Producers' Pick | Steve Harrigan: War Correspondent on Why The War in Ukraine is Different

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Visit Samsung.com to learn more about Galaxy Z Fold 4. We lost two of our own and one injured. So I think we're really feeling the pain and the sadness, even if we're safe over here in the U.S. It's just agony watching civilians, old people, get hit by the Russians. Purposely. When we do it, there's an accident, an investigation, people are fired, vilified, trials. Here it's an intention, it seems, Steve.

It's deliberate, it's terror, it's trying to crush them with very crude weapons that kill civilians and military alike. It's, you know, we're just watching it day after day. This is week three now, Brian. Do you think, from what you can tell us, Steve, about how Benjamin Hall and his crew, Pierre and Sasha, were they targeted? I don't know the details, but, you know, Pierre is, you know, I dreamed about him last night. I was with him in a lot of different places.

I was with Pierre, Zak in Ukraine, Congo, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela. He was the best. Sometimes you're around people and they're better than you and it might bother you, but the way he had with people and his kindness, he was better than me and I just like to watch him in action. So he was a cameraman, but he was also a producer. He knew how to handle tumultuous situations. Had a great way about him. He did everything. He was running the show over there with fixers, with money, with hotels, with logistics. And he was careful and he was not a cowboy. He'd been in so many bad places. And he's the guy you want to be with because he's calm, he's compassionate, he's orderly. I mean, the guy was a force and it's a real blow.

I really feel this personally like so many people at Fox do today. Absolutely. And Benjamin Hall, I hear that he's stable right now and they've managed to get him out of the country? I saw him before he went in. I came out and he was going in and I asked him, did security, you know, did they try and scare you?

Did they give you the word? He said, oh yeah. He knew what he was going into. I spoke to him. He had no doubts about what he was going into. There are people who work at this company who are willing to put their life on the line, a lot of them, to try and do the story. And he had no doubts about what he was doing.

And I looked at him and just thought, wow, there he goes. You know, this is a brave guy who knows what he wants to do. You know, it's also interesting. I never thought about it really until this news came out, this tragic news came out. You're embedded not with the American forces, you're not also embedded with the one that was more powerful. You're embedded with the Ukrainian, sometimes civilians, in a hotel, hardly a bastion of security.

What was that like, not being guarded by American troops? You know, it's easy to think about, oh, it's a war zone like other war zones. This is a war zone that's different than other war zones because, first of all, when it comes to power, you're on the wrong side.

You're on the side without the air power. You know, if you're going to embed, you want to be on the side with air power so you don't get bombed. But on the other hand, the stronger side in this, the Russians are indiscriminate. Not only do they have sophisticated weapons, but they are targeting civilians and they are creating terror. The other factor about this war zone that makes it different is that all kinds of people are being armed. There's basically been a call from the Ukrainian government, come over here, from any country, we're going to arm you. The Russians doing the same.

So there's the chance of a mishap, the chance of an accident, the chance of someone nervous without discipline just firing away at you in a soft-shelled vehicle is astronomically higher in this kind of a war zone. From the Fox News Podcasts Network, I'm Ben Domenech, Fox News contributor and editor of the transom.com daily newsletter, and I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week. It's the Ben Domenech Podcast.

Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com. So right now we're seeing reports of a mini counter-offensive by the Ukrainians. They have not lost one major city outside Kirsan, and I hear there's some protest in that city even today. So the Russians' answer is just try to flatten everything.

Is time on either side's side? I think you're right that the strategy now is just to flatten it as the world watches. And the behavior of the Ukrainian forces, military and civilian, has been remarkable. You know, the U.S. and others are putting the weapons in their hands, these javelin anti-tank missiles that can be fired by one person.

But it takes the courage of that one person to go up against a tank at fairly close range, and they are doing it. So they are holding off. No major cities really, other than where you mentioned, have been taken. This is three weeks now they haven't taken Ukraine. The timeline for Russia, their economy has been hurt. But Putin is not, in my view, having seen him flatten other cities, he's not going to stop until Ukraine is flattened. But he seems to be, and again I'm susceptible to reports, he seems to be running out of troops, he's running out of armament. If that is true about China asking for money and arms, that shows a desperation. The fact that he's asking Syrians and maybe Hezbollah to come back and help him, that could show his desperation. I think you know this, April 1st is Conscription Day.

That's when a lot of people no longer have to serve after their year, and a whole bunch of others sign up and go to war. There might be a chance in Russia these guys are not going to show up. I think both sides are racing against the clock. I think Ukraine is racing just to survive, to hold out in basements, and to defend especially their capital.

And they've been heroic in doing that. Russia is facing different problems, men and manpower, pressure from people, and economic pressure. A lot of people over there, the middle class has lost a ton of money, and people are fleeing the country.

So, you know, it's really both sides are up against the clock, and which side has the endurance to hold out. The one factor I think that is a stable factor that you can't bet against is Putin is going to keep going. Putin doesn't care about civilian casualties. Putin wants to crush Ukraine.

He wants to crush that capital. That's a factor that I believe is unchanging. So the only thing that would change is if he starts losing ground, right? Right. If people rise up against him in the cities, if the middle class rises up against him in protest, if the mothers of dead soldiers rise up against him. But that's a longer term issue, I think. I think, you know, for another three weeks, another two months, he can continue to pound away and kill civilians.

