Kitbag Conversations - Episode 2: On Russia's failure in Ukraine

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

In this episode, Cody (a writer for the page) elaborates on his previous assessment regarding Russia's predetermined failure within Ukraine. The main topics highlighted throughout the episode are (but not limited to):  -Russia's logistical shortfalls  -Russia's degraded combined arms capabilities -Russia's inability to achieve air superiority due to proliferated MANPADS  -And Putin being "yes manned" into an invasion

Hello, and welcome back to pro-atomian report, a podcast dedicated to delivering quality information to the community level. This week we are joined by Cody, an occasional author for the page and an author is articles such as Putin should the bed and failure Putin's road to Kiev is paved with decades of lies. Cody, I'll just give you a minute to hear to introduce yourself. So my name is Cody. I did five years in the army as a military intelligence officer.

I did a deployment to Afghanistan for nine months with the 101st Aviation Brigade down in Kandahar. And it was my job to basically make sure that American aircraft didn't die. And so I received some specialty training in that went to Fort Rucker, learned about manpads and anti-tank guided missiles, as well as going to Pathfinder school in November of 2017. And I didn't take the short course, I graduated that. So I'm kind of, I would say I'm okay.

I'm nothing like another guy we've got going around here who writes articles for us. But yeah, I know my way around helicopter survivability. So that's why we've been writing those articles and making pilots mad. So in Putin's shit the bed, you laid out three main areas where the Russians are essentially failing and it was their logistical capabilities, their aircraft's inability to function due to all the manpads in country and the combined arms inability to cooperate with one another. So let's just start with logistical issues. Everyone's seen it.

John Boyce loaded up on a single track road, just getting eaten up by the end laws that were imported from NATO essentially to the Ukrainians and Russian paratroopers being dropped in with three mags and 24 to 48 hours worth of water and supplies and getting surrounded and routed and eaten up by the Ukrainians. So yeah, let's just start up from the top there and like logistics logistic. So it's actually funny because if you look through the Krooton Report archive, I guess you could call it but if you scroll back to February 24th, you'll see an article where we wrote that Russia will lose and I think that was the first one I wrote for the page

and we acted within 24 hours with Russia losing because we were seeing tanks getting blown up by the end laws. We were seeing them get destroyed by javelins and manpads and so right out the gate, you had issues, right? And I mean, we're, I would say somewhat experts in the field of military intelligence. And so within 24 hours, everything quickly shifted. I mean, even for the Russians, so as tanks are blowing up, helicopters are getting downed. You have logistical issues, you have a nightmare essentially because every tank that goes down

needs to be repaired. Every tank that keeps going forward needs fuel, everything needs ammunition and the American logistical system is actually called reactive logistics. So they set forward, forward operating operations bases and you can go to YouTube and you can type in the operations room and you can see on day one of the Desert Storm invasion, the hunter and first was actually tasked with making a forward operating base for logistical issues and problems. Like they landed on their objective with fuel blivets on the helicopters.

Like Chinooks were unloading artillery, Humvees, and they were carrying underneath them fuel tanks in front of the, and we saw none of that right out the gate with Russia. It was just tanks getting blown up and helicopters getting blown up. And we were talking, I think it was earlier, we were talking about how Russia was trying to wait till the ground freezes, but the ground isn't frozen anymore. There's just mud, farmland and mud. And so these logistical vehicles are stuck on the roads. And so day one of the invasion, we're seeing things like tanks getting blown up, helicopters

getting taken down. All of a sudden you need to get logistics in there to recover these vehicles and you need to get people in there to start repairs and they're stuck on the roads because they can't get off. Everybody, that's why there's a 44 mile long convoy. And so I think, like we said, I keep saying within 24 hours, we noticed like this isn't right. Well, it's because not to cut you off, but there was initial, what, 24 hours of footage

of Russian RAD and Russian aircraft, absolutely thrashing, Kiev and Kharkov and Kerson and all of the Russian or the Ukrainian main objectives, but the Russians within 48 hours didn't seize any other day one objectives. Those videos that were being released, CNN is one of them where they were standing behind the Russian VDV securing objectives in an airport, but it's almost like it's been almost three weeks and they still don't have the entire airport outside of Kiev. And so it's almost like anyone who's been to Atlanta, that's huge. It's 20 minutes to get from one side to the other.

So it's, a lot of those Russians were dropped in with, okay, we got it, now what? Oh, we're out of ammo, the Ukrainians, get this off. Well, I mean, that's like, that's what happened in Market Garden, right? Like immediately you have the 82nd and the British Paras trying to seize, I think it was Einhoben and they did for like, I think it was just a couple of hours, couple of days. And then the counterattack happened and the American and British armor weren't there to relieve them. Like Paras troopers only got, I mean, we even said it in some of those write-ups, like they

only have 72 hours worth of stuff. And every time they fight, every time they get into an engagement, that amount of supplies that amount of hours ticks down, like they go from 72 hours after a big firefight, they have like 48 hours worth of ammunition left and then they get another firefight and it's like, okay, we may have 36 hours left and it's just these unsupported paratrooper drops with it. And like we were just saying, those logistical convoys just getting bogged down in the mud and so they can't, they're just dead, they're dead, like there's nothing.

