On The Ground In Ukraine And How You Can Help – With Chad Robichaux: Today we bring you an update from the Poland/Ukraine border. Does Ukraine have a legitimate change against Russia? What were the Russian soldiers told? What happens when the cellular network goes down? What exactly are the Russians up against? Is there anything that can be done to help the Ukrainian people? Tune in to hear Chad Robichaux give an on-the-ground report and share what YOU can do to help!

Air Date: 03/16/2022

Guest:Chad Robichaux

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live, where we take on the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. We appreciate you joining us.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. You can find out more at wallbuilderslive.com, as well about David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian, and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

Again, wallbuilderslive.com, I want to say that really fast, it’s WallBuilders, that’s W-A-L-L-B-U-I-L-D-E-R-S, wallbuilderslive.com. That’s where you can get archives of our program. And that’s where you can donate and help us to reach more people with the truth. And when I say hot topics today, I mean, every topic of the day, and we can look at it from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective, no matter what the issue, may be.

Today’s program is going to be very practical look at what’s happening in Ukraine right now. We’re going to talk to our friend Chad Robicheaux, who is there on the ground, providing both humanitarian aid and rescue missions, doing phenomenal, phenomenal work. And we’re just thrilled to be able to have a few minutes with him, and have an opportunity to get an idea of what’s going on there and how people can help.

Chad, I know you’re in the middle of it right now. And we just wanted to get an update from you on the ground in Ukraine and find out what we can do to help what our listeners can do to help. And we’re going to be given out several times today the website, saveourallies.org. Chad, thanks for coming on, man. Appreciate your time today.

Chad:

Oh, thanks for having me. So I’m actually now kind of on the border on the Poland-Ukraine border. We’re seeing the horrific side of people coming across many self-evacuating women, children, elderly, that as the days go on, they’re just more and more desperate because less food, less water, there’s cold as they’re running out of fuel. Many are waiting in line, and then their vehicles running and having to walk. It’s just a wreck. The men are with them because the men are fighting.

But there’s so many humanitarian food volunteers from around the world there to help at the border. But once you cross that border, it’s the Ukrainian people for themselves. And so, Save Our Allies is here to go into rescues and push medical aid forward. Just like we did in Afghanistan, we successfully got 70,000 people out, there’s a great group of special operations veterans who are very experienced in this kind of work.

It’s A War Zone

And we heard them say now, so we’re going to be building a good infrastructure system to make sure we have good communication infrastructure that can allow for sustainable long term rescues and provide medical support. Forward and also, they’re providing ambulatory movement of people in country. It’s not always about just evacuating people. Sometimes you just have to move people to a safer place so they get medical help.

Rick:

You read my mind on the next question. I was going to ask you, if mostly you were just getting people out, and if so where? Are you able to take them? And who’s been helpful in that? And then secondly, what if you can’t get them out and are you guys having to do some things in country as well? Is most of the time right now just literally getting them out of Ukraine?

Chad:

Yeah. I mean, for right now, when you get something like this going, most people are out here to help have obviously have hearts to help, right. So you look at the situation like I got to go get these people right now. And sometimes that’s the case. But you have to look at a few days down the road, a few weeks down the road, a few months down the road, and if oh, we focus on right now it’s just grabbing people, then that will last days. There are some things that’s going to go down infrastructure-wise that prohibit being able to sustain rescue operations of providing humanitarian aid.

One of those main things is cellular communications. The Russians have tried to take it down. They will take it down. And when the cellular network goes down, there will be the way to communicate with people to rescue people, to coordinate to get aid. And so one of the things that we know from our experience is that having communications infrastructure are one of most important things to do. So obviously, I don’t want to give details of how we can do that here.

Communication Infrastructures

But that’s currently the priority of our plan is getting good communication infrastructures in before the cellular network falls down, getting into place and dispersed around the country, and making sure that people in each community have the ability to communicate with us so that we could continue to do rescues under sustained effort that can’t be interrupted and about to continue to get needed supplies to them.

Tim:

So Chad, as you say, you all are setting up stuff for long term, do you think there is a long term in this scenario with Ukraine? From what we’re seeing, the mistake, obviously, you know what the news media is covering that is Ukraine’s putting up this incredible fight, they’re very resilient, there’s all these people that have been coming in joining this kind of foreign Legion, 60,000 people have returned home to fight for Ukraine.

