David Petraeus is a retired four star general and the former director of the CIA. He's still well
connected to the intelligence community here in the United States and has been a very insightful
interview partner for W. News. General, good to see you again. General Petraeus,
a huge Soviet era dam that actually separates Russian and Ukrainian forces in southern
Ukraine was just breached. So what is the impact of this incident on the war?
I don't know that there is a huge impact on the looming offensive. There's obviously an
enormous impact on the citizens of the 80 towns and villages that have been flooded by this on
the livestock, on the zoo animals who tragically perished. Other than the ducks and the swans on
the reduction in electrical generation and on the impact on the water supply, which includes
by the way, that which goes to Crimea, it this presumably was done by the Russians. There are
public accounts that US intelligence has indications that it was Russia. president
Zelensky, of course, very publicly denied any involvement. And I cannot imagine that he would
do that if there was Ukrainian involvement. And so the real question in my mind is, was this just
one more example of Russian incompetence? Because there were reports last week of some issues with
that dam. There's so much water behind it and so forth. There were cracks or what have you,
or did they literally blow the dam up thinking that somehow this might delay
the offensive or disrupt it in some way. But I don't think that that is going to be the case.
Will the spring offensive start in this month?
Well, we're early in this month, and I think we can see again, shaping operations. I think we can
see setting of conditions. There are a couple of conditions that have been publicly acknowledged.
President Zelensky noted that he had wanted some more armored systems, but it seems as if over the
weekend he said that they have what they need and then just having really firm ground so that tanks
with tracks can go off road, get off the roads, go cross country without getting mired. That is not
a trivial issue If you run your 60 ton tank or 70 tons when the m1's arrive across country and they
get mired in the mud and you have to do a recovery operation. And while being hammered by artillery,
that is obviously not the ideal condition. I think that the offensive is going to be much
more successful than many of the more pessimistic analysts have been offering. I think that the
Ukrainians are very much ready for this. They'll be very distinctive because they will be using
employing Western tanks, western infantry, fighting vehicles, western wheeled armored
vehicles and so forth. In large measure, for the first time in this war, certainly in this number,
I think the Russians will prove to be more brittle than the expectation is. Keep in mind, these units
have been in combat for over a year. Many of them, they have not been pulled off line to reconstitute
by being having forces replaced, equipment replaced and repaired, and then doing training
before they go back. They just get individual replacements to fill the gap. They're not well
trained, they're not well equipped, they're not well led. And I think that these Ukrainian forces,
which are well trained, are well equipped. We are going to break through. And then you might see a
real dynamism to the battlefield that could give real opportunities to the Ukrainians to exploit.
How is the situation for the Russians when it comes to to
their tanks and to their stacks of ammunition?
Well, they've sustained enormous losses. You know, in today's day and age of open source media
and intelligence, there's a website that actually tracks absolutely confirm verified destruction of,
say, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, just the tanks alone confirmed. And again, this
is confirmed by photograph with metadata that so you just you ensure that you don't double count.
ET cetera. Just confirmed well over 2000 tanks lost. I'm sure that there's probably another many,
many hundreds, if not another thousand that just aren't aren't confirmed in the way that they have.
It's called Orascom, by the way, for those that want to visit it. I think it's a Dutch firm. As
a Dutch American, I'm very proud of that. So the losses that have sustained have been enormous.
They're bringing old tanks out of mothballs, essentially out of storage, refurbishing them,
pushing them into the battlefield. There are reports that are actually T-55 tanks,
which really are just a post World War II tank that does not. Well for the Russians,
and they've depleted some stocks of ammunition. They're certainly still hammering away at Kiev.
Every night that I was there, there were multiple air raid alerts and sirens. But
the Ukrainians have really perfected their air defenses. They're taking down every drone and
every cruise missile. It doesn't mean there can't be damage if the debris hits someone,
which it did Tragically, one night alone, there were three individuals killed, but they're
very impressively protecting their capital and a number of the other critical locations of Ukraine.
So do you think there's a chance that the war will be ended by the end of this year?
I think it's unlikely. Again, you can't rule out anything or rule in anything.
