00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now
00:07is retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of
00:12Democracies. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. I want to talk about
00:18the latest in the war between Russia and Ukraine because there were a few announcements on Monday
00:22that I would love to dive into. First, President Trump announced that he threatened Russia with
00:28what he called very severe tariffs at about 100 percent if a peace deal with Ukraine isn't
00:34reached in the next 50 days. He also threatened secondary tariffs. And U.S. Ambassador to NATO,
00:40Matt Whitaker, reportedly told CNN that the secondary tariffs are, quote, sanctions on countries that are
00:45buying the oil from Russia. What do you make of these sanctions and these secondary tariffs?
00:50So, you know, I am excited. You know, this is one of the areas I've been recommending is that we have
00:57to get stronger on holding Vladimir Putin and Russia accountable for what they do. It's not
01:02enough just to swat missiles away and things like that. We've really got to put pressure on Putin
01:07so he comes to the table. President Trump gave Vladimir Putin six months, six months of runway to
01:16cease his military operations, come to the peace talks table, and enter into legitimate consensual
01:24talks with Zelensky. President Trump had previously done a maximum pressure campaign on Zelensky,
01:30brought him in, frankly, almost, I think, too much pressure. But in any case, he brought him to the
01:34table and he gave President Putin attempt after, you know, week after week after week of room to get
01:42this done. And in fact, President Putin would come out of these phone calls to President Trump
01:47and order up a massive drone or cruise missile attack on Ukraine. So I think President Trump
01:53showed maximum patience on this. And now he's come in with these economics actions, which if executed,
02:00and I say if executed because they haven't occurred yet, if executed, would bring significant pressure
02:05on Russia. Let's talk about just how significant that pressure would be because these sanctions,
02:12the secondary sanctions, at least, would go on, the secondary tariffs, rather, would go on countries
02:17that are buying Russian oil, like China, like India. Is that enough for them to say, you know
02:24what, hold up, I don't want to buy oil from Russia any longer? And will, in turn, Russia feel that squeeze?
02:32Short answer, yes, secondary sanctions on the Chinese and Indian. And I think in the end,
02:37it would be on the companies that do, you know, the ports, the refineries, the shipping companies
02:43that deal with the Russian shadow fleet of oil and natural gas deliverers. I think sanctions or
02:52tariffs on those companies would have a significant impact. I'm not, again, the president kind of
02:58mixed metaphors, so to speak, on sanctions and tariffs a little bit. We'll have to see what really
03:03plays out. But if you do go after those, you'll impact. And here's why. That GDP, that fossil fuel
03:13trade is what funds more than 40% of Russian GDP. I mean, it is really a big part, or at least their
03:21imports and exports, in this case, exports. It's a really big part of their economy. If you can begin
03:27to cut back on that, really cut back on it, by going after China and India and their role in this,
03:34what you're going to do is force really hard decisions for President Putin. Putin will have
03:39to decide, how do I take my shrinking government funds, because my GDP is shrinking, my exports are
03:47shrinking, and how do I apply them to my federal budget? Because his budget is 40% defense and 60%
03:55kind of payments to the base. That 40% that's defense, you know, that's like, we only spend 12%
04:01on defense. I mean, that's a significant amount. That's how he funds the war. So he'll have a choice.
04:06Do I fund the war, or do I fund kind of the payments to my base? That's a hard choice for
04:11Vladimir Putin. That's where Donald Trump can put him if he decides to impose these. I wish it wasn't
04:1650 days from now. I wish it was two days from now. I wish this was like when he told Iran, I might
04:21bomb within the next 12 days, or two weeks. And then he did it two days later. You know,
04:26I wish he'd bring these now. But in any case, this is how you pressure Russia and Vladimir Putin.
04:32And we know in a lot of situation, money does talk. Do you think in this situation,
04:37money will talk in 50 days, either a peace deal is reached, or President Putin feels that squeeze
04:44and will get to the negotiating table, and perhaps get there in good faith? Or is that just being naive,
04:49thinking that Putin, economic squeeze or not, will go to the table in good faith?
