Don's Weekly, 28 April 2025: Part 3

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 2…)

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Russia

A group founded by Russia’s current defense minister says that Russia is in recession. In the last four years, Russia’s industrial output rose 8%. If you remove military production from the calculations, the growth over the last four years was only 1.2% and production has been falling since late 2023.

Northeast of Moscow, the 51st GRAU arsenal has a maximum capacity of 260,000 tons of ammo. The arsenal was hit by drones during the day that set off a series of explosions. Some of the munitions flew for 10 km or more before exploding. The explosions continued into the night and didn’t stop until 24 hours after the attack. Houses were hit. Aid was sent to the victims. In 2009, the Russian media said 105,000 tons of ammo was stored in the facility before it was expanded. It’s unknown how many tons were there at the time of the attack.

Satellite images of the 51st GRAU before and after the attack on top, and the damage assessment on the bottom.

In 2017, half the funds meant to expand its storage capacity were embezzled and the contractor was replaced. The lack of protective measures were never fully resolved. Half the buildings had earthen revetments but were not fully covered by earth, and many of the revetments were only constructed on one side of the building. Drones haven’t been effective weapons against concrete bunkers, which are also the best protection against secondary explosions. Buildings covered by earth provide the next level of protection from both attacks and secondary explosions. But these buildings were not concrete and were not covered by earth. That contributed to the damage from both the attacks and secondary explosions. In September 2024, boxes of ammo were stacked in the open. This contributed to devastation at other depots and it may or may not have been a factor in this attack also.

The 51st GRAU is the largest of the arsenals and the fourth to be hit. There are other arsenals that store ammo that have not been attacked and seven of them within range of Ukraine are shown on the map below. These arsenals don’t just store ammo, they also maintain, repair and restore the ammo. Some arsenals store equipment instead of ammo, some were turned into defense production facilities, and some were closed.

The drone factory in Alabuga was hit again. One of the attacking drones was shot down at Nizhnekamsk, 15 km south of Yelabuga, and another was shot down in Yelabuga itself. Another drone was attacked but the missile missed. More drones reportedly hit the factory. The assembly shot was hit and other damage is being confirmed. The factories employ a lot of foreign workers and students that were evacuated. 6,000 Shahed drones and thousands of decoy drones were made there last year. 10,000 Shahed and 15,000 decoy drones were expected to be produced there in 2025.

Similar to Ukraine, Russia has a lot of air defense systems but the size of their country makes it impossible to protect everything. Compounding Russia’s problem is that there are plenty of their citizens that provide intelligence on targets and set up navigation systems inside Russia to help guide the drones and missiles.

A Russian general was killed near Moscow in a car bomb that was parked by his residence with a surveillance camera installed inside the car bomb. The explosive devices were multiple 40mm grenades, most of which were concentrated on the left side of the trunk, but others scattered throughout the car created secondary explosions.

The explosive devices were multiple 40mm grenades. Most of them were concentrated on the left side of the trunk, but others were placed in other parts of the car which created secondary explosions.

A Russian engineer that designed electronic warfare equipment was killed by a bomb in Bryansk.

An Su-30SM jet was burned by infiltrators at the Rostov-on-Don central airfield. Back in March, six train cars, nine railway signaling, interlocking and blocking devices, a power transformer and a fuel tank car were sabotaged throughout Russia. It is impossible to determine how many Russians oppose the regime in thought or deed, but even if the number is small, it is widespread, as far as 6,000 km from Ukraine.

In Moscow alone, 1500 foreigners joined the Russian army last year. In the linked article there is an interactive map that shows the 48 countries of origin for 1300 of the foreigners. Some individual stories from various countries are highlighted. The son of a deputy director in the CIA was killed on 4 April 2024 while fighting for Russia.

The electronic warfare environment constantly changes on the front. Different radio frequencies are used and jammed, channel hopping and pulse communication is used, and false signals can be used to divert attention from the operational signals. The electromagnetic spectrum has to be analyzed to understand the enemy actions in order to plan around it. A Russian Telegram channel says that commanders are putting functional EW equipment on vehicles that are not updated with the proper output to protect against current battlefield conditions. As a result, the jammers do not protect the vehicles which then suffer heavy losses.

In an M113 you can exit out the back through a door without dropping the ramp, you can lower the ramp slowly with a cable, or you can let the ramp drop at the speed of gravity if the cable is slack or missing. In Russia, during an exhibition of captured equipment, someone dropped the ramp while a child was behind the vehicle, killing the child. In this image you can see the cable on the left side of the ramp. At the 0:35 point in this video, the cable is missing.

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Ukraine

Russian ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv lasted 11 hours and killed at least 12 and wounded 90 people. Trump wrote, “Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!” Trump said he believes Putin will listen to him. If only he would have asked Putin to stop earlier.

In the meantime, Ukrainians try to save their own from the rubble in Kyiv and there was a large drone attack that set Odesa on fire.

Ukraine is establishing two-man drone teams that have a pilot to fly the drones and a spotter that prepares the drone for combat. Whether they are using different frequencies or fiber optic cables to communicate with the drone, the GPS frequencies are often jammed. Prior to each mission, they look at satellite imagery to identify unique landmarks, such as an intersection, a distinct-looking building or a lake to help orient themselves and determine where the drone is. The spotter focuses on navigation so the pilot can focus on flying the drone.

Russian drones now fly at high altitudes and drop quickly on their target to avoid anti-aircraft fire, as seen in this attack on a residential building in a city 70 km south of Kyiv.

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(…to be continued…)