Inside the Trenches of Ukraine

CONFLICTED

Message Heard

History, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2025

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The war in Ukraine is back in the headlines as a peace agreement appears increasingly probably — though with major concessions to Russia. So as a Christmas present to our listeners, we’ve brought this episode from August out from behind the paywall. In it, Thomas speaks with his old university friend Jakub — a former Slovak Army officer who volunteered to fight in Ukraine — about the lived reality of modern warfare, from trench fighting to FPV strike drones. Drawing on nearly eighteen months at the front, Jakub offers an unvarnished account of combat, morale, fear, boredom, and survival — and challenges many popular assumptions about how this war is actually being fought. Thomas and Jakub discuss: Why Jakub left academia to fight in Ukraine Life as a foreign volunteer inside a regular Ukrainian infantry battalion The psychological reality of trench warfare How artillery, drones, and attrition have reshaped the battlefield The limits of NATO doctrine when confronted with peer warfare What this war suggests about the future of European security Join the Conflicted Community here: https://conflicted.supportingcast.fm Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MHconflicted And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MHconflicted And Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conflictedpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Conflicted is a Message Heard production. Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:48.3	At Christmas in 1914, British and German soldiers climbed out of their trenches,
0:58.0	met in no man's land, and played football.
1:03.0	For a brief moment, the machinery of industrial war paused and humanity broke through.
1:11.6	A century later, there is no such truce in eastern Ukraine.
1:18.6	As winter sets in, Russian forces continue their onslaught.
1:23.6	And all the while, the fate of soldiers in the trenches is being debated by people who will never enter one.
1:32.3	Jakop Yaizai is a former NATO officer who volunteered to fight in those trenches.
1:39.3	He served as an infantryman and later as a drone operator. He knows what this war actually looks like from the ground.
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