Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Moira (00:00):
Doctor Monahan, welcome back to Tech Nation.
Shannon Monaghan (00:03):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so
excited to be back.
Moira (00:06):
Well, on 02/24/2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Three
days later, president Zelenskyyannounced the formation of a
voluntary international legion.A week later, he reported 16,000
foreign volunteers had attemptedto join. If you are living
(00:29):
anywhere, I'm I keep thinking,how would you even begin to join
Ukraine's International Legion?
Shannon Monaghan (00:37):
I think people did it in a variety of ways. And
actually, I was told that mostpeople figured out their own way
to join. Of the men in thisbook, the one with the most, you
know, the best story about itessentially contacted the
Ukrainian Embassy in WashingtonDC, where he was introduced to
the military attache, you know,who went through his documents
(01:00):
and basically said, All right,looks like you're he'd been a
sergeant in the US infantry. Hewas out of the army at that
point, a complete civilian,volunteering entirely on his
own. The guy said, you know,this is going to be unlike
anything you'd ever seen.
Are you ready to to go overthere and to kill? And he said,
yes. He was given essentiallygrid coordinates, got on a plane
(01:23):
to Poland, and went across theborder and joined the legion.
Moira (01:26):
Wow. It's it's amazing. And when you read this, it's
like, where did all these peoplecome from, and how did they get
here? And and not all of themhad military background.
Shannon Monaghan (01:37):
That's true. So the most of the men in this
book who ended up joining one ofthe pretty elite units of the
international legion, and ifyou're interested, there are
essentially two sections to thelegion that I can explain. Most
of them are former NATO trainedspecial forces of some type, But
there was actually one man onthe team who went by the name
(01:58):
Tex who was untrained. Heactually tried to join the US
military earlier. He had alittle blip in his background
that meant he wouldn't have beenlooked at, but he was just the
most natural born fighter.
And on top of that, just aseveryone said, the nicest guy
you will ever meet. Incrediblyhard worker, and they would not
(02:20):
have traded him for
Moira (02:22):
anything. So all of these people arrive one way or the
other in Ukraine. What happensthen?
Shannon Monaghan (02:30):
So they they come and what I found as a
military historian sointeresting is that they're
essentially self sorting intoteams. One of the things that
modern militaries work reallyhard on, particularly in terms
of special operations, is how doyou create the right selection
system to get the right people?You probably heard of BUDS,
(02:50):
which is a selection system forUS Navy SEALs or the rather
infamous Q course for AmericanGreen Berets, our special
forces. We're always trying tofigure out how do you select the
right guys. What happens inUkraine is that you have people
coming across, they don't knowone another, but they're
essentially, particularly invery early days, forming their
(03:10):
own teams.
That can be a little bit of amessy process, but what it means
is that once they figure out whothey want to be with, these form
really high performing, veryhigh trust, small units
incredibly quickly. And whatthey're they're able to do and
what they're willing to do forone another is tremendous.
Moira (03:33):
Now it's one thing to equip and train your own army.
Now we have people coming fromall over the world. They speak
different languages, and I don'tcare how prepared or unprepared
Ukraine may have been. I'm surethey weren't doing a lot of
preparation for an internationallegion. I mean, what about, you
(03:56):
know, uniforms, all theequipment that goes with this?
You know? What about equipmentand training? How organized was
that? What was there? Whatwasn't?
Shannon Monaghan (04:06):
Initially, in the very beginning, you have an
entire country under siege.Things are getting missile.
There's artillery everywhere.You're really under a tremendous
amount of pressure. The formerinfantryman, the sergeant I
mentioned earlier, by the nameof Ginger, he actually chose and
was told, You don't need tobring your own kit, as they call
(04:27):
it.
Just bring yourself, showed up.As he said, you didn't wanna get
arrested as, you know, someright wing, you know, growing up
Moira (04:35):
That's right. Paramilitary. I brought my
entire soldiering kit with me.It's like, you're not gonna get
on the plane much less off ofit. Yeah.
Shannon Monaghan (04:44):
Right. He's just trying to go to volunteer
to fight the Russians who are atthis point massacring civilians
who are outside of Kyiv. Bukkais happening and whatnot. But it
turns out that when you need tomobilize that many people at
once, there's not a lot of goodstuff. So he is actually on the
ground in a suburb of Kyivfighting through artillery with
(05:06):
what he called, I think hecalled it a janky plate carrier,
where your plates go into bodyarmor and whatnot.
He had an AK 74, which was an AK47 with the drum magazine, it
can hold more rounds with abroken front sight on it,
sneakers, and I think candy barsin his pockets at that point
(05:29):
because they didn't have MREs.So early on it was quite hairy.
The guys joked over time that itwas a little bit like playing
Call of Duty where as peoplerotate in and out, they get
access to more gear and youquote unquote level up with your
stuff. So they did eventuallyget some very nice rifles made
by a Czech company calledBren2s, a new assault rifle that
(05:53):
they really liked, andeventually they were able to get
the things that they needed. Butat the very beginning, you're
putting on your colored armbandsto properly legally identify.
