School of War - Four Years Fighting Russia: An American Soldier’s Testimony

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

David, a U.S. military veteran who has been fighting voluntarily alongside Ukrainian forces, joins School of War to discuss how four years on the front lines have transformed modern warfare. How has combat in Ukraine changed since Russia’s 2022 invasion? Why have first-person view drones become the defining weapon of the war? What misconceptions does the West still have about the Russian military? And what lessons must the United States absorb before its next major conflict? 02:49 - David’s military history 05:56 - What brought David to Ukraine 07:37 - Russia's failed invasion of Kyiv 10:24 - How Ukraine turned the tide in 2022 17:04 - How Ukraine adapted to Russia's invasion 19:06 - America's role in Ukraine's early success 23:59 - How the battlefield has evolved since 2022 28:15 - Experiencing Russian artillery  37:22 - From artillery warfare to drone warfare 40:41 - Why FPV drones are terrifying 44:20 - The modern "gray zone"  49:26 - Why Russia is still a military threat 01:00:49 - What Ukraine must do to survive 01:11:41 - Is the U.S. military learning the right lessons? 01:15:55 - The future of warfare and America's defense industry Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more at The Free Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's episode is another interview that I conducted in Ukraine earlier this year. We are releasing it now in the summertime in early July, 26, where we seem to be at another moment of transition, perhaps even some kind of decision in the conflict. Vladimir Putin has had a bad few months. Ukrainian long-range strategic strikes inside Russia, inside Crimea, seem to be having pretty serious effects. there are problems at the gas pump in Russia. Russian elites are no longer shielded from the consequences of the war. Russian casualties on the battlefield appear to continue to be extremely high indeed. It's a pretty long list of problems Putin has to deal with going into what's going to be a pretty interesting NATO summit in Turkey in the next few days.

That all said, Putin's been in tight spots before. You'll think back to the fall of 2022 when the general sentiment in the West was, Putin's on the ropes. He's going to lose. Ukraine's going to take back all the land that exists within its original 2014 borders. That didn't come to pass. We are in another moment of optimism right now. There are some grounds for that optimism, but I also think some grounds that we need to be balanced in our view. And I think today's interview with a very serious American veteran of the global war on terror who is serving in Ukraine alongside Ukrainian forces. gives some insight into the nature of the fighting there, the terrifying battlefield itself, some of the advantages that Ukraine brings to the fight, but also some of the disadvantages

just baked into their system. So everything from the human level of what is like to be a subject of artillery up to the strategic level and what's allowed Ukraine to survive for this long and what gives us hope for the future. We cover it today here on School of War. Let's get into it. This is a date which will live in history. The bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face the grave situation in the ground.

This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one. family doctor recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia, feel good from the inside out. Visitactivia.ca for more details. Hi, Mary McLean. Thanks for joining the School of War. I'm delighted to be joined today by David, a veteran of the U.S. military who is currently fighting alongside Ukrainian forces. Thank you so much for joining the show. That's a pleasure to be here.

Thank you very much. Tell me a little bit about, I know you're going to be limited on the amount of detail you're going to be able to share, but tell me a little bit about the American side of your story like why'd you join the military what motivated you there I think for for me personally you know I had both grandparents served in the U.S. military and had a deep tradition of military service and I think just growing up it was something that I always felt that I wanted to do you know the environment that I grew up in I was you know pressured more or less to get You know, go get an education. Don't go into the military.

All of that stuff just because it was like seen as like, you know, maybe, you know, not look down upon, but seen as like, oh, you don't want to go get yourself killed. You know, you need to, you know, think about your future, all of that. But I just couldn't shake it. I felt like it was something I had to do. And I knew that if I had, you know, I had opportunities and scholarships to go to schools, but I knew that if I pursued that, but I probably would never have gone into the military. So I ended up joining and really enjoyed my time and service.

And was able to be successful in that career. So, you know, it's something that, you know, it's something that, uh, You know, I just felt like I always needed to do it. And you were in sort of peak global war on terror times. You had a bunch of operational experience. I don't know, again, how much detail your harmful sharing. But where put it, let me, here, let me ask it this way. In your service with the U.S. military, what sorts of things did you do or what kind of places did you serve?

Where you learned the most that's relevant for the kind of fight we're having today in Ukraine? Hmm. You know, that's, that's actually an interesting question where I learned the most. about the fight. I think that actually, you know, it's, I think it's apples and oranges. I think that it's almost incomparable in a lot of ways.

I think that in the schoolhouses, actually, in the theory that was taught, versus actual experience, because the actual combat experience is a completely different, it's, it's completely different here. than in the global war on terror in terms of scales, in terms of being actually matched with equipment, you know, now being the one under siege of artillery or the one under siege of, you know,

J-DAMs and, you know, higher technical equipment. I think I feel we're definitely the underdog here versus being you know before we're basically an unstoppable force where you know we have we have AC130 gunships constantly watching over us as we're infilling you know you have this veil of protection at nighttime and knowing that I have the superhuman power of being able to see in the dark the enemy does not really have that I mean You know, there's some certain circumstances, but for the most part, they don't have the ability to see in the dark.

We do. They don't have eyes overhead. We do. And now that script is not flipped, but they have the exact same capabilities, if not better. And so, you know, it's, you know, it's definitely something that is hard to compare. Also, the level of training, you know, soldier to soldier is definitely different. I will say that, you know, it varies widely over here versus, you know, I would say that, for example, the Taliban fighters actually were actually very skilled fighters. You know, they know their land very well.

They fight very light, so they're very maneuverable. They certainly were not to, you know, they were no slouch as far as an adversary goes. Over here, you have a wide variety of how much training these, you know, Russian soldiers might have. However, we've definitely encountered well-trained, well-armed, and intelligent soldiers on the Russian side. So I want to get into that and into the different kinds of Russian formations you face and their capabilities. That's actually, I think, the most interesting stuff for us today. but tell me first, again, to the extent you can. Why are you fighting in Ukraine?

How did you get here? What actually happened? It's kind of a strange... I mean, there are other Americans here, but it's still kind of an unusual story. Yeah, I mean, I won't go into too much detail about it. Once again, I don't want to be identifiable. But, yeah, you know, I was already volunteering in this part of the world.

And, you know, I saw, obviously everybody saw what was about to happen in Ukraine. And when it did happen, you know, I went across the border in order to initially do humanitarian type work. And that quickly evolved into getting connected with the right people in order to get into the fight. and, you know, it is, it's something, you know, that, you know, fighting oppression is, is, it's something that's, uh, is, it's something that's, uh, uh, very, uh, strong belief in my heart. And so seeing this is clearly, it's, it's clearly, to me, it's, it's a clear, you know, we know who the aggressor is and we know who, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the oppressed are here. And so it's very clear cut for me. So you're here in 2022, and that's, I guess, when you first get into combat. Correct.