Does Ukraine have a legitimate chance against this? Or is the reality that Russia it’s just their military is too big and too strong and inevitable? What does it look like on the ground for the Ukrainian?

Chad:

Look, Russian military is big, it is strong. But there’s a lot to say for will a fight. Russia invaded Afghanistan, Afghanistan doesn’t have that technological military shrink that Ukraine has. Because of the world of fight of Afghan people, they kicked Russia’s butt and ran them out of the country. So nothing’s off the table here. I fear that Putin have an audience he has on the world stage could be embarrassed. And I think he’s being embarrassed, and that only provoke him. And there’s no limit to what he will do or what he’s capable of doing when it comes to chemical weapons or even nuclear weapons, which you know, God forsake, that happened.

But nothing’s off the table here. And what we’re seeing, however, is a Russian military, who was lied to by their country. Many told they were going there to fight, but many were told they’re going there to train. Others told they’re going there to actually liberate the Ukrainian people and evacuate Ukrainian people. So they were going there thinking they were friends in the Ukraine people.

The Russian Forces

So, there’s a very little morale seeing a lot of the main force of the Russians. But on the other side, you have these Ukrainian people, the military is extremely motivated, they’re extremely inspired to fight for their country. And their civilian population has enlisted, even on a volunteer level, every man from 18 to 60 has been enlisted and drafted to fight. But you have women that are staying to fight Yes.

Teenagers that are saying I might not be a 18 yet, but I want to fight just like we had in World War II, people lying about their age to enlist. You have elderly people that could leave at 65 years old, but they feel like I’m going to stay.

And so I mean, when you get to a nation full of people saying, I’m a soldier, but you come to my yard, I’m going to stick a pitchfork in your chest, it makes it very difficult place to occupy and to take control over. And that’s what the Russians are facing. Now, they had the complete forces Russian military, and you’re seeing that play out in places like Kharkiv, where they have the city surrounded.

They’ve bombed all the roads and bridges going in and out of the country, really destroyed the infrastructure. And they’re just sitting there using the elements to break the will of those people. When I say the elements, the lack of food, the lack of potable water, as they’re destroying the infrastructure, they’re taking out electricity. It gets like 15 degrees a night. It’s very cold.

So now they’re dealing with a cold and just the fatigue that comes with hearing bombs and hearing sirens all night, the fatigue that comes with that. I mean, some of our guys were in even just being there with them and witnessing that. So eventually, you’re going to starve people out, you’re going to dehydrate people, medicines gone. I mean, if you have diabetes, and you need insulin, it’s not there. So they’re dealing with all these types of issues.

So we’ll see the will of the Ukrainian people naturally deteriorate. But I think right now, there is a strong will to fight and defend their country. Russian troops at large didn’t seem as motivated, and very confused in why they’re there. And they know, the people that are protesting in Russia, are the parents of these troops, they’re the family members of these troops. And so I think it all plays a very big factor in how’s it going to turn out.

Rick:

Hey, Chad, what about just even me fuel needed for you guys to do operations and the supplies you need? You’re almost having to be like a military and have your own supply chain set up for you to be able to do these operations?

Running Out of Fuel

Chad:

Yeah. I mean, the fuel there’s probably days away from running out in the country. And unless humanitarian aid resupplies fuel, but as of right now, they’re days away from running out of fuel in country. So when we go in there and rescue people evacuate people to even push medical supplies forward and do the different things that we’re doing like building the communication infrastructure, we don’t want to take from the little bit that’s fair.

I mean, if we go there and take a gallon of gas, then that might cost someone a life and we’re not going to make the situation worse. We’re going to be there to make the situation better.

And so anything we need, we bring it with us. And so we’re fully outfitting our vehicles for overland the belt to go and sustain ourselves. And that’s also a safety factor; we don’t get out there, and that does have gas in the back. So we’ve got very important planning criteria, I think a lot of people come into situations like this, and they really want to help, and so they think they’re going to go run into.

And unfortunately, we’ve seen this already, they think you’re going to run into a warzone and help, but they only make the situation worse and put themselves in a bad position, and so somebody has to go get them or even worse, they get themselves killed.