You signed on the dotted line.Everything's above board, but
it's pretty chaotic.
Moira (06:11):
And do they get paid?
Shannon Monaghan (06:12):
They are officially Ukrainian riflemen,
which is the equivalent of aprivate. So they are uniformed
legal combatants. They are, whenthe pay system is functioning,
being paid as Ukrainianprivates. But remember early on
in the war, this is under atremendous amount of stress.
Frequently they don't haveeverything that they need.
(06:36):
They're being supplied as muchas the Ukrainians possibly can.
It's not like they're beingtreated differently. You know,
arguably they might've beentreated better. But there are
some moments of, of prettysevere, stress, when you're, you
are watching buildings gettingshelled while you're eating your
Milka cookies and creamchocolate bar because that's
what we've got that day.
Moira (06:57):
That's on the menu. No protein. Just that. Okay.
Shannon Monaghan (07:00):
Yeah.
Moira (07:01):
Now you did mention some of the people in this core
group. Let's go over all of themand and give us a a sense of the
age range on these people.
Shannon Monaghan (07:10):
Yeah. I think one of the things that surprised
many people about the war inUkraine is that this isn't a
bunch of 18 year olds. For avariety of reasons, both the
Russians and the Ukrainians havechosen to conscript from bulges
in their demographic pyramid ofmen who are older. But what's
interesting about this group isthat these aren't 18 year old
(07:31):
cowboys either. These people,with the exception of our Texan,
all had military experience.
They'd been in the military.They'd gotten out of the
military, so they're in mostlytheir late 20s and 30s. There's
a former US Navy SEAL named Dan.There's Ginger, the former
(07:51):
infantryman I mentioned. Thereis a former US Army Ranger named
Beaver, and they're not allAmericans, so there's also a
group of French foreignlegionaries that they work with,
one of whom ends up on theirteam named George, who's
Canadian, but has served in theFrench foreign legion, not in
(08:13):
the Canadian army, and they areall working under Ukrainian
commanders.
So, that's the other rule toremember as well, that you have
these foreigners, but theydon't, with the exception of our
medic, Greg, who was born inUkraine but brought to Canada
when he was a child and grew upthere and had actually gone
(08:35):
back, They don't speakUkrainian, so obviously you need
to have that liaison with yourofficers. Their commanders, a
man named Alexey Shiboshov, veryinteresting man who He was
actually a television star inUkraine, a journalist actually.
Moira (08:51):
He was a what?
Shannon Monaghan (08:52):
He was a television star. He was a
journalist.
Moira (08:56):
They all television stars in Ukraine from the president on
down?
Shannon Monaghan (09:01):
No, multi talented people. So Aleksey had
had a TV show before the war hadstarted and it was a reality
show. For part of the show, hewas going through the Ukrainian
Special Forces training system,actually, like I mentioned,
selection earlier, and he madeit. And he actually ended up
(09:21):
going into the army. He had comeout before the war started and
then rejoined when the Russiansinvaded, and actually he ended
up as their commander.
And then there was his second incommand whose call sign was
pirate because he had thisrather tremendous ish beard. So
that was kind of who's in chargeof this whole
Moira (09:47):
listening to Tech Nation. I'm Moira Gannon. My guest today
is military historian doctorShannon Monahan. You may know
her from one of her books,including a quiet company of
dangerous men. She's here todaywith to die with such men,
frontline stories from Ukraine'sInternational Legion.
(10:08):
Well, as we go along throughouthistory, all military history is
a story of technology. You know?It's like suddenly you could
break down this wall or suddenlyyou could you have some
capability. What was shocking tome is in addition to whatever
equipment they were provided,some of which, you know, it's
(10:30):
like these are very it'sfamiliar. You know, you were
talking about the Bren's,rifles, and, you know, Javelins.
I mean, you're you're talkingabout the real stuff on the
front line. Well, they all hadcell phones. They had
connections to the Internet fromStarlink. They could call
anybody they wanted.
Shannon Monaghan (10:48):
Yeah. Which is just tremendously different. So
I think this war has beenobviously the technological
evolution from February 2022 tonow has been absolutely
tremendous and is more thananyone ever expected. But it's
come with also with this kind ofhigh low mix. So on one hand we
(11:09):
have, these guys do have aStarlink terminal and they have,
you can have cell phone accessthough for security reasons
people are using clean phones.
They're always a tremendous riskif you're captured and whatnot.
The Ukrainians have developed areally impressive essentially
battle management system whereyou can know where you are and
(11:30):
friendly forces and whatnot on amap basically. You mentioned the
Javelins, which was actuallyreally important early on.
Ginger, who I mentioned, was atrained Javelin gunner. Early
when you have Russian tanks andarmor moving through, being able
to target them with this veryvaluable American weapon
tremendous.
(11:51):
But I was actually initiallytrained as a first world war
historian way back when. What Inever was not on my bingo card
that the cheap Mavic DJI dronewas going to be the barbed wire
of the twenty first century.Here we are with, as they say, a
completely transparent battlespace with everything from those
(12:14):
little DJI quadcopters to muchmore sophisticated drones that,
or, or drones that have now beenspecially purpose built to take
out other drones or to interfereor now have thermal on them or
the first person view suicidedrones. It's a whole new world.
