Don's Weekly, 19 May 2025: Part 3

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 2…)

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Unknown Location

Not many people are hit on the head by an FPV drone and walk away.

Both sides are plagued by the whine of drone engines. When weather diminishes drone activity, they scramble to secure food, water and ammo. Most of the time they hide, hoping they won’t be noticed. Two Russians describe their experiences.

On 11 May, Senior Warrant Officer Vitaliy Nikolayevich Shapovalov (51), a reconnaissance sniper of the Russian Army Special Forces, was ‘converted to 200’. Shapovalov was known as one of the Russia's best and most decorated military snipers, and was a recipient of ten Russian state awards.

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Russia

At the end of Second World War, the US economy experienced a V-Day recession when the demobilized soldiers and a sudden decline in military spending reduced economic production by 11 percent. At the end of the Cold War, millions of Soviet soldiers were unemployed and the number of impoverished people rose. Political objectives aside - though to an endlessly huge surprise of all the ‘Western leaders’ - it would be difficult for Putin to stop his war against Ukraine. If peace was attained and soldiers were discharged and military spending was reduced, the Russian economy would face a lot of difficulties. Sure: right now, there are labor shortages. However, civilian businesses relying on capitalism cannot afford to take out high interest loans to expand their business and hire new labor. At the same time, the longer Putin fights, the more the Russian economy is transformed into a military economy and the harder it will be to convert to a peacetime economy…

Russian oil export revenues are at their lowest level since June 2023. Sanctions cap the price at $60 per barrel and the Russian oil is selling for $55.64 per barrel. Russia expects 24% lower revenues this year than earlier estimates.

The glorious Russian Navy has towed a patrol boat from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Azov via the country’s system of rivers and canals - and has managed to damage its shaft and propeller in the process…

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Ukraine

The commander of a battalion in the 47th Brigade resigned because of stupid tasks leading to the loss of life and political games. He told the General Staff of the Armed Forces, “I hope your children will also be in the infantry and carry out your tasks.” In response, the Chief of the General Staff created a working group to study the issue.

As regular readers of this blog know very well, we’ve - repeatedly - pointed out at such and similar problems within the ZSU, all through the summer and autumn the last year (as a ‘classic’ example, see Dreamland). Therefore, we cannot avoid the conclusion that a mere announcement of (yet another) ‘investigation’, and a ‘creation of a working group’ alone are going to solve all such Ukrainian problems once and for all…

…finally starting to sack incompetent generals - could never, ever have similar effects…

Ukraine lost a third F-16 but this time the pilot survived. During a Russian missile and drone attack, the pilot shot down three targets with cannon and was engaging a fourth when a ‘malfunction occurred’. Meanwhile, some 40 out of promised 85 F-16s have been transferred to Ukraine. The US and Norway are providing additional airframes to serve as sources of spare parts.

How comes? Well, when there is such a shortage of surface-to-air missiles, that the Ukrainian Air Force and Air Defence Force (PSZSU) has no try replacing these by its ‘manned interceptors’, i.e. has no other options than to task all its available pilots and F-16s and Mirage 2000s (plus whatever is left of MiG-29s and Su-27s) with flying (at least) two intercept sorties a night… then accidents (including blue-on-blues) are unavoidable. Of course, this is all ‘top secret’, and the PSZSU is never making any kind of mistakes - and thus this topic is not even discussed in the public.

As usually - and in the light of all the zombie idiots in ‘the West’ proving so ultimately incompetent in regards of ramping up production of surface-to-air missiles - it is on lower-ranking Ukrainians to find solutions on their own. Correspondingly, in April this year the 412th Nemesis Regiment - which specializes in designing and operating strategic attack drones (see: long-range UAVs, deployed to strike deep into Russia) - formed an interception group designed to destroy the Russian attack drones. By 28 April they had shot down 52 of UAVs released deep into the Ukrainian airspace. Three weeks later the count was increased to 100 drones destroyed, 76 of them being Geran 2’s and 24 were Gerbara’s. Their $5000 interceptor drones can fly 200 km/h up to 5000 meters altitude. The Shahed-136 (aka Geran 2) has a max speed of 185 km/h and a max altitude of 8000 meters. The Gerbera has a max speed of 160 km/h and a max altitude of 3000 meters.

