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Ukraine Military History

Samuel Cook, Rob Lee

22 episodes

Ukraine Military History is a podcast about how wars are actually fought, and won. Co-hosts Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata — both Marines and respected military analysts — break down the war in Ukraine in the operational detail headlines miss: drone warfare, force structure, and what's really happening along the front. Host Samuel Cook, who taught Russian military history at West Point, widens the lens to the campaigns and doctrines that shaped modern war and still echo on today's battlefield. Produced by the Borderlands Foundation, the show preserves and teaches the hard-won lessons of Ukraine's

Episodes

  1. Ep 22 – Operation Vivaldi From the Inside: 3rd Corps' American Advisor with Rob Lee

    · 2 h 54 min · S1 E1

    A Ukrainian 3rd corps ran a multi-brigade offensive and, by its commander's count, lost seven times fewer soldiers than Russia, most of them wounded. 250 prisoners — company commanders among them, most likely a…

  2. Ep 21 – Russia Will Lose the Way It Lost Crimea: Andriy Zagorodnyuk

    · 1 h 16 min · S1 E21

    In the winter of 1855 the most powerful man in Russia put on a summer uniform, walked out into a St Petersburg winter, and inspected parades until it killed him. Nicholas I had started a war he was certain he could not…

  3. Ep 20 – Ian Laffey on Why Ukraine Is the Only Market That Proves Your Weapons Work

    · 1 h 26 min · S1 E20

    They did not win the hackathon. They did not even place. Twenty-four hours in a room in Los Angeles, two hours of sleep, a 3D printer that would not cooperate, and somebody putting dubstep on at four in the morning to…

  4. Ep 19 – "A Foundation of Sand": Gen. David Petraeus on Getting the Big Ideas Right

    · 1 h 24 min · S1 E19

    Before this podcast had a name, it had General David Petraeus. This is the first interview the show ever recorded — Kyiv, 2023, during the counteroffensive, when Valerii Zaluzhnyi was still Commander-in-Chief and…

  5. Ep 18 – You Don't Have a Weapon, You Have a Toy: Eveline Buchatskiy on Ukraine's Defense Tech

    · 1 h 26 min · S1 E18

    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.…

  6. Ep 17 – "The Next Month Decides the Winter": Rob Lee & Francis Farrell Back From the Front

    · 1 h 35 min · S1 E17

    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…

  7. Ep 16 – "If You're Not in Ukraine, You're Not in Defense": Brave1 CEO Andrii Hrytseniuk

    · 49 min · S1 E16

    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…

  8. Ep 15 – What Happens If Russia Mobilizes: Rob Lee & Francis Farrell on the Upcoming Winter

    · 1 h 50 min · S1 E15

    Built & Promoted with https://storyfunnels.ai Francis 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…

  9. Ep 14 – Russia Is Learning Faster Than You Think: The Most Sophisticated Assault of the War

    · 2 h 19 min · S1 E14

    Build & Promoted using StoryFunnels In 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…

  10. Ep13 – Inside GUR's International Legion: An Elite Commander on Rat Tactics, the 80% Drone War, and the Future of Special Operations

    · 53 min · S1 E13

    His face is blurred and his voice is altered — because he is still fighting. In this episode, Rob Lee sits down with the commander of a separate special forces company in the International Legion of GUR (Ukraine's…

  11. Ep #12 – Two Marines. One War. Both Captured. Shaun Pinner about Mariupol & Captivity

    · 1 h 05 min · S1 E12

    In this special episode, Ievgen Malik sits down with Shaun Pinner — British soldier, Ukrainian Marine, Mariupol defender, and fellow survivor of Russian captivity. The two served in the same battalion of the 36th…

  12. Ep 11 – E-Points, Busification, and the Generals Nobody Can Fire: Inside the Army's Systemic Crisis

    · 1 h 30 min · S1 E11

    In Episode 10 the panel unpacked the politics of Mykhailo Fedorov's dismissal as Ukraine's defence minister — the protests, the strategy clash with Syrskyi, and why soldiers took it personally. In Episode 11, they go…

