Angry Planet - Ukraine: Back to the Front One Year On

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

This week, Angry Planet talks with Caleb Larson who has been working as a journalist in and around Ukraine’s Donbas region where much of the war is currently being fought. He paints a picture of the situation on the ground and tells us where to buy groceries in time of war.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world with their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt. The war in Ukraine drags on. Supply lines drag out and there's no end in sight as the war has passed the one year mark. We thought it would be a good idea this week to bring you someone who's actually there and has seen the front lines for himself. Caleb Larson is a multi-format journalist and defense writer. He's based in Berlin. And he spent most of 2022 reporting from Ukraine. So we're really glad to have him. you were just recently in the Donbass? Can you tell us a little bit about what you saw?

And maybe a little bit more about where you were and what you were doing there. Yeah, right on definitely. So I was based in Cromatorsk. That's kind of a smallish, mid-sized city, kind of centrally located in Dunbos. It's kind of an important node in the area. It's a good jumping off point when you're trying to go to different places. At the time, I was trying to chase down a story about the Battle of Bahmoud, which is ongoing. Obviously, Ukrainian forces have been defending that city for a long time. And the city has changed quite dramatically in the past six months or so. I was there a few times in summer. And all the Russian forces were outside the town. It was safe enough to go and talk to people, talk to the mayor, talk to city administration, talk to soldiers that were cycling in and out.

And that now is obviously just not possible at all. The latest reports that I've seen today is Russian forces have taken the eastern part of the city. There's a river that runs north-south through Bakhmud. And it appears as if Ukrainian forces have kind of pulled back to the western side of that river to kind of consolidate defenses and hopefully hold the Russians back at the river line. you know, they're on the East Bank. We'll see if that's possible in the coming days and weeks. So I was there for a while.

I was also in a town just west of Bahmoud called Chassevjar. It's kind of a small, small city, large town kind of area. Pre-war population of about probably 12,000 to 15,000. Best estimates is there's maybe four or five thousand people still living there. And the kind of people who have stayed at this point are, either to destitute to leave, perhaps quite ill and firm, as well as the people that are kind of their caretakers, people are sort of responsible for them. So got to talk to the head of the civil and military administration in that area. And yeah, Chassev Yard is about six,

six miles west of Bakhmud, so it's not the focal point of, you know, any incoming or outgoing artillery, but despite that, there are still hits on the city occasionally. My interview with the civil military administration guy got interrupted because we had some incoming had to duck into a basement for a couple hours and just kind of hang out and sit tight. I was also in a couple of other smaller towns, kind of in the surrounding area where different soldiers go to refuel, to get some energy drinks, you know, get a burger, kind of, take a load off for a little bit as they're cycling in and out. Yeah, so Dunbass is yeah, kind of a tense area, intense area rather, but yeah, most parts of it outside of Bakhmud are

fairly livable. You know, supermarkets are stocked more or less with all the basic necessities. Obviously, there's no kind of luxury things going on, but life has a way of thawting along and continuing. That's kind of remarkable to me. I had no idea that people were still getting their groceries. But I guess, I mean, what were signs of abnormal life? That's a good question. It's a little bit strange when you go to Dunbass, especially the closer you get to the front line in places like Bachmoud.

Obviously, it's the closer you get there, the farther east you go, the more of kind of, you know, a military situation it is. You see a lot more military traffic. And I remember last year, my last month in Ukraine, I was in Donbos. And it was very surreal coming back to quote unquote real life. I live in Berlin. So I came back to Berlin and it was just bizarre seeing people walking around that were not in camouflage. Dunbas is a very, you know, soldierly environment.

Almost everyone there is military age, male in fatigues with weapons and armored vehicles. So that, I mean, is obviously unusual from a civilian non-war context, but you just acclimate very quickly and it becomes kind of the new normal. One thing that was kind of interesting is food. I mean, food is like such a basic necessity, right? Everyone needs to get food. And your life kind of ends up revolving around food. So, for example, in Cromatoresk, this kind of base city that a lot of people use, there's, you know, a handful of supermarkets open. and there's plenty of basic things, but there's just not a lot of variety during meal times.

