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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Bradley Cooper talks with me about his lifelong dream of conducting an orchestra, which he does in the new film Maestro. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, Islatif, one quick thing I wanted to say before we get going today is
Despite everything that has been in the news, despite the fact that what's happening in Israel-Palestine is on everyone's mind, including everyone on our staff, our episode today is not about that. But we did want to do one thing. We just wanted to shout out at the top that in situations like this one, where things are changing so quickly, when emotions are so heated, when good information is so hard to come by, the podcast we listen to is
is on the media. They put out an episode last week called The Fog of War. It's really solid journalism. For those who want to hear more about what's happening, take a listen there. That's it. That's all we wanted to say. And let's get on with the show. Wait, you're listening? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From WNYC. WNYC. Yep.
Hey, I'm Latif Nasser. This is Radiolab. Today, we're going to talk about war and not the one that is front and center in the news right now, the horrible things that have been happening in Israel and Palestine. Instead, we're going to talk about the other war that has been in the headlines. The story comes to us from producer Simon Adler. Yeah, so I want to talk about the war in Ukraine. Okay, and?
And quick note, this story contains audio of combat that may not be suitable for our younger or more sensitive listeners. Have you like have you been following it very closely? I feel like I was at the beginning and then I kind of I mean, not not not so closely lately. Right. And I don't think you're alone. Right. But it is still obviously, you know, a live conflict, one that has been going on for over a year and a half now.
Which I don't think anybody really expected. I mean, by all paper statistics, the Russians should have just walked over the Ukrainians in a few days or maybe a few weeks. But people like Eric B. Villard here... Digital military historian for the U.S. Army Center of Military History here in Washington, D.C. ...have been watching the war in Ukraine super closely. And he says, well, the startling thing is that unlike any war in human history...
You can literally watch this one play out step by step almost in real time. Yes. You know, honestly, a lot of it really is YouTube. YouTube. Okay. You know, there's probably two dozen channels that I subscribe to and watch on a regular basis. But just...
Just, you know, 20 minutes of watching, you know, will really kind of blow your mind because... These videos are raw footage, in most cases shot... By a GoPro on a Ukrainian soldier. First-person views of things like... Infantry is advancing through, you know, miles and miles of trenches. And, you know, drone attacks...
A lot of these are actually made by the Ukrainian army. Some of them have millions of views. Really? And there's no way around it. Like, they are disturbing to watch. Yeah, I mean, people are getting killed. Let's not be coy about that. I am going to play you some of these videos. And while the corpses in them are blurred out, they're awful. They're disturbing. They capture the war.
But Eric says, you know, that's why they're so important. That's why they're so powerful, because they are this crazy window into how Ukraine is reshaping both the tactical and emotional reality of how we wage war. So this is a video reported from the front line by Ukrainian war correspondent Anna Kalyusna.
It opens up with her standing in what looks like sort of an old school's basement. It's a makeshift bunker. And she says, looking at the camera, we'll be watching the battle from here. At which point, camera cuts to these three jankily hooked-up flat-screen TVs. Yeah, yeah, that's a plus. Yeah, but I don't understand what's going on.
each showing a different live feed from a different drone. And now, like, I think when we say drone, what comes to mind is like a predator drone, the one that like... Yeah, that's the one I'm thinking of. Big, like, cost millions of dollars, rain, hellfire missiles down, controlled from thousands of miles away. Yeah, like somebody in a basement in Las Vegas or something. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. Those are not the drones we're talking about here in Ukraine. No, no, not at all.
These drones, he says, are cheap, cost just like a couple hundred dollars, used for commercial photography. Oh, toy drones. Yeah, basically. But at this point in the war, Ukraine is sending at least 10,000 of these drones up into the sky each month. Jesus. Right. So this is the scale of what we're talking about.
And, well, you know, Predator drones fly up at like 30,000 feet and are controlled from thousands of miles away, tracking down and sending back grainy video of squiggly little heat signatures on black and white monitors.
These commercial drones, they hover at just like 200 feet, providing Ukrainian soldiers a steady, high-definition view of the battle lines right in front of them, sometimes just 100 yards away. And some of these drones are literally, they will fit in the palm of your hand. So you can just, you know, bring this out of your pocket, throw it up in the air. And there's suddenly this little personal periscope floating above your head.
