Col. Doug Macgregor delivers a powerful analysis on how peace talks between Ukraine 🇺🇦 and Russia 🇷🇺 are failing miserably 😤. Instead of diplomacy, the war has entered a new and more violent phase 💥, with intensified military operations, shifting global alliances 🌍, and increased Western involvement 🇺🇸. In this exclusive Deep Dive with Daniel Davis 🎙️, discover why a peaceful resolution is slipping away, and what this means for global security, U.S. foreign policy, NATO’s next moves, and the risk of wider escalation ⚠️.
This is a critical update for anyone following international conflict, American strategy abroad, and the future of Eastern Europe 💬🛰️.
#DougMacgregor #UkraineWar #RussiaUkraine #PeaceTalks #WarUpdate #DanielDavis #DeepDive #NATO #USPolitics #Geopolitics #MilitaryAnalysis #WorldNews #Putin #Zelensky #GlobalConflict #EasternEurope #BreakingNews #USForeignPolicy #StopTheWar #RussiaNews
This is a critical update for anyone following international conflict, American strategy abroad, and the future of Eastern Europe 💬🛰️.
#DougMacgregor #UkraineWar #RussiaUkraine #PeaceTalks #WarUpdate #DanielDavis #DeepDive #NATO #USPolitics #Geopolitics #MilitaryAnalysis #WorldNews #Putin #Zelensky #GlobalConflict #EasternEurope #BreakingNews #USForeignPolicy #StopTheWar #RussiaNews
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NewsTranscript
00:00When you hear of a peace talk and you hear of a summit where the two warring sides get together, the idea and the expectation is this is leading toward an end of war negotiations.
00:09They're trying to end the conflict, that their two sides are they're tired of fighting, et cetera.
00:14So they come together for the purpose of, all right, let's find a way out of this.
00:18That's what you ordinarily think.
00:20What just happened in Istanbul yesterday with Russia and Ukraine seems to be almost the mirror opposite of that.
00:27It seems that the two sides came together, put forth documents for the other side to see term sheets, some call them, that make war more likely.
00:37And it pushes the end of the war even further out because it doesn't appear that either side wants a negotiated settlement.
00:43That's what it looks like on the ground.
00:44And to try to make sense of this and figure out where the U.S. is in all this, where NATO is in all this, is, of course, the ever popular Colonel Douglas McGregor,
00:53Defense and Foreign Policy Analyst, former advisor to the Secretary of Defense, and, of course, a highly decorated combat veteran.
00:59Doug, as always, welcome to the show.
01:01Well, thanks.
01:02Happy to be here.
01:03Happy to know I'm popular somewhere because I'm not popular inside the Beltway.
01:07Yeah, yeah.
01:08That's why I'm outside the Beltway.
01:09I'm close, but I'm outside because they don't want me inside.
01:13But so I'm happy to be outside with you.
01:15So I just want your view, first of all, for you to get into some of the outputs of this meeting and some of the statements that some of the leaders said coming out of Istanbul yesterday.
01:27What did you expect going in?
01:30Nothing.
01:32I think this is a charade.
01:35The only people who are serious about finding an end to this are the Russians.
01:41The Ukrainian leadership certainly isn't.
01:43You're talking about a government that is presiding over a huge graveyard.
01:49The numbers of people left in Ukraine are probably less than half of what formerly lived there.
01:55You know, you filled up dozens and dozens of graveyards with 1.5 million dead Ukrainian troops.
02:02I think it's probably higher than that now.
02:04But it's one of these things that until this tragedy ends, we're probably never going to know just how many people were killed.
02:11No one has an interest in telling the truth, certainly not in the West and certainly not in Kiev.
02:16So I think it's unfortunate, but it's a charade.
02:19And the Russians, I think, feel compelled to play along.
02:24The question is how much longer do they play along?
02:27That's all.
02:28And there certainly has been some indications that the play along terms may be coming to an end.
02:34We'll get to that in a second.
02:35But first of all, let's start off with the ever popular Volodymyr Zelensky, who never has any shortage of things to say and loves the mic.
02:43And they put one in front of him after Vilnius.
02:46And in this, he, first of all, took a little bit of crow hopping around and bragging on himself about this spiderweb operation and then gets into what he says about the Russia war.
02:57I informed our partners about the situation at the front.
03:01We also talked about our operation inside Russia, which has seriously weakened the military.
03:09Operation Spiderweb showed that modern war really looks like and why it's so important to stay ahead with technology.
03:20The key to lasting peace is clear.
03:23The aggressor must not receive any reward for war.
03:28Putin must get nothing that would justify his aggression.
03:34Any reward would only show him that war pays off.
03:37Geopolitical gains are just as important to Russia as money or territory.
03:45If Putin is allowed to decide who joins NATO, where NATO infrastructure can or can't be, then Russia's appetite for war will only grow.
03:56So let's take a look at a few of those things in sequence here.
03:59One of the first ones is he said this this operation in that attacked five Russian air bases, two of which got some pretty significant hits on their bomber fleets, was the seriously weakened Russia.
04:10Do you agree with that?
04:12No.
04:12Russia has not been seriously weakened by any of these.
04:17These are PR stunts facilitated by superior American military intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance via the CIA and MI6 to the Ukrainians.
04:31People have no idea how large these areas are.
04:35I keep trying to tell people, imagine if we were trying to fight a war between Chicago and Philadelphia.
04:42That's what you're dealing with in Ukraine.
04:45And that's what you've got when you start to look at the borders and the thousands of miles of border that you can't possibly protect 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
04:55You're going to experience these kinds of things.
04:58But as far as seriously weakening or damaging the Russian military machine or war effort, delusional nonsense.
05:07And let's just follow along with that theme of delusional, because the next thing he shifts to is where these negotiations are going to end, in part because of the presumed military pressure that he just put on Russia, that somehow he feels that's going to compel them.
05:19And all of those Europeans that are symbol around him there for Russia to get nothing from this.
