FOREIGN POLICY REVIEW WITH SCOTT RITTER: THE DONBASS CONQUEST

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hello welcome to the forum called theory i’m dustin pickering your host and we
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have carla parcelli and billy bob as co-host today special guest scott ritter
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if you like the program subscribe to our channel and leave some comments for us we’d love to hear from you so thanks for
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being on the program today scott i’ll kick it off to billy bob to let him do some uh preliminaries so go ahead bill
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bob scott thanks so much for coming on and joining us i know you have a very busy
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schedule you’re you’re you’re all over the place uh doing great analysis and um today we were hoping to just
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segue into a question about what comes next for the donbass and you
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know donetsk and luhansk pretty much almost taken over by russia
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um and so you know this is probably just the very uh end of the beginning into
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the very beginning um and we would like to hear your thoughts on how how you
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think things might progress from here you know what the west is going to do and and what russia is going to do in
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response if you want to just take that general broad question and run with it okay
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well i mean you know we’re we’re going into our fourth month of this conflict and
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russia appears to be closing in on uh achieving its stated
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objective of liberating the donbass region from ukrainian government control
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it’s been a very difficult fight uh the ukrainians have shown tenacity
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um they’ve shown resilience and they’ve had the benefit of having eight years to have prepared uh
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extensive defensive positions in depth um they’ve also been the recipients of some
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53 billion dollars worth of uh us military aid and tens of billions of
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additional dollars worth of uh for military aid to give to put this in perspective
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um you know this is a conflict that in many ways is a uh is a massive
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artillery duel between ukraine and russia um
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ukraine started this uh this conflict with thousands of uh artillery tubes and
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multiple launch rocket systems so did russia russia has succeeded in destroying
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um hundreds of the ukrainian artillery systems uh but in the past several uh in
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the past month and a half uh the united states and europe have provided with ukraine uh by ukraine with
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over 300 advanced artillery systems and multiple launch rocket systems um that’s
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the equivalent of 20 battalions of artillery 20 battalions of artillery the united
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states marine corps one of the finest fighting forces the world has ever seen um only has 11 battalions of artillery
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so we’ve provided ukraine with nearly twice as much artillery that’s used by
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the entire united states marine corps and the reason why i bring that up is
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that you know some people say well why is it taking russia so long because it’s a heck of a fight i mean
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this is real war this isn’t fake war this isn’t counter insurgency this isn’t hunting down taliban this isn’t kicking
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the doors in on iraqi homes this is closing with and destroying a very determined very well-armed very
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well-trained very well-led uh military that is fighting for what it views as
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its homeland um this is a tough fight russia’s winning but winning you know comes with
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a cost this isn’t uh you know this isn’t something that russia is is is doing you know cost-free
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uh we are looking at i’m getting invaded myself here
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cooperate all right this is uh anubis the hairless stinks cat
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i’m sorry about that um but this you know this this is this is a war that’s costing russia significant casualties
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and significant material loss um it hurts war hurts but russia is is prevailing um despite
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the massive amount of military assistance ukraine has received and will continue to
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receive um so that’s that’s where we’re at right now we’re we’re in the closing week of
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what we’ll call phase two um i think it’s it’s clear that
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uh when russia completes the military objectives of phase two that is the liberation of donbas
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there will still be um some political objectives that are outstanding uh one
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of these political objectives is of course the demilitarization of ukraine that means getting rid of
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nato infrastructure well ukraine has received you know around 70 billion
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dollars worth of nato infrastructure and since this war began so as long as ukrainian army exists
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um the goal of demilitarization will not have been met um and one has to wonder if this is uh
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at this point in time a realistic goal for russia meaning the
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complete dismantlement destruction of the ukrainian military russia certainly
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has the ability to do this to accomplish this um but at what cost
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and i’ll get into that in a second the next one is denotification you know russia has had a major
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military and political victory when it captured mario and defeated the azov regiment which is
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one of the leading neo-nazi-affiliated military organizations in the ukrainian um
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service there are others uh in the azov a regiment has not been destroyed they have affiliated units still operating in
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karkov around the kiev in the volvo down south it’s a very large organization
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it’s a regiment and regiment in name only it’s more like the azov
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division and there are other far-right units as well
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and again when the donbass is liberated um and the other objectives uh
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you know territorial objectives russia has made it clear now that uh any peace agreement with ukraine will no
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longer be limited to territorial demands such as crimea being russia in
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perpetuity and ukraine recognizing the independence of the donbas
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russia has also said that ukraine has lost forever never to be changed uh kerason uh a region uh north of crimea
