Daniel Davis Deep Dive - Zelensky and World War 3??

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Month, fifty five KRC the TalkStation a twenty nine fifty five KRCD talk
station. Happy Tuesday. Coming upin the next segment, it is UV
Safety Awareness Month. My cancer doctors, OHC. We're gonna hear from one
of them, doctor Suzanne Partridge.And skin cancer is the most common form
of cancer in the United States,so we're gonna learn about it, what

(00:21):
it is, how you can welltry to prevent it. In the meantime,
it's that time of week for anotherDaniel Davis Deep Dive. You can
find them online just search for DanielDavis Deep Dive wherever you get your podcasts,
including iHeartMedia. Get the iHeartMedia appat fifty five care sea dot com.
Daniel Davis for retired Lieutenant Colonel Welcomeback, sir. It is always
a pleasure of having you on thefifty five KRC Morning Show and always a

(00:42):
pleasure to be here. Thanks forhaving me. Situation still going on in
Ukraine. You know in this whenthe Russians first rolled in Ukraine, how
long do you think they thought itwas gonna take to achieve whatever military goal
they were hoping to achieve. Andmaybe you can even answer the question what
military goal were they hoping to achievewhen they invaded Ukraine, because I don't
think they thought we were going totake it lying down. Yeah, I

(01:04):
think you can now say with withor at least I can say with some
amount of confidence that the initial objectivewhen Russia entered was that they thought it
was a big, huge show offorce that would cause the Ukrainian government to
coalesce and to give in and justdo what he asked, make the negotiations
that he wanted, similar to whathappened in Hungary in nineteen fifty six,

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where they rolled in with a bunchof tanks into Budapest and it was relatively
small violence. The government capitulated anddid what he asked to do, and
I think that's what he thought wasgoing to happen. Instead he got the
worst case scenario was that the Ukraine'sside not only didn't give up, but
turned into fierce fighters, and Putindid not have enough troops to do that,

(01:47):
to handle that kind of a bigfight, and so he made a
huge strategic blunder in sending too fewtroops in for handle the worst case scenario.
But the problem is that was stilla robust number and now he can't
back down. So it took almosta year and a half to get a
four size enough to actually be ableto conquer territory of the nature that he

(02:07):
wanted, and now that's where he'sat. I will say that Biden said
during that debate the other night thatwhat a lot of people say was that,
oh, they thought they were goingto capture Kiev in five days and
they failed. No, they neverthought they would capture the city with only
about fifty thousand troops that were assignedto that portion of the fight. So
that was never their intention. Butthey did expect the Ukraine side to give

(02:30):
up, and that was a prettybig blunder. It was. But I
want to ask you about the ideathat the government would capitulate. Didn't we
offer Zelensky a flight out when hesaid no, no, I don't want
an air flight. I don't wantan airplane lift out of here. I
want arms and weapons. I mean, that was almost a defining moment when
he drew a line in the sandand said we're going to fight this.
It was, but that was late. That was like right before the thing

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happened. And you may recall thatwas after the US and most every other
Western country had moved their diplomats outof Kiev with the expectation that things were
going to go south, and theythought that the Zelensky would follow suit because
that seemed like the rational thing todo. Yeah, and instead just everything
got turned upside down, and itwas led by Zelensky his unwillingness to capitulate.

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All right, well, we knowthe fog of war. I always
it's not a joke, joke,but it is kind of a it's a
little difficult getting a handle on who'swinning, who's looning, How how many
lives have been lost in this meatgrinder that apparently both sides have suffered tremendous
casualties. I have no idea whatthe progress is on the ground. I
know Russia isn't giving up, andof course we keep sending weapons, We

(03:34):
among other nations, keep sending weaponsto Ukraine. And now they got their
long range missiles which are capable ofbeing launched into Russia and that require,
from my understanding, American troops withmilitary intelligence clearance to even operate. So
this why it's it's like Vietnam.We got advisors on the ground in Ukraine
and apparently operating up until the momentwhere the button is pushed the weapons that

(03:58):
are being launched at the Russians.I mean, we're are precariously close to
a head on collision with with Russia. You got it pretty much spot on
that that's exactly the case. Uh. The only thing I would fill in
some gaps there is that the Russianside is definitely progressing westward all along the
line of the of the point ofcontact. Uh. They they actually launched

(04:20):
a limited incursion north of Kharkiv inMay, I think it was, uh,
yeah, in the about the firstof May. They moved ten kilometers
in and then they started digging inin trenches. The Ukraine side launched a
lot of countertank attempts to push themback. That has turned into another bloody
grind, meat grinder, almost likebach Moot, a similar situation. Uh.

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And it's there. The line isnot hardly moving up there, but
lots of people keep dying. Meanwhile, because Ukraine has sent the reserves up
there, they don't have as manytroops on the main line of contact in
the Eastern Front, and so Russiais starting to make methodical progress there.
It does not appear that you Ukrainehas enough or will ever have enough men,
especially trained men. So in myview, the die is cast.

