Transcript of AE 1133 - The Goss: The War in Ukraine

G'day, you mob. Pete here, and this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So, today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally down under here in Australia or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world.

And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss. So, these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English.

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Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time, keep practising and that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit, I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

Ukraine.

Correct.

I'm laughing because dad was taking...

I was in the middle of a mouthful- Alright, hang on. I better respond properly. I have to take another mouthful.

Yeah.

Yes. Ukraine.

Yeah.

Get out of there, Putin.

Oh, man. So, yeah, this has been a fucking train wreck of a, quote, "special operation", right?

You couldn't have written this- If somebody had written this as an outline of a script and went into Hollywood film or TV producer and tried to pitch this story, they'd go, oh, fuck off, nobody's that stupid.

Well, no one would believe it.

Yeah, exactly.

That's part of the trouble with- And that's that- What's that phrase? It's like, "you couldn't write this shit"...

Yeah, exactly.

...Like no one could write this story because ironically, a lot of fiction, you need to suspend people's disbelief, right? So, that they believe what's being written. But so often you have these sorts of stories where you're just like, this is unbelievable.

Nobody's that stupid.

Yeah, it's just one fuck up after another and all for nothing. Effective...

Or for his ego, effectively.

Yeah, it's just insane. So, I guess, you guys have probably hopefully heard on the podcast the "Voices of Ukraine" episode that I did.

Listen to it if you haven't.

Yeah. I did a "Voices of Russia" episode as well with people I met who were Russian or Ukrainian-Russian that were obviously anti-Kremlin, anti-Putin as well, sharing their stories. And I'm sure that you pretty much have all heard about what's going on. But yeah, I thought we could still just talk about it and our views on it and our experience. I was shocked.

Like, so we were, I guess, watching from- When was it, like? Was it November, December last year when Putin started putting all these forces around the border? Like slowly, incrementally increasing the number of troops. And it started getting to these absurd numbers where you were like, there's 170,000 troops and all this gear. And I remember seeing on the news and...

We're just having, you know, war games...

Yeah, well, there was that...

...Training exercises.

...Bullshit where you were kind of like, okay, like I don't believe that for a second. I think you're trying to put pressure on Ukraine, NATO and the West to get something, you know, obviously. But I don't think I saw anyone who at the time was like, he's going to invade. Like it's- He's going to try and take all of Ukraine. Like he's...

But a month later, that's what people were saying. Because...

When it was like, what, close to February 24th?

Yeah, because clearly what's going on here is that he's tried to call Ukraine's bluff in a series of escalations...

Well, and NATO and the west, right?

And- Yeah, and NATO and the West on their behalf. But nobody's bitten and he just has to keep escalating. And now he's escalated to the point where he can't control it, he can't manage it, he can't resource it, and there's nowhere to go.

Well, and it's funny, I saw someone saying there was a general- I went deep on this when it first happened. And I've probably watched now hundreds of hours of interviews and, you know, been reading articles and scrolling through Reddit and everything.

But there was a general -- I think it may have been Petraeus or something from the US, an old army general there. -- And he was like, I've seen people say that Putin escalates to de-escalate. He doesn't try and de-escalate. He escalates to win. He doesn't give a fuck about trying to de-escalate things. He will do whatever is required to get what he wants. There's no compromise.

And there's no, I'll just take it- Like there's no, I'll bluff to the point where hopefully we can get to a safer place where fewer people are in danger, fewer lives are being lost. He does not give a fuck. He will take it as far as he needs to to get what he wants, ultimately.

Yeah. And that's- And we talked about it a couple of weeks ago, you know, not publicly, but. And my fear now is not that he will win, it's that he will lose. And who is he going to take and how is he going to take them with him? Because he's going to escalate this to the point where he has no escape route. And that's just horrifying...

Well, and ironically...

...For Europe.

...He's made those threats in the past where he's said repeatedly, what does a rat do if it gets cornered? You know, it ends up charging the person who's cornered them and taking a chunk out of them, you know, on the way out. And but ironically, he's not a rat trying to avoid being cornered. He's effectively a rat that...

Well, he's trying to corner Ukraine.

Yeah, yeah. But as well, he's- I think he's almost at that point where he wants what he wants. But he's also not afraid to be cornered because he's just like, I'll just take it to the ultimate level. We'll just use tactical nukes. Fuck ya. You know? And so, it's been really, really shocking I think, to watch it. Because, yeah, and- Oh man, there's so much here to unpack and talk about.

When they first invaded, we had those sort of like, oh shit. Like Ukraine's gone. You know, you had those- The sort of initial reaction, I think, of the world was Zelenskyy is going to bail, the government is going to fall straight away as a result.

Yeah, everybody, let's put- 40 million people will put their hands up and go, we give in.

Yeah. And that obviously did not happen.

No.

And it was incredible. We had that line from Zelenskyy, I think when the US -- did the US offer him to get out? -- They said, we'll...

...They offered, we'll come and get you.

We'll come and get you. And he said, I don't need a ride, I need bullets or something. Or...

I need ammunition.

