08-28-25 *INTERVIEW* News Nation Correspondent Robert Sherman on Recent Ukraine Attacks

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Robert Sherman is a Washington correspondent and foreign correspondent for NewsNation.
My listeners know that News Nation is the cable news
network that my wife and I watch most of By
far now they've kind of replaced everybody else because I
love the quality of the programming and the lack of bias,
and the straight news and the great guests and all that.

(00:22):
And Robert, even though he's Washington correspondent, as I said,
has been in Kiev for quite some time now, and
in a bad, coincidental kind of way, was there last
night when this large attack happened. I just wanted to
talk to a guy who's been in Ukraine for a while. So,
with that overly long introduction, Robert Sherman, thanks for calling
us from Ukraine. It's pleasure to talk to you for

(00:44):
the first time.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Well, thank you for having me. And you're absolutely right.
I mean, it was a really intense to night here
in what you saw about six hundred drones and thirty
missiles fired at our position here in Kiev. The death
sole has now risen to about nineteen people here according
to low officials. I mean, there's all this conversation taking
place across the globe about moving towards peace and Ukraine,
and where you see things like this happening here overnight,

(01:09):
there's pretty low optimism on the ground here that any
piece deal is coming, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
And and I want for this conversation, I want you
to talk to me as if like you and I
are sitting down over a beer, and not necessarily that
you're on your network functioning really as a straight news reporter.
I kind of want some of your your your feelings
as much as I as much as I want news reporting.
So what was it, What was it like for you

(01:36):
last night? How close were you to any of this?
What's the feeling there?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know? I mean the feeling is one of really desperation,
to be honest with you, I mean, we typically stay
in downtown Keys near Independent Square, which typically doesn't come
under significant fire. But I mean these strips were less
than a mile away from all of that, So that's
a bit of a rarity in and of itself. But
I mean you also see, you know the EU Diplomatic

(02:05):
building that I mean that took damage. I mean the
British Council which is an English school here that took damage.
I mean it's just you look around, you see all
these residential buildings just again and again getting pounded. And
I mean I mean, I mean a number of lives
impacted here. I mean it's not just the people in
those buildings, friends, friends of friends, family members. I mean,

(02:29):
it's it's a wide spanning impact here.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
When you're there for you know, a month at a time,
do you live in fear? Do you have to just
put it all out of your mind completely and just
pretend it's not even happening, or is this something in between?
You know?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
One of my producers made this comment, you know, because
I've been in Ukraine a few times, and it's you're
you're completely safe until you're not right, you know. I
mean it's during the day in Kiev. I mean you
walk around and there are people, you know who are
you at the at the Mancha shop, you know, I
mean drinking you know, their tea or whatever. They're out
walking their dog and they're trying to lead a normal

(03:08):
life eating ice cream cones. Then all of a sudden,
the sirens come out of nowhere and the whole dynamic changes.
So you're fine until you're not is a really accurate
way of saying it, and I mean, what's what becomes
most troublesome is the most dangerous attacks come at about
four o'clock in the morning almost every single time, so
people are asleep, and you know, I mean, we're all human, right,

(03:31):
I mean, people don't want to roll out of bed
at four o'clock in the morning. They don't want to
pick up their blankets and go to the subway station,
you know, in order to survive tonight. But that's what
people do. I mean, that's I mean, that's the reality
that people have. It's a total disruption on data day. Oh,
I think we.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
We're going to hang up and hopefully he'll, hopefully we'll
call right back. We'll see, right Obviously he's calling from
Key of Ukraine right now. And you know that can
happen that I arranged this a couple of days ago,
not knowing that there would be a New York Times
headline that I would wake up to this morning, two
weeks after Trump talks Russia Bombard's Kiev, killing at least

(04:16):
eighteen and then the subhead he's calling back now. The
subhead is the strikes which hit a five story apartment building,
a shopping mall, and buildings used by European governments where
the largest on the Ukrainian capital since the Alaska summit.
So all right, we've got Robert back. So Robert, what's
the mindset of ordinary Ukrainian citizens? And I don't mean

(04:40):
so much about the fear or not fear part, but
about the war and about what comes next and about
any kind of prospects for peace. What's that kind of mindset?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Like? Yeah, you know, I mean it's I mean, people's
minds are all over the place. I mean, I mean,
people have very low optionanism here. You know that anything
good is going to come out of this. Someone someone
made a comment to us that there's a joke here
in Ukraine. You know that it's you know, in two
to three weeks this will all be over. And people
have been saying that since the start of the war,

(05:13):
you know, So I mean people are just really expecting
all of this to continue on here. And you know,
I'm not sure you know where I was, you know
in this last comment, you know here before you know,
we lost the cell service, you know, But I mean,
oftentimes these attacks that come at four o'clock in the morning,
and you know, I mean people you know, roll out
of bed, you know, and they bring their blankets to

(05:33):
the subway station. That's the only realistic way that people
are going to be safe in some of these circumstances.
And as I was kind of saying, you know, people
are human now, I mean people, you know, I have
to make these choices at four o'clock in the morning.
You know, I'm so exhausted. Do I want to get
out of bed or not and go to the subway station?
You know, maybe this strike won't hit my community, you know,

