Thank you very much for your efforts. I would like to know your opinion about the ongoing infos about quarrels between Zelenski and Zalushni and that the first is on the brink of fire the latter. I do personally put this down to the very well organized desinformation campaigns Russia launches inside Ukraine and outside Ukraine. Extremely well targeted and very well implemented.
"On the brink" has no physical sense - an event either happens or not. That's called here "slightly pregnant".
The relations between the two look uneasy at least since the summer (counter-)offensive, probably well before that. Nevertheless, each of them needs the other one to survive.
In The Times (UK) this week was an article suggesting the mayor of Kyiv was very unhappy with Zelensky and his increasingly autocratic behaviour. There won’t be another election while the country is under martial law
Zelensky tried to remove Klitschko (the mayor of Kyiv) a couple of times before and during the war. Thus Klitschko, who is a semi-independent political actor since 2014 (well before Zelensky), is not very happy with Zelensky.
All of that is the struggle of the old oligarchical (aka democratic or pluralist) Ukrainian politics against the new autocratic model where Zelensky got the majority of parliament seats and war-time dictatorial authority. The oligarchs preserved Ukraine as a democratic country while its neighbors that did not have the pluralism of power sources quickly cemented as dictatorships.
Klitschko sits in his chair the third time at a row. He built very corrupted and populistic chains of power in Kyiv. Especially in medicine and social sphere. His subordinates milking our city taxes nearly decade and it's not going to be better any time soon. So many of people in Kyiv hoped that team of Zelenskiy really could investigate all the cases of corruption of Klitschko team and send them to jail. But it's never happened after war started.
Simple example. For now many of Kyiv municipal hospitals has worse state of repair than even small hospitals in oblast. Very effective management and truly trustworthy team of Klitschko
similarly like frequency hopping, impulse radio uses randomly (with key only known to receiver) very narrom pulses, spreading the energy over a very wide bandwidth (up to Ghz), making it virtually unjammable and undetectable. still under a lot of secrecy.
it uses the principle communication rules of claude shannon. you can trade communication bandwidth for Signal to noise (or transmission power) to transfer a certain amount information . in military impulse radio uses only a few mW of wideband noise to encode a voice channel, meaning that you can signal voice 300m away from enemy lines for more than 25km without being detected. the high spreading ratio of a few khz voice bandwidth into a Ghz gives the same amount of jamming resistance but also a large lock time, unsuitable for video. best is to compress video first and then spread into a wide band for example using direct sequence spreading. Wide band antennas do not have high gains as selective antennas, another disadvantage , so low gain, but jamming resistance can be still good when despreading is applied early in the receive chain.
I am appalled at how desperately incompetent NATO countries are when things are turning serious. Everything takes a long time, some promises they are not able to fulfill. And unity is slowly crumbling under the pressure not only of hybrid war, but also of people's own reluctance to sacrifice some of their comfort for security, the importance of which they cannot imagine...
Of course it is. I'm afraid that one they, when they will have political will, it will be too late to prevent the open conflict. We are talking about few years (3-6?) I guess...
Thank you very much for your work, you as always created very good summary for the last week. Every week I wait for your updates to have better picture of all the advances in my native country.
I have minor note about this piece of information - 'missiles so schools have been built inside the Metro. As you can see, they’re a little more developed than last year…' - this part is not about Kyiv it is about the Kharkiv - the city that is only in 30 kilometers from russia border.
Just want to add a correction that schools in metro were built not in Kyiv, but in Kharkiv only. While Kyiv is very good protected, Kharkiv is not. Besides, Kharkiv is usually attacked by S300, which is even harder to protect from.
However, the decision about school in metro is pure populism and political game. There were some schools that built shelters capable to support studying process, but right before the start of educational year local authorities added more requeriments, so those shelters become unacceptable for the purpose. As the result, the mayor earned political points for conducting education during the war. Nobody cares that it's hard to concentrate because of the noise in the metro or that using the public transport facilities for schools (or even concerts, closing a part of a line) affects the economic of the city.