I need ammunition. And that was when I was like, oh shit, we've got a leader. We've got a leader here. You know, this guy's next level.

He has come out of this- Like, it's just astonishing...

And that must be...

...World opinion of this guy, who, I reckon a year ago you could have asked everybody in the world to write down the name of the leader of Ukraine, the president of Ukraine.

And I reckon a few thousand people would have known who it was outside of Ukraine and Russia, and people who have political awareness of what's going on in Europe. Now, everybody knows his name and they can all spell it, you know, because they've seen it so often in the media.

Well, for me, I didn't know his name, but I knew that Ukraine had a comedian who'd become a president. And I knew that they had had a coup, I think, around the time of just before Crimea was annexed, right? And that was sort of part of why Crimea ended up becoming annexed by Russia. But what was your view of things?

So, when Crimea was annexed, I remember being sort of, again, just shocked of like, what the fuck? Russia can just walk in, and no one does anything? Like there were sanctions apparently but compared to the sanctions and the response that's happened now, back then it was effectively nothing and...

But it really was almost a passive takeover.

Yeah.

Yes, they brought troops and things in, but it wasn't, we're going to put 100,000 troops on the border and have them sit there for two months.

No.

It was just, we're taking over Crimea. And Ukraine blinked and went, how did that happen?

Wasn't it the little green men thing of effectively Russia had gotten separatist troops within Crimea to do it for them and they just pleaded ignorance the whole time. And we're just like, yeah, we don't know what happened.

No.

And this is where we had the whole MH 73- What was it? MH 137? I can't remember the exact number. But the plane that was shot down...

Shot down. Yeah.

...Over Ukraine which killed, was it 38 Australians?

Yes.

So, it ended up being the separatists mistook a plane for a military plane and it was just a commercial airliner, and they fired a stinger or some kind of rocket and it ended up just taking it out in mid-flight, right?

Exactly.

And again, Russia just denied having any responsibility, and the separatists denied it. And I think when they went through the rubble, they were like, well, here's the fragments of the Russian military equipment that was used to shoot it down. What the fuck, guys?

Yeah.

So, there was that that happened, too, that- But yeah, looking back, it's like, so many of the academics and the journalists and even the military experts who are retired and being interviewed about this because you get very few actual current military.

Well, they're not going to...

They're not going to talk about it.

Exactly.

But they were all like, the response was disgusting in terms of the world just not doing anything effectively and still shaking hands with Putin and still befriending him...

Exactly.

...When that happened. Were you shocked by the level of, what would you say, like global community, you know, the number of different countries that have come together in unison to sanction Russia and do it?

And ironically, before you answer that, I've looked at a map and there is like no countries in South America or Central America, no African countries, no Middle Eastern countries, and I think the only Asian countries might be Japan, Korea and Taiwan that have come out and actively said, we don't support this.

So, again, silence is deafening, guys.

Exactly. I think the other side of that, too, is that the countries that you're talking about that have not sanctioned Putin are those that are economically dependent on oil from Russia and Russian investment in their countries.

Yeah.

Russia's got, you know, huge amount of investment in Africa and Asia in particular. To be honest, if Nigeria doesn't come out and sanction- Ironically, Nigeria has got its own oil, so bad example. If Chad doesn't come out and, you know, sanction Russia, I don't really care. What really matters is Europe, America, effectively the, you know, the top 20 economic nations in the world...

Well...

...Who are the ones that have the difference. Not only do they make a difference by putting economic sanctions on, but 99% of the world's major corporations are also centred in those countries and they have pulled out of Russia. So, most of the big companies that are based in, you know, have got bases in Russia have bailed, they've just left.

And so, that's left Russia- And unfortunately, it's left a lot of, you know, innocent Russian people unemployed in a country that's an economic toilet now. But what else can you do? Because there is no chance that America or any of the European, other European nations are going to take action against Russia because they don't want to start...

You mean military action?

Yeah, military action. They don't want to start another world war. They don't want Russia suddenly saying, well, we'll start picking on Poland and Germany. And so, the irony is, if Russia did that war would end very quickly, but it would be completely devastating.

Yeah, well, it would depend how far they took it, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But before we keep going with that, were you surprised by the number of countries that came together and...?

So, no, I wasn't, because I think there's been an underlying- "Hatred" is probably too strong. It's not too strong now, but I think it was too strong a year ago. But an underlying distrust and discomfort with Putin and the way he operates.

Yeah.

And this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. And so, everybody just said, you've overstepped the mark here. You're gone. Previously, you know, yes, he invaded Chechnya and Georgia, you know, over the last two decades. And most people around the west have just looked at that and gone, this is effectively civil war. This is, you know, post-Soviet Union border squabbles.

Ukraine wasn't. Ukraine was different because there was no squabble. There were no Ukrainian- Russian-Ukrainians on the border of Ukraine...

Well, they had to fabricate that...

Exactly.

...In the news in Russia, right?

Exactly.

Saying that Ukraine is full of Nazis and committing genocide against the Russian people, vilifying...

None of that was happening.

...Speaking Russian. And ironically, that's the amazing thing. You're like, there was nothing here. You've had to actually just create these sort of false flag bullshit events.

