 All right. Let's put up a map. Because we like to go through a map, so we like to try to see what's actually happening in the world. So let's put up a map. Oops, not that. There we go. There's a map. Hopefully you guys can see that. It's a map of Ukraine. The red dots with things splashing out of them, those are places that Russia this morning was already bombing, those are the major cities. You can see Kiev right there. You can see running through Ukraine. And I don't know, do you see that? Yeah, I think you can see that when I draw this box. You can see inside this box, you can see a major river that flows through Ukraine, that separates Ukraine from east to west. It is a river that flows right through Kiev. One of the sad things today for me was watching some of the TV coverage as a battle was raging for the airport in Kiev to see the bridges and the rivers that I have traveled across, places that I've been in Kiev, Maidan, which is kind of at the center in front of, right in the center of Kiev where the revolution in 2014 occurred. It was sad to know that that area was now basically a war zone. So here you can see this river separates east and west. There's a good chance that the Ukrainians are going to try to muster their forces across this river and try to do what they can to prevent the Russians from crossing it. The challenge that they face is that if you look to the north of Ukraine, you can see Belarus. Now, if you remember last year, Belarus was in trouble. The Belarusian dictator was accused of cooking the books, was accused of stealing an election. There were tens of thousands of people in the streets, maybe hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. There was a good chance that his regime would be overthrown. And he basically clamped down on those people. And the Russians supported him, supported him completely. And Putin came in and offered troops of support and gave him political cover as he repressed the demonstrations. Well, Belarus is paying Putin back now by allowing Russian troops to invade Ukraine from the north. And the problem with that is, the danger with that is, of course, that they can now come at Kiev from the west so that they can get to the other side of the river and attack Kiev from the west. And you're seeing that, one of the first things, one of the interesting, and I don't have really good explanation for this. I'm curious if anybody out there has one. But one of the interesting things is that one of the first targets of the Russian forces was the former Chernobyl, the former nuclear power plant that, of course, melted down during the Soviet Union during the 1980s. And that is a depository of a lot of highly radioactive material. And that was the first target, one of the first targets of the Russian forces. Now, it could be that's by accident because it's on the road to Kiev. It could be that they have some other goal in terms of what they want to do with Chernobyl, in terms of threatening the west, in terms of threatening Ukraine. I don't quite get it because anything they do there, it's as a releasing radioactivity, could very well drift into Russia. So it's an area where you do not want to be shelling. You do not want to be bombarding because you could hit one of those depositories of radioactive material left over from Chernobyl. And so Ukrainian forces fought them off, but ultimately the Russians took that. I think Ukrainian forces are now basically trying to defend Kiev, particularly from the north, where so the Russians are coming in from, if you will, from where it says, pop-chep, pop-chep, pop-chep up here, right up there. They're coming in from that region, from this region over here, towards Kiev. And they're coming in from this region over here, towards Kiev. And I think that much of the Ukrainian military will be devoted to defending Kiev from those flanks. One of the most interesting battles today was occurred in the airport, the international airport outside of Kiev. Again, an international airport I have flown into. The airport was originally, the Russians landed helicopters in the airport with forces. Those forces took the airport from the Ukrainians to control over the airport. I think the reason was, even though the Russians had bombed, I think most of the airports in Ukraine, my sense is that they had kept that airport free and they were going to take control over it and then fly troops in, fly troops and potentially armored troop carriers into the airport, which is only about 10 miles outside of Kiev and then drive them towards Kiev. Tonight, reports out of Kiev are that the Ukrainians have taken it back. I have a theory about this. I suspect that the Russians are poorly equipped I suspect that the Russians don't have night fighting equipment, they don't have the kind of equipment the Americans have, the Israelis have and maybe the Ukrainians have and that the Russians are poorly equipped to fight at night. So that once night fell, the Ukrainians could use their night vision goggles that they