CNN Military Analyst Mike Lyons Discusses the Russia-Ukraine War

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, sure, dude. Like this man, his name is Major
Mike Lyons. He is just a fantastic human being, a
b served as country with honor, of course, very distinguished
in his craft as being a CNN military analyst, military
analyst formerly with the CBS. And anybody's crazy that doesn't

(00:21):
try to pick you up. Mike, I'm telling you right now,
how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, Tony? Thanks, I'm good, Tonny, Thanks so much. That's
those those those time words.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, you're very very kind man yourself. Let's talk about Ukraine.
President Zelensky visiting President Trump over the war in obviously
Ukraine against Russia. This is they're going to meet tomorrow.
What are your expectations.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, you know, I think we're one step closer to
a peace deal. And what I think that this rare
worth mineral deal that the United States has with Ukraine,
bilateral deal has an implied security agreement to it is
the first step in trying to secure some kind of
peace there. It puts some leverage back onto Russia right
now to see if they want to actually do a deal.

(01:06):
It's good for the United States the fact that we
don't want to be stripping the United States for rare
RoAF minerals. We have them somewhere, We just to manufacture
them as a large industrial project that creates a lot
of waste and creates dangers for workers. And so the
fact that we can outsource some of that, get rare
roof minerals is good for us. And like I said,

(01:29):
there's an implied security deal here. The fact that the
United States is working with Ukraine economically, I think some's
a great signal everybody. You know, there's people saying and
sound like Trump. There are people saying that, you know,
LYNSI hasn't gone to his head, but it's really a
good deal for him as well. The fact that we're
doing it. So I think we're one step closer. We
just have to see now what happens, the devil being

(01:50):
the details when we see it coming out to antemorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
There were reports yesterday that indicated that this is not
going to be a security situation. Should know, if we
get the minerals that to President Trump not won't necessarily
have the US. I guess I'm assuming this part of
a military weaponry or whatever the case may be, against Russia.
Do you know about that?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, yeah, I mean they'll likely the security deal in
that the United States responds and helps Ukraine fight with
people on the ground. I think that's what maybe that's
what we're talking about here. I mean, and that's just
not an impossible that's an impossible situation as Ukraine's already
at war with Russia right now, right, you saw, you know,
this is all stems from, you know, most of the

(02:34):
Budapest Memorandum back in ninety four that was signed by
the uk the United States, Russia, and Ukraine that said
we would secure Ukraine's interest back then and we would
secure their country. Well, Russia violates that. Nothing ever happened
of it. So unless something's a treaty, no one has
actually has any security guarantees about anything, and even if
it is a treaty, that could be violated as well.

(02:57):
So I just we have to see it's that's that's
an unreasonable expectation that was part of this deal.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
So President Trump indicated that Putin, to your point, must
make some concessions. He doesn't seem to have ever flinched
that he will make any kind of concession to Ukraine
at this juncture.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Now right, we don't know, and this will part We'll
see what exactly they are or will they be extremist concessions.
Will they be demands like Zelenski must step down and resign?
Will it be that Ukraine must hold elections? I mean,
what exactly are those? What are those demands the land

(03:39):
masses that they hold, what will happen to those? I
don't see Russia giving some of those back. I mean
some of the areas now it's been completely spoiled. I don't.
I don't. It'll be years before it's usable again. With
unexploded ordinance and everything that goes in there. In the
southern part, they've they've ruined probably ninety five percent of
that coastline that exists along on the Black Sea. So

(04:01):
what Russia really wants to cry me out of this?
I think that's going to be their first and foremost objective.
That's a strategic objective where their Black Sea fleet has
to have to go in and out of the Mediterranean
to reject power from there. But we just don't know.
So this deal will put some leverage and back to
Ukraine about what you know, We're going to find out
if Russia actually wants to stop this war or not.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
And in the midst of all this is NATO, which
President Trump just indicated yesterday that you can forget about
NATO being involved in this piece process.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
I agree with that. What he means by that is
forget about Ukraine joining NATO. I think that was part
of the reason that the war did start. Obviously, you know,
obviously Russia invaded that, you know, they have one hundred
percent of that responsibility. But part of the reason was
the United States was going to potentially allow in NATO countries,