...Inventing just stories to make yourself sound- Make what you are doing sound legitimate when you know that it is not.

It's like that scene. Is it from The Simpsons, where Bart grabs Lisa's hand and slaps her in the face or punches her in the face with her own hand, and he's like, stop hitting yourself...?

Yeah.

...Stop hitting yourself. And your just like- It's just astonishing, right, too? The level of transparency on our end and opaqueness on their end. Like the average Russian seems to have absolutely no idea whether that's wilful ignorance and that they want to believe the lies that they're being told by Putin. Because, again, it's your country. You've been fed all this shit for the last, however many decades...

Well, your entire life for most people.

It would be a very big- It would be like that Jordan Peterson thing, right? Where any time you change your opinion, something in you dies and we resist that. No one wants to suddenly work out that their dad's a horrible person or that their religion isn't true, or that, you know, whatever.

Half the population of Russia have never known anything other than Putin as a leader.

Well, that's it, he's been there for 22 years, hasn't he?

Yeah, exactly. So...

But as a result, a lot are sick of him because their sick of his face...

Yes. Of course, they are...

...Want him gone.

...Sick of his face. They're sick of the condition that the country is in and the, you know, economic toilet that he's lead it down. And now we've- The rest of the world has just flushed it for him and made it infinitely worse since he has invaded Ukraine. But yeah. So, I'm not surprised that countries have done that. I am surprised that there has been- And you never know what goes on in the background with, say, NATO.

And- NATO military leaders have got to be in 24-hour discussions with each other all the time going, how are we going to respond if this happens? How are we going to respond if this happens? Because we're going to have to respond in seconds. This is not going to be, oh, he's done something. He's taken, you know, chemical weapons in or he's dropped anthrax in Kiev or something, or even worse...

Nerve agents.

Yeah. Nuclear response. They're going to have to respond in seconds because there's not going to be an opportunity to go, oh, we'll sit around and talk about this and hold a conference for a week and then work out what to do. So, I'm really surprised that they've all held their nerve, and nobody has come out and made threats. They've all made veiled threats of if you step this up, you're in trouble.

Well, and it's amazing to see how many of them have had to either walk back suggestions like Biden made recently of, we need him gone. Whatever he said when he was in Poland, he was effectively like...

But he didn't walk that back.

Well, he's sort of been a bit tepid, but he said, you know, they've been very, very careful with suggesting that there should be regime change from the outside. Because I think, obviously the Russians are using that to scare their own people, to suggest that the West will invade and change everything and it'll make your lives horrible. Whereas I think the rest of the world is like, we need regime change, but the leaders can't say that explicitly.

Exactly.

And I think they're all hoping it from internally, happening internally so that the Russians can maintain their sort of dignity and self-value in everything. I think that they're the ones, in my opinion, who need to sort of rise up and deal with this. Because, again, I've spoken to Russians who've said, no, they can't do anything. They'll be thrown in jail, they'll be persecuted, they may be taken to gulags.

But individual, you know, your individual peasants out in villages, that is true for. The people who, you know, predictably, but the most disappointing behaviour has come from other than from Putin himself. His offsiders, the oligarchs and at the moment the military leaders and- And not just the generals that are out in the field, but the people who are sitting around a desk in the Kremlin going, you know, what are we going to do here?

I'm surprised to some extent that it's gone this far, that there hasn't been a coup internally because really, Putin holds no power at all. Except for the fact that he is controlling probably 20 extremely wealthy men and a few military leaders, that if they turned on him and just said, we don't have to do what you tell us to do.

You know, you're not the boss of me -- to go back to your childhood, smart alecky response -- it would be over because he- His threats are completely idle, because he relies on having a whole lot of people to do these things for him.

Yeah...

I'm sure the government, you know, the government -- for want of a better term -- in Russia, if a few of the senior people just said, we've had enough. They'd all go, yep, we agree.

Well, and that's the trouble with this kind of autocratic...

...Arrest him or leave him in his bunker by himself. Who cares?

The problem, though, is you have this autocratic regime where he has it structured so well in order to monitor different people on what they're saying and what they're doing.

...He relies on thousands of spies, police and military people in order to do that. If none of them collaborated with him...

Well, but this is that problem, right, where you end up with- You've got all these people below you, doing your dirty work...

He's going to be the first person to blink.

...And that they can take you out at any one time if they all can coordinate and respond effectively. But it's like that mutiny thing, right, of...

Yes.

...If just one of you...

You don't want to be the person who taps the guy next to you on the shoulder and go, hey, we need to get rid of him. Then he'll just go to his next bloke, and he'll say, hey, Ian says, we need to get rid of him.

Well, not even that. But you say to everyone, you know, you're all on the same page, you all want him gone, and you're the first one to be like, let's do it. And everyone's like, no, fuck that.

Yeah.

And you're *dies* gone, you're dead. And then everyone else is less likely to stand up and do anything. So, I think he- That's another astonishing part of everything that's going on...

It's just reign of fear.