probably bought from the Americans or were given by the Americans and to take back the airports and it looks like they've taken back the airports and they hold it now, whether they can hold it long term is hard to say. The Russians really want that airport, it is a direct link into Kiev but that doesn't save Kiev because as I said, you've got forces coming in from the north driving towards the capital. Putin last night said that he basically is going to kill the leadership of Ukraine. He called them Nazis. He's gonna denazify Ukraine. There's a sick mind. Think about the president of Ukraine. I don't know if you know this but the president of Ukraine is a Jew who has family members who died in the hands of the Nazis and yet Putin was calling him a Nazi talking about denazification of Ukraine last night. That's how sick and pathetic Putin actually is and we will see whether he gets to do that. I hope the president of Ukraine has a retreat plan. Probably to Lviv. Lviv is the closest to the west you can get. It is a beautiful city on the west side of Ukraine close to Poland. From there you can easily escape into Poland and get away out and run a government from exile over there. At the same time as the Russians have attacked from the north and from the northeast, they've also attacked from the east itself from this entire region, from the Donetsk area, which is these eastern provinces that declared the autonomy from Ukraine a while back and they are pushing west from there and they've also invaded from Crimea and going north and they've also tried to land from the sea. Another key target other than Kiev is Odessa right down here. Oops, let's see right down here. What the Russians would like to do is basically cut Ukraine off in the Black Sea. So they would like to go from Donetsk all the way to Crimea and from Crimea all the way to Odessa and to the Romanian border and capture that entire territory and keep it there and make it Russian and cut Kiev off from its only connection to the sea. Russia has overwhelming numbers. I think it's inferior technologically. Russian weaponry is inferior generally to Western weaponry by a big margin. It's not even close. These MiGs and Sokolov planes, I mean luckily for the Russians they're not fighting NATO. NATO would wipe them out in days. I mean literally in days. Put aside the nuclear site, conventional weapons, NATO crushes Russia in days. It wipes out its air force very, very quickly. A T-72, a T-80 has never put down an American Abrams tank or German tank. The American tanks are fossil-period Russian tanks. German tanks are fossil-period Russian tanks. Israeli tanks are fossil-period Russian tanks. The only good Russian weapon system they have is the AK-47, that's about it. And that was produced a long, long, long time ago, almost a century ago. So Ukraine actually has to the extent that they have sophisticated Western weaponry, has a technological advantage. For example, T-72s have gone down in flame because the Ukrainians are using Javelin American, Javelin anti-tank weapons. Javelin anti-tank weapons are incredibly superior to anything the Russians have. And if the Ukrainians have enough of them, and I hope that one of the things the United States right now is shipping as many Javelin anti-tank missiles into Ukraine as possible, hopefully through Poland or through one of the other bordering nations, that is the one weapon that can really, really, really change things on the ground. The Russians, again, have a huge numerical advantage, but the Javelin is far superior weapon system to anything the Russians have. Russian tanks are little death traps. T-72s, T-80s are death traps for the soldiers inside of them. The Javelins can stop an entire convoy of tanks by taking out the tanks in front. You can slow down whole columns. You can take them out and you can change the balance of power very quickly. Warsaw is seeing the use of anti-aircraft and anti-helicopter missiles. Again, American weapon systems that the Ukrainians are using and they've taken down a number of helicopters and supposedly they've taken down a number of airplanes as well. So this is far from a done deal. Well, again, Russia will probably win this in quotes because it'll be a victory on the ground, but it'll be a disaster for Russia. The Ukrainians have a shot at at least making this very expensive for Putin, very expensive for Putin. And the more expensive this becomes from Putin, the more expensive this becomes for Putin. The more likely it is that somebody in the Kremlin takes him out. It's not hard to tell how popular Putin really is. It's hard to tell what the tolerance of the Russian people or even the Russian generals is for casualties. It's hard to tell. Yeah, writing stuff in all caps really makes a difference on the chat. You should all do that. You should all start writing in all caps because that makes it true. That makes it true. Putin is likely to the extent that these oligarchs who are losing their access to their beautiful condos and beautiful