Don's Weekly, 18 August 2025: Part 2

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 1…)

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Other news from the Pokrovsk Sector

Two elder Ukrainian civilians direct a drone to a house in Pokrovsk occupied by Russians.

Many older residents choose to stay in their houses even as the war approaches and starts to tear their city apart. A month ago, one older man hadn’t been in contact with his family for two weeks. It turns out he had a stroke and was lying on the floor with his dog at his side. He and his companion were evacuated but the man died the next day. The dog was adopted by the man’s family.

The record for the longest sniper shot was 3800 meters set by a Ukrainian in the Kherson sector in November 2023. That bullet took nine seconds to reach the target and had to take into account the wind speed, humidity, temperature and rotation of the earth, among other factors. Since then, equipment and tactics continue to improve, and drones with thermal imaging forced sniper operations to change in order to survive on the battlefield. Against that background, a Ukrainian sniper team in Myrnohrad killed two Russians at 4000 meters after passing through the windows of a building. Only a few details were released, but the operation included the use of artificial intelligence and a drone was used as a spotter because the sniper did not have direct line of sight. Notice the elevation of the gun in the video. The round can penetrate 10 mm of armor at 1500 meters. The system used is not unlike artillery in which the coordinates are provided and adjusted by a spotter and the shooter adjusts his aim based on the math.

The location of the two Russians killed is marked in Novoekonomichne. A range of 4 km places the sniper team somewhere in the middle of Myrnohrad.

The 3rd NG Spartan Brigade destroyed Russians near Novomykolaivka.

There were 1400 new airstrikes in the Pokrovsk sector between July 11th and August 11th.

The former chief of staff of the Azov brigade was among the crowd of people not surprised that the Pokrovsk situation was completely chaotic. Reserves were depleted and replacements and supplies were sent to units favoured by Syrsky & Buddies.

See: if you don’t ask unpleasant questions, you get troops and ammo.

Of course, as tradition in the ZSU, the General Staff didn’t provide any strategic or operational objectives, but they did skillfully micromanage operations and the OSUV and OTU simply passed on the orders without any input. Because of this, there is no stability. Nah: once Syrsky & Buddies have screwed up, then it’s left to the newly formed corps to fix the situation.

…and any officer that accepts the command environment is part of the problem.

An officer from the 82nd Brigade said, "The avoidable Russian breakthrough laid bare Ukraine’s persistent military vulnerabilities that have long obstructed its ability to advance: lack of manpower, lack of ammunition — and at times, lack of coordination and motivation among exhausted soldiers who are often expected to hold trenches for a month or more without rotations...” He also said Ukrainian recon teams failed to spot Russians hiding in treelines and that Ukraine is short of personnel.

It is dangerous for either side to move in the open. Because of this, Ukrainian troops that would normally be rotated in two days or a week sometimes have to have months. One soldier of the 93rd Brigade arrived on the front on March 16th and couldn’t leave for 140 days, and then it took three days to make it to the rear because of drones and shelling. Another soldier spent three months on the front line, and he was alone for one month because his teammate was wounded and evacuated. Someone else had their fighting position destroyed and it took him 40 hours to find another, all the while hiding from drones. In this video, brigade members in a truck were pursued by a drone but they shot it down.

The brigade prepares to evacuate a wounded soldier with a ground drone.

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Komar

Two Russians entered Andriivka-Klevtsove with a flag. Russian volunteers with the 5th Heavy Brigade captured them and killed another infiltration group. Ukrainian drones are intercepted near Shevchenko. A treeline near Novoselivka is bombed by the Russians.

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Zaporizhzhia

A couple weeks later the 225th Assault regiment bombarded advanced Russian positions in Stepnohirsk before assaulting them.

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Odesa

Some beaches are closed due to the threat of sea mines. The locals are frequently ignoring all the possible warnings and, what a surprise: three swimmers were killed in two incidents after swimming in prohibited zones.

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Crimea

Another radar was destroyed in Crimea, this time because of partisans. Satellite images showed the damage.

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Black Sea

The Russains lost another Su-30SM fighter with its crew south of Zmiinyi (aka Snake) Island. The 43rd Separate Naval Assault Air Regiment at Saky air base started with 12 Su-30SM fighters as well as some Su-24s.

