March 30, 2022 • 11 mins
With discussions between Ukrainian & Russian officials taking place in Turkey, Putin's bombardment of the former Soviet block country continues. What's next? And how are Ukrainian troops managing to kill so many Russian officers?
Military analyst Mike Lyons joins Armstrong & Getty with his perspective on the now more-than month-long battle.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Armstrong and Getty Show. Over the past several hours.
The governor of Chernihiv, that's that city just northeast of Kiev,
that the Russians conceded that they would be They claimed
that they're pulling back some of their forces from there.
The governor of that region says that shelling continued in
(00:21):
that city overnight, and that shelling continued in the outskirts
of Kiev. Of course, President Zelinski saying that the fighting
continues in other parts of the country. The shelling continues
in Harkive in the northeast and as I mentioned, in Mariople.
So that feeds into this skepticism that you know, many
Ukrainians feel that this is just a repositioning of Russian forces.
(00:46):
Is Russia actually backing down from their earlier goals or
just repositioning and uh, they're lying to the world once again.
I saw some new drone footage of Mariopal that was
just incredible. It looks like when the those F five
hurricane or tornadoes hit a town on just level everything,
like you can see the foundation. It's amazing. So to
(01:09):
discuss the question negotiations and a number of other interesting topics,
please welcome to the show. Major Mike Lions, decorated member
of American Armed Forces, sought after commentator on cable and
broadcast networks, etcetera. Mike, how are you, sir? Hey, come
on you guys. Great to be back. Uh, indeed, great
to have you. So, given what you have observed from
the Russian military, the Ukrainian military, the stalemates, etcetera, and
(01:32):
the promises of negotiation and pullbacks, what do you make
of the current situation, both militarily and diplomatically. Well, first
and foremost, who cannot believe a single thing that the
Russia leadership says, not, not in any level. This stuff
about drawing back out of Kiev, going north to Chernobyl,
to me, looks more like a reorganization kind of in
(01:55):
a regroup in order to do a counter attack. They're
getting away from a very competent guerrilla force that the
Ukraine military is put together, small units eight to ten
individuals with javelins, with the kind of support that is
just absolutely wreaking havoc on Russian military units there. And
they've just said enough and so they they've got to
(02:17):
get out of there now. They're going to give up
places that they've taken with blood and treasure, which is
just again unheard of that a guerrilla unit is able
to do this to the Russian military. So what's happening
up there? I think think it's just kind of a
reset to try to get those units offline because they're
doing so poorly in the south. Mariopo remains their primary objective.
They have to have it in order to kind of
complete that land bridge that goes from Crimea to the
(02:38):
rest of the Russian Federation. And and maybe when they
take that, maybe that starts some kind of negotiation as
an off ramp or so. But I wouldn't believe a
word they're saying about scaling back any military operations. Well,
if it just continues militarily, how do you see this
playing out over the next weeks, months? How long do
you think it lasts? I think it goes from months
(02:59):
and it plays out until Russia says enough in that
you know, it feels it can say face. Let's say,
maybe you can try to um, you know, continue to
pound down the Ukraine civilian but it just doesn't look
like that's going to happen. And it just gets back
to that old expression about you can you know pound
people into submission. But unless you're gonna be successful taking
(03:20):
it on the ground, it's not gonna work. And they've
just not been successful with the military units that that
are there. You know, for example, they're they're not able
to have what's called interior lines in the military, and
with that are that is is the capability to reinforce
units within poorly worked operations. All those units that are
in the north and to the east right now can't
help the units in the south because there are five
(03:42):
miles away. They couldn't possibly get units and troops and
equipment there with any kind of speed or urgency unit
to affect the battle there. So so Russia has failed
from a strategic perspective. On the military side, however, they're
going to claim they're gonna try to claim victory some way.
And if they claim it by taking that south in
those cities, along the ball along the Black Seat, and
maybe that's it. Well, we know you're not just a
(04:03):
military analyst, you're a student of history, and it just
seems like surrendering that territory to Russia sets a moral
and practical example. It's just repugnant, just tough to take
it does. But what it'll do is it will redefine
now a new boundary, and I think that's what's going
to be most important. UM. And at least stop the fighting.
(04:24):
It will stop the killing, so that there's a positive
aspect to that. UM. But you know, the West is
going to move in very pretty quickly once it's safe
to rebuild Ukraine, and that's going to be now hard
border between you know, Russia and the rest of the world.