05:26And he wants them to basically lose both just strategically and as every other on the battlefield as well and specifies in there that the Russian side can't get anything, i.e. no territory.
05:38Now, if you're on the Russian side of those equations, what's that going to do to you?
05:42Are you going to give in to that?
05:43I think we need to back up and understand something.
05:49Zelensky and Netanyahu are two sides of the same coin.
05:55What do each of those people want to achieve?
05:58They want to achieve the introduction of American military power into their respective conflicts.
06:06And that's important to understand.
06:09Zelensky is not stupid.
06:10He knows Europeans have very little to offer.
06:12He knows they don't have much in the way of deployable combat power.
06:17You know, we've talked about their boutique ground forces or Lilliputian armies before.
06:22So he's hoping that the United States air and naval power, combined with whatever else we're prepared to send that we've got sitting in Poland, Romania, Lithuania, will turn everything in his favor.
06:35Therefore, everything he does is designed to persuade Donald Trump and Washington that there is still life in the Zelensky regime, that they could actually do something.
06:47You have something similar with Netanyahu.
06:50Both men are trying to stake out ground that make an agreement impossible, just as Netanyahu has now made it very clear once again to Donald Trump, who has obediently replied and said, yes, you're right.
07:03There could be no enrichment in Ukraine.
07:06Well, that's the path to war.
07:08And that's the path that Netanyahu wants.
07:10And you've got something very similar with this man, Zelensky.
07:13We're going to fight to the bitter end.
07:15There will be no compromise.
07:16We will never admit the loss of any territory.
07:20So we're going to continue to lie about what we cannot do and pretend that we can do things by capitalizing on the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance we get from the United States, primarily in Britain.
07:31And we're going to use whatever they give us in terms of technology or advice to hit points that the Russians can't possibly protect 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
07:42So I think that's what we're up against right now.
07:45These are two leaders who don't represent the interests of the United States or the West in any way, shape or form.
07:53And they're both interested in themselves and what they want to achieve.
07:57They're both delusional.
07:58Well, and I think that was borne out when the lead delegate for the Ukraine side, Second Minister of Defense Umarov, came out and he laid out their positions, which he said after the ceremony.
08:15Now, interesting, as you watch this, if you didn't know anything, if you'd been in a coma for the last four years, you suddenly woke up and saw this video, you would think, wow, if the Russia and Ukraine side are in a war, clearly the Ukraine side is winning because this is like the superior talking to an inferior.
08:30We've been telling Russia for a very long time, this war must end.
08:35And the whole world supports us in that.
08:40We're calling for a real work to end this war.
08:44The first necessary steps are clear to everyone.
08:48A ceasefire, humanitarian actions and preparation for a leaders meeting.
08:52If Russia is serious about ending the war, it will move forward on this.
08:59If not, international sanctions must follow.
09:02So, yeah, they're going to repeat the issue of sanctions.
09:06That's what they want.
09:07Who sanctions?
09:08Of course, the ones from the United States.
09:10But then this issue of a ceasefire first, the leaders meeting, you know, and that infinitum on the list, things that they know categorically Russia has no interest in.
09:19So, really, you can't read it any other way because if you haven't been in a coma, then you're looking at that and you're going, like you said a second ago, this guy's got to be delusional.
09:27So, but let me ask you, what the, is it delusional or is it just a gamble that, well, we're going to try and pull Trump in?
09:35Because if they don't succeed, then these kinds of comments here, well, they won't play well over time.
09:41Well, let's talk about two things that address your immediate question.
09:45And I think the first thing is that very few people have paid attention to the resignation of the commander of Ukrainian ground forces.
09:54And he was widely viewed on the Russian side as one of the few competent people serving in the Ukrainian military.
10:01And he resigned and they made up some reasons for it.
10:04But what I'm told is that he's frustrated because he has been continually ignored.
10:09He's given good advice.
10:10He's recommended certain courses of action.
10:12They've always been rejected.
10:14And now he's pointed out that the front is crumbling and the future is clear.
10:19The complete annihilation of Ukrainian forces on the ground in Ukraine.
10:23That's what he says they're headed for.
10:26Now, that was not published.
10:27And that's not the sort of thing that anybody in Washington is going to admit to.
10:31But I think that's much more important than anything else we've heard.
10:34There's something else here.
10:36And this is something that you can appreciate in particular.
10:39I think we all can that have been involved in the disasters, the military disasters of the last 30 years in the U.S. military.
10:46I guess it's 34 now.
10:47And that is something that General David Petraeus said while he was on the ground in Iraq.
10:54And he repeated this to several people.
10:56And people seemed to think this was a brilliant insight.
10:59I thought it was a disgraceful comment and an admission of deceit.
11:04But, you know, in retrospect, he turned out to be pretty correct.
11:07And he said, what happens on the ground here, meaning Iraq, doesn't really matter.
11:13What's important is what people in Washington think.
11:17Now, that's what you're dealing with right now.
11:19You're dealing with perception, creation, shaping, and implementation.
11:25In other words, we're going to create the illusion that there is something left inside Ukraine and in Kiev.
11:31We're going to be assisted in this by the Western media, who simply repeat ad nauseum, you know, the MI6 CIA mantras,
11:41to convince everybody that there's something happening here, which isn't.
11:45We're going to have these PR stunts.
11:47And we're bringing over two senators, Richard Blumenthal.
11:51As I recollect, he was someone who claimed to have served in Vietnam.
11:55And then it turned out that that was not the case.
11:57And then, of course, his comrade in arms, the combat lawyer from South Carolina.
12:03And the two of them showed up and charged an enormous hotel bill, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
12:09I don't know what they were buying over there, but don't even want to think about it.
12:12But having said all of that, all of this is designed to create a perception that there's something happening that really isn't.
12:20And I think that insofar as the average American is concerned, who can't really discern what's true and what isn't because it's so confusing, they may have had some success.
12:32But the truth is, it's a failure.
