Transcription
Someone who just returned from Russia is former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was just in Moscow, saw firsthand, uh, these attacks literally in Moscow and around. Um, Scott, great to have you back on the show. Welcome back.
>> Well, thanks for having me.
>> So, when you hear this, I mean, you... Well, you've seen the... You've seen the increase of militarization from Germany, from Western countries, European countries, what the UK is doing. Um, what is the mood or sentiment like inside of Russia? Um, do they... They... Do they truly believe like the EU is arming themselves for a direct confrontation with Russia?
>> Well, you know, I... I visited two Russias. I visited, uh, St. Petersburg and Moscow. Um, and I also visited the Donbas: Lugansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia, which is the front line. Um, and there's, I guess, two mindsets, uh, inside St. Petersburg and Moscow. The, um, you know, what we're witnessing is a major information warfare operation being run by the West, using Ukraine as a proxy. These, uh, drone strikes against, uh, you know, Moscow, St. Petersburg, against Voronezh, against other, uh, of cities, they're... they're harassment. Um, the idea that these, uh, strikes are, um, you know, crippling Russia, crippling the Russian economy, uh, you know, uh, demoralizing Russian people is absurd in the extreme. Um, I was in Moscow the day that 500 drones hit them. Um, you know, you had this very dramatic explosion and things in the air, and, uh, the Russian people just get on with their lives. Um, there's no... there's literally no major impact on them. Their morale is very high.
There are some, um, on the left in Russia who, uh, feel that, you know, Vladimir Putin's inability to respond decisively, you know, is a sign of weakness and that Russia must end this war to the... to the point of, you know, accepting the fact that they won't, you know, have all of the territory of the Donetsk under their control. There are others on the right who believe that Vladimir Putin's pragmatism is a sign of weakness and that Russia must double down and go for the decisive victory. With all due respect to the people that live in St. Petersburg and Moscow, you don't... you don't count. You're a bunch of academics, you're a bunch of, you know, you know, elites.
Uh, >> [laughter]
>> And I don't think Vladimir [clears throat] Putin listens to you at all. The people that Vladimir Putin listens to, of course, are the people that live on the front line: the soldiers that are doing the fighting. They're winning, by the way. They're winning decisively. They're... they're... they're, you know, threatening to, uh, to... to capture Sloviansk. They're going to take Kramatorsk before the summer is over. They've just taken another third town in that urban belt. When that happens, Donetsk falls, and all of it will fall under Russian control. And when Donetsk falls, Zaporizhzhia front will fall. And so, the Russians are winning on the front. It's a very hard fight.
The Ukrainians are flooding the zone with drones. You know, these are drones that, you know, not only murdered 21 innocent teenagers, students at Starobelsk college, but these are drones that continue to attack civilian infrastructure and vehicles in the, you know, strategic highway that connects the Mariupol with... with the Crimea. It's very dangerous to travel. I traveled on those highways, came under drone attack. It's, you know, it's... there's no... you can't diminish what's happening. I mean, you can't pretend it's not happening. Gas stations are closed. There's a gas shortage. Melitopol was without electricity and water. And you... you... one would think that this would break the spirit of the Russian people living there. And the answer is, hell no. They're as determined as ever to... to keep fighting. They will fight. Uh, you know, they... they understand that victory is theirs. Uh, that... that what's happening here, these Ukrainian drone attacks, is... is just psychological warfare operations. It's very bloody. Um, you know, they are killing a lot of civilians. Um, you know, as you see, they destroy military infrastructure, but while this has complicated logistics, it hasn't stymied the Russians. The Russians continue to, you know, advance decisively. They have other ways of getting supplies to the front.
