00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, a contrarian take on the Russian-Ukrainian situation.
00:00:04.000And we give you an update straight from Russia and Ukraine, the best we can decipher from the smokescreen media.
00:00:11.000Clint Ulrich is here, and he dives into the situation on the ground and what should the West's response be to try to broker peace, not further escalate this conflict.
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00:01:31.000Should we establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine?
00:01:34.000It sounds good if all you've done is kind of play Call of Duty video games your entire life and it sounds as if you could just wave a magic wand.
00:01:52.000Well, you don't have to overthink it, actually.
00:01:54.000A no-fly zone in Ukraine would mean that America, we, would take ownership of the skies.
00:02:00.000And if Russia were to push that boundary, we would have to shoot down a Russian airplane, which could actually trigger something that is now being colloquially branded as World War III.
00:02:14.000Chuck Todd asked Tony Blinken, failed rock star, Secretary of State, hey, why would you rule it out?
00:02:21.000Why not make Putin think it's possible?
00:02:28.000Why not make Putin think it's possible?
00:02:30.000For everything we're doing for Ukraine, the president also has a responsibility to not get us into a direct conflict, a direct war with Russia, a nuclear power, and risk a war that expands even beyond Ukraine to Europe.
00:02:43.000Now, of course, that's the right response, but these guys are the worst negotiators ever.
00:03:22.000He understood prudence when it came to foreign policy.
00:03:24.000He was also willing to talk to anybody, which does beg the question, if Joe Biden really wanted to create an off-ramp for peace, why is America not taking a leadership role in diplomacy?
00:03:36.000Since Ukraine is a client state of the State Department, why is Joe Biden or at least any of his surrogates going to Europe and immediately demanding the two prime ministers meet, Zelensky and Putin?
00:03:49.000That's what Teddy Roosevelt did, and he won a Nobel Peace Prize for it.
00:03:54.000Let's go to cut 15, montage of Manchin and Rubio on the no-fly zone.
00:04:29.000Now, one of the reasons why Putin has the upper hand is because he's not broadcasting his moves, and he's also the unpredictable one in this equation.
00:04:37.000Unpredictability when it comes to foreign policy in today's time, when everyone has nuclear weapons, seems to be an advantage.
00:04:45.000Trump used the mystery of action, the unpredictability, the caricature that the West framed Trump as being someone who can't control himself.
00:04:56.000He actually used that as a great brokering of peace.
00:05:01.000The fact that people thought he's losing his mind.
00:05:05.000He's the one that can push the button at any time.
00:05:08.000That actually ended up being a way that the people that otherwise would say, Putin probably had a meeting with his foreign minister and they said, is this guy totally out of his mind?
00:05:19.000Now, Joe Biden always says that he's the reasonable one, that he's the one that's going to say the right thing.
00:05:25.000Well, when you're dealing with people like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, they don't really quite worship the God of reason.
00:05:38.000And if anyone threatens their power, if you just go to pure Machiavellian tactics in the prints, then in a power dispute, it's the one that you cannot quite predict that is going to get the upper hand.
00:05:51.000Predictability is a very bad thing when you're dealing with autocrats.
00:06:29.000He says he's going to use the father of all bombs.
00:06:32.000Vladimir Putin basically copy-pasted and plagiarized Donald Trump and says, you guys are going to suffer destruction and suffering, the likes of which you've never seen.
00:06:41.000I say, you could at least come up with one or two new wrinkles.
00:07:45.000Now, when American diplomacy or American leadership is absent from the international scene, we're unwilling to do the things necessary to rebalance the energy, let's say, the energy portion of this entire situation.
00:08:00.000Well, then don't be surprised if Putin is going to get his way.
00:08:04.000Now, interestingly enough, there is an argument out there that the West provoked Putin into action.
00:08:59.000I think the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short term for admission, having nothing to do with the merit and preparedness of the country to come in, would be to admit the Baltic states now in terms of NATO-Russian, U.S.-Russian relations.