12:36And, you know, you talk about, Gary, I don't know if we have this B-roll here we talked about earlier today.
12:42But you talk about the stunts and things to get media attention.
12:48There was overnight another provocation by the Ukraine side against Russia on an emotionally important that they know issue on the Crimean Bridge,
12:57where apparently one of the support structures was attacked from underneath.
13:01And it's unknown exactly the extent of the damage here.
13:04But that's something that the Ukraine side has been talking about attacking for years.
13:09They've been trying to bring it down.
13:10Yeah, that's the one right there.
13:11Thanks, Gary.
13:12And so we don't know the nature of this damage, but something was done underneath it.
13:17And this is something that is an emotional issue.
13:20But as I understand it, and I don't know what you can shed light on this,
13:24that because of the first iterations where they tried to bring down the bridge and actually did blow up with a suicide bomber on a portion of it in the past,
13:33that Russia now doesn't use it as much.
13:34They rely on other means to support their troops on the Crimean side.
13:38What does this tell you about the situation here?
13:41Well, it doesn't add any more to what I've already said.
13:44This is another stunt.
13:46You know, again, people need to ask the question.
13:49Some people have.
13:51Does this in any way, shape, or form change the reality on the ground in Ukraine?
13:55The answer is no, obviously not.
13:57I would even go so far as to point out that the bombers that they've damaged were very old aircraft that were due to be retired in any case.
14:06They've used them for the purposes of delivering these glide bombs that we know about.
14:11But they're not entirely dependent upon just those aircraft for that capability by any means.
14:16So, again, this is just a ridiculous PR stunt designed to create the illusion on the model of Dave Petraeus.
14:26We're trying to shape perception in Washington, in London, in Paris, in Berlin, that something's happening that really isn't.
14:33Now, having said all of that, there's another question that has to be asked, and that is, where is President Trump?
14:40Because, remember, one of the things that happened as a result of the attack on the bombers
14:44is essentially a violation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement.
14:48That was the agreement where we said we would display our bombers on the tarmac.
14:53The Russians said they'd display theirs.
14:55So there's no question in anybody's mind about where the bombers are and whether or not they're armed or not armed with nuclear weapons and so forth.
15:04Well, we've just destroyed that tenet.
15:06That's being taken very seriously in Russia, by the way, very, very seriously.
15:10And we don't seem to understand that.
15:13The gravity of that particular action in Russia is viewed with great fear and anger,
15:20because the Russians have been frustrated with our readiness to essentially throw all the arms limitations agreements out of the window.
15:28Now, that appeals to the Netanyahu, Zelensky, warmongering crowd in Washington.
15:34But it's a dangerous thing that we as Americans ought to object to.
15:38But I don't hear anybody raising any objections to that either.
15:41The bottom line is, where is President Trump?
15:46What is he doing?
15:48Where is his influence?
15:49And I think we need to answer that question.
15:52You know, obviously, there's a lot of people waiting for that.
15:56He's been surprisingly quiet, even on the issue of the attack on the airfields, etc.
16:02There was a lot of questions that have been asked here just last night, actually, from Caroline Levitt.
16:08That the press corps was pressing her on these issues, and she literally wouldn't even answer.
16:12Didn't say anything about what he thought one way or the other.
16:14I don't know if that just means they're consulting, they're thinking about it.
16:18They don't know how to answer.
16:19I'm unclear.
16:20But it's one of the rare times where I've seen Trump go silent.
16:23Someone who's not silent, though, is the Russian side.
16:25If Zelensky thought that the attack on the airfield would cause Putin to quake in his boots and make them to be forced into peace,
16:33it didn't look like there was any evidence of it with the Russian leader of the delegation, Medinsky,
16:39because they published a 12-point plan that came out afterwards.
16:43And that's, I think it's probably more accurate to say these are terms of surrender.
16:48Just running through them real quick, for those who can't read that small print, apologize for that.
16:53The Russians basically say there will be permanent Ukrainian neutrality.
16:58There will be the termination of all international agreements, i.e. no NATO.
17:01Legal guarantees that Ukraine will remain a non-nuclear state.
17:05Strict limits on the size, structure, and armament of the military, i.e. demilitarization.
17:10Full protection of rights, freedoms of official language, and status for the Russian-speaking population.
17:14Something going back to the Minsk agreements, which Russia has demanded.
17:17Legislative bans on what Russia characterizes as glorification of Nazism, the denazification.
17:23Removal of Western economic sanctions since the start of the war, and on down the list.
17:27All of this basically going to say, you will do everything that we say.
17:32Or, and let me just throw this up there.
17:34This was the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Nabinzga,
17:38who if anybody had any doubts at all about the significance of these statements, he cleared it up.
17:44As long as Kyiv tries to prolong the war and provoke Russia by striking residential and civilian infrastructure on our territory,
17:52we will continue our special military operation and destroy objects associated with the military potential of the Kyiv regime.
17:59And no new anti-Russian sanctions, arms supplies to Ukraine,
18:04or other hostile steps towards Russia will prevent the inevitable military defeat of the Zelensky regime.
18:11The choice is now up to Ukraine.
18:13Peace as a result of negotiations or inevitable defeat on the battlefield with different conditions for ending the conflict.
18:19So he just flat out said it.
18:22It's either negotiations or defeat.
18:24That doesn't sound like a state that feels like it's on the back foot or that it's under military pressure.
18:29Is that just posturing on the Russian side, or do you think it's a statement of fact?
18:34No, I think the Russians are stating the facts as they see them.
18:38And that's not really directed at Zelensky.
18:41Let's be frank.
18:42Zelensky is irrelevant.
18:43Zelensky is a puppet.
18:44He is not a serious state leader by any stretch of the imagination.
18:51We know that.
18:52I mean, this is the man that has essentially treated Ukraine as a prison
18:56and treated anyone in it that didn't like him or didn't support his operations as a prisoner.
