“On the front line, the amount of drones I've seen has escalated to a point where it's not even comparable to 2022. It's a totally different war. The war has to be told more in chapters now than in one clear dividing line. Because if you took somebody from 2022 and threw them into this battlefield, they'd be killed almost instantaneously.”
Preston Stewart · Policy · November 2026
Context
The host said the war in Ukraine keeps getting worse in ways he doesn't expect. The war reporter compares today's front with the one he first covered in 2022, naming drones as the main change.
Transcript
…pneumonia pipelines or it is digging tunnels yourself. So there's different aspects where I will go out on the limb and it'll take a little bit of risk within, of course, due caution, knowing that, you know, I have to, of course, control whatever risk I am taking and claim responsibility for it.
…get worse. It's worse. Like the idea of crawling around through a tunnel to get to an enemy position seems so much like that is so far down the list of something I want to do. But if you, you know, going from the beginning of the war to now, it just progressively gets nastier and nastier, it seems.
…about in reference to the amount of violence done. Because since there was a new president in the White House, there's been a lot of escalation in the amount of drones used, escalation in the amount of missiles fired, a lot of escalation and a lot of military action. But the language used by states isn't in the same level of escalatory rhetoric. And so it's not viewed as much as escalation. But on the front line, the amount of drones I've seen has escalated to a point where it's not even comparable to 2022. It's a totally different war. The war has to be told more in chapters now than in one clear dividing line. Because if you took somebody from 2022 and threw them into this battlefield, they'd be killed almost instantaneously.
I'd be interested in your thoughts on your perception of Ukrainian soldier morale. That's a very difficult question for a lot of us to dig into, because even if you do get the opportunity to interact with a group of soldiers, you then have a snapshot. And soldiers, just like anyone else, they can…
I think morale right now is a mixed bag. I think on one level, there is a complete tiredness with the war where everybody
wants to see it over. I don't know anybody that is, you know, super excited about the war extending. Everybody wants the war to be over. There are very few people that I know who want the war to be over and are willing to give up anything for the war to be over immediately. For example, giving up…
More from Preston Stewart