Um, the other thing I'd like to point out is it's not just, uh, you know, German and British support that's making its way. It's American support. The drones that attacked me were American-made Hornet drones, or drones that were made by a company funded by Eric Schmidt, the CEO of... former CEO, founder of Google. Eric Schmidt, if I ever meet you, I'm going to punch you. Because you tried to murder me, and you are culpable in the, uh, in the... the attempt on my life and the life of everybody else. Um, you know, the... you're committing terrorism. And the last time I checked, that's a violation of law, federal law and international law. And you are... you're providing material support to these terrorists. You know that your drones are being used to attack civilian targets. You know this because the AI chips that you put into it basically, you know, spend the first, I think, 80% of their battery power looking for pre-programmed military targets. And then when it comes out of 20% of them found a target, it goes into free kill mode. That means kill anything and everything. The strategy is to drive civilian traffic off the highways so that the only thing ostensibly on the highways would be, by default, military traffic, which would be struck. But, uh, you're... you know, the law of war doesn't allow you to do this. Uh, and so Eric Schmidt is a war criminal.
These, uh, Hornets, um, and, you know, other drones are being guided, uh, you know, through the use of Starlink terminals. So, Elon Musk is a murdering sack of horse manure. Um, you know, and... and they are murdering children. They're murdering innocent civilians. They're, you know, committing war crimes as we speak. But no, no, the people of the... of these regions, um, their resolve is... is unbelievable. I've never been more impressed with, uh, with the collective people than my entire life. Uh, these are people that, you know, they haven't been at war for four plus years. They've been at war for 12 plus years since 2014. This is nothing new that they're going through, and, uh, they are proud to be Russian, and they are determined to... to be part of a Russian victory. That means that the totality of their homeland becomes part of Mother Russia.
>> And one thing that I can't get from news coverage and social media is what's it like for these towns once Russia continues to move the front line? I mean, we all live in a town. Imagine what that's like: is you don't live in Ukraine anymore. Now you live in Russia. And what is the either support or opposition? Because we know that most of the people in those regions did in fact vote in the referendum, over 90% to become a part of Russia. So, in these new towns, is there resistance? Is there acceptance? Do... what do you think? Were you able to see that when you were there, or at least understand some of that temperature?
>> Yeah, yeah. I... I visited a, um... First of all, I have to say that I... I... I got close to the front on a couple of occasions, but the Russians were insistent that I, uh, be allowed to leave the territories alive. It's very dangerous. Very dangerous at the front line. And, uh, if you're... there's no driving around, there's no, you know, war tourism. When you get close to the gray zone, the... the drones are flying, and if you don't take the appropriate precautions, you're going to die. Um, I traveled to Gorlovka, which is a former front line city that's still under tremendous attack. Um, I also went to refugee camps where the... the Russians who are in these villages that are being liberated, rescued, and brought to these camps. Ukrainians call them "zhdun." Uh, it's a... it's a, you know, pejorative that means "the waiters," those who wait. Um, and these are basically people who say that we're Russian, and when the Ukrainians start to withdraw, they say, "No, we're staying, we're not evacuating." And so, the Ukrainians basically target them. Um, they... they... they use them as human shields. They keep them in homes. It's complicated to Russian advance. People keep saying, "Why are the Russians advancing so slow?" Well, first of all, war has changed. Drones are everywhere. You just don't get to play the game you used to play. It's a different war, slower war, slower pace war. But the other thing is that when the Russians are liberating these villages, they literally have to clear each building, um, uh, with the understanding that there could be civilians in the basement hiding. They're, you know, otherwise they would just do what America did in Mosul and Raqqa and elsewhere: just flatten the entire city. Makes life easier when you kill everybody. But the Russians don't operate that way. They go in, they find these old people. I... Again, I was in this refugee camp. It's tragic. They're being well taken care of, but, um, they all had similar stories: how they were in basements for 20, 30 days. Ukrainians would laugh at them, wouldn't let them get food, wouldn't let them get water. If people ventured outside to get food and water, they were killed by the Ukrainians. The bodies left to rot. They would have to go out and bury the bodies at night. Um, uh, when the Russian soldiers finally arrived, the Russian soldiers would, of course, start evacuating them. Um, and the Ukrainians would attack them with drones, with artillery, with mortars, and these... these elderly people—they're all, you know, people in their 60s, 70s, some of their 80s—would break down and cry and tell of us, you know, how the Russian soldiers literally covered their bodies with their own. And many of the Russian soldiers were wounded because of this, absorbing fragments that were meant for the old people. Some of the Russian soldiers died. Russian soldiers literally gave their lives to rescue these... these... these Russians who said they want to be part of Russia, they want to live in Russia. Sadly, there's still a large number of people trapped in the front areas, including large numbers of children who, um, you know, it's very... because of the drones, it's just very difficult. It's easier to resupply them in place than it is to try to evacuate them. But no, there... it's... it's... it's... it's very difficult. The Ukrainians use these... these civilians as human shields. They fortify these towns. Um, and the goal is just to, you know, make the Russians fight for, you know, every square inch and to try and get the Russians to kill civilians so that the Ukrainians can, you know, blame it on the Russians. But the bottom line is, the Ukrainians are slaughtering these civilians by the hundreds and the thousands. Um, you know, it's an... it's just an act of war crime. There is nothing honorable about the way the Ukrainians are fighting this conflict.