And so that’s certainly not. We have a team of, our guys are the most highly trained special operations guys, not just from special operations, not just combat veterans, but from government agencies who have a particular certifications and experience as precision rescue experts for the top government agencies to do this stuff all around the world. So we have the best people in the world for this type of mission, running our operations.

Even me, you have tremendous amount of special operations experience at the highest level of spec operations. But I’m sitting there with the guys I put in charge of me. We had the best guys, and I’m happy to work alongside of them and under them.

Tim:

So, Chad, obviously, the situation is unfolding, you’re seeing, firsthand, things need to go on. And with Save Our Allies, this is not your first hurrah on a lot of levels. The fact that you guys were working in Afghanistan just a matter of months ago, your team is assembled and very strong. And what you do is very good. And I know a lot of Americans want to do something.

Frustration with the Federal Government

And in the midst of we can be frustrated with the federal government and the way the federal government is spending money and some of these packages and similar we’re sending money and there could be frustration with the federal government.

But what we universally recognize is, really, it should be the responsibility of individuals, right, for fellow man to help fellow man and so there are some humanitarian groups over there, there’s Samaritan’s Purse, there’s different groups. But specifically, you guys, I would think, are probably pretty unique in what you do and what you’re capable of doing compared to some of these other groups and nonprofits that are there.

So if people want to support what you’re doing, and obviously, some of these stories will probably come out after the fact, I’m sure there’s some things you can’t tell us certainly on air now, I mean, you guys are doing, when people want to help, what can they do to help to be a part of helping rescue individual?

Chad:

Well, I mean, there’re two things that we’re asking for, is one, just dedicated prayer. I believe in intercessory prayer for situations like this, be praying for the Ukrainian people, be playing for the situation, praying that God just blinds the enemy, and confuses the enemy. It could be praying for our team. I mean, we have some incredible guys, they are very skilled and very, we know what we’re doing and how to do this right. But it’s a warzone, it’s very dangerous, and so we pray for protection.

And secondly, we need support, these operations are extremely expensive. Just I spent close to a million dollars in the last two days on just infrastructure and being putting things in place. And we’re not built to do that. This is like, as good as our team is, we will not be able to do what we do without the support of people. And so it takes all hands effort, people have to contribute every way they can.

Do Something

And I think one way everyone can contribute is give something, anything. And if you can’t give anything, if you can’t even give $1 and tell somebody who can, you probably know somebody can’t give something, because the governments of the world are not going to contribute here. And if you think this isn’t affecting you, it’s just affecting Ukraine.

You’re wrong. Because I believe the NGO community, people like Saver Our Allies and Samaritan’s Purse, they’re out here empowering the Ukrainian people is the bulkhead against World War III. If the Ukrainian people can’t stop this now, it will progress. And so this is the fight to prevent a global war. And so it will affect everybody if we don’t win this fight.

Rick:

Chad, the website’s saveourallies.org that’s the best place to go to donate, correct?

Chad:

That’s correct.

Rick:

Saveourallies.org. And, Chad, we’d love to get you back in another week. I mean, we know you’re in the middle of it, but just for an update, it’s so hard to get truth and good solid information. And we trust you, brother and we’re so thankful for what you’ve done over the decades and right now on the frontlines once again.

And I appreciate you addressing the fact that it does affect all of us and it’s the people are looking, trying to figure this out. They’re like, okay, yes, our borders a disaster here. Why are we over there? Why are we helping over there? It’s going to come back and bite us if we if we don’t do everything we can to stop this from expanding any further. So we’ve got to walk and chew gum at the same time in this situation, don’t you agree?

Article V

Chad:

Yeah. We have to nip it right now before it progressives. I mean, what’s right pass Ukraine is NATO nations. And it could even happen accidentally. It doesn’t even have to be intentionally. Putin could do somethings, sent a request one of his troops to do something reckless in it, violates Article V and next thing we’re in a global war.

And so, I also want to thank, because I know that’s part of you guys think Mercury One, talk about people supporting Mercury One and stepped up and supported this effort here and always stepping up and doing the right thing for humans around the world. And we certainly appreciate Glenn and everyone there.

Tim:

Well, Chad, it’s our pleasure. And definitely, we trust you guys. We trust what you’re doing. And we’re so grateful that God has given people like you a skill set that you’re able to go in and make a difference. And so for everybody listening, saveourallies.org is a place to go. Definitely, Chad, we want to get you back on to get some updates. And certainly, God willing, this thing is not progress, right, it doesn’t bleed into World War III.

