Making It Difficult To Continue: Mike Lyons Talks To Armstrong & Getty

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hilodimer Zolinsky defiant, telling his people Ukraine cannot be intimidated.
President Biden calling the attacks senseless and reaching out to
Zelinsky yesterday to reiterate US support for Ukraine's defense against Russia,
including a pledge to supply Ukraine with advanced air defense systems.
President Zelenski is expected to press President Biden other G

(00:21):
seven leaders for air defense systems White House, indicating that's
something that the President is ready to offer. Unsurprisingly, as
they pushed forward on the land here in the East,
they want to know that they can protect their civilians
back at home in the towns and cities across Ukraine
have says. The missiles rained down on Ukraine for a
couple of days in a row. Yet more missile defense systems,

(00:41):
better missile defense systems what Zalinski's gasking for, and it
looks like we're going to give it to them. In
the G seven broke their meeting and made a broad
statement of support for Ukraine, pledging undeterred and steadfast quote
unquote financial and military help for Kiev, and reiterated that
there would be severe consequences if Russia were to use chemical, biological,

(01:01):
or nuclear weapons to discuss the latest. Please welcome with us.
Mike Lions military analysts served with various military organizations both
the US and Europe, and was indeed, uh, the aide
de camp to a general officer in the NATO Command
back in the day. As they say, Mike, welcome, how
are you, hey, Guy's great to be back with you.
So we haven't talked to you since Ukraine blew up
the Russian Bridge, Russia rained down missiles on Ukraine. Where

(01:24):
are we right now? Yeah, no surprise. Russia is from
a from a tactical perspective, Russia continues to lose certain
battles in the South, but because they have tremendous capability
and capacity industrial capacity. Um, they've now decided for these
long range missile strikes. Um, you know, we're going to
cavil over. Whether they're outdated and precise, but they land someplace,

(01:46):
they land in Ukraine, they create damage. They are stoking
fear and terror inside inside that country. And that this
is what they're going to continue to do. And as
long as they have the industrial depacity to do it,
and and uh, they're they're not going to stop. Um.
I think this has a lot to do with hardliners
in Russia are trying to get to put and saying, look,

(02:06):
you better start winning this war here, because it doesn't
look like that's happening. Losing the battles asn't mean you're
losing the war, but fundamentally it's just it's not looking good.
And I think he's got a mobilization issue with some
of the what called the silent majority, the people within
the eleven vast time zones of Russia, as they recognize
that this is not really going any place, you know,
in the real world. To mobilize, you know, large forces

(02:29):
that would be effective, it would require six months to
a year, but he's not doing that. He's We're seeing
reports of literally soldiers showing up after being mobilized during
four days after they're notified. So, um, Russia is going
to continue to Russia as what I say, and we
shouldn't not be shocked that they're going to go after civilians.
From their perspective, it's total war and they're going to
continue it. And as long as the West continues to

(02:49):
at least match industrial capacity to Ukraine, the stalemate will continue. Well,
this strikes me, this barrage of Russian Russian missile strikes
me as the classic we need to do something, and
this is something because the history warfare is that sort
of bombardment doesn't terrorize people into submitting it, it hardens
their will. Yeah, yeah, for sure, you look at history

(03:12):
and um, they're you know dressed in all these other
places that do get bombed. But until they're actually able
to put people on the ground to take it, nothing's
going to change. I don't think Russia has any plans
on doing that anymore, but they're just going to contete,
continue to just make it difficult for Ukraine to exist
as a country. The areas that they've taken in the

(03:33):
Dome Best regions they still have now a fifth of
the of the land mass. Our industrial complexes and steel
factories and nuclear plants and chemical factories, all these things
are really important for Ukraine to make money now. Also
a lot of the mental strikes are going after infrastructure,
so um, you know, we haven't seen this arm again yet.

(03:53):
When it comes to cyber or shutting down the electricity
inside of the Ukraine, I think Russia is going to
start to do that as Ukraine won't be able to
sell some of that electricity Europe, which has been doing
in order to supply some of the worst supplies it
needs in order to fight the Russian So it's all,
it's all very you know, a complex economic statecraft that
I think Russia is now going to engage in because

(04:15):
they just not win any tactical battles on the ground.
So lots of people Leon Panetta, former Secretary Defense, David Petreus,
who was our whatever, he was Supreme Commander in the
Middle East for a while. Uh, they and others saying
this is irreversible for putin the ground war. I mean,
it's it's just it's never going to go the other direction.
You agree with that, Yeah, you know, Um, he's gonna

(04:40):
run out of time. He's not gonna be able to
do anything. It depends on what the rest of the
world does. He's he's going to do whatever he can
to hold those reasons he has. Crimea for example, is
something he has to have. The Black Sea Fleet is
out of that naval base there. It's the only one
war report. It's it's he cannot suffer that that kind
of loss. I think he'll do whatever he can to