And let's hope that Europe and the rest of the
world now creates the pride that Russia needs to be
and doesn't do business with them. I mean, again, there
(04:46):
was no deterrence to keep Russia from invading Ukraine. This
whole liberal idea of these countries getting together and if
we're all tied together economically, they won't wage war on
each other. It just didn't work out here. The Germans
now we're gonna look for different ways to to supplement
their energy. They're not going to buy from Russia anymore.
And now Russia will get it from someplace south to
India and China. But but the bottom line is, I
(05:08):
think they've got to really do a tremendous job isolating
Russia for a long time for years until their leadership changes. Uh.
New York Times is talking about the question they're asking
in the Pentagon is, how did we misjudge the Russian
military so badly? Do you have any idea? Yeah, a
couple of reasons. First of all, it's not in our
(05:28):
interest to over you know, to undersell what they are,
because that doesn't buy us weapons and the Pentagon that
you know, so so we have to make sure that
we overestimate what their capabilities are. But all of the
other factors that went into this, the fact that they're
using conscripts, the fact they don't have good leadership, the
fact that they've not been able to really do AirLand
battle or blitz Creeg by synchronizing forces from the air
(05:50):
and the ground. Um. We and they all bring mass
to the table. They say, at the end of the day,
they still brought two d thousand troops into Ukraine. And
that alone that we're watching them throw these troops, you know,
literally into the fodder and just having them killed for
no reason. But um, but we're going to continue to
underestimate our enemies as as a as a matter of fact,
(06:11):
in order to overestimate our Pentagon budgets. I think that's
a big part of it. That's interesting. But we all know, everybody,
I mean, miss miss uh under overestimated Putin. I mean,
we all had this view of him being this crafty
KGB genius three dimensional chess and it doesn't look that
way at all. Well unless, though, unless his goal all
(06:32):
along has been the land bridge along the south, along
the coast, I don't know. Yeah, I think he would
have liked, you know, to take keep change the government
and thought that possibly was going to happen, and and
given the distances, I would have thought that they would
have been more successful in the north. They were, they
were prepositioned in Belarus, they had less distance to travel.
They still couldn't get fifty miles into the into Ukraine
(06:54):
and take the city or even even really threatened. They're
only been threatened by the strategic weapons. So there's another
colleagues at the Modern War Institute, John Spencer, who's an
expert on urban conflict, and we're talking about the Surban
conflict and I'm like, John, it's not happened yet. We haven't.
We don't have it yet. All all that they've done
is surround the city and they're selling it from artillery
(07:15):
and cruise missiles. That's not really urban conflict yet. I
would have thought by now you'd have tanks in the streets,
you'd have fighting, you'd have a lot more things happening
inside Kiev, and it's just just doesn't happen yet. Well,
explain to people what a big deal it is. An
NBC is now saying nine Russian generals have died. How
how unique is that in the history of warfare and
heard of? And and that's because these guys are coming
(07:35):
down to the execution phase of what's happening. And I
mean they're literally directing traffic. I mean, I guess, I
mean the fact that they're so close to the fighting
they are likely being targeted. I want. There's one thing
we're providing in a way that's not talked about now
is level of intelligence to the Ukraine military that is
probably in real time and likely a lot of it
has to do with where those generals are. As we
(07:57):
know where they are based on our satellite technology and
we could read main tags and foxols down to the
ground there, right, So, so I'm sure that we've passed
a lot of that information onto the Ukraine military and
it's it doesn't surprise me that the special forces operators
within Ukraine, our targets general officers on purpose. Now again,
the fact that there's have to be so close to
(08:18):
the fighting just shows you how inefficient their military is
because you know, they have to feel that they have
to lead that far. I just just beyond the pale
to think that they've got to get down and literally
almost direct traffic on on things that are going down there.
Major Mike Lions last question for me anyway, Mike, we
came across some really interesting and troubling analysis of the
strength of the German forces that we talked about last week. Boy,
(08:40):
you talk about a paper tiger. They're only one of
one out of three warships is actually ready to sail.
For instance, what is the state of NATO forces and
and do you think there's a chance to whip them
into shape anytime soon? Well, you bring them all together.
