Western Standard - OPINION： The Russian Invasion. Cory chats with Dave Makichuck.

00:00:00.000 got the whole world on edge. So let's bring Dave in and see what's going on. Hey, Dave,

00:00:03.860 how are you doing there? I'm good. I'm good. Quite a day. The world has changed overnight.

00:00:11.440 Yeah. Well, and as Marco was kind of saying towards the end, he wrote and predicted a lot

00:00:16.760 of what was coming. We talked a few weeks ago and basically it was as much as the Russians even then 0.71

00:00:21.300 were still saying, oh, it's just a training exercise. Everybody knew they're going to invade

00:00:24.460 sometime probably shortly after the Olympics. And here we are. Exactly. I think with all the leaks

00:00:31.200 from the CIA and the MI6, which kept us informed of what the Russians were doing all the way,

00:00:43.240 I think they were totally right on. They nailed it. They told us what was going to happen and exactly

00:00:49.440 what they said happened. And the red, they told us about the red flag, a method that Putin was going

00:00:59.640 to use. And they told us about the buildups on the border, about bringing in aircraft,

00:01:06.900 about bringing troops into Belarus, about bringing ships into the Black Sea, which could land troops.

00:01:13.600 And it was a fait accompli. It was a fait accompli. It was obviously going to happen. And all the

00:01:25.840 denials and all the lies and everything else the Russians have said. I mean, really, there was no 0.86

00:01:34.540 reason, absolutely no reason to attack a peaceful country, which meant Russia no harm. It just makes no

00:01:42.700 sense. And I'm sure a lot of people are shaking their heads wondering why, like, why did they do

00:01:48.920 this? And the only person who knows that is Putin. Yeah, well, they've now really passed a giant

00:01:55.880 point of no return. Some people are still speculating, oh, he's just going to go into those

00:02:00.060 areas where there were some secessionists that declared independence. But they're already been

00:02:05.360 shelling, I believe, Kiev and moving out that way. I mean, some of it's strategic. But at the same time,

00:02:09.920 I got a feeling he's not going to stop with just part of the country.

00:02:13.640 Well, if you've I mean, I've probably everybody yourself, everybody's watching CNN,

00:02:17.740 apparently 16 different regions or cities, or bases, facilities, military facilities have been

00:02:28.200 attacked. They started out with aircraft, airstrikes with helicopters and jet fighters,

00:02:37.520 and they have advanced jet fighters. And then they brought in the tanks, and the troop movements.

00:02:45.120 And then they brought in their artillery. And then they brought in these really lethal, lethal

00:02:53.020 weapons, these incendiary missiles, and these hyperbaric tipped missiles, which cause tremendous

00:03:05.740 collateral damage. If they're, you know, the fact they're using these alone, is a war crime on an

00:03:14.520 innocent nation. It just is beyond belief. And there are those, the theory that I'm getting is that

00:03:22.400 Putin was around when the wall came down. And that destroyed the old Soviet Union. And the theory is he

00:03:31.980 wants to revive it and bring it back. And as Zelensky, the President of Ukraine said, what's next? Who's next?

00:03:43.020 Will it be if I was if I was on the border of Russia, I'd be very worried. But again, the US the night,

00:03:52.300 the United Kingdom, other nations, including Canada, are all reacting to it, the whole world.

00:04:01.340 Biden was just on TV saying that Putin will be a pariah. But we shall we shall see if sanctions if

00:04:08.940 these sanctions are tough enough, they have to be harsh, they have to be really harsh. And that's what

00:04:14.860 is key here. Because basically, Biden is playing every card he's got. He's not a wartime president. He's

00:04:22.700 not a he's not a Ronald Reagan. And as much as I love General Milley, who's a great joint chairman of

00:04:34.940 the Joint Chiefs, I think he's a good man. And I think he has our backs on this. He's not a Curtis LeMay.

00:04:41.420 And also times have changed. The West could very well be in decline.

