Consider This from NPR - Ukraine's scrappy wartime innovation

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

NPR’s National Security Correspondent Greg Myre spent the summer reporting on the war in Ukraine. He saw the devastation of the conflict. But he also saw something else: the country leveraging its resources at home to meet the moment…including in Lviv where they’re racing to make as many of their own weapons as fast as they can.And at a hospital near the frontlines in central Ukraine where Ukraine's neurosurgeons are conducting state-of-the-art operations with cutting-edge technology.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by David West and Matt Ozug. It was edited by Andrew Sussman. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Before we get to today's episode, we want to take a moment to acknowledge a profound change. October 1st will mark the first day in more than half a century that NPR and its member stations will operate without federal support. That's important, but what's more important, NPR and consider this aren't going anywhere. We'll still be here breaking down the major stories of the day and explaining what they mean for you. and one of the ways that we can do that is through your support. So thank you. Since Russia mounted its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, the losses for the country and its people have been enormous. Nearly 14,000 civilians have died. Fighting has led to hundreds of thousands of battlefield casualties.

Russia now occupies some 20% of Ukrainian territory. 3.7 million people are internally displaced, and nearly 7 million people have fled Ukraine because of the war. Consider this. Ukraine has suffered devastating losses because of the war with Russia, but that conflict has inspired technological advances that are leading to better weapons and better treatments for the soldiers injured in battle. From NPR, I'm Juana Somers. It's consider this from NPR. NPR's national security correspondent Greg Myrie spent the summer reporting on the war in Ukraine. He saw the devastation of the conflict, but he also saw something else.

Ukraine leveraging its resources at home to meet the moment, including in Lviv, where they are racing to make as many of their own weapons as fast as they can. The emerging arms industry here is on display at an odd place, an underground parking garage beneath a gleaming new office building known as Lviv Tech City. Conference organizers chose this secure space so the event couldn't be disrupted by one of Russia's frequent air strikes. We're Ukrainian company. We're building drones.

all different kind of drones. Maxime Yaakovlev is with the Arms Maker Freedom Group. Many Ukrainian drones are used only once, flying into a Russian target and exploding. This one on display is a high-end model. It has six propellers, carries 30 pounds of weaponry, and can be reused. So it's heavy drones, which flies and carries grenades and explosives

and throws us into the target and comes back. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine's arsenal consisted largely of aging hardware, dating back decades when Russia and Ukraine were both part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine burned through those stockpiles at a furious pace and then became dependent on U.S. and European weapons. Now, Ukraine makes many of its own. Yaroslav Ajnuk runs two tech startups. Well, I lived in Silicon Valley for six years. I went through a very classic startup journey.

In California, he launched PetCube, a company that makes cameras to keep watch on pets. He brought that expertise back to Ukraine and now makes cameras for drones. He says Ukraine is rapidly emerging as a Silicon Valley for the defense industry. Ukraine today is the defense valley of the world. This has already happened. You sit in a cafe in Kiev and you went one defense founder, and then 30 minutes later, another defense tech founder passes by. The energy here is just incredible.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky says the country makes at least 40% of its own weapons, including virtually all of its own drones. The country had no real drone industry three years ago. It's expected to make 4 million of them this year. The latest models travel hundreds of miles, striking Russian oil refineries, and causing significant damage to that country's most important industry.

Alexander Moreshko is a member of Ukraine's parliament and heads the Foreign Affairs Committee. We are outnumbered. Russia has more human resources. That's why we need more sophisticated weaponry to make up for this difference to fill this gap. Ukraine still relies on the U.S. for its most powerful weapons, such as the Patriot Air Defense System and F-16 fighter jets. President Trump has halted U.S. military aid to Ukraine, but he says the U.S. will sell American weapons to NATO countries, which can then give them to Ukraine. This is happening, though, on a limited scale so far. So Ukraine is starting to make its own heavy weaponry. The current buzz centers on the Flamingo, a cruise missile that can travel 1,800 miles. Some skeptics think the Flamingo may be overhyped, but if it Performs as advertised, Ukraine will have the ability to strike deep inside Russia with a large weapon.

Again, Alexander Mureshko. In terms of military technologies, we are not a burden for NATO, for Europe, and for the United States. We are a very good partner, very promising partner. For now, Ukraine's arms makers are relatively small and in need of foreign investment. Yet, Yaroslav Ajnuk sees potential. There is a big, big financial opportunity for the investors to come here. You know, Ukraine is this wild east. It's the eastern frontier of the Western civilization.

