention span is longer
than he thought it. Putin realizes our attention span is
longer than he thought and says, you know, we just
(33:11):
can't keep doing this and quits, or, more likely the
oligarchs are suffer enough pain so that they oust him
or pressure him to step down or whatever send him
out to his datcha, which is what they do. Thank
you very much. I appreciate it. And check out that podcast, Jason, J. Smart,
(33:32):
thank you, Rob, thank you all. It's WBZ News Radio
ten thirty. I'll speak with you tomorrow.
It's nice side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boxton's
Beech Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Great to be with you. I'm Bradley J. For Dan.
Our next guest, Jason J. Smart, is quite a guy.
He lives right now. We're going to be speaking with
him alive from Kiv, Ukraine, and if you call in,
you will be talking with someone who is live in Kiev, Ukraine,
doctor Jason J. Smart. He's a reporter with the Kiev
Posts and much much more. He operates a podcast to
(00:30):
focus on getting information out about the conflict there, and
it's more direct than usually you get. It's more firsthand.
I mean, he lives there. He's been banned from Russia
for life, which is probably fairly easy to do. And
I have him with us because I've long wanted to
speak directly with someone to make us understand what life
(00:54):
is like there. I feel like Americans would be more
supportive if they they took if they got more information
than the abstract of what life is like there, than
the abstract of what's going on, then the abstract of
the horror and the death of what's going on there.
I would say it to folks who live in Massachusetts,
imagine if your neighbor, New Hampshire. We're trying to wipe
(01:20):
you out. What that would be like. You remember, we
had a tragedy not too long ago in Boston that
involved a bombing. Imagine if that happened every few days,
Imagine the PTSD. So that's why I have Jason J.
Smart here. And by the way, I listened to you.
(01:41):
I watch your podcast all the time, and I really
appreciate what you do. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Thank you so much for calling me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
How did you get banned for life from Russia?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
About fifteen years ago? I was working with the Democratic
opposition to Vladimir Putin and that's it doesn't go over
very well with the Kremlin. Where's open of that? I
was manned for life from ever entering Russia.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
How do they let you know? Did you get a letter?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yes, actually got a letter. I applied for a work
visa to go to Russia, and I got a letter
indicating that I was considered to be a threat to
the national security of Russia and hence would not be
allowed to enter the country.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
All right, it'd be a great service to me and
to the folks here. And I guess to Ukraine, if
you could help me make people understand what life is
like there? What light? How do you sleep? Do you
have to run to the store and run back? How
normal is life? And how not normal is life? And
(02:42):
is there PTSD? Does everyone have PTSD? How can you
sleep at night?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So you know, it's six 't ten in the morning here,
and I'm standing outside of one of the bomb shelters.
There was explosions all night. It was a very loud
night and I guess there's probably eight nine different air
raid warnings that went off. And I'm watching just now
a lot of the families leaving the bomb shelter, the
children leaving them. They're carrying mattresses and things like this,
(03:14):
and it's you know, for the children. Imagine it's particularly terrifying.
Is there's a confusion as to what's going on as
a whole. It's for the society. Yes, I guess there's
a certain degree of PTSD that comes with that. You know,
it's not particularly normal that you wake up to explosions.
And the thing that I've told people before, I think
(03:34):
it's sort of surreal about it is that you get
an air raid alert, let's say, and your phone will buzz,
and you'll hear the air raid warnings starting to wail,
and then within a little bit of time you start
to hear explosions of the air defense trying to shoot
down the drones. Then you hear the machine gun fire
as they're trying to shoot on the drones or shoot
them the incoming drones. And as time goes on, you
(03:57):
hear getting louder and louder and louder, and then you
start to hear in structures, and then you here's a
lot of explosions. You didn't hear the the the fire
alarms and the police arriving. It's it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Do you get used to it?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I mean to some extent, I guess one does get
sort of used to it. I mean, air raid warnings
are just so common. Every single day it seems there's attacks,
so that that is allotting per se the explosions. I
don't think you ever get really fully used to that.