Moira (12:34):
A whole new world. And when you say thermal, they're
able to detect humans andanimals.
Shannon Monaghan (12:40):
Yeah. Anything with a heat signature. So it
will see it will see humans. Itwill see animals. It will also
see a running engine, right?
So actually the Javelin, whichuses a dual computer system, the
Javelin missile is heat seekingand you will actually look
through a thermal computer whenyou get the lock on that target
(13:01):
and what it's looking for issomething thermal because it's
obviously designed to hitsomething expensive. What it's
what you're mostly going to useit on is something like that.
Moira (13:13):
So far, we've been talking about this sort of from
a bird's eye view or perhapswe'll just say, these days, a
drone's eye view. You take usfrom the battle of Kyiv, through
the fall of Bekhmat, which issome fifteen months with this
group of men. And what struck meabout this is you we are
(13:38):
advancing on the ground withthese people and ex filling and
backfilling and attempting tosleep and engaging in military
operations right from the firstparagraph, right from there
throughout. This isn't about andthen they did that. It's like
this is almost like a diary ofwhat these people are doing.
Shannon Monaghan (13:59):
Yeah. When I was invited to do this, I
thought this would be anopportunity to create a primary
source that we've really neverseen before. Obviously, you can
go and watch as much horrifyingdrone footage and body cam
footage as you'd like. It's allout there on the internet for
(14:20):
everyone to see. But I thoughthaving as a historian, having
tried to piece together what'sactually happening from multiple
perspectives in the past, Ithought it would be very
valuable to be able to do thatwhere we do have so much
information because of thistechnology.
So a lot of these guys arewearing body cams. You know,
(14:41):
those little GoPros, either ontheir helmets or it's attached
to the webbing on their chest.So we do have multiple angles of
the same firefight going on atonce and so I'm able to
essentially give, not to selfaggrandize, but this kind of
Blackhawk Down style view ofwhat the fight is like because I
(15:01):
was able to go through all ofthat footage with them and was
able to do these extensiveinterviews either immediately
afterwards or essentially prettyclose afterwards so that we
really know what happened, whichis oftentimes just tremendously
confusing.
Moira (15:18):
I think it's time, though, we do, reveal that you
do have a personal connectionwith one of the soldiers, which
is part of the invitation. Ofcourse, that brought all of
those soldiers in to provide youwith different information and
connections. What did thatinclude?
Shannon Monaghan (15:37):
Yeah. So I had a personal connection to one of
them. And, well, I guessactually, a silly funny story. I
had just finished the last, Ithink it was the 1,000, one
hundred and ninth footnote frommy last book, which was about an
equally interesting group ofBritish officers who fought
together in World War II and theCold War, and I got this call.
(16:00):
It was June 2022, and the teamhad just gotten out of this huge
battle in Severodonetsk.
It's still the war of movement.The Russians are pushing very
fast in the East, and it waskind of one of these last
stands. They're nearlysurrounded. They've gotten into
some really massive fights inthe city. They had just lost two
(16:25):
men, their commander, AlexeyShiboshov, who I had mentioned,
and a young Brit who had been ona sister team who had been
operating with them.
I do want to indicate they dowork with sister teams and as
the book goes on and time goeson, multiple people beyond who I
just mentioned have been on thisteam and have been huge
(16:46):
contributors. But they were veryaware that what they were doing
was far bigger than them. Thiswas an important story to tell
for Ukraine and for the West.And they were extraordinarily
aware that they were not allgoing to make it out. And so
they said, would you do this?
(17:08):
Would you write this story sothat we can tell it for everyone
else. And my I have to tell youthat my initial reaction was
kind of one of of horror of as ahistorian, you know, I don't do
live ones.
Moira (17:25):
As we're making history? No. No. No. No.
Shannon Monaghan (17:29):
But I had, as a historian, seen so many good
people whose stories I wouldhave loved to have known more
about, would have loved to havebeen able to tell who died
before we could capture thatinformation. I thought that, you
know, I of all people absolutelyhad an obligation to provide
(17:51):
that for them and for thefuture. And so I said yes and
that was just a completelydifferent world. I spent a
tremendous amount of time witheach of them going through their
experiences, tracking them asthey went. And these people
(18:11):
became very close friends ofmine and we spent time reliving
some of the proudest and worstmoments of their lives together.
And I'm very grateful that, thatthey let me do
Moira (18:28):
it. I have to say that, of the many histories that I've
read and the data that comes outof them, some there's some very
famous ones, you know, about howthey took diaries and all that,
put together charts, and thiskind of thing. The idea that you
could ask a question at aparticular day, it's like, hey.
(18:49):
But what about that other thing,you know, you wrote in the diary
yesterday would be incrediblyvaluable.
Shannon Monaghan (18:56):
It is. I think it also helps us understand the
confusion, particularly ofmodern urban warfare. There have
been moments in which someonehas said to me, Do you know what
happened right there? We're alltrying to reconstruct in the
aftermath. Where was that tankthat nearly took us apart?
