“The Next Month Decides the Winter”

Hi, it's Sam Cook, the founder of the Borderlands Foundation and co-host of the Ukraine Military Podcast. In April of twenty fourteen, a few dozen armed men walked into town in northern Donetsk Oblast and seized the police station. The town was Sloviansk. It is where this war actually started, not in twenty twenty two, but in twenty fourteen. And for eleven years it has sat far enough behind the line that people opened cafes there, swam in the lake, and sent their children to school. This autumn, the army is getting close to it again. Some of the brigade commanders defending Sloviansk today fought there in twenty fourteen. Rob Lee put it to me in one sentence, "This coming battle of Donbas is a culmination of twelve years of fighting." Two guests have just spent a week driving that ground. Rob Lee, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, one of the most respected analysts in military anywhere. And R- Francis Farrell of the Kyiv Independent, who gets closer to the fighting more often than any other language speaking reporter still working in this country. Zaporizhzhia, the Donbas, Izium, and Kharkiv on the way back. This episode is what they brought home. They start with the honest version of where the war stands as of September twenty twenty-six, and it is neither of the two stories you're being told. First half of twenty twenty-six went better than expected for Ukraine. The second half is gonna be harder. But Francis makes a point I want you to hold onto for the whole episode. The narrative goes up and down like a rollercoaster, and the war does not. Before you decide the trend is reverse, ask yourself whether what has changed was the battlefield or your own understanding of where things are. We then go inside something that is major, which is the change of command of the commander in chief. General Mykhailo Drapaty has replaced General Oleksandr Syrskyi, and the Kyiv Independent has published his statement of principles in . I asked him the question that I believe is important. W- that was excellent on paper, but can the brigades feel it? The answer is yes, in specific ways. The weekly garrison style inspections by general staff officers have stopped, and the standing order that any lost position must be counterattacked immediately, no matter the cost, has been delegated back to commanders. That second one matters more than it sounds, and Rob Lee explains why. When you order a commander to retake the ground he does not have the infantry to retake, you're not getting the ground back. You're teaching him to lie about losing it. That was the culture. It is what is now being dismantled. You hear the clearest explanation of the kill zone I've not heard anyone give. Not the technical definition, the practical one the units themselves use. How far forward can a vehicle go before it's destroyed? How far does your infantry have to walk? Around Kostiantynivka, fifty to twenty kilometers on foot. And because the Mavericks are being pushed back too, they arrive on station with ten or fifteen minutes of useful station time, so you need more teams, more crews, more people just to keep the same surveillance constantly in the sky. Every technological problem in this war turns back into a manpower problem. Rob and Francis also tell you what the fight for a city actually looks like now, and it's stranger than any map suggests. and infantry in the same building using different entrances, both under orders not to engage. Because both sides want the drones to do the killing. Neither side can tell you what they control. As Rob puts it, "It's just we're all here." And then the two of them land on the m- on the one thing that worries them most, which is not a weapon, it's the weather. Last October, three or four days of heavy fog blinded the drones over Pokrovsk, and about two companies of infantry infiltrated into the city and could not be kicked out. October is coming again. forces are now close to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Rob's conclusion is the sharpest thing in this episode. The next month will decide the winter. Hold them far enough out that when the fog comes, there's no window. There's much more. The glide bombs Ukraine still has no answer to three years in, flying drones with no radio link at all and no humans in the loop, Starlink jammers, Russia's own satellite constellation coming next year, and a serious discussion of whether Europe understands that it is already at war with Russia. If reporting and analysis at this level matter to you, please subscribe now on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to or watch this podcast. On YouTube, please subscribe by hitting the bell. Before we get into it, a brief word about the people and the organizations behind this podcast. This show is produced by the Borderlands Foundation, a nonprofit we established with one simple mission, making sure that Ukraine's heroes are never forgotten. We run two programs. The Ukraine Military History Institute preserves the lessons of Ukraine's wars and translates them into for soldiers, historians, and allied militaries worldwide. We're developing a university course, this podcast, workshops for serving officers, a professional journal, soldier delegations, and Heroes of Ukraine tours of the battlefields. What you're about to hear is exactly the kind of knowledge that the institute exists to capture. Two people who went and looked, describing a change of military culture while it's happening on the ground before anyone else has written it down. Details on how to support us at the end of this episode. The second program is the Ukraine Center for Traumatic Stress, bringing cutting-edge PTSD research and treatment to veterans. In this episode, Rob raises something almost nobody talks about: traumatic brain injury. Men who are never pulled off the position, taking concussion after concussion from glide bombs, artillery that land, uh, near their positions. That bill will come due after this war. This center exists for them. And the Borderlands Group, the company that I run that funds all of this. We provide military advisory, defense consulting, and a bridge between Western defense technology and battlefield validation. More on that at the end. Before we start, I gave a talk in San Francisco this last summer to a room full of defense founders building defense technology companies on why war matters, the power law of war, how nations actually pay for wars, and what happened to the American defense industry after the Cold War It's an hour, it's free, and it's the same history that we do here. I'll leave a link in the description to this video. Okay. The kill zone, how far a soldier has to walk, a change of command at the commander-in-chief that you can feel down to the brigade level, infantry sharing, building with the enemy, drones with nobody flying them, and the four weeks that will decide whether this is a battle for Sloviansk and Kramatorsk this winter. Rob Lee and Francis Farrell, back from the front, recorded here in Kyiv in early September twenty twenty-six. Welcome to the Ukraine Military History Podcast. Welcome, uh, Rob, Francis, another trip from the front lines. Uh, I guess it's early September now, twenty twenty-seven.

You sure?

Yeah, it's... It, it feels it's been a long September already. And, uh, you guys are, uh, gonna share with us what happened. Uh, Rob, how long were you guys out there, and, uh, where would you like to start off?

I think we d- went down, what, seven days ago, so s- yeah, so about one week. Um, so did Zaporizhzhia for a few days, so it's a d- a few days and one day in Pokrovsk, and Sloviansk for two days, and then Izyum, Harkiv on the way back. Um, so, you know, got a decent idea of the front line. Obviously, you can't see everything. You can't get the full perspective or everything. But I think of the priority directions, you know, we got a decent understanding of, of kind of what's going on. Um, you know, my general view is that the, the first half of the year, we've told this before in previous podcasts, first half of the year develops better for Ukraine around the battlefield for different reasons. You know, advances slowed and, and, you know, part of it's 'cause Starlink was, was cut off and some other effects in middle strike. Um, I think the second half is probably gonna be tougher. It's gonna be more difficult for Ukraine. Um, and we see that, you know, s- partially here in Kyiv with, with the, you know, Geran-4 strikes, which are getting through. There's a strike on the SBU building, what, I think two days ago or yesterday even. Um, and so that's a significant issue. Obviously, the winter, we're gonna see, you know, Russia go after energy grid again, and, and I think everyone knows it's gonna be a difficult winter. But also, I think on the front line, you know, Russia, the advances are, are still slower than they were last year, but they're advancing in, in some problematic directions, right? So in, indicating that's in the remaining kind of cities that Ukraine holds, Russia's advancing to all of them, and the situation there is kind of getting more difficult. The atmosphere is getting more difficult. Um, and, you know, what used to be somewhat safe cities are, are now frontline cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. And so this is a really, you know, big development, and, uh, I think one, one of the defining, you know, parts of this war is gonna be the upcoming battles for Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Um, you know, we can debate how far, you know, they'll get, how long it'll take, and so on, but it is gonna be a really, you know, critical kind of fight. In some ways, this goes back to twenty fourteen, right? 'Cause Sloviansk was, you know, the beginning of a lot of this. And some of the players, the people, you know, b- brigade commanders in Sloviansk fought there in twenty fourteen, right? And so it literally is kind of the culmination of 12 years for this battle for these, these cities. Um, and just, you know, before I, before... I won't go on too much longer, but, um, you know, these cities are so very important. Ukrainians care about it. The Ukrainians who serve there care about it. Uh, and they very... made it very clear to us when we were there that, you know, "We're gonna fight for these cities. This is not something we're gonna give up. And, uh, you know, we're gonna make Russia pay a heavy price if they try to take these cities."

Francis, uh, you've been out, uh, I think more than anyone. You, you're the, the frontline, uh, uh, the person who's been to the frontline the most out of all the reporters and, and analysts. What were your general impressions this time versus last time you went out? Where do you see things? How's the mood and, and the, uh, atmospherics out there?

Yeah. Thanks. I think every time, uh, we have these chances to, to visit these frontline areas to speak to commanders, you kind of wanna compare what you see and what you hear from the people, you know, dealing with this every day, uh, to the narrative that's going, you know, up and down this kind of roller coaster of, of, you know, Ukraine's winning, uh, Ukraine has no chance, Ukraine's winning again, um, time is on Ukraine's side, time is on Russia's side. Um, and for that reason, it's... I think it's always important to, to have those conversations because for me personally, they, they really ground me in the reality of a fight that is just day by day, that kind of goes up and down a bit, but not in this kind of roller coaster way that the, that the narrative happens, uh, uh, kind of works in the, in the information space. Um, and so, yeah, I think... And when, when we think about that context, we were all indeed, um, you know, on a, on a very positive, uh, kind of upward, uh, slope in, in spring and maybe early summer. Um, I think now I agree totally that it's gonna be more difficult, but you have to always think about whether that's a, a correction to your own understanding of where we were on that roller coaster, uh, or and compared to that, what's actually, you know, changed. Um, and, you know, there are different ways of looking at it because on, on the other hand, uh, if we look at a year ago, uh, for example, which was much tougher year for Ukraine, that's when, uh, we saw the, the big infiltration in Dobropillia, which was going, you know, going up to 15, 20 kilometers behind the front line, which, you know, if it wasn't stopped, it would have potentially led to the battle for Donbas ending a lot quicker. Um, and now a year later, uh, yes, they've gotten, you know, they've reached this fortress belt i- in, in the south, Kostiantynivka, but that battle is still far from being over. Uh, they're getting closer to, to Kramatorsk and, and Sloviansk, but again, it's nothing kind of chaotic, nothing, uh, you know, really disastrous. So I wouldn't say, you know, when it comes to the front line, the k- the strikes on Kyiv is a different story. But when it comes to the front line, from my conversations, I wouldn't say, you know, it's back down the other way of, of being a, a real negative trend, um, you know, that things on the south- Have improved a lot again since autumn last year. Uh, there's the story of the, of the counterattacks, um, that the air assault forces have been doing. Um, the, the brigades defending Zaporizhzhia are, you know, more or less controlling the situation. Um, but I would agree that the, the big climax, and this, you know, this could be a story that plays out for two, three years even, you know, i- is gonna be, um, this, this battle for Donbas. And I see it as kind of both sides are kind of placing their... They're kind of placing their, their forces and, and kind of gearing up, uh, for this final fight. And we see that with the restructuring that Drapatyi's done, uh, in the command, uh, of the n- the Donetsk region. Um, w- of course, this could line up, as we discussed, I think last time we were the three of us, uh, line up with mobilization, which still could be a, a, a very big threat. Um, uh, and, and it does, it does kind of feel heavy in a way that, you know, now this, this final battle that could, in many ways, decide the, the, the future of this huge war of attrition, um, is really beginning i- in earnest. Uh, but I think the way the last year has played out is definitely a vindication of why, you know, Ukraine wasn't even considering, uh, Russia's and the Trump administration's ideas of just handing this territory over.

