Ukraine Military History

In the autumn of 2022, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi pulled a book off his shelf — force ratios, artillery counts, manpower tables — and told the woman across from him that if he followed it, Ukraine would lose, for sure. Then he gave her a job: robotize the front line.That woman is Eveline Buchatskiy. A Berkeley-trained chemical engineer who moved to Kyiv in 2007, whose first Ukrainian investment became Preply, and who helped lead a company with 850 engineers in Kyiv when the invasion began. In July 2023 she launched D3 — Dare to Defend Democracy — a pure-play defense fund at a moment when no bank would open an account for one. Three years later: 27 portfolio companies across air, land, sea and the software binding them.Sam Cook and Rob Lee sat down with her in Kyiv for the map of how defense innovation actually gets funded and proven. Why she tells founders to drop the dual-use disguise. How a hustler goes from idea to procured product in three months. Merops and the first reliable intercepts of Shaheds. The German-Ukrainian JV that turned battlefield credibility into a $128 million Bundeswehr contract for 10,000 strike drones. And the unit that bolted Starlink onto a 100km drone and more than doubled its reach — what Eveline calls free R&D from the best military laboratory on earth.Then it turns to Washington. Russia is doubling its Unmanned Systems Forces from 87,000 to 165,000. The US Army disbanded its one experimental drone battalion. Policy still takes six months to approve one change to a fielded drone. The Pentagon just cancelled a lessons-learned briefing from the Ukrainian officers offering to give it. If America learns less from this war than China does, we have failed.And her definition of victory: not a line on the map, but true independence, a young generation that comes home, and a 900-year problem settled for good.Recorded in Kyiv, August 2026.KEY MOMENTS 5:15 - The road from chemical engineering to Kyiv 15:12 - Zaluzhnyi: "Your job is to robotize the front line for me" 16:46 - July 2023: capital in hand, and no bank would take it 19:01 - The thesis: drop the dual-use disguise and commit 20:54 - Certified and procured in three months, if you hustle 26:44 - What AI is actually doing on the battlefield 37:06 - The coming revolution in radars 42:25 - "If you're not in Ukraine, you're not in defense" 48:57 - Six months to approve one change to a program of record 52:10 - Russia doubles Unmanned Systems Forces to 165,000 63:23 - Merops, and the $128 million Bundeswehr contract 69:10 - What victory actually meansProduced by the Borderlands Foundation. Support our work: https://theborderlandsfoundation.orgWhy War Matters — Sam's talk for MilTech Founders: https://ukraineforfounders.com/talk/All episodes: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.org/Guests: Eveline Buchatskiy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eveline-buchatskiy Rob Lee: https://x.com/RALee85Built & Promoted with https://storyfunnels.ai

Built & Promoted with https://storyfunnels.ai🎓 Why War Matters — Sam's San Francisco talk for Defence Tech Founders https://ukraineforfounders.com/talk/Rob Lee and Francis Farrell have just come back from a week on the front line — Zaporizhzhia, the Donbas, Izium and Kharkiv on the way home. This is the debrief.They arrive with an argument that has a deadline in it. The first half of 2026 went better for Ukraine than expected; the second half is turning. Russia's advances are slower than last year, but they are landing in the worst possible places — the approaches to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last great cities of Donetsk Oblast. Sloviansk is where this war started in April 2014, and some of the brigade commanders defending it today fought there then.The thing that worries both of them most is not a weapon. It is the weather. Last October, four days of heavy fog blinded the drones over Pokrovsk and let two companies of Russian infantry into the city, and they could not be cleared out. October is coming again, and Russian forces are closer to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk than they were. The next month decides whether there is a window.Along the way: what the kill zone actually measures — not FPV range, but how far an infantryman walks to his position, which around Kostiantynivka is fifteen to twenty kilometres on foot. Why Mavics pushed back from the line mean you need more crews to keep the same eyes in the sky, so every technological problem turns back into a manpower problem. And what a contested city really looks like now, with Russian and Ukrainian infantry in the same building using different entrances, both under orders not to engage, because both sides want the drones to do the killing.CHAPTERS00:00 A week on the front — where the war actually stands09:54 The narrative roller coaster, and why it misleads13:00 Drapatyi's principles — can the brigades feel it?17:18 Inspections stopped, the counterattack order delegated22:36 The kill zone, measured in how far a man walks25:44 Underground, logistics, and the confused