Why Israel's drones have changed the future of war

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Hey, folks, don't worry, Matt Bevan is on his way, but I'm Erin Park, and I just wanted to tell you about my new podcast.

It's called Expanse, Nowhere Man.

It's about how in 1999, a young American wandered into one of Australia's deadliest deserts with barely any food and water on purpose, triggering a media storm and one of the biggest searches Australia had ever seen.

Stick around at the end of this episode of If You're Listening to hear a taste of this wild yarn.

This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Awabakal, Darug, and Yora people.

Most of the destruction in the current Israel-Iran war has been caused by Israeli and American planes flying across Iran's borders and dropping bombs.

But the war didn't start like this.

It started with guns, drones, and missiles being smuggled into Iran.

So, how did the Israeli military do this?

And could you pull it off?

Could you smuggle dangerous stuff like that into another country?

The weapons, which were packed in cardboard boxes, were declared as arts and craft.

It turns out, successfully smuggling contraband is more difficult than you would expect.

The drugs were hidden in layers inside PVC tubing, which was inside long blocks.

That in turn was concealed within the walls of an industrial freezer, which was found inside crates in the shipping container.

Okay, so the babushkadol method apparently doesn't work, but what if you pack the contraband in something super cool like a speed boat imported from Canada caught the attention of customs officers?

In this case, the officials found 46 bags of crystal meth hidden in the hull of the boat.

They replaced the bags with fake drugs, and then...

The boat was put back in its container and it sat here at Port Botany for three and a half months waiting for someone to come and pick it up.

When the owners arrived they were arrested, tried and sentenced to more than a decade without the possibility of speedboating.

But how did the border agents know the drugs were there?

They noticed a few things that were a bit unusual.

that warranted further x-ray and subsequent physical examination.

This is the crucial point.

While basically all containers are checked for radiation, which makes posting nuclear bombs to your enemies quite difficult, only a fraction of these containers are scanned by X-ray.

The trick is figuring out which ones to scan.

Border Force and Federal Police received information about a suspicious shipping container last month.

The primary way they do this is with paperwork.

Every container has to have paperwork saying where it's coming from, where it's going, who packed it, and what's in it.

If the manifest says that the container is registered by IKEA and is carrying IKEA flat packs from IKEA's factory to an IKEA warehouse, it's probably fine.

It's safe to say that it's chock full of gnagligs, not narcotics, gun urns, not guns, and calaxes, not kalashnikovs.

On the other hand, if the manifest says it's from the newly registered Odysseus Industries and it's carrying wooden horse from abandoned Greek army camp to town square in the middle of the city of Troy, it's probably going to get x-rayed and questions will be asked about the Bronze Age swordsmen inside.

And yet Israel and Ukraine have started doing basically this, deploying explosive drones hidden inside shipping containers.

They're deploying a Trojan horse, but with drones, what I'm calling a Drojan horse, against Iran and Russia.

The strike involved 117 drones smuggled into Russia and hidden in the roofs of wooden sheds placed near airfields.

Precise assassinations, drone attacks and car bombs make it clear undercover teams were operating inside Iran.

Across both countries, trucks have carried the 21st century equivalent of Greek soldiers through the city walls.

In Iran, in particular, these attacks opened the gate to much larger and more devastating strikes from Israel and the US.

So, how did these governments pull these audacious attacks off?

And what can intelligence agencies do to defend this newly exposed Achilles heel?

I'm Matt Bevan, and this is If You're Listening.

We're going to start this story at a DJ set in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in 2018.

This guy going full send on the mic is Artem Timofeev, a member of the Ukrainian DJ and fashion collective Dastish Fantastis.

Sometime after this absolute heater of a set, Artem and his wife Katya packed up their life and moved from Ukraine to live in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.

And why wouldn't you?

Chelyabinsk seems like quite a buzzy town.

It's one of the main hubs on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

It's also the center of the Russian tractor and tank manufacturing industry.

And if that wasn't enough to get you considering it as your next holiday destination, in 2013, a meteor exploded in the sky above it.