(05:06):
The Ukraine side can never win thewar. They can't even make a stalemate,
so eventually, in enough time thingsare going to go bad and they're
going to probably end up losing.And that is an interesting thing. I
don't know if you saw the newsjust this morning, Victor Orbon has just
landed in Kiev and is talking toZelensky to try and make a face to

(05:26):
face appeal. According to what's reportedalready, to have an immediate cease fire.
So I think those others are startingto recognize this can't be won and
they want to try to limit thedamage. And the damage limited would be
how much land I suppose they're willingto let the Russians have in return for
negotiating a piece for the balance ofthe region. That's one accurate. That's
no longer a question of if it'sonly how much. That's just the reality.

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It's the harsh truth of war.It doesn't matter who's quote right or
wrong, which side you like,which side you hate, that's the realities
that we have to deal with.What is the long term problem Russia?
If any that Russia faces in thatsituation. I mean my understanding is Crimea,
which they had already annexed back whenObama was president, that was filled

(06:10):
with Russians who were, you know, loyal or at least largely pro Putin
and pro Russia. So you atleast have a willing population that partial segment
of Ukraine. What of the balance, what of whatever land they end up
acquiring in any negotiated peace settlement,are they going to have a you know,
like a guerrilla warfare situation on theirhands? Where are they sure they
got the land? But they're constantlyunder attacked by the anti Russian Ukrainians that

(06:35):
still remain in the area. Yeah, there is in the don Boston and
those four provinces that the Russians areasking for and what Putin specifically said that
he wanted it a piece deal.Those are a significant majority of Russian speakers
as well. That was actually partof the reason why the Luhanskin Donetsk provinces

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rebelled in the first place back intwenty fourteen, because they were almost all
Russian speakers and ethnic Russians. Andthe further west you get, the lower
that percentage gets, So there aremore percentage of non Russian speakers in those
provinces than there are right now inthe Crimea, which is I think ninety
something percent. It's almost complete.But I think though the long term,

(07:20):
certainly in the medium term, Ithink that it's likely that Russia will have
to fight a lot of insurgency stuff, just because the anger and animosity and
hatred of the Western Ukrainians is sogreat and for a generation. I think
that even though they don't think they'regoing to get the land back just to
punish Russia, I think they'll bedoing that. I imagine you'll see that
for a long time to come.Yeah. Indeed, well you bite something

(07:43):
off like this, you're going todeal with the aftermath, There's no question
about it. What of your reactionto Trump's comments. I know he can
be, you know, a littlewindy at times, but he said straight
out during the debate, I'll havethe whole thing settled before him even sworn
in. I mean, no fleshon the bone of that statement. Do
you have any idea what he's talkingabout. I have some idea. I

(08:07):
think that the primary flow is thatit's just hyperbole that to tell the communicate
to the electorate I'm going to endthe war. I'm not going to follow
the Biden path of continuing to expandit and as long as it takes and
just keep going forever and potentially stumbleinto World War three, which he later
in that same debate warned against.But yeah, I mean he actually specifically

(08:28):
said I'll have it. It's aresolve before I take off this, which
obviously is not possible because he hasno authority Russia. Interestingly, I think
today even was asked about that andthey say, yeah, I don't know
what he's talking about, really,what you just said. They go,
we'll wait and see if he wins, and then if he wins what he
says, but we won't comment onit up to this point. But obviously

(08:50):
they would much rather have somebody whowants to talk about ending it than the
one that wants to talk about keepingit going. And going back to your
tea, Lea f rereading about wherethis is going to end up up,
which is some sort of negotiated settlementgiving Rushes some land. So it sounds
to me like Donald Trump has alreadyprojected that message in his comments the other
night, And Louis, I knowsome of Trump's senior advisors in his campaign

(09:13):
on the foreign policy, and thatis exactly what he plans to do.
He wants to cease fire early onUH and then he wants to work on
a negotiated settlement to get the bestdeal he can for the Ukraine side.
But he's soberminded about it, andhe knows that you're not going to get
out without giving some land away,without enough warm bodies to fire and weapons
systems in Ukraine. Either they're goingto have to impoort bodies from NATO countries

(09:37):
or again back to the writing onthe wall and see, and you know
that's the irony in this. Theactually what actually angers me about this from
the beginning is because even if NATOcountry is unilaterally not as the NATO block
but unilateralty, we're going to sendyou know, fifty thousand, two hundred
and fifty thousand NATO soldiers well trainedto fight for Ukraine, a mercenaries whatever

(10:01):
category. Even if somehow that startedsucceeding, and I don't think it would,
I'll and I could explain that later. The all that you're gonna do
is get to where Putin's redline isto use nuclear weapons. So you cannot
succeed either in driving Russia out,or if you've somehow started to drive them
out, you would still lose,because then it's almost certain would cause nuclear

(10:22):
war. And so the only rationalpath is to get a negotiated settlement and
get this deal solved asap. DanielDavis Deep Dye search for it where you
get your podcasts. I Heard Mediais a great place to do with the
iHeart Media app. Until next Tuesday, my friend have a wonderful Independence Day.
Same to you, my friends.See you next time. Take carry
thirty nine year fifty five cars.The talk station recommendation