...How well he's been able to maintain his power, despite obviously a lot of people and the ones high up, I would imagine wanting to kill him, wanting him gone, knowing that this is stupid. And the other thing that blew my mind -- this would be interesting to talk about -- is his lack of actual awareness of what was going on in Ukraine with their view of Russia, it seems.

Like, it seems like as a result of the system that he's set up with these people below him, he's surrounded himself with a small group of yes men who probably get accurate information but are horrified to give him anything that he won't want to hear...

Exactly.

...Because it'll mean their jobs or worse, their lives, right. So, he's ended up as a result of the system he's set up, which happens with a lot of dictators, right?

Yes, exactly.

Being fed the information he wants to hear and not the accurate information that he could use.

Not even just dictators. I mean, there's a well-known phenomenon, even in business called founder syndrome, where the founder of a small business that becomes a middle sized business and becomes a large business, it becomes the problem in growing the business because they want to keep running things the way they ran it. And they won't listen to anybody who has different opinions and all those sort of things, so.

And this is just the sort of meta example of that.

Well, and I think he needs to be able to be in control of that in order to siphon off as much money as possible from the population, right?

Exactly.

Putin is probably the richest man on earth.

Yeah, well, we'd never- We'll never know how much he's actually worth. But...

But the amount...

Sorry. He was at least one of the richest men on earth. Now he probably holds very little money because every bit of money he held was either in the West, doesn't have that anymore, or in Russian banks that are now worth zero...

Yeah.

...So.

But what would you expect when they were invading? Were you expecting Russia to have this insanely horrifying war machine military that would just steamroll?

You would have thought that they- Well, and they were expecting- And, you know, they were expecting that they would be in Kiev in three days and Ukraine would just go, yep, we give up.

Yeah.

They're still not there. They're bombing it. But...

Well, they bailed in the last few days and...

They can't get in.

...The whole thing was just a ploy to keep everyone tied up all through the country because we're actually just focussed on the Donbas region...

Yeah.

...Donetsk and Luhansk...

And they are not doing very well over there either, guys.

And you've managed to lose 20+ thousand people and how many countless vehicles worth billions of dollars and everything.

It's just crazy. Look, I think- You're talking about the attitude of the Ukrainian people. I think one of the really admirable parts of that has been Zelenskyy came out almost on day one and said, we are not in a fight with the Russian people...

Yeah.

...They're our friends and our neighbours. We're in a fight with Putin.

Well, he clearly knows that he can't use the same type of tactics that Putin's using with his own people...

Exactly.

...Because it would feed into what Putin's doing. So, if he were tomorrow to say, Ukrainians unite, we have to fight the Russian...

Kill all Russians.

Yeah, the disgusting people that are supporting Putin. It would only feed into the whole bullshit claim of Nazism and anti-Russian sentiment.

...There are lots of ethnic Russians who live in Ukraine as well...

Millions of them.

...And they consider themselves Ukrainian. But if suddenly their ethnicity is and, you know, their heritage is starting to be questioned, then it's going to be counterproductive internally, let alone what might happen in Russia. The other side of it, too, though, is just this absolute will in the face of overwhelming opposition to not lie down and give up.

Where- And you even see people, you know, being interviewed in the street by Western television, even Australian television over there. And you know, the average guy on the street when there's bombs going off around them is saying, you might destroy our city, but you'll never take it.

Wow.

And there's so much to it, right? Because your kind of like, it's one: It's amazing to see how all these Ukrainians have come together. Like I'm talking to a whole bunch now after making the "Voices of Ukraine" episode. And a lot of them just refuse to leave because, one, it's obviously their home country. They've got family there, their husbands and fathers and grandfathers and everyone can't leave.

And they want to defend their country. So, that part of it is, you know, incredible. Then it's obviously the ability, despite all of these atrocities happening, that blows my mind that the Russian army is still behaving like it was in World War One and World War Two, and like that...

It's just trench warfare.

...It just treats human beings as garbage. Right. It's just it's literally sending its own soldiers into a meat grinder, hoping that eventually the meat grinder will clog and that they can just then overwhelm everything. And you're just like, the amount of like callous attitude towards human life, and then actively- Like there are so many- So much of this is just stupid, right?

Where the Russian soldiers don't have their own telecom system, so they have to use the Ukrainian one. And as a result, their messages and their phone calls and everything are being recorded. Seven generals have now been targeted as a result of them using the tel- You know, phones like this and needing to get to the front line to help the soldiers coordinate.

So, they've been, you know, killed as a result, which is just ridiculous. But then you hear the Russian soldiers getting orders and accepting orders for killing civilians indiscriminately or targeting hospitals, or there was one I heard where they were like, yeah, we've given them corridors, aim the artillery at the corridors because they're about to all leave. And you're just like, how does any army act this way? Like, it's shameless.

Exactly. And you know, the sort of- The order of, if you can't find any soldiers to shoot at, just shoot at civilians.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's the whole just, I guess, Putin's idea to try and spread as much fear as you can. Make sure that no one thinks they're safe no matter what. And you're just like, how have you not learnt through history that this is not an effective way of winning the hearts and minds of the people you're trying to conquer?