The meteor's fiery entry into the atmosphere was captured on video.

Some of the cameras recorded the bright flash as it exploded and the trail of smoke it left behind.

Then, this.

So, Artem Timofeev moved to this happening town.

In 2024, he became a Russian citizen, and in October, he followed the well-trodden path of many Chelyabinsk men before him and opened up a trucking business.

He rented a warehouse and bought at least five trucks.

Artem hired Russian drivers to ship things both in and out of Russia and between different Russian regions.

It was a legitimate business, like so many others operating in the city.

And by running a legitimate trucking business for months, months, Artem was allegedly able to circumvent the screening process for cargo crossing the Russian border.

Sometime in the first half of 2025, the trucks started shifting batteries, communications equipment, wood, and parts of explosive drones into Artem's warehouse.

There, these materials were assembled into 10 structures that looked like parts of an ordinary prefabricated house and put into shipping containers with detachable tops.

In the ceiling cavity of the modular house parts, Artem had mounted several drones which were activated and ready to launch.

All of this was done right under the nose of the Russian state.

And that's because there's lots of Russian counter-intelligence officers, law enforcement officers,

lots of surveillance cameras.

So it's a dictatorship.

You have to understand how it's difficult.

Then, Artem's Russian drivers were given a final task.

Deep in southern Siberia, near Russia's border with Mongolia, is a truck stop with a cafe.

It's just a regular roadside cafe with one weird exception.

In the car park, there is a statue of two woolly rhinoceroses, an adult and a calf.

A helpful sign on the plinth holding the statue says that the woolly rhinoceros was native to the area but went extinct about 14 000 years ago on the 1st of june 2025 a 61 year old truck driver named andre

was transporting two of atem timoviev's modular houses when he was instructed over the phone to stop at the cafe with the rhino statues

Andre turned into the car park and pulled on the handbrake.

And then within an instant, everything changed.

The top slid off the containers on the back of the truck and drones started flying out.

Packed into the containers on the back of the truck were rows and rows of small black drones, each about the size and weight of a ream of A4 paper.

The drones were sneaked across the border in wooden crates, then driven to locations near air bases from the west near Finland to Moscow and far into the east.

The Ukrainian intelligence service, the SBU, has released video from one of the drones of its entire six-kilometre journey from Andrei's truck to the nearby Balea airfield, which just happens to be where the Russian military keeps part of its long-range strategic bombing fleet.

It takes about 15 seconds for the drone to rise out of the truck, orient itself towards its target, and then hit full speed of 70 kilometres per hour.

At that speed, it takes just under five minutes to reach the airfield, then spends about a minute flying around looking for a target.

As the drone searches around, you can already see at least three planes on fire around the airfield.

Drone after drone strike planes and air bases across five Russian regions.

Finally, after hunting around for a bit, it settles down on top of a jet and detonates.

Meanwhile, back at the truck stop, the unwitting driver Andre and the other people parked there didn't really know what to do.

Eventually, the bystanders worked as a team to try and stop the drones.

Two of them stood on top of the truck, chucking rocks at the drones, while others kept lobbing new ammunition up to them from the ground.

It wasn't very effective.

When the smoke cleared, and with the benefit of satellite imagery, the US said around 20 planes planes were damaged, with 10 destroyed.

The planes they attacked were bombers, apparently collectively worth 7 billion US dollars.

It was 11 out of 10.

Really, 11 out of 10.

And these planes specifically have been causing Ukraine a lot of suffering.

So these bombers have been launching what's known as long-range glide bombs against Ukrainian cities and killing Ukrainian civilians.

And that's what the Ukrainians were trying to prevent.

Apparently, the destruction was equivalent to about a third of Russia's strategic bombing capacity.

By the time the trucks exploded, Ukraine says the DJ/slash truck mogul Artem, his wife Katya, and anyone else who was knowingly involved were out of Russia.

According to the Ukrainian government, planning for this Drojan horse attack took a year and a half.

