Don's Weekly, 20 October 2025: Part 1

by Donald Hill (intro by Tom Cooper)

Hello everybody!

The last week it was beyond absurd to watch how people are eagerly falling for all the nonsense and ever more scam. This time it was that about ‘USA going to deliver Tomahawks to Ukraine’. And Tomahawks are going to bring victory to Ukraine, and the deal is already fix, Experts were interviewed, one after the other, all explaining their highly-eloquent conclusions. Alas, then Pudding called Dumpf, and Dumpf had a change of mind… and all the other fantasies…

…and then they were all ah-so-very-much surprised, disappointed, and frustrated…

…and so it turned out that all the ‘plans’ for ‘Tomahawks to Ukraine’ were yet another shipload of… wishful thinking.

That’s the same like when honourable, highly authoritative ‘journalists’ and ‘experts’ are reporting about ‘Israel bombing the Gaza Strip (yet again), because of Hamas’ violation of ceasefire’, and about ‘Hamas being late to return bodies of hostages’… where Hamas was actually fighting Israel-supported ISIS-gangs that are attacking and robbing civilians, and unable to excavate bodies without fist receiving necessary excavators and fuel for them..

What’s wrong with people thinking that way? What’s wrong with all the mainstream-media representatives supporting such hysteria? Are they getting up every morning and then beating their foreheads against the nearest wall - for fun?

Or are they paid to overload the waves and cables through BS they are excrementing?

…and why should anybody tolerate such behaviour any more?

…and why is it so hard to comprehend few simple truths?

OK. Pudding missed his goal of conquering Ukraine. But, he’s adapted his goal: now the goal is that of ruining Ukraine - through ‘disarming’ it. Through destroying its infra-structure: making it unable to liberate territories conquered by Russia… If you have doubts about this, go and check what’s left of Ukraine anywhere east and south of the current frontline, and what’s left of its power-supply network. Check how many homes are still intact and where. How many businesses. What’s the status of the local electricity- and water supply. The sewage system. How many of fields are infested by unexploded ordnance and mines…

….and, if you don’t know what I mean: well, let me remind you that here in Austria, and in Germany (and that’s just two such examples), we’re still - and regularly - removing unexplored ordnance left over from the times of the Second World War. Which, in these areas, ended exactly 80 years ago.

Not enough? Then go and check about the economy of the ‘southern’ states of the USA, ruined during the Secessionist War in the 1860s: this didn’t fully recover even now…

So, if Ukraine is not already now successfully ruined, but so perfectly fine, and thus I’m babbling nonsense: please, feel free to try to go living a life with sense and purpose in the parts of Ukraine ‘liberated’ by the Russians.

The next point: in turn, the war in Ukraine in making things easier for Pudding at home. He can always blame the ‘war’, and damn the ‘NATO-Nazis’ and ‘Ukraine-Nazis’, and conspiracies, and becry the Russian victimhood, and damn whoever for everything that, actually, nobody else but he has caused. And he can continue bolstering the Rosgvardia - responsible only to him, and existent to protect his regime (instead of rebuilding the Russian armed forces).

To no small degree, he can do so precisely thanks to Pudding’s own subversion of ‘the West’ - through corruption. Add ‘the West’s’ own greed, incompetence and corruption, and it’s plain clear: there is absolutely nobody who could stop him. Nobody is even thinking about stopping Pudding. At most, people are thinking in terms of a ‘cease-fire in Ukraine’ so they can return to their everyday business. And plan the next vacation in peace…

…which, between others, is leaving Pudding a free hand to continue - even to complete - the genocide of Ukrainians in conquered parts of Ukraine.

Sure, one can now argue that this war and this genocide are tying down Pudding’s assets - in the sense of the Russian armed forces. Making Pudding unable to expand his empire even more. Arguably, the resulting war is ‘ruining’ the Russian economy, too. However, that’s not the way Pudding sees the situation. In his eyes: the economy is there to serve his own interests, and these other assets - hundreds of thousands of ‘useless’ Russians that are getting killed in the process, but especially those useless armed forces - have proven as incapable of ‘at least’ conquering Ukraine. From Pudding’s point of view, this ‘army’, and all the thousands of Russians killed in this war have all got exactly what they deserve getting - for ‘their failures’.

What a surprise then: Pudding has no reason to ‘agree’ to - not even to think about - any kind of ‘cease-fire’. Absolutely no incentive for anything of that kind.

Oh wait. That’s not even ‘the best’ in all of this.

