Written analysis drawn from the podcast, grouped by subject. 46 pieces across 12 episodes, organised into 7 running topics.
Rob Lee and Francis Farrell, back from a week on the front, on why a tougher second half of 2026 is not a reversal: Dobropillia a year ago, the Kostiantynivka fortress belt, and the coming battles for Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Rob Lee argues Ukraine has had no clear end state since 2024, that sustainability should be the strategy, and that manpower is the challenge Mykhailo Drapatyi inherits at the general staff.
Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata on why Starlink lets Ukraine fly a fixed-wing FPV 100-plus km for under $2,000 without a target, why Russia is jamming it over Crimea, and why it does not reach ground-launched ballistic missiles 200 to 300 km inside Russia.
Rob Lee calls Starlink a huge advantage and a single point of failure: it carries almost all Ukrainian UGVs, naval drones and much of middle strike, while targeted European funding pays for the industry behind them.
Dmytro Putiata on why Russian adaptation to middle strike is itself the damage: depots pushed from 60 to 80 km out to 120 km and toward 200 km, radars forced to move or be hit, and Rob Lee on why every protective layer costs Russia assault troops.
Rob Lee on Russia's plan to grow its Unmanned Systems Forces from 87,000 to 165,000 with brigades, regiments and battalions at every echelon, why putting FPVs in one battalion misses the point, and the 7th Corps commander's unanswered offer to US airborne commanders.
Rob Lee on Kovalyov reporting Kupiansk taken when it was not, why Russia does not fire commanders for clear failures, why stronger US intelligence sharing has kept Ukraine's deep and middle strike working, and why October and November are the risk.
Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata on why Russia's Molniya and Starlink combination was its cheap way to hunt Ukrainian fuel trucks near Pavlohrad, why Geran, Lancet and BM-35 could not replace it, and how Rassvet and Starlink jammers are Russia's attempt to get it back.
Eveline Buchatskiy on how D3 began: General Zaluzhnyi rejected traditional war math, told the founders to robotize the front line, and a US investor funded an early-stage fund when defence venture in Ukraine was fringe.
Ievgen Malik and Rob Lee on why Ukrainian prisoners were exchanged within weeks once the Kursk operation captured Russian conscripts, why Russia treats captured contract soldiers as already dead, and how Russian prisons are used for recruiting.
Ian Laffey names the three technologies deciding the war in Ukraine (Chinese commercial electronics, Starlink and AI tools) and argues US-built interceptors fail without front-line testing, layered air defence practice and feedback against jet powered drones.
Rob Lee on why Starlink jamming is felt in Crimea and Zaporizhzhia but is not yet scaled, why Peresvet-M has to sit near a substation, and why Ukraine's answer is a second link rather than a better one.
Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata on a failed Russian armoured assault: tanks taking 10 to 20 FPVs each, mine rollers that crossed 16 PTM-3 mines, a Starlink jammer, and Russia finding 80% of armour losses come from UAVs.
Brave1 CEO Andrii Hrytseniuk on pushing the gray zone from 10 to almost 70 km, cheap jet interceptors against Shahed and Banderol, why 30 km radio links no longer work, and the move to human-on-the-loop drones.
Eveline Buchatskiy of D3 on a fund that only backs companies with Ukraine as the primary market: unmanned systems in every domain, autonomy by next year, air defence interceptors and turrets, no laser investment yet, and batteries to power the frontline.
Eveline Buchatskiy of D3 on the backdoor into defence procurement: brigade letters of request taken to a home embassy's military attachés for a military aid package, why Germany signs fast on performance, and contracts an order of magnitude larger than at home.
Rob Lee on why Russia's deep strike monopoly is gone, how domestic Bohdana howitzers and Ukrainian-made FPVs cut reliance on American aid, and why PAC-3 interceptors remain the one gap with no alternative.
Rob Lee on why Ukrainian Hornets, Darts and FP-2s get through: Russia lacks the echelon counter-drone system Ukraine built against Shaheds since October 2022, and interceptors can cost more than the drone.
Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata on the branch jockeying that put four organisations on the same deep-strike mission, why burning refineries are self-validating, and why Ukraine's defensive drone model does not port to a manoeuvre army.
Rob Lee defines the kill zone as how far infantry walk to their positions, 15 to 20 kilometres in Kostiantynivka, and explains how it pushes Mavic crews back, reverses UGV and Vampire logistics, and makes the city fight impossible to map.
Rob Lee on why defence-dominant drone warfare is temporary: camera-guided turrets against slow cable-guided FPVs, UGVs staged forward, and why he expects successful armour assaults this year.
Dmytro Putiata and Rob Lee on why Ukraine has only partly reached its turning point, why the cities of Donetsk matter as winter shelter, and how Starlink jamming, the jet-powered Geran-4, seeker drones and the Banderol mark Russia adapting faster.
