Just how cruel has the Russian military been during its onslaught against Ukraine? Chad Robichaux, a U.S. combat veteran and Founder of Mighty Oaks Foundation, tells Glenn the Russians have committed certain horrors during today’s conflict with Ukraine that he hasn’t witnessed in any other war. Recently returned from the front lines, Robichaux describes those horrors that he witnessed firsthand. Plus, he tells Glenn he hasn’t seen proof of any significant American relief there, despite the billions of dollars sent to Ukraine from the U.S. government. So where DID the money go?!
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Chad, welcome to the program, sir. How are you?
CHAD: Good. This is Glenn?
GLENN: Yes. How are you, sir?
CHAD: Good. Good. Thanks for having me on, Glenn.
GLENN: You bet. Where are you now?
CHAD: I am down in the (inaudible).
GLENN: Okay. Good. Good. You're home.
I saw you about four weeks ago, and you had just come from the front lines over in Ukraine.
And I said, what are you seeing? And you said, well, I'm not seeing really any significant American relief.
CHAD: And I'm not, no. And that was the same on this trip, Glenn. And it's really -- it's not only sad and unfortunate.
It needs to be addressed. There is no congressional oversight on this money. This money is going to a black hole. And in any country in the world, it would be --
GLENN: Bad.
CHAD: It would be bad. People are people, and governments are corrupt. And it's going to end up where it shouldn't. And the money is not ending up where it's going -- it's U.S. taxpayer dollars.
Millions of dollars. Not only that, it's -- it's -- the extent, because it's needed. It's needed to save lives. And restore humanity. And it's not being used for that. So do you think that's us? Or do you think that's them, or a combination of the two?
CHAD: I think it's a combination of the two.
You know, I've been getting a lot of slack from people, why are you over in Ukraine helping? Ukraine is a corrupt country. I'm like, well, you know what else is corrupt? Washington, DC.
And, you know, governments are corrupt around the world. Certainly, Ukraine has had an issue of corruption.
And it's been a hotbed of money laundering and stuff like that. And so has Washington, DC.
The fact that this money has not been audited or accounted for. Or has any kind of oversight, just leaves room for corruption, both in Ukraine, and in Washington, DC. And I don't think -- I think it would not be difficult at all.
We have the embassy back in Ukraine now. It would not be difficult to have correct congressional oversight over these funds, and make sure they go to the right place, if needed.
I do believe, the money is needed there. I know not everyone agrees with that. I believe we should be supporting these people.
Not in the realm of the with money we are giving them. I think that was too big of a blank check. And a lot can be done with a lot less money. But actually ask where it belongs.
And, you know, I just -- at Mighty Oaks. Mercury One, you guys helped us financially, Glenn. And we just brought $20,000 in medical supplies, to the special operations on the front line. When I say medical supplies, I fax individual first aid kits that go in as troops. Because they don't have them.
And they're like, please, give us anything. So not only did we bring $20,000 worth of facts to give it to the special forces unit.
But we brought (inaudible), who trains Army Special Forces, medics. We brought him with us, to teach them how to use them.
And that's something that we did -- we did that trip. Maybe, it cost us $40,000 to do that trip. And that was -- they were so thankful for that. They were like, that's life-saving training that we were able to give them.
And, meanwhile, billions of dollars in the region. And why can't -- things like that.
GLENN: Yeah. But it's going through governments. And -- and dirty hands, every step of the way. You're also delivering something else, along with the medical care, are you not?
CHAD: That's right. We -- you know, Mighty Oaks. For U.S. service members, we've done over 400,000 active duty U.S. service members with our spiritual program. And in 2016, we decided to bring this to our ally trips around the world. We went to Ukraine before in 2017 and 2018. It's an hour back there, on the front lines. And we go there -- a typical day will be we'll give them some classes, like bailout procedures for the personal safety medical classes. We'll give them resources and supplies. Then we'll give them resources that are spiritual. The audio Bible six to them, and some other resources, to help them work on their mental and physical health.