>> What about the cost of death on the Russian side? There's obviously numbers thrown around. You heard from David Petraeus who says that Russia can't really go on with this anymore. Listen to General David Petraeus today. Listen:
>> "It's extraordinary. They're outnumbered five to one in terms of personnel, 12 to one in terms of the economy, and yet they are taking the fight to Russia on the front lines, on the Black Sea, in the depth of the battlefield, and in the Russian Federation itself. And over time, Vladimir Putin's going to eventually look in the mirror and say, 'You know, I'm not only not going to achieve my immediate objectives of control of all the provinces that I've laid out, Donetsk, Luhansk, and others, uh, I'm actually going backwards, and the casualties are so high that we can't sustain this.' Again, they've taken more killed and wounded than the US took in all of World War II."
>> All right, so a couple of things to unpack there, Scott. Uh, Putin's going to look... David Petraeus apparently knows Putin very well. He's going to look in the mirror and say one morning, "I just, you know, I can't go on anymore." Uh, so he knows him very well on that front. Uh, more, uh, killed and wounded than the US has sustained during World War II. Um, and that Ukraine is taking it to Russia even though they're outnumbered five to one, and it's really crippling Russia right now. Three things there that sound like a big pile of... of but...
>> Yeah, well, Petraeus is just full of it. Um, so is anybody else who embraces that. First of all, the Ukrainians have more troops, uh, in the special military operation than the Russians do. The Russians have around 700,000 troops. The Ukrainians have around 800, 900,000 troops. Now, many of the Ukrainian troops are poorly trained, and, uh, they're getting slaughtered, but, um, the idea that, uh, you know, that... that... that Russia, uh, you know, outnumbers... Now, the Russians are able to put more infantry, uh, into a given area because the Ukrainians today, because of the casualties they're taking, um, you know, they're... they're emphasizing, uh, drone troops. They use the drones to create these strange massive waves of drones, etcetera. Uh, 80,000 drone operators, uh, in place. That number's shrinking every day, however, because the Russians hunt them down and kill them. Um, but, you know, so, you know, there's... there's rough parity in terms of overall numbers. The Russians are able to mass infantry, uh, better, but again, when I say mass infantry, uh, these aren't human wave attacks. Uh, you know, drone warfare makes that impossible. You're looking at the Russians coming in in threes and sixes and nines. Uh, you know, these... these smaller assault groups supported by drones and supported by precision artillery. Um, you know, this is the way the battle's fought across the, uh, front lines.
Um, the, uh, the Russians have taken very heavy casualties. Um, there's no... there's no ifs, ands, or buts about this. Um, but it's hard to calculate them. Um, you know, the... because if to give you an example, um, almost a... a... almost between a quarter and a third of the overall Russian death count will be attributed to Wagner forces who, uh, you know, used prisoners, um, as in the... in literal human wave assaults. So, back in the 2022-2023, um, you know, four of the major battles fought by Wagner, uh, they lost between 50 and 60,000 men per battle. Now, that's 200... uh, to 300,000 people, uh, right off the bat. The Russian military doesn't count these numbers when they talk about their casualties. Wagner was a private military company, and, uh, therefore the... the numbers of Wagner dead aren't incorporated into overall Russian numbers. So, it's not that the Russians are lying, they're just not reflecting that. Uh, the same thing with, uh, the casualties of the Luhansk People's, uh, Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. Um, you know, these people were, you know, put in the heavy heavy fighting, and they, uh, they... they suffered casualties, um, that go unreported in the overall Russian numbers.
