Don's Weekly, 30 September 2024: Part 4

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 3…)

***

Russia

Anders Puck Nielsen talks about why the Russian economy is not sustainable. It’s a 12 minute video that talks about what’s been said before, but if you still don’t understand the difficulties facing Russia’s economy, it’s worth a listen.

A colonel that trained drone operators was assassinated near Moscow.

900 km from Ukraine, a railroad bridge was sabotaged. Unfortunately, it did not derail the train or destroy the bridge.

Millerovo airfield was attacked again but there were no initial reports of damage.

Initial NASA FIRMS data indicated a fire at the northern end of the Kotluban ammo depot. Ukraine said that the attack coincided with the arrival of a train carrying Iranian missiles but the train track (highlighted in white) into the depot is located at the southern end of the facility.

Ukraine said that a train carrying Iranian missiles arrived at Kotluban depot the evening before that early morning attack and that damage was inflicted on the storage and modernization facilities for missiles and artillery weapons. NASA infrared data shows that the fires were on the northern end depot and likely just outside the perimeter fence. The fire was fairly widespread and intense. By early morning, a smaller intense fire was still burning and producing heavy smoke. A satellite image from later that day indicates that there was a fire that covered 1600 x 800 meters, but it did not enter the village or the depot, and there were no buildings within the burnt area.

***

Ukraine

Three people are killed when a 250 kg bomb hits a residential building in Kramatorsk.

At least 9 were killed when two drones hit a Sumy hospital.

Children from kindergarten move to a shelter when an air raid siren sounds in Kyiv.

To say Andrew Perpetua views a lot of social media is an understatement. On Saturday, he had 2000 messages to read. Among those messages are the smaller fragments of news many of us never see. We’ll see the strike on an apartment building or hospital, but he’ll also read the smaller tragedies, as well: An old woman was killed. An old man was killed. People died while delivering water to an old man. It is tragically common for older people to remain in their homes when everyone else has evacuated. They are settled where they want to live out their days, and the Russians take it away from them. And people trying to help them are injured and killed.

But it is not just the elderly living close to the front lines, and not everyone is killed. Two women lose their legs. A child is wounded. A young girl loses a leg. A family has a barbeque and then goes to bed that night. The shell killed the father. The mother was crushed by debris but still alive. She called for her 10-year-old son who came to her and stayed with her as she died. He lives with his godmother now and when he visited their graves he apologizes to his father that he could not save his mother.

That was back in May, in Pokrovsk. About 2/3 of the population has evacuated, so chances are he and his godmother have, too. We don’t know because he isn’t in the news. Just one more person added to the growing anonymous list. Just one more person whose life is forever changed by a zombie nation mindlessly destroying at the direction of a madman.

***

Diplomacy

Trump says Ukraine should take a deal, even a bad deal, to stop the deaths. He also claims Ukraine is gone and that winning wars is what Russia does. When asked if Ukraine should cede territory to Russia in return for temporary peace, he answered, “We’ll see what happens.” Back in 2022, Trump praised Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it was “genius” and “savvy.”

The UK foreign minister speaks his mind about Russian imperialism.

A member of Orban’s staff said, "Hungary would not put up armed resistance if Russia attacked it.” Orban said that was an ambiguous statement and that Hungary would defend itself.

An eighth Russian general was arrested for corruption. This general was accused of accepting a $1.5 million bribe for giving a company a contract to repair equipment.

In 2022, Switzerland refused to allow ammo it produced to be used in Ukraine because it would violate their laws on neutrality. They also blocked the transfer of 96 Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine that they sold to the Netherlands. They would not allow Denmark to transfer Piranha III armored vehicles to Ukraine. And Spain could not transfer two 35mm anti-aircraft missiles they bought from Switzerland. At the time, NATO countries were telling Switzerland that they had to choose between being a defense partner or a neutral nation because they couldn’t be both. Now Germany is excluding Swiss companies from certain military procurement contracts, considering them an unreliable partner. Switzerland is considering changing their laws but that won’t happen until the end of 2025.

A native Moldovan gives advice on how to cross a Russian checkpoint in Transnistria.

***

Equipment

Some Russian units in Kursk have a shortage of 122 mm artillery ammo and rifle ammo. They are compensating for these shortages by transferring ammo from units that have plenty of these types of ammo. This is a symptom of the strikes on the ammo depots a couple weeks ago.

Stefan Korshak took the Ukrainian-produced Novator for a drive. It’s a wheeled armored utility vehicle that can be used for transport of troops, wounded and supplies. It’s built to survive drones, near-miss artillery shells and light- and medium-caliber small arms fire.

Russian storage and repair sites for the S-300 air defense system are now empty of equipment, except for one site that still has nine radars on location.

To no one’s surprise, Tatarigami says that the development of the Russian Su-57 is in jeopardy without access to western components.

Starlink isn’t sold to Russians and it cannot be operated in Russia but Russia can buy them through third party countries and operate them in Ukraine. A Starlink terminal was found on a Shahed drone. This could allow it to navigate and be used as a reconnaissance asset, as well as hitting moving targets.

DPICM bomblets fail to detonate just under 3% of the time. Some bomblets on Russian rockets fail to detonate up to 40% of the time. The overall ordinance failure rate is about 1%. If its in a field it’s often detonated where it’s found. If it’s a 500 kg bomb in the middle of civilization, then sappers defuse it while pouring bottled water on the fuse to prevent static discharge and ignition.

Bradleys have been destroyed, of course, but the survival rate for the occupants is high. In one soldier’s case, he had 7 Bradleys in 8 months and none of them were totaled. One survived 7 drone hits. Even if they aren’t totalled they can still be lost if they can’t be recovered.

The UK sent 10 AS-90 155mm SPGs and will send six more later. The US will send $7.9 billion in aid by January 20th, 2025, the end of Biden’s term. Included in the package will be a Patriot system, which has to be refurbished first, and the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) with a 130 km range.

Images of a Russian drone that flew 9 km spooling out fiber optic cable. Here is a compilation video of fiber optic drone attacks on abandoned Ukrainian vehicles and sensors. One drone fails to detonate after impact and continues to transmit video.

Russia lost 174 pieces of pontoon bridging equipment by one accounting. Not all the bases where they store bridging equipment are known, but for the locations that are known, a lot of equipment has been removed, but a lot remains. Also unknown is whether Russia is building pontoon equipment anywhere and, if so, at what rate.

Russia still has plenty of artillery pieces in one form or another, but the pieces in storage are dwindling. Highmarsed estimates that about 25% of the remaining SPGs have been cannibalized for parts.

(….to be continued…)