Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. This is Kevin Williamson. Our guest today is Tim Mack of the counteroffensive. Tim has been on the ground in Ukraine since hours before the war began and consistently has been there for almost the entire course of hostilities. He has a lot of interesting insights and things to say. So I hope you enjoy the conversation.

How is the weather? How is the weather? I trust it's not raining rockets right now.

Well, it's sunny. It's mid-70s. It's a nice summer day. And, you know, you can see people walking around and joining their Saturdays as, as they might have before the war.

The problem is that occasionally their day in the park is interrupted by air sirens. And just, you know, just over an hour ago, the air siren, the air alert was

taken down. But this is how you live life over the last couple of years here in Ukraine,

is that you try your best to reach out and establish some normalcy. And then when the war comes

to you, you react to it. At best you can. I was surprised when I was there to see how normal seeming a city, Keith was 90% of the

time.

I mean, this was a couple years ago.

So the war has picked up in intensity for Keith's instance.

But, you know, shops and restaurants were open.

People were going out, you know, drinking in bars and that kind of stuff. I suppose the curfew was a noticeable difference. But it seemed almost uncanny how much of a normal European city it felt like.

Well, Kiev is hundreds of miles from the physical front lines. But it's the target of many strikes. There's been this sort of in-joke among residents of Ukraine's

capital city that there's the kind of daytime kev and the nighttime kev. Day-time kev is very much,

as you describe, which is restaurants, and you live a kind of almost pre-war life. And then the night

falls and the attacks start. You hear these ominous buzzing sounds in the

night, these Shahid kamikaze drones flying around the city. And you can't see them. So you just

kind of wonder what direction might they be hitting. And that's punctuated by anti-aircraft fire

and explosions and air defense missiles being fired off. There's this whole

symphony of kind of nightly events that leaves no doubt in the minds of anyone who lives here

that there is a war going on and that it is affecting millions and millions of people. And of course,

the outside kind of social view of, oh, well, hey, there's a bar open,

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