I've never been in the military, but I suppose it's something similar. You kind of have the same thing all the time. And any variety in your diet is sort of contingent on whatever the supermarket can get in from Western Ukraine, from Nipro, from Kiev, from other places. Sometimes humanitarian aid comes in. And on those days, you can always tell because there'll be. a blurry of activity, you know, at the supermarket. And then you kind of think, oh, great, we can, you know, maybe get something different to you today. I just want to note that we're talking on March 6th.

I know that things can change quickly on the front lines. So just that in case something happens between now and the time that this goes out, I just want to date the moment in time that we're speaking. We also want to mention that it's not our fault. Whatever happens next. Typical Western response to everything that's going on, Jason. So speaking of humanitarian aid, I think you just wrote a piece for Jason in Newsweek about supply lines, right? And or supplies in general.

And speaking of the West and its responsibilities, how it's struggling to fill Ukraine's needs. Is that kind of an accurate read on what you've written? Can you tell us about that? Yeah, I think so. Obviously, Ukraine has a lot of logistical, I won't say issues, but considerations to think about. Obviously, until very recently, they were a military built on the Soviet model. So a lot of, you know, weapons and ammunition are, you know, vintage USSR, make and model. Obviously, Ukraine is trying to shift, not. only in a weapons and material sense, but also in a training sense towards kind of a NATO-standard army, which obviously would help them in the medium and long-term with procurement for things like, you know, bullets and artillery shells and this kind of thing. But it's a bit of a double-edged sword, right? I mean, a lot of the NATO equipment or NATO standard, rather, equipment from NATO countries

that's coming to Ukraine more or less uses the same ammunition, but then you think about things like different artillery systems, you know, small arms. A lot of these things need spare parts. And it's kind of difficult. I mean, on paper it's great. You know, the UK is sending at some point a bunch of challenger tanks. Germany and some other countries are sending leopard tanks. The U.S. at some point in the future will, in theory, send M1 Abrams tanks. And this is great, but this is also kind of a logistical nightmare while they, you know, require. more or less the same kind of ammunition, the kinds of parts and maintenance is very different among the platforms. And so this is kind of an issue that Ukraine will have to figure out, you know,

how to how to get beyond this, how to, you know, be able to sustain their drive, you know, from kind of a, you know, mechanical material since medium and long term. And I think that's, you know, kind of kind of an issue. They're also dependent, highly dependent on particular. the U.S., but also other NATO countries for their ammunition. That being said, the United States, Germany in particular, more than anyone else, in the other country, are, you know, they're still rooted in this post-cold war kind of mindset where there's no peer-on-peer large-scale conflicts. And I think we've seen moves, especially in the United States, kind of move towards or

to, you know, kind of realize, oh my gosh, this is a massive war. on a scale that we have not been prepared for for the last 80 years. And production of super basic things like artillery shells, you know, needs to be ramped up. Part of the, or one of the problems, this is maybe a simplification, but the Department of Defense and many other militaries order ammunition on a year-to-year basis. And typically, that's kind of been contingent on, okay, last year, how much training did

we do? You know, we need X amount of shells. last year and we're seeing a trend. So we're going to order just for the next year. So a lot of orders that are in are reflective of a peacetime kind of training and what you want to call it standpoint or footing rather. And one thing that the Department of Defense seems like it's doing, and I think we'll do, is instead of ordering ammunition on a year-to-year basis,

we'll move towards multi-year contract, which gives defense companies that produce different, you know, ammunition, equipment, vehicles, the confidence to say, okay, we can expand production. We can maybe open up another line. We can work more hours because we have the security of not just this next year, but maybe the next two years, three years, potentially longer. And so that's, I mean, that's a good move. But that being said, it takes a long time to kind of move from 30 years of post-Cold War.

We're at peacetime. There's no large-scale war going on to there's the biggest war in Europe in 80 years. So that's kind of a medium-long-term bottleneck that hopefully will be rectified soon, but it's a little bit unclear if, you know, there will be enough ammunition in Ukrainian depots and stocked when there needs to be. Yeah, you specifically mentioned in the piece that any ammunition that was ordered last year would not be available yet. Yeah, yeah, procurement contracts. Oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, I was just going to say it just shows a whole scale for the problem, but please.