Rob Lee on why North Korean company sized assaults in Kursk shrank to squads once Ukrainian artillery opened up, why FPV drones cannot stop mass infantry alone, and a Russian assault that used Gerbera decoys and 20 Atlant loitering munitions to overload air defence.
Dmytro Putiata expects Ukrainian manoeuvre to return on a smaller scale than Robotyne, owned by one colonel or brigade general. Rob Lee on Ukraine as the only real test range for Western defence firms, and why strikes on Crimea erode Russia's bargaining position.
Dmytro Putiata on Russia making 200 Geran a month, why 90% of Ukraine's deep strike drones are not jet powered, and how Airborne brigades broke through up to 12 kilometres with tanks while the expected counteroffensive stalled on resources.
Rob Lee on why accuracy rather than reach keeps targets in Moscow off the list, what Russia's Geran strike on the SBU building proved about video guidance, and why the next month decides the winter.
A Third Corps commander ranks leadership and training above drones. Dmytro Putiata explains why Mykhailo Drapatyi inherits a centralised army whose unmanned systems forces can be asked, not ordered.
Rob Lee on North Korean troops learning FPV tactics, Russian UAV crews going to Africa, the Middle East and Latin America after the war, and Hezbollah fielding fiber optic FPVs the IDF cannot yet counter.
Rob Lee on why a single Patriot interceptor against an Iskander 9M723 is often a 50% guess, why SAMP/T, factory strikes and Firepoint offer no quick fix, and Dmytro Putiata on knowing where Russian launchers hide but being unable to catch them.
Rob Lee on how civilian TikTok videos of Russian trains, a record Black Sea naval deployment, 85% of BTGs moved and no covering exercise separated the pre-invasion buildup from the war scares of 2016 to 2018.
Rob Lee on why Ukraine now holds the upper hand in middle strike, from FP-2 drones with 100 kg warheads to Starlink cut off from Russian Molniya, and Dmytro Putiata on why buried command posts need cruise missiles, not drones.
Iskander, KN-23 and S-400 ground-attack missiles can land seconds after the alarm. Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata on North Korean launchers under the Moscow Military District, the Patriot shortage, and why Starlink-connected Hornet drones could hunt Iskander launchers within 500 km of the border.
Deep-strike drones are not precision weapons: 15 to 30 percent get through and one missed a factory by 100 metres. Dmytro Putiata on why burning refineries keep working, and the economic campaign both sides are now fighting.
Why strikes on fuel and power register with Russians when casualties do not, how the negotiating leverage shifted, and Ryan O’Leary on the governance trap waiting in occupied Crimea.
Rob Lee on Russian attrition now running level with recruitment, why that stops new units forming, what mobilisation would change, and the Azov-direction assault that showed Russia learning tactically.
Francis Farrell argues the thing preventing Russia testing the Baltics is Ukraine holding at Sloviansk, and that Europe is signalling to Putin that it will not come. Plus the miscalculation that worries Samuel Cook.
Brave1's CEO says Russia is fielding fully automated drones before the AI is good enough, that they are destroying civilian objects, and that Ukraine keeps a human in the loop at a real cost.
Rob Lee on 1,000 drones in a night, St Petersburg hit during its own economic forum, why Russian glide bombs cannot reach past the front, and the FP-2 doing an air force's job.
TB2 at $50,000, Hornet at $3,500, Dart near $2,000, and a Ukrainian officer correcting the Molniya price on air. Plus what happened to Russia's UGVs when Starlink went away.
Dmytro Putiata on the 11th Army Corps, why a corps can succeed without owning its brigades, and the two depth bands of middle strike, including striking where drone crews sleep.
Ryan O'Leary on how 2023 drone assaults really worked, one drone per four men, and Rob Lee on the Skala breach at Ternove that had nobody behind it to exploit.
Brave1 CEO Andrii Hrytseniuk on 50,000 UGVs contracted, 100,000 missions in seven months, buggies that drive themselves home empty, and why the metric is missions not machines.
Francis Farrell and Rob Lee on why middle strike bites in the open south and stalls in the urban east, why Russia's adaptation was always coming, and what jet-powered Shaheds change.
Rob Lee and Francis Farrell on why Russia's campaign in Europe has failed by its own measure, why the escalation lines kept being drawn too conservatively, and what NATO is still not learning.
Rob Lee on the measurable result of middle strike, Russian interceptor teams pulled back to guard highways, why the window narrowed, and why Gerans are not yet cutting logistics.
Rob Lee on why Russia sabotages Europe while losing in Ukraine, why the Baltic Fleet being committed matters, and why sanctions removed the restraint that used to hold.
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Ukraine Military History Institute