Don's Weekly, 2 June 2025: Part 5

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 4…)

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Diplomacy

NATO concluded an exercise in Estonia involving contingents from 11 countries and 16,000 of troops. Estonia meanwhile has a division with two brigades. The exercise tested the rapid deployment of active duty and reserve troops and the communication between units. The Ukrainian was present as an observer with drone instructors and equipment.

Twt pro-Russian politicians in Estonia with the pro-Russian Koos movement worked with Russia’s GRU to form a civil defense unit in 2022.

Hundreds of thousands of shells and rockets and a million rounds of small arms are produced in Serbia - and sold to Ukraine. Serbia says they were neutral in the conflict but Russia is complaining. Serbia is using fake end-user certificates and intermediary countries, just as Russia does to buy Western electronics.

Ukraine builds 22 times more Deep Strike drones than they did in 2022 and more than 50% of those drones were developed and produced entirely in Ukraine. Allied aid was responsible for much of the production. To that end, Sweden is providing €441 million and funding for Deep Strike drones is part of that package. Ukrainian long-ranged weapons already financed by Germany could be ready for deployment in a few weeks and Germany will develop new long-ranged weapons as part of a €5 billion aid package.

France opposed a NATO liaison office in Japan in 2023 and has been a longtime opponent of NATO involvement in Asia. Last week, Macron warned China that NATO could become more involved in Southeast Asia if China doesn’t stop North Korea from fighting on European soil.

US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has been a supporter of Ukraine. He supported Zelensky until the oval office meeting, but the winds shifted again and he met with Zelensky in Ukraine, apparently satisfied that the US can do business with him once more. Democratic Senator Blumenthal and Graham travelled to Ukraine to discuss the bi-partisan sanctions bill against Russia that they’ve been talking about for a couple of months. Franklin Graham, president of an Evangelical Association, also met with Zelensky and prayed for Zelensky, Putin and Trump to find divine guidance for a path to peace. US Evangelicals are core supporters of Trump. Trump, who has continually extended peace talk deadlines for Russia, extended the deadline for two more weeks.

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Equipment

In 2023, China sold $14.5 million worth of FPV drones and drone components to Russia and only $200k worth to Ukraine. China stopped selling drones to Ukraine and the West and increased sales to Russia. Ukraine says there are production lines in Russia with Chinese representatives on site. 80% of critical electronic drone components in Russian drones come from China. Chinese and Russian companies are jointly developing strike drones, resulting in several Chinese companies being sanctioned by the US.

China says it only sells dual use items to both Russia and Ukraine and supports a peaceful resolution. Their sales of thermal optics, ceramics and drones to Russia dwarfs their sales to Ukraine.

Sky Sentinel is an air defense system that uses AI and radar data to fire on drones and missiles up to 800 kph with no human input. It has a range of 1500 meters and each unit costs $150,000. Drones that fly at 2000 meters or more can only be shot at when they descend. 10 to 30 are needed to protect a city against drones. A prototype already shot down four drones and they are scaling up production to build dozens a month.

Turkey accepted the AKKOR 10 system to defend its tanks from ATGMs, RPGs and shaped charges. Spain completed tests of the NEMUS radar system that can detect threats traveling at 1800 meters per second even in adverse weather conditions. As part of an active armor defense system, it protects against missiles, drones and other projectiles even in an EW environment.

Silent Hunter 3000, or Low-Altitude Laser Defending System, is a Chinese-made air defense system already used by the armies of China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and now Russia. It can likely detect aerial targets within 5 km and uses a 30 kw laser to blind sensors at 3 km, and destroy drones at 1500 meters. It can penetrate 5 mm of steel at 1000 meters or five 2 mm steel plates at 800 meters. It’s operational duration is estimated at 200 seconds and deploy or shut down in five minutes. The cost of the system and the number of systems employed by Russia has not been reported.

So far, North Korea supplied 9 million artillery and rocket rounds, 100+ ballistic missiles, artillery and rocket launchers to Russia. In return, North Korea is improving its missile guidance system with battlefield data, and received air defense systems, anti-aircraft missiles and EW systems.

Slovakia installed anti-drone cage armor on its T-72 and Leopard 2A4 tanks similar to efforts taken when drones first became a threat on the battlefields of Ukraine. Unlike current drone protection in Ukraine, there is no protection from the rear of the turret, or the sides or for the engine and transmission compartments.

The Armement Air-Sol Modulaire (AASM) is a French kit with a rocket motor that turns unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions for about $300k. It has a range of 15 km when it is launched from low altitudes and 70 km if launched at high altitudes. They were adapted to the MiG-29 and Su-25 and several hundred kits were sent to Ukraine. 830 kits were produced in 2024 and the company said it could double production if more were ordered.

The UK, Italy and Japan are working together on the GCAP program to design an sixth-general fighter. The US is not happy with Japan’s growing autonomy that started in 2020 when they began to design a replacement for their F-2 fighter, which was based on the F-16. The Saudis might also join the program which concerns the Israelis. Canada and Portugal are looking at GCAP as an alternative to their plans to buy US F-35’s.

A closer look at anti-drone net options.

Germany said that if its government decides to deliver the Taurus missile to Ukraine they would not publicize the decision ahead of time. As with many Western weapons, they would have had a greater impact if they were sent earlier, but Taurus would provide a longer range than Storm Shadow/SCALP or ATACMS and has a greater capacity to penetrate fortifications.