War correspondent Ukraine.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday Morning with us from Tennessee is a good friend, Mitchi Purdue Mollant. She was the wife of my good friend Frank Purdue, and she’s on to new adventures and Mitzi, I understand your war corresponding now in the Ukraine, tell us what have you been doing.

0:21 Speaker 2 I’ve been there four times, usually the guests of the Ukrainian Police, and they’re the ones who document war crimes. So I’ve seen more than my share of that. But I’ve also seen some reasons to be optimistic about what’s going to happen in Ukraine. You ready, yes, Okay. My last trip, which was a month ago, I got to

0:42 see something that very few people ever see, and that is I got to see the headquarters of a drone battalion. Now, this is in Kiev, and it’s in this kind of run down area of Kiev. You’re not quite a slum, but it’s just, you know, it’s not up scale. You walk in the front door and it’s like James Bond

1:04 because shabby outside and inside. I don’t know how many people I’m looking at, but it might have been fifty, and they’re all in front of huge widescreen TV panels.

1:15 Speaker 1 And they’re there.

1:17 Speaker 2 These are drone pilots and they’re piloting drones that are on the on the battlefront.

1:23 Speaker 1 And I used to see that of the movies.

1:26 Speaker 2 As I said, it’s just like James Bond. And here’s something really cool that I don’t think is generally known. When a drone pilot dials in the coordinates of whatever they’re going to destroy. The way that it gets picked is it’s computer artificial intelligence that does the most wonderful thing.

1:50 It takes information from starlink, It takes information from up to one hundred different people with cell phones who kind of randomly transmit information, and then from the soldiers on the ground, and some kind of artificial intelligence picks out the highest value target that’s within range. So they’re really really smart about who they target. Isn’t that cool?

2:16 Speaker 1 That is very cool? And what is the status of the war? I mean, you’ve been there four times? Do you feel safe for you there?

2:25 Speaker 2 Well? I think I came close to eternity a couple of times. I’m actually an assassination attempt survivor. Shall I tell you about that? Yes, Okay. The third time that I went, I was told don’t go because you’re on Prudent’s murderless. He doesn’t like that that. I got a lot of publicity for selling a very large, perfect emerald

2:49 that Frank Purdue gave me, and I knew that he had approved of my using it for charity, because he was the most philanthropic person I ever met. Well Putin didn’t like the publicity that and I got on the murder list, and I didn’t take it seriously because I thought he probably has half a million people on his

3:06 murder list. But nevertheless, I was in an elevator and this is in Warshaw. There’s a couple. One person bumps into me. The other did what has been done to almost one hundred other journalists. I got an injection in my thigh. I made it to my hotel room, and then I was having most terrible trouble breathing. You can

3:30 imagine by the way, it’s a background noise too much here, No, okay, anyway, I couldn’t breathe, and I knew I should have called the house phone and said help, can’t breathe, But I couldn’t move to do it. But I could still use my fingers, and I typed on my iPad to a Polish friend helped can’t breathe, Room four oh seven Airport Marriott,

3:54 and he called the front desk, and the front desk by I wouldn’t be here if this hadn’t happened. The airport ambulance was right in the in the area, and they came in and they gave me the antidote to nova check. And I was still sick for a couple of months afterwards. I had heart issues I had.

4:12 Speaker 1 UH.

4:13 Speaker 2 I had such inflammation that if had gotten one spec worse, UH, I would have lost all my money.

4:19 Speaker 1 I am glad you’re back in the United States of America. We uh. And I’m glad you’re safe. Yeah.

4:27 Speaker 2 If if if they make you, if you make them mad. Uh, it’s just not a good thing.

4:32 Speaker 1 There’s a lot of places like that lately, Mitchie. We love you good hearing your voice. I’m glad you’re okay, and we look forward to seeing you in New York.

4:42 Speaker 2 I look forward to it very very much.