You Won't See Russia Relent: Mike Lyons Talks To Armstrong & Getty

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So we talked about this some yesterday as the Russians
announced they're pulling out of a Curson and the number
of headlines, because I was looking for a lot of
information on this yesterday, all the headlines said roughly the
same thing. It's the biggest setback for Putin since the
war started, or at least since he tried to go
into Kiev. Uh, it's a disaster for the Russian military.

(00:21):
We thought we ought to talk to somebody about how
big a deal this is. Indeed, and Mike Lyons military
analysts joins US. Mike served with various military organizations both
the US and Europe throughout his career. On his a
well known commentator on a number of networks. Et STERA, Mike,
how are you, sir, Hey, guys, great to be with
you this morning. Thank you, it's great to have you.
What was your reaction to the news that it was

(00:42):
announced on high that the Russians were withdrawing from Curson. Well,
I think actually Russia avoided the disaster, so one would
have been a disaster. Is there on the on the
western side of the Nembro River, and they had anywhere
from twenty to three thousand troops in outside of the river,
and I think what would have been a bigger disaster
if those troops surrendered and then then you have a

(01:03):
real Russian problem. So Russia, it looks like they're finally
getting general officers that are kind of getting it understanding
the situation on the grounds. Wants taken nine months, but
in order to you know, kind of save the troops
and fight for their day, they got to bring them
to the eastern side of that river, knowing full well
the Ukrainian military doesn't have any capability to conduct a
military type river crossing in an offensive operation. So Russia

(01:25):
general says, we're gonna save these troops, We're gonna bring
them back here, and now the long war is on
for the wintertime to just kind of shut things down.
So I think that Russia averted a disaster, and while
it does look like defeat on their side, it really
is going to save Russian troops for a future battle,
of which you know, Ukraine still just doesn't have enough men. Well,
it's interesting to me how many things have happened through

(01:46):
this whole campaign that aren't any different than if we
were talking about war a thousand years ago, you know,
getting to the other bank of the river before winter.
I mean, that's that's some classic old timy military stuff
right there. Yeah. Yeah. For all the technology and precision
bombing and all kinds of things, that does come down
to geography. And you know, army guys like myself always

(02:08):
look at that as well, and this is what what's
what they're trying to do, and it's it's it's pretty
clear that you've got to save these troops to fight
them for another day. I mean, look, Russia is gonna Russia.
What that means is they've got this kind of fighting
in their DNA for the last hundred years and the
last thousand years. They're not going to stop there. They're
going to continue to use what weapons they have to
to strike deep into keep. They're going to continue to

(02:30):
try to take out infrastructure. Um, you know, the weather,
the weather in Ukraine, there's not tundra, it's not Moscow,
it's not this. You know, they're gonna like freeze them out.
I guess I had a good analogy yesterday. I was
talking to a friend of mine who we said, it's
kind of like, uh, you know southern Illinois, you know
Kentucky weather in the winter, it gets called but it's
it's kind of survivable, so you know, there's not going

(02:51):
to be this this challenge. Ukraine can kind of sort
get through this. You know, I'm talking another guy like
yesterday and another uh you know, high ranking guy we
were talking about to where this thing is going, and
it looks like you know, Q two of next year,
at some point these both sides will be just exhausted
and perhaps um NO will start to negotiate, but you're
not going to see Russia quit at least through the winter. Well,

(03:12):
so just to clarify then, I think you've made this point.
The withdrawal from Cissan, it should not be read as
some sort of trend or sign of weakness per se.
It's just a reasonably intelligent strategic move. Yeah, exactly. And
we want to prop up the Ukraine side. We want
to obviously see them do well. They're they're on their
the right cause for for freedom and justice and the

(03:32):
Russians are the bad guys here. But the Russia is
just doing what they have to do in order to
fight for another day. So again I don't look at
this as their defeating and I'm sure they're not telling
their their troops that they're they're they're they're trying to
make basically save twenty tho troops, because if twenty troops
surrender on the east side of that river, that's the disaster,
that's that would be something that would be the big
victory that Ukraine then could claim. Well, I'm thinking about

(03:54):
all the times that you know, Grant pulled back to
regroup and just you know, kept at it, um, referring
to the Civil War. Um not he listens, asked Grant,
not Hugh Grant, clarify exactly. Um. Uh So. I guess
that explains why it was announced, because when I heard
it yesterday, I thought, why are the Russians announcing this
with you know, um, not glee, but certainly with with

