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Everybody started calling the Ukrainians and saying, can you help us In twenty twenty two, nobody was saying that And all of a sudden, Ukraine finds itself as the innovator in military defense tech right now What do Russia's fight with Ukraine? And the US war with Iran tell us about the limits of military might Four years in, Ukraine is still giving Russia a run for its money. For months in, Iran shows no sign of bowing to US demands. This is sources and methods from NPR I'm Mary Theise Kelly. Today is Thursday. It is july the second, and since it's Thursday, it's Sources and Methods Day, whichich means we're diving into the week's biggest national security stories with NPR reporters out there covering them. I am out there in the world this week out in Aspen. I am here moderating interviews and panels for the Aspen Ieas Festival Happily, holding down the fort in DC and fresh off his latest assignment in the Middle East is our national seecurity correspondent Greg My, Hi, my friend. Hi, Mary Louise. Hey, and joining us from Kyiv and Per Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kissis, making her sources and methods debut kind of because Joanna, you helped us pilot this podcast a ago, a year ago. Thank you.s for coming back Thanks for having me. Let's timestamp this. It is a little after ten in the morning here in Colorado, a little after noon in Washington, which makes it a little after seven PM Ke whereere Joanna, it sounds like y'all have had an awful night last night. missile strikes, drone strikes, the worst in weeks. us tellell us what we should know Yeah, it was very, very loud and it was a long night, I have to tell you. and it was I One of those nights where I thought, oh my gosh, could these explosions get any louder than they are? I mean, even my earplugs weren't working. notothing was was was helping. So it was very, very loud And when we woke up this morning, we discovered that there were about five hundred drones in about seventy five missiles, Ukraine's air Force was able to intercept most of the drones. so they are able to shoot down most of them using a variety of methods, air defense methods that the Ukrainians have developed themselves like you know these interceptor drones or electronic warfare or these mobile air defense units that sort of roam around the city shooting them down But the missiles, a lot of the missiles got through, like about a third of them, and they hit lots of targets, about twenty sites around the city. Most of the strikes happened on apartment buildings, apartment buildings were hit.. So rescue workers are still going through the rubble to find survivors. So what's the progression sounds that you're hearing. What do you hear first? Is it the air rid sirens going off? And that's what wakes you up? Yes. Okay. That's right And we hear the air rate sirens. and on a drone heavy night, we hear the drones and they sound like these giant lawnmowers or mopeds or angry mosquito swarms. Sbody described them to me as mosquito swarms once So we hear the drones flying over the neighborhood and then we start to hear the explosions of air defense. Sometimes we hear the air defense explosions before we hear the drones, they're interchangeable. And so the rest of the night is a series of this you know, hearing drones, hearing explosions, hearing drones, hearing explosions, usually outgoing air defense trying to shoot down the drones. And I was seeing all these pictures, Joanna of Ukrainians running down to the metro, to the shelters For you, do try to go back to sleep? Are you running downstairs? What do you do? No, we have a safe room here in the bureau that's like fortified and we go in there. It's like we have it's kind of like a storage area too. So we go there. It'll keep us safe from drones. It's hard to stay safe from missiles because missiles can even hit underground too But yeah, I found this new way to relax which is to listen to K pop. it's actually helped a lot. So last night, I couldn't sleep, boom, boom, boom. Why I' just pop in the K pop. I may be a little old for it, but I have to tell you, it's very relaxing. Oh. So what do we think is going on here? Because we're obviously more than four years into this war. Kiv has been hit many, many times, but I'm wondering if this Russian assault, you know this Mega one, it sounds like y'all lived through last night Is maybe Vladimir Putin's answer to Ukraine's drone assaults inside Russia? I mean, I've been watching Putin has been under real pressure with Ukrainian strikes hitting reffineries hitting Moscow hitting all the way east in Siberia. That's right. What's going on? So let me just go back a few days and say like, yes, Vladimir Putin has acknowledged these strikes. He has said that he thinks that they're a sign of desperation by the Ukrainians, but he's also acknowledged that they caused a lot of damage. There are gas shortages right now. There are real problems in Russia now because of these strikes. Russia's defense ministry today said Yes, these overnight strikes that we