Col. Brewer on Trump's Latest Ukraine Comments
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Transcript
17 segmentsA pleasure to welcome Nebraska's Colonel Tom Brewer back to the program. Tom, good morning. Good morning, Gary. Thanks for having me. You bet. I wanted to talk to you because... How many times have you been over there now to Ukraine? I've been over there eight times since the war started, and I was there three times before the war started. Yeah, fighting alongside the Ukrainians. And I wanted to talk to you because this struck me as a big deal. The president the other day signaled what... If he follows through, this would be a major shift in his policy toward Ukraine. He says Ukraine could, quote, win all of Ukraine back in its original form. He says, I think he's about up to here. He just had it with Vladimir Putin. And he says if the EU, if NATO supports Ukraine, they can get it all back. Number one, what do you think of his shift? And number two, is that possible? Well, both of them are... are going to be a bit of a challenge. He needs to stay focused. If he's going to say that, the Ukrainians are going to trust him and follow through and expect that they'll be allowed to do that. There should be a surprise that Vladimir Putin's not what we call an honest person. He's lied on everything that he's done since he became president. But that's an area of the size of Iowa, and that includes Crimea. A lot of that is mine, so obviously if it is taken back, it would be a lot of work to reconstruct it. The Ukrainians won it back, and they feel that that was their border before the war started. But it's going to be a difficult process because the only way you're going to get it back is not by a land war. It's going to be by collapsing Russia from within, and that'll be with secondary sanctions. You've got to force China and India to quit buying all the doggone oil that's running the war. And if he's willing to do that, then I think they will be in a position where if Russia collapses just like the Soviet Union did, they will probably have to fall back because they're... They won't have any choice. Well, he explained his position change by saying that, quote, after getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine-Russia military and economic situation. So he kind of echoing what you said, that with the right approach militarily and economically, Russia is wobbly now, and this could do them in. It could. The other thing to remember is with the mineral deal, we've got a lot more to gain now. And also, now that he's made the deal that we're not buying the weapons, what we're doing is we're taking the money from NATO and the EU, and we're using it to purchase U.S. weapons. So that's helping our economy, and it's giving us a chance to test weapon systems that we're not able to test otherwise. And so...
You know, I think there's some direct benefits, but we just absolutely have to follow through and provide them the resources so that they can't fight because they've been willing to do that. We've just been kind of back and forth and give them what they need. I got an email here, Tom. I'd like to get your take on it from a listener, Chris, who worked, he says, at a federal facility in Nebraska. that contains a Social Security Administration office. And he said during the initial years of the Ukraine war, he said he saw a large number of military aid Ukrainian males come in to get social security benefits, refugee cash and so on. With the U.S. pouring in billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, Chris says it's baffling to me why Ukraine would let these military age men leave the country and why we would allow them in and give them monetary aid when, in my opinion, they should be staying in their country and fighting. What do you know about that phenomenon? Well, understand that the war for them started in 2014 when they took over Crimea. And they had a policy then that if you lost a limb or a certain type of injuries that your service was complete to their country, and that was an option they had was to leave the country. And I think a number of them did. And I don't think that, I mean, they're... They're upright, good folks that came here, and I'm sure they're contributing in some way. But at that point, they were not restrict them. That's not true now. If you lose a limb, you're probably going to be a desk job or something, but you're going to stay there in the fight. So there was a period of time until the 2022 invasion where they were allowed to leave the country if they had certain type of injuries. Yeah, well, he doesn't indicate that they appeared to be injured. But what you're saying now is that Ukraine is saying, look, if you're a man, military age here, you've got to stay here and help us. I assume they're still conscripting people, right? They are, and their age range, you know, has expanded. It was 26 to 60, and now I think it's 18 to 65. And when I was over there and... In the spring, it was not uncommon in the front lines to see folks in their 50s and 60s. I mean, they don't have the technical skills to operate some of the drones and stuff, so they end up with some of the harder jobs. All right. Well, interesting times. We'll see what. I haven't heard a lot of response from NATO on this, have you, on Trump's new idea? Well, yes. Have you? Yeah, well, the incursions that they've had with the drones into Poland and with the jets over Estonian all, you know, they've made it that NATO has said they've had a article for meeting, and if they go into NATO airspace, they're going to shoot them down. I kind of think that Vladimir Putin wants this, because it helps with his nationalism, is push, you know, that they're against NATO, not just Ukraine.
And so, you know, there's definitely some challenges with shooting down their stuff. But I don't know how you can not shoot it down because he'll push the limit. He'll push until something really bad happens. But he sees something bad happening as helping him. But he's not ready for a fight with NATO, but NATO has no leadership right now. No one country is leading them, and that's part of the problem. Indeed. Tom, thanks. It's always good to have you on.