(05:02):
at least, you know, hold what he has. You know,
he's not going to make Ukraine joined Russia. That doesn't
look like that's going to happen. But that's not to
say he still can't wage war against its neighbor by
launching bombs into it every once in a while. The
question is what what is the rest of the world
going to do about it? Is the rest of the
world actually going to isolate um, isolate Russia? Is they're
going to be that economic pressure for them to uh

(05:24):
to to not be able to sell their products. The
problem as long as the Chinese they are in the game.
The Chinese is there. You know, Russia has become a
client state of China. Now the Chinese really holds a
key to this. In fact, uh thing is, you don't
think can be a peace caper. He can, he can
look like he's a good guy in this if he
gets Russia to stop, because that's really that's all anybody
wants wants to have happened right now. So there's still

(05:45):
you know, assisilings the ways to go. Russ is not
stopping Ukraine and also wants that land back, so they're
not going to stop. So you have both sides in
this prolonged stalemate that that until one side shows lesser
capacity on industrial side. You're gonna see, you're gonna se
this going for a long time. Well in Ukraine has
the industrial capacity of the Western world, particularly the US.

(06:05):
Although as the G seven made brave statements about how
their their support is unending and undeterred blah blah blah.
The word is Europe is still doing a terrible job
of holding up the end of the bargain. Right, So,
and what the United States is providing his money in
a bank and and we're we're hyping these precision weapons
systems and they've made a difference, but they still Russia

(06:27):
brings untill ten x ten times the amount of tubes
artillery tubes to the battlefield, and they're still fighting, you know,
World War two. I You know that anyone who says
that that the technology advantage on the West is going
to win out is just just purely speculating that, because
history has shown that in warfare in particular, that NASS
still ends up, you know, winning the day. And if

(06:48):
Russia can get the West to get weak in the needs,
let's call new NATO old NATO, right, the old NATO
countries of Germany and France, if you know, they still
believe that everybody wants to go back to I think
we talked before. Everybody wants to go back to seb
every twenty three, like nothing ever happened. And I think
you know that that would make them happy. The people
in Eastern Europe are like, Nope, this is it. There's
a pretty bright line now that exists in the world.

(07:09):
The world's completely different and there's there's a and we're
not going back to that spot. We're not going back.
We have to rely on Russia. My clients on the line, Uh, Mike,
the big question, how concerned are you about the exchange
of nuclear weapons? So tactical nukes don't make sense for
Russia because they're they're used in the defense. And I
was an artillery officer in the eighties. We had tactical

(07:31):
nukes that were used in the We would have used
in the defense as the Russian Horde was supposed to
overtakecome our positions on the North German plain on. You know, women,
the Third World War was going to take place there
and that obviously never happened. But but to use them
first of ll convinced it'll fix the conventional forces in place.
But to use them now they're too short range. His

(07:51):
truth will be in too much of an area where
they could possibly affected by it. So I don't see
them being used there in that regard, unless he decides
to go after you know, the energy plants and the
infrastructure with it, because it'll you don't have to have
way about precision, you don't have to worry about those
kind of things that it'll render those places uninhabitable for

(08:12):
a while. I think that's where he possibly uses it,
And what we'll do is it will create kind of
like a border, more of a border between Ukraine and
Russia because the technics don't have that same impact. Now,
if he's launches something from Russia into Kiev on a
nuclear side, that that changes the equation, That changes everything. Um.
I still I'm not sure specifically how we would respond

(08:32):
to that because we'd have to be concerned about escalation.
We really would have to recognize that Russia is an
existential threat to the US full stop. Whether we want
to say he would or wouldn't do it remains to
be seen. I'm not sure I would bet on our
missile platforms to take anything out, but the kind of
the kind of technology they have to do that, I
think that he it's possible he does that, but he

(08:53):
goes after critical infrastructure and knowing full well that that
that would mean regime change, that that would mean that
every every NATO country, every country in the world would
take a special loss to try to go after him
and take his regime down. Wow. Interesting. My clients military analysts, Mike,
great stuff. We appreciate it very much. Thanks. Yeah. The Uh.

(09:13):
One of the outcomes that I don't appreciate enough probably
is because the whole thing and the war has been
going on since we weren't paying any attention to it
whatsoever until February. The Ukrainians had lost many thousands of
soldiers over that period of time while the world was
paying no attention. It could drag on like that. Would

(09:34):
the world go back to not paying attention to it?
I don't know, but yeah, And that's what I've been saying.
Is uh making me pessimistic about an end of this
anytime soon, as you're pre borders is going to take
an enormous effort. Uh. And and you know, the Russians
are losing plenty of men, but they have a lot

(09:55):
of men, maybe maybe good ones, maybe trained ones, maybe not.
But the Ukrainians have lost a lot of guys too,
and they don't have nearly as big a reserve. So um,
I don't know. I don't know how strong the will
is to take back every inch or if they figure
out Okaysen, we hated it, but we gotta live with
it now. What about CRIMEA? I just I don't know.

(10:17):
Start strong,