19:02Now, I think what you're hearing is a statement directed at President Trump.
19:06Because the expectation in Moscow is that President Trump holds the key to ending the war.
19:13And he does.
19:15Now, and this is why I brought up President Trump before.
19:18If we can say anything about President Trump to this point,
19:22it's that he has utterly and completely failed to impose his will on his own administration.
19:28Now, what do I mean by that?
19:30This is the man that said that he was going to make some phone calls
19:34and would end all of this in 24 hours.
19:37Well, we found out, and he's found out, that sloganeering and posturing is not a strategy.
19:44Sorry, President Trump, but promising to call somebody is not a strategy.
19:48He has no strategy.
19:51And at this point, he's lost all credibility.
19:53Because in his discussions with Putin on the phone or discussions between his representatives
19:59and the Russians and Saudi Arabia have all come to nothing.
20:03These promises of a normalization in relations between the two countries
20:08and a restoration of some measure of civility in our relations,
20:12all of these have come to naught.
20:13Yet those are things that President Trump said he wanted.
20:17Those are things that President Trump said he supports.
20:19So what's gone wrong?
20:22Well, nobody pays any attention to President Trump inside his own administration.
20:27He's surrounded by people who have their own agendas,
20:30and I'm sure that they pacify him,
20:32but they're scurrying off in whatever direction they think is appropriate.
20:37And it may be that in their minds, they're trying to implement what he wants.
20:41But the truth is that there is no executive competence.
20:45In other words, there's no way, no method to do any of the things
20:48that President Trump talked about.
20:50He just can't do it.
20:52You know, and this is not news to President Putin.
20:54President Putin has pointed out on numerous occasions,
20:56I've dealt with several presidents in my lifetime.
20:59Remember, he's been there for 25 years, and he discovered something.
21:03Whatever the presidents wanted to do didn't happen
21:06because the federal bureaucracy, the other members of the federal government,
21:10the Senate and the House,
21:12they're the ones that are ultimately driving policy.
21:15And you have the same thing in the Middle East.
21:17It doesn't really make any difference what President Trump says
21:20because Mr. Netanyahu can sit there and say,
21:23I control 60 senators, no matter what happens.
21:27How many senators do you control, Mr. Trump?
21:30And the answer is, well, not very many.
21:32And right now you have a similar situation with regard to Ukraine.
21:36Do you really think these two senators,
21:38Blumenthal and Graham, would have trooped off to Ukraine
21:41to make this PR stunt more meaningful to the West
21:46if they thought they were under a president who was prepared to do anything?
21:51Let me tell you something.
21:52The president of the United States is potentially a very powerful figure.
21:56He can make life miserable for any number of senators or representatives
22:01who absolutely refuse to cooperate with him.
22:03And thus far, the only name that comes up that's being mentioned
22:07as someone that President Trump doesn't like and wants to punish
22:11is Thomas Massey of Kentucky.
22:15Because Massey won't vote for the stupid bills.
22:18He won't vote for the big, beautiful bill that promises to destroy us financially,
22:22as Elon Musk rightly pointed out.
22:25And he refuses to vote for legislation that creates a special class of human beings
22:29in the United States.
22:30This is the bill that makes Jews special citizens
22:33and makes anyone who criticizes Israel an enemy of the state.
22:37He said this is outrageous nonsense.
22:39So that's the one the president is going after.
22:43Now, this is very strange stuff because I inevitably go back
22:47and try to understand what presidents did in the past.
22:51And I inevitably end up with Eisenhower because he seems to have been
22:55one of the more forthright, clear-thinking individuals.
22:59And I go back to the Suez crisis of 56 and how quickly and decisively he acted
23:05because the one thing he did not want and would do everything in his power
23:09to prevent was a war with the Soviet Union.
23:13And he made that abundantly clear to London and Paris
23:16and in those days to Tel Aviv.
23:18He wasn't going to underwrite or support any territorial aggrandizement of Israel.
23:24He wasn't going to tolerate the restoration of British imperialism in Africa.
23:29And he said the same thing to the French.
23:31Now, where is President Trump?
23:36You know, from the beginning, I said, fixing this is impossible.
23:40We don't understand the complexities at work in the Ukraine-Russian war.
23:44He's right.
23:45He wasn't there at the beginning.
23:47He's been systematically fed utter nonsense about it.
23:50He doesn't understand it.
23:51And the one thing that he can do to bring this to an end quickly,
23:55because he says that's what he wants to do,
23:57is to suspend all further aid to Ukraine and withdraw all U.S. forces.
24:03That's something he could do and say,
24:05Europeans, this is your show.
24:08It's up to you.
24:10Sit down with the Ukrainians and the Russians and sort this out.
24:13We're Americans.
24:14We've done all we're going to do.
24:16It hasn't worked.
24:16We're leaving.
24:17That would have worked had he done it early on very, very well.
24:22Now, he's in a very different position.
24:24No one believes anything he says.
24:26He's not taken seriously on any subject.
24:29And that's happening here at home as well.
24:31We could go through a whole list of domestic issues right now where this is occurring.
24:35But my point is, he could still do what I said,
24:39and that would probably avoid a conflict with Russia.
24:42But the situation we have now is one where the Russians are probably now compelled to act decisively in some way.
24:50The good news for us is that President Putin is not emotional.
24:55He tries to be as dispassionate as he can be about these matters.
24:59And whatever they do will probably be deliberate, measured, and decisive.
25:05But I think they're reaching the point now where they know that they've got to move decisively in a direction.
25:10I think that direction is to permanently remove the Zelensky regime.
25:15You can only do that by moving across the river and into Kiev.
25:18Perhaps that's coming.
25:20He has declined to do that sort of thing because he knows that we are irrational.
25:25And the Europeans are irrational.
25:28We are emotional.
25:30We are impulsive.
25:31And his concern is, well, the next thing I know, they'll want to commit forces.
25:35And that'll mean air forces because there's nobody going to put any ground forces down in Ukraine these days.
