On April 9th, 2022, the Ukrainian garrison in Mariupol attempted a mass breakout. Around 400 men were killed in a single night. The attempt failed. Three days later, Senior Sergeant Ievgen Malik's unit — cut off, out of food, out of ammunition — made the decision to surrender. What came next took two and a half years.

In this first of two episodes with Rob Lee — FPRI Senior Fellow and one of the world's most respected Russian military analysts — Ievgen Malik details the final days of the Battle of Mariupol: the failed breakout, the capture of a 19-year-old Russian conscript sent in with a cigarette lighter, the negotiations on a bridge with a colonel and a T-72 tank, and the decision to surrender with 90 men still alive.

Then: Sartana, Olenivka, a flight into Russia blindfolded, and the beginning of interrogations at Ryazhsk prison. Rob Lee brings the same precise analytical approach he applies to the battlefield — and the result is the most detailed first-hand account of Mariupol's final chapter, and what Russian captivity actually looks like, that you will find anywhere.

Part 2 continues in Ep9.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction (Sam Cook)

04:39 Rob Lee Sets the Scene

05:40 90 Men at the Agla Factory — Ievgen Introduces Himself

08:13 The Surrender Order: April 12th and 13th

08:54 April 9th — 400 Dead in One Night: The Breakout That Failed

16:47 A Colonel From the Security Service — Negotiations Begin

18:34 The 19-Year-Old With the Lighter: Capturing a Russian Conscript

21:02 The Bridge — a Colonel, a T-72, and an Exchange Offer

23:21 "There Is a Chance to Survive" — the Decision to Surrender

27:17 Buses to Sartana — and the Australian They Shot on Sight

31:59 Olenivka: 830 Prisoners

36:13 "An Exchange Through Russia" — the Flight Into the Unknown

42:09 Ryazhsk Prison: Processing

48:02 The Screams Down the Hall

53:10 "Did You Shoot Our Troops?" — the Interrogation

1:08:29 The Sticks: What Torture Implements Actually Do

1:11:55 "Captivity Is 10 Times Worse Than Mariupol"

1:13:19 "Every Day I Thought — Why Didn't I Shoot Myself"

1:13:40 Random Beatings: When Violence Becomes Entertainment

1:19:28 Room 19

1:26:53 Propaganda Is the Nuclear Weapon of the 21st Century

1:30:43 Waterboarding

1:33:57 Outro & Sponsors

🎧 Listen & subscribe: All episodes: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.org/ Apple: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/d6Vm9D Spotify: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/bEE3Y9 Amazon: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/hun4CH Castbox: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/fwdd5A ▶ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistory 📩 Two Marines (Rob & Dmytro): https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/wt9OCK

Produced by the Borderlands Foundation.

Ievgen Malik grew up in Poltava — one of the most historically loaded cities in Ukraine, home to the 1709 battle that ended the last independent Ukrainian hetmanate. He studied international relations in the Czech Republic, watched Maidan from abroad, and understood immediately what Crimea meant. He tried to enlist in 2014. His parents stopped him. In 2018, he went to Mykolaiv, signed a contract with the 1st Separate Marine Battalion — Ukraine's oldest — and then went home and showed his parents the paper.

This episode is the origin story. Sam Cook sits down with Senior Sergeant Malik to trace the path from civilian life to the frontlines: what made him a Marine, what life in the battalion was really like, and what it meant to fight for Mariupol — a city that had no way out — for nearly two months, knowing from the very first march that the only outcomes were death or captivity.

The next two episodes (Ep8 and Ep9), with Rob Lee, pick up exactly where this one ends.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction (Sam Cook)

09:24 Poltava: Growing Up at the Heart of Ukraine

11:01 Two Statues, One City — Peter the Great and Mazepa

15:29 Maidan and the Question of Identity

16:48 Crimea Changes Everything — "War With Aliens Would End Faster"

19:30 Donbas 2014: 138,000 Soldiers on Paper

21:27 Coming Back to Ukraine in 2015

23:52 Army: Plan B Becomes Plan A

26:36 Mykolaiv: Signing the Contract Without Telling His Parents

27:03 Basic Training: This Is Not the Movies

29:29 Life in the Battalion — Living on the Range

32:29 Two Rotations Before the War

35:19 February 24, 2022: "Take Your Stuff and Come to Mariupol"