homes in London to the point where these oligarchs are losing access to their bank accounts in London and New York. You know, a lot of those beautiful new condos that were built on Fifth Avenue were owned by Russian oligarchs to the extent that they are no longer welcome in the United States. They cannot access their assets in the United States. If you continue to do that, if you continue to shun them, there is a chance, there is a chance that they will turn on Putin and destroy Putin. So yeah, isn't Chelsea owned by the Russians? They own a lot of assets in the UK and now those assets are frozen. Or I hope they are. That was my understanding of what Johnson announced today. Putin could easily be toasted. Putin could easily be toasted. He could easily be overthrown by his own people. He could easily be overthrown by people within his own government. Colt says, from reliable government of Ukraine, so seven helicopters, seven fighters, 24 tanks and 24, 20 armored vehicles of Russian Federation have been taken out. Now, you know, it's impossible. Look, there's a fog of war right now. The fog of war is really the first few days it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. And, you know, even on the ground, it's hard to tell because you might be in a particular area, you don't know what's going on in other areas. It's very difficult to tell. But those seem like reasonable numbers. Of course those are not very large numbers. I mean, the Russia has a lot of tanks. Taking out 24 tanks is no big deal. But if you start accumulating the numbers, if it starts getting into the hundreds, and if the Ukrainians start getting a little confident in terms of taking out these tanks, you can slow them down. And again, you have to ask. You have to ask yourself. To what extent are Russian soldiers really motivated here? To what extent are they willing to die and fight for what? For what? For Putin? What are they fighting for? The motherland? How many of them really believe any of that? How many of them think they think that is worth fighting, dying, risking their lives for? So, you know, I don't think, I think this is gonna be, as I said, from the beginning. I don't think this is gonna be, not from the beginning, from before the war. I think this is gonna be quite costly for Putin. I think this is gonna be very costly for the Russian people. And, you know, one wonders, how long will Putin survive? But it really depends on the willingness of the Ukrainian people to fight. They've got something to fight for. They're freedom, they're liberty. They've got something to fight for. Todd, thank you, that $100 is very appreciated. He says, this will end for the moment very badly for everyone. Everyone loses in war, absolutely. War is a lose, lose, lose scenario. Nobody wins in a war. Nobody wins in a war. Even that parent winner is not one. People die, economies get destroyed, lives get destroyed, families get destroyed. So, it really depends on, again, the Ukrainian's willingness to fight and their ability to fight. Supposedly, today, one of the government announced that they will issue automatic rifles to any Ukrainian who wants one, if they're willing to fight and defend their country. They say, who knows if you believe, I mean, it's hard to believe anything coming out of the region, that they've distributed over 10,000 such weapons in Kiev. Hopefully, they've distributed a lot more over the days to come. They've also, unfortunately, made it illegal from men from the age of 18 to 40 or 45 or something like that to leave Ukraine. So, they're gonna force them to fight. People who flee should be allowed to flee. The government's job is not to force you to protect your home. If you don't wanna protect your home, you know, you could shun them later if you want. Thank you, whoops. Thank you, Jared. So, that is the situation. Somebody says, the Ukrainians killed a lot of Jews in World War II. Yeah, they did. So, the Russians, so the Poles, but the party responsible for the killing of the Jews were the Germans. So, should we be anti-Germany? Should we condemn all things German because Germans killed most of, you know, my family who was still in Europe? One of my grandfathers comes from a small village in Poland, not far from the Ukrainian border. So, in Eastern Poland as part of, that is very close to Lviv in that area in Ukraine. So, I have, I had family in that region. They were all wiped out during the Second World War in which many people in Eastern Europe helped the Nazis, did what they do. Ukraine reformed too. They elected a Jew as a president of the country. A comedian, but a Jew. That's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing. All right, I'm glad I was just telling my wife today that I am so glad that I've already been to Russia, that I've seen St. Petersburg, that I went to the Hermitage, that I went to Moscow, that I've been in Red Square, that I've been to all these places because I'm never going again or not as long as Putin is around. Who knows how long he'll