experienced last night were in retaliation for the long range strikes. and they said that you know they suggested that more were to come. We've talked a lot on this podcast about how Ukraine has invoentited this whole new plea book, a lot of new technology when it comes to drones. When we talk about Ukraine being able to hit Moscow, we're talking about air drones, drones flying. That's right. But Ukraine is also doing all kinds of interesting things with sea drones and with land drones. Yeah, that's right. withith the sea drones that were developed by Ukraine, they were able to drive out, you know like the Russian navy from the Black Sea. So it opened up the routes for shipping, for example, of Ukrainian grain And then the ground drones, the ground drones are really interesting because they are something that Ukraine is now pretty much a leader in. They are considered very innovative. We've spent time with several Ukrainian military units that use these. And soldiers describe them as kind kind of like replacing infantry on the ground You know, one guy said, look, you we're so outnumbered by the Russians, or' so many more of them. And if we don't innovate with you developments like these ground drones, then we are never we're never going to win. We're never even going to survive. So they've put a lot of effort into developing these ground drones, and I should explain what they look like kind of look like little trucks If you can imagine, like flatbed trucks, they have four wheels. they're remote controlled, they're battery operated. and they go into areas How big are we talking? Are we talking like the size of a truck or like a kid? Like a size a b? Like the size, I guess of a bumper car if you can imagine, you know Greg, Myri, hop in here. You've done a lot of reporting from Ukraine, including a lot of reporting on drones and how Ukraine is using them to wage war. What stood out to you from past few days, what stands out to you from what Joanna is saying I don't think it's any exaggeration to say we are seeing a kind of war and warfare that we just haven't seen before. And Joanna has detailed it brilliantly in terms of the drones and that being the main factor, But it has all these knock on effects about the way war is being fought. Traditionally, you would mass a large number of troops then and launch an offensive and try to overwhelm or just steamroll the other side The drones have neutralized that, even to the point where Ukraine doesn't even try to put up in some areas a big frontline defense. It has a very small number of soldiers, kind of like an observation point. and there's this kill zone or no man's land that's ten, fifteen, twenty miles wide that nobody will go into because you're immedily almost immediately detected and a drone will spot you and shoot at you So the Russians will send instead of a large force of hundreds or thousands of troops, they have to send in five on foot here and ten on motorcycles there. and Ukrainians in some cases, aren't even trying to stop them, just observe them and then let the drones take care of them So this has been a very clever way for Ukraine to turn its numerical shortcomings into an advantage on the front lines where in traditional warfare, they would have just been outmanned, outgunned and completely steamrolled. Well, and just to sum up where we are, I mean It feels like we're seeing something a little bit different this summer, Joanna. amm I right? In the sense that we're not just talking about the front lines of where you know the hot conflict has been raging, but again, like drones flying to Moscow to St. Petersburg, to Siberia, what's going on So the Ukrainians have sort of felt like they're on their own here. and They feel like we have to find our own way to get Russia to agree to terms that we think are fair to us. And this is how they've chosen to do it. They've chosen to do it through innovation and through the use of these long range drones. And these long range strikes they happen almost every night and they have been incredibly effective. And we actually spent time with this very elite unit That's part of unmanned systems forces. By the way, Ukraine is the only country that has such a force in its military They launched these strikes in fields, basically all over Eastern Ukraine. and we followed them there. We drove out there with them. body arm, we had to we f body armor so did they. And it looked very nondescript on purpose. It's supposed to be in the middle of nowhere. and it's a different field every night. And it was getting dark when we arrived there, and we saw these soldiers in full body armor carrying what know what looked like the small plane. And we're like, what is that And we realized it later, it was a drone. they started hammering in these launch pads to set up for the launches of the drones, obviously. So was for a while, the only noise other than the crickets was the hammering of these drone pads. And you know I spoke to this soldier who uses the call sign push And he's the one who told me, lookook, I'm out here every single night and he told