But not only that, your own soldiers.

Yeah.

Can you imagine the men and women who are fighting, the Russian men and women who are fighting this, that are out there going, "this is fucked"?

Well, I saw...

Why am I doing this?

...I saw a video today of them in the Donbas region where an entire platoon or group of about 30 men just filmed a video saying, yeah, no, we're not fighting for Russia. Fuck them. We're surrendering and we want to fight for Ukraine.

Yeah.

And that's another thing where you're just like, have you ever seen an army so demoralised and surrendering...

They'd rather fight their own army than...

Yeah, running over their own leaders with tanks and stuff. One of the colonels was put into hospital with a broken leg because they just said fuck you and ran over him with a tank and then just surrendered. And so, it is mind boggling that your kind of like- I hadn't really thought about just how important morale is, right, during any of these wars, let alone, you know, say, watching a fight, watching boxing or UFC.

A lot of the time that these things are won and lost psychologically. And it's the same thing, you've got this huge Russian army that's just...

Well, you're putting people into the worst possible position they can be in. You can't imagine a worse position that somebody can be in, where they are putting their own lives in danger, and they are being told to just shoot anybody...

Yeah. Well, it would be like us going to New Zealand...

Yeah. Exactly. And that was like what I was going to say, these are their neighbours and their friends and yeah, it's just like us invading New Zealand and going, well, we can't find any New Zealand military to shoot at, just shoot anybody.

And the trauma that these soldiers are going to be in at the time is just, which is why, you know, you've got so many of them that appear to be just, you know, surrendering or turning on themselves or- It's just insane.

And that, again, to me says, if you've got a military of that size and you're spending billions of dollars, although I did read an article last week that said the billions of dollars that have been spent in the Russian military have been...

Siphoned off.

Well, some of it has been siphoned off, but a lot of it is just being spent on research and development for high tech weaponry, none of which is being used.

On the nukes.

Yeah. And feeding and buying- Feeding your soldiers and buying fuel for them, it was never part of the consideration.

Oh, man. There's so much there. Like with the corruption in the military, I saw there were a whole bunch of photos of their tanks in storage, because they have something like 7,000 tanks saved up. And one of the military leaders came out and was like, oh, don't worry, we've got like another 2,000 tanks. And you look at them and you're like, these things are not going to run. They are fucked. You know, they're rusted up.

There were comments underneath this article that are like, yeah, these have all been stripped for parts. And it becomes this sort of- These corrupt systems, right? Where you have the guy at the top taking his cut, the guy below him gets orders to spend X amount of dollars buying, say, 2,000 tanks. And he's like, yeah, sure. Takes his cut and gets, you know, the shitty version of the tank.

And then the people below him are all like, ah, well, we'll take the tank, but we'll strip this bit of metal off and we'll sell that bit.

...Take the tracks off and sell it to the farmers.

...Sell the ammo out of this. Yeah. And so, it goes all the way down to the guy who actually ends up having to drive it, and by the time he's in it, it's fucked. And this happened with the- With all of their vehicles that had rubber tires, right. They had bought cheap rubber tires from China, put them on these vehicles, and then not rotated them. So, they hadn't been driving the vehicles to make sure that the vehicles were maintained.

And so, when they took them out of storage and tried to drive them for hundreds of kilometres, the tires burst because the tires had been sitting- There was a really good article...

Flat spots on them.

...There was a guy from the US who worked in maintaining the military trucks in the US and he was like, outlined effectively everything he had to do to make sure that they ran. And he's like, these ones have just been left in storage and as a result the edges of the tires get pressure on them...

...Day or every week.

...And they crack as soon as you try and drive them, and the tires rip up. And so, millions and millions and millions of dollars, billions of dollars' worth of equipment just went to shit straight away...

Yes, exactly.

...And got bogged and everything. So, it was just amazing seeing how the corruption in Russia has probably helped Ukraine hold back this force because...

Oh, yeah, of course it has.

...As a result of this ineptitude and Putin and his oligarchs around him taking as much as they can to buy super yachts worth a billion dollars, all of their military is a shadow of its former self.

And look, can you imagine if this had been the Chinese army or the American army?

No.

It would have lasted 5 minutes.

Yeah. Well, and one of the generals...

...They just would have been straight- We'll just drive straight into Kiev and you can't stop us. Done.

One of the generals was like, first 20 minutes, their cell phone tower is down, their electricity system is down. And then they are just like, we closed the airspace, that is down and then we just walk in. And all of these things were not managed by the Russian army.

Which is you look at what happened, yes, the Middle East wars lasted a long time, but they were effectively peacekeeping forces after the invasion of Iraq. But the invasion of Iraq lasted 48 hours.

Yeah.

That was- Baghdad fell in 48 hours...

Well, we saw that with Afghanistan, right?

Yeah.

And the US pulling out, it was like the Afghan president just ran off...

Yeah.

...Straight away. And that was- Which makes you think you're like, fuck man. If you had just held your- If you had just had balls and stood up to the Taliban, would you have been able to do what the Ukrainians have done and hold them off?