25:40We're going to commit our air forces in support of the Ukrainians.
25:44Well, if that happens, all bets are off.
25:47Now you're at war with Russia.
25:49And not just Russia, potentially China as well and a host of other countries.
25:53We don't realize how many people have come down on Russia's side at this point.
25:57We still have lots of Americans say, well, everyone important is against Russia.
26:01Depends on how you define important.
26:03Important, yeah.
26:03So the bottom line is, this is a terrible situation.
26:08The Russians don't want to have a war with us or NATO or anybody else.
26:12They really do want this to end.
26:13But we are driving them into a position from which they can't easily escape.
26:18They've got to end it.
26:19Well, and to your point here, literally just a couple of hours ago, Dmitry Medvedev put out a telegram post here that addresses both the negotiations as well as those who are saying, hey, Russia hasn't done anything yet.
26:35They haven't responded to this strike on their bombers.
26:38Maybe they're not going to.
26:39Maybe they're afraid or whatever.
26:41And so he writes, to all who are worried and waiting for retribution, you need to worry.
26:47This is a normal person's quality.
26:49Retribution is inevitable.
26:51It is important to remember two things.
26:53He says, our army is active, advancing, and will continue to advance.
26:58Everything that must explode will certainly explode, and those who must be exterminated will disappear.
27:03Then number two, he says, the negotiations in Istanbul are needed not for a compromise, peace, or unrealistic conditions invented by someone, but for our speedy victory and the complete destruction of the neo-Nazi government, i.e., to your point you just made.
27:18This is the meaning of the Russian memorandum, which was published yesterday.
27:21So he flat out says, hey, this is not about, you know, having a negotiated settlement where both sides get give and take.
27:27Like, if I said those 12 points look like an issue and an instrument of surrender, apparently to Dmitry Medvedev and presumably, by extension, Putin, that's exactly what he intends.
27:39What does that tell you about what may be coming next?
27:42Well, I, you know, I'd hesitate to forecast because, you know, the Russians always do what you don't expect.
27:54At the beginning of the war in February 2022, I was very convinced that they would mobilize large forces and they would strike very decisively.
28:04The opposite happened.
28:06But I do know that they have now added enormous numbers of troops to the contingent in Ukraine, as well as to the position in Belarusia, to the north.
28:17I don't think there's much that the Russians cannot do if they decide to do it.
28:22But again, if they do, they will take all the precautions against the possibility that we would be foolish enough to suddenly commit our air power in support of the Ukrainians.
28:32And if people out there don't think that we would do that, they need to guess again.
28:37And again, we go back to President Trump.
28:39Where is President Trump on this matter?
28:42Is he like Eisenhower?
28:44Has he made it abundantly clear that under no circumstances will he support a war against Russia?
28:49I haven't heard him say that, but that is something he needs to say.
28:54He needs to be, you know, unequivocal about our unwillingness to directly intervene militarily in Ukraine.
29:02Has he said that?
29:04No, he hasn't.
29:05So it's a dangerous set of circumstances.
29:07And there are those in Europe that not only are not saying that same thing, they seem to be implying they're given some consideration to move it in that direction.
29:18Yesterday, Mark Rutte, who was also at that Vilnius meeting, was speaking to reporters and said a couple of very interesting things.
29:25Here, this first one is he's talking about how NATO is still preparing and growing, he says, for war.
29:31We will discuss Ukraine in The Hague and also today making sure that Ukraine has what it needs to stay in the fight, to be able to bring this terrible Russian war of aggression against Ukraine to an end, which has to be lasting, which has to be durable.
29:51So all of this will be on the agenda today.
29:53I mean, basically, Doug, he's saying that, again, he's talking like the Ukraine side is winning and they plan on winning this war.
30:03And then we're going to see in a minute that they're talking about building up forces within NATO.
30:07But at the same time, this was also being reported that NATO is saying, hey, we're going to invite Zelensky to the next meeting at The Hague, the NATO summit that's coming up in The Hague here in a little while.
30:20And you're like, everybody, to include Trump, has categorically said there's not going to be any Ukraine in NATO now or ever.
30:28Kellogg actually went overboard to emphasize that.
30:32And yet here NATO is saying they're going to invite him anyway.
30:35I just I don't understand the play here.
30:39Well, none of us do.
30:41Two things to consider.
30:43First is that President Trump is the de facto leader of NATO, not Ruta.
30:47If Trump is serious about avoiding a war with Russia, he needs to pick up the phone and tell Mr.
30:54Ruta, thank you for your interest in national security affairs.
30:58You are hereby fired.
31:00And replace him with someone else who is going to accurately represent the president's views.
31:06Again, this this is a matter of imposing your will.
31:10Did the British complain when we intervened, when Eisenhower intervened and said no to Suez?
31:16Of course they did.
31:17Were the French upset?
31:18Of course they were.
31:20But they all got the hell out and they did what he told them to do.
31:23I think that President Trump is going to have to become involved and exert some influence and show some leadership.
31:31You know, that's the first thing.
31:33The second part of this is that I would remind Mr.
31:36Ruta and his friends meeting in Vilnius that that Vilnius in 1812 was the place where the final meeting between Napoleon Bonaparte's representatives and Tsar Alexander the first occurred.
31:48We all know how that turned out. Alexander the first said, no, I'm not going to do what you're demanding.
31:56And so Bonaparte marched some 600,000 plus men into Russia, of whom only about 50,000 managed to crawl back out again in 1813.
32:05So it's not a good place to hold a meeting in view of that historical backdrop.
32:12And I see no evidence that anything that Mr.
32:15Ruta is saying is going to move the Russians an inch because for them, what happens in Ukraine is an existential issue.
32:24That's the thing we have never understood and are unwilling to understand.
32:28What happens in that country is of vital strategic importance to Moscow.
32:33Ergo, they will do whatever is required to ultimately ensure that their country is protected and will not be subject to future attacks, as it has been over the last several years by Kiev.