No, yeah, you're absolutely right. You said it better than I could. I mean, so procurement contracts, don't quote me on this because I don't, my notes are article in front of me, but I think specifically for artillery ammunition and tank ammunition, if they had been ordered on February 24th, the first day of the war, they still would not have arrived in Ukraine because these things think these orders I think from order time to delivery take around 400 days on average I believe so that just kind of points to you know the scale of this problem and kind of the you know someone needs to light a fire under under our ass for lack

a better term and I think we're slowly seeing a shift in mindset but it's it's interesting because I was just reading up on and reported out a story about the IRIS, I think I guess you can call it Iris T system, which is this, so German-made anti-air system that was designed as like an air-to-air replacement for the sign wider, but is also used as like a surface-to-air system. They've got one of the, and it's the system is, it's like a launcher, a command and control truck. and a radar truck. They've got one of them in Ukraine. And it's the first one that's ever been deployed. And it's a thing that, like, Germany bought eight of. And as they're getting them, they're just giving the first four to Ukraine.

I think that, like, it was finished testing in 2021. So it's not, it's, it's kind of everything. You've got this Western, you've got this, the, the NATO, like, machine is kind of waking up and starting to funnel things directly. into Ukraine, right? Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's, Germany is an interesting case. I mean, I live in Berlin and I've lived in Germany since 2016, sort of that seven or eight years or something like that. And especially at the beginning of this conflict, Germany was extremely slow in, first of all, realizing the gravity of this situation. Obviously, pacifism is something that is deeply ingrained

in German culture and society for very obvious historical reasons. but it kind of came out sideways for me when I was here because you just meet a lot of people and people say, where are you from? And I go, oh, well, I live in Berlin and immediately people would kind of react because the perception here of the Germans is what the heck these guys are the biggest richest country in Europe. They're not really helping us. And I'm like, well, I'm American. I'm American. And then people kind of laugh and relax and say, okay. Ironically, one of the most invaluable things that Germany has given to Ukraine is the Geppard. It's a self-propelled air defense system.

It's got these two barrels. I think they're 30 or 35-millimeter cannons, basically. It's quite an old piece of tech. I think it's from the late 60s or early 70s maybe. And it's considered obsolete for most things except for low and rather slow-flying aircraft. But interestingly, they were deployed around Kiv and other places, and they're actually perfect against these Iranian drones that we saw several months ago flying against targets in Keev and other cities. Part of the issue is the cost, cost per shot. They're shooting these, I mean, large caliber anti-aircraft shells, which, you know, I don't know exactly how much they cost, but they're significantly cheaper than air defense missiles.

And one geppard can hold something like, I don't quote me, I don't know, but say 500 rounds. I don't know what it is, hundreds of rounds. And so ironically, this piece of tech that Germany gave because it was obsolete and they just kind of gave it to Ukraine because they wanted to give them something, turned out to be one of the best things that the Ukrainians got, you know, in, I guess, late summer, maybe fall time, ironically. So it's, yeah, it's been quite interesting watching that. I think people don't realize just how expensive munitions are. I mean, there's a reason why we spend a trillion dollars almost on defense. I mean, aside from all the waste, corruption, abuse, all that, that fun stuff and the fact that so many of our systems are antiquated, you know, with the account, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I was just looking this up, like, single just bomb is. $75,000 missiles or more, you know, for each one. And it's, it's just, how do you deal with that? How do you maintain that?

That sidewinder we used to blow up the balloon over Lake Huron was $439,000 to give people, to give people an idea. I mean, it was expensive. Yeah, but on the bright side, that $400,000 could bring down a $50 million airplane because we're crazy. Yeah. No, it's interesting. Oh, no, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. Just to speak to your point about cost, I was a couple days ago, I was in, I was in Cromatoresk and I was talking to this sniper team, this two-man sniper team. They both have Italian-made rifles. They have pretty expensive German optics and they have

thermal imaging systems for their rifles. And a lot of this kit is significantly expensive. And we were talking kind of about, you know, Ukraine just has this motley selection of different kit from all over, some extremely expensive and high quality, some incredibly basic. And so we were talking a little bit about their kit and, you know, what role it plays currently in Dunbos and in Bakhmud. And they were brutally honest.