00:09:20.000And if there was ever anything that was going to tip the balance, were it to be tipped in terms of a vigorous and hostile reaction, I don't mean military, in Russia, it would be that.
00:09:32.000So the way I look at the calculus here, Ms. So he says the only thing that would tip Russia into being vigorous and hostile is if NATO expands too far, which of course NATO has done.
00:09:43.000NATO has incorporated countries that otherwise have no sort of affiliation with the core European corridor.
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00:10:54.000If you are cheering for Ukraine, you might be cheering for a group that you don't realize.
00:11:00.000And I'm not saying that we're cheering against Ukraine.
00:11:03.000We're cheering for the Ukrainian people.
00:11:04.000But if you're cheering for the Ukrainian government more specifically, there's a group of people that you should probably be made aware of.
00:11:24.000In fact, let me read from Wikipedia because Wikipedia is never wrong.
00:11:31.000They say that it's a right-wing extremist neo-Nazi paramilitary unit of the National Guard of Ukraine based in Marupol, the Azov Sea coastal region.
00:11:42.000It has been fighting in the Russian separatist region in the Donbass War.
00:11:46.000Azov initially formed as a volunteer militia in May of 2014.
00:11:52.000It saw its first combat experience recapturing the Meropol from pro-Russian separatists in June 2014.
00:11:58.000And on the 12th of November 2014, Azov was incorporated into National Guard of Ukraine.
00:12:02.000And since then, all the members are official soldiers serving in the National Guard.
00:12:07.000So membership is kind of hard to pinpoint and define, but it's a legitimate neo-Nazi organization.
00:12:16.000So, and the guy financing Azov Battalion is Ihor Kolominsky.
00:12:21.000It's a Ukrainian oligarch who finances them, a group that has been accused of civilian executions and torture in Donbass.
00:12:30.000Kolominsky also bankrolls numerous politicians to increase his influence, such as Zelensky.
00:12:37.000Kolominsky was also the owner of Burisma, the very same company that paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month.
00:12:50.000From Newsweek.com, it says Ukrainian nationalist volunteers committing ISIS-style war crimes.
00:12:56.000This is back from 2014, cutting heads off and decapitating people.
00:13:02.000Now, NBC News says that Putin is using false Nazi narrative to justify Russian attack on Ukraine.
00:13:10.000I'm not here to say if Putin is right or wrong in that particular instance.
00:13:13.000What I am saying, though, is that when PBS went and went to Ukraine, they interviewed someone from this region.
00:13:23.000America's Public Broadcasting Service published and promoted an interview with a renowned neo-Nazi Ukrainian mayor without disclosing its politicians' allegiance to World War II German leader Adolf Hitler and Ukraine's own Nazi sympathizer, Stepan Bandera.
00:13:40.000The interview comes just days after PBS published an article downplaying the links between neo-Nazi politicians and the Ukrainian current political situation.
00:13:49.000On Thursday, March 4th, PBS hosted Mayor Artem Semokaliy of Konotop in the country's northeast region.
00:14:00.000He says, quote, my weapon is American, and I feel like our occupiers will be pleased that we are killing them with American weapons.
00:14:06.000Now, it is not an exaggeration that these are legitimate Nazis.
00:14:12.000In fact, the PBS interview, Semenikin, posed with a Bandera portrait behind him, albeit blurred out by PBS in their attempts to obscure their work with Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
00:14:26.000The very same people that have told us to get involved and support some of these Ukrainian groups are the same people that told us that we had to support the Syrian rebels, and the Syrian rebels ended up being friends with ISIS.
00:14:41.000It's like, wait a second, so Bashar al-Assad is fighting ISIS?
00:14:44.000No, we need to fund ISIS because we hate Assad.
00:14:49.000Now, many of the people of Ukraine that are throwing Molotov cocktails and fighting have nothing to do with this Azov battalion group, but it's a component of this.
00:14:59.000And he's bragging that we have financed them and we have given them weapons.