Outside help is welcome, but he knows much of the work in the near term is up to Ukrainians like himself. Greg Myrie continues his reporting from a hospital in central Ukraine near the front lines. It is so old. treated wounded soldiers during the Crimean War in the 1850s. Yet, Mechnikov Hospital plays a critical role in the current Russia-Ukraine war, where traumatic brain injuries are all too common. With some help from U.S. doctors, Ukraine's neurosurgeons are conducting state-of-the-art operations with cutting-edge technology. Mentionikov Hospital is just 60 miles from the front line of the Russia-Ukraine war. When Ukrainian troops suffer serious head injuries, and many do,

this is where they need to come as fast as possible. Our medical hospital, our rules we need to start surgery in the first two hours after admission. Just two hours after admission, much faster than most places. And that's André Circo, the head of neurology, who handles the most complex cases. He's carried out 2,000 operations since Russia first attacked in 2014. The huge number of casualties and the severity of the severity of the, the wounds, forced Dr. Sirko and his team to develop new ways of rapidly handling brain injuries, most now caused by Russian drone strikes.

We implemented new strategy, named comprehensive surgery. Traditionally, a soldier with multiple brain injuries might endure several separate operations over many days. This could involve drilling a hole in the skull to relieve pressure from brain swelling, removing shattered skull fragments and delicate repair work on damaged blood vessels. At Menshnikov, all this may be done in a single surgery. In the one operation, we all perform all stages. However, the hospital's proximity to the front line also carries risk.

This shattered glass inside the hospital is the immediate aftermath of a Russian missile strike last October. Dr. Circo's 27-year-old son, Dr. Bodon Circo, is also a neurosurgeon. He was operating on a patient at the time. It was big bum, and it was like whistling of air I never felt before. When you open your eyes, I think, okay, maybe I'm dead. The blast shattered windows and shrouded the operating theater in dust and debris. Everything is like gray. My nurse was like fall down.

And they say, okay, everything is okay, I finish this operation. This hospital in the central city of Nipro was established in 1798. It proudly boasts one building, still in use, that treated Russian soldiers in the Crimean War, which ended with Russia's defeat in 1856. At the time, the region was part of the Russian Empire. Walking the crowded halls today is to travel through a time capsule from the Soviet Union. The main colors are dull gray and drab brown. Chairs are scarce and worn bear.

The elevator groans as it's strange to reach the next floor. Then you peek inside an operating room. What I was amazed is that they had so much more capability than what we had in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Rocco Armanda is a neurosurgeon and a retired U.S. Army colonel who spent more than a decade serving in the Middle East and at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He operated on hundreds of U.S. troops with traumatic brain injuries, learning and pioneering new techniques over the course of the U.S. wars. He describes Metschnikov Hospital this way.

It's like if you had transported Walter Reed within an hour of the front line, they're so close to the battlefield and doing amazing heroic work. But just for comparison, two days in Ukraine is equivalent to, the worst month that we had in Iraq. Dr. Armanda, now at Georgetown University Hospital, has traveled here three times in the past two years. He haul supplies to the hospital and assists on operations. He's also helped to acquire multi-million dollar equipment. He's most impressed by what Ukrainian surgeons learned long distance from Americans and from their own war experience at home.

They took it one step further. They took devices that we would use, let's say, to treat a civilian aneurysm emergency, and they applied it to wartime injuries. In short, I was teaching them some things, but I think I was doing a lot more learning than teaching. In his cramped office, Dr. Andre Sirko opens a plastic bag with shrapnel. He's removed from the brains of patients. He pours the contents on his desk. Different patients. One patient's of bullet, and now they,

is metallic splinter, metallic fragment, after explosion. A green piece of metal is the size of a credit card. That patient, Dr. Circo says, is doing reasonably well. Then he displays a tiny pellet, the size of a pea. This patient died, he explains. War is random. Outside his office, the hallway is now filled with patients. He has six more surgeries planned for the week.

That was NPR's Greg Mirey and NEPRO, Ukraine. This episode was produced by David West and Matt Ozug. It was edited by Andrew Sussman. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. Want to hear this podcast without sponsor breaks? Amazon Prime members can listen to Consider This sponsor-free through Amazon Music,

or you can also support NPR's vital journalism and get Consider This Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org.