And by this, our commanders are able to see if something changes. That's Anna Kalyusna, the war correspondent who made that video, talking to me with the help of interpreter Yulia. Yulia Tarasyuk.
And in this video of hers, you can see what these drones allow the Ukrainians to do. Maybe three minutes in, out of nowhere, the guys in the bunker start squawking over the radio. And one of the drone cams starts zooming in on this tree line. And there you see...
these hidden advancing Russian troops. And one of the soldiers in the bunker radios to the troops in the field saying, I see where the Russians are. They're advancing on you. Take up your position now. And then just a moment later, they can see on the screen and hear on the radio a firefight break out. Help the GPs. Help the GPs.
And everything gets very tense. Now, the Ukrainian soldiers start to get pinned down.
But because the guys in the bunker have such a crystal clear picture of what's going on, they start radioing in the exact coordinates to a Ukrainian artillery position, you know, somewhere in the rear. You know, the guys with the big, big guns. Saying, who wants, who wants it?
And then, all right, that's mine, Roger, you know, I got it. And it's locked in. And the screen starts lighting up with these little puffs of white smoke, as the artillery hits, throwing shrapnel. But the artillery's a little bit off target.
And so... The drones help adjust our artillery. The guys in the bunker radio the artillery and say, 10 meters to the right. Now 20. Until... Direct hit.
I mean, the battlefield awareness is just unbelievable. Unbelievable. And I mean, this is Eric's whole point about why this war feels different and why it's gone on longer than anybody expected. Yes. One of the reasons Ukrainians have done so well is even though they've been outnumbered and outgunned for most of the war, their ability to know what the Russians were doing, that's made all the difference.
And oddly enough, this difference, it began with regular Ukrainian people, civilians. So, back up to 2014, 2015. Hold on a second. Mm-hmm.
Sorry about that. No problem. One, two, three. So what happened in 2014 and 2015 was basically Ukraine lost the Crimea, eastern Donbass and Lugansk regions. Russia, as we should recall, crashed across the Russia-Ukraine border. Armored Russian vehicles burst through the wall of Crimea's Belbeg base today. And just said, this land is ours now.
And there's nothing you can do about it. So it became clear that the Ukrainian military wasn't quite ready and it had capability gaps, such as not enough aerial coverage. And so, according to military analyst Samuel Bendet there, Ukrainian private sector and Ukrainian volunteer technical community stepped up. People started manufacturing short-range drones basically in their garages, in their homes, on their free time. Thinking, here's a great resource that we can afford to...
to keep an eye on the Russians. And the Ukrainian government and its various ministries readily embraced this volunteer effort, holding meetups and competitions. Just saying, you know, let a thousand flowers bloom. Just like go out, innovate, try stuff. More recently, these volunteers have been converting these commercial drones into
into essentially mini bombers by 3D printing special equipment that allows soldiers to basically strap on a grenade. Yeah, they're like these little claws that when the operator clicks a button, opens up, releasing the grenade. So if the Russians leave a hatch of a vehicle open, drop it right in there. So there's actual hunter-killer drones roaming over the battlefield right now, targeting individual Russians.
Ukraine says it's ramping up the homegrown production of drones. ...attacks in Moscow, the Black Sea and on the battlefield... The biggest drone attack yet inside Russia. It seems to me we were prevailing over the Russians with drones. Again, Anna Kalyusina. I guess... I felt like our military found a way to outwit Russians.
But, Anna says, Moscow is catching up in the drone race by building up arsenals of... Russia took notice and adapted them.
Today, Russia flies a large number of these drones. Kamikaze drone striking a residential area in Kiev on Monday. Raining fire on Ukrainian civilian and military targets. And, you know, not one to be left out. The U.S. has taken note as well. One of the big early takeaways, which I know is resonating with the army, is that even, you know, back in Iraq and Afghanistan...
The command center is a bunch of tents where, you know, all the computers are and generators and radar arrays. And these temporary stationary bases were where they directed the battles from.
But now, today... That's not going to cut it. You cannot afford the luxury of being in one place and setting up your tents and stuff. No, you're just going to get killed. So suddenly, you have to figure out a way to be on the move while the battle's going. The U.S. military has also indicated that it wants these drones in its arsenal. I mean, earlier this year, the Pentagon killed...