So you brought up something there that I- I'd like to dive into because, uh, Kyiv Independent published a, a translation of, uh-

Mm-hmm

... General Drapatyi's, uh, let's call it manifesto or sh- statement of principles from General Staff. And, uh, first of all, that, that was great on paper. How is that feeling on the frontline? Is there any tangible difference in command climate, uh, in the frontline units? How do commanders feel about the, the change, the situation, the regrouping of forces between, uh, Biletsky and, uh, Propenko, uh, organizing for this defense of the Donbas?

I think it depends a lot on who you talk to. Uh, if it's, uh, lower than brigade level, uh, a lot of them are just focused on the tactical fight, and they're just saying, "Yeah." I mean, maybe, maybe they, they're, they're happy about it, as most soldiers are, if you're not assault forces. Um, but, uh, uh, they're still just like, "Mm." Like, "I'm just focusing on, on, on my guys, on, on the fight that I'm doing day in, day out." Um, but where we did notice, uh, changes were on brigade level, um, just immediately, uh, the, the difference between how the brigades were, mmm, sending information and, and receiving orders from the General Staff, uh, their relationship to this entire command chain because Ukraine was indeed, you know, has always been, uh... The, the, the military has been based on the unit of the brigade. Uh, the corps reform partially changed that in areas where there was a, a strong leadership with which got buy-in and, and had it own, it had its own resources to, to command on a core level. But in most of the other army corps, we've heard that the c- the core command, you know, is not really playing, um, the same role. And it was a question of just very top-down, often micromanaging, all the way from the General Staff. You know, "You do this, you don't... Don't you dare," like, "step back from that position. If you do lose it, you have to, uh, retake it at whatever cost. If that means moving all your artillery, all your drivers into infantry, do that." Um, and, and this culture of, like, uh, what is on paper and mattering more than what's really happening, uh, on the ground. And, uh, yeah, still early days, for sure. Uh, but first impressions are saying that they can feel, uh, especially on brigade commander level, that culture change.

So I think, you know, one of the things Drapatyi emphasized when he was joint task force commander is that the task force should... The staff should be supporting the corps and brigades, right? Not the other way around.

Mm-hmm.

And so, and once... And then obviously, he's gonna do other general staff too. Um, and those, you know, a couple things we heard already. One is, uh, there used to be inspections, like a weekly basis or very routine for brigades. And they'll have guys from general staff come and, you know, do inspections, garrison-style inspections kind of, and, um, it's just basically is a waste of time, right? And of course, may- maybe brigades who are on, on, uh, you know, easier parts of the frontline, maybe they need more supervision to make sure they're, you know, still they're not becoming complacent. But brigades on the frontline, they're busy, and the commander's off. They're doing what? Just unnecessary kind of bureaucratic things. And so, uh, Drapatyi came in. He, he stopped that, and so there's no more, you know, weekly inspections. There might be things every once in a while, but, but, you know, basically let the commanders, you know, fight the fight. Let them do what they're doing. Um, and the other one was, i- is, as Fernando was saying, there was before, as part of active defense strategy, this default where if you lose a position, you are required to counterattack. But they usually are losing positions because they don't have enough man, men to, to man it. And so you, you probably don't have enough people to counterattack or retake it, and even if you do retake it, you... or you lost b-in the first place because you don't have m-men to take it. And so that default of, like, you have to immed-immediately counterattack, instead it's now delegated. So essentially commanders say, you know, "I-if it makes sense to do so, you do so, but don't, don't... you know, you don't have to do this automatically." Um, and that, I mean, that was driving a lot of problems in the military where commanders would essentially lie, because either they would not acknowledge the lost position because they didn't want to get an order to, to counterattack and to refuse. Um, and it just... it led to a, a culture of dishonesty. And so this is a, you know, immediate good step, and I think as, as part of broa-the broader kind of move from Zapar to let kind of commanders fight the fight themselves. Um, you know, he made mission command one of those, those priorities. And again, t-to do decentralized execution, you have to enable corps and brigades and battalion commanders to really command and make their own choices. Because before this, you know, corps commanders, they were not allowed to pull back from positions, right? They were not allowed to abandon any kind of position, regardless of the, the reason was. And so every tree line has to be held. And if a corps commander can't, you know, decide, "Hey, we c- we should move back to this tree line, we can defend better," then there's really no... there's no decision-making, right? You have very little actually initiative, very little room for, for autonomy. And so now, like, we can begin, finally begin to see the, the military actually start to, you know, execute mission command of some kinds, because up until now, it just really hasn't been possible for the most part in defense. So, uh, that's a positive development. Um, I think the document was a very good document in terms of, you know, identifying the, the c- you know, the center of gravity is, is like the junior enlisted soldier. Um, I don't know if he said enlisted, but the, the, the infantryman is the kind of priority. To reorient the focus around that and to basically, I think, for the, the senior leadership to get out of the way of the commanders, let them fight the fight, and, and for the commanders to see, "How can we help you guys on the ground?" And so already seeing some positive developments, um, but you know, we, we said this on, on the previous podcast, mobilization is a, is the biggest issue, and that is a all-of-government, kind of all-of-society problem, and it's not something that Zaparosti can fix himself. And so, um, there are g- we're already seeing positive developments, so I think we'll see some other b-good reforms, but some of those other key issues are gonna take time, and it's gonna require a lot of more support from across the government.

And al-also, uh, General Zaparosti, uh, and, and the president issued a decree the other day to appoint a new land forces commander. Um, just if you're, uh, if you have any initial reactions or comments on, on the, the new commander or any, uh, uh, thoughts on that.

I mean, I, I don't know much about the, the guy's actual personal history. What I do know is that, uh, part of the, the problem that was happening under Syrskyi-

Mm-hmm

... was his immediate, immediate surroundings.

Yeah.

We're talking about, uh, people who shared the same culture-

Mm-hmm

... the same mindset, uh, which is again, like, it sounds simplistic, but so much of it goes back to, to, to Soviet times, to Soviet culture, and these were people who, who were trained, um, and went through officer kind of, uh, academies in that time. Um, and that just basically, I guess, facilitated this whole, this whole system where those people in the organism, the, the general staff that was meant to be, you know, thinking strategically and really, uh, uh, running the war in the way that would help Ukraine fight a war of attrition against a much bigger enemy, that would help the brigades do their job, uh, was instead, uh, run by people who were first and foremost, uh, thinking about not getting punished, keeping their job, um, and, and just sending up, uh, good reports. So, uh, the challenge when you're changing someone at the very top-

Mm-hmm

... um, and you want to enact a, a bigger culture, culture change is, is also, you know, crucially gonna be dependent on who you can bring in, uh, on your team. And, and there were at first some, some rumors that, uh, that the presidential office or someone else was still, uh, blocking Draparty in bringing some of his people in, kind of in a way tying his hands. So the more of those changes, uh, that we see to those top positions, I think the better we can feel that he has got buy-in and he is gonna be empowered, uh, to, to move forward with, with his plan, which he set out.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the, um, the situation on the command seems to be a little bit better. Let's, uh, dive into, uh, what you saw at, at the front line in terms of what's actually going on at, at the, at the zero line, the line of contact. What's life like for the infantry and the drone operators, uh, on the front, the UGV operators?

