Founder, Ukraine Military History Institute
Founder of the Borderlands Foundation and the Ukraine Military History Institute, and host of this podcast. A West Point graduate and former US Army cavalry officer who served in Iraq in 2007, he taught Russian military history at West Point and has lived in Kyiv since before the full-scale invasion.
Sam Cook and Rob Lee on why Ukraine's military past is essential to understanding today's frontline — from tracking the Russian buildup to the lessons reshaping modern warfare.
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Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata break down the 2025 battlefield — Russia's infiltration tactics, drone lines, electronic warfare, and how Ukraine is adapting.
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Sam Cook and Lt. Gen. Zabrodskyi dissect the Blitzkrieg myth, elastic defense, and mission command — how the German army innovated under fire from 1916 to 1940, and what Ukraine can learn from it.
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Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata break down the 15km kill zone, drone-driven brigade autonomy, the Dobropillia crisis, middle strike operations, and Ukraine’s path back to maneuver warfare.
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Rob Lee returns from Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk & Kharkiv with a granular frontline read: corps-level Hornets, brigade reform, $4K recon drones, UGVs, AI targeting, and why Ukrainian armor assaults may return.
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Rob Lee interviews Colonel “Shram” Tovstyi, commander of UAV Battalion Corsair (38th Marine Brigade): three-layer drone doctrine, Rubicon, fiber optic vs radio FPVs, UGV logistics, and the point system — from the Pokrovsk front.
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The origin story before the captivity arc: Poltava, Maidan from abroad, signing with Ukraine’s oldest Marine battalion without telling his parents — and holding a Mariupol factory position for a month, knowing the only outcomes were death or captivity.
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Rob Lee interviews Ievgen Malik on Mariupol’s final days: the failed April 9th breakout that killed ~400 marines in one night, the negotiation on the bridge, the surrender — and the descent through Olenivka into Ryazhsk prison, where the beatings began on arrival.
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The captivity story concludes: told he was going home, Ievgen Malik was instead transferred to Prison No. 10 in Mordovia — the standing regime, ritualized beatings, scars hidden from inspectors — until Friday, September 13th, 2024, when his name was finally called.
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Emergency panel filmed in Kyiv two days after the dismissal of defense minister Fedorov: why the streets are protesting, the case for gutting the general staff, the Fedorov–Syrskyi clash over how to fight this war — and the window for a 2026 offensive.
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The Fedorov panel concludes: his farewell list of the army’s systemic problems, debated point by point — E-points and its perverse incentives, the half-built corps reform, busification, the foreigners’ revolving door — and the panel’s verdicts.
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Two Marines of the same 36th Brigade battalion — one British, one Ukrainian — together for the first time since Russian captivity: the siege of Mariupol, the breakout attempts, capture, torture, the show trial — and the warning both now carry to the West.
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His face is blurred and his voice is altered — he is still fighting. A GUR special forces company commander on Russia’s rat tactics, a kill zone where 80% of casualties come from drones, and why future special operations units should be max 30% infantry.
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Rob Lee and Dima Putiata on the war right now: have we reached a turning point? The most sophisticated Russian assault yet, 20 FPVs to stop one tank, 80% of armor losses from drones, Starlink as a single point of failure — and Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief.
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One of the last journalists still reporting from the zero line: Dobropillia — the most destroyed city he has seen — the Donbas fortress belt under pressure, the October–November danger window, and the mobilization question hanging over the winter.
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Ukraine Military History Institute