(19:17):
Actually, a couple of weeks ago,George texted me and said, Can I
have another copy of that mapyou drew or Severinetsk that
shows everyone's positions?Because I used to have it and I
really wanted it. So it's aninteresting experience to try to
find all of that because we allknow that memory isn't perfect,
(19:37):
right? We all know that you canbe really certain in your memory
and yet it can be inaccurate insome specific way that might be
very small or that might be veryimportant. To have that
overlapping ability to figureout what what indeed actually
happened was, as a historian,you know, tremendously valuable.
Moira (20:01):
Now also of interest to me was not just the, here we
are, here's what we're doing,and all of that. Frequently,
when they overtake what had beenheld by Russians, it was amazing
the amount of intelligence andthe kind of intelligence they
could get by what the Russiansleft behind.
Shannon Monaghan (20:21):
Yes. On one hand, obviously you have
intelligence out of drones andintercepted radio chatter and
whatnot. There's this moment inthis battle in Severodonets
where they lose two men wherethey find out after the fact
from their intel guys that theRussians were convinced that
(20:41):
they'd been hit by a battalion.Now, a battalion in The US at
the very least would be about athousand men. There were about
20 something guys who hit theRussians in this particular spot
on that day, but they brought somany rockets and firepower with
them and were so aggressive thatthe Russians were convinced
there was more.
There's that version, but youalso end up moving into a place
(21:04):
and you pick up weapons thatthey've left behind and material
like this, which goes again tothe technology. This doesn't get
included in the book, later, youknow, obviously still in touch
with one's friends. They endedup in Actually, this was near
Bachmann. They ended up in atrench where they picked up two
(21:25):
World War II era guns and wereusing them. One was an MG 42,
You know, the famous Germanmachine gun.
And the other was something thatwas called, it was referred to
as a sewing machine because itmade this rotten noise. So it
gives you this kind ofindication of the different
(21:49):
positions than the other guys.
Moira (21:51):
Perhaps not as well equipped. We have drones and
World War II rifle. I mean, it'slike, wait.
Shannon Monaghan (21:58):
Yes. I actually found this rather
interesting as well. Obviously,as the technology has developed,
each side is getting better andbetter at countering drones. But
there was that moment early onwhen the drones start to get
really big where everyonerealizes the cheapest way to
deal with this because shotexchange value is so important.
I don't want to spend a 100times what that other thing
(22:21):
costs shooting it down.
That some World War II era andvery old stuff was actually
really good for shooting downdrones because essentially you
don't need a very sophisticatedfire control system and you had
it. So, again, a very strangemix.
Moira (22:36):
But at the end of the day, you are a military
historian besides collecting andcataloging all this information.
You and I'm quoting here. I'mgoing, my goodness. How did she
do this? Here's the quote.
Compared time stamps, isolatedaudio, cross check quotes,
stories, after action reports,timelines, and photographic and
(23:00):
video evidence, gone back andasked clarifying questions over
and over, checked kit, comparedsuppressed versus unsuppressed
fire, and examined bulletreports and impact. It's like
how this is an enormous task.How do you coordinate? How do
you drive all of thisinformation?
Shannon Monaghan (23:21):
Oh, and we have to you have to go battle by
battle really, but, I think Iwas so driven like they were to
just kind of figure out whathappened that you're really
trying to work down thetimeline. It was a great relief
figuring out what happenedexactly where. But I would also
(23:44):
say that it was for me, youknow, as the historian, but also
personally some of the mostrewarding and hardest part of
the experience to isolate theshot that you know kills
someone, you know, to figure outexactly which blast happened
where that kills someone else.It's something I had not
(24:08):
obviously had not done beforeand was a something I was
willing to do in order to get tothe most accurate picture that
we needed.
Moira (24:20):
How has this experience changed you as a military
historian?
Shannon Monaghan (24:25):
I think we'll have to answer that with the
next book.
Moira (24:30):
Good.
Shannon Monaghan (24:32):
I think it gives you even more than I
already had a deep appreciationfor how hard it is to do the
work on the ground and hasdramatically lessened my
patience, for the armchair viewof why can't you just do it this
(24:53):
way or the armchair criticism,that really knows nothing about
what it's actually like to bethe guy being shot at or the guy
carrying your dead friendthrough artillery fire in order
to get them out because this isnot a war with immediate
helicopter Kazakhs that's goingto put you on a plane to
Rammstein. It is a lot harder.
Moira (25:16):
Well, doctor Monahan, thank you so much for coming in,
and and thank you for your book.I hope you come and see us
again.
Shannon Monaghan (25:22):
Thank you so much.
Moira (25:24):
My guest today is doctor Shannon Monahan. Her book is to
die with such men, FrontlineStories from Ukraine's
International Legion. It'spublished by Hearst. I'm Moira
Gunn. You're listening to TechNation.
It's published by Hearst. ForTech Nation, I'm Moira Gunn.
Great. Got it. That's good.