So I think one of the big themes is about the kill zone. The kill zone continues to expand, and it has, you know, effects both technically and tactically about how the units fight. Um, so first of all, I'd say maybe try and define kill zone to some extent here, right? 'Cause y- sometimes it's mentioned the way we might say for, like, weapons engagement zone, right? Here's, like, FPV range. FPV obviously can hit things maybe 30 kilometers past the front line, depending on where the positions are. Um, but a lot of people we talked to this time, their kind of definition of kill zone was more where do we stop vehicles, right? At what, at what point do vehicles no longer go forward because they'll most likely be destroyed if they continue going forward. And it depends on the front line, or it depends on the geography. If you're fighting from a, you know, semi-encirclement or, or not, it's gonna be different. But, like, in some cases 15, 20 kilometers, right? And again, another way of asking this question is how far do your infantry walk the positions? And basically that's what the kill zone is. Um, and so, you know, infantry in Kostiantynivka are walking about that distance, right, 15 to 20 kilometers. Um, that's how to kind of define it. But what's happened in terms of UAV positions is Mavics increasingly, you know, the range of Mavics is not as significant. They are getting pushed back further, and so y- wh- when, you know, Mavic positions used to be closer to the front line, that means the further they are away, the more time spent flying to and from, you know, basically where they're gonna do the aerial coverage. That means you have less time on station, maybe like 10 or 15 minutes. That means you need more teams to do this carousel to maintain constant kind of ISR, and that means a new requirement to have more Mavic teams operating, and that becomes a new issue for manpower, for equipment, for so on. Um, so that's, that's a, you know, increasing difficulty. For logistics, you know, we've said this before in the podcast, typically the way brigades do logistics, UGV's deliver to vampire positions, FPV Mavic positions, right? And then vampires will fly to infantry. Well, in some cases, logistics is, is, is so difficult that, uh, one, UGV, UGV's don't always go to FPV positions. Sometimes vampires deliver to FPV positions because they're too far forward and it's too dangerous. And in other cases, uh, vampires cannot make it to the front line itself to, to re- to resupply infantry, and so you have to do, like, a large FPV small bomber instead. And so logistics are just changing in that respect where, uh, you know, the Russians adapt to everything as well. Inter-- tactical interdiction is really both sides' kind of priority, or one of the priorities. And, you know, we know the Russians are going after, you know, n- night bomber drones. UGV's are a significant priority too. Uh, some units thought that even, even maybe more than vehicles, 'cause they know logistics are, are really done by UGV. Um, and so anyway, the, the expanding kind of kill zone is affecting how units fight. And again, it becomes the density of guys on the front line is still kind of decreasing. Um, but it all, all becomes back to how far are UAV positions from the infantry. And, you know, remember, FPV takes... A regular radio signal FPV takes about a minute to fly a kilometer. The further back, if you locate a target, it takes that many minutes to get to the, the front line. And so, um, as units get kind of pushed further back, it means you have FPVs being sometimes less responsive. It can kind of vary. But I think that's one of the big changes. Um, infantry are still, you know, they're fighting from underground. Like, I mean, uh, they are, you know, try- To the most part, the f- the forward line positions are told not to engage unless they have to. They want other infantry maybe fighting, depending on the, the, the area they are at. Um, but it's a terrible life. I mean, it's very, very difficult. Uh, you're not really fighting the other side that much because you're trying to stay concealed. You're trying not to let the other side kind of know your position. It's a weird situation, it can start in other directions, where both sides have infantry in the city, but the infantry are often trying not to fight each other. Not always, I mean, there, there are clearing teams. The infantry will be used in some cases to clear positions. But in many cases, the positions are kind of told, "Don't engage unless you have to." The Russians deliberately do, do not want to engage the positions in many cases. And so you kind of have infantry, you know, mixed in there, but the idea of, like, who controls what is just really hard to kind of tell. It's very, very confusing. Even the units, I don't think, can give you a good answer about, "This is what we control, this is what we don't control," because you, you might have a- and positions in the same building and just using different entrances, right? And, and again, it's, it's basically on both sides, they want the infantry not to fight the other infantry. They want drones to fight the other side. Um, and so it just, it becomes confusing. It's hard to kind of explain this. It's impossible to map this kind of thing, and that's why you see big disagreements on mapping, you know, guys saying it's, you know, it's -controlled, no, it's -controlled. It is just very complex, and I think even the guys fighting would say, "We don't know exactly what we control, w- what they control," and so on. It's just we're all here and, uh, you know, the one thing I take away from that, like, kind of style direction is that the units who w- we talked to didn't seem as though they were, you know, in a critical situation. Obviously, like, the Russians a- are, are across the city, but the positions that they think they can hold this for, you know, for, for the time being. Uh, you know, we'll see, obviously, but, um, it didn't give the suggestion that these guys are like, "We are... We've lost the city," or some along those lines. There are still positions there. They are still fighting for the city. And, you know, again, if we come back to Toretsk, Toretsk was a confusing battle. Uh, the maps were all over the place. They had big disagreements. And it was the same thing, I think, where you had Russians maybe behind positions in some places. infantry might be spending hundreds of days on position. Um, and so even without rotations, you have guys there. And, you know, some of these battles will last a very long time. Chasiv Yar, there's still Ukrainians just outside the city. That was, you know, battle's gone on for more than two years. So we talked about Krasnohorivka, how these battles go. It's like, it's impossible to give you any kind of prediction because, you know, we've seen some cases the battles go quickly, some ba- cases the battles go very long, um, and it could develop the same way.

Francis, what were your thoughts from the front line, uh, the experience of the soldiers and, uh, what you saw?

Yeah, I think, uh, again, I would agree that the, the expanding kill zone is, remains the kind of definitive, um, thing that is changing in the war. Um, like, almost everyone we talked to, they started the, the conversation about the situation by saying, "Well, we're dealing with infiltrations." And what was interesting for me about that is ag- is how that aspect and just the very basic, like, tactical building blocks of the way Russia's attacking actually hasn't changed, uh, as much. And it's funny because it, it becomes this almost, like, buzzw- buzz phrase to say that the war is changing every six months. And in some ways, in terms of certain technologies, that is the case, but now we are dealing, uh, with a, a force. You know, you can't go less than one or two people at a time. Like, that's... Y- you can't send half a person, uh, [chuckles] through, uh, through, through a tree line. And, um, in many ways, uh, my impression was that despite the difficulties, uh, of the expanded kill zone, um, and infiltrations, which are obviously very- Connected, um, because it means that the -- it's very difficult to have people forward. Uh, you have these, you know, you don't have a c-a coherent front line anymore. But units i-in many ways, even those that, you know, are not elite, that those are, that are pretty exhausted, those that have, you know, very, very little infantry, they-- it's not a new problem for them. It's not a new problem for them to be dealing with infiltrations. Not a new problem for them to be dealing with, uh, an expanded kill zone. Like, "Oh, bloody hell, now the FPVs are flying 20 kilometer, 25 kilometers, 30 kilometers deep." Um, and so that, that I guess, uh, wa-was encouraging. And, and what Rob was saying about how some units are, are adapting, I mean, yes, it's really inconvenient, um, to, to be supplying FPV positions with a heavy bomber, right? Because a heavy bomber is carrying, you know, maybe 15 to 20 kilos. Uh, but an FPV team needs drones, it needs music-munitions, it needs batteries, let alone the fuel, the food, the water, and everything else. So that's just a, a ridiculous amount of flights to be doing, uh, on a Vampire. But at the same time, it's important to understand how many different, you know, factors all feed into this understanding, uh, of the kill zone. Yes, it depends on geography. Uh, it depends on weather a lot. So, you know, if there's one really, uh, really foggy day, really rainy, yes, it will, uh, it will give the Russians a chance to, to infiltrate, but it will also give the, the Ukrainians a chance to evacuate some infantry, to, to do some rotations. Uh, to do, uh, you know, to take an armored vehicle to an FPV position and bring them, you know, supplies for, for, for a long time. Um, and, and what it also depends on a lot are, are the units and, and what they've got to work with. Uh, the case of, uh, of UGV's or bombers for logistics, for example. Um, so much of it, you know, you're dealing with this problem that, okay, m-more and more of your UGV's and your, all your bombers are being hit. Uh, and if you're a really, like, uh, underdeveloped, maybe exhausted unit, that you don't have big fundraising sources, um, and, you know, you know, you don't have the, the most amazing high quality manpower or workshop, then you will really struggle with that problem, and your only solution might be to, to just move everything back and, and do more flights and, and somehow kind of, um, uh, kind of muddle through it. But, you know, otherwise, uh, there are solutions. Um, and, and that, like, seeing a tactical problem and putting one's heads together, uh, whether commanders, engineers, welders, um, and just, and, and, and solving it. Finding a way to make your UGV's more survivable. Uh, fi-- a-and also, you know, just sheer numbers. Understanding that, okay, one out of three of your Vampires are gonna be, uh, shot down. But if we understand that how important that is, well, we just need to get more. Um, these problems are all solvable to an extent, and I think it's important for people to see that, uh, it's not something that you can just jump on and say, "Oh, well, like, now FPV's are ranging everything. Therefore, that's the kill zone. Therefore, you know, Ukraine just can't put anything there and, and, and, and the Russians are gonna seep through." Uh, on the topic of, uh, Kostiantynivka, I mean, we were talking about it last time, how it seemed to me that these city areas were kind of almost a bit of a liability, uh, to defend, uh, once the Russians brought critical mass in. Um, my conclusions from the, the brigades that were still fighting there, as, as we said, they still have infantry there, even on the eastern outskirts, um, was a reminder of how important, uh, infantry still is in these urban fights because no side really is able to put drone teams in this huge city anymore. Um, and the Russians can't because they've still got infantry hiding a-and, and, and walking around and, and clearing. Uh, and the Ukrainians, uh, can't for the same reason. And so, uh, the, the big challenge now for the Ukrainians is to not let the Russians gather as many infantry, uh, gather more infantry to the point where they can start using it as a base to move forward, because then the attention of those Mavics with the limited time in the air is, is focused more on the outskirts towards Druzhkivka. They have less ability to, to do logistics to their own infantry. They have less ability to hit, uh, Russians that they see moving, uh, in the city. But if they can keep their people alive, you know, for as long as they can, they can still bring logistics while kind of, uh, cutting off the, the path forward. That's now, you know, a city that's not just being quickly overrun, but it's this kind of state of stable confusion, I think, uh, as Rob said about Toretsk as well. Um, and, and these drawn-out battles, uh, they're costing the Russians a lot. And, uh, they are one of the reasons why the Battle of Donbas, I think, could still last, uh, for, for years more.

We didn't, uh, you didn't talk about artillery and, uh, aviation. Um, how is artillery playing on both sides? Where, where is and, and artillery stand? And, and also we know about the glide bombs from the side. Is, is aviation starting to have any, uh, greater impact as they build up their Western capabilities?