me what it meant to him. You know, every day we can see our workor a result of this work and it's Really motivate us every day The best work in the world. One why Be you know we are doing a lot of damage for our enemies and it's everything we need right now So we watched as they launched these drones, it took a couple of hours. went it was pitch black by the time the launches actually happened. And it was like they started this motorcycle engine to help fuel the take off of the drone. They were lined up one after the other one, two, three, four five like twelve drones that were like launch to the sky. During the last couple of drones, I was standing next to the commander of the unit. his name is Charlie. He's a tall, very, very serious guy. You know he's a career officer. And he said, I'm not going to tell you where these drones are going. We're not allowed to tell you, but he did tell me that his dream target was Red Square You know, lots lots of anger, lots of hatred. And he said, lookook, you know, the Russians are never going to be able to understand what we've gone through. And this is a way for them to feel it Yeah. God, I can picture you in that field with this guy who's dreaming of hitting Red square. This is This is maybe a strange question to put to someone who has just had the kind of night you had with air raid sirens and missiles and incoming drones. feels clear that Ukraine is not losing this war. Is the sense among Ukrainians that there is some kind of tide turning that are they starting to think about what that would feel like to win this work Yes, I would say so. I mean, it I think It's tempered by this utter exhaustion of, you know this war has gone on for more than four years and there have been so many nights like these and there's so many people with have lost a family member. I mean I feel like every Ukrainian I meet has lost a family member or a friend in this war But yes, I do see a lot of optimism with soldiers a lot more than I saw a few months ago I see a lot of optimism just hanging around, you know Kiv and going to restaurants and listening to people talk. I mean the long range drone strike team is like they're like heroes now because They have made Ukrain Ukrainians feel like they are turning things around. And you see also you see it also with Zelensky. he's much more confident now going to you know, diplomatic meetings, you know, he's he's like these are he cause these long range strikes are long range sanctions against Russia because they're hitting the oil industry, which is like Russia's lifeblood for its economy. And so yes, it's very clear to me, I see it every day We're gonna to take a quick break. when we come back. Ukraine is not the only country standing up to a much larger world power. That's ahead on sources and methods from NPR. Okay, we are back with Joanna Cissus and Greg Myy and Greg What we're saying in Ukraine, what it has managed to do against Russia, against a larger army with more money, more weapons is remarkable What we are seeing with Iran right now? Iran managing to stand up to the United States, which has more weapons and more money and a much bigger military is that Equally remarkable. Yeah, I think so in a lot of ways. I mean, both wars have their own dynamics, but you can see this where we're seeing the weaker military, the underdog, if you will, not only able to keep fighting, but to fight effectively and even get the upper hand in some cases. pererhaps the best example I can give is consider two bodies of water, the Black Sea and the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf You know Russia had full control of the Black Sea at the start of this full scale invasion back in twenty twenty two. It cut off Ukraine's ability to export grain and its other agricultural products, absolutely essential to Ukraine's economy. And Ukraine had no Navy they literally blew up their last warship on their own rather than let the Russians take control of it And yet they kept finding ways to keep fighting. They shot some missiles from land and hit some Russian ships that got too close. They began making drones at sea, which started as jet skis with just explosives packed into them. Now they're making much more sophisticated sea drones opened a channel so they could export and they keep pushing the Russian navy back further and further in the Black Sea, even though they do not have a traditional navy with ships and sailors of their own. Quite extraordinary. The parallel, of course, is in the Gulf in the Strait of Hormuz, where we've heard President Trump talk about sinking more than one hundred fifty Iranian naval vessels againgain, traditional ships left. He keeps telling us that Iran's Navy has been wiped out. and I keep trying to square that with the fact that it appears to still be pretty tough to get through the Strait of Hormuz. Well, that that's precisely the point. I mean, they do have these small speed boats, but these are these are almost something that are, you know, they barely look likere they're military in nature and they're certainly not a big vote. They