← Sources & Methods
Sources & Methods
Ukraine latest / Limits of military might / Can major powers regain dominance?
00:31:50
Loading summary
Transcript102 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, it's Terry Gross, the host of FRESH air.
- [00:04]
B
Catch my interview about the birth of the culture wars.
- [00:07]
A
Even breakfast cereals have become part of the culture wars. Author Isaac Butler takes us back to
- [00:13]
B
when the Christian right mobilized against provocative art.
- [00:16]
A
Listen to FRESH AIR on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:23]
C
Everybody started calling the Ukrainians and saying, can you help us in 2022? Nobody was saying that. And all of a sudden, Ukraine finds itself as the innovator in military defense tech right now.
- [00:37]
A
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 U.S. demands. This is Sources and Methods from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. Today is Thursday. It is July 2nd, and since it's Thursday, it's Sources and Methods Day, which 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 Ideas Festival, happily holding down the fort in D.C. and fresh off his latest assignment in the Middle east is our national security correspondent, Greg Myre. Hi, my friend.
- [01:28]
B
Hi, Mary Louise.
- [01:29]
A
Hey. And joining us from Kyiv, NPR Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis making her Sources and Methods debut. Kind of. Because, Joanna, you helped us pilot this podcast a year ago. A year ago. Thank you for coming back.
- [01:45]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [01:46]
A
Let's timestamp this. It is a little after 10 in the morning here in Colorado, a little after noon in Washington, which makes it a little after 7pm in Kyiv, where, Joanna, it sounds like y' all have had an awful night last night. Missile strikes, drone strikes, the worst in weeks. Tell us what we should know.
- [02:06]
C
Yeah, it was very, very loud and it was a long night, I have to tell you. And it was 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. Nothing was helping. So it was very, very loud. And when we woke up this morning, we discovered that There were about 500 drones, 75 missiles. Ukraine's air force was able to intercept most of the drones. 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, 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 a third, About a third of them, and they hit lots of targets, about 20 sites around the city. Most of the strike happened on apartment buildings. Apartment buildings were hit, so rescue workers are still going through the rubble to find survivors.
- [03:11]
A
So what's the progression of sounds that you're hearing? What do you hear first? Is it the air raid sirens going off and that's what wakes you up?
- [03:19]
C
Yes. Okay, that's right. And we hear the air raid sirens, and on a drone heavy night, we hear the drones, and they sound like these giant lawnmowers or mopeds or angry mosquito swarms. Somebody 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.
- [03:51]
A
And I was seeing all these pictures, Joanna, of Ukrainians running down to the Metro, to the shelters for you. Do you try to go back to sleep? Are you running downstairs? What do you do?
- [04:04]
C
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. I'll just pop in the K pop. I may be a little old for it, but I have to tell you, it's very relaxing.
- [04:32]
A
Oh, Lord. So what do we think is going on here? Because we're obviously more than four years into this war. Kyiv has been hit many, many times. But I'm wondering if this Russian assault, 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. With Ukrainian strikes hitting refineries, hitting Moscow, hitting all the way east in Siberia.
- [05:04]
C
That's right. That's right.
- [05:05]
A
What's going on?
- [05:07]
C
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've 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.
- [05:40]
A
We've talked a lot on this podcast about how Ukraine has innovated this whole new playbook, 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.
- [05:54]
C
That's right.
- [05:55]
A
But Ukraine is also doing all kinds of interesting things with sea drones and with land drones.
- [06:02]
C
Yeah, that's right. With 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 a, kind of a, kind of like replacing infantry on the ground. You know, one guy said, look, you know, we're so outnumbered by the Russians, there's so many more of them and if we don't innovate with, you know, 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.
- [07:03]
A
How big are we talking? Are we talking like the size of a truck or like a kids trucker?
- [07:07]
C
Like the size, I guess of a bumper car, if you can imagine.
- [07:11]
A
You know, Greg Myrip 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 these past few days? What stands out to you from what Joanna's saying?
- [07:27]
B
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 and then 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 10, 15, 20 miles wide that nobody will go into because you're immediately, 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 10 on motorcycles there. And the 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.
- [08:54]
A
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, am I right, in the sense that we're not just talking about the front lines of where, you know, the hotel conflict has been raging, but again, like drones flying to Moscow, to St. Petersburg, to Siberia, what's going on?
- [09:15]
C
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've, 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, full body arm. We had to wear full 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. We saw these soldiers in full body armor carrying what we, you know, what looked like the small plane. And we're like, what is that? And we realized later it was a drone. And they started hammering in these launch pads to set up for the launches of the drones, obviously. So there was a lot that was, like, for a while, the only noise other than the crickets was hammering of these drone pads. And I spoke to this soldier who uses the call sign push, and he's the one who told me, look, I'm out here every single night, and. And he told me what it meant to him.
- [10:43]
A
You know, every day we can see our work, the result of this work,
- [10:48]
C
and it really motivates us every day. The best work in the world. Why?