So I think for artillery, um, it's still important, but it's more that it deters certain things, right? So Russia's using small infiltration attacks for a reason, in part because if they do something at squad level, artillery will kill those things very quickly. And so, uh, again, we are seeing a, what I think is a less effective tactic, in part because the threat of artillery plus reconnaissance UAVs is a, is a potent threat. Um, but, you know, we, we essentially saw that artillery is playing a smaller role. It's, it's been pushed back further. So obviously another, another kind of consequence of the kill zone as it expands, um, artillery is still a important target. Um, you can bring up artillery and fire, but, uh, if you fire a few rounds, then, you know, both sides can locate them based on counter-battery radar, based on other kind of things. Um, and then it becomes an issue of how accurate are shells. So on the side, it's a big problem because their shells come from China, North Korea, Iran. Russia and the crews, uh, they needed... They need to fire several rounds to figure out what the accuracy is gonna be. And the problem is if they do that, they'll get located by Ukraine and destroyed essentially. And so their ac- their, their artillery accuracy is pretty, is pretty low. Um, you know, they still fire at UAV teams. Um, they also hit, you know, basically, uh, uh, villages and cities trying to destroy, you know, houses. Um, overall, the effect is not that significant just in the, in the current context of this war. Um, but still important, uh, in general, and, and I... we shouldn't, you know, kind of forget that. Um, KABs are still a big issue. I mean, you know, sometimes we... K- KABs have never enabled a breakthrough, right? They've never led to Russia achieving a breakthrough, even though it's, it's been an advantage Russia's had for three years now. Um, but you know, we, we ask units, like, "What are your problems?" They will almost always mention KABs. Now, so- some guys will say, "Hey, we think it's actually not a huge issue," but you, you hear both. But for the most part, um, a lot of commanders are like, "Yeah, this is a significant issue." And it, you know, it, it, it will... In some cases, you know, for UAV teams, they have to be further back because they'll target them with KABs. It can be a big problem. Um, also, you know, concussions, morale, it has this general effect. Even if it's not hitting your position directly, you know, they're loud. You know, there were some when we were in Sloviansk, and you know, it also has changed. Um, you know, the cities are s- are obviously, you know, more dangerous now too because they're, they're, they're hitting buildings there. The accuracy's not perfect, and so they, they're missing buildings by 100, 200 meters, hitting civilian buildings instead. Um, you know, the last hotel you used to stay in Sloviansk, it's now destroyed. Um, it got hit by KABs. Um, and so it's still a really significant challenge. And it's frustrating that three years after Russia developed glide bombs, like Ukraine's foreign supporters have not developed a way of dealing with them, right? Ukraine still doesn't have an answer to this. Um, KABs can be shot down by some air defense systems, but, you know, can you bring up a, a Buk near the frontline? No, right? It's gonna get hit by, by drones. So it's still a challenge, you know, and, and I know, you know, a number of the guys we talked to said, like, "Hey, we... maybe Gripens and the Meteor missile will, will push the 34s further back." Um, but it's still a big issue, and, and it's... and they don't have an answer for it. And it's, I think, very frustrating still for guys for morale, for psychological reasons. And you know, also post-war, TBI is a huge issue. It doesn't get really discussed much, but clearly a lot of guys, they don't get pulled out of position, but they're having concussions, and it has a, you know, repetitive effect essentially. So it's still a really big issue.

And any... You said that Western aviation still isn't able to help push those back. Um, what's the air support like? Uh, are they getting some similar support in terms of Western glide bombs? We're reading some stories about some new munitions that have been, uh, sent. Any discernible impact from Western aviation?

I don't think we've heard too much about it, but, um, in cities, they ha- they have gone up to UAV positions in Pokrovsk elsewhere with them. Um, they used them on bridges in the, in the mechanized assault that, uh, happened in the Azov quarter direction last month or, or in July. Um, so I mean, they, they are being used. Um, a little difficult for me to assess exact effects of it. Um, I think, uh, probably 'cause I'm a higher level than, than people we usually talk to. Um, but I mean, you know, it's also an issue of how close can the fighters get to the frontline, and that means they can only hit targets at a certain depth. And the Russians still have four to five positions that, you know, the Ukrainians want to target. They know these positions are there. They don't have the assets to hit them. Uh, HIMARS doesn't have the, you know, the pu- the punch to kind of get through. And so if they could enable fighters to come close to the frontline to drop KABs or, or glide bombs that could hit targets further beyond the frontline, it would have an effect, and it would certainly help the Ukraine out.

Yeah, I would, I would just add, we heard, uh, maybe a couple of stories where anecdotally the commander would say, "Oh, well, for, for that target, we were able to call in, uh, uh, an air strike with, with some kind of glide bomb." Um, but it was the exception rather than the rule. And even when they did say that, they said that, you know, that's just a very, a very limited option. You know, we can't do that every day. And I think the, the glide bomb story there is... I- it's... the issue is the disparity of it because s- when we talk about the kill zone, when we talk about the experience at the very frontline, um, when we talk about logistics now that, that they're being... doing a lot... done by a lot, uh, by bombers, by, by smaller drones sometimes, uh, all of that depends... Or whether we're talking about ISR o- on the tactical level, all of that depends on more and more drone teams, uh, doing more and more o- of the job that, that needs to be done to kind of maintain the fight, whether you're in offense for... as the Russians or in, or in defense. Um, and the disparity of the, the Russians being able to just rely on this, on this huge hammer that, that the Ukrainians can't really do much about, um, as... Yes, it's inaccurate, but when it's... I've been in Dobropillia in May, where there were m- drone teams in almost every entrance of every big building, but then also so many of those buildings had huge gaping holes in them from, from KABs. And you, you listen to, to the stories, and, and then the position I was in was destroyed a week later by, uh, by a KAB. And you understand that, you know, this... Yes, it's inaccurate, but it's this just sledgehammer that the Russians have available in huge quantities to target specifically the areas where Ukraine's gonna have a lot of these drone teams, which are the main thing that's waging the fight when it comes to ISR, strike, logistics on the very frontline tactical level. And Ukraine just doesn't have that. Maybe a, a few cases for a few high-value targets, and it's just a-an advantage, um, that, that the Russians have. But on the other hand, there's disparity when it comes to middle strike, wh-when it comes to Ukraine's ability to fly in, uh, you know, with, with Hornets and, and target logistics. And I think w-everyone understands that if Russia could be doing the same thing to Ukraine's logistics routes, uh, with something similar to a Hornet, uh, then that would be big for Ukraine. So there are always, you know... Yes, the two sides meet at the tactical level, and there are huge differences in manpower, um, and so on. But there are also these, you know, Ukraine has a strength in, in heavy bombers. Russia has the Molniya. And there are... There... The KABs are just one of the areas where, um, that advantage is definitely felt.

So speaking of middle strikes, I know we talked briefly about HIMARS. That goes into more of the middle strike range. Um, how is the middle strike campaign for Ukraine compared to Russia? What were the, uh, effects of the middle strike campaign that Ukraine's been waging? And, uh, is Russia able to develop their own middle strike campaign? So, uh, you know, m-most people still think middle strike is effective, or I, I, I'd say, um, you know, the effect on the front line is not always felt. Some, some people are like, "Hey, we don't feel it," although if you're in a priority direction, Russia's gonna, gonna, you know, prioritize resources there. Um, other directions, they're like, "Look, you know, w-we can't tell. Things have not necessarily gotten easier, but we think without middle strike, things would be tougher than they are." Right? Maybe it's fewer assaults, maybe less artillery fire, maybe, you know, so on. Um, so again, it... Has it had a huge effect, like, you know, decrease in assaults? I don't think it's had that kind of effect, but I think it has obviously benefited Ukraine. Um, you know, o- one thing we heard is that a lot of interceptor teams that used to be close to the front line taking out ISR UAVs, they're now further back, protecting, like, the main highways, and so that's a, you know, beneficial response. Um, Russia sent obviously a lot of Rubicon teams, teams from 50th, you know, Voryad Brigade. They're, you know, defending kind of roads now instead of, you know, maybe closer to the front line. And so it has forced Russia to divert resources to kinda handle it. Um, you know, it, it is having some effect with mobile air defense teams do shoot down drones, right? Um, EW is a, a problem. Starlink jammers are a problem. Um, and so Russia is adapting to it, and middle strike is becoming more difficult. Not impossible, so maybe becoming more difficult, I'd say. Um, and so again, when, you know, the first six months of the year, we, we saw Hornets kinda come out. We saw, you know, the quantities. In Russia, we had no response. And, and we saw, you know, all those FP2 strikes, all these other kind of things. Um, Russia's now adapted. It's not a full adaptation, but they have adapted. They've kind of minimized the effects to some extent. Um, and then, you know, now we're seeing the, the opposite side with Russia with, with jet-powered Geran's. Ukraine doesn't have a great solution for it now. They will at some point. Um, but, you know, for the time being, uh, it's an advantage Russia's, uh, you know, using. And now we see it in Kyiv for the last, you know, what, week and a half. We, we missed, you know, some of this. Um, but these kinda, like, all-day air alarms, you know, they're g- they're getting through turrets obviously. You know, units at the front line are saying, "Yeah, like, we don't have a great answer for this. It is a problem." Um, and so it's, you know, it's a combination. Um, Russia has their own... I wouldn't, I, I wouldn't call it middle strike, but, you know, with, with Geran's, they have seekers, which have, like, cameras on the Geran, so they can go after dynamic turrets. Um, you know, we saw obviously a lot of gas stations are destroyed along the routes, you know, different places. It's not, it's not affecting logistics too much from what I can tell. It's, you know, things, things kinda go forward. Um, obviously, a lot of the warehouses are also destroyed in different places. Um, so they're, they're having an effect as well. It's not cutting off logistics, right? They're not there yet. They don't have the, you know... Well, it's kinda gone with Starlink, and, right, the loss of Starlink was a significant setback for Russia. But, you know, Rosviat, their, their satellite system they're, they're replacing now, next year maybe, maybe gives them enough time, you know, per day where this becomes a threat, right? Um, so like anything else in this war, one side gets the upper, u-upper hand on some kind of ca-capability, there'll be an adaptation to it, and then the other side gets a upper hand somewhere, and, you know, and both sides have to respond. And so it's... I think that's what we're seeing with middle strike, where it's still important. Um, units still think like, "Hey, we need to resource this, you know, consis-consistently. We need more quantities of drones." Um, but it probably is not gonna have the same effect it had maybe in May or June or, or April, right when, like, Ukraine really started, you know, uh, uh, u-using this effectively. Um, and so yeah. We, uh, we'll have to wait and see. I would say one thing that was notable on this trip, particularly in Zaporizhzhia, is that Russia is deploying more drones using artificial intelligence. Um, there's different kinda types, but, like, you know, one is last mile guidance or pixel lock, which is something Ukraine's had technology for some time, where essentially based on a camera, you can, you know, on an FPV or Molniya, the operator can, can, you know, basically click a button, and the drone will more or less do the terminal guidance on its own. It's not perfect. You know, wind can throw it off. You'd still do course correction typically. But if you lose the video feed, either because of the EW or because of just line of sight issues, the drone will continue to hit that target. And so Russia's doing... using these in, in different directions. But there are some, uh, drones that look like Molniya's that have, you know, no, uh, radio frequency control at all. And so there's... it doesn't seem there's any human in the loop, and they're using its own, uh, target recognition software and then also terminal guidance on its own. And the problem is that, you know, one, obviously, eventually this could, could lead to swarms. One operator can send many drones up, and, and they're doing their own kinda controlling. The other difficulty is that both sides can locate a lot of the drones, FPVs and Mounia, by picking up on the video signal, right? Because they can see the analog signal, and that's one way they, they, they figure out where these drones are and, you know, when it's in the air. Uh, without that, radar is kind of the only option. And if the drone is flying at low altitude, radar is less likely to pick it up. And so Russia's sending a lot of these-- well, maybe not a lot. They're, they're starting to send more numbers of, you know, AI kind of guided, um, drones or, or drones at digital frequencies into Zaporizhzhia. It's becoming more difficult to locate them. Uh, I think most is driven by the 50th Brigades, mostly in, in Group of Forces Dnepr, and this is the, the brigade using these drones. But it is a big concern looking next year. You know, we talked to, to the Brave One CEO, uh, a week ago, who thinks that majority of UAV strikes, you know, a year from now are gonna be, uh, autonomous. And, um, Russia's starting to do this. Um, AI is not good enough to really, uh, recognize targets, uh, effectively. There's way too many false positives. The Hornet, you know, uh, that the, Ukraine uses, it has a target recognition software. It has terminal guidance. But the target recognition is not nearly good enough to use it without a human in the loop. You have to, you know, make sure it's boxed on the right target, and Russia doesn't have the same qualms. And when they send these drones over cities, they go after civilian targets, right? So I mean, right now it's, it's mostly, I think mostly buildings. Um, but they're also going intersections, and they're killing civilians with them. And, uh, if you don't have the same ethical qualms with doing this, it can be a really big pro- problem. It can be a really big challenge. And so this is one of those, you know, concerning things. You know, we'll see. There'll probably be some kind of adaptation to it. But it does kind of have an ominous kind of sign of what, what things could look like in the future. Right now, it's, it's, it's not all across the front. It's really just Zaporizhzhia we heard this. But, um, you know, in the future, s- maybe it's something that Russia scales, and this could create, you know, new difficulties next year.