Well, possibly not, but that's a different discussion, but. Yeah, look, the other thing and you know, Zelenskyy has done it the smart way as well of not just staying, but he's in the media every day...

Yeah.

...He's having- He's got press conferences, he's out in the street. You know, this is not...

...Selfies.

Yeah. This is not...

...The street in front of kids...

Exactly. And he walks around in a pair of jeans and an army t-shirt.

Yeah.

He's one of the people. He's not there dressed in a suit or wearing his self-appointed field marshal uniform with military medals and things that he's given himself all over him...

He just gets it.

...He just want- He's one of the people.

Yeah. I know. It brings you to tears, right? Like you're just like, I'm so impressed with how he's managed this. A good note to it, I guess at the end here is kind of like -- and I was talking to my Ukrainian friends about this. -- like, it's so tragic that you guys are losing so many lives and that such horrible shit is happening.

Like one of the stories was that the Russian soldiers were just capturing the female soldiers, raping them for hours, and then chopping them up after they'd hang them. You know, doing all these sorts of horrible shit to their people.

Bombing maternity wards where these women are giving birth, you know, doing the most atrocious shit. But at the end of it, I'm like, you guys, you must be aware of the fact that this is going to bring you together as a people.

It's going to further solidify your pride, your national dignity, your view of yourselves as a people on a national stage. Like, this- Unfortunately, this is almost a gift that Putin's given you. You would never wish for this gift.

No, of course not. In the long term. Yeah.

But the fact that you were a country that no one knew the location of a few months ago, and now everyone is going to know Ukraine, Zelenskyy, the different areas, the different cities, and they're going to know your response to effectively the David Goliath story, right, of you being suffering from really, really, really low odds, but being able to hold your own in the face of a monster. Right. It's just horrifying.

So, it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

...The world view has changed instantly. I remember watching a very quick news clip of -- I can't remember her name now, I'm sorry to say -- the young Ukrainian woman who won the high jump at the World Indoor Athletics Championships and got a standing ovation. Yeah, it's- The whole crowd stood up and applauded...

Yeah.

...When she won. Not at the medal ceremony, but as soon as she'd won. She walked out onto the field, and all of her opponents came and gave her a hug. You know, that's...

I think- And that's that thing, right. I even think about if I were to just meet a Ukrainian in the street, all of a sudden, they have this respect from the world of like, holy shit, it's a Ukrainian. Like, you know, wow. You know, I'm proud to know you guys. Like, I'm proud of your people. It feels weird to say that when you have nothing to do with it.

No.

But you're like, I'm proud...

You can admire...

Yeah.

...In a sense. Yeah.

Exactly. And I mean, I even started learning Ukrainian recently because I was like, I want to be able to understand the language, potentially get teachers from Ukraine who I can pay, you know, and support their economy in the future.

Like, it's just- So many more people are now interested in the country and their history and their culture and their language than were previously, which yeah, it's sad that that's- This is what it's had to take for that to happen. But I guess this is one of those situations that kind of makes nations at the same time, right.

It does. The real test of the rest of the world is going to be the response after this is over...

Oh, man.

...Because...

If they reduce the sanctions.

...Billions of- But not just the sanctions on Russia. But the billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure that is going to have to be rebuilt in Ukraine, and they're not going to have the money to do it. How's the rest of the world going to respond to that?

How do you think that's going to play out? Like I mean, again, we're obviously not experts at this at all, but what are your expectations of when and how the war is going to end and what will happen afterwards with both Ukraine and Russia?

Well, when and how, I've got no idea.

Yeah.

I thought this would go for two weeks and Putin would do something really stupid, and he hasn't yet.

Yeah.

This could go on for a long time, which is going to be the unfortunate part, that it's just going to be more and more, I hesitate to say low level, but low level in the sense of, you know, grand world wars. Low level violence and deaths of people dying every day instead of it escalating to a point where it closes rapidly. Hopefully there will be a way of a peaceful end to this, where Putin does end up with a back door that he can reverse out of.

Yeah.

The challenge is going to be that his ego needs to be massaged.

The most annoying part of it for me is the idea that he'll probably end up with the Donbas region. And Ukraine, unfortunately, is probably going to have to concede that in order to save all the bloodshed that would otherwise continue to happen.

Which all this does is just reward this bad behaviour.

Exactly.

Cos what's next?

Yeah. And you end up with Putin still in power and I hope that it ends up that situation of the West doesn't forget, or the world doesn't forget. Right, where you just say, we're not bringing the sanctions down. Like that's it, you know? And...

We'll bring the sanctions down when Putin is no longer in charge.

Yeah. Well, you can never leave Russia, any of you guys involved in this war, whether you were soldiers, whether you were generals, whether you were politicians, if you leave, we'll arrest you and we'll trial you at The Hague or the Nuremberg trials. Right. Like for war crimes and for being a part of it. I hope that that doesn't just- He stops the war tomorrow, gets what he wants and is just like, all right, well, business as usual...

Yeah.