- [10:59]
A
Because, you know, we are doing a
- [11:02]
C
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. It went, you know, it was pitch black by the time the launches actually happened. And it was. It was like they started this motorcycle engine to help. To help fuel the takeoff of the drone. They were lined up one after the other. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Finally, there was like, 12 drones that were, like, launching 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 this 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. So, you know, lots of anger, lots of hatred. And he said, look, 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.
- [12:02]
A
Oh, God, I can picture you in that field with this guy who's dreaming of hitting Red Square. 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, but it 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 war?
- [12:34]
C
Yes, I would say so. I mean, 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 who have lost a family member. I mean, I feel like every Ukrainian I meet has lost a family member or 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 Kyiv 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 Ukrainians feel like they are turning things around. And you see it also with Zelensky. He's much more confident now going to diplomatic meetings. He's like these are, he calls these long range strikes are long range sanctions against Russia because they're hitting the oil industry, which is like Russia's law lifeblood for its economy. And so yes, it's very clear to me. I see it every day.
- [13:39]
A
We're gonna 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. This message comes from Betterment. Their automated investing and saving tools give you the quiet confidence of someone who knows where to put their money with tax smart tools that grow your after tax returns year round. Get started today@betterment.com that's B E T T E R M e n t.com Investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed. Betterment is not a tax advisor nor should any information herein be considered tax advice. Please consult a qualified tax professional.
- [14:26]
C
Every episode of it's been a minute.
- [14:28]
A
NPR's what's Happening in Culture podcast starts by asking three questions. Who?
- [14:33]
C
How?
- [14:33]
B
Why now?
- [14:34]
C
If the culture's asking it, we're talking
- [14:36]
A
about it at npr. We stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow It's Been A Minute wherever you get your podcasts and we'll break down the zeitgeist y topics that are filling your feed.
- [14:49]
C
There have been some fantastic movies released this year and we know you can't see them all. So we're recommending some great films that
- [14:56]
A
might have flown under the radar to add to your watch list. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. We are back with Joanna Kakissis and Greg Myrey. And Greg, what we're seeing 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?
- [15:34]
B
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. Perhaps 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 2022. 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 begin making drones at sea, which started as jet skis with just explosives packed into them. Now they're making much more sophisticated sea drones. They've 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 peril parallel, of course, is in the Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, where we've heard President Trump talk about sinking more than 150 Iranian naval vessels. They have no, again, traditional ships left.
- [17:09]
A
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.
- [17:18]
B
Well, that's precisely the point. I mean, they do have these small speedboats, but these are almost something that they barely look like. They're military in nature. And they're certainly not big boats, a small number of two, three, four guys on them, and they can cause distractions, certainly lay mines, do that kind of thing. But Iran has effectively shut 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 Ukrainians non navy and the American navy compared to Iran's non navy. There's nothing to compare it to. And yet in both cases, the weaker party has been able to fight very effectively.
- [18:19]
A
It's so interesting and I want to connect it up to a point you made a few minutes ago, Greg, about historically, warfare has meant raising a big army and sending it onto the battlefield and that this is changing so quickly and on sea as well. Joanna, I mean, weigh in here on how you are seeing this from Ukraine.
- [18:38]
C
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 are like 30 million Ukrainians and like what, 140 million Russians and so like they really are outnumbered. And so for them, you know, making decisions like sending an armada of ground drones instead of an armada of people into 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.
- [19:23]
A
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? I mean, I'm thinking it feels fair to argue that Iran has managed to emerge stronger from this war with the US at least in certain ways. It has a formidable tool control of the Strait of Hormuz 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.
- [20:07]
B
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 that Ukraine is paying a heavy price. However, this war may play out eventually, but it's also 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 survived this war in Ukraine as 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 democr. 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. So there are all these conflicting currents 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.
- [21:45]
C
If I could jump in there at the beginning of this war, if you had 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? These interceptor drones, they cost like $1,000. They're the size of a big bottle of water. And they could take out these shahed drones that Iran makes and that Russia has the blueprint for and is making them themselves now in Russia. So everybody started calling the Ukrainians and saying, can you help us? And I'm just saying, like in 2022, nobody was saying that. And all of a sudden Ukraine finds itself as the innovator in military defense tech right now.
- [22:30]
B
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
- [22:41]
A
armored vehicles, more aircraft carriers, more, yeah,
- [22:44]
B
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 dollar weapons that are completely disposable and you can burn through 100 or 500 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.
- [23:12]
C
Yep.
- [23:13]
A
We're gonna take one last break before we do that. Quick plug for our episode earlier this week. This September is gonna mark 25 years since 9 11. And it's impossible to imagine it's been that long, but it has. 25 years. I spoke with Alberto Gonzalez, who was serving as President Bush's on 9 11. Also spoke with Jeh 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. Also about the CIA's detention and interrogation programs and the legacy of 9 11. So make sure you check out that episode before it goes into our archive. And 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 osint. That's ahead on Sources and Methods from npr. We'll be right back.
- [24:20]
C
This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell
- [24:21]
B
Me, we talk to bestselling author Carol
- [24:23]
C
Clare Burke about how it feels to
- [24:25]
A
write the hit book of the series Summer. I've been very dissociative, so that's a problem for my future therapist.