Francis, what were your thoughts or observations on, on the middle strike and, uh, operational side?

Yeah, I think w- we are with it where kind of, uh, someone who gets, like, uh, less carried away with excitement, um, where we would expect to be in terms of, in terms of, uh, it still being effective, uh, but the other side adapting. Like, um, again, I think what was really exciting, because I was getting carried away a little bit. Like, what was really exciting about the middle strike campaign back in, in, in spring was the fact that it could have-- it felt like it could have, you know, real asymmetrical strategic consequences because, you know, these roads were just being, uh, you know, cut off bec- they were becoming too deadly. Uh, there was the whole Crimi- Crimea narrative. Um, and, and, you know, it didn't work out that way, but the-- at least there, there was logic to it, and we were seeing results in real time. It wasn't just a, a pie in the sky, uh, kind of theory. We, we know that, you know, even with that strategic pressure, m- let alone deep strikes, you know, Putin, he, he's clearly dug his, dug his heels in. He's escalated the war, uh, and it didn't have that effect. And then it was, it was only a matter of time, um, before, before they would adapt. Um, they would learn to intercept them, you know, in a, in a pretty m- quick way, just the way that Ukraine's, you know, understood the, the threat from, from Shaheds and, and learned to intercept them very efficiently and now have to do the same thing, uh, with jet-powered Shaheds, which is a much more difficult, uh, challenge. Um, but otherwise, you know, uh, commanders were telling us, you know, they're still, they're still consistently hitting targets. Um, I think it's-- m- my assessment would be that it's clearly more effective in the south, um, because there, there's this open terrains. You know, they were telling us that closer to Crimea, you know, there's almost very little vegetation at all. So even, uh, a kind of, uh, mobile fire group or an interceptor team barely has any cover to actually use, uh, when they're defending, uh, some important target or an important part of the highway. And so it almo-- it, it actually becomes possible to, to, uh, ki- target them separately, and that causes all kinds of problems. Whereas in the, in the east, obviously, uh, there's a kind of-- there's not so much of this land bridge. You're immediately connected, uh, to Russia. You've got a lot of urban areas. You've got Donetsk there, a huge hub. Um, and so it's easier there. And, and there, there's just this larger, you know, grouping of, uh, and, and intensity of offensive operations. Um, and so, you know, KABs, uh, drones, so brigades fighting there on the front line, yeah, they're, they're less likely, I think, to feel, uh, that middle strike is making so much a difference. Uh, but it's, it's difficult to, to tell how much, you know, Russia would be, um, really pushing on the south, um, [lip smack] and how... Like, if, if the middle strike campaign wasn't there, how much more success they would have. They are pushing. You know, they're pushing. They're trying to push into Kharkiv. They're trying to, uh, get as close to Zaporizhzhia as possible because that carries strategic weight, uh, for Russia, but they're not succeeding. I-- and I think the middle strike campaign is probably a big part of it. You know, we, we talk about a, uh, a general idea of, of hitting logistics, but, you know, then you, you get down to what that e- means on a granular sense, and that's, you know, the need to bring a lot of fuel, a lot of ammunition, all things that burn and explode very nicely, um, let alone the, the people and the teams. And, and, you know, we talked about the immediate tactical kill zone, but this, you know, some people would argue that this is creating a, a, a really tricky kill zone, uh, of a different nature, um, for the Russians, uh, deeper in, in their rear. So I, I, I'm, I'm confident that it's having, uh, an effect more in the south, um, but it was always to be expected that we would see this adaptation cycle.

I think one of the big technological things that I'm hearing coming up more and more is the Starlink jammers, uh, to try and protect critical sites, critical infrastructure. Um, so there, that, the effectiveness and the asymmetric advantage of that is gonna continue to erode. Yeah, I mean, we, you know, again, we get a better sense. We ask people across the front line about this. Um, so Zaporizhzhia, you know, that's where a lot of the jamming... The ones that are destroyed by, by the Luftwaffe regiment, um, you know, there are videos of this before, so we knew that, that they kind of seen this. Um, we knew that Starlink jammers were used in Crimea, which was really the priority. Um, but even, like, units who were in, like, you know, Slovyansk direction, they felt, uh, Starlink jammers during times too. Uh, it's not scaled, right? You hadn't anyone near the front line yet. And so in many cases, it got... You know, Brigadoon said, "Yes, we felt it three months ago, one time, and it had some effect, but we've not seen any instance then." And so, um, you know, my sense is that there's a constant kind of cat-and-mouse game where if Russia turns on a jammer, it's something that's observable, and then you can then target it.

It emits.

Right. And then, you know, another thing that was important too with some of the mid-strike units is that, um, obviously, a lot of drones use Starlink. Starlink plays a very big role. But they wanna have a mix of assets, so they're not dependent on any one option, right? And so, uh, if, you know, Russia puts on a Starlink jammer, a Hornet with a Starlink on it is not gonna probably be the best option. Um, but you can have other options like, you know, the Bulava, RAM 2X, where it's ha- they have a repeater. It's RF, you know, uh, kind of connection. And then now this is your way of getting around that jammer, um, and of kind of, you know, countering those kind of systems. So, you know, we'll see Russia adapt, and they've, they've wanted to create these kind of, uh, combined EW groups, where you have a Starlink jammer, a, you know, uh, a jammer that's jamming regular ra- you know, uh, GPS, and then maybe other video frequencies, so that every option you might use against the jammers is being kind of countermeasured, um, or there's some kind of countermeasure. But haven't seen that really quite yet. Um, pe- my sense is that Peresvet-M is the really biggest kind of, uh, uh, you know, most effective one of these jammers. It requires a lot of power, though. And so typically, when units have seen them, typically they're near, like, substations or transformers, which, again, is another kind of vulnerability, another way of kind of, you know, uh, of, of, you know, tracking or figuring this out. And so, um, look, I mean, no system is perfect. Um, Starlink has given Ukraine a huge asymmetric advantage throughout this war. Um, Russia knows this, and that's why they're dr- trying to develop countermeasures. Uh, I'd also say, like, you know, we should not assume for the US military Starlink, Star Shield would necessarily always be effective in a conventional fight. Um, because if Russia's learning these adaptations, China will too, um, and the space domain is gonna be an important domain going forward in the future. And obviously, Russia thinks this too because Rosvet is their, you know, alternative e-eventually. So, uh, it, you know, it is a big deal. Um, but still it's... It, it really is... I wouldn't say it's, it's affecting most of the middle strike, like in the occupied areas of like Donetsk, Kherson, you know, Zaporizhzhia. I think Crimea, it's a bigger issue. I know they put jammers on some of the tanker ships because they're hitting those with FP2s, with, with Starlinks. Um, but you know, Russia is scaling production, and so that is gonna be an important development this year. Now, there's, there's also this debate about whether or not Elon Musk will allow the operation into Russia.

Yeah.

Uh, if that happened, um, first off, it would, it would enable the similar kind of middle strike campaign into Bryansk, Belgorod, Kursk, elsewhere. Um, it would push logistics and other things kind of further away.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it would also, if it, if it, if it enabled for deep strike, deep strike would be far more effective because you can... You know, many deep strike drones, if they're based on, uh, um, like GPS or INS guidance, they're actually not that accurate. And if you wanna, like, pi- hit a pinpoint target, um, you really can't do that too effectively right now. And so Ukraine's hitting refineries. They're hitting warehouses. Those are big targets, though. And even with the warehouses, they're missing them sometimes.

Yeah.