Nihuya!
that shows you this first-person view of these Ukrainian guys just covered in mud, AK-47s in hand, fighting their way to this sharp turn in a trench. Let's go, let's go, let's go! Let's go? Yes.
They're crouched down, leaning up against this black dirt wall that's maybe three feet high with their guns drawn. When suddenly, you hear this voice coming through a radio. And what it is, is... A drone operator talking to the Ukrainians in the trench. Because through the drone, hovering just right above them, this operator, he's looking around the corner. Yeah.
He says, "There's a Russian sitting 20 meters in front of you." — Jesus. — "In a hole." "Throw a grenade in that direction and I'll adjust you." So he's hands, pull out a grenade, pull the pin, and huck it over the mud wall. Now, because it landed way over the wall, the soldiers can't see the explosion. They don't know what's happened.
But then, almost immediately, drone operator radios back down. He says, okay, you threw it five meters too far. Throw it again. Threw it again. Got him. And the guys keep moving. Now, in this case...
We were watching from the soldier's point of view. Right. But again, what they've done is they've pixelated or fuzzed out the dead bodies. And so watching, it feels both sanitized and brutal at the same time. But, you know, these drone operators and soldiers, like, obviously, they're seeing the real thing. All the time, in high definition, they can see their enemy and what's happening to them, often just around the corner or...
Yeah, cowering in a trench. And in fact, one of the things Eric told me was that these drones, they are not just changing how war is fought, but they are changing how the folks fighting are experiencing it. In previous wars, you rarely...
saw the enemy, you know, until sort of the moment of decision. And in the 20th century, as weapons became deadlier, you often didn't even see the enemy at all. Like, if you look at the footage, for example, that the Americans took in the Pacific in World War II, there are literally only two or three examples that I can think of where a combat cameraman actually caught sight of Japanese soldiers in action, right? Yeah.
But, you know, this new kind of fighting, this kind of war where you can see so much of your enemy, Eric says, it's having this strange unintended consequence. And we'll get to that right after a quick break.
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♪♪♪
On this week's On the Media, tales from the trenches of the digital news business. A failure, a success, and a couple of hopefuls. As the editor-in-chief of Defector told me, when you aren't determined to grow at a rapid pace and you aren't beholden to corporate bosses, running a media company really isn't that complicated. Don't miss this week's On the Media from WNYC. Find On the Media wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, I'm Latif Nasser. This is Radiolab. We're back with Simon Adler, who's been telling the story of just how crystal clear everyone involved can see the battlefield in the war in Ukraine. Right. And just to pick things back up with Eric, he says it's not just the clarity or the intimacy, but the fact that these guys are watching each other day after day after day.
that's maybe most powerful here? You know, these drone operators, you know, are going up so often, they, you know, get to the point where, you know, in some cases, they're able to distinguish between
between, oh, that's the guy who has the red boots, or that's the guy who leaves his trash outside of his dugout. So they're seeing the Russians as they're living. They're seeing them as they're cooking food and moving supplies and washing clothes and tending to wounded and
all the other sort of pedestrian things that people still have to do in wartime. He says, oddly, this new technology is almost making war like it used to be, like back in Revolutionary War days when you actually had to look your enemy in the eye. Especially those operators who were dropping grenades and other devices on Russian soldiers said,
You know, these Russian soldiers often they'll hear the sound of the drone. They will look up. So they will be looking up at the operator through the camera. Right. So they can see, you know, the facial expressions of the Russian soldiers as the operator hits the button to drop the grenade on them. And it's given them a perspective that few other soldiers I think have had.
Now, I asked Anna Kalyusna about all this. I wonder if any of the soldiers you've spoken to... About whether having to look at the enemy so often... If that has changed their perspective on the enemy.
And her response was emphatically, no. She heard very few times when Ukrainians were sympathetic to Russians. And for one simple reason.
If we allow ourselves to sympathize, Russians will kill all of us. You know, the Ukrainians absolutely hate these folks that they see rightly, you know, as invaders who in some cases have committed atrocities and, you know, destroyed their homes. But that is not the whole story.
