Has the war, um,

>> [clears throat]

>> um, I'm trying to think of the right

verb, tran- transcended

battles with troops

and become a war of drones? And if it

has,

how many drone operators does it take to

stop a half a million troops?

>> [laughter]

>> If you If you can If you can give us

those numbers, I think you can because

I've read your piece.

>> Yeah, this is this is a key factor.

With 10,000 or 20,000 drone operators,

Ukraine can hold off half a million

Russian troops.

The troops cannot concentrate.

They They have to move in twos or

threes. They cannot,

uh, have an impact on the open field.

Where And that explains partly why the

big Russian push is not on the open

fields, but in taking a few key cities,

Kostyantynivka being the one most,

uh, most, um,

challenging right now. And that is the

the door to the leading to the to the

Dnieper River. So,

uh, apparently the the nature of

Ukraine's problem, that it was outmanned

from the beginning, that it had very big

loss of population, of people who fled

after country left the left, and the

the, um,

uh, army-eligible males were the first

to find shelter and leave, and those who

were dragooned into the army were the

first to desert. So, in that sense,

Ukraine was a big disadvantage in

manpower, and still is. Except that

manpower is no longer a decisive factor

in which way the war goes than it was.

>> Uh, but we know from the lesson in Iran

that you can't win a war by air power

alone. The Russians must know this. They

have to stop the drones, and they still

have to have this inexorable march of

troops. How close,

if at all, Gilbert,

is the Russian military

to achieving a conclusion

that would be satisfactory to the

Kremlin?

>> Nowhere.

The game has changed. The game has

changed repeatedly. And let's not look

at the past. Let's not look at February

2022. Let's look at where we are today.

I have been challenged by some people

who appear on your program with the not

me personally, but the notion that

uh that the um Russians cannot

um should be striking at Kiev much

harder and perhaps should be striking at

the factories that are supplying the

drones to Ukraine in the UK, in Germany,

and some other countries. They have said

they have said and it's a reasonable

argument, but what then? What happens

after that?

I turn it around and say to those who

believe there will be a Russian victory

and a capitulation by Ukraine, if the

Russians reach the the upper and perhaps

even capture Odessa, you say, "No, not

at all." There is no reason for Ukraine

to capitulate so long as Mr. Zelensky

and his team stay in the saddle.

And that is the key question. Is Russia

ready to take the initiative and to

destroy its enemies, to decapitate

Ukraine, or is Russia intending to fight

this war for the next 10 years and

probably lose against NATO?

>> All right, so back to my initial

question. What

What are the parameters of the debate?

Is there a debate going Is this an

academic debate involving

scholars like you and similarly situated

people in Russia, or is it a practical

debate involving officials in the

Kremlin, uh political

operational

intelligence, military, and President

Putin's Putin's office itself?

>> Well, it's impossible to answer the

question you posed with respect to

what's going on inside of Kremlin. By

nature, anybody who would step out of

line would have a very short career.

These people are not saying they're

yes-men. No, they they appear on

television, as my colleague, uh Raymond

McGovern, has said on your show, and

they have had televised discussion of

problems that the army is facing, like

lack of night vision devices, goggles,

and so forth.

But I say I say this is all political

theater. It is a show

uh to divert attention from the serious

questions of where do you go from here?

Um and where do you where they should go

from here, in my opinion, not just my

opinion,

is to attack and destroy the political

leadership in Kyiv.

The destruction of factories in Western

Europe is really almost an irrelevancy.

If Ukraine is destroyed as a political

as a military factor, Western Europe

will just go back onto the rock from

which it came. Western Europe cannot

fight Russia directly.