Ben Hodges: “I Believe That Ukraine Is Going To Win”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you, do you — from what you see on the maps and from your experience as a ground commander and commander of all forces Europe, is there the time, and is NATO doing it fast enough, to get this stuff to the Ukrainians, so that it’s useful, before it’s too late? So there’s two questions there, that, and what do you see Russia doing on the ground right now, in terms of speed of attack?

LT. GEN. BEN HODGES (RET.), FORMER U.S. ARMY EUROPE COMMANDER: So, let me frame it first by saying, I believe that Ukraine is going to win in the end here. Of course, there’s no guarantee. But, based on what I have seen of Ukrainian soldiers, the Ukrainian population, they’re defending their home country. They know the terrain. As long as we continue to provide the weapons and ammunition, the things that they need, I believe that they can stay in the fight until it — until they have won, until the Russians have finally culminated. Now, I don’t imagine someday there’s going to be a big Russian surrender ceremony, nothing like that. But what we’re after is culmination of the Russian military effort. And I actually believe that time is on our side. The Russians have chosen a war of attrition, because their original plans were unsuccessful. And, by the way, before I go any further, clearly, there are going to be weeks and weeks of destruction, more innocent people killed. This is going to be nasty for several more weeks. But if we think long term, you need — to win a war of attrition, you need three things. You need time, you need endless amounts of ammunition, and you need manpower. And the Russians do not have enough of any of those three. The sanctions that are going to be taking place here are taking effect over the next few weeks. And that’s going to shorten the amount of time that the Russians have. And, also, the Russian population is a part of this. And I think, at some point, I’d like to come back to that. This is going to cut short the amount of time that the Kremlin has. The second thing, we put resources, ammunition. We are starting to get reports that the Russians are running low on critical what we would call preferred munitions, Iskander caliber, some of the more destructive weapons. They don’t have unlimited amounts. I can tell you that we don’t have enough ammunition. These things are very expensive. And so the Russians have been consuming ammunition at a much faster rate than they would have ever planned to do. And when they switch to the tactic of smashing cities, this really burns out a lot of your ammunition. I think they’re going to run out of ammunition, and then manpower.