Ukraine is certainly safe for the spring. Russia does not have the offensive capability to defeat Ukraine militarily. This is a war of attrition and attrition is about endurance: Who can last the longest with regards to manpower, equipment and morale?
Russia lost 1.6 times Ukraine's casualties and that ratio will trend in Ukraine's favor since their biggest rate of loss was in the Spring and Summer of 2022 when Russia expended so much artillery ammo and Ukraine had a lot of untrained recruits. But Russia has three times Ukraine's population so Ukraine must protect its manpower.
Polls still show that Ukraine's morale is high and Russian citizens are still accepting their fate. That may change in the future with widespread mobilization but right now salaries that are three times the average pay with high death benefits is providing enough recruits for Russia, especially from the poor regions.
Ukraine is dependent on foreign aid for a significant amount of equipment and money to keep their economy stabilized. If domestic US politics interferes with its aid that is a concern since they provide almost half the military aid but I hope expect it will just be delayed. Russian production already has some issues and the sanctions are having an effect on their economy but they have been able to delay some of the effects for now and will likely continue to do so in 2024. At some point, though, the economy will begin to fall apart and that will effect their production, food prices, domestic businesses and morale.
Thank you very much for your efforts. I would like to know your opinion about the ongoing infos about quarrels between Zelenski and Zalushni and that the first is on the brink of fire the latter. I do personally put this down to the very well organized desinformation campaigns Russia launches inside Ukraine and outside Ukraine. Extremely well targeted and very well implemented.
"On the brink" has no physical sense - an event either happens or not. That's called here "slightly pregnant".
The relations between the two look uneasy at least since the summer (counter-)offensive, probably well before that. Nevertheless, each of them needs the other one to survive.
Here is a Russian abstract (use Google translate) of a long Ukrainian news feature about their relations https://meduza.io/feature/2023/12/04/zelenskiy-obschaetsya-s-komandirami-vsu-v-obhod-zaluzhnogo-i-edko-shutit-nad-nim-na-soveschaniyah
I would have to form my opinion after reading sources on the issue and Meduza is a reliable source.
In The Times (UK) this week was an article suggesting the mayor of Kyiv was very unhappy with Zelensky and his increasingly autocratic behaviour. There won’t be another election while the country is under martial law
Zelensky tried to remove Klitschko (the mayor of Kyiv) a couple of times before and during the war. Thus Klitschko, who is a semi-independent political actor since 2014 (well before Zelensky), is not very happy with Zelensky.
All of that is the struggle of the old oligarchical (aka democratic or pluralist) Ukrainian politics against the new autocratic model where Zelensky got the majority of parliament seats and war-time dictatorial authority. The oligarchs preserved Ukraine as a democratic country while its neighbors that did not have the pluralism of power sources quickly cemented as dictatorships.
Thanks for that info most interesting
Klitschko sits in his chair the third time at a row. He built very corrupted and populistic chains of power in Kyiv. Especially in medicine and social sphere. His subordinates milking our city taxes nearly decade and it's not going to be better any time soon. So many of people in Kyiv hoped that team of Zelenskiy really could investigate all the cases of corruption of Klitschko team and send them to jail. But it's never happened after war started.
Simple example. For now many of Kyiv municipal hospitals has worse state of repair than even small hospitals in oblast. Very effective management and truly trustworthy team of Klitschko
I read that there was a conflict between the two and Zelenskiy wanted to replace him but I didn't know any of the details.
Corruption is never good but all this detracts from the war effort.
similarly like frequency hopping, impulse radio uses randomly (with key only known to receiver) very narrom pulses, spreading the energy over a very wide bandwidth (up to Ghz), making it virtually unjammable and undetectable. still under a lot of secrecy.