32:48Yeah, and we'll see where that's going to go.
32:50And what is not going to be helping in that direction is something else that's going on in NATO.
32:55And before I get to this next soundbite here from Ruta where he's talking about that, I'd like your view on something that one of our longtime guests on this, or not guests, but a longtime follower of our show was going back and forth with me earlier today.
33:12And I was commenting on the fact that, you know, I was surprised that Russia hasn't, you know, done things.
33:18For example, we had Jim Jatris on the show yesterday, and he said he was puzzled why Russia never had gone heavy.
33:24Like you mentioned, you thought they would come heavy and earlier or why they haven't knocked out the bridges over the Dnepr, which would starve, you know, nearly starve the Ukraine forces in the east.
33:33And this fellow posits that, well, because Russia can, and they haven't, because it's basically emptying the coffers of NATO.
33:43It's making NATO weaker and weaker by lowering the amount of ammunition they have because they don't have enough industrial capacity to replace the losses.
33:50So the more stuff they get to Ukraine, the lower their arsenals get, and the stronger the balance of power between NATO and Russia continues to go on Russia's side.
33:58First of all, I just want your view on how much credibility to that you give.
34:02Well, the second point is worth addressing.
34:05Attrition can work in your favor.
34:07I think, frankly, it has worked in Russia's favor to this point.
34:11But attrition is dangerous because, inevitably, you, too, have to give up opportunities.
34:16You have to sacrifice resources and manpower in order to pursue your aims in a war of attrition.
34:23Even if you win, it's still a very costly proposition.
34:26Now, the good news for the Russians is that their economy has grown brilliantly during the last several years.
34:32I mean, this is one of the really absurd things that you hear all the time.
34:36We're here to hurt Russia, and Russia's hurting.
34:39You may have shown up to hurt Russia, but contrary to popular belief, Russia really isn't hurting.
34:43I would argue that we're hurting here at home economically.
34:47I would say the same thing is true in Europe.
34:48But, you know, I wouldn't hang my hat entirely on the attrition argument, and I'm not sure that as satisfying as it may be to see Ukrainians, who are not trained, fall in on NATO equipment and be destroyed, that that is necessarily a long-term strategic goal.
35:10I think that goal is already being achieved.
35:12I think the objective now is really to bring the fighting to an end.
35:16The question is, what's the best way to do that?
35:18And I think that's occupying.
35:20Now, as far as the bridges go, it always struck me that you should restrict the numbers of bridges across the river.
35:27You don't need to bring them all down because, at some point, you may want to use them for offensive operations.
35:31So, if I were sitting on the general staff, I would pick some number of those bridges that have both rail and ground traffic on them.
35:40Maybe it's three.
35:41Maybe it's four.
35:42I don't know.
35:43And then I would point out that we can target whatever mass is at either end of the bridge, which means that everyone is canalized now.
35:51They can't cross at all these various bridges.
35:53But there are some bridges they can still use, and then you can decide whether or not you want to kill everybody that just came across or destroy everybody before they start.
36:03But I wouldn't have damaged or destroyed all the bridges.
36:06And that's just from a purely military standpoint, and I don't know what the discussion was like in the Russian general staff.
36:12You know, it was one of the interesting things from the first soundbite there from Mark Rutte that I played was he didn't say we're building up in order to try to put pressure on Russia to bring the war to an end.
36:25He said to enable Ukraine to keep fighting.
36:28So, it shows that NATO has no interest in the war coming to an end at all unless they can somehow win.
36:34And then they are, as you'll see in this soundbite, talking about expanding NATO capability.
36:38I can assure you, this old 2% we agreed in 2014 is not nearly enough to reach all the capability targets we need to reach, to fill all the gaps we have in our defense system.
36:53We can defend ourselves now against Russia, but we can't in three to five to seven years.
36:59We have seen yesterday the comments by the chief of defense of Germany.
37:03And clearly, we have to stand ready.
37:06So, it will be considerably more than the 2% we were used to.
37:09And we also have to acknowledge that next to the hard defense spending, there is the issue of all the defense-related spending, including military mobility, including are our societies ready, including building up the defense industrial base.
37:24So, again, it always seems to get back to money.
37:26It always gets back building up that defense industrial base.
37:28But let me ask you something, Doug, because just before we went into this soundbite here, the Russian economy over the last two years has grown 4, I think it was 4.3%, 4.1%.
37:41Europe in the last year grew at 1%.
37:44Our last quarter, the first quarter of the U.S., was negative growth.
37:48We'll see what it turns out in the second quarter, whether we're in a recession or not.
37:51But can the West afford to go way beyond 2% of domestic spending and do so in an indefinite period of time?
38:00I think the short answer is no.
38:02But let's look at a couple of points here.
38:05First of all, when you start talking about building military power, the kind of military power that Russia now has created and fielded, you're looking at 10 years of systematic investment.
38:16You're talking about new force designs.
38:20Force development is a very tedious and lengthy process.
38:23You have to have a strategic vision for it that makes sense.
38:27And you're talking about 30-plus nations inside this North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
38:33Some of these nations are as small as Finland or Norway that have, what, 5 million people?
38:38The Swedes, 8 million.
38:40The Germans are the largest.
38:42And obviously, the Germans are the ones that have the greatest interest in terms of building up their military capability now.
38:51But even so, that will take many, many years.
38:54So the notion that anything you do now is going to have any short-term or near-term impact is absurd.
39:00So it's just crazy.
39:01It's not going to make any difference, certainly not to the Russians.
39:03And then finally, I think the other thing we have to keep in mind is that this man is also engaged in a PR stunt.
39:13Everything for Ruta and his friends, optics, they have in Europe, in every government, every nation, a much larger, more complex welfare system and redistribution system for income than we do.
39:27It's much more tedious.
39:29You have people that, as soon as they can, retire and then live on pretty good pensions for long periods of time and take vacations for the rest of their lives.