Um, you of course do not wanna hit things in the middle of a city because you're probably gonna miss, you know, and you don't wanna hit, like, civilian targets. Um, but as we saw with Russia, right, with this Geran strike on the SBU building, they have a new capability to be accurate because they have video, they have video guidance, right? They can manually guide things to their targets. I think that's one reason they haven't gone after the SBU building before this because they know there's the Hyatt nearby. There's all these embassies around. If you miss, the, the cost of missing could be really, really significant. Um, but you know, if, if Ukraine has, uh, you know, ability to, through Starlink, through, you know, whatever another technological system, they could go after important targets in Moscow as well, right? That they're probably not going after for a reason. So that would be a big development. Um, it would also be important 'cause it, it forces Russia to spread out the Starlink jammers they're producing. And it's 'cause right now they're gonna flood them into the occupied areas. At some point it w- it might be a, a, a kind of, you know, big issue for Ukraine, uh, if all of Russia was open to it, right? Obviously, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, the priorities are there. And then, okay, eventually we're gonna protect like Donetsk or, or whatever. Um, and so that, that is an important, you know, development. But again, this is, we're talking like six months, a year from now. What do things look like a year from now? And this is one of those developments where the quantity and scale we might see, you know, for the adaptations. Some of the jammers have not been that effective, and so the Russians, like internally, are, are trying to figure this out. What, you know... And as a variety of systems, some jam the terminal, some kind of go to the satellite. At least that's what the Ukrainians think. Um, and so anyway, we're gonna see, you know, several cycles of innovation on this adaptation, you know, both ways. Maybe Starlink has ways of overcoming the jammers too. Um, I don't know. I don't understand the, you know, the technical side of this at all, so, um, um, I'm an infantry guy talking about this. But, um, yeah. Anyway, it's, it is a big development. And, you know, again, we, we see these adaptation cycles every few months. As Francis mentioned, right? It's, it's, you know, it's always this, uh, everything's over, right? Or we're so back, and it goes between those all the time. And look, you know, the, the consistent theme is that Russia's had the strategic initiative since October 2023, essentially, right? When the, when the summer offensive ended, Russia's been strategically on offense. Um, we've seen Ukraine, you know, offensive. We saw the Kursk offensive. We saw a pushback in, in, in Olek sandrivka direction with the air assault, you know, units in Ukraine this year. We've seen a pushback in Liman, which at some point Third Corps will acknowledge, you know, and, and we'll see what the updated map looks like. Um, so, you know, we're seeing that, but we've not seen... Strategically, Russia's still, you know, they still have the initiative. The turning point, you know, that the people were mentioning back in May and June, right? I think that was, that was particularly premature. Um, you know, but again, we try and put this all into context, and it's, it's hard because it's always which side is winning or losing. There's no kind of gray zone for, for, for like, you know, analysis. Situation on the front line is still better for Ukraine this year than it was last year. Russia's advancing slower. Um, there was, you know, there was more of a risk of a breakthrough last year than this year, right? Corps reform has improved things. Um, we'll see with First and Third Corps if, if that development improves situation. Um, I think, I think Drapaty is a, a, a good choice for commander-in-chief. I think we're already seeing positive kind of movements in terms of reforms and other things. And so there, there, there are, you know, good things happening. As France said too, middle strike, this didn't exist a year ago, right? It exists now, and even though Russia's adapted, it still is diverting resources. It's still costly, right? It still creates problems. Um, Ukraine deep strike has been more effective this year too. Um, so has deep strike, so it's, it's, you know, it's both. But, um, look, I think it's just important to keep in mind, we analyze this one moment in time, and a month or two months from now things could change, right? And, and sometimes there are innovations we don't know are gonna come, and then, you know, poof, something happens, and it's like, "Oh, this is a new development that we weren't aware of." Um, I would say, you know, a couple things looking forward. Weather is a really big factor here, and we, we talked about, I think France mentioned it before. Um, you know, last year, if you remember, Pokrovsk got very bad in October, 'cause in October that's when, you know, in Ukraine basically for six months the weather's overcast. Like, not every day, but, you know, it felt like every day. But, um, last October the weather was very poor, and it was very heavy fog for, like, a, a number of days. In the beginning, you know, the Russians were not that far from Pokrovsk, and they, they had been infiltrating into the city every once in a while over July and August. But then there was like three or four days with just terrible weather. It was very low fog. Mavics couldn't see anything. FPVs, you know, really struggled to hit things. And because defenses on both sides rely on drones, uh, if, if the drones become less effective, that then opens up po- you know, opportunities that are not there otherwise. And so the Russians got into Pokrovsk, you know, they, in probably two companies' size worth of people, and they, they... Once they had that foothold, they were not, you know, Ukraine was not able to clear them out. Um, the risk, I think, going forward, 'cause forces are not far from a bunch of cities, right? They're infiltrating the Dnipropetrovsk. The Ukrainians will kind of clear them out, but they'll come back. Um, you know, they are infiltrating, uh, you know, we think in the Druzhkivka, right? Um, Opytne, Druzhkivka, certainly they've infiltrated there. They get cleared out. They, you know, come back. Um, but I think one of the big risks right now is, you know, we've talked about Kramatorsk. Sloviansk I think is gonna be tough for Russia to get there in the, in the near future. But, um, forces are not that far from these cities, and the next month it's really important Ukraine holds them off. And then if we get into October and the weather changes, if, if the Russians are too close to these cities, a, a one or two bad days of infiltration could just give them a foothold where they could hold. And it's really important the next month or so Ukraine does not allow that to happen, uh, holds them far enough away from the cities where when the weather changes, they don't have that kind of window of opportunity. Most people we talk to think the winter will favor, you know, the, the Ukrainians on the, on the, on the front line, 'cause, you know, the trees go away. But it's, you know, it's something we discuss, like, in the spring. Um, it, it's hard to tell 'cause some units say like, "Summer's better for us. Oh no, summer's worse for us." The weather affects both sides, right? Affect... And, and so, um, it... I do think though it's important for Ukraine they don't allow footholds in these cities. In the wintertime, you do not wanna be fighting from, you know, outdoors. You wanna be having, you know, positions in cities themselves. And so this is a really big development next month is, you know, can Ukraine essentially prevent Russia from getting a foothold in Kramatorsk, in Druzhkivka, uh, before the winter sets in? If they do that, then I think, you know, the next few months after that, Ukraine probably can, can forestall, you know, too much more in the way of advances. And then we're talking, okay, what happens next spring, next summer, and so on. Um, and again, you know, one other thing from one of the commanders I talked to is his view is that Russia's gonna run out of steam, and that, you know, we need to hold Sloviansk and just prevent them from getting here. And at some point they will just run out of steam before they can take the city. And, you know, again, no one knows if that's true, if, if it won't be true. It's, it's impossible to predict how, how and when Russia will advance and, you know, and how far. Um, but, you know, we are talking about the, the, the, the, the timeline here because the war is becoming costlier for both sides. Um, I think Russia acknowledges this even though Putin is dead set on taking all of the Donetsk region. And at some point, right, you know, we're, we're talking about a potential mobilization, potentially North Korean troops get involved in a, in a stronger way. Um, these things could, could have an impact, but also mobilization will create really significant issues with the economy. And so I think that's one reason why he's kind of delayed this. Um, so we'll have to wait and see. Um, but look, you know, th- there's an issue with, with information sources. We talk to the Ukrainians, and both sides of this war, both sides are feeling increasing costs, right? They're feeling issues, and lots of guys follow Telegram channels, and you'll hear like Telegram channels like complaining about, you know, this, this, and this. Um, of course, you talk to the Ukrainians, they're also like gonna say, "Oh, we have these issues," and so on. And you can get too focused on one side of your information source, right? Now, of course, I'm not talking to units, so I don't know what they're complaining about. Um, but it, it... Sometimes you might over kind of focus your analysis on hearing negative things on one side or the other, and I think it's important to kind of keep that in mind that both sides are facing issues here. Russia's taken heavy losses this year too. Their advances have not been that great. Um, unfortunately, the advances right now are coming near cities, and we're gonna see a battle for some cities, right? When it begins, you know, we'll have to wait and see. Um, but it is a big issue. Units in Dnipropetrovsk direction, you know, the- We talked to a bunch of students about like the UAV advantage. Most, you know, in most places they thought it was maybe parity, maybe Ukraine had the advantage. In Dora Pillay, we talked to two brigades. They both said they thought it was a five to one advantage on the side. So the Russians are really prioritizing that direction. They have a lot of Rubicon detachments there. We know they're prioritizing Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk. And now we're seeing Ukraine, I think, reprioritize that direction too with, you know, first and core kind of taking responsibility. So I don't know. I'm kind of rambling here. There's a lot of things going on. You know, it's always hard to kind of set the tone because it's not overly optimistic. It's not overly pessimistic, right? It's still the same kind of war, still continuing. As friends said, infiltration detachments are the same, right? I think the difference maybe this year is that, you know, one hand Russia is scaling on its forces. And so the quantities of teams are growing, which is a challenge. There's some technological changes too. But, you know, I'd say for the most part, more things are the same than have changed. And, you know, again, we're going into another winter. It's going to be a tough winter here. I think everyone is preparing for it to be very difficult. But, you know, we saw last winter Russia hoped to create societal domestic kind of problems in Ukraine that lead to political kind of, you know, issues. And it didn't happen, right? Ukraine's kind of persevered. So I think we're going to see, you know, similar thing this winter again. Deeply unfair to Ukraine as they have to deal with those. But, you know, I think they will deal with it because they ultimately think the alternative is worse.

And I know, Rob, you're going to be traveling to Europe. And actually, before we leave this conversation, there's a bit of a, let's call it a, the Germans would call it a strong move of kicking out or shutting down the consulate in Bonn and shutting down the Russia House in Berlin because of the assigned responsibility at the German airports of drones with explosives to Russia. It's hard to deny now that Russia is waging a low-grade and steadily intensifying hybrid war, increasingly lethal. You know, lots of drone and other weapons manufacturers in Europe are starting to get, you know, fires and other things. And it's just hard for European politicians to deny and ignore the obvious. Potential for miscalculation on Russia's side. I think everyone in the West looks at Putin and says, well, it doesn't make any sense for him if he's struggling in Ukraine to expand this war. But that seems to be exactly what's happening. And it's a bit of a boiling the frog phenomenon. If the worst were to happen and Russia were to expand this war while they're in Ukraine, which a lot of people seem to think is not possible, but I think more people are coming to that conclusion it could happen. Is Europe and the West ready? And what do you, what is your message as you go talk to these people outside of Ukraine?