It isolated to one area, it's the entirety of the Russian offensive from Kiev to Harkov to the Chechens coming in through the east or the Russians moving in through originally Crimean to Kersen, it's all of them, they seized those roads, they didn't seize the main land to the right or the left and then they were just getting eaten up by the Ukrainian, not war machine, but just resistance. Yeah. I mean, well, when you're stuck on the roads and you can't maneuver, I mean, it's pretty easy for a farmer with an AK to shoot at you.

So what was the other, what were the other two? So moving on, it's going to be downed aircraft. Oh my God, I remember that. Just the amount of videos flooding the internet of Russian Heinz in aircraft just getting absolutely eaten up by the most primitive and basic of manpads that have been sitting around since the Cold War, just getting annihilated. Well, I mean, like, so here's, here's the funny thing. And it's like a lot of people think that stingers are still gen two manpads.

So there's four generations of manpads. Like your gen ones are like the first eggless seven, like, which is just, it's a joke, right? The missiles train to look at heat signatures. And so like it chases flares. And so, but I think the stingers we gave to Ukraine actually came from Lithuania, they were like 1500. And then the Polish gave them a grom, which is I think a gen three. And the Hindies and these helicopters, like they're not supposed to get shot down.

They have survivability systems and everybody's been, oh, man, when we wrote that one article about the rotary wing having to account for manpads now, like the armchair pilots came out and got all but hurt. But seriously, once you start seeing T90 tanks getting destroyed by javelins, there's that minute of like, wait, that's not supposed to happen. And then when you see a helicopter get shot down by a manpad, it's like, okay, that really isn't supposed to happen. Like, like that's, that's, that's, that's a huge no, no.

And there's 5000 just from Lithuania and Poland, manpads, like that's a manpad. I think that's like two manpads for every helicopter rushes thrown at them. And for every manpad, you shoot the survivability systems on these aircraft have to work harder. Like you can take down a helicopter with a bunch of essay sevens, which is the worst manpad ever. Like seven of them lined up and you shoot them at one helicopter, it's got to take that thing down. But if you've got like two gen three, gen four is that the helicopters toast, but they don't

even need to, they're doing it with one. And so like, not having your, your CAS, your close air support right out at the gate from day one with all these manpads hidden, like you can find a anti aircraft, but like, what's the, the Russian one with all the machine guns on it, like the SA two, hold on, the two S six, the two, yeah, the two S six, like you could find that, right? It's got to have a radio connection. It's got to heat signature. It's a freak.

It's a tank, but a manpad, you can put that thing in the back of your truck and drive around town with it. And then you see a helicopter pop the truck open and hit it. And so, and throw the missile in the back of the truck and you're on your way. And I mean, that's everywhere over you created. I think that was, that's a big one. That's a big one. I mean, you can't establish air supremacy with that.

And so like we, I keep saying like 24 hours, we knew we're like, okay, Russia's got a problem. And so that was, that's a huge one. I mean, they were taken down IL 76s, which are huge. It's the Russian version of the C seven aircraft, but it's got other things going for it. I mean, taking out an IL 76 with 150 paratroopers for the cost of $130,000 a stinger is ridiculous. Yeah. Not just once, but twice. I think they took out two with 300 paratroopers gone immediately north of Keith.

And it's just, it's like, yeah, they take these gen one SA sevens and they hook them up to car batteries and that battery life is good forever. Cause there's, yeah. Cause the car battery. Yeah. It's just car batteries laying around. They just keep these stretched forever. And the funny thing is, is like everybody came to the pilot's defense is like, oh, they're

just not fine. Right. Oh, they're just like, no, Russia. And I think that that was the next point is like, Russia was lying about all of its updates. Right. Oh, like it's all the way down to that 15 or 18 year old tank crewman who said he was doing all the way up to division staff saying, yeah, we're ready.

We can invade and then surrounded with yes men for the last 22 years of, yeah, we could do this. We're great power. So it's, I mean, there's just so many indicators that if you like not to be like, well, if you do what you were looking for, like it's like, if you knew what to look for, like within the first 24 to 48 hours, you were like, uh-oh, like this is not going to go in Russia's favor. And the next point I want to touch on is the combined arms across the entirety of Ukraine is just these Russian tank crews getting eaten up and rumors coming out that they're manually

and intentionally destroying their tanks. If they get where they're supposed to go to Kiev or conscripts, whatever the Russians want to call them going into Kiev or the outskirts of Markov and getting just annihilated, just eating up. And on one hand, it's like, did they have the training? Did they believe they were going into this training exercise and were, did the Russians know that their offset is so bad that they took away their phones, their ability to communicate with the outside world or on the other hand, are they just that bad?

Is it just feeding into that machine and that idea of, yeah, the bear is strong. And I guess you can call their bluff. Well, dude, it's like, uh, we've been watching so much late. If you don't, you need to go on YouTube and you need to search laser pig and you just need to watch all those videos because he has a flow chart for it. Right. It's like Russia doesn't go for a war to war for a while. Everybody thinks Russia is strong.

