Don's Weekly, 30 June 2025: Part 3, Ukraine & Diplomacy

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 2…)

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Ukraine

21 were killed and more than 300 injured in a missile attack on Dnipro. The immediate aftermath of the attack on the Dnipro Tube Plant.

On a night in which Russia sent 537 drones and missiles, Ukraine lost an F-16 and a pilot.

The intercepting drone can’t be seen, but the impact on the Geran can.

In April 2024, there was a plot to assassinate Zelensky at an airport in Poland. A retired military officer recruited by Russia decades earlier was either going to use a sniper rifle or a drone but was foiled by Polish and Ukrainian security services. There were at least three assassination attempts on Zelensky in 2022 and dozens since, including two colonels in Zelensky’s protective force that were arrested after planning an attempt.

Andriy Yermak is the head of Zelensky’s Presidential Office. His brother is a sniper and operates drones in the foreign legion of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR) and the Russians decided to assassinate him. An engineer from Kharkiv rented an apartment in Kyiv and began to build a bomb while a 14-year-old monitored the brother’s house. The time of the attack would be at 3 pm on May 15 while Andriy Yermak was in Turkey talking to the Russians. The SBU monitored the engineer with video and audio surveillance and had access to his phone as he talked with his Russian handlers. They evacuated the brother’s wife and two kids. 800 grams is enough to destroy an SUV and the bomb had 2.5 kg of explosives. The plan was for the engineer to ring the doorbell and hand the package over. The Russians likely would have detonated the bomb when they heard the door open, killing the engineer, whoever opened the door and doing a lot of damage to the apartment building.

The SBU arrested a collaborator before the Russians could kill him and whomever answered the door.

In December, a Russian general and an aide were killed by a bomb planted in a nearby scooter. In Kyiv, a Ukrainian serviceman meets a girl on a dating app. She asks him to get her apartment keys from her scooter. He steps back right before it explodes. In Kharkiv, two servicemen are promised a free scooter in which a 19-year-old woman placed a kilogram of TNT at the direction of her Russian handlers. Using a remote camera, the Russians detonate the bomb, killing one and seriously injuring another. The woman is arrested.

Almost a million people are serving in Ukraine’s military and 70,000 of them are women and 5,500 serve on the front line. Women now account for 21% of applicants at recruitment centers. The 13th Khartia Brigade is a progressive, effective unit and the anchor brigade of the 2nd Corps, and it is actively recruiting women. The brigade has hundreds of vacant positions and the 2nd Corps has thousands of positions that need to be filled. Some brigades still refuse to recruit women. “Khartiia was the only brigade at the time (when I was enlisting in 2023) that considered women for a combat role,” said one soldier. “Motivated women are better at any job than unmotivated men,” said another.

In the 14th and 15th century, English and Scottish kings and queens outlawed the game of “fute-ball” (think rugby) because it was “likely to result in homicides and fatal accidents.” Not only would this deprive the rulers of men needed for combat, but it distracted them from the sport of archery, which was a useful military skill. Along those lines, the first regional FPV drone racing championship was held in Kyiv, organized by the Ukrainian Federation of Military-Technological Sports. There were also demonstration flights, training sessions for interested bystanders, and presentations of cutting-edge developments from drone manufacturers.

In Ukraine, 18-24 year old males cannot be drafted. However, if they sign a contract they will receive one million hryvnia (about $24k). The sign on the left says, “Are you 18-24 years old? Sign the contract and take your million! 1 million hryvnia = 33,000,000,000 robux." The sign on the right says a million hryvnia equals 185 years of premium subscription to Netflix.

At the beginning of the open invasion McDonald’s closed all their restaurants in Ukraine. When they reopened a store in Kyiv in September 2022 people lined up for hours. Now McDonald’s has more restaurants in Ukraine now than they did in 2022. IKEA and the Spanish fashion brand Zara returned. Since 2022, over 2600 foreign companies have started operations in Ukraine, led by Turkey with 13% of businesses. Internally, there has been a lot of disruption. By November 2023, over 7800 Ukrainian businesses had moved and 27% companies left Kyiv. In 2024, the number that moved increased to 11,000, with a third of those moving leaving Kyiv, but relocation was decreased by 23% compared to 2023. Ukraine’s economy is expected to grow 2-3% this year, propped up by foreign aid. Last October, it was estimated that Ukraine would have a $40 billion trade deficit representing 21.6% of its GDP. That would be offset by $38.4 billion in financial aid and a 10% devaluation of the hryvnia.

A native of Donbas discusses his experiences living as a civilian and resistance fighter prior to 2022 and fighting in the Ukrainian army after the open invasion.

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Diplomacy

South Korea says that North Korea is preparing to send its troops into Ukraine in July or August.

A Russian warship escorted a sanctioned tanker through the Mediterranean Sea and met a second sanctioned tanker in the Atlantic to escort both tankers through the English Channel. In May, Estonia tried to intercept a tanker in the Baltic Sea and withdrew when the Russians sent an Su-35. Finland warned at the beginning of the year that Russian escorts of shadow fleet ships may become routine.

Putin is open to talking to Germany but Germany has to initiate contact. Merz responded, "A heavy Russian attack on Kyiv and a hospital accompanied the latest visit of the Hungarian prime minister to Moscow. An attack on a children's hospital following the latest phone call [between] my predecessor [and Putin]. If that’s what comes of such calls, I would refrain from them for a long time."

600 Chinese servicemen will travel to Russia to learn how to defeat NATO equipment.

The delivery of two S-400 systems to India were scheduled for 2023 but were delayed once again until 2026-7 due to the war. India also refused to pay in dollars to avoid sanctions. They also don’t want to pay in rubles because of the volatility of the currency. At least one component of an Indian S-400 was hit during the recent conflict with Pakistan.

A former Ukrainian diplomat was arrested in Hungary for espionage and deported to Ukraine. He also possessed Russian citizenship because he lives in occupied Crimea and wishes to move to Russia. Hungary annulled his deportation because a judge said the the alleged threat to national security was not established. Ukraine does not currently recognize dual citizenship and draft-age males are barred from leaving Ukraine, so he cannot return to his family in Hungary.

The Serbian government announced it was suspending all arms exports for national security and economic reasons, not because of criticism from Russia for Serbian ammo ending up in Ukraine. There had also been criticism for shipping arms to Israel. There were immediate international protests as well as domestic protests from the defense companies that wanted to sell the ammo and the workers that wanted to be employed. So the government modified its decision and said it will create a list of countries that can receive ammo and that each shipment must have government approval.

An international arbitration tribunal ordered Russia’s Gazprom to pay Ukraine’s Naftogaz $1.37 billion for debt in gas transit services. Gazprom tried to block the proceedings in Russian courts but failed. Naftogaz is also seeking $5 billion for the illegal expropriation of assets in Crimea in 2014. That process is ongoing in 10 different jurisdictions and in most jurisdictions local law firms are providing their services to Ukraine free of charge. In Finland and France, Russian property has already been seized to pay for damages.

Poland joins the Baltic States and Finland in withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention, in which signatories pledge not to use, manufacture, stockpile or transfer anti-personnel mines. Ukraine is just now withdrawing from the agreement although they have been using anti-personnel mines throughout the war.

Russian agents burned six Bundeswehr trucks in Germany. Of course, ‘Russia is waging no war against Europe’, and ‘spending 5% is going to solve such problems’…

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(…to be concluded in the Part 4…)