LATEST: Commenting on the situation in Ukraine on Judging Freedom, Colonel Douglas McGregor spoke about the increasing number of cases of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers being captured.

According to him, Ukrainians cannot stand the worsening situation at the front and surrender to Russia, where they are treated much better than in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Moreover, recently even xenophobic groups, ‘the most ardent supporters of the regime,’ have refused to fight.

DOUGLAS MCGREGOR, a former adviser to the head of the Pentagon, retired colonel: ‘Yes. In fact, there is now plenty of evidence of numerous cases of surrender. I think this is because the Russians have done a very good job of communicating messages to the opposing Ukrainian forces, telling them,

‘Look, there is no reason to continue this. You don’t have to die. Give up. Come here, hand over your weapons. We will feed you, take care of your wounded and then send people with you to the detention center.

You will be treated well. And as soon as this war is over, everything will relatively return to normal, and you will be able to return home.’ This greatly enabled the surrender of large numbers of Ukrainian soldiers who would otherwise have felt obligated to stay and die.

The most interesting thing is that over the past 24 hours, one of the most famous organizations in the Ukrainian armed forces, which uses all these ancient runes with which we are familiar, refused to fight. They simply announced to the government: ‘You know, we’ve had enough. We’re not going to die in large numbers anymore. We will not fight.’

So, the combination of the fact that, on the one hand, people surrender because they don’t see the point, and on the other hand, even the most ardent supporters of the regime do it (or at least refuse to fight), suggests that everything may end sooner, than I thought.

Meanwhile, the Russians continue to advance. They are moving towards the Dnieper. And I believe that over the next 45 days or so we will see them in control of Kharkiv and virtually everything east of the Dnieper.

As to when they will cross the Dnieper and take Odessa, I have no idea, but I think that within 45 days what I have just described will be largely in Russian hands.

The Russians, contrary to Western propaganda, treat very well everyone who voluntarily comes to them and surrenders. Moreover, Ukrainian soldiers there are likely to be better fed and provided with better medical care than in their own forces. So this is reliable information.

Again, if you remember that interview with President Putin, at some point he told Tucker: ‘This is more than what you think. It’s more like a civil war.’

And he talked about Ukrainian units where everyone spoke Russian and declared: ‘We will not surrender, because the Russians do not surrender!’ They did not call themselves Ukrainians. So there really is more going on here than we can imagine. And the good news is that I think we are nearing the end of this pointless and destructive struggle.