If you're tied all on the bow, it looks big,
and it looks great, and it looks good. The problem
is it's just not in one spot and it wouldn't
(09:03):
do anything. So let's say he attacked the Baltics and
they were there, it would take NATO six months to
muster the force to kick the Russians out of the
Baltics or to defend or do anything like that. The
German military in particular, Yeah, the German military in particular.
The Russians have lost more tanks than the German military
has operational right now. It's just beyond again crazy to
think how far Germany has gone. And you remember the
(09:26):
last guy, the last president said, you know, Germany needs
to step up and get with the program. Well they're
finally doing it. And it took this threat from Russia
to do it. And these are two cultures that have
been at war at some point for the last you know,
d two hundred years. So it just surprises me over
this last generation with you know, angling Merkel about their
reliance on Russian oil. They outsourced their energy to their country,
(09:48):
and then still now they recognize the fact that they
could be overrun in fifty or sixty hours. Now again
the military and the Russian side has shown us that
they're probably not all that, and you know, and there's things. However,
Russia has capacity, they have capability to shoot cruise missiles,
they could land in Berlin and can land in London.
They could land in Washington d see anytime they want.
Major Mike Clients Military analyst, Mike, thanks so much for
(10:10):
the insight. We appreciate it absolutely. Uh. You know, to
that point, it's been extraordinary to see public opinion in
Germany change from their you know, naive Unicornian pacifist everything
will be fine stance to the German people waking up,
I mean in waking up in huge numbers saying we've
got to build a military, we gotta be strong. It
(10:32):
went from fifteen percent to in terms of supplying arms
to Ukraine in February to now. Meanwhile down the road
in Poland, I just read enrollment in Poland's equivalent of
the National Guard. It's a volunteer force of citizen soldiers. Uh.
Volunteers for that have sept coupled seven times as many
(10:57):
droves and droves of Polish citizens are saying, hey, train
me up, get me ready. If you ever need me,
call me. Well, I would hope that would happen. If
that were happening on our border, I would join up.
You look at you know, you have the ability to
turn on the TV and see what it's like for
these people in Ukraine who have lost absolutely everything, maybe forever, Yeah,
(11:19):
if you're not willing to stand up and fight for that.
So to a very large extent, I see the countries
in NATO waking up in a way that's really encouraging.
Mildly question in the modern world is attention span? Yeah?
Does that wisdom last? What if a movie star slaps
a comedian for instance,
The Armstrong and Getty Show. Over the past several hours.
The governor of Chernihiv, that's that city just northeast of Kiev,
that the Russians conceded that they would be They claimed
that they're pulling back some of their forces from there.
The governor of that region says that shelling continued in
(00:21):
that city overnight, and that shelling continued in the outskirts
of Kiev. Of course, President Zelinski saying that the fighting
continues in other parts of the country. The shelling continues
in Harkive in the northeast and as I mentioned, in Mariople.
So that feeds into this skepticism that you know, many
Ukrainians feel that this is just a repositioning of Russian forces.
(00:46):
Is Russia actually backing down from their earlier goals or
just repositioning and uh, they're lying to the world once again.
I saw some new drone footage of Mariopal that was
just incredible. It looks like when the those F five
hurricane or tornadoes hit a town on just level everything,
like you can see the foundation. It's amazing. So to
(01:09):
discuss the question negotiations and a number of other interesting topics,
please welcome to the show. Major Mike Lions, decorated member
of American Armed Forces, sought after commentator on cable and
broadcast networks, etcetera. Mike, how are you, sir? Hey, come
on you guys. Great to be back. Uh, indeed, great
to have you. So, given what you have observed from
the Russian military, the Ukrainian military, the stalemates, etcetera, and
(01:32):
the promises of negotiation and pullbacks, what do you make
of the current situation, both militarily and diplomatically. Well, first
and foremost, who cannot believe a single thing that the
Russia leadership says, not, not in any level. This stuff
about drawing back out of Kiev, going north to Chernobyl,
to me, looks more like a reorganization kind of in
(01:55):
a regroup in order to do a counter attack. They're
getting away from a very competent guerrilla force that the
Ukraine military is put together, small units eight to ten
individuals with javelins, with the kind of support that is
just absolutely wreaking havoc on Russian military units there. And
they've just said enough and so they they've got to
(02:17):
get out of there now. They're going to give up
places that they've taken with blood and treasure, which is
just again unheard of that a guerrilla unit is able
to do this to the Russian military. So what's happening
up there? I think think it's just kind of a
reset to try to get those units offline because they're
doing so poorly in the south. Mariopo remains their primary objective.
