Daniel Davis Deep Dive - Ukraine Drone Attack

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eight, twenty nine to fifty five krc DE Talk station Tuesday.
At this time we always do the Deep Dive with
retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, talk military strategy, talk about
Ukraine and Russia. Nothing to talk about today, is there, Daniel,
Welcome back, my friend. Yeah, so little has been having
it up. There is just We're gonna have to work hard,
but I bet we can do it. I bet we can.

(00:20):
You know, the we obviously are gonna be talking about this,
this surprising and what I perceived to be phenomenally successful
drone attack. I my the parallel I've drawn, and I
know I'm not the only one that drew it. It
reminded me a lot of the Israelis blowing up all
the members of Hamas with the cell phones and the
communication devices, well organized, planned in advance, and unbelievably well

(00:46):
timed and successful. We had the same kind of thing.
I mean, they from all reports, they planned this for
the last eighteen months. They were able to secretly shuttle
in these drones and these you know, prepared shelters that
with the roofs that popped off on remote control. The
drones launched in close proximity to the targets. And for

(01:07):
for what I understand is for a couple one hundred
dollars drone multiplied by a large factor, they were able
to do about seven billion dollars in damage the Russian aircraft.
That's pretty darn impressive. But does it mean that Ukraine
will win the war? Headline and the Wall Street Journal
op edps by Bernard Henry Levy drone attack shows why

(01:28):
Ukraine will win this war. And something suggests to me
that you're not going to agree with mister Levy on
that one.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh man, No, I definitely hadn't seen that one. We'll
definitely go look forward after we get off the air here. Yeah,
but that is that is sheer fantasy. But let's let's
first of all focus on what happened, because you said
and by all accounts, and I'm certainly in agreement, this
was a spectacularly executed operation on its own right because
it was done for such a long period of time,

(01:57):
It was done with the cooperation of men any at
least Sopar. It's been reported actual Russian citizens as well,
people they recruited, et cetera, got to turn and to
help Russia inside.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Knowing what they were doing uh, and.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Then to keep it all secret for that long, and
then to have it on multiple locations hence the name
spider web because it was all these different links to
get together, and then to have the sophistication, the technological
savvy to to be able to get through any kind
of attempt to block signals, for example from the Russian side,
to have it without being intercepted so that Russia didn't

(02:31):
know what was going on. All that together was just
really really successful. But then we have to get to
the to the consequence of it, and other than being
a real uh, you know, bloody eye or black eye
for for Putin, it's not going to have any impact
on the front line and the war that's going on

(02:53):
were By the way, overnight Russia also continues to have
significant progress going forward in the Sumi region. No one
wants to talk about that on the Ukraine side because
they want to bask in the glory of this. But
the bottom line is what has this gain you? And
so far I've seen that it has angered the Russian side.
It has made more of the senior people in the Kremlin.

(03:15):
And by the way, there's lots of reports that there
is a lot of debate within the upper echelon of
the Russian Kremlin and their leadership that they want to
respond much much stronger than Putin does. Putin still apparently
is looking for some kind of you know, non provocative
it's not going to escalate better phrase, it's not going

(03:35):
to escalate it and get the NATO drawn in. But
it's also strong enough. And apparently they haven't come to
a conclusion because they haven't said almost anything about it.
But yeah, it ain't gonna win the war for the
Ukraine side, no matter what anybody wants.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, I actually fully expected an almost immediate retaliation. I
don't know if you read the same thing I've read
where you get your sources, but they had a massed
about fifty thousand additional troops on the border there the
Russians did. I figured that they would just be unlea
east into Ukraine and add to the already established zones
that Russia is controlling right now.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Well, you know, what we've seen though, is that Russia
is very strategically minded and patient, and they have been
from the outset and they have done things that issue
near term setbacks in order to get something big later on.
For example, in the Hiirson area, they willingly withdrew all
their forces across the Dnepa River and surrendered all that