(25:46):
We'll sell a lot of books. Nowdon't hang up. We
Doctor Monahan, welcome back to Tech Nation.
Shannon Monaghan (00:03):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so
excited to be back.
Moira (00:06):
Well, on 02/24/2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Three
days later, president Zelenskyyannounced the formation of a
voluntary international legion.A week later, he reported 16,000
foreign volunteers had attemptedto join. If you are living
(00:29):
anywhere, I'm I keep thinking,how would you even begin to join
Ukraine's International Legion?
Shannon Monaghan (00:37):
I think people did it in a variety of ways. And
actually, I was told that mostpeople figured out their own way
to join. Of the men in thisbook, the one with the most, you
know, the best story about itessentially contacted the
Ukrainian Embassy in WashingtonDC, where he was introduced to
the military attache, you know,who went through his documents
(01:00):
and basically said, All right,looks like you're he'd been a
sergeant in the US infantry. Hewas out of the army at that
point, a complete civilian,volunteering entirely on his
own. The guy said, you know,this is going to be unlike
anything you'd ever seen.
Are you ready to to go overthere and to kill? And he said,
yes. He was given essentiallygrid coordinates, got on a plane
(01:23):
to Poland, and went across theborder and joined the legion.
Moira (01:26):
Wow. It's it's amazing. And when you read this, it's
like, where did all these peoplecome from, and how did they get
here? And and not all of themhad military background.
Shannon Monaghan (01:37):
That's true. So the most of the men in this
book who ended up joining one ofthe pretty elite units of the
international legion, and ifyou're interested, there are
essentially two sections to thelegion that I can explain. Most
of them are former NATO trainedspecial forces of some type, But
there was actually one man onthe team who went by the name
(01:58):
Tex who was untrained. Heactually tried to join the US
military earlier. He had alittle blip in his background
that meant he wouldn't have beenlooked at, but he was just the
most natural born fighter.
And on top of that, just aseveryone said, the nicest guy
you will ever meet. Incrediblyhard worker, and they would not
(02:20):
have traded him for
Moira (02:22):
anything. So all of these people arrive one way or the
other in Ukraine. What happensthen?
Shannon Monaghan (02:30):
So they they come and what I found as a
military historian sointeresting is that they're
essentially self sorting intoteams. One of the things that
modern militaries work reallyhard on, particularly in terms
of special operations, is how doyou create the right selection
system to get the right people?You probably heard of BUDS,
(02:50):
which is a selection system forUS Navy SEALs or the rather
infamous Q course for AmericanGreen Berets, our special
forces. We're always trying tofigure out how do you select the
right guys. What happens inUkraine is that you have people
coming across, they don't knowone another, but they're
essentially, particularly invery early days, forming their
(03:10):
own teams.
That can be a little bit of amessy process, but what it means
is that once they figure out whothey want to be with, these form
really high performing, veryhigh trust, small units
incredibly quickly. And whatthey're they're able to do and
what they're willing to do forone another is tremendous.
Moira (03:33):
Now it's one thing to equip and train your own army.
Now we have people coming fromall over the world. They speak
different languages, and I don'tcare how prepared or unprepared
Ukraine may have been. I'm surethey weren't doing a lot of
preparation for an internationallegion. I mean, what about, you
(03:56):
know, uniforms, all theequipment that goes with this?
You know? What about equipmentand training? How organized was
that? What was there? Whatwasn't?
Shannon Monaghan (04:06):
Initially, in the very beginning, you have an
entire country under siege.Things are getting missile.
There's artillery everywhere.You're really under a tremendous
amount of pressure. The formerinfantryman, the sergeant I
mentioned earlier, by the nameof Ginger, he actually chose and
was told, You don't need tobring your own kit, as they call
(04:27):
it.
Just bring yourself, showed up.As he said, you didn't wanna get
arrested as, you know, someright wing, you know, growing up
Moira (04:35):
That's right. Paramilitary. I brought my
entire soldiering kit with me.It's like, you're not gonna get
on the plane much less off ofit. Yeah.
Shannon Monaghan (04:44):
Right. He's just trying to go to volunteer
to fight the Russians who are atthis point massacring civilians
who are outside of Kyiv. Bukkais happening and whatnot. But it
turns out that when you need tomobilize that many people at
once, there's not a lot of goodstuff. So he is actually on the
ground in a suburb of Kyivfighting through artillery with
(05:06):
what he called, I think hecalled it a janky plate carrier,
where your plates go into bodyarmor and whatnot.
He had an AK 74, which was an AK47 with the drum magazine, it
can hold more rounds with abroken front sight on it,
sneakers, and I think candy barsin his pockets at that point
(05:29):
because they didn't have MREs.So early on it was quite hairy.
The guys joked over time that itwas a little bit like playing
Call of Duty where as peoplerotate in and out, they get
access to more gear and youquote unquote level up with your
stuff. So they did eventuallyget some very nice rifles made
by a Czech company calledBren2s, a new assault rifle that
(05:53):
they really liked, andeventually they were able to get
the things that they needed. Butat the very beginning, you're
putting on your colored armbandsto properly legally identify.