It's an extraordinary gambit, but in terms of effectiveness, it's nothing compared to the one Israel pulled off a fortnight later in a very different country from Russia.

The mission was years in planning, but dreamt of for decades.

Tonight I wish to speak to you, the proud people of Iran.

We're in the midst of one of the greatest military operations in history, Operation Rising Lion.

Israel had a number of advantages that Ukraine did not.

The primary one is that while Russia keeps its strategic military assets spread out over a vast area, Iran's are all quite closely clustered around the capital Tehran.

In preparation for Operation Rising Lion, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad appears to have set up multiple drone factories throughout Iran, including in Tehran.

The parts for the drones were shipped in through a vast network of commercial logistics companies, many of whom were totally unaware of their involvement in the wider operation.

A key difference between Israel and Ukraine's use of of Drojan horse attacks, though, is the military power balance.

For Ukraine, which doesn't have any real technological advantage over Russia, the drones were the beginning and the end of the strategy.

Drones go in, planes go boom, DJ goes home.

But Israel has vastly more advanced military technology than Iran does.

For Israel, the drones were truly just like the Greeks in the Trojan horse.

Just as he hoped, the Trojans had brought the horse inside the walls of Troy.

The city was sleeping now, and the walls were unguarded.

In the mythological story, the soldiers in the horse were just there to start the assault on Troy by opening the gates and letting the rest of the Greek army in.

Caught completely by surprise, the Trojans were easily defeated by the Greek soldiers, who found their beautiful princess and took her back safely to Greece.

Well, okay, the princess part is a little bit different, but the rest fits.

On Friday, Israeli commandos cleared the way with attacks on air defense sites.

Precise assassinations, drone attacks and car bombs make it clear undercover teams were operating inside Iran.

The drone swarm targeted the missile launchers with perfect precision, disabling dozens of them and clearing the way for the primary attack, a massive air raid conducted by Israeli jets against Iran's nuclear weapons program and military.

We're preparing.

We paved the way to Tehran and our pilots over the skies of Tehran will deal blows to the Aitolla regime that they cannot even imagine.

Israel striking what it says with dozens of Iranian military and nuclear sites as well as key officials and scientists.

Eight leaders of Iran's missile program killed when their bunker was hit.

As well as the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and and the armed forces.

It was a decapitation strike.

Drones, jets and missiles took out all of the top military brass.

This will go as far as Netanyahu can take it.

He was born for this fight.

Daybreak in Iran revealed destruction in residential areas.

This building where we live blew up.

I don't know if they hit it with a missile or what.

When the US Air Force went in to drop the big bunker buster bombs on top of the nuclear facilities, they were met with absolutely no resistance.

Not a single shot was fired at them the whole time they were in Iran.

Needless to say, all of this is very exciting for everyone involved in the planning and execution of these Drojan horse plans.

But I want to slow down for a moment and consider this question from an American senator.

Are we seeing the ushering in of a new era of warfare?

The use of drones from afar?

I did tell you that we were slowing down.

After all,

these drones were smuggled into Russia, hidden for a great span of time, and then activated from 2,500 miles away.

Are we prepared

both defensively and offensively, Miss Secretary?

It's an incredibly good question.

Let's see how the U.S.

Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth handles it.

I would say, sir,

it was a daring and very effective operation that we were not aware of in advance and reflects significant advancements in drone warfare.

For most of recent history, the majority of defense planning and funding is based around protecting your country from big threats.

Ships on the horizon, submarine warfare, stealth bombers.

But But Ukraine has changed the game.

The chairman and I got together right after seeing that and saying, what more can we do to ensure we're prepared and our country's defensible against something like that?

Donald Trump is currently proposing spending trillions of dollars protecting the U.S.

from ballistic missile attacks with his so-called Golden Dome air defense system.

which would defend America against a long-range attack from outside their borders.

But the Golden Dome would not protect America from attacks that are launched domestically, these Drojan horse attacks.

They're much more low-tech and covert.

Ukraine's entire operation probably cost a couple of million dollars to pull off and did $7,000 million worth of damage.