city fight28:24 Infiltration is not a new problem for these units30:30 What a unit can solve with welders and engineers33:35 Kostiantynivka: why infantry still decide urban fights36:00 Artillery now deters more than it destroys38:13 Glide bombs and Western aviation: still no answer42:10 The sledgehammer, and where Ukraine has the edge46:30 Middle strike: what it achieved, how Russia adapted48:37 Autonomous drones — no radio link, no human in the loop51:20 Jet-powered Gerans, and the intercept problem55:00 Starlink jammers, and Russia's Rassvet constellation59:00 What changes if Ukraine can strike into Russia62:18 October, fog, and the month that decides the winter66:00 Dobropillia: a five-to-one drone disadvantage68:10 Russia's hybrid war reaches Germany73:00 Would Europe actually come? Narva and the Baltics75:00 Only Ukraine and Russia know how to fight this war78:10 The defence of Ukraine as the defence of your own security80:08 Russia only respects strength83:20 Escalation, Ratcliffe, and talking to Moscow87:28 The men who were in Sloviansk in 2014Support the Borderlands Foundation: https://theborderlandsfoundation.org🎧 Listen & subscribe:All episodes: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.org/https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistoryGuests:Rob Lee: https://x.com/RALee85Francis Farrell: https://x.com/francisjfarrell

Ukraine's answer to the question every war asks — not who invents a weapon, but who fields it fast enough to win — has a name, and a CEO.Andrii Hrytseniuk runs Brave1, the platform the Ukrainian government built in 2023 to connect industry, combat units, ministries and universities into a single innovation engine. He is not a career soldier. He was a chief information officer at Ukraine's largest banks, and that is precisely the point: when the full-scale invasion came, scientists, teachers and IT project managers turned civilian skills into weapons development. Short of tanks, they fielded heavy-lift bombers and FPV drones. With no navy, they invented naval drones. That improvisation became an institution.Sam Cook and Rob Lee sit down with him in Kyiv for 40 minutes on how the machine actually works: problem statements instead of requirement documents, agile iterations instead of ten-year programmes of record, and six laws plus nearly fifty Cabinet decrees rewritten so a civilian company can go from an idea to a codified weapon in weeks.Produced by the Borderlands Foundation.Support our work: https://theborderlandsfoundation.org🎓 Why War Matters — Sam's San Francisco talk. Part I is free:https://ukraineforfounders.com/talk/🎧 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistoryGuests:Andrii Hrytseniuk / Brave1: https://brave1.gov.uaRob Lee: https://x.com/RALee85Built & Promoted with https://storyfunnels.ai0:00 - Who fields technology, not who invents it4:46 - Welcome: the engine of Ukrainian innovation5:10 - What Brave1 is, and the Army of Drones project it grew out of7:40 - Out-innovating an enemy with more of everything9:15 - The banker, the scientists and the teachers who built weapons10:38 - What other militaries should learn from civilian thinking11:02 - ePoints: a banker's bonus scheme, applied to the army11:46 - Design thinking and agile instead of technical requirements12:55 - Why US requirement documents produce unchangeable technology13:24 - Breaking open a closed defense market: six laws, fifty decrees14:11 - Building the new process in parallel rather than fixing the old one15:08 - How a frontline need becomes a product16:14 - The feedback loop Brave1 sits in the middle of17:13 - Early funding, like an angel investor18:51 - 600 products tested and codified to NATO standards19:54 - 400 venture funds asking which companies to back20:13 - Reviewing the categories every nine months21:43 - Foreign companies: Test in Ukraine22:46 - Brave International, and Brave NATO, Germany, Norway, France23:27 - Brave Prime, and why the global primes came24:07 - "If you're not in Ukraine, you're not in defense"25:19 - Why 95% Ukrainian-made drones is a problem, not a win26:00 - Priorities: domain by domain26:47 - Deep and middle strike: the gray zone from 10km to 70km27:54 - Counter-UAS, and interceptors cheaper than a Shahed28:51 - Data links, mesh networks, and the range problem29:21 - AI: drone versus drone29:52 - From manually operated, to human-in-the-loop, to human-on-the-loop30:55 - "Next year the majority of hits will be fully automatic"31:59 - Russia's autonomous strikes33:30 - Countermeasures, and working with allies on autonomy34:08 - Turrets35:42 - UGVs: kamikaze, logistics, evacuation, hybrid buggies36:59 - 50,000 ground robots contracted this year38:02 - 100,000 UGV missions in seven months39:14 - Four lessons for Western militaries40:00 - One: assume you are not defended enough40:47 - Two: the economics of war, and cheap weapons at scale41:31 - Three: speed of innovation, and the three-to-six-month window41:57 - Four: flexibility, scalability and supply-chain dependencies42:38 - A culture of readiness for threats you cannot predict43:16 - "Real strength, or the illusion of defense?"