You signed on the dotted line.Everything's above board, but
it's pretty chaotic.
Moira (06:11):
And do they get paid?
Shannon Monaghan (06:12):
They are officially Ukrainian riflemen,
which is the equivalent of aprivate. So they are uniformed
legal combatants. They are, whenthe pay system is functioning,
being paid as Ukrainianprivates. But remember early on
in the war, this is under atremendous amount of stress.
Frequently they don't haveeverything that they need.
(06:36):
They're being supplied as muchas the Ukrainians possibly can.
It's not like they're beingtreated differently. You know,
arguably they might've beentreated better. But there are
some moments of, of prettysevere, stress, when you're, you
are watching buildings gettingshelled while you're eating your
Milka cookies and creamchocolate bar because that's
what we've got that day.
Moira (06:57):
That's on the menu. No protein. Just that. Okay.
Shannon Monaghan (07:00):
Yeah.
Moira (07:01):
Now you did mention some of the people in this core
group. Let's go over all of themand and give us a a sense of the
age range on these people.
Shannon Monaghan (07:10):
Yeah. I think one of the things that surprised
many people about the war inUkraine is that this isn't a
bunch of 18 year olds. For avariety of reasons, both the
Russians and the Ukrainians havechosen to conscript from bulges
in their demographic pyramid ofmen who are older. But what's
interesting about this group isthat these aren't 18 year old
(07:31):
cowboys either. These people,with the exception of our Texan,
all had military experience.
They'd been in the military.They'd gotten out of the
military, so they're in mostlytheir late 20s and 30s. There's
a former US Navy SEAL named Dan.There's Ginger, the former
(07:51):
infantryman I mentioned. Thereis a former US Army Ranger named
Beaver, and they're not allAmericans, so there's also a
group of French foreignlegionaries that they work with,
one of whom ends up on theirteam named George, who's
Canadian, but has served in theFrench foreign legion, not in
(08:13):
the Canadian army, and they areall working under Ukrainian
commanders.
So, that's the other rule toremember as well, that you have
these foreigners, but theydon't, with the exception of our
medic, Greg, who was born inUkraine but brought to Canada
when he was a child and grew upthere and had actually gone
(08:35):
back, They don't speakUkrainian, so obviously you need
to have that liaison with yourofficers. Their commanders, a
man named Alexey Shiboshov, veryinteresting man who He was
actually a television star inUkraine, a journalist actually.
Moira (08:51):
He was a what?
Shannon Monaghan (08:52):
He was a television star. He was a
journalist.
Moira (08:56):
They all television stars in Ukraine from the president on
down?
Shannon Monaghan (09:01):
No, multi talented people. So Aleksey had
had a TV show before the war hadstarted and it was a reality
show. For part of the show, hewas going through the Ukrainian
Special Forces training system,actually, like I mentioned,
selection earlier, and he madeit. And he actually ended up
(09:21):
going into the army. He had comeout before the war started and
then rejoined when the Russiansinvaded, and actually he ended
up as their commander.
And then there was his second incommand whose call sign was
pirate because he had thisrather tremendous ish beard. So
that was kind of who's in chargeof this whole
Moira (09:47):
listening to Tech Nation. I'm Moira Gannon. My guest today
is military historian doctorShannon Monahan. You may know
her from one of her books,including a quiet company of
dangerous men. She's here todaywith to die with such men,
frontline stories from Ukraine'sInternational Legion.
(10:08):
Well, as we go along throughouthistory, all military history is
a story of technology. You know?It's like suddenly you could
break down this wall or suddenlyyou could you have some
capability. What was shocking tome is in addition to whatever
equipment they were provided,some of which, you know, it's
(10:30):
like these are very it'sfamiliar. You know, you were
talking about the Bren's,rifles, and, you know, Javelins.
I mean, you're you're talkingabout the real stuff on the
front line. Well, they all hadcell phones. They had
connections to the Internet fromStarlink. They could call
anybody they wanted.
Shannon Monaghan (10:48):
Yeah. Which is just tremendously different. So
I think this war has beenobviously the technological
evolution from February 2022 tonow has been absolutely
tremendous and is more thananyone ever expected. But it's
come with also with this kind ofhigh low mix. So on one hand we
(11:09):
have, these guys do have aStarlink terminal and they have,
you can have cell phone accessthough for security reasons
people are using clean phones.
They're always a tremendous riskif you're captured and whatnot.
The Ukrainians have developed areally impressive essentially
battle management system whereyou can know where you are and
(11:30):
friendly forces and whatnot on amap basically. You mentioned the
Javelins, which was actuallyreally important early on.
Ginger, who I mentioned, was atrained Javelin gunner. Early
when you have Russian tanks andarmor moving through, being able
to target them with this veryvaluable American weapon
tremendous.
(11:51):
But I was actually initiallytrained as a first world war
historian way back when. What Inever was not on my bingo card
that the cheap Mavic DJI dronewas going to be the barbed wire
of the twenty first century.Here we are with, as they say, a
completely transparent battlespace with everything from those
(12:14):
little DJI quadcopters to muchmore sophisticated drones that,
or, or drones that have now beenspecially purpose built to take
out other drones or to interfereor now have thermal on them or
the first person view suicidedrones. It's a whole new world.
