The Charlie Kirk Show - WHO and WHAT is Standing in the Way of Peace in Ukraine

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, a contrarian take on the Russian-Ukrainian situation.

00:00:04.000 And we give you an update straight from Russia and Ukraine, the best we can decipher from the smokescreen media.

00:00:11.000 Clint 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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00:00:47.000 Buckle up, everybody, here we go.

00:00:50.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

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00:01:31.000 Should we establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine?

00:01:34.000 It 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.

00:01:41.000 Yeah, no-fly zone, no planes.

00:01:43.000 Well, this is now being floated by some U.S. lawmakers, Adam Kinzinger being one of them.

00:01:49.000 And this is now being discussed as a serious topic.

00:01:51.000 So what does that mean?

00:01:52.000 Well, you don't have to overthink it, actually.

00:01:54.000 A no-fly zone in Ukraine would mean that America, we, would take ownership of the skies. 0.64

00:02:00.000 And 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.

00:02:14.000 Chuck Todd asked Tony Blinken, failed rock star, Secretary of State, hey, why would you rule it out?

00:02:21.000 Why not make Putin think it's possible?

00:02:23.000 Play Cut 16.

00:02:26.000 Why rule out the no-fly zone?

00:02:28.000 Why not make Putin think it's possible?

00:02:30.000 For 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.

00:02:43.000 Now, of course, that's the right response, but these guys are the worst negotiators ever.

00:02:47.000 Trump never would say that.

00:02:48.000 Trump would always say, you don't know what I'm going to do.

00:02:51.000 I got everything at my disposal.

00:02:54.000 Do we have to remind you what Trump said about the Kremlin when he was talking to Putin in private?

00:03:01.000 And he said, listen, you invade Ukraine, those beautiful golden turrets in Moscow, they're all going to burn.

00:03:08.000 And Vladimir Putin laughed.

00:03:10.000 Trump said, that's what we're going to do.

00:03:12.000 Now, of course, some would call that reckless, but actually, I call it peace.

00:03:17.000 There was not a million and a half refugees coming from Ukraine under Trump.

00:03:20.000 It just didn't happen.

00:03:22.000 He understood prudence when it came to foreign policy.

00:03:24.000 He 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?

00:03:36.000 Since 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?

00:03:49.000 That's what Teddy Roosevelt did, and he won a Nobel Peace Prize for it.

00:03:54.000 Let's go to cut 15, montage of Manchin and Rubio on the no-fly zone.

00:04:00.000 Play cut 15.

00:04:01.000 A no-fly zone, if people understood what it means, it means World War III.

00:04:06.000 It's not some rule you pass that everybody has to oblige by. 0.68

00:04:09.000 It's the willingness to shoot down the aircrafts of the Russian Federation, which is basically the beginning of World War III.

00:04:16.000 Would you support a no-fly zone?

00:04:17.000 This is not the Russian people's war.

00:04:19.000 This is Putin's war and his quest for whatever it may be.

00:04:22.000 But to take anything off the table, thinking we might not be able to use things because we've already taken them off the table is wrong.

00:04:28.000 I would take nothing off the table.

00:04:29.000 Now, 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.

00:04:37.000 Unpredictability when it comes to foreign policy in today's time, when everyone has nuclear weapons, seems to be an advantage.

00:04:45.000 Trump used the mystery of action, the unpredictability, the caricature that the West framed Trump as being someone who can't control himself.

00:04:56.000 He actually used that as a great brokering of peace.

00:05:01.000 The fact that people thought he's losing his mind.

00:05:03.000 He can't control himself.

00:05:05.000 He's the one that can push the button at any time.

00:05:08.000 That 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?

00:05:19.000 Now, Joe Biden always says that he's the reasonable one, that he's the one that's going to say the right thing.

00:05:25.000 Well, when you're dealing with people like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, they don't really quite worship the God of reason.

00:05:36.000 All they care about is power.

00:05:38.000 And 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.

00:05:51.000 Predictability is a very bad thing when you're dealing with autocrats.

00:05:55.000 Why?

00:05:56.000 Because then they can map out your behaviors.

00:05:58.000 Look, Putin, I guarantee you, has on one of his planning and strategy walls with all of his generals a decision tree.

00:06:07.000 Joe Biden will not intervene.

00:06:10.000 Joe Biden will tell us what he means.

00:06:13.000 And NATO will not intervene because they're afraid that we're going to use nuclear weapons.

00:06:17.000 So what does Vladimir Putin do?

00:06:19.000 Well, he plays off the Trump song sheet.

00:06:21.000 He says, I'm going to put my nuclear weapons on high alert.

