Don's Weekly, 5 January 2026: Part 1
by Donald Hill (intro by Tom Cooper)
Hello everybody!
‘Back to normal’, as they say. Where that with ‘normal’ of January 2026 does begin to remind of the times back in June 1936, when Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, requested The League of Nations in Geneva to act against the Italian aggression - although it was perfectly clear the same is going to do exactly nothing.
Arguably, back then it was ‘powerful nations’ that felt free to act as they like: nowadays, it’s ‘powerful oligarchs’ doing that - through openly (mis)using the military power of their nations. Another principal difference is that back then there were people like Franklin D. Roosevelt around: nowadays, there’s nobody of such calibre even in distant sight. Instead, the part with wars of aggression and multiple genocides run at the same time is exactly the same: indeed, these are run live on TV and loudly cheered and sung about. Nowadays, Roosevelt’s ‘successors’ are the culprits.
…which makes me wonder: what would all the zombie idiots in Europe who are now explaining the Dumpf’s hijacking of the Venezuelan president first needs to be assessed from the juristic point of view, before they can express any kind of critique - say if the Russians would do what Medvedev is demanding, and hijack Merz from Berlin?
…and, would Merz cheer such an act as ‘it was about the time somebody to do the dirty work for us’, too?
Ho-um & erm… ‘Actually’, in this place I’m supposed to say a few words about ‘Ukraine’.
…where, analysing and commenting about Ukraine and the war in Ukraine is ever more often reminding me of Statler and Waldorf, two characters from the famous Muppet Show.
The biggest news of the last week was Zele’s ‘personnel reshuffle’.
…where I can’t but emphasise that with ‘reshuffle’, because, ‘actually’, Zele brought nobody new into the game, and is still acting the same way like before. See: friends, acquaintances and business affiliates as first, please.
But OK. Lets give it a try…
As first, and instead of Yermak - and while obviously searching for somebody as powerful as Yermak - Zele appointed Kyrylo Budanov, the former head of the GUR/HUR, the military intelligence service and popular in the Western social media as the ‘pokerface’.
Most notable in this regards is that Yermak and Budanov were at odds. So much so, Yermak repeatedly demanded Zele to sack Budanov. Me thinks, the situation is best described by what one gets to hear from circles of people who had - or still have - the dubious privilege of having to deal with these two characters. For example: Yermak staffed the entire administration with his favourites, while Budanov is described with such lovely attributes like ‘corrupt braggart’ and ‘insane’.
That’s making it easy to draw conclusions: it’s going to be… ‘interesting’ to see how is Buduanov going to work with Yermak’s staff. For example: with Yermak’s deputy, Tatarov, who is still in office and, between others, renowned for justifying Yanukovych’s crackdown against protesters on the Maidan Square. Hand on heart, this combination does deserve the following illustration…
As next, Zele appointed Mykhailo Fyodorov as the Minister of Defence. As far as I can say, this is something like the ‘sole good news’ in this affair, principally because at least I’ve never heard of Fyodorov - who’s lately served as the deputy prime minister and minister for digital transformation - being corrupt. ‘Instead’, and for example, he’s created the Diia: an app enabling Ukrainians to access public services online, thus avoiding thousands of corrupt apparatchiks. Since 2022, he’s played the crucial role in introducing UAVs/drones to the widespread use in the armed forces (see: ‘Army of Drones’).
Then, Zele - obviously concluding he must save his country a lots of electricity - ignored the fact that, ‘actually’, it would be on the Ukrainian parliament to dismiss and appoint the head of the SBU, and dismissed the head of the SBU, Alexander Malyuk. Rumour has it, he’ll be replaced by Alexander Poklad.
…where I cannot but wonder: why then not save the country a lots of electricity through sacking the entire Verkhovna Rada? Not only that they’re as useless as Zele’s government was when it failed to fortify Ukraine’s power grid on time, but: who needs a parliament in a democracy, right?
…sigh…
…and then Zele went on to sack several other ministers, heads of regions and law enforcement agencies…
My point is this: from the military point of view, it’s simple - and that regardless if you can’t stand my bashing of that name, or else. Zele did not sack Syrsky. The General of Fantastic News remains where he was, can continue converting the ZSU into his private militia, and screwing up Ukraine as he likes.
My conclusion is obvious: without Syrsky being removed, all the Zele’s personnel reshuffles are entirely pointless.
Period.
…and over to Don.
Sumy
A Russian assault team taking a moment before beginning their advance. Russian forces advanced a kilometer towards Varachyne.
Vovchansk
Ukrainian drone operators help a lone Russian surrender in Lyman. The sector was stable this week.