And they're like, these rifles, these optics, all this stuff, costs, you know, between the two of us, probably $20,000. But honestly, in places like Dunbas, like Bahmoud, in different surrounding areas, you're better off with, you know, an AK-74 and maybe a thermal imaging system or a drone that costs, you know, several hundred dollars, maybe a couple thousand. Because, you know, the distances that we're fighting in don't really require me to sit up on top of a hill, on top of the hill, you know, 1,500, 2,000 meters away, which, I mean, you multiply that by the number of soldiers in Ukraine and that still gets extremely expensive.

Yeah. How is the war changed in the past year? What is it, what's different now than the last time you visited? That's a really good question. I mean, I think last time I was there, this was kind of at the beginning of Ukraine's counteroffensive, right? They pushed the Russians back from Harkiv, kind of in the northeast, back to the Russian border. A little bit later, they were able to dislodge or kind of push the Russians out of Kerson in the south. And I think a lot of analysts and people in the Twitter sphere kind of anticipated this, you know, continuing momentum into winter, which has kind of stalemated. I think one of the main things that's different now is rather than being on the offensive, Ukraine and Russia are at a bit of a standstill.

I mean, Ukraine has made some massive and incredible gains throughout the country since the summer. If you look at what's happening now, Russia is making some incremental gains around Bahmoud that are extremely costly and strategically of little significant. If you go down a little bit to the southeast in places like Fuladar, you know, the Russians have been trying to take that area for a really long time and have lost, if not tens of thousands of men. I would say maybe around 10,000 men and they've made almost no gains. So I think at this point, the question is, you know, there was this talk maybe a month, two months ago about a coming Russian counteroffensive. I think this is it. This is the Russian counteroffensive. And sure, Bakhmud, the loss of it would be, you know, not great for Ukrainian forces, but in the long and medium term, the loss of Bakhmud is not strategically significant at all. And if you think about, you know, what was theoretically the second most powerful army in the world fighting against Ukraine,

one of the poorest countries in Europe. And this is what they've gotten for it. It's quite remarkable. That being said, I mean, that's kind of the situation now. That's how it's changed since summer. I think what I'm very interested to see is what happens now, what happens in the next couple few weeks, couple of few months. People are anticipating this Ukrainian counteroffensive. And this is kind of the problem with Bahmoud is Ukraine is expending a lot of men and ammunition to keep the Russians back for as long as possible.

And they're inflicting heavy losses against the Russians, which, you know, on paper seems great until you think about the quality of forces. Russia has conscripted by some estimates three to 500,000 men from Russia, be it from jails and prisons or people pull off the street. Obviously, they're not trained very well. Obviously, they're not very useful. They're not armed very heavily. And they're not great soldiers.

And it sounds horrible if you're losing 30,000 men to get Bahmoud. But if you have 300 to 500,000 men, you can do that 10 times or more. And, you know, Ukraine is using not conscripts, not people pull out of jail, but soldiers that are more or less high quality. Obviously, there's a huge disparity in quality between units and regiments and brigades. But one of the fears, I think, and one of the things that I'm worried about is, what happens in the future in the next couple months weeks? Is Ukraine able, will they be able to launch this counteroffensive that everyone's anticipating? They're expending a lot of ammunition. There's a lot of good men that are dying in Bahmoud, who maybe could be put to better use

elsewhere. Just today, the Zelensky's office, the presidential office, released a statement to the effect of we will double down and we are going to try and hold Bahmood. I'm not a general. I'm not strategically savvy enough. If I was in charge of Ukrainian forces, Ukraine would have lost already. But to me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Bachmoud is not super important. I don't really understand why so much emphasis is being put on keeping this town.

I think it's a decision made for political and not military or strategy purposes. You're listening to Angry Planet. We'll be right back. And now we're back with more from Angry Planet. I'm also curious, you know, we've talked about Germany a few times and you live in Berlin. I'm curious what the mood is like in Berlin and how it's changed over the past year. How do people feel about all this? This is on their doorstep, right?