But, you know, what... what we have right now is a situation where even Russia, which, um, you know, was having an extremely favorable kill ratios, uh, because of, uh, you know, the... the... the surge of drones that the Ukrainians are bringing to bear on the battlefield right now, Russia is, uh, suffered casualties nowhere near the numbers that, uh, Petraeus talks about. Uh, Russia's advantages, though, have gone from say, uh, you know, 12 to 1, meaning that for every one Russian killed, 12 Ukrainians are killed. Now we're looking at two or three to one. So for every, you know, a Russian killed, two or three Ukrainians are killed. But then, you know, the Russians are killing on a daily basis, you know, 2,000 Ukrainians. You know, on a good day for Russia, on a bad day for Russia, they're killing, you know, 1,000 Ukrainians. You know, but that means that if it's a... a two to one ratio, that means 500 Russians are dying as well. That's a lot of Russians. You know, the Russians are recruiting about 30 to 40,000 guys a month. So they're not... their... their forces are getting stronger, but they are taking casualties. I mean, there's... there's just no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
And the casualties depend, too, because we're talking about a new kind of warfare. And one of the things that I was able to ascertain is that drone warfare has gotten ahead of the... the training of many Russian units. The officers continue to, you know, use old tactics. And so, they are encouraging more, you know, heavy infantry assaults in an environment where FPV drones are flying around. And, you know, the good commander knows that this can't happen. You have to change your tactics. You know, you have to use counter-drone tactics. You have to factor in things that you didn't factor in before. People like Opti Alaudinov, who's the commander of the Akhmat Special Forces, he is a man who knows modern warfare. His units make impressive advances. They do a good job. Their casualties are relatively low because he cares about the lives of his troops, and he understands the role that tactics play in preserving the lives of his troops. There's other commanders, you know, in divisions that the... the soldiers just despise because they... they... they order the soldiers to push forward, you know, when the FPV drones are flooding the market. And they're just sending soldiers to their death. If you're out there and you have no ability to bring down FPV drones or to strike back, it's a suicide march, and Russians are suffering very heavy casualties because some of the commanders just haven't, you, altered their... their tactics.
We're in a sort of a weird transition phase right now where the Russians are learning, but they haven't all learned. They're also... the Russians are developing anti-drone capabilities. I... I went to, you know, the... the centers in, for instance, Zaporizhzhia, where they're, you know, directly supporting frontline units with new technologies and new tactics, etcetera. And they're developing these interceptor drones that are very effective, but you've got to build them to scale. And that takes time and that takes money. And so, right now, the Russians and Ukrainians sort of have the advantage in terms of drones. There's no doubt about that, but when I say they have the advantage, that doesn't mean they're winning the war. Russia is advancing. Russia is winning. Russia's killing more Ukrainians than they are killing Russians, but the... the Ukrainians are doing an... an impressive job. They're making it a very difficult fight for the Russians, but very soon you're going to see the... the... the situation change because what... what will happen is that the Russians, um, are now familiar with the Ukrainian tactics. They're familiar with their operational procedures, and they're developing weapons and tactics of their own to counter it. And when Russia, you know, they execute these... these new methodologies, new tactics, these new tools, they'll offset whatever advantage Ukrainians had, and then the Russians will have, you know, a stronger advantage and advance even farther until Ukrainians adapt to the Russians and bring in new technology and make life harder again. It's just continuous cycle of violence, drone-based violence, that's going on and on and on. But from an overall perspective, Russia's doing very well, advancing, um, significantly and inflicting horrific casualties on the Ukrainians, but it... it comes at a heavy price for the Russians as well. David Petraeus is not wrong when he says that the Russians have lost more men than wounded, um, in this fighting against Ukraine than the United States lost in all of World War II.
>> Mhm.
>> [clears throat]