It's possible that the dynamic on the battlefield could be so transformed
that you might have an opportunity for true negotiations and perhaps a true negotiated
resolution. Again, both sides need to bring this war to an end. The Russians,
for the sheer loss of life that is just not sustainable over the longer term.
We all know that Putin is kind of speculating about the dwindling support for Ukraine,
and we experienced that also here in the as we are entering another presidential race.
And maybe we can talk a little bit about the Republican candidates. Ron DeSantis,
for example, already has changed his mind and is referring to the war as a regional conflict.
Well, first of all, that election won't revive a president who's inaugurated until January of
2025. So this is a long way away. Second, there is very strong Republican support
for the war in the Senate, a little bit less so in the House. Certainly,
that's where you find some of those that are again, questioning it. But again, there's very
strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. And the president and the White House is going to continue
to support Ukraine and to provide everything we possibly can to them, albeit occasionally
with some decisions that, in my view, have taken a bit longer than they might have.
But still, General Petraeus, there is Donald Trump. He might become the president again
for the United States. And we all remember how he threatened to leave NATO. So so how can the
world prepare for a situation like that or is there any way to prepare for that?
Well, first of all, I'd just remind people that and I used to say then, you know, read the tweets,
but then follow the troops, follow the money and follow the policy. And the policy actually was
that we returned a tank brigade to European soil for the first time since we'd removed it a decade
or so earlier. We pushed forces further east into Poland, augmented the forces that were in
the Baltic States, augmented our commitment to Europe. ET cetera. ET cetera. So again,
that's the first comment, I'd say. The second is, again, we are a long way from this election. I
normally leave domestic politics to those who actually love to get involved in that. And I
don't. I am a man without a party. I don't even register to vote. And I advise members of either
party. Actually, I'm truly nonpartisan. So again, I'll leave that to the to the pundits here. It is
way premature to be speculating about what ifs about an election. That is still a good
guess, nearly 18 months away and an inauguration, that's another two months after that.
Is there a good chance that the war will be over by then, by January 2025?
A lot depends on the success of this offensive. And you could feel this
when I was meeting with again, when we met with President Zelensky, when we met with
the other other of the military leaders, the other ministers, even, again, business people,
you can feel a degree of anxiety about this operation, as there should be.
There is a huge discussion about Ukraine joining NATO. Did you have a chance to
talk with President Zelensky about it? And what's your your stand on that?
That we should have a as as firm a path to NATO membership as is absolutely possible. I think
this is hugely important. Important. It's it's important for the Ukrainian people, too. They
need to be reassured. Even Henry Kissinger, who used to caution about extending NATO membership
to former Soviet republics, now says that Ukraine should be made a member of NATO, given that for
all intents and purposes, given all that we have provided to Ukraine, NATO's security is at the
border between Ukraine and Russia now, and we need to ensure that there will not be a repeat of this
once this is said and done. So certainly not make NATO membership while the war is still going on.
I think that there's an understandable concern about that. But there should be a very solid
path to NATO membership that's provided at the Vilnius summit on 11th July. But in the meantime,
the focus should be on enabling Ukraine to the greatest extent that we possibly can so that the
Ukrainians can prove to to Putin that the Russians will not be able to out suffer the Ukrainians.
And also we prove that he won't be able to out suffer the Europeans and the Americans as well.
Does this include F-16 jets?
Oh, absolutely. We should have made the decision to transition to western aircraft long ago again.
This was inevitable. There are no more MiG 29 seconds in the NATO arsenal to provide to
Ukraine. We've scoured all the NATO countries that used to have those kinds of systems or had them.
They refurbished them. Some are still being refurbished and provided, but we're basically
out of that system. They have to transition to a Western aircraft. Now, you can argue about whether
it should be the F-16, the F, A 18, the Gripen. Again, take your pick. I think the F-16 has a
huge advantage because it's so ubiquitous and because there are indeed at least two countries
that reportedly are willing to provide their F-16s to Ukraine, especially if they can then transition
to either a more capable F-16 or the F 35. But the F-16s that are in offer that block 52, that's a
beyond fourth generation aircraft. It's not fifth generation, but it's a very capable aircraft.
General, as always, thank you very much for your time and your insights. And we talk soon again.
Thank you. You bet. Bye bye.