It's not like it is in America. Yeah, no, 100%. Great question. Yeah, Germany, Germany is, is, the most pacifest place I've ever lived in my entire life. There's a lot of, Germany has a very active and very rich kind of political involvement, political culture, which is great. I think it's great that, you know, people can kind of air their opinion freely without,

you know, fear of the government, fear of their fellow citizens. That being said, there's a lot of talk in Berlin. I like to call it quote unquote Berlin brain where people say, stop the war, put the weapons down. And I think the slogan or the mantra should be, Ukraine should win. There's this kind of perception that, you know, we need to find a diplomatic solution to this problem and the diplomats, they just need to talk and they'll figure it out. And, you know, these warmongers in Washington and Warsaw and all these other places, you know, are using Ukraine as a pawn against Russia. This is a proxy war, which is, I mean, for lack of

better term, total BS, this is not a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia. I mean, this is a war that Ukraine is fighting and it's very existential. I mean, if Ukraine puts down its weapons, Ukraine as a country does not exist anymore. If Russia says, hey, we're going to stop fighting, this war's over, and there's peace. So I think it's a little bit naive to kind of say, you know, hey, we just need to find a diplomatic solution. I mean, Russia is clearly not a reliable partner, reliable negotiator. And yeah, I mean, there's protests in Berlin and in Germany every weekend, multiple times a weekend, multiple times during the weekend, rather. You see a lot of pro-Ukrainian rallies. You see a lot of pro-Russia rallies, which can be quite shocking. Germany and Berlin as well, they have a fairly large German-Russian population.

So after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a lot of, um, ethnic Germans that have been living in Russia that were allowed to come back and get citizenship. Obviously, if you have Jewish heritage, it's a lot easier to come to Germany and get citizenship, which is great. But there's a lot of people who, you know, were brought up in the Soviet Union and are certainly German, but still have kind of this, I don't know what you want to call it exactly, Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet mentality of, you know, Russia as this strong empire, this strong, proud nation. And, yeah, quite frankly, there's a lot of racism from that corner towards Ukrainians, which is not great. I live in East Berlin, and, you know, obviously historically, that was, you know, not part of the free world, so to speak. And pre-war, you would hear Russian on the street, not everywhere, not all the time, but there was definitely this presence in Berlin before the war.

Obviously, you hear it more now, also Ukrainian, since Germany and Berlin are hosting so many Ukrainian refugees. But I think public opinion is slowly, slowly turning. If you look at the decision that the chancellor made to finally acquiesce and let allies who operate the leopard tank to send it to Ukraine, it took, I mean, he came kicking and screaming and he had to be pulled over the finish line. Obviously, I think it took the United States to say, hey, if you commit to sending leopards, we'll send Abrams tanks at some point. But if you look at polling in Germany on public opinion, which I think is quite reliable, it's interesting how public opinion has shifted from we should not help anyone, you know, militarily. typically Germany refrains from sending weapons to war zones regardless of what the war zone is or what the circumstances are. And if you look now, especially among younger people, I would say probably like 18 to 35, I don't have exact figures, but I'm comfortable saying probably around 60%, perhaps a little bit more, are in favor of arming Ukraine. I think there's this realization that, hey, we are safe behind.

NATO and, you know, an attack on Germany is, you know, probably not very likely. But Ukraine is our neighbor. And Ukraine didn't provoke this war. And as we, Germany, are in a position to do something about it, I think people are realizing slowly that, yeah, I mean, this sounds so cliche, but with power does come responsibility. And I think people are are starting to get that in a way that they haven't. Do you think that Germany will actually rebuild its military now? so that it kind of has one. I mean, from what I understand, it's not much as of now. The defense minister was just complaining about this a few days ago, I think, right?

He said that as it stands now, that they don't have the supplies or the troops or the infrastructure to defend themselves should they need to. Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, this is something that's been, yeah, incredibly frustrating. I'm not a German citizen, but as someone who lives in Germany, I'm just ripping my hair out. obviously the chancellor, I want to say in March of last year, roughly a year ago, he had this famous speech, the Titan Venda speech, like the Turning Point speech, where he gave this speech and basically said, you know, we for the last 30 years have been riding on the coattails of NATO and the United States, obviously I'm paraphrasing,

but we are going to invest a billion euros in the Bundeswehr, and we are going to kind of build ourselves up. It was a great speech. I mean, he is perhaps not known for his oratory skills, but it was on point. That being said, a year later, nothing has really changed. There's not a whole lot going on in the revamping area. Germany certainly has a big responsibility, right? It's the biggest country.