  13. Ep 10 – Zelensky Fires His Defense Minister: Soldiers Speak Out — Rob Lee, Ryan O'Leary & Dima Putiata on the Week That Shook Kyiv (Part 1)

    · 2 h 53 min · S1 E10

    On July 15, 2026, President Zelensky dismissed his entire cabinet — and with it, defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov, six months into the job and, to many soldiers and civilians, the most effective minister Ukraine's…

  14. Ep9 – "You Were Allowed to Breathe. That's All.": Ievgen Malik on Mordovia Prison and the Road Home (Part 2)

    · 1 h 40 min · S1 E9

    On February 7th, 2023, Ievgen Malik was told he was going home. He smiled. A prison officer looked at him and said: *"What are you smiling about? You're going to be beaten hundreds of times before you get home."* That…

  15. Ep8 – Captivity Is Ten Times Worse Than Mariupol: Ievgen Malik on the Fall of Mariupol and Russian Captivity (Part 1)

    · 1 h 45 min · S1 E8

    On April 9th, 2022, the Ukrainian garrison in Mariupol attempted a mass breakout. Around 400 men were killed in a single night. The attempt failed. Three days later, Senior Sergeant Ievgen Malik's unit — cut off, out…

  16. Ep7 – The Making of a Marine: Ievgen Malik on Poltava, the Decision to Fight, and the Last Stand at Mariupol

    · 2 h 03 min

    Ievgen Malik grew up in Poltava — one of the most historically loaded cities in Ukraine, home to the 1709 battle that ended the last independent Ukrainian hetmanate. He studied international relations in the Czech…

  17. Ep 6 – Battalion That Killed Over 2,000 Russians in 2 Months – Rob Lee × UAV Commander "Shram"

    · 52 min

    Rob Lee sits down with Lieutenant Colonel Vladyslav "Shram" Tovstyi — commander of UAV Battalion "Corsair" within Ukraine's 38th Marine Brigade, operating in one of the hottest sectors on the Donetsk front. Tovstyi…

  18. Ep 5 – Rob Lee: Back from the Front — Ukraine Closes the Deep-Strike Gap (June 2026)

    · 59 min · S1 E5

    Rob Lee is back in Kyiv after another round of frontline visits — from Zaporizhzhia to Donetsk to Kharkiv — talking directly with frontline commanders and the R&D teams building the war's newest capabilities. In this…

  19. Ep 4 –The Kill Zone: Drone Warfare & Brigade Autonomy – Rob Lee & Dmytro Putiata (Part 2)

    · 1 h 18 min · S1 E4

    In this second installment of *The First Draft of History*, analysts Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata pick up where they left off to tackle one of the most defining features of the current war in Ukraine: the kill zone. Once…

  20. Ep 3 – Why History Wins Wars: Gen. Zabrodskyi on Blitzkrieg & Mission Command

    · 1 h 51 min · S1 E3

    This episode began with a question from a Ukrainian brigade: how can military history help us fight better right now? Samuel Cook sits down with Lieutenant General Mykhailo Zabrodskyi, Hero of Ukraine, to answer it.…

  21. Ep 2 – Russia's Next Move: The Front Line Right Now — Rob Lee & Dmytro Putiata (Pt 1)

    · 1 h 32 min · S1 E2

    Rob Lee and Dmytro Putiata break down the war in Ukraine as it stands right now: a front line that has stabilized but stays fragile, and where Russia is putting its weight next. In Part 1 they get into Russian force…

  22. Ep 1 – Welcome to Ukraine Military History — Sam Cook & Rob Lee

    · 1 h 13 min · S1 E1

    Sam Cook, founder and executive director of the Ukraine Military History Institute, launches the inaugural episode of the Ukraine Military History Podcast. A former US Army officer and West Point history instructor,…

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