38:53 One Week Before the Storm

41:20 The War Starts: Holding the Northeast of the City

47:13 Weapons, Ammunition, and What They Had to Fight With

55:14 Under Russian Artillery

1:07:28 The Retreat: 15 Kilometers on Foot

1:15:17 The Left Flank Collapses — the 53rd Breaks

1:19:43 Village by Village

1:22:52 Completely Surrounded: The Order to Hold

1:25:59 Neptune, Charlie, Agla — the Factory Positions

1:32:12 Selecting the Best of the Best

1:33:46 One Month at Agla: March 16 to the End

1:34:54 Night Fights Without Night Vision — the Man With the Lighter

1:37:28 "They Truly Believed It Would Be Three Weeks"

1:38:16 A Month Under Aircraft, Iskanders, and Artillery

1:39:00 Running Out of Food — and Cigarettes

1:42:14 "When You Don't See the Way Out, You Start to Do Crazy Things"

1:46:39 "We Knew We Were Done From the Neptune March"

1:47:44 What the Battle of Mariupol Actually Changed

1:51:52 Sponsors

🎧 Listen & subscribe: All episodes: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.org/ Apple: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/d6Vm9D Spotify: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/bEE3Y9 Amazon: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/hun4CH Castbox: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/fwdd5A ▶ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistory 📩 Two Marines (Rob & Dmytro): https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/wt9OCK

Rob Lee sits down with Lieutenant Colonel Vladyslav "Shram" Tovstyi — commander of UAV Battalion "Corsair" within Ukraine's 38th Marine Brigade, operating in one of the hottest sectors on the Donetsk front. Tovstyi built the Corsair battalion from scratch in 2022, starting with two men and a Mavic, and scaled it into a five-division drone force that became a model for the entire Marine Corps.In this conversation, he breaks down exactly how modern drone warfare works from inside a frontline UAV battalion: the three-layer strike doctrine (close / mid / deep), why fiber optic FPVs are a situational tool not a panacea, how Russia's Rubicon unit operates and teaches other units, what losing Starlink access actually changed for Russian operations, and the uncomfortable truth about Ukraine's point-based incentive system for drone kills. Featured in The Washington Post, Tovstyi is one of the most experienced drone commanders speaking openly about this fight.Produced by the Ukraine Military History Institute under the Borderlands Foundation.Timecodes: 00:00 Introduction & sponsors (Sam Cook)03:00 Rob Lee opens — guest introduction03:35 How Corsair UAV Battalion was built from scratch in 202204:40 The drone battlefield today: technology replacing manpower in positions05:10 Seasons and drone war — why winter is the deadliest time to move06:50 Russian infiltration tactics: small groups, same routes, wave after wave08:20 38th Brigade at Myrnohrad: 2,000 Russian casualties in two months08:25 Rubicon — Russia's elite drone unit and how they train other formations09:35 Russia scaling unmanned systems forces: echeloned, organized, spreading fast10:45 What changed when Russia lost Starlink access13:55 Three-layer doctrine: Deep Strike, Mid Strike, and close attack explained16:20 Fiber optic FPVs — Ukraine at 40%, Russia at 50%, and why China changed the math19:35 Starlink on heavy bomber drones — how it's being used now20:55 Hit rates: 40–50 FPVs per day, radio vs. fiber optic accuracy by range25:15 Fighting the enemy in tall buildings — antennas on skyscrapers26:55 UGV ground logistics: 200kg per run, keeping frontline positions alive29:10 Heavy bomber drones: 20 missions a day, logistics vs. strike trade-offs32:25 The point system — perverse incentives in Ukraine's drone scoring34:15 The Corsair structure: five divisions that became the Marine Corps model35:05 Lessons for foreign militaries: kill bureaucracy, think situationally, pick motivated people37:15 Russian mobilization — will another 300,000 change anything?39:40 Molniya FPVs: 200–300 inbound per day, half suppressed, half attacking🎧 Listen & subscribe:All episodes: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.org/Apple: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/d6Vm9DSpotify: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/bEE3Y9Amazon: https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/hun4CH▶ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@UkraineMilitaryHistory📩 Two Marines (Rob & Dmytro): https://ukrainemilitaryhistory.s.gy/wt9OCK