‘Ask Me Anything,’ and Why Ravi’s Kyiv Visit Left Him So Worried

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile with your Summer Price Forecast. Now, unfortunately, we're seeing rising costs across the country with possibility that big wireless hates you 100%. Now, over here at Mint Mobile, we're seeing sunny skies and dropping prices. Every plan to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.

SPEAKER_2 (0:20)

Up from payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan required, $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra, new customer offer for initial plan term only, greater than 50 gigabytes may slow, and network is busy. See terms.

Ravi Agrawal (0:31)

Hi, I'm Ravi Agrawal, Foreign Policy's Editor-in-Chief.

This is FP Live.

It is time for our regular AMA episode. We've gotten tons of questions from all around the world, and I'm excited to take a stab at them. One of the reasons we picked this particular week for this AMA is because I just got back from a trip to Kyiv. I wrote about it for FP, and we're going to leave a link in the show notes, but I know some of you want to talk about it as well. So there's that. But there's also the BRIC Summit from last weekend, the Iran conflict, energy prices, Xi Jinping's forthcoming US visit, the UN General Assembly, and so much else to chew on. So let's just dive straight in. As we always do, I handed the mic over to our Executive Producer, Dana Schoen.

Dana Schoen (1:25)

We've gotten so many great questions, but as you mentioned, I think we have to start with that Ukraine trip. I know there's so much interest in what you saw there. You wrote a little bit about that train attack on the way out. Can you tell us about that incident?

Ravi Agrawal (1:40)

Yeah, sure. So I was there for a national security conference that is held annually. And what usually happens with this conference is that there's a diplomatic train that goes back from Kyiv to the border with Poland. I was on that train along with several other European dignitaries. There were four sitting national security advisors, at least one sitting foreign minister, several other powerful ministers from European countries. There were US congressmen.

And what happens with this train is that it stops right before the border where there is a passport check, basically.

And our train, it turns out, was just ahead of another train that ended up being hit by a Russian drone. And this was very surprising to us because we did not expect Russia to send a drone at basically such a high level gathering. I mean, we thought that we would have strength in numbers that the profile of some of these attendees would mean that the Kremlin wouldn't dare. But then also there's the fact that Russia has not been attacking trains that far west of Kyiv. So it was a surprise all around. I should say the train that was hit had been evacuated. No one was hurt or injured. But we left Ukraine really feeling like Putin wanted to send Europe a message. And the message was stay out.

Don't come back. Don't interfere.

Dana Schoen (3:19)

That's pretty scary, but I'm glad everyone was safe. I'm glad you were safe.

And also you wrote in thinking about that attack that it got you worried about the future of drone conflict in Ukraine. Can you tell us what got you thinking about that? Conventional wisdom has been that drones and the use of drones in this war were a Ukrainian advantage, like a boon for Kyiv.

Ravi Agrawal (3:47)

Yeah, they really were. And I should point out the drone that did come our way was an armed drone, but it was one of the older Iranian Shahid drones that Russia's been using for quite a few years. And these drones, they traveled pretty fast, but they're not that fast. In other words, Ukraine has the ability to shoot some of these down. And the further they go, partly because of their speed, you usually have enough time to evacuate if you need to, as I said, to shoot down. And also just to be clear, we weren't complacent in our trains, but I also didn't feel a great sense of fear because we were in very good hands and the organizers have an amazing track record of keeping us safe. All of that said, I did leave Ukraine feeling very worried about Ukraine this winter. And part of the reason is that for the last couple of years, I think one of the big narratives of this war has been that Ukraine has been really smart about how it's innovated with drones, both on the offensive side and on the defensive side. So being able to shoot down Russian incoming, but then to also be able to attack deep into Russia with what is known as the FPV, the First Person View Drones. Some of these could be connected to fiber optics, some of these could be mobile. But basically, Ukraine was at the cutting edge of this kind of innovation, so much so that when the Iran War started, a lot of US Gulf allies were asking for help from Ukraine in that how do you stop these Iranian Shahed drones, and how do you fight back? The big thing that seems to be changing now in the last few months is that the latest iteration that Russia is using of these Iranian Shahed 136 drones, and this one's called the Gheran 5, it is essentially a version of a cruise missile. I mean, this can go at nearly 400 miles per hour. It has a range of about 600 miles. It carries a 200-pound payload. That's explosive capacity. It costs about $100,000.