Don's Weekly, 21 July 2025: Part 3 (Russia & Diplomacy)
by Donald Hill
(…continued from Part 2…)
***
Russia
This was something like the ‘sole sector with good news’ in the last week - primarily because of several additional Ukrainian UAV-strikes. A chemical factory in the Tula region caught fire when ‘drone debris’ fell on it.
…by all the ‘drone debris’ has been causing to Russia, it would probably be better if they didn’t fire at drones at all…
In addition to damage caused by Ukrainian drones, refineries require normal maintenance. Since 80% of Russia’s refinery equipment was foreign-built, the parts to repair them are difficult to find. Russia domestic production has only reduced the foreign part to 55-70%, depending on the piece of equipment. Because of that, Russian refinery output last year fell to its lowest levels since 2012.
One of Russia’s largest drone suppliers lost 47 terabytes of data when its servers and back up files were hacked and wiped. Production was paralyzed. The doors were remotely locked, forcing employees to use emergency exits. The data on the drones being produced was secured by HUR, Ukraine’s Intelligence Directorate, which led the operation and was supported by two hacker groups. It is unknown how long drone production will be interrupted at that facility.
Gazprom computer systems were hit with a denial-of-service attack in January that prevented people from accessing their accounts, pay for fuel, use online services or manage bonuses. Last week, the HUR destroyed a large part of Gazprom's databases and installed software that damaged the operations of pipelines, pumps and other systems.
After a series of explosions, Russia is spending $38 million to inspect tankers for bombs.
Since 2015, Russia has held an annual military technical forum at Patriot Park outside Moscow. Last May, a Ukrainian drone hit a target in the park. Russia canceled the event at Patriot Park but they may reschedule it in a closed format.
Russia is increasing taxes for people making $27,500 or more. Putin said the tax increase would affect no more than 3.2% of Russia’s taxpayers. A senior lawmaker said they need to be raised even more.
Russia says that more than a quarter of its coal mining operations will be closed due to high debt, low demand, low prices and a bad exchange rate.
Moldovan volunteers traveled to Serbia last year and surrendered their cell phones and passports before training in camps run by Russian intelligence agencies. They received $3-500 in cryptocurrency for completing the ten day course. The purpose was to undermine the fall 2024 elections in Moldova.
Russian jamming of GPS signals in the Baltic and Arctic Seas is making air and naval travel more dangerous. Kaliningrad is the source of the jamming and has 12,000 Russian troops. NATO countries warn that if the jamming contributes to a crash they will take military action to eliminate the jamming equipment. A NATO general said the enclave could be captured very quickly. Russia said they might answer with nuclear weapons.
Details about the torture of Ukrainian prisoners at Mordovia and the identification of the doctor that abused them.
The Russian economy is compared to European countries based on GDP and purchasing power.
***
Diplomacy
China already said they cannot afford for Russia to lose the war and allow the US to focus entirely on them. This week they said they will deepen their alliance with Russia in response to Trump’s threats of tariffs on Russia. China says they will only provide non-lethal aid despite supply drone components, setting up a joint drone factory in Russia and sending CNC machines to create other machines for military equipment production.
Democrats and a large number of Republicans have shown support for Ukraine since the open invasion by Russia. Many of those Republicans that opposed aid are now demonstrating their independent thought by backing Trump’s verbal support of Ukraine. Others, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, call the plan a betrayal. Her proposal to prohibit funding of Ukraine in an appropriation bill was symbolic because no new aid to Ukraine was included in the bill, but it was defeated 353-76 anyway.
When asked if they supported giving weapons to Ukraine, 49% of Trump supporters agreed with it and 36% opposed it. When asked if they support Trump’s decision to continue giving weapons to Ukraine, 65% of Trump voters supported it and 22% opposed it. Over 14% of Trump’s supporters changed their opinion because of Trump’s opinion.
Switzerland ordered five Patriot systems for delivery in 2027-2028. Delivery is being delayed in order to send the systems to Germany, who is sending systems to Ukraine. A year ago, Switzerland was informed that the delivery of PAC3 MSE missiles would be delayed.