They have to have it in order to kind of
complete that land bridge that goes from Crimea to the
(02:38):
rest of the Russian Federation. And and maybe when they
take that, maybe that starts some kind of negotiation as
an off ramp or so. But I wouldn't believe a
word they're saying about scaling back any military operations. Well,
if it just continues militarily, how do you see this
playing out over the next weeks, months? How long do
you think it lasts? I think it goes from months
(02:59):
and it plays out until Russia says enough in that
you know, it feels it can say face. Let's say,
maybe you can try to um, you know, continue to
pound down the Ukraine civilian but it just doesn't look
like that's going to happen. And it just gets back
to that old expression about you can you know pound
people into submission. But unless you're gonna be successful taking
(03:20):
it on the ground, it's not gonna work. And they've
just not been successful with the military units that that
are there. You know, for example, they're they're not able
to have what's called interior lines in the military, and
with that are that is is the capability to reinforce
units within poorly worked operations. All those units that are
in the north and to the east right now can't
help the units in the south because there are five
(03:42):
miles away. They couldn't possibly get units and troops and
equipment there with any kind of speed or urgency unit
to affect the battle there. So so Russia has failed
from a strategic perspective. On the military side, however, they're
going to claim they're gonna try to claim victory some way.
And if they claim it by taking that south in
those cities, along the ball along the Black Seat, and
maybe that's it. Well, we know you're not just a
(04:03):
military analyst, you're a student of history, and it just
seems like surrendering that territory to Russia sets a moral
and practical example. It's just repugnant, just tough to take
it does. But what it'll do is it will redefine
now a new boundary, and I think that's what's going
to be most important. UM. And at least stop the fighting.
(04:24):
It will stop the killing, so that there's a positive
aspect to that. UM. But you know, the West is
going to move in very pretty quickly once it's safe
to rebuild Ukraine, and that's going to be now hard
border between you know, Russia and the rest of the world.
And let's hope that Europe and the rest of the
world now creates the pride that Russia needs to be
and doesn't do business with them. I mean, again, there
(04:46):
was no deterrence to keep Russia from invading Ukraine. This
whole liberal idea of these countries getting together and if
we're all tied together economically, they won't wage war on
each other. It just didn't work out here. The Germans
now we're gonna look for different ways to to supplement
their energy. They're not going to buy from Russia anymore.
And now Russia will get it from someplace south to
India and China. But but the bottom line is, I
(05:08):
think they've got to really do a tremendous job isolating
Russia for a long time for years until their leadership changes. Uh.
New York Times is talking about the question they're asking
in the Pentagon is, how did we misjudge the Russian
military so badly? Do you have any idea? Yeah, a
couple of reasons. First of all, it's not in our
(05:28):
interest to over you know, to undersell what they are,
because that doesn't buy us weapons and the Pentagon that
you know, so so we have to make sure that
we overestimate what their capabilities are. But all of the
other factors that went into this, the fact that they're
using conscripts, the fact they don't have good leadership, the
fact that they've not been able to really do AirLand
battle or blitz Creeg by synchronizing forces from the air
(05:50):
and the ground. Um. We and they all bring mass
to the table. They say, at the end of the day,
they still brought two d thousand troops into Ukraine. And
that alone that we're watching them throw these troops, you know,
literally into the fodder and just having them killed for
no reason. But um, but we're going to continue to
underestimate our enemies as as a as a matter of fact,
(06:11):
in order to overestimate our Pentagon budgets. I think that's
a big part of it. That's interesting. But we all know, everybody,
I mean, miss miss uh under overestimated Putin. I mean,
we all had this view of him being this crafty
KGB genius three dimensional chess and it doesn't look that
way at all. Well unless, though, unless his goal all
(06:32):
along has been the land bridge along the south, along
the coast, I don't know. Yeah, I think he would
have liked, you know, to take keep change the government
and thought that possibly was going to happen, and and
given the distances, I would have thought that they would
have been more successful in the north. They were, they
were prepositioned in Belarus, they had less distance to travel.
