Don's Weekly, 23 September 2024: Part 4

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 3…)

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Ukraine

Sometime earlier this year Ukraine said they had 80,000 dead and 400,000 wounded. Ryan O’Leary says the number of Ukrainian dead is between 100,000 and 150,000. The number for wounded is too low since most return to service: in his opinion, those suffering too heavy injuries to continue service number around 250-300,000. He assesses the number of Russian dead at between 250-400,000 dead.

In his 65-man unit, almost all were wounded in 2023. Of those, three could not return to duty: Two because of amputations, one because the shrapnel left in his brain might move with a blast wave. One person in his unit was shot two times in three weeks. Another had shrapnel wounds two times in seven days.

He also has ideas on the intake, training and organization of foreign volunteers.

Gepards have a short range but are very effective against Shahed drones.

A foreign volunteer teaches first aid on the battlefield.

The Kharkiv Rescue Group saves animals from combat zones. An elderly woman declines to leave, saying, “If not today, then tomorrow I will die.”

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Diplomacy

Timothy Snyder has an opinion on the Russian empire and it’s influence on western political decisions.

The European Parliament voted to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s ability to use weapons in Russia and called on the EU countries and NATO allies to send 0.25% of their GDP to Ukraine as military aid. The vote was 425 in favor, 131 against and 63 abstaining.

Armenia had two coup attempts in 2023, and they just arrested men that went to Russia for training.

Since the ruling party in Georgia is moving away from democracy, the EU is considering revoking their visa-free travel in the bloc.

US army units are currently being deployed overseas at a higher rate than during the peak of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. When serving overseas for more than 30 days they will receive monthly bonuses of $210 to $450, depending on rank.

The map the Soviet Union presented to Germany with their proposed dividing line as they plotted to invade Poland in 1939.

The Russian foreign ministry tried to rewrite the history of the Second World Wa by saying they offered a mutual defense pact with Poland but were turned down because Poland had their own expansionist agenda. They tried to spin the September 17th Soviet invasion of Poland as an act of mercy after the Polish government had fled and Ukrainian and Belarussian populations in Poland were threatened by the Germans. The German foreign ministry posted a map that the Soviets had presented to Germany suggesting how they should both divide up Poland under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the word, “Seriously?”

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Equipment

The air war between Russian and Ukrainian drone-operators is heating up. Meanwhile, some of Russian reconnaissance drones have a ‘dormant’ EW system. When it detects a certain frequency, it activates to jam that frequency, hoping to disrupt the signal to Ukrainian drones that are trying to intercept them.

An anti-drone cage that protects a Ukrainian self-propelled artillery in its hiding position.