It's the biggest economy, centrally located in Europe. There is a lot of potential there. what are they doing now about it? Not a whole lot is my sense. I have a couple of friends who are in the Bundeswia, not currently, but in the last five, six, seven years. And they're brutally honest. And they're like, yeah, sometimes we go on training missions with other NATO countries, with our neighbors in Europe. And we don't have enough ammunition to do our exercises completely. We have to pack up and go home before everyone. One of my buddies was a paratrooper, and he was explaining that they went to some static positions with some painted sticks that were simulating, simulating machine guns because they

didn't have enough to go around. So I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say the German military is an empty shell, as it is now. If they can kind of realize this and act upon it, I think that remains to be seen. They've certainly talked to talk, but walking the walk is, you know, a different, different game entirely. Reminds me of that scene in a trauma zone, which I know you just watched, I believe, where the Soviet police are training with pistols and they're, they're faking the recoil because they don't have ammunition and they're playing a sound.

They're playing the sound of the gunshot behind them as they're. they're doing their live fire training. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, a completely different situation. I just wanted to bring up trauma zone because I think you're the only other person I know who's seen it. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, if anyone's listening, it's free on YouTube, BBC, BBC seven-part BBC documentary on the collapse of the Soviet Union, I think from 1985 to 99 or something like this, 1999.

I can't recommend it more. It's, I mean, probably one of the best things I've seen in the past year. The YouTube version, they had to scrub out some pieces of a Chernobyl documentary to get it past the DMCA issues on YouTube. But other than, it's not much that's cut out of the first few episodes. Other than that, it's pretty complete. And yeah, it's especially now, it's fascinating to watch this long documentary about the collapse of the Soviet Union. and to see how it's set up where we are now and what's going on now, right? Well, how so?

How so, guys? Caleb? Yeah, no, I mean, it's the collapse of an empire, right? And a lot of people think the collapse of the USSR, I mean, part of that empire, you know, began during World War I or in the ashes of World War I. If you look at the Baltic countries, they were annexed-occupied, whatever term you want to use since, you know, the, don't call me, 1917, 18, something like this. So their historical memory of, you know, being literally under the boot of Russia extends

for a very long time, you know, much longer than 1945 for a lot of the countries in central Europe. And I mean, I can't even imagine it in some parallel universe, the United States kind of broke apart and all these little statelets. And I mean, it would be the most traumatic thing that I think anyone could ever experience. That being said, the documentary really reveals why a lot of this happened. And kind of from the perspective of, you know, people on the ground, Joe, Joe, everybody, Joe anybody. however the term is. It's like you were talking about in East Berlin, hearing the Russian and seeing the people

that are still, they still have the Soviet mindset, right, kind of held over from that time. It's still there. It's still present. Like, we, I think that the modern world still very much lives in the shadow of World War II and its aftermath. And I think even more immediate in Russia is the collapse of the Soviet Union. because it was, you know, everything was forever until it was no more, right? There was this system that we, that had been designed and people were told would lead to global peace and prosperity.

And you lived through its collapse all the while the state's still telling you that everything was rosy and was going to be wonderful. And the documentary, as you said, kind of does a really great job because it is, there's not any, like, it's an Adam Curtis documentary, but there's no Adam Curtis voiceover. It is, he kind of plays it straight. It's just archival footage. And those are my favorite kind of documentaries. So it's like an eight hour long documentary where you are seeing home video and news report footage and like television shows from the time. of the collapse and it gives you a mood. And I think it's important to understand what that mood is and what it's like to live in an empire that is gone and be led by a person that was created by this empire. And as that person faces the end of their life and reflects on the empire that they served and the ruins that they are now in charge of, he is obviously looking at the old pieces and trying to gather them back. And I think that the documentary does a really good job

of making you understand that Soviet mindset and making you understand, like, kind of setting you up for where it is today, right? I agree, disagree? No, 100%. And I mean, one thing that was interesting for me is the continuity between the Soviet Union and Russia today in terms of things like corruption. I mean, I don't know if there's an empire or whatever you want to call it, a country or a political system that was that large, that existed for that long, that was so deeply corrupt on so many levels. Not only after the collapse, of course, you know, all these state enterprises were sold off for pennies on the dollar and there's a lot of shady things that happened, but even before that, I mean, there was just rampant corruption, which you see today in Russia