Even though Ukraine needs all of the drones it produces and Ukraine’s survival is in the best interest of the US, Trump and Ukraine are discussing exchanging US weapons for Ukrainian drones. The benefits to Ukraine is that they can potentially secure US weapons that they cannot produce and this exchange might keep Trump engaged with Ukraine and less likely to implement a policy detrimental to Ukraine, or at least limit the scope of a detrimental policy. In the end, they are just words until something happens.
Uzbekistan’s largest trading partners are China and Russia. Putin visited in May to sign a deal to build a nuclear power plant in the country, and Russia and Uzbekistan are conducting a joint military exercise with about 400 people. Uzbekistan prosecutes citizens that fight in the war on behalf of Russia and no longer flies commercial aircraft over Russian and Belarusian airspace. At the same time, Russia is establishing drone production in Uzbekistan and receives much of it’s cotton pulp from Uzbekistan. There are sanctions on providing nitrocellulose to Russia because it is a component in explosives, but there are no sanctions on cotton pulp which can be turned into nitrocellulose. A Russian national owns the companies that send 85% of the cotton pulp to Russia. He is also building a cellulose processing plant in Russia.
Russia threatens to jam any European satellites that are helping Ukraine. They are already jamming GPS signals in the Baltic and Arctic.
"German troops will be ready to kill Russian soldiers if Moscow attacks a NATO member state. If deterrence fails and Russia attacks — will it happen? Yes. But I would recommend you just go to Vilnius and talk to the German brigade representatives stationed there. They definitely know what to do," the German Defense Minister said.
Russia is the leading supplier of oil to India, providing 35% of India’s oil. India says it would have no issue finding oil elsewhere if sanctions are applied to Russian customers. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, India imported only 2% of its oil from Russia. India switched to Russian oil because it was cheaper and bought more than it needed for domestic use in order to refine and sell it for a profit. This practice has now been sanctioned by the EU, as has India’s second largest refinery, in which the Russian oil company Rosneft has a 49.13% stake. The price cap on Russian oil was also lowered from $60 to $47.60 per barrel.
Ilan Shor is an oligarch that fled Moldova and obtained a Russian passport. He is under investigation for embezzling $1 billion in state funds and founded the Pobeda party in 2024. The Pobeda party was banned from participating in parliamentary elections.
The Russian branch of a Danish cargo inspection company (owned by a French company) facilitates the shipment of Ukrainian grain in the occupied territories for Russia.
France is expanding its military operations in the Arctic region in partnership with EU countries and Canada in order to protect trade routes that are opening up due to climate change.
A CNC machine that could create artillery barrels was sold by a Spanish company to Russia and facilitated by a Chinese company in Hong Kong.
Australia decided to buy French submarines instead of German or Japanese subs and signed a deal with France in 2016. After information about the subs were hacked, the price almost doubled, delays in the program, and a reduction in the number of Australians that would build the subs, Australia backed out of the deal in 2021, which angered France. They decided to buy US subs, but now Trump’s administration is reviewing the deal because the US wants more subs and is questioning why they should sell subs to Australia first. Against that backdrop, the US asked Australia to commit to supporting the US in any potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific region. Australia said they’d make their decisions at the time of the conflicts. But the US, Japan and Australia did agree to refuel and reload each other’s warships.
***
(…to be concluded in the Part 4…)
China has never been a mediator in this conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The Chinese are using Russia and Iran as their puppets in their confrontation with the United States. It is very beneficial for the Chinese to use such regimes to humiliate and finally destroy the reputation of the United States and the EU. The Chinese plan to push the US influence in the world as far as possible in order to offer their own Chinese order instead. Although... Obama's absolute idiotic policy of inaction, and then Trump's isolationism, along with the deterioration of relations with its allies, have harmed the United States even more. I don't know what kind of clinical idiots you have to be to destroy relations with all EU countries, and then even with Canada. The United States probably wants to be left alone in the confrontation with China. This is probably Trump's “brilliant” plan. As for Australia, half of its economy is owned by the Chinese. If anyone thinks that the Chinese will have to land on Australia, it is complete nonsense. The only thing that saves Australia is that it is far from China, that the Chinese cannot absorb it economically in its entirety.
Overall, the war in Ukraine is a bad thing for China because it incentivized the U.S. and NATO to massively increase weapons production, particularly in artillery ammunition and air defense systems.