Tell us about those early days, the nature of the combat, the nature of the Russian threat. Just take us back to 2022. Yeah, I mean, 2022, it was a different war than it is today. You know, in 2022, what we were seeing more of the conventional Cold War military, Russia was, you know, absolutely using its massive stockpiles of artillery and, you know, the extensive use of armored vehicles for maneuverability. And also what was unique about the beginning of this was when it came to fires, they were using the orlons in order to direct fires. And that started basically at the beginning of the war. Say more, sorry, say what an orleans is.

Orlon is a ISR drone. It is not as large or capable as, say, a predator, but it has high-definition cameras and is capable of calling for fire. Adjusting fires is capable of identifying people from, you know, 10 plus kilometers away and able to identify positions in high resolution and then direct those fires or direct ground troops to maneuver. And they are quite prolific. The sensors on them has gotten better over time.

So their capability has increased to where now they have laser guidance capability, which originally they did not have. Originally it was just an ISR platform only. But they've continued to use them because they've become so effective. And they have a relatively high ceiling that they can fly at. They're quite noticeable, actually. They sound like a lawnmower flying around in the sky. So they're quite identifiable.

And they're not exactly hard to spot. But unless you want to use a man pad on them, they're high enough outside of small arms range that you're not going to be able to hit them with any small arms. And so sticking with 2020 for a while, so you get here not too long after the invasion. You're helping at some point this humanitarian assistant turns into combat support.

So you're an eyewitness to this very dramatic turn of events in 2020 where they're on the ropes for a few weeks there, maybe even longer. But then the pendulum swings, and the Russians are really on the run in the middle latter part of the year. Tell us how that happened. How did the Ukrainians turn of it?

around what did you witness yeah i i mean i you know it's it's uh it's it's really interesting for me you know the uh you know it was quite shocking i think to see how far and how fast uh russia was actually able to push uh into keef i mean if you look the the city still bears the scars of 2022 if you go up to machin or bucha or uh airpin or any of these uh villages outside uh just outside of the main city here, you can still see those scars. You know, there's a maternity ward that as you're coming into town is still completely destroyed. That was destroyed during 2022. And it just goes to show you how fast and how quickly they were able to come in.

However, you know, they were not able to sustain it. They were not able to resupply. and the Ukrainians did, as everybody knows, the famous Hostomo Airport operation, the Ukrainians were able to quickly consolidate forces around the airport to prevent the VDV from being able to push out of the airport. And then we're very quickly able to bring manpads to bear in order to take out additional reinforcements or supply runs. and ultimately it ended with the cratering of the airfield itself in order to prevent the landing of resupplied planes, which was, I think, very smart. I think that those bombs were given to Zelensky basically and said, hey, crater the airfield.

But you saw everybody coming together. I mean, this was a fight for survival, really. And so everybody, you know, whether everybody in there, you know, who had a firearm was out in the streets. You know, there was little militia checkpoints everywhere. You know, you had old, you know, the ddushka and babushka sitting at the, you know, at the checkpoint with their 12 gauge, like making sure that, you know, you're here to help. I'm not a Russian. So it was, it was really, you know, powerful. to just see how everybody had stood up to stop this invasion,

especially because Russia was here thinking, hey, they're going to welcome us with open arms. You know, they're already bringing the victory band in their convoy, you know, thinking that they're going to just walk right into Kiev. Half the people are going to welcome them. Dress uniforms, I heard. Exactly. I heard that actually in the abandoned sort of vehicles,

you find dress uniforms and band instruments, is correct. yeah and so i think that they thought that they were just going to be able to walk in and uh and and and take even like i said half of them would welcome them with open arms and all this stuff and absolutely not you know the cranium people are fiercely independent people and i think that they are very strong-willed people more so than anybody uh you know could have imagined uh you know and i think actually we saw that during the uh you know the revolution in my don you know these people, they want their independence. They really, you know, have these strong, what I would call very American values of freedom

and independence. And, hey, I want the right to, you know, be an entrepreneur and build my own business. You know, they have this very entrepreneurial spirit, which, of course, you've seen now in the defense sector. But, you know, the people really united and everybody came together and everybody was helping to repel the invasion. And I think that there's many factors if we want to talk about, you know, tactically why the Russian, you know, push specifically into Kiev was a failure. I think that it's, you know, of course, you know, all the credit in the world to, to the Ukrainian people and military for doing what they did.

You know, on the Russian side, you know, you saw, I think, a underwhelming performance by Russia. I think that they really didn't do their math or calculations in terms of how difficult, for example, it would be to land in Hostomel in order to defend it. How many people would be required for that, all the mechanics involved in it? think that they were expecting a bunch of dudes to be standing on the, uh, uh, out on the runway with man pads just waiting, you know, until they got close to shooting down. Um, and I don't think they expected the resistance that they got. Um, and also, you know, you had breakdowns in the, in the logistics train. Uh, you know, you had this massive convoy that just got, uh, bogged them down, uh, you know, in the mud. Um, I think that, you know, part of that was due to just the, the, the, the

time, you know, timing of the invasion. And also part of it was due to the fact that a lot of these vehicles have been in storage for, you know, possibly years. And you had dry rod on all the tires. They didn't do upkeep on the equipment. So half of it was breaking down on its way. They were running out of fuel. So, you know, there was a lack of professionalism on the Russian side that certainly helped lend itself to the victory here. You have, you know, lack of professionalism, catastrophic for them, intelligence failures, just failure to estimate the Ukrainian political situation, all this kind of stuff. So that all contributes.

And then the Ukrainians fight, which the Russians didn't think they were going to fight. So that all contributes to the failure of the sort of initial round. But what it is striking is that, I mean, within six months less, I mean, the Russians are really on the run. It's like as things that kind of settled into this, I'll say stalemate, I don't know if you'd accept that characterization. but whatever they are today, it's easy to forget that there was a period in 2022 when the Russians were on the ropes. And they were falling back kind of in every direction.

Yeah. What, if anything, involved about the Ukrainian way of fighting? What did you witness? Because that's not just the sort of initial Russian logistical intelligence failure. I mean, the Ukrainians fought and had the Russians on the ropes throughout 2022. What did they do right? What were they learning? In my honest opinion, I mean, yeah.