00:06:24.000 Boom, stock market crashes in America a thousand points.

00:06:27.000 People start freaking out.

00:06:29.000 He says he's going to use the father of all bombs.

00:06:32.000 Vladimir 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.

00:06:41.000 I say, you could at least come up with one or two new wrinkles.

00:06:46.000 No, it's like a carbon copy.

00:06:48.000 It is a copy-paste.

00:06:49.000 Putin says, what did Trump say?

00:06:54.000 This is what we say now.

00:06:57.000 This.

00:06:59.000 And like that, the game changes immediately.

00:07:03.000 Let's go to cut five, Tony Blinken on the conflict in Russia and Ukraine.

00:07:09.000 You know, how this ends is an important question.

00:07:16.000 And I wish that we could see signs that President Putin was willing to engage diplomatically to bring this aggression to a close.

00:07:26.000 Right now, we're not seeing them.

00:07:29.000 He was on the phone, President Putin, with President Macron of France a couple of days ago.

00:07:34.000 And by all accounts, according to the French, he's digging in and doubling down.

00:07:38.000 And I think we have to be ready that this could go on for some while.

00:07:42.000 And this will go on for some while.

00:07:45.000 Now, 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.

00:08:00.000 Well, then don't be surprised if Putin is going to get his way.

00:08:04.000 Now, interestingly enough, there is an argument out there that the West provoked Putin into action.

00:08:11.000 I don't like this argument.

00:08:12.000 I don't like when countries invade sovereign countries.

00:08:14.000 I don't like when America invaded Iraq.

00:08:16.000 And I don't like when Putin invaded Ukraine.

00:08:19.000 It's not what civilized, decent people do. 0.98

00:08:22.000 Getting down to the brutal aspects of war creates refugees, death, suffering, famine, poverty. 1.00

00:08:27.000 It is not the highest levels of human existence. 1.00

00:08:29.000 In fact, it's some of the lowest.

00:08:31.000 War does not take prudence, restraint, wisdom. 0.98

00:08:36.000 That's not to say that only dumb people win wars, but war is awful. 0.86

00:08:41.000 It is one of the worst things humanity can do. 0.95

00:08:44.000 However, it's very interesting that Joe Biden predicted a lot of this in 1997.

00:08:49.000 He said the only thing that could provoke a vigorous and hostile Russia response would be if NATO expanded as far as the Baltic states.

00:08:56.000 This is before Putin became prime minister.

00:08:58.000 Play cut 24.

00:08:59.000 I 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.

00:09:20.000 And 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.

00:09:32.000 So 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.

00:09:43.000 NATO has incorporated countries that otherwise have no sort of affiliation with the core European corridor.

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00:10:54.000 If you are cheering for Ukraine, you might be cheering for a group that you don't realize.

00:11:00.000 And I'm not saying that we're cheering against Ukraine.

00:11:03.000 We're cheering for the Ukrainian people.

00:11:04.000 But if you're cheering for the Ukrainian government more specifically, there's a group of people that you should probably be made aware of.

00:11:12.000 They are called the Azov Battalion. 0.97

00:11:15.000 The Azov Battalion are legitimately Nazis.

00:11:20.000 It's not a joke.

00:11:22.000 It's not an exaggeration.

00:11:24.000 In fact, let me read from Wikipedia because Wikipedia is never wrong.

00:11:31.000 They 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.

00:11:42.000 It has been fighting in the Russian separatist region in the Donbass War.

00:11:46.000 Azov initially formed as a volunteer militia in May of 2014.

00:11:52.000 It saw its first combat experience recapturing the Meropol from pro-Russian separatists in June 2014.

00:11:58.000 And on the 12th of November 2014, Azov was incorporated into National Guard of Ukraine.

00:12:02.000 And since then, all the members are official soldiers serving in the National Guard.

00:12:07.000 So membership is kind of hard to pinpoint and define, but it's a legitimate neo-Nazi organization.

00:12:16.000 So, and the guy financing Azov Battalion is Ihor Kolominsky.

00:12:21.000 It's a Ukrainian oligarch who finances them, a group that has been accused of civilian executions and torture in Donbass.

00:12:30.000 Kolominsky also bankrolls numerous politicians to increase his influence, such as Zelensky.

00:12:37.000 Kolominsky was also the owner of Burisma, the very same company that paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month.

00:12:50.000 From Newsweek.com, it says Ukrainian nationalist volunteers committing ISIS-style war crimes.

00:12:56.000 This is back from 2014, cutting heads off and decapitating people.

00:13:02.000 Now, NBC News says that Putin is using false Nazi narrative to justify Russian attack on Ukraine.

00:13:08.000 Let's put that aside.