have a, you know, small number of two, three, four guys on them. and they can they can cause distraction, certainly lay mines, do that kind of thing. But Iran has effectively shhut down as we saw, the Strait of Hormuz with missiles and drones from land, despite this large US naval presence in the region, some of the traffic is going through now. But even now they're negotiating and Iran seems to be negotiating from a pretty strong position and can still hit ships. We've seen it on several occasions in recent days It's been quite extraordinary. On paper, the Russian Navy compared to the Ukrainiianans non Navy and the American Navy compared to Iran's non Navy' just theres there's nothing to compare it to. and yet in both cases, the weaker party has been able to fight very effectively. It's so interesting and I want to connect it up to a point you made a few minutes ago, Greg about, you know that historically warfare has meant raising a big army and sending it on to the battlefield and that this is changing so quick and on sea as well, Joanna, are I mean, we in here on how you are seeing this from Ukraine? I talked about this earlier about how they know that they're outnumbered anyway, and they know that the more people they lose, the worse it is for them you know, there're like thirty million Ukrainians than like what one hundred and forty million Russians. And so like they really are outnumbered. And so for them you know, making decisions like sending an armada of ground drones an armada of people into battle is one way of solving it. I mean, they're using ground drones, for example, and these are just robots You know, they're just remote controlled machines They're using them to do assaults much more often than they were before. And they work together with aerial drones to replace everybody in every area. Greg, one more to you. as we watch the contours of how battles are fought changing Do you think we're going to start thinking differently about who emerges from a war as conqueror and who emerges as conquered. mean I mean, I'm thinking it feels fair to argue that Iran has managed to emerge stronger from this war with the U. S, at least in certain ways. It has a formidable tool, control of the Strait of Hormones that it didn't have before What about Ukraine, though? I mean, where the war has certainly transformed that country, where they have made all kinds of progress on the battlefield, but the war is obviously ongoing and has deeply wounded that country. Absolutely. And so I think to think of it just in binary terms, winning or losing is probably not the right way to think about these things Ukraine has suffered terribly in the war in terms of the people, soldiers and civilians killed and wounded, the damage to the economy, the just economic and emotional scars that will last for years and years. So that Ukraine is paying a heavy price, however this war may play out eventually. learned great resilience, great innovation, playing a role in the security of Europe that others would not have anticipated a few years ago. I think in some ways, those who survive this war and Ukraine is a country can come out much, much stronger. and you could make that point about Iran too. I don't want to make a direct comparison. Ukraine is a western democracy Iran is a Shiite theocracy that has greatly abused the rights of its own people and killed thousands of them But certainly Iran has also dug deep and found a resilience that it didn't have. It looked like it was in terrible shape before this war. with its protests and the government killing protesters, the economic crisis. It now its leadership and its military feel emboldened in a way that they didn't months ago. So there are all these conflicting currents that that take place in a war and sometimes countries come out stronger even for all of the human and economic and emotional costs that they suffer along the way. If I could jump in there, you know, at the beginning of this war, everybody, if you'd mentioned that Ukraine was going to be exporting weapons, people would have laughed at you And that's exactly what they're getting ready to do now. And because of the Iran war Middle Eastern countries were like burning the phone lines here. Can we have your interceptor drones? Be These interceptor drones they cost like a thousand dollars or the size of a big bottle of water. And they could take out these shah head drones that Iran makes and that Russia has the blueprint for and is making themselves now in Russia. So everybody started calling the Ukrainians and saying, can you help us? And I'm just saying like in twenty twenty two, nobody was saying that And all of a sudden, Ukraine finds itself as the innovator in military defense tech right now. And just just to add to that, I mean, it's just the way it's flipped military thinking on its head before these wars, you say, okay, well you want big ships and big planes and tanks and armored vehicles. More aircraft carriers, more Yeah. Those are sitting ducks. those are huge targets that are difficult to defend Ukraine and Iran have