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- [00:00]
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- [00:17]
Charles Manes
Masked government security officials detaining people in vans. No immediate form of id, no idea where the detainees are headed. And yet life goes on. It does look like something out of Minsk or Moscow. And what's strange is the normalcy of it all.
- [00:33]
Mary Louise Kelly
A spy chief fired, a former national security advisor targeted by the FBI and the National Guard on the streets in D.C. as President Trump pushes the limits of his power at home, he has nothing to show for his efforts abroad to end the war in Ukraine, at least not yet. This is IS SOURCES and METHODS from npr. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Thank you for checking out our very first episode. Every Thursday, we discuss the biggest national security stories of the week. I'll do that with my colleagues from NPR's NATSAC team covering the military, the State Department, the intelligence community. And sometimes we will rope in our international correspondents stationed around the world, too. That is what we have done today with Charles Mainz, our Moscow bureau chief. Hey there, Charles.
- [01:23]
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Hi there.
- [01:24]
Mary Louise Kelly
Hi. And also Greg Myre, who covers national security with a focus on the spy beat. He's usually here in Washington, but we have shipped him out for the month of August to report on the ground in Ukraine. Hey, Greg.
- [01:35]
Greg Myre
Hi, Mary Louise.
- [01:36]
Mary Louise Kelly
Okay, so again, I am in Washington. It is one just a little past 1pm here. How's Thursday night in Eastern Europe going for you two?
- [01:45]
Greg Myre
Well, it's sundown on a lovely summer's day, and I can't stress this enough because I've been seeing it for several years now. Many parts of Ukraine have a normal rhythm of life during the day. You see families in the park, kids playing and eating ice cream. But when night comes, that means you have to think about Russian airstrikes. Kyiv got hit very hard last night. We'll have to see what tonight brings.
- [02:08]
Mary Louise Kelly
Very hard. It was a bad night in Kyiv last night. Yeah. Yes, Charles, how about in Moscow?
- [02:13]
Charles Manes
Well, Moscow is kind of the same. It's sort of a beautiful summer day here. It's end of summer, the light gets kind of a nice tilt to it. And the difference here with Greg is that we don't have these drones coming into Moscow every night, although it has been enough to interrupt sort of daily life in the sense of travel, trains delayed airplanes delayed, things like that. But still, it's a different Scene certainly than what Greg has experienced.
- [02:36]
Mary Louise Kelly
So many cities having beautiful summer days. Even as so much news, the news avalanche never stops. So we are going to explain the name of the show. So stick around, everybody, for that. We will explain why we are going by sources and methods. Let's dive into all the news we have to talk about this week. And I want to start us here in Washington, where yesterday the Trump administration said it will take control of Union Station, which to explain that is the big train hub, the bus hub here in D.C. it's, I don't know, 10 minutes walk from where I'm sitting right now. I actually came into Union Station earlier this week. This was Tuesday. I had made a quick work trip to New York. And as I was getting out of the train trying to find my way to my Uber, out on the curb, the people who stepped right in front of me and were walking along were three National Guard members, very visibly armed, uniformed, firearms strapped to their thighs. So that's just a picture what daily life here is looking like. This is all part of the president's crackdown on crime here in D.C. we are now halfway through what the administration is calling the emergency 30 day control of the D.C. police force. We don't know if Congress will extend that next month. I wonder, Charles and Greg, what you two both make of it, watching events in America from your purchase overseas?
- [03:58]
Charles Manes
Well, I have to say that seeing these images, for example, of the ICE raids in the last several weeks, as well as these federal authorities in D.C. you know, it does look something like something out of the capital of Minsk or Moscow. Mass government security officials detaining people in vans, no immediate form of id, no idea where the detainees are headed, at least initially. And even the idea of a National Guard, you know, loyal to the president, patrolling the capital, you know, that happens here in Russia. Rosgvardia, the Russian National Guard, was formed in, I think, 2015, but it was really a reaction to large protests that were here in the years prior. And they've really become sort of the collective bodyguard for the President, which implies a really inherent distrust of the citizenry of Moscow.