The Ukrainians, what they were able to do is able to, I think what enabled them to have success was the ability to basically snap and have a force that I don't think Russia thought that they could actually have that many armed individuals at the front. Because, you know, the standing army was certainly, you know, what ended up repelling Russia was much bigger. in its standing army, right? They were very quickly able to pull up these reserves almost instantly. You had, you know, a lot of, you know, certainly a large amount of foreign fighters. And not just from the West, you had Georgian foreign fighters, a lot of guys pouring into the country in order to bolster those numbers. And kind of, they had a very decentralized way of doing things, I would say.

You know, everybody kind of had their own little areas of responsibility, and it was push, push, push. Right. And it was a decentralized command, but everybody was able to cooperate and work together at the time. You know, there was certainly plenty of blue-on-blue incidents. You know, it wasn't perfect. But I think that the Ukrainians were able to very quickly bring to bear the Revenue. Resources that were coming in from the West, ammunition, small arms, everything. I was getting pushed directly to the guys at the front.

And they were able to, you know, just assemble and fight very quickly. I mean, that's how I would characterize it. And I've heard if you talk to folks at higher echelons in the U.S. military, they'll talk about kind of a revolution in targeting and American assistance on targeting. Yeah, yeah. targets on the Russian side and things like that. Yeah, I mean, I can't specifically go into what I was doing at that time. What I was doing was specifically assisted by the United States, which was targeting.

Of targeting of certain groups of individuals that were, for example, you had, you know, you had, you know, FSB guys that were doing their targeting in these kind of loose areas of the The flot was very porous at this time. I mean, like, nobody really knew where the front lines are or aren't. Like, people were kind of going in and out of them to a certain degree. And so absolutely, you had Russians coming into Target, you know, like, for example, in McLeiv, where they were targeting the government buildings there. And information was certainly given in order to target those individuals as well. But yeah, absolutely.

The United States was able to deliver intelligence very quickly. And also, of course, the ability of drones on both sides now to bring up real-time battlefield information and give people an idea of where positions are, how people are moving. You give you direct battlefield feedback became essential for both sides. I think that the Ukrainians were much faster to, for example, bring the commercial drones into the fight very quickly, like DGI. Mavik surveillance as droppers. You saw that come up very, very quickly.

And the Russians were certainly doing it too. But they were, you know, they had more of a system in place, you know, an idea of how to, you know, of how they. would feed intelligence back into their decision-making process, which was more centered around the Orelon at that time. But I don't think it really helped very much when you had soldiers outstretching and kind of outpacing the rate of artillery. Because ultimately like artillery and tanks, you know, their armor columns, like that is what the Russians really heavily rely on.

their queen of battle. The infantry is not their queen of battle. They've always had a more of a siege tactic. And so they've never, in my opinion, they've never done a good, you know, never done a good job of infantry operations, you know, or using infantry to take in hold places. It's always been siege tactics where they move up their artillery behind the infantry, they smash everything, and then they push, and then they smash everything, and they push. And you can't really be effective or use that tactic when you far out exceed the range of your artillery and outpace it.

You can try to make up for that by, you know, mobile housers and tanks and everything else. But you also had an absolute plethora of anti-tank weapons, the javelin, which, you know, absolutely was, you know, smashing tanks out here. You had the N-law, which also was a game changer as well. I mean, there's so many videos. There's a, you know, this war has such a video archive of information to go back and you can almost look, you can, basically, if you want to do the research, you can like almost go to every single day of warfare in this country and find video footage related to it. You know, this is the most heavily documented war in history, I believe. in terms of everybody's wearing a GoPro, you know. You know, there's drones certainly documenting almost everything.

It's the most sensor-heavy conflict, obviously, in history. And, you know, there's more information than we could ever possibly digest. And maybe with the assistance of AI at some point in the future, they'll be able to, you know, give a really detailed analysis. of, you know, like how all of this, the mechanics of how everything worked out and break it down, and we can have a better understanding of that. Starting to move forward then from the, from the corner now the old days of 2022. This more mobile, armored vehicle-centric style of warfare starts to evolve into what we see today.

I'm not going to characterize what we see today because I want to kind of ask you to characterize it. But, like, you know, if you had to, if, if, imagine someone who you knew who was here fighting in 2022, for some reason, they were out of the fight. And then they lived in a cave for the last four years. And then they came back. And they were like, I'm ready to get back in the fight. I'm ready. I know all my TTPs from 2022. I remember what it was like to fight the Russians then.

Put me back in, coach. What would you tell them to get them ready about what's changed? Yeah. I mean, the war has evolved. I would say in like six-month intervals almost. You know, every six months, the conflict here has changed. If you are gone for six months, it's, you know, a lot is going to change. TTPs are going to change a lot.

The tactics on the battlefield might change a lot. And so you, you know, it would be, I would say forget everything that you learned in 2022. You got to learn this, right? You know, as 2023 rolled in, obviously, you know, there was a lot of success also in 2023 on the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainians were, you know, able to pull up and do the Harrison offensive, take back a lot of territory down south.

And that was, you know, that was assisted. There was a lot of people that played a part in that. There was assistance, and it was very Western-minded in terms of that offensive in doing a combined arms offensive in that area, which I think is lent itself to being very successful. But certainly, like, the warfare has evolved in terms of most rapidly, obviously, drones. You know, as you were, you know, in Bachmute, for example, in early 2023, you know, there were still these massive stockpiles of Soviet artillery shells, you know, and the West, you know, Ukraine had a lot of artillery as well that was all this, you know, surplus stock that had come into Ukraine. and you saw just absolute insane exchanges of artillery in the city of Bachmint, which was one of the most, like, awesomely terrifying things that I've ever seen. I think that somebody said there was like 30 or 50,000 shells being shot into Bachmood every single day

during the height of the battle there. I've heard maybe even it was more than that. And being a witness to it is, you know, it's something that we probably haven't witnessed. in terms of artillery since World War I or World War II. And I think that very quickly, and this is where drones were obviously becoming, you know, first becoming super important, was to basically to walk artillery onto positions and to get accurate fires. I would say in 2023, for example, the scariest thing out on the battlefield to hear was an orline.

If you heard an Orlon or a MAVIC, because the MAVICs, you know, were starting to be used more and more. This is another kind of Russian ISR platform. The MAVIC? Yeah, I'm asking. Yes, yes. The MAVIC drone, it's, you know, it's a commercially available DJI product. It's been used by both sides. You know, it's a quadcopter.