Russia actually goes to war, gets kicked in and then we laugh at Russia and then the memes start up. Everybody thinks Russia is strong and then the Russia goes to war. I mean, it's the same thing across the board. Like they went to Afghanistan and they got crushed. They went to Chechnya. They took them twice. They got crushed.

They went into Georgia and they, I think they just beat Georgia by sheer number. And then Ukraine, but I mean, it's, there's a, a book I mentioned in our, our chats. We've been talking about, uh, it's called one soldier's war. It's by, uh, Arkady Babchenko and he talks about the first Chechen war, being a conscript in it in the Russian army. And it is literally word for word what's happening in Ukraine right now. These guys are untrained. They are hazed relentlessly by their NCOs.

Like the idea of like being hazed in Russia doesn't exist in the Russian army. It's awful. Like you have to pay your NCOs money. Rape amongst NCOs on conscripts is very likely, uh, beatings. And I'm not talking like getting punched in the face. Like getting pistol whipped with an AK-47 is like a weekly occurrence. And it's like, how do you convince a guy like that to go into Ukraine and win? Schwartzkoff said it in Iraq.

He was like the, the willingness to fight of the Iraqi is beaten by the willingness to surrender. Like it makes more sense to surrender than it does to fight. And so that's what these Russians are going through. And as far as like combined arms, like you think about what goes into the invasion of Iraq, where we had Navy and Air Force collaborating together to knock out key C2 infrastructure, which is command and control. Like the radio towers were gone.

I think it was like the Pentagon and Desert Storm. They were watching the CNN news channel because they knew at 3am the first bombs were supposed to drop. And if CNN cut out, they knew that the stealth technology had worked on the F117s and like the bombing had started. So like, our technology was more advanced than we were capable of like synchronizing. We had to like hope and pray that the Iraqi TV news broadcast radio tower would get taken out at three.

And when CNN went down at three in the morning, the Pentagon knew the campaign had started. And so like you're talking about Tomahawk cruise missiles, decoy drones, stealth aircraft, like the whole nine yards. Like Iraq became cut off from the rest of the world within the first 24 hours. And then I think it was like by the hour 18, the Air Force and Navy were done targeting ADA systems and aircraft of the Iraqi military. And they were now targeting ground forces of the Iraqi military. It's been three weeks and Russian aircraft still are trying to take out ADA systems.

And it's like, this is crazy. They're never going to win now. We've lost all this momentum and it's so hard to gain momentum back. And so as we talk, and I mean, that's just from the Air Force and the Navy's perspective. I mean, think about the tanks and the infantry. We haven't seen these big huge pushes of synchronization where aircraft are landing, artillery is working in conjunction with tanks. I mean, by, I think it was like within the first week, one of us pointed out like, hey,

does this just seem like they're kind of winging it? Like nobody seems to have like phase lines. Many people were commenting that they weren't doing line of relief. Like they were just pushing the same guys forward and forward and forward. They weren't being replaced by second company. Like first company would go this far. And then second company would go through first company onto the next objective. And it's like, it's not happening.

The same guy who crossed the border in Belarus is now sitting in Kiev three weeks later. Like he's done. He's probably got like two magazines left of AK ammo and he's out of food. And he's, and that's, I mean, that's literally what started happening. We started robbing places. And so it's just, it's just disgusting. Well, the looting started almost immediately from the people at Harkov is the Russians got there. They thrashed with already an air support for the first 24 hours.

The ground guys moved in. They were sent in with limited supplies, had no food. They broke off from the supply lines. They moved too fast to keep up with the convoy. And they were going door to door asking for food. They're asking the Ukrainians for water. And they were essentially told to go fuck themselves. But it's, I'm glad you bring up the idea of isolating a rack from the Americans

because it took a week and a half for the Russians to start targeting cell towers in Ukraine's major cities in only one city. Mary Opal had their essentially their internet connectivity was shut down for what? Maybe a day or two. Isn't that the home of Azov battalion? I think so. I could be wrong. I think so.

But like Mary Opal is also the home of the Ukrainian Marines. Yeah. So it's like that's a hard target. 100%. And so they've been encircled since almost the initial stage of the war. But it took the Russians a week plus to start going after the cell towers when the average Ukrainian is just posting videos of what's going on. And it's not footage coming out of the Ukrainian army or the Russian army.

It's civilians posing that's going. Here they are. Here's where the Russian tank columnists. Yeah. I mean, laser pick talked about that. And I'm going to mention that a lot. So if you haven't watched laser pig on YouTube, you need to go watch him. But it's like every civilian is now the equivalent of an OSI agent in World War Two.

They're walking around with a geolocation like camera. You can take a picture and geotag it. Or if you have your location on, you can take a picture and just upload it to the internet. And the metadata and the photo will show you the great coordinates of where that photo was taken. And so that's why, like when we wrote that piece about turning a geolocation back on, people were like, Oh, the Russians are going to find you. The Russians are going to find you. It was like, no, that's it.