‘The ‘best’ is that ‘the West’ has similar objectives: from the point of view of those 100-200 characters that are actually in control of ‘the West’ (because they own some 90-95% of everything there is to own), that’s perfect that way. Because now Russia is bogged down - not ‘knee-deep’, but ‘eyebrows deep’ - in a War it cannot win. It’s ‘out’ as a potential threat (for ‘the West’), and that for decades in advance.

Indeed, Pudding’s Russia is perfect for the designs of our own oligarchy. Because it’s helping distract from their own operations: just mention the ‘threat of Russian invasion’, and see how keen are all the possible presidents, chancellors, and prime ministers to squander taxpayer’s money to buy obsolete arms. And that’s just one example. Add dismemberment of pluralism, suppression of personal freedoms, and then the ‘illegal immigrants’ and all the other ‘threats’, and you’ve got the picture. Is perfectly fine to distract even from our own complicity in Israel’s genocide on Palestinians.

‘Because they’re all terrorists’, and ‘deserve it’, of course.

Besides, Pudding’s Russia is still such a perfect source for all of its mineral wealth. This is now even cheaper to get - at least for those buying it, so they can re-sell it to the EU. At much higher prices.

Because that’s increasing the profit.

But no. It’s me or such like me to blame. Now I’m descending into conspiracy theories and suffering from Dumpf paranoia and similar…

OK. Fine. I am. And you feel better if concluding the same - and then don’t forget to act surprised at how many of what of glorious ‘democratisers’ and ‘people concerned about well-being of their nations’ in the EU are going to bend over (and in what ways) in order to let Pudding reach Budapest to meet Dumpf, ‘in defiance’ of EU’s sanctions regime, and in defiance of an ICC arrest warrant. So much so, the EU spokesperson Anitta Hipper was already quick to ‘confirm’ that ‘individual EU countries could make ‘exceptions to the travel ban’ - where, actually, neither Pudding nor his foreign minister Lavror are subject to any kind of individual travel bans to the EU.

Ah well, I’m ranting about politics (‘again’), and can’t analyse soberly (especially not this war) - while you’re trying to inform yourself about war.

…because politics of running aggressive wars is no foundation for aggressive wars. Nor do the two stand in any kind of relation to each other. Of course. Anything, just no sober thinking and simple conclusions supported by facts, please.

Over to Don…

***

Sumy

Ukraine bombs Oleksiivka. Later, a Russian drones attack Ukrainian positions in the center of the village. Outside Kostiantynivka, the 225th Assault Regiment hunts Russian infantry in open and through trees.

***

The commander of the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade says Ukraine has the initiative in the Sumy region. Russia tries to move troops and supplies into their front line positions but are suffering heavy casualties from drones. They are infiltrating teams of 2-3 men into Russia’s rear and taking up defensive positions there, but it requires trained people in order to survive and training people takes time. When the Russians become aware of their presence, they try to clear them out in a disorganized way and are hampered by Ukrainian artillery and drones.

These offensive operations have resulted in fewer casualties for the 95th than when they manned their defensive positions. One reason is because they move fairly often, making it difficult to track their location. This may be harder to do in the winter months and there is less foliage.

There are a lot of KABs but they mostly target artillery and air defenses and aren’t very effective or accurate because of EW jamming. The launch locations of KABs are known and launches are spotted by radars. This gives them 40 seconds warning and soldiers seek cover. When ballistic missiles are launched they only have 5 seconds notice.

The 95th has been in a corps for three months. The leaders he answers to are younger but they’ve been fighting in Sumy much as they have before because they aren’t fighting with other brigades in their corps. They have a good aerial drone team but are just starting to work with ground drones. Their artillery leads all brigades in destroying enemy soldiers and equipment. They were firing 500 shells a day while they were in Kursk and now fire a couple hundred shells a day in Sumy. Replacements arrive from training centers better prepared than they were before but the brigade still conducts 15 more days of training before sending them into the fight. The average age in the brigade is probably 35-40 years old.

***

The Kraken regiment used a T-80 tank that they captured from Russia to shell Russian positions last summer. The tank crews use live video feed from drones to correct their own indirect fire.

When the mobile phase of the Korean war ended, ramps were built for allied tanks and they were used as artillery. Nowadays, drones made direct fire engagements for tanks dangerous so they are using forests for concealment and logs to elevate their guns. However, firing those guns can betray their position to enemy drones - principally because 80 years after all the possible lessons about flashes and smoke caused by firing guns were learned in the Second World War, nobody recalls such lessons…

***

(…to be continued…)