You know, it can go out for about an hour. has a pretty good range and they have, I mean, they have great cameras on them. There's thermal models that can see, you know, day and night. And you would hear one of these and you would know, there's a,

can I ask? This is more of a personal question and you don't have to, you don't have to say any, you know, location details or anything, but I'm curious, I'm going to make an assumption about your military experience

before coming to Ukraine that you would probably obviously shot at, rocketed, mortar, and all that kind of stuff. I'm going to guess you were never the target of our, artillery in that period? I've never been the target of artillery like in any, you know,

serious way until now. Right. So I want to ask like what was it, what was it like the first time? Like, what went through your head the first time you, like, you were targeted by, I don't, I don't say first, I'll let you characterize the Russian military, but like a properly resource military force had you and your guys as the target of an actual, of real world systems. Yeah. You know, the first time, you know, the first time actually that I was targeted by artillery was actually in a civilian area here in Ukraine. So actually, you know, the first time having artillery come in very close was it was not on the front lines. It was in a quote unquote civilian area. And so, you know, hearing that come in and certainly not being prepared, not wearing armor.

you know, not having ear pro, any of this, you know, and when it's coming in, it's like, yeah, it's, it is, I don't know how to describe it, it's just overwhelmingly, you know, you just feel the overwhelming sense of power of, uh, and destruction of artillery. And in a urban area with concrete and metal all around, uh, you know, you can hear the shrapnel just, you know, shredding, smashing into brick wall and everything around, you know, hot shrapnel whizzing past you, it's, it's certainly a frightening event. And you just realize that, like, you're pretty helpless to do anything at all, other than get as low as possible or try to find cover. There's nothing you can do. It's just a feeling of helplessness, utter helplessness.

And it's something you can't escape. And I think, you know, on the, and this is actually gets into something really interesting that's evolved over time. You know, so, you know, obviously, you know, I won't say that it's something you get used to. But eventually here, especially in 22 and 23, there, this, it was an artillery war. Artillery was controlling everyone's movements on the front. And this is why when Russia's artillery caught up with the rest of its military force, this is where these hard lines formed. Because they absolutely formed a wall of artillery barrage that just completely stopped the ability of Ukrainian forces to advance effectively without having massive artillery barrages. And also, like, when it came to Ukrainian artillery,

Cranian artillery had to be very smart because Russian counter battery systems are so good So, you know, the Ukrainians had a lot to learn in terms of, you know, TTPs of setting up their artillery what they can and can't do just because the Russian counterbattery is so effective. And now you have Orlon's that can go search for artillery. And so it's, you know, it's definitely been one of these things

where it's like, you know, you just try to push it out as far, stretch it back as far as you can from the front and try to hope that, you know, you can shoot and they can't shoot you back. And so it ended up being that they would just kind of stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch back, and then everything in the middle would just be, you know, completely smashed. But, you know, as time goes on, you know, artillery

and then being at the front, being targeted by artillery, Another thing that I think is interesting is you get a sense of like during some of these artillery barrages, which sometimes would last for eight hours. You know, literally eight hours of constant artillery where you cannot move. But you just are in a trench, hiding in a trench, and also makes you realize how effective a trench is actually of protecting you. You know, without a direct hit into that trench, like it's, yeah, it's scary. And, you know, if they're hitting really close, you're going to be concussed, especially if it's wound five-twos. You know, but, you know, you're going to survive probably. As long as, you know, you're not hit by shrapnel or, you know, the concussion isn't too close to you.

You can survive these massive artillery barrages, which is kind of mind-blowing to think of, you know, that, you know, later seeing ISR footage of a position where you're at and just seeing artillery. are you smashing all around it. You also realize that, like, yes, it's a terrifying tool, and it certainly is a way to control maneuverability on the battlefield. But dollar for dollar, and this is what comes into warfare here later, is it effective, you know, dollar for dollar in terms of your, in terms of kills? Because is it effective in killing people? It's like, you know, for the number of artillery shells that are shot, it's like, you know, how many are misses, you know, the vast majority of this are misses.

And then the vast majority of the shows that land and are effective are suppressing fire. They're not actually, you know, if you have really well prepared positions, those artillery branches can't really do much in terms of without direct hits. Which, you know, obviously it does happen. and I'm not saying that a lot of lives weren't lost to artillery because they were. Guys advancing over open terrain on both sides certainly learn those lessons. You know, and I would say the highest number of casualties in 22 and 23 would have been from artillery just because of how much there was. It's striking to hear you talk about the psychological effect of it, even though you have this kind of critique of cost effectiveness. just considering, you know, I don't think the average American appreciates, like,

someone with your level of operational experience, like, that you're talking about this experience of being sheled with such intensity, what that means. Because it's not exactly like you walked in off the street without having seen anything before that happened. And still, it was just like a whole, it was like an order of magnitude different from what you had experienced before. Yeah, I mean, I was with, you know, I remember during one of the first artillery barrages, having some people who have, you know, by all account,

you know, you know, absolutely amazing careers in their Western military experience saying, hey, this isn't for me. Like I have this, you know, guys who volunteered to come over here. First artillery barrage, they go, yep, you know, F this. You know, I'm out. Because it is, it is something that you just realize how serious it is. When you look up and like you can't recognize where you just were. Because it could be a village, it could be the woods, and it is completely unrecognizable because everything is shattered and destroyed.

And you realize how absolutely utterly helpless you are and how it is just a, it's just a, at that point, it's just a matter of chance, you know. And it's, you know, the shells are agnostic, you know, they're coming in. They, you know, they hit where they hit, right? And you just have to hope that it's not hitting close to you. And so, you know, the shocking thing is seeing like, I think it's also very, you know, frightening to see, you know, the effects on humans. You know, when you obviously see it, you know, people that you know or that you're working with get shredded by artillery. You know, and seeing also the enemy being shredded by artillery and literally looking like something from Hollywood with ragdolls flying, you know, up into trees and realizing like that's, you know, that's. that's part of a human torso hanging off a tree in front of me, right?

You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, it just makes me imagine what guys in World War I, you know, who were sitting in these trenches with certainly less amenities for years on end getting a shell to, I just can't imagine it. So, um, you mentioned World War I. You also talked about these six-month cycles that the war has gone through, sort of bringing us up more towards the present day. We are in this situation where, I mean, I think it's sort of like a kind of semi-lazy way of talking about, but people do make reference to World War I.

And there is a quality of slow progress that seems to track. But the flot, the four line of troops, looks a lot different than it would have looked in the First World War. Tell us about how the plot actually works today. what does what does the flaw look like what is it how does it work yeah so and to understand that i'll walk you through a little bit of how it's changed in these six-month intervals where you go from you know traditional conventional war with a little bit of assistance from drones at the beginning to drone when you start to see these harder lines

forms you see drones being very central in order to direct fires right so now it's all about you know using artillery and using the drones to direct artillery and then we start seeing the the you know use of dropper drones which you know you can now get very accurate you know you can use a five dollar hand grenade you know, to absolutely, you know, drop it right into a guy's foxhole and create five casualties immediately where you might have shot artillery at them for an hour and not had an effect. And so guys start seeing the effectiveness of these small drones, and then especially dropper drones. And then you start seeing the real growth, the use of FPVs.