Built & Promoted with https://storyfunnels.aiFrancis Farrell is one of the very few English-language journalists who still goes right up to the front line in Ukraine. He is Australian, he arrived a week before the full-scale invasion, and he has spent four years reporting the war from the places most outlets can no longer insure their people to enter.Sam Cook and Rob Lee sit down with him in Kyiv on 14 August 2026 — as the Russian advance closes on the Donbas fortress belt of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Druzhkivka.Francis describes Dobropillia as the most destroyed city he has seen: twelve glide bombs in three hours, not one civilian on the street, and a basement he slept in that was gone a week later. Rob maps the front around it — why the maps lag reality, and why October and November worry him most.Then the harder question. Russia's assault philosophy runs on a constant supply of expendable infantry. If Putin mobilizes again, what changes — and what does Ukraine do about the manpower asymmetry no drone fleet has solved?Francis closes on something he has been circling for years: there are two Ukrainian militaries now — the elite drone units fighting the war of the future, and the worn-down legacy brigades filled with unmotivated mobilized men. Understanding the gap between them, he argues, is the only honest way to read this war.Timestamps0:00 - Francis Farrell8:50 - The journalist who still goes to the front12:06 - Researching Russia is now nearly impossible14:29 - Kremlinology15:52 - Rosgvardia on the Belarus border17:41 - The Kyiv Independent19:42 - The counteroffensive that made his career21:03 - What the Kyiv Independent is actually for22:07 - The dearth of frontline reporting in English23:31 - The communication gap that keeps widening25:00 - Dobropillia: the most destroyed city he has seen26:09 - Twelve glide bombs in three hours27:20 - The basement that was gone a week later27:45 - Sloviansk and Kramatorsk29:46 - Why the last month has been faster31:18 - Dobropillia and the FPVs that emptied it33:21 - A logistical nightmare: roads, rails, nowhere to sleep35:21 - When it stops making sense to go39:21 - Putin's minimum, and how long it takes to take a city41:28 - Sloviansk 2014, Girkin, and what these cities mean42:52 - Why cities matter militarily — basements and antennas44:13 - The pincer, and the 22 July assault in the Azov Corps sector46:25 - A year ago: the Dobropillia infiltration, and who holds the flanks now48:49 - Kostiantynivka: how a fortress city gets overrun50:35 - Logistics by moped, UGV and trolley52:19 - Can UGVs replace infantry?54:15 - Keeping human beings underground56:54 - The 45-day UGV position that was really drones58:28 - Manpower, being chased by an FPV, and why a breached city is a liability1:02:23 - Five kilometres underground1:05:02 - Weather, Pokrovsk, and the October-November danger window1:08:46 - Back to the strategic picture1:13:45 - Russia's war economy and the recruitment quota1:14:53 - Mobilization: the X factor1:16:29 - North Koreans, and what 10,000 more would mean1:19:54 - Crossing the Rubicon1:21:53 - Sustainability as strategy1:24:03 - Syrskyi, Drapatyi, and valuing manpower1:26:52 - How the US and Europe have actually responded1:28:35 - The commander who told Putin he had taken Kupiansk1:29:55 - Lucky that Russia's system is still broken1:33:23 - Watching the Oval Office meeting from the front1:35:14 - Social media war vs the real war1:37:47 - The human factor that gets lost1:39:35 - Why frontline soldiers sound more pessimistic1:42:41 - Two Ukrainian militariesProduced by the Borderlands Foundation.Support our work: https://theborderlandsfoundation.orgSubscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistoryGuests:Francis Farrell: https://x.com/francisjfarrellRob Lee: https://x.com/RALee85

