Nate Vance, US veteran who fought for Ukraine for three years, cousin of Vice President JD Vance: "The concept of an imperialistic, aggressive, modernized military Russia who has learned their lessons about modern combat is problematic for our future."
Several points from Mr. Vance's interview with CNN:
◾️If you try to deal with Russia through an American lens, it will come back to bite you.
◾️I've personally witnessed them [Russians] shooting their own troops on enough occasions that it wasn't just an isolated incident. It's happened quite a bit, enough to the point where you could consider it to be policy if troops are retreating. So these people, as a policy, will eat their own.
◾️So these people, [Russians] as a policy, will eat their own. So they will not hesitate to eat an American president or American vice president. They don't care what we think. They're not our allies, and they never will be, not at least for a generation.
◾️If this war pauses and sanctions are lifted, you know, Russia spent the last three years kind of beefing up their military-industrial complex. And if you lift those sanctions, you're going to see a massive influx of funds into that military-industrial complex.
◾️And if you lift those sanctions, you're going to see a massive influx of funds into that military-industrial complex. And they're going to build a war machine out of it, right? That's what they're going to do.
◾️And if the Russians are given significant concessions in the ceasefire, they will spin that as a victory of sorts.
◾️But their view is they're not done. So to them, it's just a chance to regroup, build up and modernize, and they'll come back. And when they do come back, they'll be more of a problem than they are now.
◾️Right now, they're at the weakest they will ever be. As soon as the ceasefire starts, they will immediately start to get stronger and continue to get stronger every day thereafter.
◾️So the way this ends is important.