My first time seeing FPVs on the battlefield was in 2023. And luckily at that time it was friendly. You know, we'd started hearing about, oh, there's these drones, these FPV drones, and they just, you know, you can't do anything. They just come up and they ram you. And, you know, we started hearing about this. But in the area of operations we were at in the time, we weren't concerned about drones at that time.

We were working something completely different. And so we were not, we didn't have that same threat as other guys on the front lines did. But the next time that we went actually two ground operations, you know, the first time I heard one coming in, you know, you hear it. And it's actually, it is a very anxiety-inducing sound to hear this very high whining sound. You know, artillery is, once again, you know, the psychological fact, the psychological part, the drone warfare, the psychological factor, I think, is much more devastating than artillery. Considering what you just said about artillery, like, that's quite a thing, dare you say. For me, yeah, for me, it's certainly added a whole different level of anxiety.

I think that with artillery, you start to realize like, okay, like you start to understand how to react to artillery. Like, one, you need to get low, right? Or you need to get subterranean. Like, obviously, ideally get into a trench, get into a blendage. Like, and most likely, like, as long as you don't take a direct hit, most likely you're going to be okay. You know, maybe a blundage will collapse in on you. Maybe, you know, it'll be a really scary, you know, time. But if you can get deep, you can get low, it's possible to survive.

And that includes mortars as well. You know, you, you know, you just, you learn how to react. And you also, like I said, you know, these systems are agnostic. You know, there's nobody behind that system. It's just they're dropping it into a tube and it's going where it goes. And, you know, maybe it hits you, maybe it doesn't. You know, but that, that, that shell is agnostic. When it comes to an FPB, the terrifying thing to me is realizing that there's a person

behind that thing, right? Like, you are, you are, you know, you are now trying to outsmart another human being. And, uh, but you can't really effectively return fire at that human being, right? And, uh, and I, I think that adds a level of, uh, uh, of terror that's, you know, completely different. And this thing, you know, even psychologically, you know, you look at it, the thing looks like some kind of giant buzzing insect, you know, coming in at you from the sky.

And, you know, they certainly have a noise that becomes immediate, like recognizable and strikes fear in people's hearts. When you, when you hear that, you know, that high-pitch whining, it's like, you know, it makes your stomach uneasy and can make a lot of guys' legs, go weak because you know that hey you know you can hop into a hole or a trench and that thing's going to follow you straight in there so you know that is really where things you know started to shift on the battlefield because also for and not just for the individual soldiers I mean I speak of

it from my experience as you know you know working in special operations here in New Graham and being, you know, on foot most of the time. But for guys in vehicles, it's, it's more terrifying. Because, you know, these drivers, vehicles, like, you have to, your, your job is to be able to transport guys over, you know, open terrain, right? And, you know, that's, you're supposed to be the safety for these guys during transport. And at least with artillery, you know, artillery, unless you get it once again, unless you get a direct hit or very close hit, armored vehicles, tanks are pretty effective.

at stopping shrapnel. Whereas an FPV with a $20 EFP that somebody copper cone that somebody made in their garage it can take out you know it can take out one of these million dollar tanks and one shot. So today

the Ford Line of Tristan instead of being sort of a line or two lines close together it's this wider zone right that's heavily sent it's heavily visible everyone can see a lot of things and then um it's hard it's hard to move for all the reasons you just you just outlined yeah so you know it's it's transformed into if you you know the comparison with war one you don't have there's no single hard line of trenches right we don't need to pierce the maginot line um you have these vast gray areas right and there might be there's huge gaps in the line everywhere um but those gaps

are covered, you know, they're either mined, which is another thing that I haven't really covered, but the, you know, mines are absolutely used everywhere. You know, so, you know, a lot of areas, it's, you know, I, you know, a lot of, I'm known a lot of people that have lost legs to mines in this conflict. And it is, the Russians really love mines. and it is a really good area denial tool, right? And so, you know, you have these vast, vast mind areas that you just know. There's no possible way I can take a vehicle through here without hitting, you know,

six TMC, 62s in a, you know, 10 foot radius or guys certainly can't walk through there because there's tons of like PMS, you know, just littered everywhere. Some of them been there so long, they're coming out of the ground or, you know, They're, you know, some of them are now identifiable, but still, you know that there's, they're everywhere. So you have areas that are controlled by, you know, just the density of mining. You have areas that are controlled by FPVs. And so you have these, these big, what we call gray areas. And these gray areas are, nobody really controls either, you know, there is no hard line in this gray area.

It's the, it's a modern man, modern no man. land, right? And it's interesting. It just depends on where you are on the front lines for context. But, you know, you could, you know, one day you could have control of it. And, you know, because there's this porosity, especially right now on the lines, there's a huge porosity, you know, especially on the Ukrainian side because of the lack of manpower. And so how do you control, how do you control these massive swaths of, of,

uh, of, uh, of land, you know, without having troops everywhere. And they try to do this with drones and, you know,

just having so many sensors, right? It's like, you know, just, uh, the way that it usually works from the Russian side. And this is a tactic that is very effective on the Russian side is that,

they will just send groups of like two guys out and they're just probing. They're just probing. And they send these guys out and a lot of these are penal battalions or, you know, motorized rifle brigades, you know, which kind of just means whatever. It's just a bunch of guys that they're going to throw basically is meat out there. And they will push two guys in, another two guys over here. another two guys over here, and they'll follow them with ISR to see what happens. And maybe they get smashed, and they'll go, okay, well, we'll send two more and see what happens if they get smashed.

They get smashed, and they're like, okay, every day we're going to send a few guys here. We're going to send a few guys here. Eventually, we're going to get some guys through. Eventually, somebody's going to get through or somebody's going to find an area where they don't have eyes on, right? And so Russians just end up showing up in positions that are like, it could be behind. you know, where Ukrainian positions are or it can be, you know, they walk right into Ukrainian positions sometimes.

It's just very porous. And even as sensor heavy as this, you know, conflict is, you can't stop, you know, and find everyone. So guys are getting through. And obviously the casualties are extremely high, especially on the Russian side. You know, they absolutely have high casualties. abuse. But you're looking at the quality of guys that are being used for these operations.