You turn your geolocation on, take a picture and post it. Anybody can find that tech on the internet. And so like all, like you were saying, not hitting the cell towers is insane. Like that should be your number one target because now you've got 40 million Ukrainians with phones taking pictures of every, everywhere you are. Like it's, I'm pretty sure that the Ukrainians were battle tracking better off of Ukrainians taking photographs and uploading them to social media. Then the Russians knew like the Ukrainian populace was probably tracking Russians better

than the Russian army was tracking their own guys. And so if we've seen on, or you've definitely sent it to the group chat of leaked Russian messages from the front where, or on Reddit, essentially is where they're getting dumped on our Ukraine or Russia, where Russian soldiers are saying, Hey, no idea what's going on. Everyone's, yeah, we were told this is a training exercise. We didn't have our phones for the first few weeks. Some people just kind of smuggled theirs in. We have no idea who's in charge, who owns what, where we're going.

We're just told to go this way. And then there's also other leaked messages coming out from the Russian side saying, we were told we're going to go fight Nazis. And if we turn around, we're not going back. So it's, it's going right back to that. I want to, I want to plug this book, Zinke Boys by Svetlana Alexi. Which is the Soviet army in Afghanistan. But it's, I don't want to say it's similar, but the Soviets came in,

they went down the major roads, they took Kabul and Kandahar and sat there on the roads and just got just annihilated by the Mujahideen. But it's very similar to what's going on where they were sending with no medical supplies or unit cohesion or any sense of who's in charge or who's going where. It was just these exhausted conscripts getting thrown in there. And once they're two years or up, they were kicked back. They were like, all right, never talk about this. So I mean, I mean, we were, we were talking about it.

It's like a conscript army just doesn't work. It's like in the book on killing, like only 20% of people can actually shoot to kill. And it's like, if that means in a conscript army, and so it's like, if that means 80% of your numbers are fake and Russia's got a million guys, and that means that only 200,000 are actually killers, but how many of those 200,000 are actually have logistics, actually have ammo, actually have food in their belly and are willing to fight and go forward. And the chances are slim and stinky boys. So like, I mean, yeah.

So I mean, yeah, it's, it is, it's, it's crazy to think that we as American trained soldiers and Marines and intelligence guys, we were thinking like, oh man, Russia's got all this great stuff. And then it's like, not really, they, they have it. It's just maybe one or two tanks have that upgrade and they can only afford to do those upgrades every other year. And like meanwhile, the military industrial complex in America has so much money poured into it, we're making billion dollar mistakes and like, yeah, just write it off, whatever.

So it's, it's crazy. I mean, it's like watching what we thought was a first world power expose itself to be a third rate power and not even like skipping through second. I mean, if it were to go from first to second, yeah, like straight to third, right? Man, like, how do you, like, that's like the number one draft pick in the NFL. Like just not like, yeah, here he goes. His best quarterback and he doesn't even make it past the Oakland Raiders. He just absolutely gets crushed and you'll go, Jesus, what do we do now?

Like, we spent a hundred million on this and it's all gone. Like, like, there's, I mean, somebody even wrote, like there was a guy who wrote an article and he was like, based on the photos and the videos taken with some calculation, the biggest donator of military equipment by cost by dollar to the Ukrainian military is actually Russia, like all the stuff that they've got. So it's like, Jesus, man, like, but all right, what next? What next? So we're talking about all these communication logistical and these errors within the Russian

Army, Ukrainian soft has been, it's not confirmed, but allegedly have been going behind the Russian lines and blowing up railway lines so they can't bring in supplies via railway or they've been attacking the multiple supply convoys and essentially just fucking shit up from behind. So those Russians are continuously getting isolated and just demoralized. Yeah. I mean, we found that that excret from a Russian radio transmission that was intercepted, it was like an actual radio transmission.

It wasn't a like a cell phone or like, oh, this person called this person, like somebody turned out a walkie-talkie, dialed it in to the Russian frequencies they found on a piece of paper and they wrote down like it was like Ukrainian Intel piece. And it was like, they talked about how these Ukrainians have been training for eight years and we've been doing nothing. And it's like, you just hit it with the conscripts, right? Like every year or two years, the Russian conscripts get up and they leave the military and all that knowledge of, you know, is gone.

Usually by the two, three, four year mark, you're starting to become what in the American military is called an NCO, right? Like you're starting to become a junior leader. So you don't have any junior leaders. Meanwhile, Ukraine has American special forces, which their mission is to train and create special forces in other countries. It's called FID, foreign internal defense. They increase and do all these missions.

I mean, it's where the Jordan commandos come from. Same thing with 10th group. They do that in Ukraine. They make the... Hold on a sec. Oh, I thought I cut out. No, you're good. But, you know, the Green Berets train these special forces.

And for eight years, they've been training with American special forces. They have American training. They have American equipment. I mean, down to the last thing is like a rifle. They're using those bullpups. And so... It's pretty cool to see just the battlefield footage being released from Ukraine, from the civilian side, and seeing what elements the Ukrainians have that are armed with M4s,

Mar-pa. Oh, yeah. Oh, dude. Just American equipment. It's like, I was not smart. I would think the Americans are there outside of the little... Let's not lose our jobs, right? We've got hunches and bunches.