- [04:43]
Mary Louise Kelly
I mean, you just touched on a couple of big differences. Obviously, protests are alive and well here in Washington and elsewhere in the States. The media is allowed to freely report under the Constitution as protected by the First Amendment and tell everybody what we see and where we're seeing it. Greg, what resonates for you watching all this from Ukraine?
- [05:02]
Greg Myre
Yeah, I think sitting here and seeing that there's a bigger troop presence on the streets of the U.S. capitol than the Ukrainian capital for the past couple weeks. You know, Ukraine did have a lot of troops in the city in the early days of the war. But now you can really walk around the center of the city, throughout the city and not really see any troops. Occasionally you'll see some here or there, but don't really have checkpoints or even just see troops walking around.
- [05:29]
Mary Louise Kelly
That's fascinating for a country that's been at war for three and a half years, see troops regularly out and about.
- [05:35]
Greg Myre
On the street, not in civilian areas. You know, I've been to three cities this week. Kyiv, the capital, Dnipro, sort of South Central, 60 miles from the front line, and now Lviv. And you just don't see that many. It was, you know, several hundred miles driving from Kyiv to Lviv yesterday. There were about two or three places along the highway where you kind of get a friendly wave over. Our driver would flash his driver's license and they would just wave you on. So the security is there, but it's not visible in ordinary civilian setting.
- [06:07]
Mary Louise Kelly
I do want to note, because it feels important to report on what is not happening as much as what is happening. And one of our colleagues, Tom Bowman, who covers the Pentagon, has word from a U.S. army official. We will not give the name of the official because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But saying so far from where they sit at the army, they are not seeing any orders to deploy the guard or active duty military to any other American city. So right now we're watching what we're watching in D.C. they are very visible and out and about in quite a few neighborhoods now in Washington. But so far there had been reports maybe Chicago would be next. We're not seeing any imminent moves of that here. But Charles, I wonder at listening from Moscow, just hearing me raise the prospect of this, what goes through your mind?
- [06:55]
Charles Manes
Well, Mary Louise, you've been here in Moscow. We've reported together from here. And you know the city, it is a beautiful city. And what's strange is the normalcy of it all. You know, you can have Rosgvardia, these National Guard troops patrolling the streets. You can have a quasi repressive environment. And yet life goes on. Restaurants are full, people are enjoying cafes and coffees and all the rest. And so I think, I suspect that as sort of Washington tries to get a handle on where things lie with what's happening there, I imagine they're confronting some of those strange dissonance of it.
- [07:30]
Mary Louise Kelly
So as we talk about the president testing the limits of his power, I wanna mention a couple of national security officials who are in the headlines here in the States. Well, former, I should say one. Very recently, former Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Cruz was director of the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is part of the Pentagon. And a few days ago, we got word he is out of a job. There are plenty of details we don't know yet that we're trying to get. We do know and can say that it was his agency, the dia, that produced an intel report that got leaked about Iran, specifically about the impact of those U.S. airstrikes this summer against Iranian nuclear facilities. And we know that this DIA report directly contradicted claims that President Trump had made. Greg, how do you connect those dots?
- [08:23]
Greg Myre
Well, since the Trump administration didn't give a reason for this dismissal, it leaves the obvious 1. The DIA report that you mentioned, it said Iran might be able to repair, rebuild its nuclear program in a matter of months. But it wasn't expressing certainty because it this was done very shortly after the U.S. bombing there. But it was at odds with Trump who said then and keeps saying that the Iranian nuclear program was obliterated. And in this case, Lieutenant General Cruz was fired by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who's fired other senior officials without really offering a receipt.
- [09:00]
Mary Louise Kelly
That's the thing. I mean, I think that's the thing that's so striking. Cruz is not a household name. But the Trump administration, since President Trump came back for the second term, has also fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the head of the National Security Agency, the chief of Naval operations, the commandant of the Coast Guard, the acting chair, and the deputy chair of the National Intelligence Council. I mean, it is a long list of intelligence officials who are no longer current intelligence officials.
