Reporting live from Kyiv, Cipher Brief expert and former senior CIA officer Ralph Goff walks CEO and Publisher Suzanne Kelly through a drone strike that hit the SBU headquarters in the heart of the city, and what it signals about Russia's improving jet-powered drone capability and Ukraine's thinning air defenses. Goff discusses the surprising resilience of Kyiv residents in the strike's aftermath, an 8-to-1 battlefield casualty ratio he attributes to Ukraine's ISR dominance, and why the country's innovation edge no longer hinges on any single official.
Kelly: You've been on the ground in Kyiv for a couple of days, but there was quite an incident this morning. There have been near-nonstop air raids for more than a week now. Tell us about where you were and what you heard this morning.
Goff: Today in Kyiv we had some air raid alerts overnight, then some in the morning, and a couple more during the day. But today was followed up with a couple of drone strikes right in the middle of Kyiv. Early this afternoon, one struck the headquarters of the Internal Security Service, the SBU, which seems like a very deliberate, targeted attack by the Russians. Unfortunately, there were some casualties, I don't think anyone was killed, but there were wounded, and some damage to the building. It was a very clear sign from the Russians that their jet-powered Geran drones are not only hard to intercept, but very accurate.
Kelly: This is really concerning. Having been in that area of Kyiv with you several times in the past, that's essentially the inner circle, where the government operates from. We've been wondering how long it would be before some of these significant targets got hit, given Ukraine's shortage of anti-missile systems. What's it been like on the ground since you arrived three or four days ago? Is there a heightened sense of anxiety?
Goff: There is, among parts of the population, but I'd say for most people it's more a heightened sense of annoyance. Here we had a drone strike right in the heart of Kyiv, at the SBU building, and most people's biggest concern afterward was how it messed up traffic downtown, it's a major artery, so there were traffic jams all around. History is replete with examples where so-called strategic bombing of civilian targets or major cities to break the will of an enemy has never worked, and I don't see that working here either.
I do think it's a clear sign that Ukraine has to find a way to close the gap and counter these new high-speed, high-performance drones. We hear reports of an 85 to 90 percent interception rate on conventional, piston-engine drones, the regular Shahed-type drones. But with the jet-powered drones, we've heard the interception rate drops to much lower figures, which I won't get into because I don't want to give the enemy that kind of data. And when it comes to missiles, the press has already reported that the Ukrainians are so low on counter-missile capabilities that they rarely intercept any ballistic missiles launched into Ukraine.
Kelly: When you're watching this war from afar, it's hard to get a clear sense of how much time is left before Kyiv, Lviv, and other major cities are in real trouble. Kyiv has always had the strongest air defenses. Is Kyiv running out of time?
Goff: I don't think they're running out of time so much as, I think they will close the gap, they will solve the technical issues and improve their defenses, but it will take time, and they'll suffer in the meantime. I'll say it's going to be a bad winter; I'm fairly certain of that. But the Russians didn't break the Ukrainian spirit last winter, and they won't break it this year either.
On the other hand, there's an interesting dichotomy of feelings and morale. At the front, I was talking to a friend who's been deeply involved in providing intelligence assistance to frontline units, a non-governmental source, and he said that for the first time since he's been here, every unit he visited had high morale. We're looking at a battlefield now where the casualty ratio is probably eight to one in favor of the Ukrainians. Eight to one, that's an astounding number. So you have this high morale at the front, where soldiers are saying, “we think we can pull this off.” And then in the cities, you have people increasingly concerned about the welfare of their families and children because of these blatantly terroristic attacks on civilian targets. There's a real dichotomy emerging in the middle of this war.
Kelly: On that eight-to-one figure, is that because so much of the fighting on the front lines now is essentially robot-on-robot, drone-on-drone combat? Or is something else driving that number?