And we’ll talk more about some of what those Article V violations might look like once we can let Chad go. Because we’re several hours different, and we call Chad, he’s getting in the middle of trying to put out some fires with this stuff going on help with operation. But Chad, we definitely want to respect your time and let you get back to what you’re doing. But thank you so much for being with us today.

Chad:

No, thanks, guys. God bless. Good talking to you, guys.

Rick:

Thanks, Chad. Hey, folks go to saveourallies.org right now today, make that contribution. Everybody says they want to do something. As Chad said, this is an easy way to do it. And man, they’re on the frontlines putting their lives on the line to help people. We can at least make that donation, saveourallies.org. Stay with us. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. And special thanks to Chad once again for joining us. We are always thankful to have him. But I mean to be in the middle of these operations and on the ground like he is to take some time to join us, just a super, super thank you to him for being a part of that.

We’re back now with David Barton. And David, of course, we know Chad to be one of these guys straight shooter. He’s telling us what he’s seeing on the ground. And it’s a tough situation. I mean, it’s almost a humanitarian aid situation. And you guys do a lot of this. And by the way, you heard him say thank you to Mercury One. I mean, clearly, Mercury One continues to help save people around the world. But boy, we’re in a dicey situation here. It’s we don’t want to do too much that we cause World War III, but we don’t want them to be able to run over Ukraine and go to a NATO nation, and then that causes World War III. So we’re really in a difficult situation here.

On the Ground

David:

And Rick, I would say that we’re not really hearing, I mean, you mentioned that Chad is telling us what’s going on the ground, but I would say he’s really not. He’s telling us the civilian side of what’s going on the ground. And that’s not what’s going on. You know, Tim made the point earlier about this is a situation that we have such good groups over there Samaritan’s Purse, some many that we support and love, but they’re not doing what Chad is doing.

Because as Chad alluded to, they’re on the inside, they’re making rescue calls from cities inside Ukraine. And these other groups are on the outside, they’re over in Poland, they’re in Moldova and other nations that are taking these refugees and helping them, bless their heart. That’s great.

But Chad’s on the inside making rescue calls. And he’s talking about he spent a million dollars in the last few days, that includes ambulances, because they don’t even have band aids. He’s talking about no medical supplies. I mean, literally, they don’t have that. So he’s having to buy ambulances and stocking them with emergency stuff so that when they get these calls, they can get there. They’re setting up their military topic communication, not just civilian stuff. But as he said, if the server goes down, they’re just going to just going to cut off all communications, everything that they’ve got, they’re going to knock it out.

And these guys have to have a way of being able to help people and get there. So we’re getting really a sanitized version of what’s going on. And so giving to Save Our Allies, I mean, this is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, to use an old axiom. This is where it really comes together, because these guys, they’re not waiting for you to come to them, they’re going to where the help is needed. And that’s a whole different kind.

And Tim mentioned at the end, which kind of explained that Article V, and what happens is with Putin, you get such a, I don’t know how to explain him, egocentric megalomaniac, but he is so triggerable because of ego, and there’s so many things that can set him off, and he can blow up over anything. And he has blown up over stuff. And so right now, he’s blustering everything the world’s doing is saying to him. And I mean, he’s literally looking at this thing is over. And if he does this, wins it and whatever, they’re literally looking at trying to do global war crime trials on him because of what he’s done. He’s not going to put up with that.

World War II

So he is in a situation that is very close to what started World War II. In World War II, Hitler went through and just took a bunch of nations that he wanted, knocked them out, nobody said much. So you saw that Putin has come in to Belarus. He’s come into Crimea, and he’s come in all these places, taking them all, no big deal. Now he’s in Ukraine, and Ukraine, he’s got some special treaties, but this is back to what Hitler did with the first part of World War II. He’s taken all these other nations.

But then when he got into Poland, it was a different deal, because Poland had an agreement with both France and Great Britain that if we’re attacked, you’ll come to our aid. And so what happened was when Hitler went into Poland, now he’s gotten a bunch of other nations that had to come to fend because of the treaty. And then they had treaties with other nations. And pretty soon, you’ve got nearly 60 nations involved in World War II, because of all the treaties and agreements to help each other.