Moira (12:34):
A whole new world. And when you say thermal, they're
able to detect humans andanimals.
Shannon Monaghan (12:40):
Yeah. Anything with a heat signature. So it
will see it will see humans. Itwill see animals. It will also
see a running engine, right?
So actually the Javelin, whichuses a dual computer system, the
Javelin missile is heat seekingand you will actually look
through a thermal computer whenyou get the lock on that target
(13:01):
and what it's looking for issomething thermal because it's
obviously designed to hitsomething expensive. What it's
what you're mostly going to useit on is something like that.
Moira (13:13):
So far, we've been talking about this sort of from
a bird's eye view or perhapswe'll just say, these days, a
drone's eye view. You take usfrom the battle of Kyiv, through
the fall of Bekhmat, which issome fifteen months with this
group of men. And what struck meabout this is you we are
(13:38):
advancing on the ground withthese people and ex filling and
backfilling and attempting tosleep and engaging in military
operations right from the firstparagraph, right from there
throughout. This isn't about andthen they did that. It's like
this is almost like a diary ofwhat these people are doing.
Shannon Monaghan (13:59):
Yeah. When I was invited to do this, I
thought this would be anopportunity to create a primary
source that we've really neverseen before. Obviously, you can
go and watch as much horrifyingdrone footage and body cam
footage as you'd like. It's allout there on the internet for
(14:20):
everyone to see. But I thoughthaving as a historian, having
tried to piece together what'sactually happening from multiple
perspectives in the past, Ithought it would be very
valuable to be able to do thatwhere we do have so much
information because of thistechnology.
So a lot of these guys arewearing body cams. You know,
(14:41):
those little GoPros, either ontheir helmets or it's attached
to the webbing on their chest.So we do have multiple angles of
the same firefight going on atonce and so I'm able to
essentially give, not to selfaggrandize, but this kind of
Blackhawk Down style view ofwhat the fight is like because I
(15:01):
was able to go through all ofthat footage with them and was
able to do these extensiveinterviews either immediately
afterwards or essentially prettyclose afterwards so that we
really know what happened, whichis oftentimes just tremendously
confusing.
Moira (15:18):
I think it's time, though, we do, reveal that you
do have a personal connectionwith one of the soldiers, which
is part of the invitation. Ofcourse, that brought all of
those soldiers in to provide youwith different information and
connections. What did thatinclude?
Shannon Monaghan (15:37):
Yeah. So I had a personal connection to one of
them. And, well, I guessactually, a silly funny story. I
had just finished the last, Ithink it was the 1,000, one
hundred and ninth footnote frommy last book, which was about an
equally interesting group ofBritish officers who fought
together in World War II and theCold War, and I got this call.
(16:00):
It was June 2022, and the teamhad just gotten out of this huge
battle in Severodonetsk.
It's still the war of movement.The Russians are pushing very
fast in the East, and it waskind of one of these last
stands. They're nearlysurrounded. They've gotten into
some really massive fights inthe city. They had just lost two
(16:25):
men, their commander, AlexeyShiboshov, who I had mentioned,
and a young Brit who had been ona sister team who had been
operating with them.
I do want to indicate they dowork with sister teams and as
the book goes on and time goeson, multiple people beyond who I
just mentioned have been on thisteam and have been huge
(16:46):
contributors. But they were veryaware that what they were doing
was far bigger than them. Thiswas an important story to tell
for Ukraine and for the West.And they were extraordinarily
aware that they were not allgoing to make it out. And so
they said, would you do this?
(17:08):
Would you write this story sothat we can tell it for everyone
else. And my I have to tell youthat my initial reaction was
kind of one of of horror of as ahistorian, you know, I don't do
live ones.
Moira (17:25):
As we're making history? No. No. No. No.
Shannon Monaghan (17:29):
But I had, as a historian, seen so many good
people whose stories I wouldhave loved to have known more
about, would have loved to havebeen able to tell who died
before we could capture thatinformation. I thought that, you
know, I of all people absolutelyhad an obligation to provide
(17:51):
that for them and for thefuture. And so I said yes and
that was just a completelydifferent world. I spent a
tremendous amount of time witheach of them going through their
experiences, tracking them asthey went. And these people
(18:11):
became very close friends ofmine and we spent time reliving
some of the proudest and worstmoments of their lives together.
And I'm very grateful that, thatthey let me do
Moira (18:28):
it. I have to say that, of the many histories that I've
read and the data that comes outof them, some there's some very
famous ones, you know, about howthey took diaries and all that,
put together charts, and thiskind of thing. The idea that you
could ask a question at aparticular day, it's like, hey.
(18:49):
But what about that other thing,you know, you wrote in the diary
yesterday would be incrediblyvaluable.
Shannon Monaghan (18:56):
It is. I think it also helps us understand the
confusion, particularly ofmodern urban warfare. There have
been moments in which someonehas said to me, Do you know what
happened right there? We're alltrying to reconstruct in the
aftermath. Where was that tankthat nearly took us apart?