Well, it's a difficult question, I'd say. So strategically, Russia does not want NATO to join this war as a full combatant. And maybe, and again, maybe Russia already treats, you know, NATO support as if they are combatants. And maybe that's their justification for these kind of, you know, things they're doing. But ultimately, you know, NATO forces are not striking targets. And if the NATO air forces got involved, it would pose really serious challenge to Russia. You know, Russia's, look, they're, you know, the forces in the Baltic Fleet and the Kaliningrad, those forces are in Ukraine. Their forces elsewhere on the border, right, they have conscripts. They don't have their combat power there. And so they would not, you know, work great for Russia to get into conventional conflict with NATO. I think there's the expectation they can keep raising the stakes a little bit without leading to that threshold response. And look, you said it is a dangerous moment. Russia is doing things that they didn't do beforehand. I think we're in a, you know, we're probably going to be in a era for some time where there's going to be this kind of competition between NATO members, between Russia. You know, before, I think a lot of the more negative kind of things that Russia was doing, Russia was not doing this because there's still economic links. And they didn't want to lose those links. Progressively, I mean, and some of this goes back to 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine the first time, this led to a lot of the sanctions that led to economic links kind of being, some of them being frozen or decreased. And then Russia maybe felt less concerned about escalating because it already lost some of those things out. When the full-scale invasion began, right, more of those economic links were lost. And Russia felt less, you know, concerned over, you know, making the situation worse. So, you know, look, we'll have to wait and see. With drones, there is a greater ability for plausible deniability. You can do things like assassinations, sabotage. And, of course, a lot of countries have not attributed these things to Russia. In some cases, they have. You know, Germany did recently. In other cases, they haven't. Some of those cases, maybe they weren't Russia. Maybe, you know, things being attributed to Russia that were not the case. Clearly, Russia is, you know, is conducting a sabotage campaign. But, look, it is a difficult policy question, how you respond. One of the ways, though, and again, the reason why Russia is frustrated with NATO members is that Russia is waging war in Ukraine. That's very important to Putin. And NATO members are supporting Ukraine with material support and intelligence support that's helping Ukraine prevent Russia from doing this. And, you know, if we're being honest, NATO support is killing soldiers. Intelligence is being used to, you know, go after air defense systems, infrastructure, things of that nature. And so, look, it is a concern that in the Kremlin, there might be a blurring of the perspective of, you know, is this becoming a, you know, direct war as opposed to something below that threshold with NATO? And how do they look at things? I think, you know, dialogue is still important. But at the same time, I think it's important for NATO that you, you know, continue to support Ukraine as much as possible and that this is really the thing that Russia does not want them to do. And this is also a way of responding to, you know, sabotage. Well, okay, we're going to continue to increase our support. We're not going to decrease it. We're not going to have equivocation about this. And maintaining unity is really important as well. We have elections every few years in European countries. There's always a question of the new leader is going to be less supportive of Ukraine and so on. I will say, you know, the last four and a half years, European countries have remained, you know, pretty remarkably consistently supportive of Ukraine. And I think it's important that that continues.

Francis, any thoughts on the European campaign?

I think it's an interesting moment again. For me, like, when we think about why Russia invaded Ukraine in the first place, uh, ultimately as someone who went through the, the whole Russia studies kind of, uh, academic world, uh, in two different countries, I think even there, there's, there's a lack of a, a recognition of the fact that we are talking about one person at the top of a, a power vertical, um, that, you know, whose, whose ideas and, and, and thoughts and introspections are not really challenged. Um, and that's why I think, uh, you know, he, he invaded Ukraine, and so w- he is unfortunately, um, for people who try to understand, uh, the, the, the kind of main, uh, unit of analysis for, for foreign, foreign policy going forward towards NATO, uh, as well. Um, and we know that for him, the NATO expansion and the fact that there are the Baltic states, you know, doing great for themselves. There's Poland. Um, um, all of that, you know, offends him personally. You know, he, he, he wants the Baltic states back. Um, he's talked about it himself. Um, but a-a-and in that sense, if there was a time, you know, to, to even begin to start realizing ambitions like that, um, it would be, it would be around now when, when, A, NATO unity is, is at its lowest point in, in, in a long time, um, if we're talking about the last few years, um, under an administration that's, uh, talked about invading at least two, uh, of its other member states.

Yeah.

Um, and at a time when none of these countries really know how to fight a completely new generation, newly transformed, uh, type of war. Um, only Ukraine, uh, and Russia understand how to fight this kind of war, the kind of war with a kill zone, the kind of war... This is something a soldier told us, uh, yesterday actually, that, uh, you know, NATO troops need to learn how to get ready with living, uh, for weeks underground. Um, um, and in that sense, uh, it, it, it makes a lot, a lot of sense to, to kind of, uh, push the envelope as much as possible, uh, a-and kind of test responses and, a-and see what happens. Uh, but on the other hand, um, as I would also point out, and this is going, I guess, full circle with the whole conversation, is that if, if you imagine kind of Putin just, you know, sitting around and thinking about these ambitions and wanting to maybe slow- slowly go ahead and realize them, he's not gonna do that until, uh, you know, wh- while his, his forces, you know, are struggling to get closer to Sloviansk. Um, you know, that's the, the, the fact that Ukraine is holding the line there causing so many problems, um, and, and not allowing, you know, the, the kind of even minimalist, let alone the maximalist, uh, gains o-of Putin to be, to be realized, and that could still be, you know, on a, on a timeline of several years if it happens at all. Um, that's what's, I think, stopping, you know, the first FPV drones flying into Narva or, or, you know, in-into Lithuania or something like that, uh, from Kaliningrad. Um, and so what I would always say, and this is touching on, on a, a few things Rob said, was that, um, w- unfortunately we're still in a place where European NATO countries are not... They're, they're, they've stepped up a lot with support, but they've not taken actions where they show Putin that they've got real skin in the game, uh, in Ukraine. Um, because for now, yes, he thinks that Ukraine is a NATO puppet, um, and, and this is all a kind of artificial, uh, resistance. But what U- Europe is also signaling is that so long as he can push enough and, you know, break the military on the front line, which does have a lot of help but is still made up of Ukrainians, and break the economy and society in the rear, you know, Europe's not gonna come and help them. That, that's all he needs to do, and then he, he can go and take, uh, everything he wants, and then he can go and, and maybe think about, uh, Estonia a-and the Baltic states and, and whatever. And so that's always, I think, my, uh, kind of very broad and, and philosophical point to make to, to Ukraine's friends and partners, is that you, in a very real way, uh, both philosophically and tangibly, need to see the defense of Ukraine as the defense of your own security, um, and act accordingly.

Yeah. I think the one big concern I have for miscalculation is that, um, Russia's rear, until probably this year, was pretty secure, and Ukraine's, uh, you know, obviously air defense, uh, struggles across the whole country to protect targets. But increasingly, Ukraine's factories are being exported to Europe with joint ventures between defense companies. European production is starting to have a real impact on the battlefield in Ukraine with, you know, big, big European companies putting drones in here and, and ammunition and other things. Uh, so there's been some noise, at least, out of Kremlin and some of their mouthpieces about European, uh, targets should be ready. So, uh, the, the miscalculation might be that, hey, if things aren't going well, why not just put all our chips in and, and, and, you know, next thing we know, we got jet-powered Shaheds flying across Europe just to see what the response will be. And that's where- The big concern lies is maybe Russia doesn't have a lot to, to take all the Baltics or try to take all the Baltics, but maybe you don't need to have such a big in- invasion or, or drone campaign to, to cause a real crisis in NATO and, and see if it actually is a paper tiger.

Well, I think it's, it's a big concern if you're, m- you know, i- if fear of escalation is, is, is the way, uh, the line upon which y- your thoughts kind of run. But on the others-- on the other hand, it could have the effect of, of finally kind of entrenching the idea that no- there's no separating these two and that they need to act, uh, as one. And if the response is appropriate, finally, uh, signaling to Russia that m- you know, it's not just about dominating, uh, and, and overwhelming Ukraine and then going f-further. I mean, one thing commanders, Ukrainians, I think a lot of people who we would respect intellectually always say, including on this trip, is that Russia only respects strength. Like if you, i- every time the, the actions that have projected strength, um, especially between Ukraine and its partners, you know, have been met by, by threats and grumbling but, but not an equal response, and then they, they, they push further when they feel weakness.

Mm-hmm. Rob?

Yeah, I mean, I'd also like w- whatever the purpose of Russia's campaign, it hasn't achieved its results. I mean, the NATO countries are still supporting Ukraine. We haven't seen any breaks in European countries, right? Um, there hasn't been that fracture. There hasn't been this kind of concern like, "Oh, Russia raised the stakes too much. Now we're gonna pull back." And so if that was the objective, it hasn't really succeeded. Um, they've gone after some defense factors it seems, like sabotage, but has that ef- a significant effect to European production? Uh, doesn't seem that way so far. Um, you know, look, they're, they're testing, you know, new, new methods of covert action. One of those is to recruit people, including Ukrainians who are, were living in Europe on Telegram offering kind of financial incentives. Um, th- they're also giving examples of, for, for European countries about the things they're going to try and h-how, how to counter this. And so, you know, again, it, it is a concern. There are escalation risk. It is, you know, when, when this war began, there were massive escalation risk because, uh, NATO's supporting Ukraine. Uh, NATO aid is killing soldiers, right? Intelligence is being used to kill soldiers. Uh, strikes into Russia, there's NATO intelligence being used for these strikes. Um, and again, if you remember, if you go back to twenty twenty-two, the idea that US intelligence was gonna help strikes in, you know, refineries or, uh, things in, in Moscow elsewhere would've been seen as incredibly escalatory, right? Um, you know, strikes in Crimea, w- uh, and, and again, a notable, a notable difference too is in twenty twenty-two, twenty twenty-three, Elon Musk, you know, kind of famously said striking Crimea is treated as territory could lead to, you know, escalation. I, I forget how exactly he said. Well, Starlink is being used to strike targets in Crimea all the time now, right? And, and, uh, clearly that has not led to World War III. Um, it has posed challenges for Russia, but obviously it seems, you know, Elon is also a little more comfortable with risk than he was maybe before. Um, so those risks are still there. Uh, those risks have been there for four and a half years. It's important to manage it. I think, you know, I, I personally think dialogue is totally fine. I think it's okay for CIA Director Ratcliffe to go to Moscow to talk to officials. It's not clear what he said because the reporting was like, you know, very different reports. Um, I think it's, you know, fine for European countries to talk to officials too, at least to kind of say, "Here's, you know, what's, let's not get, uh, have misperceptions lead to some kind of, uh, escalation." Um, you know, but ultimately, you know, it's also important to make it clear to Russia that support to Ukraine will continue, and that, you know, ultimately what Russia's doing is, is considered unacceptable and that we shouldn't accept, you know, this kind of war. We shouldn't accept the way Russia's fighting it. Um, and so again, and I think this is really comes back to that kind of that same thing. It's important NATO continues to provide the support it can to Ukraine. I think also, you know, um, that support remains stable. You know, again, there have been mistakes. There's been things that could've been done sooner. Um, but you know, most NATO members are still supporting Ukraine in a strong way. I think that understanding it's, it's important for their own security is still there. Um, there's more recognition that there's a lot to learn from this war. Um, I'd like to see NATO members kind of pulling more lessons back. I'm, I'm still frustrated that we're not seeing more of this and that, you know, some I think NATO militaries are, you know, don't recognize how much, you know, the character of the fighting has changed and that, uh, the way Russia would fight, you know, NATO has changed too, and that we have to kind of update the way w-what we're prepared for. Um, but no, I mean, uh, uh, we are gonna live in a dangerous moment for the foreseeable future. Um, as Francis said, you know, Putin has been in charge of the country for twenty-seven years. Um, you've had one, you know, basically person kind of dictating decisions for that long. It, it's unclear where all, where all of his information comes from, if it's always accurate and so on. Um, he has his own biases. He lives in a bubble, right? That creates all sorts of issues. So, um, it will be an enduring problem we have to manage. And, um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's... I don't, I don't know. I think it's, it's still gonna be a concern. Um, but again, it always comes back to the question of if Russia is really facing challenges. They stop advancing, the costs really increase. Does Russia try to escalate in a different way? And I think some of the narrative I saw the last, you know, few weeks was that Ratcliffe's trip, um, was in response to, you know, Russia basically having a stalemate and not achieving anything on the battlefield. And I think that was the wrong perception of, of from, from Russia's view at least. Because from Putin's perspective, taking Donetsk, uh, the rest of Donetsk region is still his like, you know, kind of priority on the front line. Obviously, he wants to defeat Ukraine. He wants to have Ukraine make concessions and a variety of, uh, more ambitious things. But at, at a tactical operational level, he wants to capture the rest of Donetsk region. That is kind of the minimum goal of the war. Um, and right now Russia is advancing through these cities, right? They are, they are getting closer. The cities are becoming more dangerous. I think from his perspective, right, he is Moving to those objectives, obviously the maps on the side are, are inflated and, and, and he's, you know, he probably has a, a, a, a, a exaggerated view of what's happening. But of course, they're still advancing there. And so I think the idea, like, "Hey, the war is completely stalemated," you know, and, and that's why the talks began, I think that's, you know, wrong. I think if, if, uh, Ratcliffe's idea was that Russia's ready to make a deal and we just gotta show 'em some documents and so on, I think that was probably naive, although I think it was fine to have the conversation. Um, and look, you know, I think... I don't think the war's gonna end anytime soon. Uh, you know, I know that, uh, Kushner and Rudikoff right now are in Moscow. They're coming to, to Kyiv soon. Um, I don't think negotiations are gonna lead to, you know, any kind of significant results in the near future, or at least to end the war. Um, Russia has some advantages right now, and we have a winter coming up. And I think that, you know, Putin's perspective, he's probably more optimistic right now than he was a few months ago. Um, and so, you know, it, it's important to keep in mind this war's probably not gonna end anytime soon. Support needs to be long-term. And I think the strategy for Ukraine needs to be long-term, too. So how can we make sure we can outlast Russia in this war, we can sustain this war, and make it clear to Russia that they're not gonna win just by expanding it for another six months or a year, that we can still fight this lo- you know, that long as well. Um, and so I think that's, you know, still a priority. Convince Putin that Ukraine can outlast Russia, that NATO will outla- uh, NATO support will outlast the end of the war, and that, you know, it's best for him to kind of, uh, you know, recognize that he's reached a measure in terms and ending the war sooner rather than later is better for him.