39:41This is not like the United States where people work very, very hard for a long time.
39:46When they can retire, they've tried to build up their savings.
39:49And at the same time, they depend on Social Security.
39:51But they're not in a position to go on cruises and take long vacations to the Bahamas or anything else.
39:58But that's not the case in Europe.
40:00In Europe, people do live very comfortably with very little effort for a long time.
40:06That's not possible now.
40:08And as we watch the financial crisis unfold here in the United States, you just said, we'll see whether or not we're in a recession.
40:15We're in a recession.
40:16It's going to be very deep and probably will become a depression.
40:19One of the reasons I say that is that Scott Bessement, who is one of the truly intelligent and thoughtful people in the administration, made a statement yesterday, I think, and said, we will never default.
40:32Well, when I hear that, that means we're going to default.
40:35That's inevitable.
40:37So that's coming.
40:38When that hits, you have no credit.
40:41When you have no credit, you have to radically cut spending.
40:44And then the whole society changes.
40:46I mean, the whole idea that, you know, we don't realize that today, but you have these layover programs at places like Sears and Robux and other major corporate entities and, you know, what is it, Macy's and all these other places.
41:03In other words, buy now, pay later and payment installment plans.
41:07All of that goes back to the depression.
41:09Those things were devised during the depression so that life could continue.
41:15It would not continue as well as it had before, but it would be a substitute until prosperity returned.
41:22Well, stop and think about what we have today.
41:26We're going to lose all of it, and we're not going to be in a very good position for a long time.
41:31So to some extent, I've begun to think that people are racing to the bottom, and the question is, what happens first?
41:39Do we all go under financially first and watch the economy implode, or do we go to war and watch everything implode as a result of a war that we're not prepared to fight?
41:50I don't know.
41:51I mean, I still hear people talk all the time about China, China, China.
41:54We have to be prepared for war with China.
41:56I mean, you listen to the people in the Pentagon, that's the big strategic change.
42:01Well, we're going to put this on hold and that on hold so that we can deal with China.
42:05What, have they lost their minds?
42:07You're going to fight another war 7,000 miles from home?
42:11Fight another war on the enemy's territory?
42:14And that means right off the coast of China?
42:15What, have you lost your mind?
42:17It's crazy.
42:18What makes you think the Japanese and the Koreans and everybody else want to be the recipient of Chinese missile attacks?
42:24Because we happen to have bases in their countries, especially since none of them want to go to war with China under any circumstances.
42:31By the way, the Chinese don't want to go to war with anybody.
42:33It's bad for business.
42:34It doesn't matter.
42:35This is the sort of deranged thinking that is popular today in the United States and sadly in much of Western Europe.
42:42And at the same time, I think President Putin knows these governments aren't going to last.
42:47They're going to go under.
42:47They're going to tank.
42:48And I know that President Trump probably thinks he's invulnerable and invincible.
42:53He's not.
42:54This economy could very easily tip over and we could find ourselves at the bottom of a financial and economic abyss.
43:03And then the question is going to be, Mr. President, what do you do now?
43:07Threaten more people with tariffs?
43:09Threaten to punish other people that do business with people we don't like?
43:13What are you going to do?
43:14I don't think anybody has any answers.
43:16And that's why when Scott Besseman, who I respect, suddenly said, we will never default.
43:21It's coming.
43:22It's inevitable.
43:23Now I know that's where we're headed.
43:25Well, and you keep talking about detached from reality or just putting blinders on.
43:33I don't know what you want to call it, but I hesitate to keep showing it to me, but he keeps providing so much opportunity.
43:39Here is Jack Keene earlier today on Fox talking about what Trump should do.
43:46So the leverage has got to be, I think, number one, military assistance and give them the robust air defense systems and the other things they desperately need.
43:55Why is that?
43:56Because once Putin sees that the United States is still committed to Ukraine, he knows he can't achieve victory.
44:03The evidence is already right in front of us.
44:06We're 39 months into the war, Maria.
44:0839 long months.
44:10That's how much time it took for us to defeat Nazi Germany.
44:15And Putin has not succeeded.
44:16He hasn't even taken the entire Donbass region, which is what he wanted to take in 2014.
44:22So he cannot succeed if the United States is providing military assistance.
44:28He knows that for a fact.
44:31Second thing, let's issue the crippling sanctions.
44:34That is all part of the process.
44:38Aside from the absurdity of thinking that sanctions are going to work, you addressed that a second ago.
44:42What about that comment that he has made there that, my God, it's been 39 months since this war started, and we won World War II in about that same amount, and they haven't even taken all of the Donbass yet or date?
44:53What do you say to those arguments?
44:56Somebody should point him in the direction of some good books, something that I don't know that he reads them very much.
45:05I don't think that's his inclination.
45:07That's not to say that Jack Keane is stupid.
45:09He's a very intelligent man.
45:10But what he says makes complete sense when you look at where he's employed and who is paying him.
45:16So that needs to be kept in mind.
45:18He's not a dumb man.
45:19But this business of Nazi Germany, we need to remind everybody that it took the combined efforts and forces of the British Empire, the United States, and the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany.
45:32The heaviest materiel and human losses were obviously taken by the Soviets.
45:39That's another issue.
45:40But without the United States Air Force that did something very intelligent, that is, they destroyed the oil refineries and the sources of oil and oil fields and the pipelines, along with much of the rail that moved it, fixed it.
45:56So that by July 1944, the average flight time for a German fighter aircraft was about two and a half hours.
46:04And, of course, at that point, that was the first time during the Second World War that the Soviets actually could exert air supremacy over the battlefield.
46:15Now, I'm just pointing these things out because, you know, we have a very distorted view of the past.
46:21I mean, every nation does.
46:25You know, if you had lived through the Second World War inside the Soviet Union, you would have not viewed that war as some glorious manifestation of Soviet greatness.
46:36Tens of millions of human beings were being slaughtered on a daily basis.