said, well, no, actually, you would like thousand dollars weapons that are completely disposable and you can burn through one hundred or five hundred in a night and then shoot off another hundred or five hundred the next day rather than have a multi multi million dollar exquisite plane or ship that you absolutely don't want to lose because you can't replace it easily We're gonna take one last break. Before we do that, quick plug for our episode earlier this week. This September is going to mark twenty five years since nine eleven. and it's impossible to imagine. It's been that long, but it has twenty five years. I spoke with Alberto Gonzaalz, who was serving as President Bush's White House counsel on nine hundred eleven Al also spoke with Jay Johnson, who became Homeland Security Secretary under President Obama. The three of us were here in Aspen at the Ideas Festival before a live audience, and we talked about Guantanamo Bay and how the cases there are going to end or not. Al about the CIA's detention and interrogation programs and the legacy of nine and eleven. So make sure you check out that episode before it goes into our archive in a few weeks Coming up as ingenuity and tech reshape warfare, what are we learning about the limits of global powers? Plus, we'll open up our reporters notebooks for OSN that's ahead on sources and methods from NPR. We'll be right back We're back with Johanna Cacissas and Greg Mi. question that I'm going to throw it of you it's like the biggest cliche, the biggest platitude ever when we end our stories to end them by saying, but time will tell. So let me throw you both questions to which probablyably the only honest answer is time will tell, but' take a swing anyway Do we see signs that the US, I'll throw this one to you, Greg, that the US is pivoting is trying to become more nimble for the wars of the future? What does that look like? And Joanna, if you want to take that from your patch, what is Russia doing to try to regain military dinence So the U. S. has watched and seen what happened in Ukraine, but the U. S. wasn't quite prepared when in the fight with Iran. They've been they've been U.S has been working very closely with Ukraine, providing intelligence, watching the war very closely, seeing what the drones were able to do. But it didn't have that that anti drone technology available in large quantities when the battle started with Iran So the US is trying to adapt, but it hasn't done it quickly enough. The Iran war was was an absolute lesson. I mean you also saw Trump not wanting to send in ground troops as had taken place in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to learn some lessons from wars maybe that were fought ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, but not able to adapt to things that happened two three, four years ago that we saw in Ukraine. So the mightiest military in the history of the world, and we are playing cetchup. Joanna. what about Russia Are they learning lessons? Can we tell Well, I guess it's hard to know with Vladimir Putin. He keeps his cards very close to his chest. and he is certainly saying like we will achieve our goals. We will keep going at this. You do see a change in strategy. They are sending many more missiles now to Ukraine than they did before. Ukraine does not have an air defense system that can shoot down missiles. Well they are developing one right now. Zelensky said that today And so they're trying to hit Ukraine where it hurts and evade these air defenses since the drones are all intercepted. Missiles are expensive though, and who knows how quickly they're going to burn through the stockpile before they they're going to also be in a position where they go, okay, what next I'm not hearing any rhetoric from President Putin saying that he's going to change his goals or his course. But you do see some adaptation in the way Russia is fighting I don't know how long this is going to last for Russia. I think in essence, a lot of analysts have said this as well. Russia has at least politically lost this war. Ukraine has emerged much stronger than it was before. People are paying attention to Ukraine and its defense dech and what it can accomplish. Zelensky has become a household word, which is something that Putin would have never imagined before. And so in some ways, Russia has lost the political battle already With that Let me turn us toward Oscent. open source intelligence. Not so secret, but telling details that we stumble across in our reporting, Greg, what' you got Yeah, so I just got back from the Middle East. I was in Tel Aviv for a month. And looking back at a lot of conflicts in the region that were going on twenty five years ago when I first arrived. And one in particular struck me the Golon Heights. This is territory Israel seized in the nineteen sixty seven Mid East War And back in two thousand, Israel looked like it was going to give this territory back to Syria. It was trying to cut a deal. and they were very, very close I went up there with my wife and we stayed at a new bed and breakfast that had just been