Daniel Davis Deep Dive - Ukraine and Russia

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A thirty on a Tuesday. Here fifty five KC the
talk station. That means it is time for a Daniel
Davis Deeve Die, Welcome back to lieutenant retired Lieutenant Colonel
Daniel Davis to give us some warfare analysis. Welcome back, Daniel.
Always a pleasure to see you and have you on
the program. Jilotti to be here, Brian can't you can't wait? Well,
let's hit the ground running. Another update on the latest

(00:21):
with Russian and Ukraine. I did I read correctly that
Zelunsky now wants to have a sit down with Vladimir Putin.
I thought one of the contingencies for that was a
declaration of a ceasefire or something, which I don't know
that the Russians were necessarily interested in, considering the advances
they're making on the ground in Ukraine. But is there
is there progress in that direction?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
There is a lot of people talking past one another
and listening to no one. This is a complete disaster
right now that has almost no chance of anything happening
on Thursday. First of all, this started when you had
the leaders of France, uk Germany and Poland went to
Kiev to meet with the Zelensky, and they came out

(01:04):
there and they said, hey, we demand a thirty day
unconditional ceasefire. We were telling Putin you it's an ultimatum.
You will do it by Monday. This is on Saturday.
You will do it by Monday, or we will hit
you with a bunch of sanctions. In response, Putin didn't
answer the question. Of course, he's not going to do
it unconditional thirty d cas far. They've said so from

(01:26):
the beginning. They've never said anything besides that. And why
would this stronger power ever submit to a demand by
this weaker power.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
That's the first point. So Putin didn't answer that.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
But then he did say, you know what to tell
you what, We're willing to have direct negotiations between Russia
and Ukraine, and we'll do it in Istanbul on Thursday.
So you wanted to decease far on Friday, We'll offer
direct talks on Thursday. No discussion about a ceasefire. We're
not interested in that. So then it turns out that
we say that Zelenski tried said, oh, okay, I will

(02:00):
one up you again. I will go to Istanbul and
I will meet you. Vladimir Putin personally, you better be there,
you know, just this mocking kind of thing. And there's
no way that Putin is gonna just meet with him
in the natal country istaan bull to try and settle
this stuff, because they are miles apart on the fundamentals
of an end of war negotiation. If you can't even

(02:22):
get to a thirty day ceasefire the two sides can
agree on, why do you think on Thursday you're gonna
solve the war?

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Makes no sense at all? Well it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
But as we have been typically going back to this posturing,
you've got to have something to back up your threats.
You have to have something that is worthy of exchange
at the negotiation table. And as you've been pointing out
week after week after week, the Russians keep making gains
and advances, and more Ukrainian soldiers die, and they become

(02:51):
weaker and weaker and weaker in terms of their bargaining
position every single day that passes. Meaning, I guess if
Plutin would show up there and sit down across the
table from Zelensky, what would Zelensky have to say? Well,
And that's the point exactly.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
And I was scouring the headlines and stories before we
came on the air here today, and there's all this talking,
I mean, and it's all over the place, and all
the Western media yea, and the pundits and stuff, and
they're all saying, we'll see if Putin's actually serious about
this or not, or if it's just a ploy.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
And I'm like, it's there's no ploy. They're very open.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
About here's our conditions, come and talk about them, and
if you don't, we'll simply keep fighting. That's what we
aren't listening to on our side. So there's no way
that Putin is going to meet with him as a
first step. I mean, this is what they have offered.
And what is normal is that you have delegations at
the appropriate level. That's what Russia said at the beginning

(03:45):
on Thursday, at the appropriate level, we'll meet directly. No
one ever offered for Putin to meet with So now
they're trying to mock Putin and make it look like
he's hiding. Well, look that works in Western media because
they're not paying attention anyway. It does nothing on the
battlefield or a jove reality. That's the problem, Brian. It
won't change reality. Even if we mock him all week long.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Well, going back to France, UK, Poland and Germany making
a stance on this and sort of making the same
type of demand threatened by sanctions, which I guess is
an arrow in their quiver, but doesn't Germany kind of
rely on Russia for its natural gas or to keep
their country somewhat in running order.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, they have significantly reduced I'm not sure if they
brought it to zero, but it's significantly reduced with what
it used to be, and they've getten it from other
sources now.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
But that's the problem for Germany. The other sources are.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Substantially higher in per unit cost, so that makes all
of their industrial output more expensive, and that's had a
dampening effect on their economy.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
I mean, I think that they're probably in a recession
right now.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
We'll wait till the numbers come out here in a
little bit, but I think that probably it's been a
real problem for them.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
But I mean that just puzzles me.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
You got these guys, these four guys there, and you
know they're all luck in the arms basically and say
we're going to sings, did you And I'm like, wait,
that's what we said. Lead led by Joe Biden and
right when this war started about here where you're going
to cripple Russia and all this kind of stuff. Well,
now then bricks has expanded, They're expanding economically in places
beyond the West. So I'm like, look, if we didn't

(05:15):
cripple them, then what possible logic can these four guys
in the leading Western countries think you're going to do
to them?