(04:17):
such confidence. Well, I think you've explained it now, yeah,
and and and so looking at other ways, like in
normally in a regular military operation, now the Ukraine's on
the offense, they would call this pursuit operations. But but
that pursued stops at that river. They don't have that capability.
They'd have to cross that river with three times the
amount of men in order to have any kind of

(04:38):
assured success to try to do that. And they just
don't have that kind of capability that the West will
continue to support them, no question about it, and that'll
that'll last for a while. But I think you're gonna
see a real stop in some of the fighting there
in the southern region. So I find myself curious, Mike,
if the United States UH was tasked with crossing that
river and doing what needed to be done, what would
that look like logistically and what is it the the

(05:00):
Ukrainians lack. Yeah, it's good question. I think a lot
of it though, is we wouldn't put ourselves in that
place because we would have now looked to taken that
position across the river already. We would have prepped that
that area, and we would have tried to have cornered
them before our enemy escaped. I mean that that would
have been our commander's intent. But they just again don't

(05:21):
have that kind of manpower to do that, So you know,
they were not able to take advantage of something that
we would have done. We would have had the capability
in order to to really surround those twenty tho troops
and try to make them surrender. But now if we
had to do that, um, it would take months of
planning and it would likely not. We wouldn't do it
right away either, and given our our military um kind

(05:42):
of what we do, it's it's old fashioned, you know,
ribbon bridges, it's old fashioned, people up front, you know,
getting shot at its old fashioned. Take storm in the
beaches at Normandy. I mean this is there's no kind
of technology that's gonna do that. It's gonna take brave
people in order to get out in front and face,
you know, face the enemy and a lot of fire.
Well that's really interesting. So even if the mighty advanced,
well funded US military we're going to try to cross

(06:04):
that river, it would take months and planning and to
to pull it off. Yeah, we probably wouldn't do it
until the springtime. Interesting, we'd put people in place, and
we would we wouldn't even try. I would like your
reaction to this headline. This is from the Wall Street Journal,
But I saw a number of places US refuses advanced
drones for Ukraine to avoid escalation. The Biden administration won't
give Ukraine the Gray Eagles, despite please from Kiev and

(06:28):
a bipartisan group of members of Congress. How do you
feel about that? Are are we are we only arguing
with ourselves on this whole escalation thing, or does that
make sense to you? Well, no, I think we have
to be careful on escalation and we're doing everything we
can to try to keep the playing field level, but
we're gonna we can't risk giving them something that Ukraine
decides to pour over the border into Russia. I think

(06:48):
that's going to that would escalate it quickly. And that's
why they still really don't have patriots, they don't have
some of the eight tacoms, they don't have really the
long range missile systems, because they believe that Ukraine would
use them to its inside of Russia, that that would
trigger then Russia maybe lear into the Baltic States, maybe
doing something. And they're getting a trilier every day, no
question about that. But but they're in it for the

(07:09):
long run. I mean, they could be like the Chinese.
They're they're gonna put a long run. This could be
two to three years at this point um from their perspective.
So I agree with that. I don't think we should
be giving them things that that would likely tip the
balance so far on their favor, or potentially be crossing
that border. That's just a no go. So listen, Mike.
I know your specialty is a military and analysis and
you're not like part of a Russian study think tank,

(07:32):
But what's your sense based on what you've heard about
the Russian home front, the domestic approval for the war,
the support and and doesn't matter at this point. I
don't think it matters. I think, um, with a hundred
and sixty plus million people Russia and eleven times zones,
Russia grabs people from all over its its its geographies

(07:54):
and only has to bring a couple hundred thousand of
them to the battles to make a difference. And so
why you've got TV reporters and mosque gown There might
be protests going on there. There's places well east of
that that I have no idea what's going on. That
just gets told to the fight for the fatherland and
they can, you know, can show up there. What what
Russia should be doing right now is training divisions. They
should be training soldiers at a time if they if

(08:17):
they want to win this and go back on the offensive,
they're going to have to do that, take the next
six months and do that. Instead, they've been putting tropes
in piecemeal, one at a time, a few at a time,
and it's not proven to be effective because they're not
really well trained. So they still have tremendous capability, and
they still have all that infrastructure, They still have all
of that ready to go. And I don't think you're

(08:38):
gonna see this thing, you know, explode from within it.
They're gonna still it's gonna go on for at least
another six months if not more great stuff, really interesting
military analystm Mike clients there. Mike, thanks so much for
the time. Thanks, thanks for me