Angus King Asks Pentagon Officials Point Blank: 'Are The Ukrainians Destined To Lose?'

2 days ago

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) asked Army General Christopher Cavoli about the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine War.

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Transcript

00:00King

00:03Thank You mr. Chairman based upon the testimony this morning

00:05I'd like to move we extend the terms of these two generals for another four years without objection

00:11Sorry fellas

00:15The bad news is you get to tell your family I

00:19Have to point out mr. Chairman that in the in the hour that we've been sitting here investors in the

00:24United States stock market have lost two and a half trillion dollars

00:28And I think that's something that should be noted

00:31General Cavoli

00:33It's it appears that the Russians and President Putin are engaged in what they consider a kind of waiting game

00:40grinding down

00:43In the in the in the conflict in Ukraine are the Ukrainians destined to lose

00:50No

00:53Senator thank you for the question because I think it's an important one

00:56there's nothing inevitable in war and the Ukrainians are in very strong defensive positions right now and

01:02Are improving weakly their ability to generate force and to reinforce those positions?

01:08It is hard sitting here right now

01:11To envision a major Ukrainian offensive that clears everybody, you know out of every square inch of Ukraine

01:18But likewise, it's very hard to envision

01:21Ukraine collapsing and losing that that conflict. I do not think there's an

01:26inevitability to a

01:28Ukrainian loss and a follow-up question and you touched on this in answers to senator Brown's

01:35Describe the Ukrainians evolution of their their force over the over the course of this conflict

01:40my my sense is they've they've really gone as you I think you mentioned a minute man with a rifle to

01:47Really serious modern military force. Yeah, absolutely senator. So in the beginning they had

01:55a certain number of organized brigades in the east

02:02But what really kicked in was sort of volunteers who spontaneously came in

02:07organized under under officer leadership general Sierski north of

02:12North of Kiev was key in stopping that advance toward hostile and then back out pushing the Russians out of bucha

02:19They they evolved from that

02:21they consolidated that into

02:24into Soviet style brigades

02:27Which they were used to with Soviet equipment and then coming through late 22 and 23

02:34We could see that that equipment and especially their artillery ammunition of a Soviet caliber was gonna was gonna be exhausted

02:41and so we had to help them convert to a largely Western equipped and almost

02:47Exclusively Western artillery equipped force, which is pretty complicated. We operate off of a different aiming circle

02:53You've been effective in making that transition. It's amazing to do that under fire under the pressure one of the world's largest armies

02:59It's a fantastic feat. Let me change the subject entirely for a minute

03:03please discuss Russian and Chinese activities in the Arctic and the risks in the Arctic it strikes me that this is a

03:10looming

03:11threat area that we should be addressing

03:14And I should mention the reason it's becoming so important is the melting of the Arctic ice

03:19Which has something to do with climate change 70% of the Arctic ice has disappeared the last 40 years

03:25so talk to me about the

03:27strategic importance of the Arctic

03:29Absolutely senator. So from the US perspective the most important thing to understand is their shortest distance from

03:37Russian airfields to the United States is over the polar cap and they are building up those airfields

03:44Are they not they are they were before the war at an at a fast pace?

03:48It's slowed down a little bit during the war

03:51But they're still opening airfields and repairing existing ones

03:54The other thing that comes out of the Arctic sir, the Northern Fleet in Murmansk comes up

04:00Sails down through the GI UK gap and breaks out or tries to break out into the Atlantic from which they can hold a key

04:07US targets at risk with sub launch cruise missiles among other weapons

04:12so we should be paying particular attention to the Arctic as a as a new domain if you will of

04:18potential conflict and I think we are the

04:22US Northern Command so General Geo has the primary US responsibility for it

04:28But of course strategic command also has activities up there

04:32EUCOM has activities up there because so much of the Arctic is in my AOR and

04:36NATO, of course, you know, almost all of the nations in the Arctic Council are NATO nations. The only one that's not is Russia

04:43so we've recently been sponsoring tabletop exercises to make sure we understand the details of

04:50Command and control and coordination of actions of operations there. Thank you. General Langley. I'm out of time, but

04:57I'm very concerned about the rise of Isis in the Sahel

05:01That is a serious issue that we need to attend to that. We're talking about great power competition China Russia

05:07We can't forget about terrorism. Is that correct?

05:12Senator that's correct and the rise of Isis by numbers in the Sahel

05:16More really more focused on the Isis element is in Somalia because of their networks in the Sahel

05:24They're growing in number but not so much in capability

05:27But we are still engaged especially in coastal West Africa of like-minded countries to deter that from the outside in

05:34Thank you. Thank you for that. Yes or no question. Yeah, exactly. Senator King

Angus King Asks Pentagon Officials Point Blank: 'Are The Ukrainians Destined To Lose?'

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