- [24:30]
C
Yeah, I see it.
- [24:31]
A
Let's talk about the fact you're not in therapy. That's fascinating.
- [24:35]
B
Don't miss our full conversation and the
- [24:37]
A
rest of our games.
- [24:38]
B
Listen to the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Podcast in the NPR app or wherever
- [24:41]
A
you get your podcasts.
- [24:44]
B
Hi, it's me, Peter Sagal, host of
- [24:46]
C
Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.
- [24:47]
A
It's summer.
- [24:47]
B
And if you want to turn your
- [24:49]
C
pool party into a nerd fest, check
- [24:51]
B
out our news quiz.
- [24:51]
C
We got comedians, we got celebrity, we got games to help you laugh about the week's news. Yeah, that news, it'll be just like we're all hanging out at your backyard barbecue.
- [25:00]
B
Listen every week to Wait, Wait, Don't
- [25:02]
C
Tell Me on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:08]
A
We're back with Joanna Kakissis and Greg Myrey. Question that I'm gonna throw at both 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 a question to which probably the only honest answer is time will tell, but take a swing anyway. Do we see signs that the U.S. i'll throw this one to you, Greg, that the U.S. 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 dominance?
- [25:47]
B
So the US has watched and seen what happened in Ukraine, but the US Wasn't quite prepared in the fight with Iran. They've been been the US 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 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 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 10, 15, 20 years ago, but not able to adapt to things that happened two, three, four years ago that we saw in Ukraine.
- [26:40]
A
So the mightiest military in the history of the world, and we are playing catch up. Joanna, what about Russia? Are they learning lessons? Can we take tell?
- [26:48]
C
Well, it's, 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, and who knows how quickly they're going to burn through this stockpile before 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, paying attention to Ukraine and its defense tech 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.
- [28:06]
A
With that, let me turn us toward osint. Open source intelligence, not so secret, but telling details that we stumble across in our reporting. Greg, what you got?
- [28:17]
B
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 25 years ago when I first arrived, and one in particular struck me of the Golan Heights. This is territory Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war. And back in 2000, 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 open. And it's a beautiful, it's a stunning physical scene. As the name suggests. It's an elevated area overlooking the Sea of Galilee. And these 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 know, this could be negotiated away and this could be returned to Syrian territory in a matter of 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 taken more territory since the fall of Bashar Assad in December of 24. So another example of a Mideast 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 25 years later.
- [29:43]
A
Beautiful view, Joanna.
- [29:47]
C
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 so sad. But one thing I read that I was just really surprised and fascinated with was some researchers along. They were working along the front line. They actually work for Keeves 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. Fiber optic cable nest. Yes.
- [30:23]
A
These are.
- [30:23]
C
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 warfare, that they're not jammed. So 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 guess I read this. I'm just like, I don't know what to think. But it sure shows how this war has affected even the natural world here.
- [30:53]
A
Yeah. And ingenuity playing out not just among humans, but birds making do with what you got.
- [31:00]
C
That's right.
- [31:02]
A
Wow. All right, Well, I will bring us to a close. As noted, I've been out in Aspen, Colorado, this week at the Ideas Festival to moderate a bunch of interviews and panels. People from Israel, where you just were, Greg. Also talking about the transatlantic alliance, doing all kinds of sessions out here. There was a session Tuesday night to mark 50 years since the movie all the President's Men came out. All the President's Men is the story of these two rookie reporters at 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 Nixon's resignation. Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein was here he is now in his 80s. He was holding forth on the state of journalism today, including the Washington Post, where they broke those stories, which has hadjust had better years, it's fair to say. Bernstein said disappointing doesn't begin to describe the state of the Washington Post. But then he landed on what is giving him hope, and it was was essentially that the gumshoe reporting that he and Woodward did, working sources at the FBI and the White House and all over Washington, you know, making 17 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 17 calls to figure out what the heck is going on and keeping all of us better informed. Thank you.
- [33:07]
C
Oh, thank you, Mary Louise. So sweet.
- [33:10]
B
Thank you, Mayor Louise.
- [33:12]
A
Joanna, we sincerely hope you get a better night's sleep tonight. Thank you so much for joining us. NPR's Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis. You're welcome. And national security correspondent Greg Myrey. Thanks to you, too.
- [33:24]
B
Good to be here.
- [33:26]
A
And before we go, a thank you to our NPR listeners who help support the work of our journalists around the world, many of whom you are hear on this podcast each week with npr, 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 week with another episode of Sources and Methods from npr.
- [34:13]
C
This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees and free perks, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com switch taxes and fees.
- [34:27]
A
Active extra.
- [34:27]
C
See Mint Mobile for details.
- [34:30]
A
Recently, cybersecurity researchers discovered a striking computer
- [34:34]
B
virus seemingly related to the conflict between the US And Iran over Iran's nuclear program.
- [34:41]
A
Everything about this thing screams special a cunning cyber weapon meant to gaslight nuclear scientists.
- [34:49]
B
Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.