Does it have enough bandwidth for real-time video transfer (from FPV drones)?
it uses the principle communication rules of claude shannon. you can trade communication bandwidth for Signal to noise (or transmission power) to transfer a certain amount information . in military impulse radio uses only a few mW of wideband noise to encode a voice channel, meaning that you can signal voice 300m away from enemy lines for more than 25km without being detected. the high spreading ratio of a few khz voice bandwidth into a Ghz gives the same amount of jamming resistance but also a large lock time, unsuitable for video. best is to compress video first and then spread into a wide band for example using direct sequence spreading. Wide band antennas do not have high gains as selective antennas, another disadvantage , so low gain, but jamming resistance can be still good when despreading is applied early in the receive chain.
I wonder is frequency hopping can/is effective in drone control?
It is and is used.
Thanks for your time guys. I just can't see an end to this. Let's just hope that Ukraine at least gets the air defence it needs this winter.
It's air defenses are much stronger than last year, but the grid and power plants are not fully repaired from last year.
I am appalled at how desperately incompetent NATO countries are when things are turning serious. Everything takes a long time, some promises they are not able to fulfill. And unity is slowly crumbling under the pressure not only of hybrid war, but also of people's own reluctance to sacrifice some of their comfort for security, the importance of which they cannot imagine...
It has always been about political will. The capability is there.
Of course it is. I'm afraid that one they, when they will have political will, it will be too late to prevent the open conflict. We are talking about few years (3-6?) I guess...
Nice EW basic lesson.
As dedicated readers we understand that holdbacks can happen.
Thank you for your understanding. It's appreciated.
Thank you very much for your work, you as always created very good summary for the last week. Every week I wait for your updates to have better picture of all the advances in my native country.
I have minor note about this piece of information - 'missiles so schools have been built inside the Metro. As you can see, they’re a little more developed than last year…' - this part is not about Kyiv it is about the Kharkiv - the city that is only in 30 kilometers from russia border.
Yes, I am disappointed when I make mental mistakes like that.
You are doing increadable job, so this really minor issue that doesn't change overall content.
Thank you for your work, time and efforts!!!
Thanks again, always enjoy reading these reports and learning new things the msm will never take the time to explain.
Thank you so much for these updates. I feel ahead of the curve when I read these.
Just want to add a correction that schools in metro were built not in Kyiv, but in Kharkiv only. While Kyiv is very good protected, Kharkiv is not. Besides, Kharkiv is usually attacked by S300, which is even harder to protect from.
However, the decision about school in metro is pure populism and political game. There were some schools that built shelters capable to support studying process, but right before the start of educational year local authorities added more requeriments, so those shelters become unacceptable for the purpose. As the result, the mayor earned political points for conducting education during the war. Nobody cares that it's hard to concentrate because of the noise in the metro or that using the public transport facilities for schools (or even concerts, closing a part of a line) affects the economic of the city.
A mental mistake on my part regarding the misidentification of Kyiv. I wasn't aware of the rest. It seems politics never rests.
Почему есть ощущение, что Украина проиграет к весне... А может и раньше
Ukraine is certainly safe for the spring. Russia does not have the offensive capability to defeat Ukraine militarily. This is a war of attrition and attrition is about endurance: Who can last the longest with regards to manpower, equipment and morale?
Russia lost 1.6 times Ukraine's casualties and that ratio will trend in Ukraine's favor since their biggest rate of loss was in the Spring and Summer of 2022 when Russia expended so much artillery ammo and Ukraine had a lot of untrained recruits. But Russia has three times Ukraine's population so Ukraine must protect its manpower.
Polls still show that Ukraine's morale is high and Russian citizens are still accepting their fate. That may change in the future with widespread mobilization but right now salaries that are three times the average pay with high death benefits is providing enough recruits for Russia, especially from the poor regions.
Ukraine is dependent on foreign aid for a significant amount of equipment and money to keep their economy stabilized. If domestic US politics interferes with its aid that is a concern since they provide almost half the military aid but I hope expect it will just be delayed. Russian production already has some issues and the sanctions are having an effect on their economy but they have been able to delay some of the effects for now and will likely continue to do so in 2024. At some point, though, the economy will begin to fall apart and that will effect their production, food prices, domestic businesses and morale.
War is about who can endure longer.
Спасибо за ответ