It's it's because you don't know where it's coming from
and how much closer it's getting. But you can hear
it marked. They just cann't goloser and closer to where
(04:34):
you are, which then is just a little bit unsettling.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Does everyone sleep in a shelter or do some Are
they just too crowded and not everyone can get in.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Well, a lot of people, I think don't go to
the shelter because at the end of the day, they
have to go to work in the morning. You know,
there's there's what they prefer to do and what they
have to do, because it's if you have to go
to work at seven am. You can't simply just sleep
on the floor of a shelter all night, every night
and still continue to function.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
And these explosions happened nearby. Folks must see other people
dead and injured and have to live with that, and
a lot people mustn't all know people that have been killed.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Sure, of course, I mean there is people have been
killed in that side of it, just the drone attacks,
the missile tacks by Russia. And also you look at
the huge number of veterans are here in the country.
As I've described the people before, you just increasingly see
the day more and more young men that are empty
tees in downtown area, and it's just it's like a
(05:39):
frog in hot water. You don't really notice it all
at once because it's just every day drip by drip.
But when you're away for let's say a month to
come back, or a couple months you come back, you
start to realize it seems disproportion that what you would
see in a different country.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
We're speaking live from Ukraine from Give Ukraine to Jason J. Smutt,
and we'll talk about your podcast in a bit. I
want to know if the people you talk to, the
people who are going through this would like to see
a negotiation, if it an a peace treaty, if it
(06:12):
means you have to give up, they have to give
up territory. Are they willing to keep on toughing this
out until they win?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Pulling in Ukraine indicates that the people are willing to
continue toughing now. And the reason is very simple. Everybody
understands that if Russia is given some sort of a
deal for right now, it will just be an opportunity
to rearm, relocate, and then eventually reinvade. So that's the way.
Any sort of a deal right now is not serious.
We all understand that the Russians have not changed their desire.
(06:40):
Latimer Putin has been explicitly clear as to what his desires.
It has not changed since twenty twenty two. He made
that clearing the means with the American leadership. He made
that clear in the assessments that the CIA has put
out that is exactly the same what his objective is now.
He repeated those objectives just a couple of weeks ago
to Saint Petersburg Economic Form, where he said that our
objective is exactly the same is what it was. Nothing
(07:02):
has changed. So even if there was a deal in
the short term, nobody thinks the war will actually end.
It'll just be a short term break, which actually be
disadvantage to Ukraine because simply the Russians would put all
the resources into preparing to re made, whereas the Western
countries would try to stop helping Ukraine, and so the
Ukraine's invasion will become actually easier for the Russians.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
There are many people in the United States who have
been convinced that it is this is somehow Ukraine's fault,
that Ukraine threatened Russia, that there was a promise that
NATO would not expand that there are other reasons that
this is the fault of Ukraine. Can you explain to
(07:45):
them why that is not the case.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Well, it's not the case because one there is never
a promise that NATO would not expand. And secondly, anything
in international relations, you can sign a treaty. It's very simple.
If there had been a promise of this sort, there
would have been a written agreement. Anyone who says, oh,
but we had an agreement, and when there wasn't, it's
reasy to look up these agreements. There's never such an
agreement that NATO would not expand more important than that,
this is nothing to do with NATO. There's absolutely nothing
(08:09):
to do with NATO. Because Latimer putin give mine. He
did not invade Finland or Sweden after they join NATO,
just in the last two years, and the reason is
very simple. Though they share borders with Russia, walt borders.
This has nothing to do with NATO. The reality is
he is invading because he wishes to crush Ukraine as
a country and they take over the land. He wishes
(08:30):
to take the natural resources, and from what we've seen
in occupy territories, the facto enslaved the local population.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Your assessment of Russia's situation is more dire than we
hear in Western media, and your assessment of Ukrainian situation
is better and more optimistic than we hear in the
Western media. Can you explain why that is and can
you give some reasons why Russia is in a harder
place than we seem to understand and Ukraine is in
(09:01):
a better place than we seem to understand.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
So in the case of that, it's a really good question,
because I think one thing that disadvantages Ukraine in the
information space is simply that it is a liberal democratic society.
There's tons of journalists in from every newspaper, from every
international organization. There is a journalists here, So the bias
would be in favor of reporting anything ac that goes
wrong in Ukraine, whereas in Moscow there's very very few journalists.