(04:55):
We're going to allow Ukraine to become part of it.
And again go back to that three ninety two when
when Germany's trying to reunite, James Baker promises Mikail Gorbachev
that that NATO will not encroach on any of the
former Soviet Union countries if they allow the East and
West Germany to reunite, and we said that we would

(05:17):
we wouldn't do that, and by ninety four, by ninety
three ninety four, Bill Clinton has got Poland and the
Czech Republic and other countries inside of NATO. So, I mean,
you can understand looking at through the eyes of Russia.
Obviously they're you know, communist country and run by dictatorship,
but you could see from their perspective, how they how
they view this, and which is why NATO is really
a red line for them. There's there's no way they

(05:39):
can allow a NATO country to be on their border.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, and you've hedged this before. And I started reading
about that to your point a long time ago, and
I think that we broke the honor of that of
that treaty to your appoint And I started thinking back
and Kennedy, when you know, the Cuban missile crisis was occurring,

(06:03):
you know, and we said, no, you can't, you can't
put missiles aimed at US in Cuba. I mean, this
is what you know, this is what Russia's thinking, That's
what Putin and others are thinking about.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah. And and Russia has this historical context towards Ukraine.
They've had it. You know, Russia is an empire, you know,
that's how they think. That's it's in their DNA, that's
how Vladimer Flutin thinks. And that's how we want to
project power. And that's that's just a hard red line
for them, is the Ukraine inside of NATO. So I
think that they can get security assurances. I also don't
think NATO's dead. Watching this new German leader merch talk about,

(06:38):
you know, going in alone and like NATO is surely
not dead. I think Walco Rubio summed it up very well.
If we can't have frank conversations with allies about their
failure to support and defend themselves and spend two percent
of their GDP, then we never really had an alliance.
All we had was an American security. It's just assistance
and agreements that we were going to defend them. So

(06:59):
that's that's out. So I think this is actually a
good step for NATRA that we did the Ukraine orth
Minerals deal as well.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Since twenty fourteen, we've seen more of our NATO allies
go toward that two percent, and certainly it was ramped
up when President Trump said Natal's not paying enough. For sure,
there's only about what maybe six or seven states, and
they're all very small, you know, I can't remember all
of them, but most of them are smaller countries. Now

(07:26):
that's below two percent of their GDP.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, Spain is one, I know, Canada is another. The
British has come on board with that front. France as
well as Germany, they've just opped it recently, but you
go back ten years ago, it was fourteen or fifteen,
it just was a much bigger number. So and now
the president wants to go to five percent, which you
could argue is makes a lot more sense as well.

(07:51):
If this Germans don't believe that Russia is the threat
that it is, which is really what I think what
happened before Merkle, the former leader, the former chancellor, she
did energy deals with Russia, with Germany, and Russia and
Germany in particular, you have to be concerned about. You
know that there's the engine that runs europelicator of the
largest economy, but they have this globalist view of things

(08:14):
and they entwine themselves energy wise with Russia. They've taken
down their nuclear plants, so they're going to have a problem.
Plus I also think that if you look at their
recent election, they have a civil problem, an internal problem
with the far right that exists there. And if you
look at a map that looks literally like the divide
between East and West Germany, and the people that are
hard right now are all used to live in the

(08:34):
East Germany because they know what living under communism is like,
so they don't want to go back to that again.
So that's an interesting dynamic that's happening inside of Germany
right now. There's a lot of internal strife going on.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
Great insight from you, Mike, appreciate your time this morning.
Thanks for joining us. I can't thank you enough.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Great Johnny, Thanks talking all.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Right, Mike Lyons, ABC News here on New Excuse Me,
CNN News, Military and Listed News Radio eight forty. Whas
getting to a break, We've got to sports coming away
with John Alden next