...And- That would be, I think, one of the most offensive things if our government was just like, oh, well, the sanctions are removed because we need cheaper fuel. So, yeah. I also wanted to ask, I've heard a lot of people saying they've sort of compared this to, say, the atrocity in Yemen at the moment or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sort of being irritated that the West cares so much about Ukraine. Is that a straw man?

It completely because their civil wars, they're effectively tribal wars within a country of one group of people wanting to take over a country that somebody else is in charge of. In the case of Russia invading Ukraine, this is one sovereign state being invaded by another one...

Well, and I think...

...For political reasons. Not for defensive reasons, for political reasons.

Yeah. And but beyond that, too, it's the existential threat to the rest of the world with nukes being on the table.

Of course. Of course. But yeah, there is that. Yeah, you're right, in the grander scheme of things there is that, you know, this is Russia, this is not Yemen. Or, you know, in the past we've had- You know, there's been plenty of these things going on in the Horn of Africa...

Well, if it had been Moldova or someone fighting with Ukraine or Ukraine attacking Moldova and trying to take over the place, they probably would have received nowhere near the same amount of attention. But it's the fact I feel at least that you have a sovereign nation, not just being having warlords or whatever within it, trying to take power, but you have an external nation trying to effectively absorb another nation and unjustly.

And they're threatening nuclear warfare and the use of, you know, things like nerve agents...

Biological and chemical weapons.

Which they've ironically, Russia has fucking used in Syria...

Yes.

...And then blamed it on the Syrians. And you're just like, it's just astonishing that- It's one of those things where I would like to think that if I were a Russian, I would wake up to this. You would be able to find the truth. And maybe that's another thing that they just are avoiding it at all costs because they're like, if I have to deal with the fact that my country has committed war crimes, how do I see myself?

And how do you- But not just "how do you see yourself?" But how do you live your life? Are you going to keep going to work? Because the money is going to Putin. It's- You just have to keep living your life. And the fact that you're swimming in a toilet doesn't mean that you can stop swimming.

The sad thing is the Russians who can afford it, the oligarchs, the- But even the Russian sports people, some of them have stood up and just said, this is not right. But I haven't heard of any one of them who's just said, I'm going to defect...

Well...

...I'm no longer Russian.

Yeah, well, ironically, a lot of the Russians that I talk to in Australia have effectively said that.

Oh yeah.

They're just like, I'm disgusted. You know? And it's tragic because a lot of them have family back there who believe everything. But then also I was reading about the brain drain where they're losing tens of thousands of say IT...

Yes.

...Experts who are just like, I'm out. Like there's no chance I'm making a living here in Russia now with all these sanctions and how at any one time, the fucking government could just decide to attack someone else, and my life's fucked in terms of being able to earn an income. Like I had a friend who's now- Who was there and he's like, I have all these savings that are now effectively worthless.

If he's got them in rubles.

Yeah. (Both talking)

...And everything.

You would have, you're going to invest in your own country. You're not going to- How many even- And I'm assuming this person isn't extremely wealthy, but how many people who are...

He's just an average person.

...What we would call, you know, middle class people that are investing relatively small amounts of money in the grander scheme of things, but larger proportions of their savings and so on. You're not going to go, oh, I'm going to hedge this and I'm going to buy US dollars and euros. You're just going to invest in local businesses and put your money in Russian banks and do those things, so.

Which is what I do in Australia. Yeah, I own a few overseas shares, but I own them through Australian managed funds, you know? And so, my investments are all held in Australia. If the Australian economy suddenly went down the toilet because we'd invaded New Zealand, you know, my life would be ruined.

That's- Yeah, I'm entirely reliant now as a, you know, as a sort of self-funded retiree. I'm entirely reliant on my investments, and they're all in Australia. So, there will be tens of millions of Russian people whose lives have been destroyed because a war that they had no say in. Because, let's face it, this is not a democracy.

No.

You know, a war that they've had no say in, and some of their friends and relatives are being shot and killed because they've been forced to fight in it. And there's nothing they can do about it.

Well, and the ironic thing is that the news is telling them that it's the West's fault...

Of course.

...For doing this. And so, again, it's fomenting hatred towards the West.

It's NATO seducing Ukraine to come and join them so that they can invade Russia and ruin your lives...

What do you make of the NATO seducing Ukraine thing? Because I was sort of looking into this a bit, again, not an expert, but I have looked into it a little and that they were sort of courting them and sort of...

Well, reasonably so.

Yeah, exactly. But it became this thing, like, one of my friends said to me, you know, well, it's partly the West's fault for encouraging Ukraine to be part of NATO and the EU and everything.

And I was like, that would be like saying to a woman who's in an abusive relationship that a friend came and suggested she'd leave, and then the partner, her partner bashes her, you know, to the point of where she's almost- She's being threatened with her life, and you blaming the friend. And saying, well, the friend shouldn't have encouraged her to leave. And it's kind of like, dude, you can't blame the victim...

...Again, this is- And I know- I mean, you even read some of this stuff in the press of, you know, people who are taking that, you know and even some of the, you know, watch Fox News in America.

Yeah.

And they are taking that line...

If she just hadn't said anything, he wouldn't have bashed the shit out of her. So, why did she have to say something?