(09:28):
And the fact is if you say anything that offends
the government, they'll throw you out of the country, and
so there is very little reporting of the real situations
side of Russia. However, if you just read the Russian news,
especially in things like Telegram, which is a social media
sort of application, and you see what people themselves are saying,
you realize the situation is far worse. When you look
at the raw numbers the government produces, you could calculate
(09:51):
that things are out of control. For their economy. You
can look at the fact that the military can not
keep up, and I give an example. We see increasing
numbers of videos, I mean just starkening increased videos of
Russians who have let's say armed personnel carriers which they
park out in the open field, let's say, with all
the hatches open. Now, typically you would try to park
(10:11):
these things underneath trees or underneath some sort of coverage
to prevent them from being struck by drones. But the
Russian soldiers realize the drons are gonna get them one
way together, it's better to just parking open space walk away,
allowed to get blown up, but then it prevents them
from getting killed, and as there well to sacrifice, their
vehicle gets sent back to Russia to wait for a
new one. That's becoming increasingly common, which is not very
(10:32):
good signs of morale in the Russian military. The number
of Russian soldiers that have been surrendering in the past
few months, actually it's really increased a lot. And it
seems that the Russian soldiers themselves, every company increasingly wary
of the idea, has been sent into meaningless meat assaults
where they just get sent into machine gun fire doesn't
(10:52):
want to work out for them and they know that.
So it seems that the Russian side has a lot
of problems. The Ukrainean side, there's definitely resolve, there's a
desire to win, and it's a much more ideological nature.
The Russian side, it's a very small number of soldiers
i think at this point who have any sort of
ideological identification with this. They're generally people who have significant
(11:13):
debts or other problems and they need the cash the
government now pays them. I've lot thirty thousand dollars to
sign up. Keep in mind, the average monthly income in
Russia is about nine hundred dollars, So if your averaging
comp per month is nine hundred dollars and you get
paid thirty thousand, that's a significant amount of money, and
that justifies for a lot of people the necessity of
joining the military.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Wow, because it's pretty much certain death to join the
military right now in the Russian Army.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Correct absolutely case. And the payout now Russian military, if
you get killed in the service, it's about one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. So once again, that's more money
than most Russias could ever dream of making in their life.
That is just a huge amount. And so people desperate times,
desperate decisions, and so there's people who are joining not
(11:59):
for anything of idea jup, simply because they need the cash.
But that also makes some not the best soldiers in
the world, because as soon as there's a moment to
skip out, they do. So.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
All right, we'll have to take a quick break, and
I want to ask you when we come back, whether
or not you think Ukraine can win without the United States.
It's a tough question. And hold that answer till after this.
On WBZ it's Night Side with Ray on Boston's news radio,
we continue with guests Jason J. Smart, who's coming to
(12:31):
us live from outside of bomb shelter, and Key Ukraine.
Believe it or not. My question to him just before
the rake was and it is now, can the can
Ukraine win this without the United States? In the beginning
didn't seem like they could, but making so much progress
now I feel like, and when I listen to you,
(12:51):
I feel perhaps some optimism that they can.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Well, they can definitely win. It's much harder, let's be clear,
but it's not possible. And to put this all in
the perspective, because I think people have this impression that
Russia's gaining large swaths of lands. Russia in the course
of the last years has lost over a million soldiers,
have been casualtied, that has killed or injured over a million,
(13:16):
and incredibly enough, they've taken less than one percent of
Ukrainian territory. To put us in another way, since twenty
twenty two, Russia controls less of Ukrainian territory today than
it did then. To put this in a different way,
Russia controls less of its own territory today than it
did three years ago. This Ukraine occupies parts of Russia.
Russia is not winning on anything. And one of the
(13:38):
keys to that, one of the keys to why Russia
is not able to advance despite these incredible casualty figures
is simply because Western weapons, weapons from the United States
do weapons in the United States, things like Kai lars
and other things, keep the Russians at bay. It doesn't
allow them to gather, to get closer and to attack
positions of the Ukrainians. And because they're top the way,
(14:00):
it allows Ukrainians to preserve the lives of their soldiers.