00:04:53.180 Yeah, well, and now getting back to our domestic response. And I mean, you know, Trudeau is in a

00:04:58.780 difficult position altogether. I mean, we're not a military power. We have some influence, but limited

00:05:04.380 trade with Russia and the Ukraine. There's not too much pressure we can exert. But still, we've got

00:05:11.180 a large, particularly in the West, you know, a population of Ukrainian immigrants and descendants.

00:05:16.940 He wants to speak up on their behalf. But what can Canada do? Or what should they do in this

00:05:22.060 circumstance?

00:05:22.940 Well, I'm glad you asked that. That's a very good question. I just did a piece on that a few days ago,

00:05:28.860 and I was a bit harsh on Trudeau. I thought they could have done much, they could have been much,

00:05:34.540 much tougher. As far as I'm concerned, some of those things that he announced should have been done

00:05:40.700 already. And sending artillery troops in 30 days. In 30 days, this thing will all be over. What's the

00:05:49.580 point? And saying we support our NATO allies. That should have been done a month ago. And also,

00:05:56.700 and I bring this up in my column, the Magnitsky laws, which we passed in 2017, could be easily enacted

00:06:07.100 against Russians who have a connection to either war crimes or human rights abuses. We could have gone 0.73

00:06:16.060 after these guys 100 times, and not a single thing was done. The foreign affairs people did nothing,

00:06:26.780 and Trudeau did nothing. And we, not a single person has been targeted by those Magnitsky laws,

00:06:33.420 which are on the books. We can actually hurt them. But, and there was a veiled reference to,

00:06:41.980 well, we'll go after some of their people and some of their banks. Nothing was named. Absolutely

00:06:47.020 nothing was named. Which, you know, when you compare that with speeches from Biden, and especially

00:06:53.100 Boris Johnson, if you get a chance to watch the 10-minute speech given by Boris Johnson in the House,

00:06:59.580 in London, it was absolutely Churchillian. It was amazing. And he hit them so damn hard, really hard. 0.63

00:07:09.260 And that's the way you deal with Putin. You hit him hard at the first go. 0.96

00:07:13.580 And I think, I was really impressed by that. I think Trudeau could do a hell of a lot more.

00:07:20.940 A hell of a lot more. And again, with our foreign affairs policy, it's been like this for years.

00:07:31.660 We're soft on China. We're soft on Russia. We're soft on everybody. We talk a big game,

00:07:38.300 but what do we do about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Those strong words from Trudeau meant zip.

00:07:47.740 So I hope, okay, the second round of sanctions are much tougher.

00:07:53.660 Yeah. And then beyond sanctions, we get into containment, I guess you could say. I mean,

00:07:59.260 as you said, weeks from now, even if we send arms, it's going to be over as far as, I mean,

00:08:03.420 it's just such an overwhelming force coming into there with Russia. There's concerns, of course,

00:08:08.140 is this expansionism going to keep going? So I imagine we're going to see a NATO build up in

00:08:12.940 neighboring nations. I mean, that's some of the stuff that Canada contributes a degree to, 0.99

00:08:16.620 and then we put some good feet on the ground in those exercises. But that just brings me back to

00:08:21.900 the old days of building up a Cold War and having a border with people massed on each side. And wow,

00:08:27.260 what a terrible time to go back to. Absolutely. And one of my good friends,

00:08:30.780 his son is in Latvia and serving with Canada and serving valiantly, I might add. And we're all

00:08:41.020 proud of them. Absolutely. If those troops are over there, they're doing their best,

00:08:45.020 and they're supporting NATO. But your question is actually very good. What do we do now looking down

00:08:50.620 the road? Okay, because we all know Putin is going to sue for peace as soon as this is over. And he's

00:08:57.500 going to sue for diplomat diplomacy. And he's going to try and calm everything down and get away with

00:09:04.220 this. And we have to not let him do that. But to get back to your question, what do we do next? Well,

00:09:15.420 there was a recent study by the RAND Corporation, I think it was just announced recently. And the RAND