Yeah, and Trepash's document talked about some of the need for sustainable long-term manpower policies related to people already in service. Uh, it's, it's gonna be interesting to see how that actually plays out in practice between, uh, the general staff, uh, the new Minister of Defense, and, uh, the President's office, which seems to have been avoiding that, uh, uh, responsibility for that topic for quite some time. So ...

Well, I mean, you can keep in mind, there... The war's been going on since 2014, and so we, you know, we were with some people who began, you know, in Sloviansk in 2014, responding to, to, you know, the, the separatists, the intelligence guys who were taking part in trying to occupy Sloviansk. Um, they're committed. They're committed to defend Sloviansk. They're committed to defending the rest of the, of the Donetsk region. Um, you know, we know guys who are from Donetsk, where they're from the area. They, their, their homes were occupied in like 2014 or afterwards. They're like, "Hey, we're gonna keep fighting." And then, and, uh, they're all tired. Everyone, everyone is tired. Everyone's exhausted. But, um, and I'm not, I'm not speaking for Ukrainians, but, you know, speaking for some of these guys, they're like, "Look, we're not, we're not gonna leave. We're gonna keep fighting. There's no alternative. Um, we have to, you know, defend every, every part of our land, and Donetsk is, is land." And so, um, that commitment's still there. Um, and look, you know, y- maybe Russia eventually takes, you know, these cities, but they're only gonna do so at very high cost, and the Ukrainians are gonna, are gonna fight hard for these areas. Um, and you know, I think that's ... L- look, every, every day of this war is a tragedy. Every day, you know, people are getting killed. Ukrainians are being killed, civilians. There's long-term economic damage. The costs are significant. Um, and you know, all of us hope this war ends as soon as possible. Uh, I just ... You know, I don't think it's gonna happen in the near future, and I think, you know, again, we have to gird ourselves for this to be a longer war and to make sure that support is there.

Rob, Francis, uh, thanks for the detailed rundown of what you guys saw when you went out to the front. Uh, look forward to having you back again, uh, next time you come out, or maybe between then, we'll, we'll have some other conversations, uh, about important topics, uh, for this. And I, I know you're traveling for the next few weeks. Uh, Francis, uh, keep reporting, uh, over there at the Kyiv Independent, and thanks for, for all the work you're doing over there. And, uh, look forward to having you guys back on another episode soon. That was Rob Lee and Francis Farrell with myself here in Kyiv, a full debrief from a week on the front lines. Here's what they gave you. The first half of this year went better for Ukraine than they expected. The second half is turning to be tougher. Russia's advances are still slower than last year, but they're landing in the worst possible places, on the approaches to the last great fortress cities in Donetsk Oblast. Kramatorsk and Sloviansk are now frontline towns. Both men believe the battle for them will be one of the defining events of this war, and neither predict how long it will take, because they've watched Toretsk stay confused and contested for months, and Chasiv Yar hold out for almost two years. They told you the change at the top is real and is already being measured at the brigade level. Inspections have stopped. The automatic counterattack order delegated. Mission command is finally becoming possible in the army that had not been permitted to practice it fully. And they told you what it cannot fix. Mobilization is not a problem a commander-in-chief can solve alone. They also told you about the, the truth about the kill zone, that it is best measured in how far someone has to walk to get to their position. That around Kostiantynivka that is 15 to 20 kilometers. They told you what a contested city really looks like, with boat-size infantry even sharing the same building to fight each other. And Francis gave the correction that a lot of doom posters need. These units, the army, have been dealing with infiltration and the expanding kill zone for a long time now. It's not new to them, and most of these problems have solutions. Welders, engineers, and commanders putting their heads together and getting on with it. Then the warning, and it is about the sky, not the enemy fog. Last October, it blinded the drones for four days and left two companies being able to infiltrate into Pokrovsk, which turned the tide in that battle. The Russians are close to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk now. The next month will decide whether and how close they will get to these cities before winter. But the thing I want you to carry out of this episode is the last thing Rob said. They spent time with men who were in Sloviansk in 2014, who fought the first intelligence officers to walk into that town 12 years ago, whose homes have been occupied ever since. They're exhausted. Everyone is exhausted. And what they said was, "We're not gonna leave." There's no alternative. Donetsk is Ukraine. Maybe Russia eventually takes these cities, but they will pay a heavy price for every meter. Rob, Francis, thank you both. You went and looked, and then you came back and told us plainly what you saw. That is rarer than it should be, and it is the whole reason this show exists. If this conversation gave you something you didn't have an hour and a half ago, do two things. First, subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and on Apple. Leave a five-star review if this show helped you. It genuinely changes how many people find these conversations. Now, the organizations behind this work. The Borderlands Foundation. Our mission is to make sure that Ukraine's heroes are never forgotten. We have two programs. The Ukraine Military History Institute, where we preserve, translate, and distribute the lessons of Ukraine's war into for soldiers, historians, and allied militaries worldwide. We're working on a university course. We have this podcast. We do workshops for serving, serving officers. We're working on building a professional journal. We organize soldier delegations to foreign countries, and we have the Heroes of Ukraine tours here in Ukraine. This episode is a case in point, a doctrinal culture changing in real time, described by two people who are standing in it. If that is not captured now, it will be reconstructed badly in the future. Support us at ukrainemilitaryhistory.org. Serving military and veterans get our publications free. Register on the site. The Ukraine Center for Traumatic Stress, PTSD research, treatment, and education for veterans. All the links to support the center are in the description to this video. Rob named the injury nobody writes about, repeated concussions from glide bombs creating, uh, traumatic brain injury in soldiers who are never rotated out. Post-war traumatic brain injury is gonna be one of the largest medical bills this country faces. Donate to support these veterans through the Borderlands Foundation. The Borderlands Group, the company that funds all of the above, and the main thing I wanna tell you about today. Listen to what this episode says about equipment. Three years after Russia fielded glide bombs, there's still no answer to them. Ukraine cannot br- bring a Buk or an air defense system near the front line. It will be found and killed by enemy drones and missiles. Starlink jammers are spreading Russia's flying drones with no radial link at all. Every one of these is a requirement written by the battlefield that no test range in the world will generate for you. We help Western defense companies and technology companies validate their products with frontline units in real combat and electronic warfare conditions, then convert that battlefield demand into the chance to have funded procurement, letters of intent, letters of request, and even government contracts from Ukraine or allied governments. Validate, fund, and then scale. One more thing. I gave a talk this summer to a room of people building defense technology companies on why war matters and why Ukraine matters. The objections you hear every time somebody considers going to Ukraine, what 15 companies on the ground working with us have actually found. It's free. The link to it is in the description. If you run a military defense tech company, or you work for the government, or you're in service, that video will definitely be helpful for you to think about the future of war and technology. Finally, Story Funnels. In three months, people are gonna be searching for exactly what is in this episode. The October window, the corps reform, what a kill zone actually measures, autonomous drones with no human in the loop. Story Funnel makes sure that they'll be able to find it. One episode in a packed month of content comes out. Articles, clips, short videos, posts in your own voice distributed where search engines and AI systems actually surface them. Our, our system we use to produce this podcast is live at storyfunnels.ai. Go check it out. My name is Sam Cook. Thanks for listening to the Ukraine Military History Podcast, where we are making sure that Ukraine's heroes are never forgotten.