00:15:06.000At these conflicts, when you have people that are flying Ukrainian flags on their Instagram profile or that are doing everything they possibly can to virtue signal and posture as if they're on the side of democracy, should probably stop short and say, wait a second, am I cheering for a regime or a government that is neo-Nazi in nature?
00:15:26.000And this was the Ukrainian mayor, where he had a Hitler accomplice image in his own office as he was interviewing with PBS, Public Broadcasting Service.
00:15:36.000There's a lot more to this situation, unfortunately, that meets the eye.
00:15:41.000The people of Ukraine deserve our encouragement.
00:15:46.000They are standing for what they believe in.
00:15:48.000But the government of Ukraine, Zelensky, the paramilitary groups, Azov Battalion, there seems to be an inter, let's say, an interweb of corruption, deceit, and dare I say, Nazi radicalism that is the West supporting and propping up?
00:16:05.000That should be something that should make you take pause when American forces and money are supporting legitimate Nazis in Ukraine.
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00:18:20.000Walk us through why you think that is misguided.
00:18:23.000Well, I think that Russia is frustrated that they wanted to make more progress in their war on Ukraine.
00:18:30.000But I think the idea that they're going to lose or that they're going to give up is misguided because it underestimates the stakes of this war from the Russian perspective.
00:18:40.000The mistake that many analysts made before the war was they thought that Vladimir Putin would not invade Ukraine because they didn't take his words about the threat that Ukraine posed to Russia's security literally.
00:18:53.000And they're doing the same thing again.
00:18:54.000They're not listening to what Putin is saying about Russia's goals in Ukraine and the fact that Russia considers this an existential war, basically a sequel to World War II for them.
00:19:05.000And so the idea that Russia would simply give up or withdraw rather than escalating the war and using heavier weapons is based on a misapprehension of Putin's motivations and of the willingness of the Russians to do whatever it takes to win.
00:19:20.000Do you think in your opinion and your expertise, is Putin willing to see this entire thing out as far as a takeover of the entire country or maybe divide it into two in East and West Ukraine?
00:19:29.000I mean, a country of 40 to 50 million people taking it over is no small undertaking.
00:19:36.000What do you think his true motivations here are?
00:19:38.000To be honest, I think that the plan in that respect is probably poorly thought out.
00:19:44.000I think that the Russians were over-optimistic and they thought that they would be able to go in initially and replace the government, basically a very efficient regime change war.
00:19:53.000Now they're seeing that that's not going to happen.
00:19:55.000There's fiercer resistance than they anticipated.
00:19:58.000And so they're scrambling to figure out what the political solution at the end of this conflict is going to be.
00:20:03.000Today, we saw a statement from the Kremlin that their conditions to end the war would involve Ukraine amending its constitution so that it would no longer aspire to NATO membership, to Ukraine recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, and to Ukraine recognizing the autonomy of the territories in the east.
00:20:18.000And so I think that kind of political solution could be a feasible end to the war.
00:20:23.000It's actually the Ukrainians who are unwilling to accept those terms.
00:20:26.000There are Ukrainian nationalists who would potentially kill President Zelensky if he were to agree to give away Ukrainian territory that way.
00:20:34.000And so it's not just the political dimension on the Russian side, it's also the political dimension on the Ukrainian side that's currently an obstacle to peace.
00:20:42.000Well, that would also, I would also imagine, shows that Ukraine's actually in a much stronger position than if they're willing to push back against demands that would end the war.
00:20:50.000I suppose that's a question that I've had here, which is, you know, how strong really is the Ukrainian position here?
00:20:56.000We've heard for days now that Kiev is about to fall.
00:21:00.000Is you know, how what really is, and if it does fall, what does that actually mean?
00:21:05.000It means it might be you control a capital, but not a country.
00:21:08.000I think the truth lies somewhere in between.
00:21:10.000What we're hearing right now is a lot of cheerleading that makes it sound like Ukraine is on the verge of outright defeating the Russian military.
00:21:18.000The reality, though, is that taking a city of that size, a city that's been preparing for an invasion, is a massive, massive undertaking.