You realize that the Russians don't care about these people. You know, we're seeing a lot of foreign fighters up at the front, a lot of African recruits, you know, from Nigeria, from Kenya. You know, and these guys, who knows how much they're getting paid to volunteer, right? And Russia knows that they don't have to pay a death benefit to their family like they do for, you know, a soldier, you know, an actual Russian soldier that's in the military, a professional soldier. You know, these volunteer, you know, mercenary, quasi, whatever they are, you know, they're

getting paid to come up here. They get that first paycheck. They go to the front and they're expendable. So I think there's this impression in the United States that the Russians are, they are where they are, they've not failed because of just their mass, size of their economy. They just got a lot of stuff. Ukraine doesn't have as much stuff. But that on some military level, they're kind of a joke, like they're not worthy of

a great deal of respect, in part because of the things you just identified. You know, they're just, you know, sending, they had an infinite number effectively of, not actually infinite, but large enough to matter of, you know, penal battalion guys. It's just the humans that they don't care about their lives. And they just throw that stuff, they can throw a bunch of metal and explosives. And so as a result, they're not failing. They're not succeeding either. And that on some level, they're spent.

Like, on some level, like, they're just not, they don't need to be taken as seriously as, for example, the Chinese, just to pull another great power comparison. What's your response to that? Yeah. So I would say it's really dangerous to think that. You know, what we've seen is the Russian military, like, for example, I'll just go back to this. You know, in the beginning, 22 and 23, we saw the use of the BDV units. These are the airborne units just to air. Airborne, yes, Russian airborne units.

Lots of use of their Spetsnaz. And these more formal infantry regiments, you had Wagner, which at that time was prolifically used. And they were, you know, for the most part, they were relatively experienced soldiers. So you certainly had parts of Wagner that were, you know, penal or even these like disease battalions where you had people from disease wards wearing armbands marking them with, I have cancer, I have AIDS, I have hepatitis. And these guys were being used in these, you know, as basically meat assault probes. That's what we call them meat, meatball attacks or meat assaults. it's just throwing guys at the front, and it's like, well, we'll just see what sticks.

Like, throwing spaghetti at the wall because they don't, they don't value their life. And that was, you know, very grim to see. But you also have these more professional units so long as... Absolutely. So you have these really professional units alongside. And also right now, what you've seen is, like, for example, like the BDV units and these marine units and everything else,

A lot of them have been pulled back from the front for a long time. And they've been rebuilding these units. There's a lot of Russian equipment that's, you know, you're not seeing these huge amounts of, like, of T90Ms at the front. You're not seeing, like, a lot of their modern conventional equipment. Like, during the, even during the course since 2022, most of the equipment that you've seen here is older equipment, right? You're not seeing all the brand new shiny toys, you know,

You know, you're not seeing, you know, the fourth-gen fighters and, you know, and brand-new shiny fighters flying around the sky. And I think that's very intentional. And, you know, Russia is holding all of that back for now. And, like, all of the, what I would call professional Russian soldiers, so, you know, more of the professional force is being put in areas that are not on the front. The guys who are getting sent to the front are these motor rifle brigades. They are mobilized guys. They're maybe reservists that were pulled up. They are, you know, volunteers that have basically signed a six-month contract or whatever to go up.

But the professional guys are being held in reserve right now. And, you know, we're certainly kind of thinking that right now, just based on what's going out there and this is all OScent, that there's probably, there's, it's possible that Russia is going to have like a large draft soon to bolster their numbers even further because the Russian military has been able to recruit people

and build their military much faster than Ukraine can keep up with. And that's dangerous. And that's very dangerous. And, you know, I think Russia at this point, like, like Russia in my opinion, I don't think Russia can really make a deal, you know? I don't really think they can make a deal to end this war. And I know that that's what this administration, you know, wanted to do. And I think that certainly it's a, it's the right thing to want to end the war.

I think that everybody wants to end this war. But if you look at Russia, like politically, Putin cannot lose this war. There have been too many casualties. there's been too much, you know, resources invested into this, there has to be a, a measurable, quote-unquote, victory, right? There has to be some, something that Russia can go and say, like, hey, look what we did. We've now conquered all the way to the NEPRO, or we've, you know, conquered all, you know, we now control all the way from, you know, Crimea to Moldova, right? right, or whatever it is.

You know, there has to be, there has to be something, some measure of success, I think, in order for them to really stop. And right now, they have the resources to keep, they can hold the line with these, with these expendable guys. And it's not really, I mean, of course it's costing them. But, you know, they can certainly do it for far longer than Ukraine can because, you know, these guys might not be skilled. You know, there might be a lot of them.

And granted, there's still regular units mixed in there that are effective. You know, you saw some of these more effective units pushing through in Prokrosk. It's not to say that there aren't that it's exclusively these guys who are completely untrained. You know, there are definitely still guys who know what they're doing, you know, or at least are somewhat trained at the front lines. But as a matter of strategy, I mean, from everything you're saying, you know, the Russians, what happens in Ukraine matters a great deal to Putin. I get that you want to pull units off the line and restore equipment.

That makes sense. But why wouldn't you throw more of your best stuff at solving the problem, given that there have been periods where the Ukrainians are resource constrained? Like, why is all this stuff sitting back still and all these guys and all this high-end equipment? Yeah, well, I mean, and like, and this is all hypothetical, of course. Like, nobody, you know, who knows? I mean, there's a lot of things where, you know, if you want to look at the conflict, It's like, why didn't Russia do this in the beginning of the war?

Why didn't they crater, you know, all the railroad lines coming in from Poland? Why didn't they crater all the highways, right? Because if they had done that, you know, the, I mean, the Ukraine ability to fight Russia would have just, it would have star to death and sucked up and dried and gone away. But you had all of this, the logistics coming in from the West. So why wasn't Russia focusing on attacking the logistic routes? coming into Ukraine. Nobody knows. I don't know. I know. I'm not Russian. I don't understand why they have, or why didn't they just, you know, in the beginning, push to control the, for control of the Black Sea and make that their big push instead of, you know, pushing all across the front. Who knows, right? I mean, you know, I certainly, there's a lot of speculation as to why they're doing whatever they're doing.

I think that like Russia is still, you know, is, they're certainly not what they were in 2022. Russia is not going to recover, you know, it's very quickly from the losses that they've suffered in this war. However, that being said, they are still a formidable force. And I think that, you know, if it were to come to conflict, if Russia would. were to come to blows with NATO, they are absolutely keeping that equipment in reserve in case the day comes for that. Or, you know, the day they decide to push into Estonia or somewhere else. I think, you know, you have to look at this conflict not just as an isolated event, but how it plays into, you know, the global economic, global warfare as a whole

and affects the world. And just to say, hypothetically, Maybe the U.S. gets involved in the Middle East again. You know, maybe this conflict in Mexico spills over the border into the United States. And then maybe at the same time, while all of that's going on, China decides to make a move on Taiwan. Now, the U.S. is going to have to get involved in PACOM. And while they have a conflict on the southern border, while they have, you know, a conflict in the Middle East. and can they protect now Europe from a Russian force? And now, you know, Russia can start pushing harder into Ukraine or into Europe.