04:55Well, if I were a Ukrainian, I think the next 45 days are going to involve a lot of drones and
04:59cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. What he does with about a week to go, I'm not sure.
05:05Putin's a cagey leader. He knows how to rope a dope. I imagine with about a week to go,
05:11he'll start to pretend that he's interested in talks. I don't think that gets you there. Now,
05:15look, President Trump didn't fall for this with the Iranians. He went right in on them. So maybe
05:21he'll do the same with Putin. He has set a standard with his attacks on Fordow in Iran that says,
05:28I'll take action when I want to take action. And I've warned you that I might. So he's warned him
05:33that he might. I hope he still wants to take it 50 days from now. And I hope he does it.
05:37And we've seen President Trump threaten our allies with tariffs. Now you're seeing him threatening
05:44Russia with very severe tariffs here. And he said trade is great for settling wars. Do you agree in
05:51this instance? So I agree that sanctions or some kind of tariffs on the secondary suppliers, China and
05:58India matters. Why? Because they trade with the United States. Russia is different. We have very little
06:04trade with Russia. So 100% tariffs on not much doesn't lead to much pressure. So uniquely in this
06:12case, if you told me you were going to tariff North Korea or Iran or Russia, I don't think it has a big
06:20impact. If you're going to tariff China or India, it has a big impact. So the impact here is based on
06:27going after the secondary, the secondary actors on the sanctions.
06:34And you touched on this earlier in the conversation about this flip flop almost in President Trump and his
06:39feelings towards Zelensky and Putin. Because at the end of February, we all remember that really explosive
06:45White House meeting between Vice President J.D. Vance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and
06:50President Trump, where President Trump was just really letting Zelensky have it. And he was almost nicer in
06:57his words about Vladimir Putin. Now it's switched. Now Trump is saying, you know what, I am really
07:03angry with Putin right now. He's thought he's said out loud, kind of ruminated, is Putin leading me on
07:09here? What do you think of President Trump's in the past couple of months almost flip flop on Putin
07:14and him publicly calling Putin out? Well, you know, I'll be more generous than flip. I mean,
07:21it is a flip flop. But a more generous interpretation would be that his his feelings have evolved. His
07:27analysis has evolved. His assessment has evolved as Putin has acted. And Putin has acted in bad faith
07:34for four or five months. Now, you can say, look, that was a very predictable thing from Vladimir Putin.
07:40He's a bad faith actor and kind of a stone cold killer for the last 25 years. Why would we have thought
07:46things would change? But in any case, President Trump gave him more than enough time. This this action,
07:54what President Trump did today was the absolute logical outcome of President Putin's noncompliance
08:03and his kind of nasty behavior towards President Trump, President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine.
08:10And I want to move on to another announcement from President Trump. He said that NATO was going to
08:16buy NATO allies rather going to buy billions of dollars worth of weapons from the United States
08:22and then give them to Ukraine. What do you make of that announcement?
08:27So this one was another it's good news, but I have to put it in some context, which is there's
08:33another bit of mixed metaphor here where he described it one way and Secretary General Ruta,
08:38Mark Ruta of NATO Secretary General described it another. President Trump made it sound like the
08:44Europeans would come by system, you know, the United States would give systems to Europe,
08:51you know, maybe Patriot missiles, Patriot batteries, and then the Europeans would buy them,
08:55you know, buy replacements for the United States. So it's a weird kind of presidential drawdown
08:59authority where we send stuff directly to Ukraine, where we send stuff directly to Ukraine and the
09:05Europeans replace it. Secretary General Ruta described something slightly different where he said
09:12the Europeans would buy things from the United States, you know, from like, I assume our defensive
09:17industrial base, and in the meantime, provide the equivalent stuff to the Ukrainians. In either case,
09:23good news for Ukraine, they get Patriot missiles or batteries pretty quick. The question of how you do
09:29it, whether it comes from the United, who has the gaping, the slight hole in their system where
09:34they've given something up and they're waiting for it to be reimbursed. That's what's up in the air.
09:39I suspect it'll be mostly the second case, where the Europeans are sending their equipment, and then
09:46ordering replacements for the United States, and we're kind of prioritizing delivery to them.