00:13:10.000 I'm not here to say if Putin is right or wrong in that particular instance.

00:13:13.000 What I am saying, though, is that when PBS went and went to Ukraine, they interviewed someone from this region.

00:13:23.000 America'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.

00:13:38.000 This is PBS that aired this.

00:13:40.000 The interview comes just days after PBS published an article downplaying the links between neo-Nazi politicians and the Ukrainian current political situation.

00:13:49.000 On Thursday, March 4th, PBS hosted Mayor Artem Semokaliy of Konotop in the country's northeast region.

00:13:57.000 I'm reading from nationalpulse.com. 0.71

00:14:00.000 He says, quote, my weapon is American, and I feel like our occupiers will be pleased that we are killing them with American weapons. 0.98

00:14:06.000 Now, it is not an exaggeration that these are legitimate Nazis. 0.96

00:14:12.000 In 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.

00:14:24.000 Now, we warned against this.

00:14:26.000 The 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.

00:14:41.000 It's like, wait a second, so Bashar al-Assad is fighting ISIS?

00:14:44.000 No, we need to fund ISIS because we hate Assad.

00:14:47.000 Well, what if we hate them both?

00:14:49.000 Now, 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.

00:14:59.000 And he's bragging that we have financed them and we have given them weapons.

00:15:05.000 What am I getting at here?

00:15:06.000 At 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?

00:15:26.000 And 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.

00:15:36.000 There's a lot more to this situation, unfortunately, that meets the eye.

00:15:40.000 It isn't black and white.

00:15:41.000 The people of Ukraine deserve our encouragement.

00:15:46.000 They are standing for what they believe in.

00:15:48.000 But 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? 0.71

00:16:05.000 That should be something that should make you take pause when American forces and money are supporting legitimate Nazis in Ukraine. 0.55

00:16:14.000 Hmm.

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00:17:36.000 We are here to provide contrarian opinions and clarity to the confusion.

00:17:40.000 If you just wanted to hear about the drums of war beating, you guys would be watching a cable news show.

00:17:46.000 But you come here for the truth and to go a level deeper.

00:17:49.000 So with us right now is someone who has been bold enough to, let's say, put a different opinion forward at great personal cost to him.

00:17:58.000 That is Clint Ehrlich.

00:18:00.000 And he joins us right now.

00:18:02.000 He's a Russia policy analyst and a former visiting researcher at MGIMO University, which is basically Russia's equivalent to Harvard.

00:18:10.000 Clint, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:18:12.000 Thanks for having me on.

00:18:13.000 So Clint, you believe that the narrative that Russia is frustrated and might lose is wrong.

00:18:19.000 We're hearing this a lot.

00:18:20.000 Walk us through why you think that is misguided.

00:18:23.000 Well, I think that Russia is frustrated that they wanted to make more progress in their war on Ukraine.

00:18:30.000 But 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.

00:18:40.000 The 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.

00:18:51.000 They simply didn't believe him.

00:18:53.000 And they're doing the same thing again.

00:18:54.000 They'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.

00:19:05.000 And 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.

00:19:20.000 Do 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?

00:19:29.000 I mean, a country of 40 to 50 million people taking it over is no small undertaking.

00:19:36.000 What do you think his true motivations here are?

00:19:38.000 To be honest, I think that the plan in that respect is probably poorly thought out.

00:19:44.000 I 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.

00:19:53.000 Now they're seeing that that's not going to happen.

00:19:55.000 There's fiercer resistance than they anticipated.

00:19:58.000 And so they're scrambling to figure out what the political solution at the end of this conflict is going to be.

00:20:03.000 Today, 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.

00:20:18.000 And so I think that kind of political solution could be a feasible end to the war.

00:20:23.000 It's actually the Ukrainians who are unwilling to accept those terms.

00:20:26.000 There are Ukrainian nationalists who would potentially kill President Zelensky if he were to agree to give away Ukrainian territory that way.

00:20:34.000 And 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.

00:20:42.000 Well, 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.

00:20:50.000 I suppose that's a question that I've had here, which is, you know, how strong really is the Ukrainian position here?

00:20:56.000 We've heard for days now that Kiev is about to fall.

00:20:59.000 Is that practical?

00:21:00.000 Is you know, how what really is, and if it does fall, what does that actually mean?

00:21:05.000 It means it might be you control a capital, but not a country.

00:21:08.000 I think the truth lies somewhere in between.

00:21:10.000 What 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.

00:21:17.000 And that simply isn't plausible.

00:21:18.000 The reality, though, is that taking a city of that size, a city that's been preparing for an invasion, is a massive, massive undertaking.