as well, particularly in the military. I mean, you could argue that this war was launched partly because of corruption, because Putin, you know, believed whoever he was listening to, who maybe wasn't the most honest broker of information and said, hey, we can, we can take Keeve in three days. You know, my guy on the ground thinks this, this is what he told me. His guy on the ground heard it from someone else. Maybe, maybe he's making it up. maybe he's getting money and he doesn't give a rat's ass either way. You can see it also in equipment that, you know, has been captured or seen by Russian forces. There's, you know, tanks that, you know, they don't have this explosive reactive armor that they're supposed to. It's pieces of rubber and

plywood. So, I mean, part of this corruption obviously has its roots in the Soviet Union and perhaps even before then, but it, yeah, the Soviet Union's gone, but the level of corruption that exists in that country is still there, which for me was pretty surprising. How was that to get around in in Ukraine? I mean, I'm assuming there's still lots of corruption in Ukraine, too, which is like, it was number two before this war started on the, you know, lists of European corrupt countries. Anyway, does that have an impact on you when you're traveling or, you know, trying to do some work? That's a great question. I have never seen any instance of corruption since I've been here.

I've not gotten a whiff of it. And I'm not saying that out of any sort of loyalty towards Ukraine or anything. Certainly, there's probably things that have happened that have slipped under my radar. Interestingly, in the past probably couple months, month or two months, there's been some shuffling of cabinet people. There's been some shuffling of, you know, leadership of, you know, different departments. And it's a little bit opaque what the circumstances are surrounding that this corruption play a role. I mean, I'd be a fool if I said absolutely not. I'm sure there is some layer of, you know, something going on, perhaps divided loyalties with Russia.

I don't know if I'm in a position to kind of pin the tail on that donkey, so to speak. But yeah, I mean, this is also an issue like looking forward, right? I mean, I think Ukraine does have quite a good chance of winning this war, but can they win the peace? That's that's another, that's another war that they will have to kind of metaphorically fight. You know, what happens when the EU, the World Bank, the United States, all these countries pour money into this country for reconstruction? Does it disappear? Does it go to shoddy building projects? Who knows? I mean, there's going to have to be some pretty significant and serious oversight into money coming in here. One thing that I would really like to say, though, is there was talk in summer especially coming from Amnesty International. about Western arms disappearing from Ukrainian forces and ending up on the black market.

And that is 100% BS. There's no evidence of weapons or any kind of systems being resold on the black market elsewhere. I think it would be naive to think that. I mean, Ukraine is literally in the fight for its national existence. So I think, I mean, everyone here who's in the military, which is most people here, definitely realize, hey, we're in this fight. We put down our arms. We, whatever, feel for this or that. This, this affects me. This affects my unit. This affects my buddies. This affects my family, my friend's family. So I think in that sense, there's probably not,

maybe not zero corruption, but not, you know, not to the extent that we've maybe seen in Russia or other places. How is Keeve different than the front line? It's good question. It's for all intents and purposes, this is a normal Eastern European city. I mean, it's I can do, I mean, I'm sitting here in this apartment that I'm renting. I have electricity. I've Wi-Fi. It's very normal. Ukrainian air defenses in general, but particularly around Kiev, given this city's importance,

have become much better. When I left in summer last time, I mean, there was air raid sirens every day, multiple times a day. I think since I've been here for about two weeks in Kiev, I may have heard two or three. I may have missed a couple, whatever, if I was sleeping or different parts of the city. But it's quite normal here. You can go out to eat. You can get a haircut.

You can do almost everything that you would do in normal life. You go close to the front. And yeah, it's a different situation. In this town, for example, Chassev Yar that I mentioned about six miles west of of Bachmoud. You know, there's four to five thousand people living there. A lot of people don't have electricity. A lot of people are dependent on humanitarian aid, which comes from Nipro and other cities in the west. And it's, you know, a different story. There's a, they're called heating points. The city kind of sets them up. It's a place where you can charge

your electronics and get something hot to drink if you're evacuating from somewhere else or whatever. And yeah, I mean, I talked to some people there who were pretty honest. They said, you know, we get humanitarian aid irregularly. That's kind of what we have to eat. There's still snow in the east. There's obviously lakes and rivers and things. And we boil water. We get them outside.