I mean, so, I mean, it's like... I was about to say, I think one of the funniest things that I've seen, trying to steer away from what I know you're trying, what you're flirting with. No. What I was going to say was what's really funny is seeing Ukrainians look like operators. Like you said, civilians have this equipment. And it's... Most people don't know this, but in Poland, you can own a firearm.

In Ukraine, you can own a firearm. And they've got all the Instagram operator kit. I mean, I follow a guy who plays heavy metal and drives a Ford truck and has an M4 in Ukraine. I'm like, I thought he was an American, but no, he was an Ukrainian. I was like, what? Like he's role-playing as a country boy from Texas in Ukraine. Like, meanwhile, I'm putting Dita's tracksuits on, looking like a cop.

Yeah, I'm slot squatting outside of Walmart. Yeah, it's in the heels. But yeah, no, it's good stuff. And it's just crazy to think that a lot of people are flabbergasted. Bewildered, if you will, that Russia's losing. And it's like, no, they are losing so bad. And to put that into perspective, right? When you're in the Army, if a unit has...

If it has lost 30% of its combat force, like 30% patrician, we call it combat ineffective. Because I mean, you've got to get the medical guys up. You've got to get a repair, treat, do all these things if you lose 30% of your line unit. That's just the infantry, like the support guys have to come up, clean all that mess up, put new guys in, put new ammo in. And it's just, it's done.

That unit's done. The Russian military's already lost in equipment 30% of its equipment. Not manpower, but it's lost 30% of its tanks. It's lost 30% of its trucks and VMPs. Like, that's insane. That's like wiping out entire armor divisions, like one or two. That's a kneecapping. That's insane.

So it's three weeks in and we're already like, yeah, it's pretty much over. Minus a nuclear bomb. There's nothing Russia can really do. And every day, Ukraine just gets dug in deeper and deeper and deeper. Time is of the essence and they have none of it. But what next? What else are we going to yell at before?

You just mentioned it and we've alluded to it that like the American intelligence community, I don't want to say criminally, but overestimated the capabilities of the Russian Federation and their military to where we knew they were going to attack Ukraine when everyone else said, no, they're not going to do it. But the Americans kept saying, yeah, they will and it's not going to be good and Ukraine's probably going to lose. But based on how the Russians are going these days,

do we think Putin was yes man into believing he was a world power? Because we started a conversation with, yeah, it's these Russian, lowly Russian soldiers are lying about their capabilities. They, out of a million soldiers, 20% know what they're doing. So was he just yes man into it or is he delusional? Okay, yeah. So like there's a lot going on in the head shed. Like if somebody's going to sit there, like I have read countless books

on the big Russian bear and like the bear one of the mountain, the new czar, hours and hours of fuel. Yeah, I'm not an expert on Russia or Putin and anybody that tells you otherwise. I mean, everybody's doing the same thing we're doing, right? Like they're like, has he had a stroke? Does he have a cancer? Like maybe he's a sociopath. Like we're sitting here.

Maybe he has a semester lapse because he's looking really pudgy. And like, dude, we're doing the same thing CNN and Fox is doing. Like what is wrong? I mean, even South Park came out with this great episode where they talk about how like when your dick doesn't work as a guy, you start to do stupid things. And it's like, maybe that's what's Putin's happening. It's like, I'm not going to pretend I have the answer.

And but if I had to guess, like if you're like, okay, here's a gun to your head. Tell me, figure out what happened to Putin. And it's like, he was 100% lied to just like we were, right? So you've got all these parades going on. You've got all these like military exercises and they're only showing the best and the brightest of the Russian army. We're only seeing in the memes and the videos, like what does the Russian army have? Like what are they doing?

You know, oh man, they're shooting each other in the chest. With, you know, glocks and they have bulletproof vests on. And the army is releasing these stupid whoa commercials to recruit new candidates. And it's like, Russia, big, bad bear. And it's like, I honestly believe that that, you know, that's what's going on in the on the other side of the door, right? But behind closed doors, they're sipping a little bit of that juice. But at the same time, you've got a dictator

who has put all these generals in power, all these intelligence professionals in power. Like his inner circle is, it's as close as friends. And I thought it was called dictator's disease. I don't know if that's it, but essentially it's like, you know, as a dictator, you can't be told no, you can't tell somebody, hey, that's stupid. Like if you really want to like ruin a business or like a military unit, just get told yes all the time. That's a brilliant idea, sir.