For the Ukrainians came out. It's a much smaller country Ukraine.
Before the war, there's only about forty million Uinians, it's
about one hundred and forty million Russians.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And now the.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Unoccupied territories of Ukraine combined there's probably only about twenty
five million people, So the country twenty five million versus
the country of one hundred and forty million. And yet
the Russians are not advanced. And that's simply because one
of the biggest reasons the Ukrainians have these advanced weapons
from the west that allows them to attack the Russian
(14:32):
positions before they're able to muster, before they're able to advance,
and to preserve the lives of their soldiers. And it
continue fighting.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Ukraine seems to be getting more and more effective at
hurting Russia when it comes to oil production capabilities, which
is their economic lifeline. Without that, they're done. Can you
give me an idea of how much of the production
the percentage of production has been destroyed or reduced the
ability to to make money selling oil, and give me
(15:02):
an idea of how much of their military hardware and
also personnel has been taken out of action.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So look at it this way. In the past two
weeks since the I guess third of August until yesterday,
between thirteen to twenty percent of Russia's oil producing capacity
has been destroyed. The oil refineries have been destroyed. Thirteen
to twenty percent is a huge Remember this of Russia's
national economy, oil and gas are about forty or forty
(15:34):
five percent of the national budget. So if you're destroying
these refineries, it has a significant effect on their economy.
More to those ends, when you look at the situation
within Russia today, to their banks have significant problems, are
being bailed out by the national government. We see that
they have a liquidity crisis. We see businesses are seizing up,
and the situation is significantly worse than it was the
(15:55):
United States before the two thousand and eight economic proms,
significantly worseference that the United States one is a superpower,
has the US dollar. There's always demand for US dollar,
but there's no demand for the rubles. Don't interested in
getting more rubles, and so for them when their banks
finally start to be in collapsing, which, by the way
Kremlin think things. These are thinkings directly along with the
(16:17):
Kremlin have said that they think for the next year
there is a high to very high probability. I've seen
cascading bank collapses within Russia due to the financial situation
just becoming simply untenable.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
In your estimation, how much longer can Russia continue this?
Especially if the United States would at least say they
wouldn't even have to do it. All they would have
to do is convince Russia, you know what, we're in
this to the end. Would that make them quit and
go home? If they if they thought, you know, the
(16:51):
United States is not going to go away. If President
Trump would be consistent with support for Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
If President Trump was consistent, no doubt the Russians would
be scary form. And let's be clear, Russia's entire economy
before the war, before the sanctions, was smaller than Italy's.
It's not a big country economically, so the United States,
which is more than twenty three of the world's GP,
if it were to put pressure on Russia, real pressure,
(17:19):
put real sanctions on Russia, to put sanctions on the
countries that buy Russian oil and gas, which is seventy
five percent bought by India and China. If we're to
put sanctions or to threaten to put sanctions of the
countries to buy Russia oil gas. It would it would
collapse the Russian economy.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
About your podcast, I watched the most recent episode today
and you covered a number of things. Perhaps you could
go through the items that you covered in your podcast,
starting with this new app that is being introduced into
Russian society that spies on them.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Yes, it's called Max. So Max is the system that
the government is forcing everyone to put onto their fronts.
You cannot communicate, for instance, with your school of your
children almost you have this application on your phone. You
cannot buy real fit or sell let's you have this
application on your phone. Everything requires this application, the same
way as security experts have already broken down what's behind
(18:12):
this application and what it does is it records on
your cell phone all your photos, all your videos, all
of your calls, as well as your keystrokes. Even if
you sent the message, it copies them and the Kremlin
gets all this information. This is for them to spy
their own population, to suppress their own population, and within
Russia it's sort of Orwellian through Frank It's really like
(18:35):
nineteen eighty four. They've banned a lot of the social
media's most of the social medias have been banned. They've
banned foreign news broadcasts and things like this. So if
people have very limited resource to other things. But now
with this application like max, the tunnel control the society
is there because it's not just preventing you from seeing
what on TV they would be in opposition to government,
(18:56):
or preventing you from seeing on something like Facebook because
they've banned it, or it's they've found it, but it's
now where they can check your phone and it's preventative.