So what happens here is, if somebody makes Putin mad, he decides to go out and slap him on the face for some reason militarily, if he gets outside of Ukraine, every nation around Ukraine, except for Russia is a NATO nation. And NATO has Article V that says, if any one of us is attacked with any military force at all, no matter how small, all 30 of us will come to the aid of that nation, all other 29, there’s 30 in there.

And the people in that group of NATO includes the United States, and Great Britain, and Canada, and lots of nations that are not part of Europe. So if Putin does something that get outside of Ukraine, which is very conceivable, now you’ve got treaty situations are going to kick in and at least 30 more nations are going to get involved…

Rick:

It’s like a domino effect.

A Domino Effect

David:

Oh, it’s a domino effect and it’ll escalate in a hurry. And this is why by the way Ukraine was not allowed in the NATO because they knew that if that happened, Ukraine has been trying to get in for years. But they knew that Russia’s situation with Ukraine, if they let Ukraine and it was going to be a provocation with Russia, which would launch a war. And so while they wanted to help Ukraine, that’s why they have not allowed it in. That’s why even the US has not been supportive of allowing Ukraine in NATO, because that’s like sticking a thumb in the eye of Russia, and you’re starting the war.

But as Chad pointed out, as Tim mentioned, that’s what Article V is, and that’s why this is a big deal. But it’s also a big deal because if Ukraine is defeated eventually, and I hope they aren’t, I hope they’re able to stand, I love those folks. I’ve spent time in Ukraine. They’re some of the best people in Europe, they and Poland, my two favorite countries in Europe, I think, yeah, I do not want to see them go down. They are so patriotic. I mentioned they have billboards of George Washington in the Ukraine. And I asked them, do you know who that is? Of course, that’s George Washington. I mean, they’re really cool people.

Yeah, they have government corruption. That’s kind of common for all of Europe. But my goodness, they’re such a good people and I do not want to see them go down. But if they are, there is no way these people in Ukraine are going to buckle under to him. And it’s going to be a really violent occupation, they will be like the underground with the French. When Nazi’s got France, the underground fought back, and the same all across Europe.

So, it’s going to be a mess, and it’s not going to be a good thing, which is dangerous for the world. So, man, as Chad said, pray for these guys. But at the same time, give to save our allies, because these guys are doing stuff that nobody else is doing. And they can really use the support. I mean, they’re really good guys. Your money’s going to be well spent. They’re not extravagant. They’re super, super frugal with this money and they realize their account to God for what they do. So they’re going to use it well.

Rick:

Well, and to the saveourallies.org website, I just want to say to everybody out there that might be like me confused about this is an international situation, it’s a complicated situation. You don’t want America to get too far pulled into this thing. You don’t want World War III. You’re worried about all the things happening here. And so you may be hesitant to help. But don’t forget, we give to Mercury One and all these other organizations to save Christians out of even worse situations all around the world. This is a humanitarian effort that Chad and these others are participating in. They are saving lives every day that they’re participating in this.

On The Ground In Ukraine And How You Can Help – With Chad Robichaux

So regardless of your position on Ukraine and Russia and the politics of Biden and Trump and everything else, when you get to saveourallies.org, you’re helping save lives on the ground. And trust me, that individual right there on the ground, when their life is changed, all this global politics stuff that we often talk about here on the program is irrelevant to them saving their kid’s life, getting their family out. That’s what’s important.

It’s like a friend of mine told me one time when we went to feed folks in a particular area, and I was trying to think about all the political things that needed to change so the situation went so bad, he said, Rick, you had just got to feed the mouth in front of you right now. Right now, it’s about helping those people. And that’s what saveourallies.org is all about. Please go and consider contributing there. Do really, really appreciate Chad being on with us. David, any final thoughts as we close out for the day?

David:

No, just pray for Chad and those guys, because they are in harm’s way in a way that so many humanitarian groups are not. They’re actually on the ground. And these guys, they’re going to understate specifically what they’re doing, and they ought to, and they should. But I’m going to say it for him. These guys are in harm’s way.

So when we pray for Ukraine, and we pray for God to give victory in Ukraine, also pray for the protection of people in Ukraine and pray for the protection of Chad and all those guys that are there. They’re all warriors. And that’s what they’re really good at. And that’s why they’re good at doing this kind of extractions.

Rick:

Saveourallies.org is the website. We so appreciate you listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.