At the end of the day, once we build their rapport with them all day. We're able to talk to them, veteran to veteran. Combat veteran to combat veteran. Peer to peer. About spiritual resiliency and mental resiliency, that way they can stay in a fight to protect their homes and families and their freedom. And we know, from our experience, as war fighters. And that's two years of war that we just went through.
That there's a lot of things that could happen on a battle field. That nothing is more essential, than having a strong spiritual foundation.
And we're able to share the gospel of Christ, with these guys.
GLENN: Chad, tell me about the -- the war crimes that you witnessed.
CHAD: You know, I've been seeing it since February. Since we've been gone there, Glenn. But nothing worse than the last few trips. Because I'm getting more into the front lines. I just was in a Zoom. I was two hours into the Zoom, which was pretty much Russia. And that was occupied for six months.
And some of the areas we saw, I'll get to the mass graves. But one of the things that's important to know, is every -- I'm not exaggerating when I say this, every home -- every hospital, every school, every structure, the -- it's almost -- it's almost impressive, as someone who has been in combat. They hit every single structure. And these aren't military targets. These are civilians.
GLENN: By the way, we're showing some videos, on Blaze TV right now.
Some of them are graphic. So look away. But I've seen these, earlier. And --
CHAD: They're apartment buildings.
GLENN: Yeah, they're apartment buildings. What you're saying is true. There's really nothing left. Nothing.
It's all rubble. And you say that's different in wars like this.
CHAD: Absolutely.
I mean, even Taliban is -- I mean, the Taliban will attack civilians. Terrorism.
They want to intimidate people. But this is an intimidation. This is -- I mean, you're talking like, those buildings in the video, looked like two buildings.
It's one building. It's a five-story building blown out to the ground. And this is women and children, and civilians living in it.
And this wasn't one that was accidental. It was every apartment building in the area. Had airdropped missiles right into the roof of that apartment building, that blew it to the ground, and killed thousands of civilians.
And this isn't really reported. I'm happy you're allowing to get this news right now. But it's not being reported.
And then, you know, day before so -- this is, again -- this is not a collateral damage. This is not, you know, indiscriminate fire. This is direct fire of civilian complexes, and civilians, which is a war crime.
And, you know, in the international courts, the ICC, the International Criminal Courts from the UN, needs to be stepping in.
Because this is not -- should never be allowed, regardless of Ukraine, Russia, political sides. Like who -- none of that. This should never be allowed in this point of our civilization, to attack civilians this way. And after we spent the day, I spent -- I was with the chief of the dean, who was the chief of the entire law enforcement, for all of Ukraine.
He would be essentially like over the FBI, CIA. Everything.
For all of Ukraine. And he was sent there by the government, to make sure they secured a Zoom, after they recaptured it. We were with him. As I drove to meet him. Myself and my partner, driving in this combat area, to meet him. And two MiG fighters flew over, and they did a gun run. Dropped bombs -- I've been over a lot of war zones. Never had air strike. Air -- enemy air over us. I mean, we always controlled the air.
So that was kind of a crazy scenario for me. We had a Hind helicopter fly by.
We get to the front. We were with them, while they're fighting this. We were getting shelled and rocketed within 100 meters of us. And this small arms fired. You probably seen from the videos -- I probably counted about 60 Russian soldiers. They were like 18, 19, 20 years old. It's sad to know, that many of them probably don't even know why they were there.
And one of the things, it gives the Ukrainians, as we were moving forward. And they were dying, Russian soldiers.
They were rendering aid, and that shows who is the good guys.
These guys were rendering aid. Meanwhile, these Russians had occupied their homes, and killed their family members for six months. And the Ukrainians were still rendering aid. That really stood out to me.
GLENN: I want to play a clip from you, out on the field, where you're talking about mass graves. Here it is.