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Now? It makes no sense to me at all.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
No, And you know, from a global geopolitical standpoint, that
did nothing but drive them into the arms of China
and cozy up there and formalize and create a better
working relationship with Russia and China, which you know together
rather for me.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
I mean just together. That's good so far you want
to double down on that, I don't get it, man, No,
And you know, got to.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Go back to the what do there's a combined military
force of France, UK Poland and Germany amount to in
the grand scheme of things. I mean, if you put
all their soldiers on the battlefield together, could they match
the military might of Russia? Should push come to shove
hopefully not.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Not even close.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I think that cumulative total on paper would be somewhere
around seven hundred and fifty thousand something like that. Russia
has one point five million, but none of those guys
are trained for modern warfare. Russia has three now into
the fourth year, a very painful experience learned in all
kinds of technological advances, none of which these guys have.

(06:21):
Nobody on our side knows anything about what it's like
to get shelled mercilessly, to be not even afraid to
look up into the sky because the drones fall in,
how to do counter drone operations, the electron we don't
know any of that, Brian. So the disparity, forget the
numbers on paper, which is about like this, The actual
capacity is probably more like this.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
That's the reality.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
That's harsh reality, but it is what it is, which
is suggests, as you've concluded before, and I've reached the conclusion,
they're going to have to make some major land concessions
in Ukraine to get this thing done with. And that's
of course the predicate for Russia is sitting down at
the table, we're keeping crime here, We're keeping these areas
that are Russian dominant and Russian populated. That's where we're
starting from. Or they're just going to keep fighting and

(07:05):
they'll end up at least on the Danepa River. That's
my calculation, because I just don't see how the battlefield
math works any differently. If you keep with this fiction
that we're going right now, instead of having an ugly
deal where you could keep most of that stuff from
where those four provinces are to the river, you're gonna
end up losing it all and the men that goes
along with it. It's the worst of all worlds from
our perspective. I guess that minerals deal wouldn't be worth

(07:28):
the paper it's written on to come that if that happens, right, Daniel,
it would not Oh jeez, hey, real quick before we
part coming today. And it's always interesting, maybe a little
bit depressing for a lot of folks, but reality Israelate reality,
and someone's got to point it out. India Pakistan a
lot of people concerned about World War three breaking out,
and I know they were swapping shots against each other.
Kashmir has been an issue between the two countries for

(07:49):
a long long time. Trump was given some credit for
negotiating at least a ceasefire between those two countries. You
see an ongoing concern between those two countries. You think
they can hammer it out. Yeah, I think they can
hammer it out. I mean this has been going on.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
The seeds go all the way back to nineteen forty two,
and then they really start spreading in nineteen forty seven,
and then it's just been kind of on again, off again.
There was a clash in twenty sixteen, there was a
clash in twenty nineteen, and then now this one too.
And I had John Meersheimer, you know, an international theorist,
relations theorist, on our show earlier this week, and he
pointed out he said, there are multiple rungs on the

(08:25):
escalation ladder before this gets into potential nuclear clash, because
neither side wants that. And so he predicted, and it's
turned out that way, that they'll sort this out because
escalating and going up beyond small hits is bad for
both sides. And he said he thinks you're going to
work it out, and he looks like that's what's happened.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Well, and you'd hate to see World War three breakout
over a terrorist attack. I mean, you think about Archduke
Ferdinand getting killed leading to the World War. Things like
that can happen. But fortunately, I guess the leaders realize
that cooler heads must prevail when both sides have significant
numbers of nuclear weapons.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Right yeah, And if they had one, I mean that's
and you would use it. That's that's that's one too many. Uh,
and they got both of them have a decent sized stockpile,
even even Pakistan. And that's the problem because you and
that's what India understands. Conventionally, India dwarfs Pakistan. Obviously you
can look at the the size and understand that. But
the nuclear threshold, I mean, they could just Pakistan could

(09:23):
devastate India. India knows that. So India will press its
advantage as far as it can. But they know that
if they push Pakistan too far, if they go too
many wrungs up that escalation ladder, then the only thing
they would leave Pakistan with is to use their their equalizer,
and they don't want to do that. So so far,
it looks like that, even though there's a lot of
answers between the two sides, there's still is the same thought.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Well, that's somewhat uplifting news. War's bad news, but at
least they're not launching nukes. At each other. Daniel Davis
Deep dive search for it where you find your podcast,
and then tune in next Tuesday for another edition of
the program here in fifty five care see the talk
Talk Station Daniel. Have a great weekend, my friend. Thanks
for much pleasure.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
By Francis.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Next Tuesday, look forward to It's eight forty right now
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