46:40One million Soviet soldiers were executed by Stalin because they said we're not fighting the Germans.
46:45Nobody points that out.
46:47There are a lot of things that are wrong with the way all of us look at the Second World War.
46:52Eisenhower got it right.
46:53He said we don't ever want to do this again.
46:56That was the intelligent observation.
46:58And therefore, he said I'm not going to fight the Soviet Union.
47:02And they're not going to fight me because we can avoid that.
47:06Right now, we need Trump to stand up and make the same point about Russia.
47:10We are not going to fight them and they don't need to fight us and we can avoid it.
47:16But he has been unwilling to say that.
47:18He needs to say that.
47:19That's a message everyone in Europe, as well as in Russia, needs to hear.
47:24But then there's the rest of it that is just ridiculous, that somehow or another there's anything left of Ukraine.
47:30I suppose we could move lots of air defense systems and station them around the cemeteries so that they can still have plenty of room and can bury more Ukrainian soldiers without interference.
47:41That's about it.
47:42That's the dumbest thing as I can imagine.
47:45There is not a shred of humanity right now and anybody who insists on killing more Ukrainians for nothing.
47:52And that's why the Ukrainian ground commander quit.
47:55I mean, he said that's it.
47:57No more.
47:58How many dead does he have to amass on the battlefield in front of him before he says this is ridiculous?
48:05Yeah, you know, that's on top of the fact that there was the 147th brigade commander resigned a couple of two or three weeks ago.
48:11They fired the 59th brigade commander for a lot of you saying that the wheels are starting to come off.
48:17I don't know how much longer this can go, but it looks like we're going to have to find out.
48:21In the last few minutes I have here, I wonder if I could switch over to a different topic here that you've alluded to a couple of times in this broadcast already, and that is in the potential for war with Iran.
48:33In just the last basically 36 hours, we had very, very contradictory information coming out of the White House.
48:38On the one hand, it said, hey, I think we have a good chance to have a negotiated settlement with Iran to avoid war.
48:45They could have, you know, minimal reprocessing capacity.
48:49And then all of a sudden, I think it was last night, Trump, you know, social truthed out in big bold letters that there will be no reprocessing capacity, etc.
48:57And as you mentioned, that doesn't leave much room for anything besides conflict.
49:02How do you see that situation at right now?
49:05Well, I think it's unfortunate that President Trump did that.
49:08I think he should have said that we in Washington and the United States can live with this reduced processing agreement.
49:18And we can.
49:18Has anybody spoken up lately in Washington about the numbers of nuclear warheads and missiles that carry them inside Pakistan or India?
49:30No.
49:32Nobody seems to object to that.
49:34What is the objection to just processing anything?
49:38That objection comes from Israel, from Mr. Netanyahu and his agents inside the United States.
49:45And make no mistake about it.
49:47That the people that are out there beating the drums for war in this country to attack Iran on behalf of Israel, which is really what it all amounts to, those people are agents for a foreign power.
50:00And they're very powerful.
50:02They have a lot of money.
50:03They helped to put, and some people would argue they did put, President Trump into the White House.
50:08But I would hope that President Trump would dig down deep inside of himself, recognize that he is an American first, and that Americans want nothing to do with a war that could escalate to the nuclear level.
50:22Because how many times do we all need to say it?
50:26Russia, China, and others are not going to sit quietly while we and the Israelis pulverize Iran.
50:34It's not going to happen.
50:35So we will be drawn into a wider conflict with ominous consequences for this country, and potentially the Middle East, Europe, and the United States.
50:47Again, we just had a president named Biden who admitted at least 30 million illegals into the country who were never vetted, about whom we know almost nothing.
50:58And who are these people, where are they, and what are they capable of?
51:03If anyone thinks that a war with Iran is not going to result in serious trouble here at home for us, they're deluded.
51:13It's a danger that we cannot dismiss.
51:17And right now, we don't have an effective FBI, police organization to deal with all of it.
51:24And I don't know that we all ever have won a game.
51:27We've had so much damage done to these national institutions that people don't trust any longer.
51:33Yeah.
51:34And we don't have an army.
51:35Where is the army?
51:36I keep saying this to people.
51:38What, 430,000 augmented by how many national guardsmen and reservists on any given day?
51:44That's unserious.
51:46That's not real.
51:49Yeah.
51:49That is, these are very, very troubling and disturbing things.
51:53And unfortunately, it seems like the central theme of all these is that we need the president of the United States to bow up and to stand up for what are American interests and not to either just be placid and just going along with the winds in the Russia-Ukraine thing or being pulled along in the Israeli issue.
52:11Ron, we need to have an American president that's looking up for us.
52:16And he can.
52:17And I hope that at some point that he does.
52:19But in any case, we appreciate your clarity on this.
52:22And we're going to continue to watch it and continue to bring the truth to people on this show.
52:27And we really appreciate you coming on today.
52:29Okay, Dan.
52:30Thanks very much.
52:31Always a pleasure.
52:32And thank you, guys.
52:33Check your polls inside the Beltway.
52:35See where you stand now.
52:36Yeah, I don't want to look at that scoreboard, but it will age well, though.
52:45I think we can confidently say that.
52:47I think we can sit that long, right?
52:49If we do.
52:49That's always a question.
52:51But, again, thanks for pointing that out, too.
52:54And thank you guys very much.
52:55Be sure and like and subscribe if you haven't done it already.
52:58We really appreciate it when you do.
53:00We're going to come back this afternoon, by the way.
53:01This whole issue that Trump keeps talking about recently, the Golden Dome, we're going to bring Professor Ted Polshelon, who's got some really good insights.
53:09As you know, he's been one of our go-to experts on these kinds of missile shields and what the implications are of the attack on the Russian long-range bombers and a Golden Dome issue for protecting the United States.
53:22You're not going to want to miss that today at 2 o'clock Eastern time.
53:24We will see you then on Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
53:31We'll see you then on Daniel Davis Deep Dive.