Like it'll drive it right into the ground. And I mean, so like, here's an example, right? And I'll show you how we do it in the American army. And the hundred and first, we have what we call the big five. All right. And it's been a while since I've been in the unit. So forgive me. I think it's like PT, aerosol school graduates, marksmanship,

maintenance, and then like the 12 miler, right? And so when you get like 90% on all big fives, you get a little streamer on your flag as a company. And it's so cool. And it's like a big deal for captains, like mid-career officers to get this. And so what they do is they game the system. They're like, all right, I got 40 guys in my unit,

but five of them are getting out in six months, so they don't count. And then these five over here, well, they're on walking profiles, so they can't do the 12 miler. So now I've got 30 guys. So out of my 30, what I have is 25 dudes who can pass the 12 miler. And so now I'm at 90%. I look great on paper. But when you actually look at the unit, like all 40 people there,

it's like maybe 75% can do it. And so they like game the system to make the numbers green. And you make that Excel slide green. And so that's what's happened to Putin, right? He's been given, like, how can I make this look right? And then at the same time, you've got huge corruption, right? How can these Russian oligarchs get a cut? I mean, we saw it with the Winter Olympics.

Like they were building all these buildings terribly, taking money off the top. And it's like, if you're best friends in the AK business, and he's got an AK factory, you've got to pay him 100 million. And like, really all he needs is 80 million, but you need to give him 100 million so that he could take his 20 million and go skiing in Switzerland. And so that's the way they do business in Russia.

I mean, that's the way they do business in most places. You know, you got to grease the gears. And as a Western civilization, we don't understand that. But I do think that not only was Putin yes man, but I think a lot of his leaders were trying to get to 90% and they were taking their cut off the top. Because they're broke. So here's a wrench for you.

There's been a lot of reports coming out that FSB, you know, the old KGB are getting rounded up and put under house arrest because the situation mostly is going very bad. And it almost makes me just want to tin full a hat here from it. Believe that the FSB said this could not happen. This is not going to win. And then when they were ignored,

they're the ones taking the blame because as the IC does, when everything goes good, you're not going to get thanks. But when it goes bad, you're at fault. So yeah, I used to tell the guys the the IT department in the army, like nobody ever comes and tells you, Hey guys, the internet worked really good today. Thanks. Like they only come in when their laptop's broken

or the internet's down. They're like, what the fuck's wrong with this place? Like, oh, yeah. So it's like, I honestly think that may be true. That that could be it. You know, Putin was lied to by the KGB and he's putting him on house arrest. But at the same time, like the FSB is the replacer of the KGB.

Like they are notorious for assassinations. Like more like and not just like, oh, like shoot you in the back of the head assassination. Like let's give this guy a uranium isotope in the neck and then watch him die of cancer type assassinations. Yeah, that's a good and so it's like, what do you do with the head of the assassination department when the military is losing a war

and your economy is basically now crippled and like the Russian economy will never run again in its current state ever. Like it will, it will take hundreds of years to beat these sanctions. And so it's like, all of this is happening to your country and you're the leader of the assassination department. What do you do?

Well, you kill the guy and then it's like, well, he's Putin's former KGB. He just put them all in house arrest. I mean, wouldn't you like, he paid for all that school. He paid for all that assassination training. I gotta let you use that. And step one, secure the keys.

Like, yeah, right. Oh yeah. A rumor I saw floating around was the FSB maybe feeding the SBU and Ukraine tips about assassination attempts on Zelensky because it's hard to believe that he survived almost 15 and almost three weeks with no issue that they thought caught the Chessians at the door every single time.

It's I mean, FSB saying, okay, we knew this was gonna happen. Let's speed this up. So I mean, it will always be a mystery. I don't know. I will never understand or know how Zelensky survived 15 assassination attempts or how Ukraine knows where top generals are on the battlefield and kills one every 36 to 48 hours.

I mean, it's always going to remain a mystery to me how Ukraine came about this intelligence. Like how did they, I mean, it's almost as if like one of the world's greatest intelligence systems ever created is working with them. Like, yeah, like, you gotta be like, I may get in trouble just for pointing a finger like that. Like that's a little insane, right?

I don't think the FSB knew either, honestly. I mean, because like, if you think about it, so you've got like all these competing interests, right? Like you're at the table in Putin's evil layer in the euros, right? Everybody's sitting in the sauna. Your man tits her out. Everybody's sweating together.

You're hitting each other with birch leaves and you're trying to get cool with Putin so that you can get like another $100 million for your new tank and you can skim $10 million off the top. Like I don't think the FSB knew. Like I think they're competing interests with like the Navy, the Air Force, the Army, the Marines. Like they're all competing for a hand in the pot, the money pot.

And the intelligence service, even though Putin is a former intelligence guy, he, I mean, he may give them money. He may not, but I mean, with a dictatorship, even like in Japan, Hitler, Mussolini, everybody's competing for this one guy to like praise them and give them money, give them fame, give them glory. And it's like, I don't think the FSB has a freaking clue.

Like I think they were spying and they were doing all these things and they were working with Don Bass and Crimea. And then all of a sudden, you know, there's T-72s driving by and they're like, what the fuck is this? And like, I think they were left out of the loop too. Which makes me think that, like I just said, they're getting put under house arrest.

They're the ones getting blamed for. All of the other scapegoat. Hey, you don't know what you're doing, huh? Take two birds, one stone. You have somebody to blame and you get to keep the guys trading assassination on house arrest. It's like, yeah, it's their fault and they can't kill me.