(04:29):
territory to the Ukraine side because they calculated that they
couldn't hold it, knowing that it would be a huge
media victory for the other side and they would get
the territory, but it would preserve combat power for later on,
and it played out that way. Is that helped Russia
win the Battle of Bakm later on. This place here,
those troops have been there already. They're already part of
this northern offensive that Russia has probably already started. So

(04:52):
they're not gonna, you know, rush into a new fight here.
It's different than the slow pace they have because they
want to preserve their troops and maximize the firepower to
inflict casualties on the Ukraine side. So they're not going
to change that. The only thing that might come is
maybe some big spectacular missile strikes into strategic targets where

(05:13):
they haven't hit before, maybe in a Russnic missile, you know,
something that literally no one can stop at this point.
But there may not be any of that either. In fact,
one of Putin's former advisors was went on the air
almost immediately on a Western show and said that he
didn't think there would be any because he said, look,
this is like the one hundredth time a Russian airbase
has been attacked in the last two years. It's just

(05:35):
the first time it's had this kind of success. So
it's embarrassment, but it's not going to keep the take
their eye off the ball of what they're doing. Well,
that could be how it's going to work out.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
The broader implications of the success of this attack kind
of have me worried. First off, I guess we have
to view this through the lens of how this illustrates
the changing dynamic of warfare, much in the same way
usage of drone over the past military conflicts we've been
in since drones have been used sort of reduce the

(06:06):
need for manned aircraft. I mean, if you can send
a million dollar drone in with no man in it
and it can successfully complete a bombing operation, that's a
lot better use of your resources than sending in a
multi billion dollar F thirty five that's got a pilot
in it that you got to worry about saving their lives.
So that's one component. But this has me a little

(06:26):
more worried from a domestic standpoint, A lot of concerns
about China grabbing up all this land around our military bases.
And I think it will be pretty damn easy in
a country is free and as wide as our country
for them to oh, maybe get a whole giant drone
fleet and launch it whenever the hell they damn well please,
like for example, when the lights go out the day
they invade Taiwan.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, I mean, it's not just China. And by the way,
you don't even have to own any land, as Russia
just demonstrated. You just take point truck and it just nick.
Russia is a lot more restrictive than the US in
terms of movement, though it's actually much more open than
people think, and you saw the results of it there.
But of course here you can literally drive anywhere in
our country. And I actually worry not as much about China,

(07:12):
though that certainly is a big one on the front
of the list. But you know, something like we talk
about getting into a conflict with the cartails in Russia.
In Mexico, we talked about sending in the special forces,
like there's never going to be any consequence. But now
we see that the opportunity here is so easy to
do in so low cost. I fear that others may

(07:32):
see what happened here and draw obvious conclusions. So I
think that it's kind of like the genies out of
the bottle here, and man, we better be figured out
some kind of defense against this stuff as best we
can right now.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, we saw that nut job throw a milotov cocktails.
Obviously for political reasons he hates the Jews and wants
to kill all of them or something Looney Tunes like that.
But also in the context of comments from the border
security folks about the two million in god aways that
we had no interaction. We don't know who they are,
we don't know what they represent. Are they political? Are

(08:05):
they perhaps cells that have formed and are just waiting
for the orders to launch any particular given attack. I mean,
that's a real problem for our country in a going
forward basis.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yes, it always That's one of the reasons I've always
been such an advocate, no matter who's in the White House,
that we need to have our secure borders. I've always
said to whatever your immigration policy is, y'all figure that out,
and whatever the Congress and the system of governments or
whatever we agree to. Whether everybody likes it or not,
and they definitely won't, it doesn't matter. But whatever the
law is, abide by it and enforce it so that