And it's, yeah, it can be extremely dark. If you go to Bahmoud, if you go to Chassee if you are in these places, there's also no or very intermittent cell phone signal. So people, I mean, people don't have internet at home. But even on your cell phone, you're kind of in an informational vacuum. which is in some ways scarier or perhaps as scary or a different kind of scary than, you know, incoming shelling. You know, you have family all around the country in different places.

They can't contact you and you can't contact them. That's, I mean, a lack of information is terrifying. When last summer I was in Lysi Chansk out in the east before the city fell to Russian forces. And I remember, I'll never forget it, I was walking down the street and this little lauda, these little Soviet lot of cars. It drove up and screeched to a halt and this lady jumped out. I was wearing a press fest with a couple of journalists. So she saw press in Latin letters and realized we were not Russian journalists.

And the soldiers with us were not Russian. She was Ukrainian, obviously. And she was like, hey, we don't know where the nearest gas station is. We don't know which part's safe. We don't know where the Russians are. We don't know where the Ukrainians are. We're just trying to get to the Ukrainian lines. Can you point us in the right direction?

And we're like, yep, you know, we pointed her to the right direction. She gave us a piece of paper. And she was like, this is my sister and my brother. This is my name. This is my family's name. We can't charge our cell phones, so we can't even call them. If we had a signal, could you please call them when you get back to Cromator? I can just tell them, you know, we're alive.

So it's, I mean, the informational vacuum, I think in some ways is more a different kind of scary than the lack of food, the lack of water, which is totally scary. But, yeah, in Kiev, it's something else. It's odd. It's normal life, more or less. But you get to the front, and it's basic, basic things that you don't even think about just don't exist. Can you go over and visit the Russian lines? What's Russia doing with the Western press? I haven't seen anything, so I'm assuming they're not allowing Western press over there at all.

Yeah, no. I mean, you, there's, I mean, between, well, it depends on where you are, but, I mean, there's a gray zone, sort of a no-man land between lines where anything moves there, it gets shot or bombed or just kind of blown to smithereens. There are a couple of Western journalists, and I say that very sarcastically with air quotations. Like Fox News? Oh, no, it's even, it's even stupid. I'm joking.

I'm joking. Come on, come on. No, there are. Because we love. Yeah, no, all good. There are a couple of Western journalists. British, mostly, I think, who say they are embedded with Russian forces and they would like to present themselves as someone who provides a neutral view on what's going on from the Russian side.

That being said, I think they're glorified Twitter personalities who, you know, are in it for shits and giggles and for the notoriety, for the attention. So, yeah, in short, no, it's not really possible. I will say actually recently an NBC crew stationed somewhere in Russia drove. I want to say from Moscow, but I'm not sure, but I think from Moscow to Crimea, because that Kersh Strait Bridge has been repaired somewhat and it's open to car traffic. And so they were able to go to Crimea. There was an Al Jazeera team who did something similar a couple weeks ago.

The details escaped me at the moment. So in that sense, you can kind of wiggle your way through kind of from the other side. But yeah, I mean, someone like me, if I would try to go to Russian lines, I would be, if not shot, taken prisoner. And I would, this would be the last podcast interview I'd ever do. Great. Where are you going next? Good question. I'm actually thinking about maybe going to Odessa.

There's a story that I'm trying to hunt down over there. So we'll see if that pans out. Also, another beautiful city. If you guys ever get time and interest, you could go there safely and it would be just fine, a beautiful city there on the seaside. I'm going to go there. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, we'll see what happens in Bakhmud.

My gut feeling is that the city will fall in a matter of days or perhaps weeks to Russian forces. And we'll see. I mean, west of the city, there's a lot of high ground. There's a ridge, a couple of ridge lines, I believe that Ukraine would be wise to kind of replant themselves at. And so perhaps, perhaps they're next. I mean, it kind of depends, right?

If I had a crystal ball, I would be, well, I'd be quite happy. But unfortunately, I don't have one. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. Well, Caleb Larson, thank you so much for coming on the show. And, you know, good luck. Stay safe. All that fun stuff.

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