Now mind: the 43rd lost two Su-30SMs in early March 2022, then a third Su-30SM in May 2022, and the commander of the squadron and his navigator were captured in the Mykolaiv region. In an attack on the airbase in August 2022, three Su-30s were destroyed and one was damaged, plus five Su-24s were lost and three damaged. In September 2024 an Su-30 was shot down by a MANPAD, and in May 2025 an Su-30 was the first fighter shot down by a sea drone with an AIM-9 missile. Drones damaged two more at Saky airbase in July 2025. If one ignores the two confirmed as shot down in early March 2022, then the total count of the original 12 Su-30s at Saky is seven destroyed and three damaged.

There are no reports on whether the damaged aircraft repaired.

…nor about how do the surviving crews of the 43rd Regiment are feeling.

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Russia

Ukrainian drone strikes in 2025 cost Russia 4% of its GDP, $74.11 billion.

Ukraine attacked an oil refinery in the Komi Republic, 2000 km from its borders. One storage tank was struck and the spill damaged a unit that processed gas and gas condensate. A refinery in Saratov was hit and stopped its operations. The Ryazan refinery had already halved its production and the Novokuibyshevsk refinery halted its operation after an August 2nd strike. A major fire resulted from an attack on a Volgograd refinery, the fourth attack on it since May 2024. The Syzran refinery was attacked and fires were observed. At least one oil tank was punctured in the Komi Republic, 1700 km from Ukraine.

The Unecha pumping station was hit again with six HIMARS strikes and this halted operations. If they repair it in a week it will cost them $90-125 million. If it takes a month to repair it, they’ll lose $400-550 million.

Last November, a Ukrainian drone hit a missile boat in the Caspian Sea. Russia has been transporting military cargo from Iran and “fragments of drones, all of which were shot down” sank a sanctioned ship that was reported to be carrying drone equipment and munitions.

Helium is used in rockets and Russia’s only helium plant was attacked but the details of damage weren’t reported. The Nevinnomyssk Azot chemical plant in Stavropol Krai was attacked. 9-10 explosions and a fire was reported. The Elastic gunpowder plant in Ryazan was completely destroyed. The optoelectronics factory Monokristal in Stavropol was attacked.

The Arzamas Instrument-Building Plant in Nizhny Novgorod, which builds missile components, was attacked. A Shahed storage building was hit for the second time in a week in Tatarstan. The Lysky railway station, one of the largest railway junctions of the southeastern railway, was attacked by drones.

Since Russian air defense systems are diminishing in numbers it makes sense to focus their protection on the most valuable targets. There are about 60 air defense systems around Moscow, but since Putin is the state, there are 12 air defense systems around one of his estates.

Thousands of North Koreans are working in repressive conditions in Russia to fill a labor shortage according to six workers that managed to escape. They work more than 18 hours a day with just two days off a year. If they slept at work, even standing up, they were beaten. Work conditions are dangerous. They sleep in bug-infested shipping containers with tarps pulled over the door frames to keep out the cold. 10,000 workers have been sent to Russia and 50,000 more will be sent this year. The $100-200 a month they earn is sent to North Korea to be claimed when they return in order to prevent them from running away. One worker decided to escape after being told he might not receive the money when he returns home. Another decided after he saw a video showing how much workers in South Korea earn. But only 10 a year manage to escape and make it to South Korea.

Russia canceled plans to build two icebreakers due to sanctions.

The Russian deficit reached $61 billion according to Ukraine, about four times what Russia projected. They are reducing contract signing bonuses for joining the army from $7k to $25k in some regions and raising it by $3k in other regions.

Russian warbloggers say that some old men join the army to die so their families can collect the $68k.

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Ukraine

ICEYE is a Polish-Finnish company that runs 52 synthetic aperture radar satellites with a resolution of 24 cm. They have 52 satellites and plans to increase the constellation to 60-100. The constellation provides 20-24 images of a location per day.

Ukraine says that their helicopters shot down a lot of drones last year. If Russia starts using a lot of drones with jet engines, the much slower helicopters will be less effective.

Ukraine’s units receive most of their funding from the government but some units, particularly those with social media connections, receive 5% of their funding from public donations to provide equipment ranging from vehicle tires to generators to reconnaissance drones. If a unit does not have access to public donations they often go without the needed equipment. Ukraine’s government is now providing each brigade an additional $170k for each battalion operating on the front line. Some brigades only have four battalions but others, such as the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, have 8-12, depending on the definition of “front line”.

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(…to be continued…)