(19:17):
Actually, a couple of weeks ago,George texted me and said, Can I
have another copy of that mapyou drew or Severinetsk that
shows everyone's positions?Because I used to have it and I
really wanted it. So it's aninteresting experience to try to
find all of that because we allknow that memory isn't perfect,
(19:37):
right? We all know that you canbe really certain in your memory
and yet it can be inaccurate insome specific way that might be
very small or that might be veryimportant. To have that
overlapping ability to figureout what what indeed actually
happened was, as a historian,you know, tremendously valuable.
Moira (20:01):
Now also of interest to me was not just the, here we
are, here's what we're doing,and all of that. Frequently,
when they overtake what had beenheld by Russians, it was amazing
the amount of intelligence andthe kind of intelligence they
could get by what the Russiansleft behind.
Shannon Monaghan (20:21):
Yes. On one hand, obviously you have
intelligence out of drones andintercepted radio chatter and
whatnot. There's this moment inthis battle in Severodonets
where they lose two men wherethey find out after the fact
from their intel guys that theRussians were convinced that
(20:41):
they'd been hit by a battalion.Now, a battalion in The US at
the very least would be about athousand men. There were about
20 something guys who hit theRussians in this particular spot
on that day, but they brought somany rockets and firepower with
them and were so aggressive thatthe Russians were convinced
there was more.
There's that version, but youalso end up moving into a place
(21:04):
and you pick up weapons thatthey've left behind and material
like this, which goes again tothe technology. This doesn't get
included in the book, later, youknow, obviously still in touch
with one's friends. They endedup in Actually, this was near
Bachmann. They ended up in atrench where they picked up two
(21:25):
World War II era guns and wereusing them. One was an MG 42,
You know, the famous Germanmachine gun.
And the other was something thatwas called, it was referred to
as a sewing machine because itmade this rotten noise. So it
gives you this kind ofindication of the different
(21:49):
positions than the other guys.
Moira (21:51):
Perhaps not as well equipped. We have drones and
World War II rifle. I mean, it'slike, wait.
Shannon Monaghan (21:58):
Yes. I actually found this rather
interesting as well. Obviously,as the technology has developed,
each side is getting better andbetter at countering drones. But
there was that moment early onwhen the drones start to get
really big where everyonerealizes the cheapest way to
deal with this because shotexchange value is so important.
I don't want to spend a 100times what that other thing
(22:21):
costs shooting it down.
That some World War II era andvery old stuff was actually
really good for shooting downdrones because essentially you
don't need a very sophisticatedfire control system and you had
it. So, again, a very strangemix.
Moira (22:36):
But at the end of the day, you are a military
historian besides collecting andcataloging all this information.
You and I'm quoting here. I'mgoing, my goodness. How did she
do this? Here's the quote.
Compared time stamps, isolatedaudio, cross check quotes,
stories, after action reports,timelines, and photographic and
(23:00):
video evidence, gone back andasked clarifying questions over
and over, checked kit, comparedsuppressed versus unsuppressed
fire, and examined bulletreports and impact. It's like
how this is an enormous task.How do you coordinate? How do
you drive all of thisinformation?
Shannon Monaghan (23:21):
Oh, and we have to you have to go battle by
battle really, but, I think Iwas so driven like they were to
just kind of figure out whathappened that you're really
trying to work down thetimeline. It was a great relief
figuring out what happenedexactly where. But I would also
(23:44):
say that it was for me, youknow, as the historian, but also
personally some of the mostrewarding and hardest part of
the experience to isolate theshot that you know kills
someone, you know, to figure outexactly which blast happened
where that kills someone else.It's something I had not
(24:08):
obviously had not done beforeand was a something I was
willing to do in order to get tothe most accurate picture that
we needed.
Moira (24:20):
How has this experience changed you as a military
historian?
Shannon Monaghan (24:25):
I think we'll have to answer that with the
next book.
Moira (24:30):
Good.
Shannon Monaghan (24:32):
I think it gives you even more than I
already had a deep appreciationfor how hard it is to do the
work on the ground and hasdramatically lessened my
patience, for the armchair viewof why can't you just do it this
(24:53):
way or the armchair criticism,that really knows nothing about
what it's actually like to bethe guy being shot at or the guy
carrying your dead friendthrough artillery fire in order
to get them out because this isnot a war with immediate
helicopter Kazakhs that's goingto put you on a plane to
Rammstein. It is a lot harder.
Moira (25:16):
Well, doctor Monahan, thank you so much for coming in,
and and thank you for your book.I hope you come and see us
again.
Shannon Monaghan (25:22):
Thank you so much.
Moira (25:24):
My guest today is doctor Shannon Monahan. Her book is to
die with such men, FrontlineStories from Ukraine's
International Legion. It'spublished by Hearst. I'm Moira
Gunn. You're listening to TechNation.
It's published by Hearst. ForTech Nation, I'm Moira Gunn.
Great. Got it. That's good.
(25:46):
We'll sell a lot of books. Nowdon't hang up. We
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