Sic transit gloria mundi… at least in Ukraine it’s so that if neither the politicians, nor (in this case) the air force can do their job, then ‘somebody else’ will. If the people in question prove capable of overcoming such hurdless like incompetent and corrupt generals in Kyiv, plus SBU’s control over the main company manufacturing optics in Ukraine, plus diverse oligarchs… all of which is usually solved in a ‘simple’ fashion (see: bribery) - the ZSU could pioneer the mass development of anti-UAV-UAVs…

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Diplomacy

Because of the help or damage the US can do to either side, both Russia and the Ukrainian coalition are speaking words with the hope of swaying Trump to their side or at least convince him not to do any more additional damage. Since Russia does not want to stop fighting it provides the Ukrainian coalition with an advantage of words, but Trump continues to excuse Russian behavior. The words spoken in Turkey did lead to an agreement to exchange 1000 prisoners, but the Russian demands were designed to continue the fighting. The Ukrainian coalition threatened to impose more sanctions on Russia if they didn’t accept a cease fire on May 12th. Russian words delayed those sanctions but the Ukrainian coalition is now considering implementing the sanctions on May 20th in coordination with the US. The US State Department warned Russia about the pending Senate sanctions, but nothing counts until it happens.

Estonia tried to inspect a ship called both Jaguar and Argent, that was registered in both Gabon and Guinea-Bissau, was sanctioned by the UK for carrying Russian oil, and was affiliated with an Indian ship management company that is one of the leading operators of the Russian shadow fleet. The tanker was instructed to change course but refused to do so. An Estonian helicopter and prop-plane circled overhead. Then a Russian Su-35 entered Estonian airspace with its transponder turned off. A Portuguese F-16 based in Estonia responded and also circled the airspace. Estonia decided the intervention wasn’t worth it and escorted the ship out of its waters and it continued to a Russian port. Estonia gave Russia a protest note regarding the violation of its airspace. In retaliation, Russia seized a ship that exited an Estonian port.

The EU is sending Ukraine $1.1 billion from the interest of the frozen Russian assets. Russia is calling it theft.

Poland arrested some of the Russian agents that burned a shopping mall last year. They vow to arrest all the suspects and close the Russian consulate in Krakow as a consequence.

France published a report on the misinformation, espionage and sabotage attacks Russia conducted on their country.

Belarusian Territorial Troops were formed in 2016 and consist of conscripts that undergo short-term training and are activated when there is a threat or emergency. They protect facilities, counter sabotage, maintain public order and control the territory. They are training with Russia in the West 2025 military exercise near Brest, close to the Polish and Ukrainian borders.

US popularity around the world fell from 22% in 2024 to -5% now.

In January, Syria cancelled a Tartus port operating lease with Russia. Last week, a UAE company signed an $800 million deal to do the same. They also have an operating lease with a French company for the port of Latakia. Syria offered oil and gas to the US and the possibility of a Trump tower in Damascus. What a surprise then: Trump lifted the sanctions on Syria.

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Drone Development

A Ukrainian commander of a small drone unit from the 109th Territorial Defense Brigade says that a lot of drone development is dependent on the soldiers in the front line working with engineers and civilian fund raisers. After 18 months of fighting or more, it is exhausting just to perform combat duties let alone trying to innovate and secure supplies. He maintains that the innovation and development of technology is a more important battlefield than the front lines, and these innovations have to be produced in large volumes.

The government needs to lead this effort to support all units, especially the ones without a large public interface who have no capabilities to produce or buy the dones in the quantities needed. Sustainment is critical in wars of attrition and small units struggling to survive expend more mental energy to accomplish the same functions as larger units and this impacts their military readiness.

These Russian fiber optic cables were gathered from a road near Kostiantynivka, 10 km from the front lines. The 109th drone commander said that an effective defense against fiber optic drones will be seen in a couple of months. With other words: as usually, all solutions for problems in Ukraine are to be found at ‘mid- to low-rank’ level: official Kyiv can’t bother with such issues…

In the past, one limitation on drone operations were radio frequencies. Two drones could not operate on the same frequency without interfering with each other, and adjacent Russian drones units would often fail to coordinate and would jam each other by trying to fly on the same frequency. Fiber optic drones don’t use frequencies and don’t interfere with other drone operations. Ukrainian soldiers report that hundreds of Russian drones now operate in the same skies at the same time and that wasn’t true a year ago.