- [09:27]
Greg Myre
Yeah. And in some cases, you can make the link the Iran report, in this case, there was a report about Venezuela that said that the government there didn't seem to be orchestrating gang activity, Venezuelan gang activity here in the US as opposed to what Trump is saying. And then obviously anybody who's had some link, however tenuous, to the 2016 investigation about Russian meddling in the US election, not Trump, possible Trump collusion, but Russian meddling, which was confirmed by a number of separate investigations. We've seen people, current and former current, who've been stripped of a security clearance which effectively ends their job, or people who've left the government years ago stripped of security clearances they may or may not have. So it's really just sort of depress home the point because in many of these cases, it's actually a Pretty meaningless distinction.
- [10:25]
Mary Louise Kelly
Yeah, I want to stay on this for a minute. I am pulling up on my phone and looking at the memo that Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, posted on X Posted publicly on August 19th, subject line and I'm reading decision revocation of security clearances, as you said. Then There were the 37 names. Very interesting. One of them, this is per reporting by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and others. A current CIA officer, a top Russia expert, was undercover. The name is now out there because this list has been published and had been working to brief President Trump and his team in the run up to the Alaska summit, which was what, not even two weeks ago now fired, clearance revoked. So this list, the fallout from this list is continuing of current people los clearances. And then to bring you back into this, Charles, last Friday we had the FBI searching the home and office of John Bolton, who was Trump's first term national security adviser. He's on NPR and on TV and all over the place these days criticizing his former boss. Is any of this getting much coverage in Russia?
- [11:36]
Charles Manes
Well, the Bolton raid got coverage because Bolton's a well known figure here. He is seen as the architect of first, under George W. Bush and under Trump's first terms, decisions to withdraw from two key arms control treaties. The irony, though, is that those decisions have fed this new version of a nuclear arms race and Russia's unveiling new generation of weapons, some of which have been put to use in Ukraine to deadly effect. The other point I would make here, though, is that when you talk about disloyalty in the ranks, Russia is a step beyond what you're describing in Washington. You don't challenge Putin because of where it could land you, whether that's out of a job, in jail or exile or worse, as critics would point out. And I think what we've seen is that the Russian government security apparatus is full of yes men who tell the president mostly what he wants to hear. Loyalty is most valued. That's the characteristic that matters most to Vladimir Putin, to the point that those who do fail on the job, who make mistakes, public mistakes, they're not fired, they're usually promoted and given soft landings to keep them sort of within the sort of the family. And in a way, I think it's how bad decisions, such as maybe the invasion of Ukraine begins.
- [12:49]
Mary Louise Kelly
Well, and I will just say, as someone sitting in Washington listening to you momentarily confuse the names of Putin and Trump there, a lot of this sounds familiar, where loyalty is rewarded by these presidents in both these capitals. One other thought that occurs to me, just to bounce off you, Charles, is President Trump is term limited by the US Constitution. He's got to get everything he wants to get done done in the next three and a half years. Whereas Putin, you now have a whole generation of young Russians who've never known anyone el else has been running the country in their entire lifetime.
- [13:23]
Charles Manes
It's a quarter century and counting.
- [13:25]
Mary Louise Kelly
He doesn't appear to be going anywhere soon.
- [13:26]
Charles Manes
He does not. I think, though, you know, one thing that maybe doesn't get stressed enough in Russian politics is that, you know, President Putin is 72 years old, nobody's around forever. And I think in some ways what we're seeing in Ukraine and in sort of his mission, in sort of geopolitics, I think there is a sense that there's only so much time that he has to accomplish the goals that he has. And so that's something to keep in mind, is placing time.
- [14:00]
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- [15:32]
Mary Louise Kelly
Okay, let's pivot to the other big news of the week. Ukraine. We are almost two weeks to the day now since the big Putin Trump summit in Alaska. I was there along with a few hundred other American and Russian reporters. We all raced there, very little notice to capture and record the first Sit down. Summit between these two guys in seven years. And we came away having drunk a lot of coffee, having watched the Russian journalists smoke a whole lot of cigarettes, and with very little in the way of concrete progress to report on ending the war in Ukraine. So let me start there. Are Ukraine and Russia any closer to peace than when we watched Vladimir Putin walk that red carpet in Anchorage?