Right. If I can jump in there, because it seems like your argument throughout all this has been these drones have given us this incredible level of visibility. Right. And that has made it a lot easier to find people and therefore kill them. Right. But that with more visibility, maybe more humanity comes through as well. Right. Does seeing the war...
on a more human level, coarsen people to the effects of war and then think of it more like, oh, well, it's just kind of like a video game or maybe inspire more sympathy. That's an open question. And with that in mind, Eric said he wanted to show me one final video. I've pulled it up here. Yeah, let me see here. Let me make sure that we've got, we're looking at the same thing.
Yeah. Okay, here we go. You want to just set the scene a little bit? What is this video? Where is it from? Yeah, this is a video from a Ukrainian position that the Russians have been trying to seize for weeks, if not months. And, you know, it's from the point of view of a Ukrainian drone up above watching all this.
you know, unfold. As the video starts, the drone is sort of scanning the terrain below. It's shell-pocked, bleak, you know, battle-blasted. And then it starts zooming in on this. Sort of narrow bands of trees. And there you see... 12 or 15 Russian soldiers huddled down in this tree line. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, these Russian soldiers who were in the trees...
Some are huddled in holes. Others are hugging up against trees. And they're in a whole bunch of trouble and don't know what to do about it. Because having seen the previous videos, you know what's coming. You know this drone is looking at these Russian soldiers, is radioing in their coordinates. And so basically it's only a matter of time before the big stuff happens.
these 155-millimeter howitzer rounds. So the anticipation is almost palpable because kind of, and then boom, there we go. That's 155 millimeter. It's a massive, massive explosion, white smoke, you know, covering like, you know, 50-meter radius. And as the smoke slowly clears, it's carnage. In the video, you can see these pixelated blobs
what are dead Russian soldiers. But you can also see that there's this one Russian guy still alive, still moving. Yeah. The Russian soldier gets up, takes off his AK-47 rifle, puts it down or sort of throws it down and takes off his hat or its covering. It's not even a helmet. It's just like a cap. And then he crosses himself. ♪
multiple times. He's praying. He's praying over a dead comrade. And then he goes to this comrade. Bends down and reaches into the guy's coat pocket. Collecting personal effects, you know, possibly, you know, if it was a letter or a photo to send back. And then he looks at the sky. Did you see that? Yeah. He took something from the body. He looks at the sky almost like he's screaming at God.
Now, the Ukrainians are seeing this. So he's dead to rights if the Ukrainians want to kill him. He's right in the blast zone. But yet they are holding their fire. They are letting this guy grieve for his comrade. And they do not shoot at him. One more thought before we go. Because, you know, the other question lurking here is, you know, how much longer will humans be the ones deciding to pull the trigger or not? I was just talking with...
retired Major General Patrick Donahoe about this. And he's like, you know, the things that keeps me up at night is imagining a swarm attack. Not just one drone flying around with a couple grenades, but you've seen this in some places where they have these drone LED displays, right? Where the drones fly and create different creatures. Yeah, they're like drone firework shows. Yeah, like drone firework shows. Well, now imagine that.
And they're swarming on you like a bunch of angry hornets. And one step beyond that is, what about these things have AI on a cheap little, you know, memory stick inside and has all the information they need? What then? Right. When how far out do you think that is if you were a betting man?
Given how many AI tools were already used... Once more, military analyst Samuel Bendet. ...for data analysis, for image recognition, for speech recognition, for deciphering of communications, to do target tracking, and given the fact that Ukrainians really want a drone advantage...
we're probably going to see some element, some iteration of that this year or maybe even next year if the war continues into 2024. In fact, there are now reports they've already been used. So I think in the near future, they will have a very, very significant impact on how all forces fight. ♪♪
This story was reported and produced by Simon Adler with original music throughout by Simon Adler. Additional sound design by Jeremy Bloom. Fact-checking by Natalie Middleton and edited by Becca Bressler. Special thanks to Anna Kaliusna and her team for capturing that footage. Yulia Tarysuk for all her help with...
Anything related to the Ukrainian language. And thanks as well to Hannah Rochelle for helping us understand the history of camouflage. And thank you to you for listening. Catch you next time.
Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Aketi Foster-Keys, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanasambadam.
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