(08:39):
we keep ourselves safe, so that whatever the decisions are,
we don't get anybody in like you're talking now, where
we don't even know who they are. And that's just
an existing and a prevailing vulnerability of our country that
we still have to some degree to this day.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
All right, and let's turn briefly back to Ukraine for
part Company today, Daniel Davis. They still have a shortage
of manpower that has not solved. The problem hasn't been
solved in the week since we've talked last week. So
that's the ongoing issue for Ukraine. I mean, successful drone
strikes or not, they've got to keep guys on the
front lines, and they have to have the hardware and
equipment to be able to fight with the remaining people

(09:14):
they have.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Well, yeah, and that's why the headline like the one
you sided in the Wall Street Journal is embarrassing and
just humiliating because it doesn't even talk about what's actually
going on the front line, which I mentioned in the
Sumi area, it's continuing to going forward. Another point to
make on this big strike here is that the consequence
of that also have to be considered. In Russia, a

(09:36):
lot of them are calling this their pearl harbor moment,
that you know, they got this strike and whatever. And
then there's in the news I saw this morning before
coming on your show is one of the writers in
one of the op eds of a military review in
Russia said, this has been our pearl harbor. Now it's
time for our midway. So they do want some kind
of a big strike in return. And as we've pointed

(09:57):
out on your show many times, and you just address here,
the man power in balance alone, plus all the weapons,
ammunition and everything else is still irrevocably and decisively on
the Russian side. So these formations on the front are
going to continue on, no matter what happened five thousand
kilometers from the front.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Any hope of them sitting down, it sounds like every
time we hear that they're going to sit down and
have some sort of talk to resolve this, it never
does happen or nothing becomes of it. Russia can tell.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
You, you know, Brian, one of the most puzzling and
maddening things about this situation is they had the second
face to face meeting between Russia and Ukraine yesterday and
his denbul Both sides entered by giving positions that were
further apart than they were the previous time that they
both knew the other side would categorically reject. And that's
exactly the way it turned out, because in the bottom

(10:48):
line is neither side wants to negotiated settlement. And that
sounds odd because you would think that the Ukraine's side
does because they claim they do. The Russian they claim
they do. But you see that the Russians is like saying, yeah,
if you agree to all these draconian terms, right, we'll
stop fighting today, which means they have to withdraw from
their the territories where they still have some troops, et cetera.

(11:10):
You know, de militarization, denoxification, all these things they won't
do or we said, we'll just keep fighting. And the Nabenzia,
their Uman Security Council UN ambassador specifically said that at
the UN Security Council a couple of days ago. But
on the Ukraine side, you're like, wait a minute, you
don't have anything to gain by this. If the negotiations fail,
the offensive will continue on. And yet they sabotage this

(11:33):
so that there was no way the Russians would agree
to it. And so we have to really ask, and
it's an open question, what is the Ukraine in the
Western European side trying to get done here?

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Uh? A real quick question, because I know we're out
of time. If let's say, you know, uh, a miracle
occurred in Ukraine said okay, okay, okay, uh, we'll agree
to demilitarize. Who would preside over, who would do the
oversight that would provide sufficient you know, satisfaction for the
Russians that they did in fact e militari? Is that

(12:03):
a UN function? Is that an ATO function is a
function of the Russians looking over it? I guess I'm
just curious to how that would work functionally.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Russia actually has addressed part of that question by saying
it needs to be neutral observers, not NATO, not Russia,
but like the OSSEE or even other entities from like
maybe the Global South or something like that. So they
actually have some working level issue on that. But it's
not gonna be US and NATO. It's not gonna be
you know, Russia and Belarus, et cetera. But I mean,

(12:34):
I hope we get to the point to where we
have to worry about that, that the fighting stops.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Actually doesn't sound like we're e anywhere near it right now.
Daniel Davis. Good to Deve Die with Daniel Davis. Search
for the podcast where if you get it, and always
tune in Tuesday at eight thirty for another great discussion
my friend. Until next Tuesday, have a great week. Always
my pleasure. See you next week, Brough, Take care brother.
Eight forty one fifty five KC detalk station stick around.
We're gonna be talking with Steve from you know Santillation

(12:58):
coming up.