So if you even think about looking things up or
see that you're typing or writing about things to be
an opposition to government, they know about it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Even if you don't even type the entire sentence, even
if you type a few words that the algorithm's senses
is a non governmentally friendly search, then you're on the
hook for that. I heard you say on your podcast
that this is not a very secure system and that
the West might be able to glean a lot of
(19:34):
information from the use of this app.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Well, that is the funny part. So they have this app,
they're telling everyone they have to put on the phones,
and they're forced installing it. I mean, even if you
don't want on your phone. They could somehow to sort
of download to your phone. But what's incredible the security
experts have said there's a very good chance of this
data is not secure and that there could be a
massive leak of the data on everybody's cell phones in
the near term. And what makes me incredible is that
(20:00):
you would think that the government would be alarmed, that
they would say that they're how to improve this, but
they don't even do that. What they do is they're
heads it committee in the parliament. The Juma has said
that anyone who criticizes this should be investigated as being
a foreign agent and an enemy of the state. Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I have been considering the following. Even if Russia was
able to achieve its goals, it would then be occupying
a group of people that would be constantly fighting back
and couldn't then end up end up being another Afghanistan
for them. This is a no win situation for them.
(20:40):
It seems to me it's bad if they lose, and
even bad if they win.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Absolutely case, it doesn't not look good for the Russians.
Resurgencies are probably one of the worse things you have
to deal with, and they would have absolutely have to
deal with that, but more to those ends, these territories
are what it takes today understand that these are not
like downtowns of cities. These are destroyed villages. At this point,
they're totally unoccupied. Just everything has been destroyed. We're looking
(21:06):
at these, you know, empty fields, even ak famland and
just strewn with a litter of you know, things that
have exploded over the past three years. The Russians would
not be taking over the territory that's you know, downtown Kiev,
which has office buildings, things like this. No, it's not
like that. They're out in areas that have been obliterated
(21:26):
by the war.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
It seems ridiculous now and seems pointless, and it seems
surprising that Putin would continue to pursue this. The loss
outstrips any potential gain, so the country is greatly diminished
in a number of ways. Why is he continuing.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
At this point? It's I think a fight of Will's
and he thinks that he will outlast the Americans, that
the Americans don't have the resolve to continue, and he's
kind of on that. He wants to make a point
of showing that Russia, despite being a significantly less significant
out of a country than the United States has the
ability to defeat America despite not having a massive military,
(22:08):
despite not having the resource of the United States, that
the United States themselves would choose to get out of this,
and that would allow Russia just cheer in Ukraine, but
globally to expand. Keep mind, Russia's major partners in this
world are countries like Iran, North Korea, and China that airlines,
they work with Venezuela, they work with Cuba. But then
you look at who their other allies are. It's Hezbolah,
(22:30):
it's Hamas. So when Russia gains here, it's cheered by Hesbal,
it's cheered by Hamas, it's cheered by North Korea, it's
cheered by China, it's cheered by Iran. So that's what
this is really about. This is a global conflict, and
so if we think of it in that perspective, this
is not just about Ukraine. This is not about NATO.
This is about the fact that Russia and its allies
have a desire of seeing the overthrow of the Western
(22:54):
order of governance globally.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
We've been speaking with Jason Jason Martt live from Ukraine
outside of a bomb shelter, and I want to make
sure people know how to find your podcast because I
love it. I watch it every day. I feel like
I get really granular details and you post a lot.
So how do people find it?
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Sure? On YouTube? It's Jason J. Smart and that's Jay.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's right, Jason J. Smart J And the J is Jay,
just like mine, Bradley J. Jy. I don't know what
you're feeling like, you're cold, tired. I mean, I could
definitely do another ten minutes with you after this break
if you have the time, But if you need to
go go to bed or get something to eat, that's fine.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
No, it's delighted to speak with you.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh great, And we do have a caller named Ken
who's in Waltham, Massachusetts, who has a question for you.