VOICE: This area is 1,200 people were missing, from this area. They found 1,100 bodies in this area, and they were burned before the -- so you can tell they tried to destroy the evidence of the mass killings. Most of the people were -- their hands were tied. Behind their backs, and executed style. So we're not just talking about ballistic missiles and shelling, which we've seen.
I've seen firsthand, driving through cities. They're just level to rebel, civilian targets, civilian neighborhoods.
But we're talking beyond that, just with indirect fire.
And this is not indiscriminate fire, because we drove through areas. Me and my teammate were driving through -- like, they strategically hit every structure, every house, every building, every school, every hospital. Now, beyond that.
Once they take these areas. They're bringing these civilians out hear, in the woods, tying their hand behind their back. And executing them.
Burning their bodies. To hide the evidence. Putting them in mass graves.
GLENN: You saw these people with their hands tied behind their backs and the -- you saw this yourself?
CHAD: I saw it myself, yeah. And there were two mass graves that we were brought to. One was 474 people.
They counted specifically. It was estimated about 1100 people. And mostly all civilians, mostly because of most of them were women, a lot of children.
And it appeared -- it appeared what they were using the graves for. When I say 1100 people. I don't think they killed 1100 people at one time. I think six months, as they arrested people, they brought them there, probably bound and handcuffed. And then would kill them. Pushed them in, as a place of disposal.
That would be my interpretation from what I saw, it happened. And then as Ukraine came in and tried to -- was retaking that area, it appeared they tried to burn the bodies, to maybe hide the evidence. But, you know, burning bodies is harder than it sounds. You have to use a lot of fuel. So then they tried to bury it.
And then they vacated the area. When I say vacated, they must have left in a hurry, because they left 74 tanks in this area.
GLENN: Chad, so what do we do?
CHAD: You know, this to me, Glenn, this is a -- this only gets worse. It -- Russia is losing, so I think Putin has to show strength.
So I think the only scenarios is that he will escalate and do something radical. Even more radical than this. Or, you know, you have the other scenarios. You have Zelinsky, who can't -- because Zelinsky in the eyes of Ukraine. They're winning. And as they're winning, he's not going to go to the negotiation table.
So it would also require Putin to do something, that would force the negotiation table.
But I think what we can do with the worlds -- and I don't mean as America. But as the world, is NATO needs to accept Ukraine, and NATO.
And/or, the UN and International Criminal Court, needs to recognize these war crimes, and these human rights violations, and hold Putin accountable. And that's what the UN is for. That's what the International Criminal Court is for.
For these exact scenarios. But we're not seeing them take action. So what we could do, you and I, is exactly what we're doing right now, is exposing this.
I believe if I would have not leaked this information to Vox. If I would have reported it, right to the United States government, or it would have been swept away. Because they don't want it to be known. Because if it's known, then they'll have to do something about it. So they have to make sure there's reporting from the front lines. Unfortunately, journalists can't make it through a lot of these areas. Because it's so volatile. And I get that.
But the reporting needs to be -- it needs to be exposed. And, you know, our government gets to be held accountable, for these billions of dollars. So that Ukraine. If our government will decide to get this money, then it needs to go where it belongs. Again, I think you and I both agree that this much money makes the problem worse.
But, you know, if we are going to give it, then give it. And have good oversight. If we're going to have international war systems, then use it for times like this.
The UN. This is what it's for. This is what the UN is for. And I also believe NATO, at this point NATO should accept Ukraine. By the way, just a couple of days ago, President Zelinsky applied again for Ukraine to be accepted in NATO.
GLENN: Chad, thank you so much for doing everything that you do. I know your heart is in the right place. I know who you serve.
And I can't imagine what this does for somebody who went through PTSD. To be over there, again, and seeing these things.
So I appreciate your service. To him and to us. So thank you so much, Chad.
CHAD: Thank you, gang. God bless. Thank you for all your support too. Couldn't have done it without you.
GLENN: You got it. Mighty Oaks foundation. He is the founder and CEO. Cofounder of save our allies. You can follow him at Save Our Allies, or SaveOurAllies.org.