00:21:27.000 And 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.

00:21:42.000 And so Russia has a motive to try to avoid that kind of bloody, bloody urban warfare if it can.

00:21:50.000 And 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.

00:22:10.000 So talk to us about this group, separate fact from fiction, this Azov battalion group. 0.56

00:22:17.000 It seems as if they're legitimate neo-Nazis.

00:22:20.000 How large are they?

00:22:21.000 What is their influence in Ukrainian government?

00:22:25.000 The 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.

00:22:31.000 They act as if they control entire political parties.

00:22:33.000 But separate fact from fiction.

00:22:34.000 Is this a real group or is this some sort of just kind of outdated internet conspiracy?

00:22:39.000 What's really going on with this Ukrainian military paramilitary group?

00:22:43.000 Azov Battalion is very real.

00:22:45.000 I wouldn't even call them a paramilitary group.

00:22:46.000 They're a full-fledged part of the Ukrainian military.

00:22:50.000 They're currently ensconced primarily in the Mariupol region of Ukraine.

00:22:55.000 They're surrounded by the Russians.

00:22:57.000 They claim that they're not neo-Nazis, but if you look at their iconography, they have clear Nazi symbols on their uniforms.

00:23:06.000 And there have been many photos of them where they're pictured with other Nazi symbols like the hooked cross, sometimes called the swastika.

00:23:17.000 And 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.

00:23:24.000 President Zelensky has himself given awards to these individuals.

00:23:28.000 He's appeared on stage and given them military honors.

00:23:33.000 And so that's part of why the Russians feel like the neo-Nazi element of the Ukrainian government has been downplayed.

00:23:39.000 Now, I'm not calling Ukraine a neo-Nazi state.

00:23:42.000 It has a Jewish president.

00:23:44.000 And so it's important to understand that there can be real contradictions here and strange bedfellows when power politics come into play.

00:23:50.000 So 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.

00:24:02.000 And 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.

00:24:08.000 So do you see a resolution anytime soon between these two warring countries, or do you think this drags on for months?

00:24:15.000 Because this is costing Putin significantly.

00:24:18.000 I guess I suppose that's the second part of my question, which is how real is the cost to Putin?

00:24:22.000 Because is he starting to feel pressure domestically and economically to try to wrap this up?

00:24:28.000 The 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.

00:24:42.000 And right now, the vast majority of the Russian people blame NATO and the West for this conflict.

00:24:48.000 And in fact, they feel like they're under attack from sanctions.

00:24:51.000 I 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.

00:25:10.000 So in the short term, I think that President Putin's power within Russia is actually consolidating and that he's growing stronger.

00:25:17.000 Now, 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.

00:25:27.000 And I think that at that point, President Putin and his advisors would seek an end to the war.

00:25:32.000 But that's not what we're seeing right now.

00:25:33.000 The ruble has reached its lowest level, but it's not a level that's so low that it's causing political instability within Russia.

00:25:40.000 And so right now, I think that the leadership of Russia within the Kremlin are prepared to weather this storm and continue prosecuting the war.

00:25:49.000 So yeah, and that's the question, which is how long this has actually taken?

00:25:53.000 How much bloodshed will actually be necessary there?

00:25:55.000 So the West is entertaining all sorts of different options.

00:25:59.000 There's talks about no-fly zones and supplying weaponry.

00:26:03.000 I mean, from your perspective, from a prudent America-first type perspective, is this something where we should be supplying airplanes, warfighters, and sophisticated weaponry?

00:26:16.000 I mean, what could the consequences of that be?

00:26:19.000 The 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.

00:26:28.000 And 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.

00:26:41.000 I 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.

00:26:55.000 That that is, frankly, in America's national security interest to avoid this kind of conflict.

00:27:01.000 When we talk about a no-fly zone, we're crossing so many lines.

00:27:05.000 We'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.

00:27:20.000 And 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.

00:27:30.000 Even 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.

00:27:37.000 That's what's so bizarre to me, Clint.

00:27:38.000 And I mean, why is it that the Biden regime is not forcing the hand for peace?

00:27:42.000 Why are we not the ones facilitating this in Minsk or wherever?

00:27:45.000 I mean, when the Americans show up, people don't ghost you.

00:27:48.000 Like they're going to, I mean, you could force people to the table here.

00:27:51.000 We have a lot of chips to play from the diplomatic standpoint.

00:27:54.000 Why is it that this administration just seems to let this want to play out?

00:27:58.000 It's really weird to me.

00:28:00.000 I'll let you in on a dirty secret, Charlie.

00:28:02.000 They don't want peace in Ukraine.

00:28:04.000 They 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.