- [16:16]
Greg Myre
Greg Myhre, short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is neither Russia nor Ukraine has budged from any of their basic core fundamental demands. And Ukrainians, I'll speak about it from this end, were not that enthusiastic. They didn't think something was going to happen. They're for negotiations. They're exhausted after this length of war. They would like to see the war end with negotiations. They're not ready to give away territory. So the fact that it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and the fighting continues on as it was is not really a surprise. That's what Ukrainians expected. If you asked them to put an end date on this war or when a deal might be made, they would say, not soon. It's going to be a long time. I can't even predict when that will be.
- [17:05]
Mary Louise Kelly
Well, and to remind people what you said at the very beginning, if anything, the fighting seems worse. Last night, Kyiv got hit with the worst air attack since the summit in Alaska a couple of weeks ago. Charles, what does this look like from Russia's point of view? How is this understood in Moscow?
- [17:20]
Charles Manes
Well, I think first of all, Russia came away from the summit very pleased with the optics of it. The idea of a red carpet welcome, a literal red carpet welcome by Trump for Vladimir Putin in Alaska, was just beamed everywhere over the television, on social media. And I think there's a sense that it ended Russia's isolation, or at least the West's attempt to isolate, since Russia's always rejected the idea. I think the key question here that came out of the summit is this idea that's been teased of security, security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump's team seemed to suggest there was a breakthrough from the Russian side, that there have been ideas that have come up in discussions with the Europeans.
- [17:57]
Mary Louise Kelly
Well, and wasn't Russia's reaction in a nutshell? Yeah, we'd love security guarantees and we'll be part of it.
- [18:02]
Charles Manes
Exactly.
- [18:03]
Mary Louise Kelly
It's like the definition of the fox guarding the hen house.
- [18:06]
Charles Manes
Exactly. And so when these sort of proposals were put forth, at least aired publicly, I mean, just every single one of them, I heard and I said, well, those are all Russian red lines. Outwardly, Moscow's demands haven't changed at all. Could something be happening behind the scenes? It's possible, but even then, I guess there's a sense that Trump is always rushing ahead to say, we got this deal done and it's dusted and we're ready to move on. Vladimir Putin doesn't work that way. He burrows in on details. He lays future traps, and I suspect we're seeing more of that.
- [18:36]
Mary Louise Kelly
Have we heard from him directly at all since the summit from Vladimir Putin?
- [18:40]
Charles Manes
He hasn't talked about the Ukrainian peace deal or whatever negotiations are ongoing. What he has done is praised Trump, saying that he thought that under Trump there could be this kind of normalization of U.S. russian relations, that there was light at the end of the tunnel, I believe was the phrase he used. And basically there's been this kind of ongoing Russian attempt to peel Trump away with sweetheart deals involving, whether it's mineral rights in the Arctic or perhaps some kind of nuclear arms deal that they could cut, but something that just appealed to Trump's larger agenda with restoring relations with Russia and not making it all about whether or not there's peace in Ukraine.
- [19:18]
Mary Louise Kelly
So as you try to put questions to the Kremlin and people around the Kremlin, do you get any sense of what was the phrase you just used, light at the end of the tunnel, that there's any interest in that?
- [19:28]
Charles Manes
Well, I think that they have a sense that Donald Trump is the best bet they will have for something like this. And they know that administrations change, policies change. We've seen the swing from just Joe Biden to Donald Trump. And so I think they're eager to make as many moves as fast as they can.
- [19:47]
Mary Louise Kelly
I want to bring us down from the policy level and what is happening or not at the presidential level to the real people who are still getting hit, who are dying, who are fighting this war. Greg, you just visited a Ukrainian hospital. This was near Dnipro, near the front lines. How'd you get there? What'd you see?