09:51And either way, regardless of which way it's happening, you're saying it's good news for Ukraine.
09:56But either way that you described it, it sounds a little bit of a roundabout system. Why is that?
10:03Well, it's a roundabout. That's a great, great question. It's a roundabout system because
10:08the group part of the world that wants to give Ukraine materials now, now, now, Europe has no
10:16defense industrial base to build those systems and deliver them. And the country that does build and
10:20deliver systems and has delivered a lot to Ukraine and said, hey, that's enough by us. So you have this,
10:25you know, this dichotomy where the country that's in a position to give now, now, now or build now,
10:31now, now is not that interested in giving at this moment. Look, I hope over time, President Trump
10:37continues to refine his opinion of Ukraine and eventually goes back to either, you know,
10:43preferential loans or grant programs to directly deliver U.S. weapons. But for now,
10:49the Europeans buying those weapons from us and then delivering their own is fine by me.
10:55And what are you looking out for, especially in the next 50 days? Because that's, that's a firm
11:01deadline we have. As of now, that's a firm deadline of what we have now of President Trump saying,
11:07hey, Russia, either peace deal in the next 50 days, or we are going to tariff you. Do you think
11:13that, A, is a serious threat? B, Russia will actually respond? I mean, what are you looking
11:19out for? I know you said the week before, that's when you're really going to see some action. But
11:24what other signposts are you keeping your eye out on? You know, aspirationally, I can hope that you
11:29see a decreasing of Russian attacks, either drone, Shahid drone, or cruise and ballistic missile.
11:39Realistically, I don't think you'll see that. But if you were to see that,
11:42that would be an indication. If you were to see the Russians stop their, you know, their,
11:46their tactical offensives and very in micro in small areas where they gain a square kilometer
11:52here or there every couple of weeks, that would be a signal. I don't think we're going to see either
11:57of those. I think Russia will continue for the net, you know, for the next four to five weeks minimum,
12:02you know, their offensive campaigning to see if they can get a breakthrough. Because in the end,
12:06that's truly what Vladimir Putin wants, a breakthrough on the sale on the lines, a salient that he can
12:11penetrate and get a significant, more significant territorial gains from Ukraine and place Kiev or
12:19Odessa at risk. You know, those are the two major Ukrainian cities. I don't think that's likely. I
12:25don't think I've told you before, I work closely with the Ukrainians and that they're not going to
12:29lose this war. I don't know that they know how to win it. I don't either. But they're not going to
12:33lose it. They're just going to lose a lot more people defending themselves. I think the actions that
12:38we heard President Trump avert to today will mean less Ukrainian casualties over time.
12:44And to that point, then, do you think today the Ukrainians are thinking after these two
12:48announcements, hey, we're a little closer to winning this war, we're a little closer to this
12:54war coming to a conclusion? What exactly are they thinking? I think they do probably think they're a
13:00little closer to the war coming to conclusion, not winning. Look, they'd like to hear a third line
13:05of effort. They want to hear President Trump say, I'm willing to provide offensive weapon systems
13:10to Ukraine so they can hold Russian command and control and logistics movements at risk, deep,
13:17you know, deep inside Ukrainian, Russian-occupied Ukraine, or even in Russia itself. And the weapon
13:24system for that is called the ATAKIMS. President Biden provided that two years ago, but put significant
13:30restrictions on it that made sure it never really worked as advertised. I, President Trump, should
13:36give the Russian, excuse me, give the Ukrainians ATAKIMS with no limitations and allow them to strike
13:43Russian military assets and maneuvering and, you know, consolidated assets before they maneuver,
13:49you know, deep in Russian-held Ukraine or in Russia. And to me, if he did that, that is where Ukraine
13:58starts to think they can win. Now, again, I don't think there's a path for them to actually win,
14:03but they'll be much more optimistic based on that. Well, there is certainly a lot to look out for.
14:08And per usual, I always appreciate your expertise and your insight here. Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery,
14:13thank you so much for joining me. You're welcome back anytime. Thank you for having me.
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