00:09:21.660 Corporation, the RAND organization, I should say, is actually helping the United States government

00:09:27.820 through this current situation. And they said that, how do you contain Putin? But also, how do you not

00:09:40.700 get the Russians upset? How do you strike a balance? And they said that what you do is,

00:09:47.340 the last thing you do, or the last thing we should do, is move a whole bunch of NATO troops right to

00:09:53.420 his border. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Because that will just fuel the fire and give him reason to retaliate

00:10:01.980 against those countries. So what they suggested, the RAND Corporation study, is that we place small

00:10:12.460 batches of troop concentrations in these countries close enough to Russia, but not on their doorstep.

00:10:19.260 Because that is just going to anger them and feed into Putin's future plans, which we don't really

00:10:25.660 know what they are. We're not sure. Does he want to go after these other countries? Does he want to

00:10:30.620 restore Russia's greatness? Possibly? We don't know. We don't know the end game. But he may be playing

00:10:37.500 the long game here. Yeah, well, I mean, we got a lot of delicate and nuanced diplomacy to have to work

00:10:44.460 on and deal with in the weeks and months to come here. But I mean, we've never seen a military action

00:10:50.380 like this in our adult lives and in Europe. And it's, you know, we can't help but be very, very

00:10:56.140 concerned about it. So we'll have you back on Monday. We'll have a much better idea, I guess,

00:11:01.740 on how this goes. Hopefully, as far as invasions go, it can be, I mean, it being pretty much inevitable

00:11:07.820 that Putin's going to take as much of Ukraine as he chooses to at this time, I just hope it's with the 1.00

00:11:12.140 least amount of bloodshed possible in such an awful circumstance. Me too. I know there are pockets

00:11:18.460 of resistance and there's fierce fighting reported. I don't think we know a hell of a lot. I just know

00:11:23.820 what I'm hearing on Twitter or seeing on Twitter and hearing on CNN and so forth. Pitch battles.

00:11:30.940 But I think that eventually they'll just be overwhelmed. They'll just be overwhelmed. And I

00:11:36.140 think in a few days and God forbid, no more killing. Let's just get this over with and

00:11:42.540 and I hope it ends soon. I have a buddy in Kyiv who's reporting for ABC Australia. And he wants to,

00:11:51.420 he's sheltering in place. And he's hoping to get out of there soon. He was reporting on everything.

00:11:57.820 And he said Kyiv is quiet. There's not a person on the street. But let me just say this before we go.

00:12:04.620 There are protests in St. Petersburg and Kremlin as we speak. And if you go on Twitter,

00:12:13.100 you'll see videos of those protests. And Putin tried to quash those protests by saying,

00:12:18.940 if you do this, your future is going to be in question. We're really going to come after you.

00:12:25.420 So I credit those Russians who have nothing against Ukraine, who are the brothers of Ukrainians,

00:12:33.900 basically. And I'm Ukrainian. And I say that too. There, there's no animosity from Russians against

00:12:41.980 Ukrainians. It's this man who is doing this. And he's going, he may pay a heavy price. 0.92

00:12:49.020 Well, I should say the Russian people will pay a heavy price. He's not going to pay any price, 1.00

00:12:54.220 because he doesn't care. And that's, that's, that's my final word on that.

00:12:59.260 You bet. Yeah, no, that's another interesting element. We just didn't have time to go into it.

00:13:02.860 But we'll see how, I mean, resistance within Russia goes on this, because no, not everybody

00:13:07.180 is favorable about this, this whole idea on the part of Putin, and he's going to have to answer to

00:13:11.500 them to some point. And, and Russian politics are, are never an easy or straightforward thing.

00:13:17.260 So thank you very much. And we'll be watching it over the next few days. And I'll talk to you again

00:13:21.660 soon, Dave. Okay. Thanks, Corey. Take care now. Great. Thanks.

Western Standard - March 03, 2022

OPINION： The Russian Invasion. Cory chats with Dave Makichuck.

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