Goff: That's a large part of it, but at the end of the day you still need soldiers fighting soldiers. What it comes down to is who has better mastery of the battlefield, and the Ukrainians have information dominance. On top of that, they're the defenders, they can dig in and weather the storm, whereas the Russians are still relying on high-cost, high-attrition tactics, sending soldiers out literally in ones and twos to try to infiltrate Ukrainian positions. But they're very vulnerable, because the battlefield has become so saturated with drone coverage and surveillance, what we call ISR, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The Ukrainians have really mastered that, and it's given them a huge advantage. That could change, the Russians aren't sitting back, they're innovating too, but for now the Ukrainians have an edge, and they're going to keep innovating to maintain it.
Kelly: There have been a lot of headlines about domestic issues President Zelensky is dealing with this week in Kyiv, even as he wages this war, including the departure of Minister Fedorov, who's been pushing forward on defense technology and made some announcements this week here in the US. What's different this time in terms of the strength, stability, and unity of the government? We know the unity of the people is hard to break, but how are you looking at this through the government lens?
Goff: The big difference now is that the innovation and technical advances made by the Ukrainians don't depend on one person. This isn't some technological breakthrough that depends on one minister or one ministry, it's government-wide, across the various ministries and different commands. It's a multi-echelon effort where technological innovation isn't just pushed down to the lowest levels, it's driven by the lowest levels. It runs from top to bottom and bottom to top. So whether you change a minister or change a commander, like the change from Syrskyi to Drapatyi, that doesn't change. The innovation has reached all levels, and it's here to stay.
Kelly: I'm jealous The Cipher Brief isn't there with you right now, we usually are, and we like being there because you're attending a number of interesting and enlightening meetings while in Kyiv. Has anything surprised you this time, or really stuck with you, from this round of meetings?
Goff: Nothing ever really surprises me here. I think one of the reasons I come is for my own benefit, I always leave more inspired than when I arrived. A good example: we had this horrendous drone strike in the middle of the city, and within minutes people were just going about their daily lives. The emergency response was there, I watched ambulances flowing to the scene, first responders arriving. I actually marveled at that, because my initial instinct was to stay away, given the Russian penchant for the “double tap”, hit the target, wait a few minutes until first responders arrive, then hit it again. Even knowing that's a Russian tactic, the first responders were there within minutes.
As I continued on to my next meeting, people were going about their lives, doing their shopping, going to work, going to the grocery store. They weren't deterred by the event. And while that doesn't surprise me, it does inspire me.
Kelly: What about the significance of the SBU? A lot of people may not understand exactly what it does, it's similar to intelligence gathering but with other functions too, almost a combination of the CIA and FBI if we're relating it to the US. Tell us about some of its operations and why it's an important organization in Ukraine.
Goff: It's an important organization because, yes, they have the primary mandate for internal security in Ukraine, but they're also involved in long-range strikes into Russia. If you see press reporting on some sort of assassination attempt, like the Russian air force general who was shot the other day, that's pretty much the SBU, showing they have a long reach into Russia. So they're playing on multiple levels, and they're an important player. This is a sign that Russia knows who they are and where they are.
But taking out the SBU headquarters is probably inconvenient for some time, and there will be losses. The Ukrainians have decentralized much the same way they've decentralized the structure of their military intelligence community, they've decentralized command and control. So if you take out the SBU headquarters, I'm sure within minutes there's a backup headquarters and contingency plans in place. The Ukrainians are well aware of Russia's capability to strike their headquarters.
Kelly: It's been a little while since you were working as a CIA station chief, you held six different postings in that role. If you were filing something back to the United States today, what's the most important thing you'd want people to understand about what you're seeing there?
Goff: That the war is entering a different phase. And if the war is entering a different phase, it means the Ukrainians are going to have to react differently, which means their allies are going to have to react differently, which means those of us in the intelligence community are also going to have to change our game and adjust. We're going to have to be prepared to support the Ukrainian effort to defend themselves, and if that means an active defense against the Russians, that would be my recommendation.
Kelly: Goff, thank you so much for taking the time. We know you're on the streets of Kyiv trying to stay safe, though it doesn't look like you're too worried about it, and it sounds like most people there aren't either at the moment. Still, some of these targets are getting hit in the center of the city, so please be as safe as possible. Thank you for joining us at The Cipher Brief today.
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