So we'll take this quick break. And I really appreciate
what you're doing this early in the morning where you
are in Ukraine. It's WBZ. It's Night Side with Dan
Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio. Quickly we go back
(24:00):
live to TV Ukraine and a gentleman who runs a
podcast there, Jason J. Smart. Great podcast I recommend you
sign up for is Standing Outside of Bomb shelter for
real right now, talking about the situation in Ukraine, it's
a lot more real, it's a lot less abstract when
you picture this guest standing where he's standing outside of
(24:24):
bombs shelter. Now, Jay, Jason, we have Ken and Waltham
who would like to say hello and ask a question
or make an observation. So say hi to Jason Ken.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, Hi, Jason, I did that good question for you. Hi.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
My question is when events happen here, like you know,
when Donald Trump has that terrible event that he had
with President Suleiski sits back in February in the White House,
or when Trump stopped the intelligence sharing for a week
(25:03):
and Pete haig Seth somehow mistakenly shut off weapon deliveries
for a week. Does that affect I wondered if that
has any impact on the morale of the citizenship in
Ukraine and the troops on the ground. Do they actually
see stuff like that happening and does that great effect?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
It is a good question, and yes, it does absolutely
affect both the morale of the soldiers as well as
the citizen population. And they're terrified by this. They don't
know how to understand this. Keep on. This is their
lives being played with as if there's some sort of
a game. Hag Seth just turns it off because she
decided to turn off. That means people are going to die.
I mean that means a family is going to die
in their apartment. He's got bombed because he doesn't have
air defense because heg Seth wants to make a show
(25:46):
for Fox News. That's what it means. And so yes,
it does affect around the population and in this country
in Ukraine, I speak Russian Ukrainian and I go on
television here a lot. And this top question I get
by far is why is it so callous? The laws
have no value for them whatsoever. We're willing to pay
for these weapons. It's not like this is just generosity.
They're willing to pay for them. You just kind of
(26:07):
off to make a show, a political show that there's
nothing but cost laws.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
It's a lot different, folks, isn't it. When you hear
it from somebody there, it takes it out of the
abstract and makes it painfully real. Now it's Steven Pembroke.
You're on w Z with Jason j Smart live from
a crane.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Jason our prayers are with you and with your countrymen,
and hey, our president may not be with you, but
the American people are. I just want you to know that,
and I hope you know that. But my question is,
and you might have addressed this, and I apologize I
missed a little part of the interview, but it would
seem to me that I know you said it's been
a tough slog for potent, but it seems to me
(26:49):
like he could take Ukraine with one hand behind his back,
and is that just not the case or is he
deliberately holding back like death by a thousand paper cuts?
Or I mean, it just seems to be a powerful nation,
and you you sided the figures earlier. Is just what's
what's why is it taking him so long?
Speaker 2 (27:09):
A good question. I'm guessing they're just not as powerful
as you think. But what do you what do you say?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
It's much more of a paper tiger than we appreciate.
And the fact is that Russia's population is substantially larger
the Ukraine's and yet it's other in advances. Why is that?
Give mind, the casualties from the Russian side are about
one million, let's say, one hundred thousand at this point,
that's a huge loss of life, that's you know, killed
and injured. The fact is that the Russians, despite losing
(27:36):
that many lives, have taken a less than one percent
of Ukraine's territory, less than one percent, and this is exhausted.
They've sent off to die already. They're most elite sold
for a couple of years ago. The average life expectancy
once somebody departs Russia, they get sent in the Ukraine,
it's quite brief. They usually don't make it a musk.
And so the fact is, no, the Russians really don't
(27:57):
have the capacity to advance. And that's more incredible part.
If there was resolve to actually defeat Russia, that's something
to slow down the invasion, but to defeat Russia, that's
quite doable. The fact is with the technology that the
US has and European countries have which are given to
the Ukrainians, that technology is so far advanced, so much
different than what the Russians have, which is usually Soviet
(28:20):
arast productions. It's day and night, and so this has
been the decisive factor that has allowed Ukraine to continue
fighting this whole time and for Russia to not evance
the Russians, frankly, do not have the capacity to do more.
They do not have the ability to do more. The
only hope at this point is to just wait out
the West, to hope that the United States lose resolved
(28:42):
or for whatever reason sides that it wants to help Russia,
which is incredible because the Russian media, when you read it,
they just sort of hope that listens. The Americans will
decide it's good that inv any other countries, and they'll
sort of help us to do it by the fact
that not.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Ukraine excellently question Steven Pembroke, Thank you now, John and Boss.