They got like. Yeah, what's next? What other thing did I write that pissed off the masses? That was the last little wicked I wanted to touch. But if you have anything to plug or anything floating around in your mind that you want to throw. Yeah, yeah.

The Pathfinder piece. So I'm a little unbiased because I've got the badge. Um, the torch, the coveted Pathfinder torch. Um, they extinct now. Isn't that they are? There's one school left in the entire army. It's like the glider badge. Like that's a thing.

Like, no, um, but we were talking about that. And we're like trying to figure this out. Right. Because this, this will, this will make a great, like Instagram clip, I think this monologue coming up. But manpads are a part of the battlefield now. There's nothing we can do to change that. Literally every NATO partner has donated a manpad to Ukraine,

Lithuania, Poland, England, the United States. I mean, we just threw $16 billion into Ukraine just now. And what I'm trying to say is you have this new weapon on the battlefield. And all the little boys and girls and grown men who think that they know everything about aircraft survivability are like, Oh, the manpad will never defeat my F 35 or it doesn't matter, man.

Like the National Guard, I think still had Huey's 10 years ago. Right. Like we're the Marine Corps. So what are you talking about? Yeah. The Marine Corps, my bad Marine Corps still has Huey's. And it's like, it doesn't matter, man. Like the majority of the force doesn't have these great systems.

And, you know, what is the answer to this new weapon system? What is the answer to the manpad? And we've chalked around some ideas, but I think the resurrection of pathfinders and long range reconnaissance surveillance or long range reconnaissance paratroopers all put into one unit. Right. All all of them are long range reconnaissance. Your pathfinders all in one box, just like the Belgians, the

Dutch, the Germans, the French, the English all have pathfinders. And their mission is to go in ahead of the main force, whether it's paratroopers or aerosol, or it could be ground forces and find these manpads, find these ambushes or at least find a route for the main body to come in. And somebody is going to come into the comment section. They're going to be like, oh, well, the special forces and the Air Force special reconnaissance.

They do know. Have you ever heard of Marine Force recon, sir? Or yeah, Marine Force recon. But you know what's funny about that is Marine Force recon isn't special operations, is it? No, it's not. And so and the problem with special forces is that they don't fall under normal military command.

They'll tell you, like, oh, we train with our normal army and Marine counterparts. No, they don't. They hate them. They would rather die than sit at the table. In fact, they send liaisons to the normal commander. They don't sit with him. They don't care what he has.

In fact, special operations doesn't even carry drones with them. They take the normal army, Air Force and Marine drones from them and they use them. So they take stuff from us and use it from us as the regular forces, I say. But no, they don't care. And so it's like they're not going to do recon.

Once they get done blowing stuff up behind enemy lines, they're going to do what they've always done, try to get into direct action roles and take the job of army rangers and Delta Force. Like, I could kick indoors, too. They don't care about reconnaissance. They don't care about the main body. They'll figure it out. And so the new question is, what are we going to do about the

M-Pads? And I said Pathfinders and I think I stand by that. I think that the drones, like drones working with rotary wing aircraft would be cool. And but I mean, like the normal military needs a tool in their arsenal that isn't soft to go in and do deep strikes and deep reconnaissance. And it can't be, it can't be soft because soft has

a different mission set. And none of them have a mission set of reconnaissance surveillance and working with the combined arms factor. None of them have the, you know, the mindset of how do I get these helicopters in safe? How do I get these paratroopers in safe? How do I get these Marines coming into the beachhead, a good landing zone?

And like they don't, I mean, Marsoch doesn't care. Green Berets don't care. I mean, the Rangers have their own reconnaissance company for God's sakes, the Ranger reconnaissance company, and they do their own recon. They don't trust anybody else to do it. Like let that sink in. The most advanced infantry fighting force,

the U.S. Army Ranger regiment has its own reconnaissance force, but the normal military, the army and the Marines don't, actually the Marines have Marine recon, sorry, but like the army doesn't. Yeah. And it's like, bro, these guys need to be assigned to the regular force, but they need to be trained like soft and the commander of these units needs to have

the understanding like these guys need to do their own thing and they need to be special and they need to train hard and they need to go and do their own thing. But at the same time, they do belong to the two-star general and I think having them answer to the division commander and the division commander only would work very well. But at the same time, you also need them to answer

to the aviation and logistics. Like who's going to, if it's the birds bringing them in, then they need to answer to the birds. If it's the helicopters bringing in, they need to answer to the helicopters, but there is no dedicated force for destroying and man pads. There is no dedicated force for finding those anti-tank guided missile ambushes, which are going

to be super common in the next war. And so that's why I said pathfinders. It makes complete sense just having a designated force to just the mission set. It's all based around the mission set itself. And like using, let's say Libya has an example, because in 2011, once the airframe kicked off and Gaddafi was ousted, 10,000 man pads just went

missing overnight and the entire, the entirety of the Middle East or SETCOM and AFRICOM freaked out. They went, excuse me. And that's in a part of the world that let's say nobody cares about. So if somewhere with Ukraine is putting, what, 5,000 we said earlier to use? No, it's just 5,000 from two countries.