Build & Promoted using StoryFunnelsIn early August 2026, Ukraine got a new commander-in-chief. General Oleksandr Syrskyi was relieved, and Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi — forty-three years old — took over an army in the fifth year of a full-scale war. It followed the public fight over the firing of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov that we covered in episodes 10 and 11.Sam Cook sits down in Kyiv with Rob Lee, one of the most widely read analysts of this war, and Dima Putiata, who served four years in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and left as a sergeant in the Unmanned Systems Forces. The question: have we reached a turning point?The answer is more careful than the headlines. Russia is advancing slower than a year ago — but it still holds the initiative.Timestamps0:00 - What this episode is and why it matters7:18 - Have we reached a turning point? Why Russia is advancing slower10:19 - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk: the hardest direction12:51 - Why both sides fight so hard for the Donetsk cities14:21 - What people get wrong about "turning point"16:01 - Shahed-4, Shahed-5, the pulse-jet engine, and Banderol19:39 - Ukraine's gap in pulse-jet deep-strike drones20:39 - The counteroffensive that never came, and the airborne counterattacks nobody reported22:53 - "Tanks are not dead" - combined arms maneuver24:18 - What you never see on Twitter or Telegram, and why the best units stay quiet27:00 - The biggest lie starts at division level, and Russia's 300 vehicles29:04 - Artillery is not dead either: weather, counter-battery radar, acoustic sensors33:29 - Preparing the battlefield for armor35:01 - The casualty debate: drones vs artillery37:32 - Ukrainian artillery brigades that fly their own drones40:16 - North Koreans in Kursk: from company assaults to squads42:13 - Reestablishing maneuver: the First World War parallel and the Azov Corps assault44:01 - Lancet, Zala, Orion, and Russia's mesh network48:42 - Arena-M: twenty FPVs to stop one tank, mine rollers and sixteen mines51:49 - Rubicon's 150-page doctrine - and Ukraine's silence53:12 - Eighty percent of armor losses come from UAVs54:26 - The most sophisticated Russian assault of the war56:39 - Political demands, the lying problem, and the post-war Russian military1:00:02 - Russia's daily target list, and why their micro-tactical execution still fails1:04:44 - Starlink: the game changer of this war1:06:22 - Middle strike: heavy and light1:08:39 - Lancet-Zala, interceptors, and Ukraine's middle strike campaign today1:12:34 - RuzSat: Russia builds its own Starlink, and echelons of electronic warfare1:18:07 - "Starlink is a bit of a crutch", and Kursk: crossing the border and losing it1:21:15 - Crimea, Operation Spiderweb, and what adversaries learn1:25:24 - Ground-launched ballistic missiles, KN-23 and KN-241:27:50 - Zelenskyy's ask to Trump and Musk1:29:50 - The PAC-3 shortage, and why missile defense stays hard1:33:03 - Deep strike: refineries, Wildberries, Flamingo - and is it working?1:37:08 - The economic war: the Black Sea, the port of Odesa, and attrition1:40:54 - The firing of Fedorov, a new commander-in-chief, and Bilecki's three reasons1:44:05 - Syrskyi built a system that worked for him1:46:32 - Unity of command and the Unmanned Systems Forces1:49:11 - What is Ukraine's actual strategy, and the manpower problem1:53:04 - What Drapatyi will change first1:57:29 - Why mobilization got harder: Bakhmut, and orders with no purpose2:00:45 - AWOL, desertion, and criminal liability for withdrawing2:05:38 - How AWOL should actually be punished2:07:17 - France 1940: leadership, training, then technology2:10:50 - Better than a year ago, but not a turning point yetProduced by the Borderlands Foundation.Support our work: https://theborderlandsfoundation.orgAll episodes: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.org/Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistoryGuests:Rob Lee: https://x.com/RALee85Dima Putiata: https://x.com/kriegsforscherD