Hi John, you're on WBZ with Jason. Jason.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
Yeah, I guess you want to know why is the
United States helping Ukraine? And what benefit is to the
average paycheck Joe and Joe sphen in America. I see
no benefit to the average person in America. So what
is it has to be some kind of special interest.
It's a war between the United States and Russia. Really,
that's what it really is. Okay, happening in Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Well, thank you very much, John, appreciate it. You know what,
this is something that a lot of Americans need answer
they don't get it, and can you make them get it?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I think that we have sure. I mean, I think
we have to understand. This is One thing is that
Russia believes that it's worked the net states. That's probat
of the first thing to start off us. Russia believes
currently it isn't worked the net stiates and has nothing
to do with Ukraine. They believe that currently what is
going on when you look at when they have all
different things that they operate with, and I give an example.
One of the top allies of Russia is Iran. We
(29:57):
know that Iran lovely, that's something that they do together.
But once that ends, you know they work through the
drug cartels in Latin America are tied to these things
like hasle Lah. They are washing money via the Russian banks.
So we talk about drugs in the United States, we
talk about legal immigrations and sances. We talked about crime
and gangs that actually has ties back to the allies
of Russia. Why do they engage these things? Why do
(30:19):
they want to see that in the United States. They
believe that they're riding out and destroying the United States
from within. That is objective of Russia, and they believe
that this is the decisive moment. If they're able to
take this country, the United States will then peel back,
stay in its territory and allow Russia to expand globally. Currently,
they engage in activities with other terrorists organizations which aim
directly to kill American citizens, and that's not just one off,
(30:42):
so it's easy to google they engage globally in this behavior.
Another reason is simple. They truly believe the United States
must be destroyed when American citizens are killed, where there's
terrorism in the United States, it is something that Russia
wants to see more of. And it's a mistake to
believe that this is about just Ukraine, and Russia said
it's not. This is part of a global objective that
though they're smaller, they believe with warfare that yes, Ukraine
(31:05):
is an open war with normal military technology, but there's
a global war where they have to grind down the
West and destroy Western countries.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Excellent answer to a question that needed to be answered.
The short version is Russia is the enemy and has
been for a long long time, working with other actors
to bring down the United States from within or from without.
Oh however they can and this what's going on here
is just a stepping stone in that goal for them.
(31:33):
I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you taking
the time to join us, Jason, and again, your podcast
is great. Tell them again how you get to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Sure you just look for my name, Jason j j
Y Smart and so Jason J. Smart is my name,
And if you just typed it into YouTube or Google,
I guess you'd be able to find pretty easily.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
And congratulations, you've reached two hundred thousand subscribers, Am I correct?
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Yeah, two hundred thousand less than three months, correct.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Which is unbelievable. So he's doing something right. It's a
great source. And now, folks, you know him personally when
you see him on the podcast, it won't be like
other folks that you don't know. You know Jason now,
So so subscribe to that podcast. And thank you again,
my friend. I'm happy to send you a link to
this if you want to share it wherever. Take care, man, Sure,
(32:27):
sure we'll do.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Thank you so much. Great talk with you guys.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Likewise, there you go, I'll wrap you know, we'll have
a little fun for the final fifteen minutes. It'll be late,
but that was a big deal, and I hope that
Jason's words and his descriptions and his pleas did not
fall on empty years. I hope that you've been moved
(32:49):
to understand that this is a big deal, that Russia
can't win, and that we need to at least pretend
to have the resolve to stick us out so that
Russia realizes that, you know, our attention span is longer
than he thought it. Putin realizes our attention span is
longer than he thought and says, you know, we just
(33:11):
can't keep doing this and quits, or, more likely the
oligarchs are suffer enough pain so that they oust him
or pressure him to step down or whatever send him
out to his datcha, which is what they do. Thank
you very much. I appreciate it. And check out that podcast, Jason, J. Smart,
(33:32):
thank you, Rob, thank you all. It's WBZ News Radio
ten thirty. I'll speak with you tomorrow.
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