And the Europeans will have to have to be there to defend, and they certainly can't assist the United States in defending the Pacific, if they're worried about Russia pushing into their own countries. And of course, this is all hypothetical, right? but I think that I think it's important and who knows you know who knows nobody can know can say with any certainty what'll happen tomorrow however if those things were to align like it's very dangerous for Europe it's very dangerous for Europe and it's very dangerous you know globally if if if more conflict were to start so I think that you can't

just say like oh well Russia is done and like I think everybody just expects this But like, yeah, the United States will always be able to like come in and step in and take care of the day if something happens, right? You know, for me, I think like, you know, I try to look at things like in terms of a global environment, not just a regional conflict and how this plays into global politics. And so, you know, when I think about it, I think like, you know, the United States cannot be there always to say. save the day if it's stretched in 20 different directions, right? And I think that's where the danger comes in is everybody just assumes that this conflict's going to stay isolated and nobody's thinking about what's happening in these other regions and how that could affect our preparedness as a country in a larger global conflict.

You're being really generous with your time. I got one more question for you. What do the Ukrainians need to do in order? to survive and actually two-part question what do they need what do they need from places like the united states what what scares me about ukraine there's there's all these wonderful things in ukraine you know you have this this wonderful growth in the defense sector and all of these these this innovative technology and drone technology and ukraine has done an amazing job protecting itself and um and being able to respond to the challenges that it has

However, what I see personally is I see massive lack of unity, countrywide. And this is in where I look at it in terms of like military. I look at it in terms of the social separation and in terms of political politics. And you know what Russia is able to do right now. And what we've seen is like Russia, for example, you know, I've kind of compared this to the M1 grand, right? Russia is able to innovate and come up with designs for drones, like put out a bid of like,

okay, we need a new drone design, and then say, okay, we've decided we're going to make this fiber optic drone, and now we want all you manufacturers to produce the same thing under license, right? And so they're pumping out M1 grants, and, you know, Springfield's producing an M1 grand, and, you know, a singer sewing company is producing a 1911 or whatever, right? In Ukraine, you know, right now, the government, for whatever reason, maybe it's because of politics, I think it's because of people competing for resources.

There's resource competition that I think came out of bad policy from the United States that kind of incentivized because of the lack of understanding of the, of how things work over here in this post-Sovia culture, which, you know, there are still, you know, there's echoes of the Soviet Union here. And like, I hate to say this, but like, just because the war started didn't make any of the political problems or corruption problems. It doesn't get erased just because there's a war. I'd like to think that, you know, everybody would like that.

But it doesn't disappear. And so those are those are. like more issues that are just kind of ingrained in the way that they've done things for a long time. And I understand that doesn't change very fast. But it doesn't help if you don't understand the system and kind of how things worked before and then be able to tailor your assistance based on that, right? And so what I think is like what I think there has to be is like accountability and like, no, you are going to do it this way.

the U.S., you know, NATO partners have to be, have to, you know, there's a lot of the Ukrainians are like, oh no, we know the best way to do it. It has to be done this way. Okay, well, that's not necessarily true all the time. And I think, you know, for example, when it can come down to a lot of different things, you know, we've, this is a small example, like trying to teach, you know, trying to teach Ukrainians who've been here for a while fighting, Trying to teach them new military tactics, for example, trying to teach them the Ranger Handbook. You know, how to do a support by fire line, you know, a supported assault. How to do breaching? A lot of them will say, well, what do we need that for? I don't need breaching. I shoot rocket a door.

I make hole. And it's like, okay, well, that's not actually how it really works. And there are these, a lot of technical problems, especially in the fighting in places like Kupian's, you know, you actually do need to understand how to do that. And a lot of times certain people, and I understand it, they're like, hey, we've been here, you know, defending this country by ourselves. Yes, we're getting assistance from, you know, other countries, but we're doing the fighting. I've been here for, you know, four years.

This is their, you know, how they think, you know, right or wrong. You know, I've been here for four years doing this fighting. I know how to do it. Why are you trying to tell me how to do it? And it's like, well, you know, but. But, you know, if you keep doing the same thing, you're going to get the same results, right? And, you know, I do think that, and, you know, there's lots of guys are very open-minded to new things. But that mentality exists across, it's not just guys on the front lines, it's guys in higher command, it's guys in politics.

They're like, it must be, we've always done it like this. We must do it like this. And it's like, okay, so explain to me why. I don't know. It's just the way we've always done things. And so you had like, you know, in the beginning of the war, you had everybody coming together. All these organizations working together because we had this vision of we got to save, we got to save Kiev. You know, we got to save Ukraine.

Let's all come together. We'll share resources like, you know, hey, you know, you're, you know, we'll fight with whatever units on our left and right. We'll just work together and we'll do what we have to do to push guys back. And then as the conflict is moved on, you've seen this more shift to retract internally. And some of that comes down to competing for resources where you have a finite amount of resources. Each organization wants to get, you know, what it wants. And, you know, for, you know, we like altruistically thinking we'd like to think that it's, you know, for the benefit of its troops. you know,

but can be argued, but there's fighting over resources. And so now, different units, instead of wanting to cooperate, or, you know, maybe,

you know, maybe they have a bad experience from something on the battlefield or there was a blue on blue and it builds these hostilities between units. And it ends up when you go, sometimes when you go to the front,

it feels more like doing, you know, a meeting with tribal leaders in Afghanistan than it does. working with a professional military because you have all of these different groups and like, well, I want to do this, but what are you going to give me? You know, and like, you know, it's like little chiefs. You know, you have all these little chiefs competing for the resources.

And I think that that has been a failure in terms of the Ukrainian military's ability to adapt. And maybe politically, you know, the leadership, not for. forcing down changes in the military to ensure that this happens. But, you know, really quickly, like, for example, I met, you know, and spoke with some young guys from one of the military academies in Leviv. And these guys, young guys, who are going to be the future war fighters and leaders here in Ukraine, saying, hey, I'm still reading books that all of the books, like, all of our reading list is so.