They still couldn't get fifty miles into the into Ukraine
(06:54):
and take the city or even even really threatened. They're
only been threatened by the strategic weapons. So there's another
colleagues at the Modern War Institute, John Spencer, who's an
expert on urban conflict, and we're talking about the Surban
conflict and I'm like, John, it's not happened yet. We haven't.
We don't have it yet. All all that they've done
is surround the city and they're selling it from artillery
(07:15):
and cruise missiles. That's not really urban conflict yet. I
would have thought by now you'd have tanks in the streets,
you'd have fighting, you'd have a lot more things happening
inside Kiev, and it's just just doesn't happen yet. Well,
explain to people what a big deal it is. An
NBC is now saying nine Russian generals have died. How
how unique is that in the history of warfare and
heard of? And and that's because these guys are coming
(07:35):
down to the execution phase of what's happening. And I
mean they're literally directing traffic. I mean, I guess, I
mean the fact that they're so close to the fighting
they are likely being targeted. I want. There's one thing
we're providing in a way that's not talked about now
is level of intelligence to the Ukraine military that is
probably in real time and likely a lot of it
has to do with where those generals are. As we
(07:57):
know where they are based on our satellite technology and
we could read main tags and foxols down to the
ground there, right, So, so I'm sure that we've passed
a lot of that information onto the Ukraine military and
it's it doesn't surprise me that the special forces operators
within Ukraine, our targets general officers on purpose. Now again,
the fact that there's have to be so close to
(08:18):
the fighting just shows you how inefficient their military is
because you know, they have to feel that they have
to lead that far. I just just beyond the pale
to think that they've got to get down and literally
almost direct traffic on on things that are going down there.
Major Mike Lions last question for me anyway, Mike, we
came across some really interesting and troubling analysis of the
strength of the German forces that we talked about last week. Boy,
(08:40):
you talk about a paper tiger. They're only one of
one out of three warships is actually ready to sail.
For instance, what is the state of NATO forces and
and do you think there's a chance to whip them
into shape anytime soon? Well, you bring them all together.
If you're tied all on the bow, it looks big,
and it looks great, and it looks good. The problem
is it's just not in one spot and it wouldn't
(09:03):
do anything. So let's say he attacked the Baltics and
they were there, it would take NATO six months to
muster the force to kick the Russians out of the
Baltics or to defend or do anything like that. The
German military in particular, Yeah, the German military in particular.
The Russians have lost more tanks than the German military
has operational right now. It's just beyond again crazy to
think how far Germany has gone. And you remember the
(09:26):
last guy, the last president said, you know, Germany needs
to step up and get with the program. Well they're
finally doing it. And it took this threat from Russia
to do it. And these are two cultures that have
been at war at some point for the last you know,
d two hundred years. So it just surprises me over
this last generation with you know, angling Merkel about their
reliance on Russian oil. They outsourced their energy to their country,
(09:48):
and then still now they recognize the fact that they
could be overrun in fifty or sixty hours. Now again
the military and the Russian side has shown us that
they're probably not all that, and you know, and there's things. However,
Russia has capacity, they have capability to shoot cruise missiles,
they could land in Berlin and can land in London.
They could land in Washington d see anytime they want.
Major Mike Clients Military analyst, Mike, thanks so much for
(10:10):
the insight. We appreciate it absolutely. Uh. You know, to
that point, it's been extraordinary to see public opinion in
Germany change from their you know, naive Unicornian pacifist everything
will be fine stance to the German people waking up,
I mean in waking up in huge numbers saying we've
got to build a military, we gotta be strong. It
(10:32):
went from fifteen percent to in terms of supplying arms
to Ukraine in February to now. Meanwhile down the road
in Poland, I just read enrollment in Poland's equivalent of
the National Guard. It's a volunteer force of citizen soldiers. Uh.
Volunteers for that have sept coupled seven times as many
(10:57):
droves and droves of Polish citizens are saying, hey, train
me up, get me ready. If you ever need me,
call me. Well, I would hope that would happen. If
that were happening on our border, I would join up.
You look at you know, you have the ability to
turn on the TV and see what it's like for
these people in Ukraine who have lost absolutely everything, maybe forever, Yeah,
(11:19):
if you're not willing to stand up and fight for that.
So to a very large extent, I see the countries
in NATO waking up in a way that's really encouraging.
Mildly question in the modern world is attention span? Yeah?
Does that wisdom last? What if a movie star slaps
a comedian for instance,
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