be around. But, you know, I'm glad I've seen all these places. Of course, I'm also glad I've been to Kiev. I've been to Kiev many times. I have on my calendar, literally on my calendar, I don't think I quite booked a hotel room, but I know which hotel I would stay. I have a, I was supposed to be in Kiev on, I'll tell you the date, it's April, yeah, April 28th. I'm supposed to be in Kiev. It's clear that I won't be in Kiev in April 28th now. So sad and sad that, you know, who knows what's gonna happen to the kind of people who invited me to Kiev, kind of the free market think tanks, the pro-liberty think tanks that exist in Kiev, the ones who are fighting the Ukrainian government to be more capitalist and to be more respectful of individual rights, those are gonna be the first victims of whatever government puts, whatever Putin, government Putin puts in their place. I wonder if you can ask, have I ever visited the Sinai Peninsula? That's a funny question, I wonder if you can. Yeah, I mean, I've hiked most of the Sinai, not most of Sinai, I've hiked much of the Sinai Desert. You know, we used to, as a family, we used to go down along the Red Sea coast, and as a kid, we used to swim on the beaches of the Sinai Desert on the Red Sea. I have scuba-dived in Sharma-sheikh, I have snow-cold in Dahab, and I have watched all the nudists from Scandinavia, Follick in Nueva, all along the beach, and I've climbed Mount Sinai, so yes, I've been to Sinai. Never again, I'll never be there again, so again, I'm glad I did it when I did it because I won't go again, so it is sad. The whole thing is sad. You know, Ukraine is not exactly a bastion of freedom, but as compared to Russia, it is, it is. As compared to Russia, it's much freer. It's compared to Russia, it has an opposition. As compared to Russia, it is not authoritarian, and it is not threatening to invade anybody. As compared to Russia, it is a bastion of freedom. As compared to, I don't know, Germany, it's not. But these things are on a spectrum, unfortunately, which there was a country in the world today that you could say is free. Is the United States free? Frank asked if I saw the burning bush. Absolutely, absolutely I saw the burning bush. Haven't you ever seen a bush burn? All right, what else? So, you know, it's a sad day for Ukraine. I think it's a sad day for the Western world. The question, of course, now is, I think what'll happen here is that Putin wants a quick war. He would like to get to Kiev quickly. I don't think he has to occupy the entire country. What he wants is to get to Kiev quickly. He wants to get rid of the current government. He wants to install his own puppet regime in Kiev. He wants to install an authoritarian governing Kiev that is similar to the one in Belarus, similar to the one in Kazakhstan. And basically make it a satellite state of Russia. These are people who will do exactly what Putin tells them to do. He will dominate Ukraine and then he'll leave. So he will leave and he'll put the West in a quandary. Should they impose sanctions? Or shouldn't they impose sanctions? Now that he's left, now that there was over, should they recognize the new government in Ukraine or shouldn't they? And this is where Western weakness will encourage them to fold and to give in. So that's the plan. The only thing that could stop really that plan is basically for the Ukrainians to fight it out and for the West to supply them with all the weapons that they need. For the Ukrainians to slow the Russians down, to make this long, to bog the Russian army down, into prolonged combat, to make it super, super, super expensive for Putin and to get the Russian people wild up so that they rebel against Putin. The only hope for Ukraine is that this gets stopped by Russia, by the Russian people, by people opposed to Putin. And the only way they can do that is by making this super expensive, super expensive in terms of blood, in terms of lives for the Russians. And that means destroy as many tanks, get as many, knock down as many airplanes out of the sky and make this as costly as possible for the Russians. Make this a disaster. Make this another Afghanistan for the Russian forces. The last time Russia invaded a country was during Afghanistan. Donna, thank you. I appreciate it and I'm glad you're learning a lot. So, you know, you won't, you know, I've watched a little bit of television but you don't see kind of a real analysis of this on the news. Even the American generals are kind of so wimpy when they analyze this stuff. It really is pretty pathetic. And they're afraid to call a spade a spade. They're afraid to call Putin what he really is. They're afraid to question Russian military hardware even though the United States has gone up against that hardware in like in Iraq war twice and the Israelis have gone up against this hardware all over the world. So it is interesting how weak the Russian weaponry system is. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. 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