...But you just sit there and go, you're just idiots, because do you understand what NATO is? You know, NATO is a bunch of countries who got together after the Second World War and said, we will agree to defend each other if any one of us is attacked.

Yeah.

That's effectively it. Yes, it increases the opportunity for sharing military weapons and doing those sort of things. But we sell military weapons to plenty of countries that we have no political or other treaties with.

I think the thing, though, that Russia's most threatened by would be stationing US troops inside of Ukraine and or building, say, missile silos in Ukraine that could then reach Moscow really easily. Which again, it's like, I understand that...

Poland is closer.

...That would be something you'd worry about.

Poland is closer.

Than Ukraine?

Yeah. And so, you know, it's just bizarre. And as for them joining the European Union, it's an economic community. Why would anybody object to another country joining the European Union? Oh, I know why. Because then they'll have deals and they can sell their agricultural and minerals to another country rather than us taking them from them, which is really what this is about.

Well, and it's also that they would become more and more culturally westernised, the Ukrainians, and that the Russians, at least the Russian leadership and Putin, does not want that to happen. He sees that as sort of a despicable gross way of life and living, and that the West...

Of course it is, cos he makes nothing out of it.

Exactly. When people have a say, he doesn't get to just strip their money.

Exactly.

So, he also does not want any of those countries around Russia to be westernised, which, again, subjectively is probably a better way to live than the current system in Russia. So, no shit, the people in these countries are now all lining up to join NATO and the EU and want to be westernised, so that they can enjoy the freedoms and the wealth of countries that are democracies, that are, yeah, have a western way of life.

And it's so sad because it has become this kind of split between Russia and the West, and it's like, Russians are western. They're Westernised.

Yeah.

There is- This is sort of like a false dichotomy. It's just that they've created this as a way of...

Well, it's a post-Cold War rhetoric because the Cold War, by its very definition, was a war of thought and a war of threat. And once that disappeared, then in order for Russia -- post the Soviet Union -- to stand up for itself internally, they had to demonise the West because that was the only thing they had left. And Putin ended up taking them back to the old Soviet view that non-Soviet is bad.

And because for 20 years, post-Soviet- Well, 15 years, post-Soviet, pre-Putin, Russia was behaving itself in a sense...

Well, it had a democracy.

It had a democracy. It wasn't making threats. Yeah, it wasn't making particularly threats to other countries. It was allowing other Soviet countries to continue to progress and develop. And then Putin comes in and he's just taken them straight back to the 1950s.

Well, and he's this old school KGB...

But he was just a KGB shit-kicker. He wasn't a leader.

Maybe he has these romanticised views of what the...

Allegedly he does. Yeah, that's what we hear. I actually don't know what goes on in his head.

Well...

He's- That classic sort of non-ion- You know, the disclaimer here, I'm not a psychologist even though I've got a qualification in psychology or a psychiatrist. But this is a classic thing where your average pub test says, this man is insane.

Yeah, well, that's the hardest thing, right?

He has expectations of what's going to happen that are completely unreasonable and not just unreasonable in a sense of immoral, but unreasonable in a sense of likelihood they're going to happen. And yet he forces them to happen anyway.

Yeah. Well, I hope it's just- I hope from through this tragedy that only good comes out of it, right, at the other end, that the rest of the world opens their eyes to these kinds of regimes. Hopefully it sort of makes China think second- You know, a second time about what they're going to do with Taiwan and whether or not anyone agrees with Taiwan becoming part of China again in the future.

It's almost you know- I think it's almost inevitable based on China's size and that they've stipulated that that is going to happen. But I hope it happens peacefully if it has to happen. And that, you know, it seems like China's kind of playing both sides at the moment, but they're acutely aware of, they do not want this kind of quagmire. Right. This shit storm happening if they were to do it.

It is one of those things, that for me I've sort of seen it on the sidelines and I'm like, she is so much more strategic and planned out. Like that guy I feel would have a plan about- He's that dude playing chess against you, and he knows ten steps ahead what you are going to do.

And he has everything, like that- It's almost a Chinese cultural thing, too, where I feel like they're much more systematic, clever about it and have thought- Well thought out. Whereas this seems like Putin's just riding by the seat of his pants.

He's just puffed his chest out and said, I'm bigger than you are. I win.

And I can't back down. Anyway, we could rant about this for hours, but...

But let's- Yeah, as you say, let's just hope there is a quick and hopefully peaceful resolution to this for both the Ukrainian people and most of the Russian people who are the victims of this as well.

That's it. Yeah, it is one of those situations, though, where you're just like, since this started, you're like, no one has any idea of how this is going to play out.

No.

Like even the experts are just like, I don't know. I have no idea.

...There was no plan. The plan was, "bluff".

Yeah. So, it's one of those things...

Bluffing is never a plan.

Your like, man, I can't wait to listen to this episode. And another six months to a year and be like, how wrong are you guys about what's going to happen or what you think or were you right. Like, it's just nuts. Anyway, (Speaks Ukrainian). Thanks, guys. Glory to Ukraine.

Bye.