00:21:27.000And that beyond just the military cost, the cost to Russia's international image that could happen if it lays siege to Kiev, if it kills tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians potentially in that kind of conflict, would be very, very damaging.
00:21:42.000And so Russia has a motive to try to avoid that kind of bloody, bloody urban warfare if it can.
00:21:50.000And so I think that that's why the Russians are potentially willing to go to the negotiating table and try to come up with a political solution that allows Russia to emerge as a nominal victor in the conflict without forcing it to use the kind of force that we saw, for example, in the Second Chechen War when the Russians absolutely laid waste to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
00:22:10.000So talk to us about this group, separate fact from fiction, this Azov battalion group.
00:22:17.000It seems as if they're legitimate neo-Nazis.
00:22:21.000What is their influence in Ukrainian government?
00:22:25.000The American media is saying they're a small splinter group, which is weird because they never say that about small splinter groups here in America.
00:22:31.000They act as if they control entire political parties.
00:22:57.000They claim that they're not neo-Nazis, but if you look at their iconography, they have clear Nazi symbols on their uniforms.
00:23:06.000And there have been many photos of them where they're pictured with other Nazi symbols like the hooked cross, sometimes called the swastika.
00:23:17.000And so to claim that they aren't neo-Nazis or that they're not an important part of the Ukrainian military is, I think, unrealistic.
00:23:24.000President Zelensky has himself given awards to these individuals.
00:23:28.000He's appeared on stage and given them military honors.
00:23:33.000And so that's part of why the Russians feel like the neo-Nazi element of the Ukrainian government has been downplayed.
00:23:39.000Now, I'm not calling Ukraine a neo-Nazi state.
00:23:44.000And so it's important to understand that there can be real contradictions here and strange bedfellows when power politics come into play.
00:23:50.000So there's an alliance between some Jewish Ukrainian oligarchs who are funding the very neo-Nazi elements within the Ukrainian government that Russia considers so dangerous.
00:24:02.000And so it's really the complexities of the region that we have to take into account before we dismiss all of this as a conspiracy theory.
00:24:08.000So do you see a resolution anytime soon between these two warring countries, or do you think this drags on for months?
00:24:15.000Because this is costing Putin significantly.
00:24:18.000I guess I suppose that's the second part of my question, which is how real is the cost to Putin?
00:24:22.000Because is he starting to feel pressure domestically and economically to try to wrap this up?
00:24:28.000The problem with theorizing that there's pressure on Putin to end the conflict is that it presupposes that the suffering that the Russian people are undergoing, that the economic cost in Russia is going to result in political opposition to Putin.
00:24:42.000And right now, the vast majority of the Russian people blame NATO and the West for this conflict.
00:24:48.000And in fact, they feel like they're under attack from sanctions.
00:24:51.000I know individuals within Russia who were, frankly, not that sympathetic to Putin, who have grown more sympathetic to Putin over the course of this war because they feel like Russian civilians are now being targeted with sanctions, as if there's an effort to make Russian civilians suffer so much that they will rise up against their own government, and they resent that.
00:25:10.000So in the short term, I think that President Putin's power within Russia is actually consolidating and that he's growing stronger.
00:25:17.000Now, obviously, if things drag on long enough or if the economic crisis in Russia becomes significant enough that people can't put food on the table, then that would result in political instability.
00:25:27.000And I think that at that point, President Putin and his advisors would seek an end to the war.
00:25:32.000But that's not what we're seeing right now.
00:25:33.000The ruble has reached its lowest level, but it's not a level that's so low that it's causing political instability within Russia.
00:25:40.000And so right now, I think that the leadership of Russia within the Kremlin are prepared to weather this storm and continue prosecuting the war.
00:25:49.000So yeah, and that's the question, which is how long this has actually taken?
00:25:53.000How much bloodshed will actually be necessary there?
00:25:55.000So the West is entertaining all sorts of different options.
00:25:59.000There's talks about no-fly zones and supplying weaponry.