Ukraine developed drones that could attack targets 50 km from the front line and while there are few logistical targets between the front line and 10 km, there are a lot of targets beyond that. Destroying the vehicles interrupts the supply lines and makes it difficult to attack. Now Russia is now using the same capabilities to the same effect on Ukrainian operations. This impacts both logistics and drone operations. The continued development of longer ranged drones would provide them with the same standoff capability as longer ranged artillery, increasing their operational effectiveness and the safety of the drone crew.

In addition to increasing the range of drones, developments need to be made in the defense against drones, with active elements that destroy drones and passive defenses, such as tunnels over roads that obscure the vision of drones and prevent drones from hitting vehicles. Robotic solutions also need to be improved for supplying units and evacuation casualties or rotating troops to and from the line.

Some solutions for the current situation have already been found. The 414th regiment is one of the large drone units that successfully innovates and produces at scale. They kill Russians effectively and protect their soldiers while doing so. Their commander says that in nine months they lost 20 soldiers while engaging 30,929 targets and killing or wounding 10,000 Russians. The Drone Line concept is designed to replicate these successes across the front lines but progress has been slow.

The battlefield is constantly changing. The faster Ukraine innovates and implements, the greater degree of control they will have over the battlefield.

Equipment

Back in 2011, a bad fuze detonated the 155mm round at Ft. Bragg but no one was killed. This M777 barrel exploded a year ago. The gunner’s extra long lanyard certainly reduced his injuries. This M777 exploded after heavy use. It’s likely that the hot barrel wasn’t swabbed and the powder charges detonated. Artillery is damaged through barrel wear, overheating due to sustained rates of fire and other issues. This 17 minute video describes how the M777 is deployed and fired, and has other details, such as the impact of air density and the temperature of the powder charges.

As of September 2024, 73% of the 25,000 recovered Russian missile components came from America. The US chip companies told the senate that they are complying with sanctions and the basic microchips in the Russian missiles were not on the list and were produced before the 2022 invasion. The US senate found that some of the manufacturers did the bare minimum in compliance efforts and were focused on avoiding responsibility. The senate is now considering preventing China from accessing advanced American chips. These are just the advanced chips, even though Russia receives 88% of its sanctioned chips from China. (The Maldives also re-sold $53 million worth of chips to Russia). The sanctions have caused bottlenecks in Russian production and caused the price of the re-sales to rise by 80%. Chipmaking machines have been imported by South Korea and Taiwan. Israel is not participating in sanctions on Russia and sent 30 shipments of chipmaking tech.

During 2024, Russia was able to produce one Su-35S a month. Algeria may have bought 14 of them.

In the first half of 2026, Estonia will start building 2,000 drones a day initially. Latvia will deliver 12,000 drones to Ukraine in the first half of this year.

France is building 12 Caesar guns a month and will deliver all of 2025’s production to Ukraine. They are also transferring 90% (of some unstated number) of the replacement barrels they produce to Ukraine. Croatia, Estonia and Lithuania bought the Caesar artillery systems and Croatia was supposed to receive 30 by late 2025. Estonia received the first six of 12 ordered in January 2025.

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Lockheed Martin is ending ATACMS production in favor of the next generation PrSM missile. Europe does not have access to the PrSM and prefers the longer-ranged ATACMS to the GMLR, all of which can be fired from the HIMARS or MLRS vehicle. The current ‘annual need’ for missiles is about 700 ATACMS, 2500 GMLRs, 5000 Hellfires (air-to-ground missiles), 5200 JAGMs (Hellfire’s replacement) and 300 PAC-3 Patriot missiles.

…of course, provided none are sent to Ukraine..

During Second World War, the US was known as the ‘arsenal for democracy’ based on their production capacity. Because it is three years after the 2022 open invasion and US missile production is still insufficient, Rheinmetall and Lockheed Martin agreed to build a production facility in Germany. The facility should be completed in 12-13 months at which time they’ll begin rocket engine production. Complete rocket production would then begin in 2027 and then the production line would ramp up in 2028-2029 to 10,000 missiles of various types each year. The joint production facility still requires US government approval but, the supply chains for the facility are being established right now.