- [20:09]
Greg Myre
Sure. So driving. We just drove down the Dnipro river from Kyiv to the city of Dnipro. It went to a place called Mechanical Hospital. Mary Louise, it is like walking into a Soviet time capsule. It is 1975 there. Everything is gray and brown. It's absolutely spartan. And yet in that hospital are these pretty amazing neurosurgeons doing absolutely cutting edge work, literally and figuratively, in dealing with traumatic brain injuries. Two reasons for this. One is just the vast experience they've been forced to acquire because of the war. The second reason is the first rate equipment that they have now to carry out these operations, which may look a little out of place, but it was done with the help of a retired U.S. army neurosurgeon, a guy named Dr. Rocco Armanda. He served in Iraq and then at Walter Reed National Medical Center. He started coming there to help a couple years ago. He thought he was coming to teach. The way he put it was two days in that hospital was like a month in Iraq. So they had have excellent equipment, excellent doctors in a hospital that looks like it hasn't been touched in the past 60 years.
- [21:24]
Mary Louise Kelly
What about the forces fighting this war, Charles? There have been questions on both sides about just how much manpower both countries can throw at this. That has seemed to be a bigger challenge for Ukraine. But how's that looking from Russia?
- [21:38]
Charles Manes
Well, it's been an arc from the very beginning. So you have to think back to the beginning of this war. And you have friends and I know Russians who fled this country. For example, a friend who traded a car for a bicycle and pedaled out of Russia into Georgia out of fear of being drafted. I've talked to Russian civilians who are mobilized for war in 2022 and the government has never demobilized them. They're still on the front lines. Their families are really desperate to get them home. They're being harassed by the authorities for doing so. But you also have of course, victims of convicts. These were people, prisoners who were recruited to go fight in Ukraine and offered their freedom to do so. And then you get back what really the Russian government has settled on, which is money. There is a kaleidoscope of offers to Russian men to go fight in Ukraine, whether it's signing bonuses or guarantees for salary that are just absorbent. These are life changing salaries for young Russian men. And it's how they've managed to keep people returning to the front lines and going to fight in Ukraine despite these terrible losses, which number in the hundreds of thousands.
- [22:43]
Mary Louise Kelly
I mean Russia has a population much, much bigger than Ukraine. So more people to throw at this. But to be clear, when you walk around Moscow, Greg was saying you don't really see that many soldiers on the streets in Kyiv. What about Moscow? Do you see young men, 20, 30 something year old men just in suits going to work? Not involved?
- [23:04]
Charles Manes
No, you don't. What you see are recruitment posters in every window of every shop. But clearly most of the young men going to fight in Ukraine are from Russia's poor regions. And just to give a sense, not everybody is willing to make that trade of Cash putting their life in the line to go fight just for money. I recently met a soldier who was enlisted in the army. He was from Volgograd, and we struck up a conversation. He was telling me that you have all these friends who are coming back with missing an arm, a leg, or someone was killed. And he sees these extra bonuses that are being floated to him to go fight, and he says, it's just not worth it.
- [23:38]
Mary Louise Kelly
Yeah. When you said the money, that the money is a serious incentive, how much are we about talking?
- [23:44]
Charles Manes
Well, the signing bonuses really shift from region to region. But you've seen this kind of competition between some of the governors to sweeten the pot, as it were, to try and get their region to contribute more soldiers to the war effort, which puts them in good stead with the Russian president. But we're talking about tens of thousands.
- [24:01]
Mary Louise Kelly
Of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, which is significant to any young man in any country, and certainly in Russia.
- [24:07]
Charles Manes
And particularly for young Russian men from smaller villages, from smaller towns, where the local prospects are essentially to work in a local factory, salaries are depressed. The difference between that and going to fight in Ukraine is just heaven and earth.
- [24:21]
Mary Louise Kelly
And just out of curiosity, young women, or is this all aimed at young men? Because in Ukraine, we've seen a lot of female fighters.
- [24:27]
Charles Manes
There are some women recruits. I don't mean to ignore them. They're not the majority, clearly, and they're not sort of heavily focused on, but they are certainly integrated into the army.