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uh that russia has secured uh this is essential uh from a russian security standpoint not only to provide a buffer
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for ukraine but to secure water resources for the ukraine ukraine had cut off
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um the the flow of fresh water from kerasone region to crimea in 2014
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um creating havoc with uh the ukrainian ecosystem ukrainian agriculture and just
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basic quality of life for the ukrainian citizens i mean i’m sorry crimean citizens um and then also the zaparizna
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oblaster region that connects it’s pretty much the land bridge between
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crimea and bombast and russia russia has captured these russia says these will never be returned to ukraine ever end of
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story not a discussion um so we’re there but even when russia has achieved all this there are still nazis
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in ukraine nazis that are under arms the reality is the ukrainian government
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is a nazi government uh the lenski the jewish president has banned all political parties in
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ukraine except the nazi parties the only political parties that are allowed to exist today and function as a political
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party are the far right-wing neo-nazi parties um this means ukraine is a nazi
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nation i don’t know why the west doesn’t get this it’s sort of right there in front of you
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um but how do you denouncify a nazi nation uh you have to destroy the
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nation you have to eliminate its leadership you have to eliminate its political system is russia
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willing to pay the price necessary to accomplish this um and i used to say
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yes because russia said yes russia said this is an absolute um but lavrov sergey lavrov the foreign
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minister said something very interesting and i don’t think a lot of people picked up on it be honest i didn’t my wife did
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she is much smarter than me she is attuned to every little nuance and she said did you hear what lavrov said
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yesterday i said yeah he said that russia is going to continue until they accomplish all of their objectives she
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said no you [ __ ] he said russia is going to continue um
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and he said it’s specifically about denotification russia will continue denotification
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of all of eastern ukraine all of eastern ukraine that’s a huge
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departure from denotification in general which suggests
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that russia may have reached a pain threshold
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that it doesn’t want to cross that russia has suffered
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sufficient losses that they will be satisfied with the territorial gains they have
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and will be willing to terminate military operations uh with a
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nazi regime in place in kiev um and a massive ukrainian army i look you know
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as many casualties and ukrainians have suffered the ukrainian defense minister said something the other day which
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everybody’s ears seven hundred thousand men are now under arms in ukraine today seven hundred thousand
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the russians started this special military operation with two hundred thousand uh they let’s say they’ve suffered
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twenty thousand casualties and they’ve replaced those 000 with 60 000 replacements so today russia has 240 000
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troops on the line um that’s 240 000 against 700 000.
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that doesn’t mean russia can’t win they can but this means the war will go on
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forever because it’s a lot of fighting to take down 700 000 men many of whom are
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equipped with some of the most advanced weapon systems in europe in the united states um
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does russia want to do this because in order to take it to the next threshold russia would have to transition away
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from a special military operation and into general war which would require
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mobilization etc and so now we have to factor in the other aspect of this
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conflict speaking of the military aspect there’s an economic aspect as well
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and here russia holds all the cards you know the sanctions package that was
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supposed to aid deter russia from moving on ukraine and b uh destroy the russian economy so that
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russia couldn’t sustain its actions in ukraine have backfired europe is in a dire situation right now
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their economy is collapsed collectively russia on the other hand is doing okay
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they’re doing okay it’s not great but they’re doing okay the ruble’s well the market’s well and they’re developing
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extensive contacts uh in the east um with china i mean they already had
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connectivity but they’re expanding this connectivity they’re doing interesting things with um
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you know non-dollar transactions um it’s not looking good for the petro
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dollar it’s not looking good for europe being good for the united states and
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as long as russia doesn’t transition into a wartime economy
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because general mobilization would mean not just manpower but the economy would mobilize um this would be harmful for
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the russian economy russia is looking at a winning hand economic and i think russia might be making a
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political decision right now that it is willing to
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terminate the military conflict with the goal of continuing this
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um you know standoff with the west via economic means that russia then can
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achieve what it wants to accomplish by applying economic pressure meaning that the west
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will tell ukraine you’re never going to join you know the west will tell ukraine
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uh we’re going to stop supplying you with arms and ammunition and the west will tell ukraine that if you ever want
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to join the eu you’re going to have to do changes in your constitution that uh ban neo-nazi parties mainly pressure the
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west to do to finish the job um this is a lot of speculation on my part but it’s derived from again the uh
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the nuance that my wife pointed out to me uh that lavrov didn’t say denoncification he said denotification
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in eastern ukraine which for the first time establishes a limit to what russia
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is is seeking to achieve

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