In terms of cost-benefit to the attacker, it's more like a terrorist operation than a military one.

The 9-11 attacks cost about half a million dollars to pull off, exploiting a vulnerability in airline security.

But plugging that loophole was incredibly simple.

Just lock the cockpit door.

So there's no way that you can get inside that cockpit, no matter what you do if you're on the other side of the door, unless someone lets you in.

That's exactly the way they're designed, as the access to and from that door is totally controlled by the pilots on the flight deck.

Problem basically solved.

Airline hijacking has basically been non-existent ever since.

But there's no simple fix for making your military and government infrastructure safe from a sudden truck-launched drone swarm.

That is far more complicated.

As I'm recording this, there is an extremely shaky ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

But Iran has suffered massive, massive losses.

Retaliation in the long term is certainly possible.

But what will that look like?

Could it be a swarm of 72 attack drones emerging from a truck outside a US military base, or outside the Pentagon, or outside Donald Trump's golf course in Florida?

What can be done to stop this?

Not allow trucks within 10 kilometres of air bases and golf courses, x-ray the contents of every single container travelling into the country and the ones travelling from city to city?

The global supply chain would basically collapse.

I mean we could just ban the manufacture of drones, but then how will real estate agents get their ads done?

Yes, there is always a real estate angle.

If you're listening, is written by me, Matt Bevan.

Supervising producer is Kara Jensen-McKinnon.

Audio production is by Cinnamon Nipard.

The justification Israel gave for this attack on Iran was that they were convinced the regime in Tehran was weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.

You might have seen a bit of criticism of this, and clips of Benjamin Netanyahu saying basically the same thing for decades.

So, what's the reality?

Has BB been lying all these years, or is there a nuance here that most people aren't seeing?

That story is next

on if you're listening.

And our friends at the Expanse podcast have a new series dropping next week.

It's called Nowhere Man.

Here's a little taste of what to expect.

Soaring temperatures, a lack of water and sand dunes every 500 meters.

It's one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

It's August 1999 and something strange is happening in the Australian Outback.

When I got there it was just organised chaos.

It's one of the most extensive searches ever mounted in the Great Sandy Desert.

A well-to-do young American has dumped his belongings and walked out into the great sandy desert.

A white guy from America, what hope has he got?

Go be looking for a body.

He sent a postcard to his parents in America just saying, I'm heading into the desert.

Goodbye.

Triggering a media sensation and one of the biggest searches Australia had ever seen.

Once the Americans arrived, it became a lot more bizarre.

We really need to be what we call sampra gumby, always flexible.

He insisted that people use his radio handle, gunslinger.

Are you taking the piss?

But there's one problem that no one's got an answer for.

How do you search for someone who doesn't want to be found?

I felt it was his choice to choose not to come out of the desert.

I knew he couldn't be content with living a life unless he did this.

My name is Erin Park and I've been obsessed with this story for years.

And I'm not the only one.

Why would a fit, intelligent young man with everything to live for plunge into one of the deadliest landscapes in Australia on purpose.

It's very easy to dismiss it as crazy, but I think when you dive deeper into it, you see that it's not crazy.

It's a story spanning three decades, two continents and some strange encounters.

I really don't know how I started off in the desert in northern Australia looking into this and now I'm in bloody Alaska looking for a porcupine.

Every little thread was even more glittery and sparkly and fascinating and quite...

And it polarised opinions the world over.

Were his his actions selfish or inspired?

The backlash was pretty fierce.

And it turns out this desert where Robert Berguki went missing is keeping other secrets.

What Robert Berguki did here is just the tip of the iceberg.

We've got a lot of people missing.

It remains a mystery, you know?

At a time when so many of us feel lost, what's the most extreme thing you do to feel found?

The idea of being out here alone scares the hell out of me.

I ain't no Robert Berguki, that's for sure.

And at what cost?

Death will come, and I'll be ready for it.

This is season five of Expanse, Nowhere Man.

Find it on the ABC Listen app and all the usual places.