- [24:37]
Mary Louise Kelly
So just to close out this topic by looking at what may be coming next, the summit in Alaska ended with President Trump previewing a second meeting, saying, we need to get President Zelensky of Ukraine and President Putin of Russia in a room. Any sign either of you are picking up on that that is in the works, that that may be imminent?
- [24:59]
Greg Myre
Not from here. The Ukrainians are endorsing it. They've been pretty willing to go along with Trump's suggestions. When he called for a ceasefire, they said, yeah, we'll do that. Will you meet with Putin? Yes, we'll do that, but I don't see it happening. So I think even as the Ukrainians say that they're just trying to put the onus on Russia as being the party that rejects it. And it doesn't seem like there's any momentum that's been gained from this flurry of diplomacy the past couple weeks, you.
- [25:28]
Charles Manes
Know, and from the Russian perspective, they seem to be slowing down the prospects of some kind of summit. Officially, they say they're not opposed to it, although they've questioned legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelenskyy many, many times over the past year, year. But essentially what they're saying is that before there's a presidential summit, some decisions have to be made, agreements have to be come to, and that's just not gonna happen anytime soon. And I agree with Greg that we've also seen this kind of prolonged game of trying to deflect Trump's ire over who's responsible for a lack of a peace deal or a lack, in this case of a summit with the hope that that eventually impacts the outcome on the battlefield that somehow Trump shifts US Policy.
- [26:04]
Mary Louise Kelly
Fascinating. So we had the summit in Alaska, we had the summit at the White House with Zelenskyy and other European leaders, and it sounds like we're ending the summer as we began, with very little sign of war coming to an end in Ukraine.
- [26:24]
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Mary Louise Kelly
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- [27:39]
Mary Louise Kelly
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- [28:03]
Mary Louise Kelly
Our very first show. Let's take a minute to explain the name, sources and methods I Know, this is a term that folks in the military and in intelligence circles know very well. It refers to how a government collects information, collects secrets. Who is telling them? How are they sharing what they know? Greg, since you cover the intel beat for us, explain what sources and methods are in national security circles.
- [28:29]
Greg Myre
Well, I think they like to use it as a term that sounds bigger and more meaningful than good old basic spying, which is essentially what it is. Magicians don't tell you how they do their magic tricks, and spies don't tell you about their sources and methods. Was that secretive information gathered by a well placed human spy? Was it electronic eavesdropping? Was it a cyber hack? You know, intel agencies aren't going to tell you because if they did, the target might figure it out and figure out how to prevent it in the future. So the sources and methods keep getting bigger and broader and wider as technology expands, and there's still a lot of good old human spine. And all of that together is sources and methods.
- [29:13]
Mary Louise Kelly
Sources and methods. And I will inject with a note of playfulness that I like it as a name for our podcast because while we are journalists, not spies, we work our sources for info too, to help listeners, to help readers understand what is happening in our communities and in the world. And then we also have to work to protect our sources, particularly if they may face retribution for sharing what they know. Charles, what resonates to you about sources and methods?
- [29:39]
Charles Manes
Well, that's really an important point you make about protecting your sources. Here in Russia, there are a web of new laws that have been introduced, essentially criminalizing criticism of the government. So when you're talking to people, I'm trying to either get a line in on sort of government thinking, in other words, trying to get illicit pro government views. But when I'm talking to people that are more critical of the government, often we have to take extra steps to protect them, to avoid trouble for them, and to a degree, for me, absolutely.
- [30:08]
Mary Louise Kelly
All right, we're gonna wrap up with what I hope is going to become a tradition for this, which is a morsel OR 2 of OSINT. Now, if you track the intelligence world, you probably know humint, human intelligence, you may know sigint, signals intelligence. OSINT is open source intelligence, meaning it is publicly available. It is not classified, but you might miss it if you're not looking. Greg, what struck you this week?