Even better. So like just two, just two, insane. It's, like you just said, it's a new tool for the battlefield that anywhere from a 16 year old kid could pick it up with minimal training and launch it. And then if you have 15 lined up on one helicopter, it's probably going to go down. So no amount of black belts are going to outrun

that kind of lead. Accurately. The F-15, like, dude, and you know what's crazy about it? Is that, you know, I looked it up. The price is only like $130,000 for a Stinger missile. An Apache helicopter costs 34 million. What is, that's pennies on the dollar. Like you'd be like, dude, China right now is looking

at this like man pads. Now we need lots of man pads. They are rewriting their entire doctrine. It's going to be five to 10 years to get it set, but they are watching this so closely for Taiwan, which I think is going to be a completely different scenario, but that's a topic for another time. Yeah, it's the Chinese who based their entire concept of

direct action off the Soviet method, which is failing. They are definitely taking some notes here. Yeah, I mean, what's even funnier is like if you actually learn Soviet doctrine, they prefer to defense. They like being on the defense. And if like they tell you, it's like you need three to one odds to take on a dug in defender. So you have to have three times the amount of soldiers

for every one guy in a trench. You need three dudes to pull him to put him to death. So that's why the Russians love defense. And you can throw conscripts and trenches and they'll stay there and it's beautiful. But like why they attacked? I mean, Jesus, man, it's it's so stupid. It doesn't make any sense.

And I think it's going to everyone is overthinking the situation. And like you said, trying to figure out Putin's motivation. And I think it just comes down to return to tradition, go back to the old way of hard power, solidify Russia's borders, make a buffer state between them and NATO. It's it's very simple. It's I think it's too hard to figure that out.

But it might be the last gasp of an independent state making independent thoughts, almost like the British and Suez in the 50s, when they try to do any kind of they try to do a military offensive without the consent of the U.S. And they were like, no, no, no, no, sit down. No, we like Egypt now. You can't just go attack them.

It's it's it's Occam's razor. The simplest solution is usually the one that's it. Right. Like everybody's like, oh, he's just sending in the JV team to soften them up. And it's like, no, no, that's a T 90. Like that's the new thing. Like, and then all of a sudden, like two weeks later,

the Scooby-Doo bus has a Z on it. Like, I think that was the varsity. Like, I think that's the JV. Like, it's crazy, man. And so, like, I'm sure everybody, I hope people like watch this on like Monday, going into the office. And they're like, well, I listened to two idiots talk about it.

And they think that Putin's been lied to. And they'll be like, what? Like, he's going to sound like the simplest answer. That's not interesting, but it is. It's not the one you want to hear. It's not like he's got this super master plan. And you can't even say that Putin was lying, because on one hand, he's like, yeah, calling

Ukrainian Nazis is pretty wild. But on the other hand, he's like, no, I just want a buffer state. That's it. Yeah, that's very much. That's what the British and the Russians did back in the day with Afghanistan. It was the buffer between the two empires.

That's what Belarus is. That's why they're not allowed to officially join either side. They're just kind of, you know, aside the wrong, but it's there's no way they're going to be assimilated into the Russian Federation, because they need that buffer right there. And that's why they're very up in arms about the Baltic states when they joined NATO.

And then Georgia, when they attempted to join NATO, which is they're like, we cannot have these guys right on the border. So it's just they wanted Ukraine to play nice. Yeah, be our friend. And like we were talking about, right? Like, why didn't Russia just make this great economy be a great person?

It's like, you know what it is? It's the neck. It's it's the neck beard effect. Like I'm a good guy. Why is why is why is she with that asshole? Like why is she sleeping? Yeah. How the door open for?

Yeah, like, right. Like it's like Putin's a neck beard. That's the best way to put it. Like every woman just right now understood. And that's that's don't get that wrong. Like every woman just understood international politics. Like, oh my God, Putin's a nice guy. Like he thought that he could win Ukraine over

by holding the door open and like, see, I didn't invade you. You should sleep with me. Like that's not a good thing. That's that's that's not a that's an expectation, not like a reward. It don't like like that's the best way to put it. Putin's a neck beard who's like, if they only knew

how good I am, like, they'd all come running to me. Like help me. I can protect you from what I'm going to do if you don't let me help you. And just we are, right? Come on, Ukraine. I bought you some gas. You should sleep with me tonight.

Like, no, God, no, like, Oh, you strive the new Ford Raptor. I know your gas is $95 right now. Where's my hook at, Ukraine? Don't touch me. Fuck it. But yeah, man, is that that's it for me if you're good. Yeah, good on my end.

It was a thank you for setting up. What is this? It's been about 50 minutes or so. But yeah, for the listeners out there, it might be a. Interesting way to apply the podcast going forward where we made yo-yo between. As in last week, I had an actual guest come on

and talk about what's going on on his side of the world. And then we might follow most of them up with. The Crow Towing report getting together, discussing current events. So it's a new guest. Boss, new guest, new boss. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how this method works.

But all right, I will. Let you go and kick this out for everyone here soon. All right, man. All right. Take it easy. It's your breath.