Don's Weekly, 15 July 2024: Part 4

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 3…)

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Ukraine

Civilian targets that have no military value are bombed and shelled by Russia every single day in Ukraine. Every single day. Not only since 24 February 2022, but since March 2024. It is difficult to track each instance and understand the horror of each individual that loses their home, their life, or the life of their children or family members. It’s been almost 2 1/2 years since the attack on the maternity hospital in Mariupol. A pregnant woman and her baby died. I’ll spare you the details. It was not the first health care facility that was attacked. As of February, 700 hospitals and clinics were damaged or destroyed. As of June, 9,560 civilians have been killed and 21,450 more have been injured. Of those casualties, 1,796 children have been killed and 1,202 were injured.

On July 8th, Russia launched another big missile strike on Ukraine.

A reconstruction of the Russian missile strikes of 8 July.

Ten people died in Kryvyi Rih and one in Dnipro and 64 were wounded. But the attention was focused on Kyiv. This video captured the Russian missiles impacting Kyiv. Okhmatdyt children’s hospital was hit with 627 patients inside. At least two adults were killed and at least 40 adults and 10 children were injured. More would have been killed but many of the patients were led to the basement after the air raid sirens went off less than an hour before the missile struck. One of the doctors that led them to the basement returned to see if any were left behind when the missile struck, killing her. A surgical team was operating on a baby with congenital face defects when the sirens sounded but kept operating because they couldn’t quit in the middle of the operation. One of the doctors received minor shrapnel wounds and the patient’s ventilator was destroyed. The child had to be transported to another hospital to finish the operation. Three other patients were undergoing heart surgery. One child that was evacuated from the intensive care unit subsequently died on July 10th in another hospital. Throughout Ukraine, more than 41 were killed and more than 170 were wounded. This video shows the efforts to recover those buried in the rubble.

Besides the children’s hospital, a maternity hospital 8 km away was also targeted, killing ten. Two apartment buildings were also hit and four missiles landed close together in the Shevchenkivskyi district.

Andrew Perpetua tracked the impact of the Russian missiles on his map.

A family and their pets emerge mostly unharmed from an attack on their apartment. Ten other people in their building were not so lucky.

In grand total, during the last week, Russia used 700 bombs, 170 drones and 80 missiles in attacks on Ukraine. Here is a 90 second compilation of images from those attacks.

A train loaded with military equipment in the Kharkiv area was hit by a Russian missile attack.

An air defense system south of Dnipro was hit.

Drone hunting near Kyiv with civilian aircraft.

A member of the 3rd Assault Brigade saw Ukrainian soldiers using computer training devices to train on the Javelin anti-tank weapon and decided to set up his own training center for drones. One potential recruit was told that without specialized skills she could not join the unit, so she underwent the training, which includes drone assembly, computerized flying and flying drones through obstacles in a warehouse. At another training site they also taught drone assembly, computerized training, and they had an outdoor obstacle course that included dropping objects on a moving vehicle.

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Diplomacy

Ukraine’s new ambassador to the UK:

One minute of Orban being Orban…https://x.com/PM_ViktorOrban/status/1811107434825388088

Trump said that if he’s elected he will end the war before he takes office by pressuring Ukraine to cede territory, according to statements he made to others. Orban returned from a visit with Putin to meet with Trump in Florida. This is Orban’s second visit to the US this year. Earlier he came not to meet with Biden, but with the Heritage Foundation, who published Project 2025, and Trump.

After saying that Ukraine could use UK-provided weapons ‘as they saw fit’, the UK clarified their position, saying Ukraine could only use their weapons inside Ukraine.

The US once again rejected a Ukrainian request to use US weapons to attack targets deep in Russia.

A year ago, Russia threatened to destroy undersea cables that carry 95% of the internet traffic. Russia had already destroyed the internet cables to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in January, 2022. In April 2023, cables were cut in the Mediterranean Sea south of France. October 2023, was a busy month as cables south of France were cut for a second time, telecom cables in the Shetland Islands were cut, and both Russia and China were implicated in the destruction of gas pipelines and telecommunication cables in the Baltic.

This is part of Russia’s hybrid war against the west that uses irregular warfare, cyberattacks, disinformation and electoral interference. In recent months, Russia has also been targeting buildings for destruction and personnel for assassination. One target was recently revealed to be the head of Rheinmetall. After US intelligence discovered the threat they informed Germany, who then disrupted the operation. Russia already assassinated the Russian helicopter pilot who defected and, against advice, chose to live in a Spanish community full of Russians and Ukrainians. And the US is acting on intelligence that Russian agents are looking for ways to disrupt military base operations. In a connected world not engaged in total war, it is difficult to effectively monitor Russian naval and human traffic that is actively searching for soft targets to destroy.

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(….to be continued…)