- [30:36]
Greg Myre
Two words, Salt typhoon. This is, according to the US Government, a Chinese espionage campaign that was absolutely massive. It started around 2019 as the Chinese allegedly began hacking into big US phone companies AT&T, Verizon and others looking apparently to get information from a few key people. Now, this came out publicly. The US Law enforcement and Intel Agency started talking about it last fall shortly before the 24 elections and said that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were among those being targeted. So we knew this was going on. It was not clear that it had been stopped. In fact, it seemed that the Chinese were continuing to do it even after all these years and even after the US was talking about it publicly. FBI came out this week, said that actually more than 80 countries worldwide have been targeted as part of this program. Program. It's much broader than initially thought.
- [31:37]
Mary Louise Kelly
More than 80 countries, same operation. That's huge.
- [31:40]
Greg Myre
No, they figured out and you could see how easily it would be to repeat it. If you figured out a way to hack into the big telecoms company in one country in the US you could probably do it in other countries as well.
- [31:52]
Mary Louise Kelly
Salt Typhoon. Okay, Charles, can you top it?
- [31:54]
Charles Manes
I can top it with one word. Max. This is the Russian state backed messaging application. It's a rival to WhatsApp app which has been banned here recently. So for example, you can no longer make phone calls or video calls on WhatsApp. It comes up all scrambled Now, Max, this is the Russian backed version. It's a Kremlin backed version. It will be pre installed on all electronic devices in Russia starting in September. Now, critics would say that's also used to track users. In other words, we can track what we're saying, what we're doing. And for those who would say, well look, I'll just keep it off my device. Well, they're also planning to kind of integrate it with all sorts of e government services. So it seems like eventually someh how.
- [32:34]
Mary Louise Kelly
Max will get you sounds like so many things in the tech world that if the world were run by a benign dictator, it would be such a good idea by a benign benevolent dictator. However, I'm not sure. I have great faith that you won't be tracked everywhere you go come September.
- [32:49]
Charles Manes
We'll see.
- [32:50]
Mary Louise Kelly
All right, I will throw in the thing that got me curious and wondering this week, which is a renaming, a possible renaming. We know that President Trump likes to rename things. We saw that with various military bases here in the US We've seen it with the Gulf of Mexico, which he's directed the US Government to call the Gulf of America going forward. Now he is expressing interest in renaming the Department of Defense the Pentagon. He would like it to go back to being called the Department of War. I went back and looked because I knew it had been called the Department of War. Indeed, for many, many years. It was President Truman who changed it, came along at the end of the World War II and said, among other things, maybe we should have an institution that's focused more on keeping the peace and try to avoid war going forward. So it was renamed the Department of Defense. I am interested in, and I'm going to be asking some questions and trying to report on why a president who is openly campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize wants to have a Department of War. All right. That is it for our inaugural episode. Greg Charles Manes, thank you so much for being here for round one.
- [34:07]
Charles Manes
Thank you.
- [34:07]
Greg Myre
Hey, my pleasure.
- [34:09]
Mary Louise Kelly
I will say goodnight to you both in Lviv in Western Ukraine and in Moscow in Russia. For the rest of you listening, a little bit of housekeeping. First, our email. You can find it in our episode notes. Our email is sourcesandmethodspr.org we would so love to hear from you. Feedback, ideas, send them our way. Second, these days a lot of folks ask how they can support npr. And one totally free, easy thing you can do right now, it will literally take you two minutes, is rate and review this show on your podcast platform of choice. In a world of algorithms, that goes a long way, way toward helping new listeners find us, which matters a lot for any new podcast. Another really great way to support us is npr. Now, the way that works is NPR supporters hear every episode without sponsor messages. That means more NATSAC news and analysis in less time and you get to unlock access to our complete archive just to spell that one out. The four most most recent episodes of this show will always be free, always be available in your feed. After that, they're going to go into our archive where supporters can hear them anytime. So I would encourage you, please sign up for npr. You can explore all the perks. There are a lot of them for all kinds of NPR shows, not just this one. @plus.npr.org plus.npr.org that link is in our episode notes. We will be be back next Thursday, a new episode. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Thanks so much for listening to sources and methods from npr.
- [35:55]
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