(05:53):
maybe it'll hit a couple of pounds over. I mean,
you never know. I mean people, you know. I mean
that's why you have to be ever vigilant, you know,
because you're safe until you're not. And I mean it's
it's just the everyday reality that people have to deal
with on the ground here.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Do you think they are still as steadfast as ever?
And I want to maybe compare this a little bit
to to what's going on in Israel, right, And these
countries are very different. Israel is a much much smaller country,
and the mindset of israelis when it comes, for example,
to rescuing hostages, is very different from the mindset really

(06:29):
anywhere else in the world. And you get you get
something of a sense in Israel that they're they're tired
of the war and they would like to end the war.
But it's a very different situation because since October seventh,
Israel is not really being attacked like today, Israel does
not have risk of being destroyed or eliminated. But Ukraine,

(06:52):
their own sovereign territory, is being attacked every day. So
I'm wondering about the mindset of the people you talk to,
their willingness to continue the war for as long as
it takes.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
You know, I mean, it's it's a really complicated question,
you know. I mean, on the one hand, you know
when I when I first got here to Ukraine just
days after the war started, you know, we would meet people,
you know, who were Ukrainians across the globe who were
coming back to Ukraine fighting h men, you know, believing
like this is you know, this is this is a

(07:25):
make or break moment for the country. And people still
feel that way. I mean, you talk to every Ukrainian.
No one buys that Russia only wants eastern Ukraine. They
believe that Russia's ultimate goal is, you know, either total
control of Ukraine or to facto control of Ukraine, so
they believe that their sovereignty is legitimately on the line.
And you see these attacks that are carried out here,

(07:48):
and there are times in which people they see the
large losses of life in eastern Ukraine and they say,
can we really continue to go on? But when you
see these attacks that are carried out on redsidential buildings
and you see, you know, children that are being killed, all.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Right, this this is what happens. Hopefully I'll call back
one more time. He's in Ukraine. It's a war zone.
It's you know, it's it's uh, these things happen. It's
it's live radio. Imagine that being an American reporter being
in Ukraine, being in now Kiv is not the place
that has the most attacks. It's not as if he's

(08:28):
in eastern Ukraine where the war is actually going on.
But the attacks are increasing and and last night Russia
launched what was six hundred drones almost six hundred, yeah,
five hundred ninety eight drones according to the Ukrainian government.
So Russia launched five hundred and ninety ninety eight drones
and thirty one missiles overnight overnight in Kiev and Robert

(08:53):
Sherman from from News Nation is is there so you
want to finish that thought.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Yeah, it's sorry that the signal keeps going in and okay,
it's just kind of the reality here. I mean, you know,
I mean what I would say is is that you know,
I mean, I mean, wars go in cycles, right, you know,
and there are times, you know, when people are all
in on the war efforts, and there are times, you know,
when when when people get very fatigued by the war.
I would say that we're back into a reinvigorated cycle

(09:23):
here in Ukraine, just because you have seen all these
attacks on civilian sites in recent days. That's what infuriates
people here. I mean, you have multiple children that are
dead after this attack last night, and so you know, people,
you know, the Kremlin says one thing, you know, I mean,
it serves your lab off the foig minutes or just
went I'll meet the press the evidence, because we've never
targeted a civilian site since the start the war. And

(09:46):
people hear that and they say, you know, that's that's ridiculous.
You know, I mean you just saw you know, a
civilian site come under fire overnight here, you know, So
that's what invigorates people to keep going. There is also
a recognition that they can't do this forever. But I
mean when I was just in the don Vass the
other day speaking with some of these Ukrainian troops, I
mean they were saying, we're prepared to go on for
ten years if that's what it takes, you know. So

(10:08):
I mean that's you see a multitude of mindsets here,
But I'd say people are still prepared to keep going
because they don't see an end in sight.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
How do the Ukrainian people feel about President Zelensky right now?

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Overall? I would say that there is a pretty positive
disposition towards Olensky because if cooper rating isn't as high
as the beginning of the war and which you saw
everyone was shelving their political differences and uniting around the government.
By and large, people are still united around the government.
You know, there were demonstrations that took place here about
a month ago because Zelensky was trying to defang some

(10:44):
of the anti corruption agencies here. And there's a big
problem on the ground in Ukraine because there are major
Russian influences and there are fears, you know that one
day a puppet Russian government could ultimately take control against here.
So it's a huge concern that they have had Ukrainian
public coming out and demonstrating against Zelensky because I mean,

(11:05):
they there's a long history of corruption in Ukraine. People
want that to end. And so, you know, it was
the one of the few times in which you've seen
people coming out against Lensky. And he heard all of
the demonstrations, that he saw the protests and he backed down.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Wow, we'll see. We'll see if he gives up. Look,
he's in Ukraine, all right, we'll see. We'll see if
he gives up. I think this is an interesting and
important conversation. And if the dude is willing to keep
calling back, all I can do is say thank you.
I'm not going to be I'm not going to be
upset that the cell phone signal is dropping when a
dude is calling us from basically a war zone, you know.

(11:44):
So there's that. We'll we'll we'll see if he calls back.
Someone asked me this morning, or Marty. Marty asked me
this morning when we were doing that crossover at the
you know, end of his show, in the beginning of
my show, how do I think this ends, and there's
a there's a chance that it doesn't end until and
unless Vladimir Putin is dead, and even then it's not

(12:07):
a sure thing that whoever would replace Putin would stop
the war. Maybe maybe it depends who's around to influence him,
It depends what China does, It depends if, if, if,
It depends if President Trump has has any influence on
him about that.