Soviet doctrine. Why are we still being taught Soviet doctrine? Why is, why are they saying, uh, that basically, you know, if, uh, anyone who like tries to distinguish himself by working harder should be shamed, basically. Like, you know, it's like you don't want to work hard to distinguish yourself. No, you need to, you know, blend in and don't try to do things and step outside your reach. Whereas, you know, we reward that in the West. Like, you know, we, We reward guys who step up and go beyond what they need to do. And here it's not rewarded. You know, it's stay in your lane.

And so, you know, I think it starts with, you know, you've got to, it has to start all the way with military education. And, you know, the funding and resources for military education and saying, okay, guys, we're going to give you this allocation of funds for to, to, you know, retool, you know, the learning format. of, uh, uh, for officers. You know, the new, this is going to be a new, you know, course, you know, uh, format for officers and it's going to be Western based, whatever it is. I'm not saying it has to be purely Western based. I also think that they should have, you know, guys with modern, with battlefield experience here teaching these classes,

but understanding like, you know, how combined arms warfare works, which is, there's a huge lack of combined arms warfare here. When you go to the front, there is no jock, right? I'm not walking into a jock where you've got a bunch of different units sitting down and coordinating. You know, I've got five, you know, KSP's that I got to go to. And I got to meet with every, you know, unit leader and shake hands with him and say, hey, guys, is it okay if I pass through your lines at this time, don't shoot me, right? and, you know, I have to, you know, there's so many more disconnected pieces that you have to try to, you know, I, the best way to do is just leave a person in their talk, you know, so that they can help coordinate because otherwise, you know, it's, it's not going to end well because there's, there isn't a very cohesive, uh, lack of coordination, I would say across different units and across the line as a whole.

I know I said that was my last question, but I actually have one more. You know, you've seen a lot these last four years. I think there is a general, well, that's not true. There's not a general recognition that this is the cutting edge of warfare, but there should be. Presumably, you talk to guys from your old organizations and, you know, people back in the United States, but in terms of a formal process, has anyone reached out to you from our government, from the United States, is part of any kind of formal or even semi-formal lessons learned process? I mean, you and the people you work with, you kind of know how things work in terms of combat in 2026. Does the United States government seem to show any interest in this? Yes and no.

In an official capacity, no. But I would say there's people in my network, exemplary people in my network, who have done everything they can to connect me to other people in order to, you know, try to get these lessons learned pushed out. right? And sometimes people are willing to listen, sometimes or not. I think everybody has their own ideas of how modern warfare works. And like I certainly do think that like, you know, there will be lessons learned if the U.S. gets involved in a conventional conflict. There's going to be lessons learned there that are going to be much different from what's happened here. And you can't, there is no perfect comparison. right? But this is the closest thing that we have.

And I think that there's plenty of things that would make a difference if the U.S. was involved, like, you know, air superiority and all of these, you know, advanced weapon systems. Of course, that makes a difference. When he comes down to troops on the ground, and, you know, this certainly is showing what the enemy is going to be using in terms of high volumes of low-cost, accurate munitions, right? and this technology is being shared with the Chinese, which is arguably our biggest adversary or concern right now. And the Chinese are not just learning from, sadly, they're not just learning from the Russians. They're learning from the Ukrainians still.

Everybody can see, you know, what the Ukrainians are doing as well. And unfortunately, you know, a lot of China just happens to be where all of these parts are produced. And so they're stealing all of that data. And if you don't think that you email a Chinese company, from Ukraine saying, you know, I need to order these many parts. Of course they're going to get into your system. They're going to be, you know, they're going to be doing exactly what they've been doing

to U.S. companies for years. Stealing as much IP as possible and learning as many lessons without having to bleed themselves. And so I think the U.S. should be doing the exact same thing, is saying deep diving and saying, hey, what can we do right now that is going to, that's going to prevent us from having losses in the future. And, you know, the U.S. has been in all of, you know, if you look at the U.S. kind of in the past, like, for example, prior to World War II, you know, and prior to World War I, we had a very small force. And then we had to swell up, you know, for World War I. And then after World War I, we didn't maintain a huge force. We shrunk down and then swelled back up for

World War II. And then, you know, it swelled down. And then it swelled back up again for Korea and you didn't really see this kind of persistently large military until after Vietnam. And, you know, but we've also been fighting a war for 20 years where we've been the technologically advanced ones, right? Fighting, you know, not to, not demeaning here, but fighting guys in mud huts and everything else. And I think that that actually, like, you know, there's a theory about this. It's like when you're fighting an equal or, or more intelligent enemy that forces you to improve, right? And when you're fighting a, you know, an inferior force, now we kind of have to come down to their level and maybe we're not innovating as much.

So for me, if it were me and I was, you know, supreme leader, whatever, I would certainly be saying, hey, how can I take, how can I take all the lessons being learned here and, like, get that into, you know, lectures in our military academies and get guys lecturing on this. this or have people over here who are like simply here to assess new technology and how we can help develop that or how it can be developed here or whatever in order to advance one readiness for both sides. And so I think, you know, I think that the military, certain parts of the military, the Marine Corps especially, has actually done a really good job of trying to build like some drone

warfare centers. And I've seen, you know, a lot of, uh, talk to a lot of guys in the Marines who are really focused on drone warfare right now. You know, other branches are focused on it as well, obviously. But, uh, I don't think that everybody is, you know, we're looking still at these very high cost solutions. You know, we've seen, uh, many lot like these, you know, what we would call these, like these, like high-end companies come out here, like Anderil, to test their drones, which they did not have successful testing out here, which is why you don't hear about it.

And I'm hoping that these guys are internalizing when they came out here and those drone tests weren't successful. I'm hoping that they're going back saying, okay, let's rethink this, right? And I think that you have, you know, in order to save Ukraine, we also need to save, you know, you need, you know, it's also about economics. And, you know, a lot of Ukrainians have left Ukraine because they don't have jobs, right? The defense industry is like one of the only sectors still here. But okay, but then let's focus on making sure that the Ukrainians can build their economy back, their defense economy. whatever it is, but build their economy back so they can get people back and they can have their own revenue, right? So let's help Ukraine help itself, not just, you know, let's teach a man to

fish, not just give them a fish. And I think the Ukrainians want that. Like, that's the, if you talk to, you know, the average guy in the battlefield, like, they feel responsible for their country. They love this country. They want to see it be successful. And I think, you know, I think that things need to change politically. I think that things need to change militarily in order to make that happen. But it's certainly not because of a willingness of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian spirit, which is to work hard and fight and for their independence. So this has been a really great conversation. I really appreciate you making the time to come on school of war. And most of all, I'm grateful to you personally for what you do for the defense of freedom and defense of

the West. Thank you very much. I really appreciate being here and thank you so much for your time.