opened. It's a beautiful. It's a stunning physical scene. as the name suggests, it's an elevated area overlooking the Sea of Galilee. T two young Israeli guys had just set up this bed and breakfast. We stayed there and we talked to them, said, you know, why are you guys opening this up? You this could be negotiated away and this could be returned to Syrian territory in a matter a very short period of time. And they said, Nah, we're not worried. It's not going to work out. Well, they got very close, but it didn't work out. And now a quarter century later, Israel still controls that area. In fact it's ten more territory since the fall of Bashar Assad in December of twenty four So another example of a Mid East conflict that's just lasted for generations and can't be resolved. and I wish I had the chance to get up there because I'm still wondering if that bed and breakfast is still there. twenty five years later. That Beautiful view J Anna So I'm really interested in how the natural world has been affected by this war. I know I was just reading the other day about some dolphin deaths in the Black Sea. I was like almost crying. I was this so sad But one thing I read that I was just really surprised and fascinated with was some researchers along that were working along the front line. They actually work for Keives War Museum. They found these nests that some birds have made, but the nests were not made out of hay or grass or whatever twigs. They were made out of fiber optic cables and Yes, fiveent cable now. Yes. These are like thin little cables that both the Russians and the Ukrainians use for their aerial drones to make sure that they evade electronic warare that they're not jammed. We're talking like thousands and thousands of these discarded cables are on the front line. and these little birds just picked up these cables and made their nests. And I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I say I read this time'm just like, I don't know what to think, but it's It sure shows how this war has affected even the natural world here. Yeah and ingenuity playing out not just among humans, but birds. making do with what you got. That's right. Wow. All right, well, I will bring us to a close. as noted, I've been out in Aspen, Colorado this week at the Ieas Festival to moderate a bunch of interviews and panels people from From Israel, where you just he Greg also talking about the Transatlantic Alliance doing all kinds of sessions out here There was a session Tuesday night to markark. ty years since the movie All the Presidentents Men came out. All the Presididententss Men is the story of these two rookie reporters of the Washington Post who you may have heard of by the name of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and the movie is based on their book, which is based on their reporting on the Watergate burglary, which became the Watergate scandal, which of course led to Richard Nixon's resignation. Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein was here He is now in his eighties. He was holding forth on the state of journalism today, including the Washington Post, where they broke those stories, which has just had better years, it's fair to say, Bernstein said Dappointing doesn't begin to describe the state of the Washington Post, Then he landed on what is giving him hope and it was esssentially that the gums shoe reporting that he and Woodward did. Working sources at the FBI and the White House and all over Washington, you know making seventeen calls trying to nail down a single fact that it continues. and in his assessment, we are in a great era of investigative journalism. And I loved that. I felt this little shiver watching Carl Bernstein talk about that work. and I raise it because it made me very proud of the two of you and of all our colleagues out in the world and of This podcast that we have created to try to elevate that kind of reporting. and So I will close with a thank you to both of you for being out there trying to nail down the stories and make seventeen calls to figure out what the heck is going on. and keepeeping all of us better informed. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Mary Louise. So sweet. Thank you, Mary Louise Joanna, we sincerely hope you get a better night's sleep tonight. Thank you so much for joining us and PS Ukraine correspondent, Joanna Cissis. Good luck. And National security correspondent, Greg Mery. Thanks to you too. Good to be here And before we go, a thank you to our NPR plus listeners who help support the work of our journalists around the world, many of whom you hear on this podcast each week. With NPR plus, you can hear every episode of this show without sponsor messages, you can unlock access to our complete episode archive, and you can listen sponsor free to a lot of other great NPR podcasts as well. So make sure you're taking advantage of your benefits. You can learn more at plus. npr. org. That is it for today's episode. Thank you for listening. I'm Mary Louise Kelly, and we're back next week with another episode of sources and methods from NPR