00:28:12.000 So 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.

00:28:20.000 And 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.

00:28:29.000 It'll harm Russia's economy.

00:28:30.000 And so they think that will advance America's interests. 0.87

00:28:33.000 Well, if you view American interests as globalism and of being engaged in conflict with other nations, it makes perfect sense.

00:28:41.000 Whereas 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. 0.90

00:28:49.000 And so there's really nothing to recommend this except for the desire to wage a Cold War with Russia that might well go hot.

00:28:57.000 Yeah, and that's really Machiavellian and cynical. 0.64

00:29:00.000 And I believe all of it, actually.

00:29:01.000 So that goes to show the state of where we're at.

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00:30:21.000 Clint, let me ask you: have we unintentionally or intentionally created a super alliance between China and Russia?

00:30:28.000 Yes.

00:30:29.000 And we're looking at a second Cold War and one that's more dangerous because it involves two hostile global rivals.

00:30:36.000 We have Russia, a country that in some respects has the most advanced military technology in the world.

00:30:41.000 And we've pushed them into an alliance with China, a country that has the largest population and the largest industrial base.

00:30:47.000 And so in this Cold War, frankly, it's not clear that we're going to win.

00:30:51.000 So, but let me ask you, just on something you just said, just as kind of a curiosity. 0.55

00:30:55.000 If Russia has the most sophisticated military technology, why is it that this has been such a clumsy kind of potential coup d'état, or has it been?

00:31:04.000 Or am I misreading that?

00:31:06.000 Well, often countries overinvest in their very advanced top-line weapons and they neglect their logistics.

00:31:13.000 And I think that that's what we're seeing in this current conflict.

00:31:16.000 So Russia, for example, has a Kinzal hypersonic missile.

00:31:21.000 It can go at Mach 10.

00:31:23.000 It has a payload three times the size of a tomahawk.

00:31:26.000 But that's utterly useless to them in Ukraine because they don't have targets that they're using it against.

00:31:30.000 And so in a conventional conflict with NATO, those sorts of missiles could absolutely destroy our aircraft carriers.

00:31:36.000 But in the mud of Ukraine, they're not very helpful. 0.99

00:31:39.000 Yeah, and there seems to be a lot of that. 0.99

00:31:41.000 I mean, the joke that I just told my team is: why is Putin invading in the winter?

00:31:45.000 He should know better than that.

00:31:47.000 But, you know, of course, it usually works the other way.

00:31:49.000 But it seems as if that, obviously, war is complicated, it's complex, it's hardly ever something that could be done surgically.

00:31:56.000 And 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?

00:32:05.000 Well, 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.

00:32:13.000 And 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.

00:32:26.000 That's part of what's so frustrating: that Russia and China's interests do not perfectly align.

00:32:31.000 In their history, they've had border skirmishes, particularly in the east of Russia.

00:32:35.000 And so, there was a real opportunity for us to peel Russia away from China if we had pursued detente instead of confrontation.

00:32:41.000 And so, we've really wasted this opportunity. 0.75

00:32:44.000 And now, all of our economic sanctions, all the removal from Western companies in Russia just means that China is going to fill that gap.

00:32:51.000 And 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.

00:33:04.000 So frustrating. 0.90

00:33:06.000 What is the West's prudent response here?

00:33:08.000 Brokering for peace, trying to demand an off-ramp.

00:33:10.000 War is an awful and ugly thing.

00:33:11.000 I don't like Putin invading Ukraine.

00:33:13.000 I don't think any reasonable person does.

00:33:14.000 What's the proper response to all this?

00:33:16.000 The number one priority is to ensure that the West does not get dragged into this conflict.

00:33:21.000 So we need to reject calls for a no-fly zone.

00:33:23.000 We need to reject calls for cyber attacks against Russia.

00:33:26.000 Because if we get sucked into a war with Russia, it's not just another Iraq war blunder.

00:33:31.000 It's the kind of war that could end human civilization. 0.78

00:33:33.000 And so that's why we need to push for peace because our lives are on the line.

00:33:37.000 The lives of everyone that we love are on the line here, Charlie.

00:33:40.000 Yeah.

00:33:41.000 Amen.

00:33:41.000 Well, thank you, Clint, so much for joining us and for your wise commentary.

00:33:45.000 We appreciate it.

00:33:45.000 Thank you very much.

00:33:46.000 Thank you.

00:33:49.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:33:51.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:53.000 If you want to support our show, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:33:57.000 Make sure you're subscribed to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

00:34:00.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:34:01.000 God bless.

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The Charlie Kirk Show - March 08, 2022

WHO and WHAT is Standing in the Way of Peace in Ukraine

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