Right. And see if he pays the price, too, because you see some of these numbers. The U.S. is saying that he lost 7,000 people. The Ukrainians say 13,500.

So that's pretty significant. Here's his remarks yesterday as translated, cut one. But any people, and even more so the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into the mouth.

Spit them out. I am convinced that such a natural and necessary cleansing of society will only strengthen our country. He's angry. He's using Stalin-like terms. He's talking about cleansing. He also seems to be talking about domestic situation, right? And it is this is scary talk. You know, there's been a lot of talk about Nazis in this war, a lot of accusations from the Russian side that the Ukrainians, you know, have a past history supporting the Nazis. If anyone is talking like a Nazi today, if anyone is talking like Hitler today, it's Vladimir Putin. He's talking about purification and cleansing of the Russian people. That's got to scare the entire world. Here is Keith Kellogg about what you just said, leveling these cities and how it's just not good strategy.

Cut 18. He is creating generational hatred, what he's doing right now. And if I had to write a book on this campaign right now and title it, it would be out of the Forrest Gump movie. Stupid is as stupid does. Shilling those cities is just absolutely stupid right now because one, he's creating rubble and you never want to fight and rubbleize cities. He's getting absolute hatred of the Ukrainian people.

And it just makes no sense to me. He's not going to take key. It's a huge city. It's a 2000 year old city and they're not going to give up. They're just not going to quit on him.

I think it's reaching a point right now. If this was a prize fight, Putin's losing on points. Do you want to challenge him on any of those points?

You know, he's right on a lot and he knows more than I do. He's right on generational hatred and he's right on rubble. A much smaller example of this, about one fortieth the size, was Chechnya, where he rubbled the city of Grozny.

Four hundred thousand, not three million. But 20 years later, you have to ask yourself, did this brutal strategy of slaughter and rubble work? And in Chechnya, the war is over. He's in control. He's got a strong man in place on a minor scale without help from Europe or the West or the U.S. It worked in Chechnya. I believe that he thinks it can work again in Ukraine. Do you think he's surprised on any level on how inefficient and being kind his military has been? I think he's surprised, unnerved, unhinged and furious. He's arresting some of his own top generals for their behavior. This is what happens when you've had yes men around you for 20 years and they tell you what you want to hear. When you're actually in the fight and you don't have enough gasoline or food for your soldiers and they're getting slaughtered by Ukrainians. And they told you it was going to take two days.

You're furious. Right. Four generals, we understand, are dead.

They even have the pictures. And as I just talked to General Petraeus, it's very unusual to have a general this susceptible. But a lot of times they are forced to go to the front lines to find out what the problem is or show them exactly what to do.

And they're getting killed, almost like the British in the 1770s. I want you to hear, talk about courageous. This is Marina Ostia Nakhova. It's a tough one for me.

Not for you. I know you've got a history in Russia. This is that journalist that stood up with the picture, that sign.

She did an interview with CNN, which means she's out. The sign that said, don't believe, you know, don't believe what you're hearing about the war. Cut 26. You are an ordinary Russian woman who worked for state television. You have two children. What on earth made you do this? How did you decide to do it?

You know, I decided to do it spontaneously. But the decision was brewing for quite a long time. You know, lately I have been feeling a cognitive dissonance more and more between my beliefs and what we say on air. It was a growing sense of dissatisfaction that kept increasing every year. And the war was the point of no return when it was simply impossible to stay silent. And I realized that I would either need to do something or we will reach a point of no return.

And it will be more and more difficult to do anything. Can you put can you put in perspective, Steve, how much guts that took to say to go do what she did and the fact that she's out? Does it surprise you? It surprises me that she's out.

It surprises me that she's breathing. You get to moments in these upheavals where people lose their fear and they don't care what happens to them. And it's amazing to see a lot of people have left state media.

But there's two points here that I would get at. One is state media is incredibly effective. If you control the TV station, you can brainwash a lot of people, especially older people who just don't see the war or who see it as an attack by NATO in the West trying to bring down Russia. A lot of people believe that.

The other thing here is by this woman's behavior. You've got to remember that there's Putin and then there's the Russian people. And there's a lot of Russian people who are just being dragged along by this government and a lot willing to stand up against it despite the risk. And with Ukraine so close and with so many relationships so real between these two nations, ask Vladimir Putin how close they are. I'm wondering how long they can successfully lock up Facebook, lock up their TV networks and really expect the truth not to get out. I understand there's a bunch of organizations texting individuals in Russia, trying to flood the zone. I think Instagram might still be up with what they say is the truth in the war.

I mean, could that be one thing? I mean, they've already been, they say, arrested between 14 and 17 thousand and they're supposed to get 10 years in prison for protesting the government. You see how angry he is. Final thoughts, Steve, on where you think the Russian, how much power the Russian people could have in this? You know, I think there's a bright light from all this evil and slaughter. And the bright light is a dictator who's been in charge for 20 years, terrorized the world with aspirations to terrorize more of it, is going to be brought down by his own arrogance. That's your prediction?

Yes. Steve Harrigan, thanks so much. Glad you're okay. Do you have plans to go back? Yeah, I think it's going to last a while and I think I'll go back. I would really like to go to Russia and watch that guy slowly be taken down by the Russian people. I don't think they're going to be happy to see you, but you'll go in anyway. Steve Harrigan, thanks so much. Thank you.