This is an I-Heart podcast.

You described in the Atlantic piece that Russian soldier,

he was stalked by the Ukrainian drone crews and taken out,

was assigned a point value and that the crews and at this point in the war that this is

at some level a video game war in that there are points assigned for various targets and the drone operators are competing with one

another to collect points. Talk about that. Well, first of all, this is probably the first generation

that could actually wage war this way because they were brought up with these with video games, right? And don't get me

wrong, the team I was with was deadly serious about what they were doing. They knew that they

were defending their country against a country, Russia that wanted to do horrible things.

And during the last trip to Ukraine, I was in Hirson, and the Russians still have half of

Kersone.

And occasionally, they still hear from family members on the other side about what the Russians

are doing and make no mistake.

Their survival is at stake. So they're

serious about what they're doing, but they're also relatively young. Most of these drone pilots

are in their 20s, some even younger than that. And they are incredibly skilled. They have

quick reflexes. They have to be that close to the front. I get this question from

Americans all the time. Why don't they operate their drones from another country? Like,

people might know that when we fly a predator, the pilot's in Vegas, right? He's back home in Nevada.

They have to be that close to the front because the reaction time, when you're chasing a soldier through a, the rubble of a bombed out city, the fraction time is in, the reaction time has to be in milliseconds.

You can't wait for that lag between the satellite uplink and the command and the recommand.

So they have to be right up there at the front.

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