00:26:03.000I mean, from your perspective, from a prudent America-first type perspective, is this something where we should be supplying airplanes, warfighters, and sophisticated weaponry?
00:26:16.000I mean, what could the consequences of that be?
00:26:19.000The consequences of that first are negative for the Ukrainian people, because the longer that this war drags on, the worse the damage is to Ukraine.
00:26:28.000And so if we claim that Ukraine is our ally, I don't think that turning Ukraine into a failed state, making them the European version of Syria or Libya, is something that is in our national interest, frankly.
00:26:41.000I think that a political settlement, one where we agree that Ukraine will not be in NATO, one where Ukraine, frankly, accepts the Russian demands that Crimea is going to be Russian territory and that the east of Ukraine is going to be autonomous.
00:26:55.000That that is, frankly, in America's national security interest to avoid this kind of conflict.
00:27:01.000When we talk about a no-fly zone, we're crossing so many lines.
00:27:05.000We're going so far beyond America's national interest and instead positioning America as a global policeman who's willing to risk World War III for a country that we don't even have a security treaty with that would obligate us to fight.
00:27:20.000And so I think from an America first perspective, there's really nothing to recommend this war and everything to recommend peace and diplomacy, something that the Biden administration has not pursued.
00:27:30.000Even in the face of this kind of war, they have not been pushing the Ukrainians to go to the bargaining table and try to find a solution.
00:27:37.000That's what's so bizarre to me, Clint.
00:27:38.000And I mean, why is it that the Biden regime is not forcing the hand for peace?
00:27:42.000Why are we not the ones facilitating this in Minsk or wherever?
00:27:45.000I mean, when the Americans show up, people don't ghost you.
00:27:48.000Like they're going to, I mean, you could force people to the table here.
00:27:51.000We have a lot of chips to play from the diplomatic standpoint.
00:27:54.000Why is it that this administration just seems to let this want to play out?
00:28:04.000They view this as an opportunity to have a repeat of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which was part of what brought down the Soviet Union.
00:28:12.000So they want this to be Putin's version of that, his folly, where he invades a country and then the Russian army gets caught up in this long, protracted conflict.
00:28:20.000And so they're looking at this as a geopolitical chess game where if they can just keep the war in Ukraine going, that will drain Russia of its resources.
00:28:30.000And so they think that will advance America's interests.
00:28:33.000Well, if you view American interests as globalism and of being engaged in conflict with other nations, it makes perfect sense.
00:28:41.000Whereas if you come at it from a perspective that you and I do, an America-first perspective, a pro-peace, anti-war perspective, then it's crazy.
00:28:49.000And so there's really nothing to recommend this except for the desire to wage a Cold War with Russia that might well go hot.
00:28:57.000Yeah, and that's really Machiavellian and cynical.
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00:31:47.000But, you know, of course, it usually works the other way.
00:31:49.000But it seems as if that, obviously, war is complicated, it's complex, it's hardly ever something that could be done surgically.
00:31:56.000And the ramifications of this kind of new economic alliance between Russia and China, I mean, will you see now Russia become a vassal state for China?
00:32:05.000Well, I don't think that Russia is going to be a vassal state because China still does want access to some of these advanced Russian technologies.
00:32:13.000And so, even though China has a much larger economy and a much larger population, I think that they'll engage, frankly, not as equal partners necessarily, but certainly as partners in an uneasy alliance.
00:32:26.000That's part of what's so frustrating: that Russia and China's interests do not perfectly align.
00:32:31.000In their history, they've had border skirmishes, particularly in the east of Russia.
00:32:35.000And so, there was a real opportunity for us to peel Russia away from China if we had pursued detente instead of confrontation.
00:32:41.000And so, we've really wasted this opportunity.
00:32:44.000And now, all of our economic sanctions, all the removal from Western companies in Russia just means that China is going to fill that gap.
00:32:51.000And the fact that America doesn't manufacture anything anymore means that we can say, okay, our companies are leaving, but those Chinese factories are just going to produce the same products and put different logos on them and ship them to Russia.