Kupiansk
An M113 is hit by a drone in Kupiansk on the eastern side of the Oskil river. Sources differ on how many Russians are still holding out in the centre of the town. Some say 50, others 200. Point is: the ZSU is still not in complete control: it is operating north of the city in hopes of eventually eliminating Russian forces west of the Oskil river, thus - finally - cutting off their last venues of re-supply.
Siversk
A Ukrainian counterattack cleared Sviato-Pokrovske… for the time being (not to say ‘for the moment’).
Kostiantynivka
More Russians are killed in Kostiantynivka and Ivanopillia. ‘But’, the Russian continue to advance.
Dobropillia
The I Corps ZSU is listing their count of the Russian losses from 4 August to 29 December: 12,492 dead, 8,346 wounded, 185 POWs. Also 93 Tanks, 259 armored vehicles, 314 artillery, 1821 vehicles/motorcycles, 3579 UAVs.
Pokrovsk
Shall we ignore Syrsky’s and Gerasimov’s game of ‘Fun with Flags’? Like when Syrsky sent a team from the 425th Assault Regiment to plant a flag in Pokrovsk, and this got smashed by the Russian UAVs…? (Sorry, but the resulting video is ‘too much gore’…)
At least the I Corps didn’t send troops, but planted a flag in Rodynske by an UAV.
You, dear and esteemed reader, are never supposed to come to the idea to complain about how much blood, money, time, and material is wasted for propaganda purposes. The only thing that matters is that because the ZSU and the PSZSU are ‘still’ hitting the Russians in Pokrovsk by airstrikes and drones, the town is not lost…
…and Myrnohrad even less so…
And so, on behalf of - and direct order from - the General of Fantastic News, the 425th set off fireworks ‘in Pokrovsk’ to start off the new year.
The 152nd Brigade says they’ve held Kotlyne for almost a year and repulsed all attacks. On the other hand, last November the Russians killed prisoners in the village. As a consequence of all of these fantastic operations commanded by the General of Fantastic News, the map is now looking dramatically different than a week ago, you know:
Huliaipole
Ukraine’s Southern Task Force wants you to know that Russia doesn’t control all of Huliaipole and they’re hunting Russians down.
Russians set off fireworks in the center of Huliaipole.
The Asgard battalion of the 412 Nemesis brigade destroyed a Tor air defense system and a radar for a medium-ranged air defense system. Then they destroyed a Buk and another Tor SAM-system.
Zaporizhzhia
Ukrainians are fighting in Stepnohirsk in close quarters and with explosives.
Unknown Location
A helicopter shoots down a Russian drone with a minigun. It doesn’t take too many rounds to shoot it down once one hits it.
(…to be continued…)
Tom, as for Fedorov - while he's on the younger side and yes, digitalization of public services was his idea - the issue is that implementation sucked. I.e. Fedorov became notoriously "famous" for his "role of cybersecurity is slightly exaggerated" quote during one of the interviews in late 2019 - https://lb.ua/tech/2019/11/29/443542_rol_kiberbezopasnosti_nemnogo.html.
It is an open secret that ruzzian state hackers exploited Diia (govermental digital service), number of state portals as well as state drivers' license register / motorist insurance bureau and leaked in early 2022 a huge trove of personal data (to disguise it as a commercial / cyberactivist ops). It was corroborated by US court later in 2024 when some of the indictments were unsealed - https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/five-russian-gru-officers-and-one-civilian-charged-conspiring-hack-ukrainian-government.
Moreover, these leaks enriched by social media and other data sources were used for headhunting and "filtration" during first phase of the russian invasion, i.e. occupiers already had lists with addresses of pro-Ukrainian activists or their car numberplates, etc.etc.
Fedorov and his guys denied everything instead of acting and handling of this failure is no different that Syrsky's tactics on the battlefield - "no bad news". So him at the MoD is calling for another disaster.
P.S. Also it shows how different and complex things on the inside are if you scratch the surface a little bit, especially if you're unaware of the context and past events. I'd stress once again that you're also totally wrong endorsing Kasyanov as a "good patriotic commander" and "sole source of truth in the UAV sector", while he's a 100% crook, bad manager and actually have been unable to deliver any tangible results but just using politics to prop himself and whine all the time.
Part of the reason for the reshuffle is to simply boost Zelensky's political standing.
He's obviously preparing for elections.
1) appointing Budanov as chief of staff gets him under Zelensky's control. Not only that but potentially any scandals can be pushed on Budanov. Budanov has a higher chance of winning elections in the 2nd round than Zelensky btw.
2) Head of SBU - I'm guessing the same reason, he was seen to positively by the general public(although not quite sure why). So potentially he had some type of political chance. There might be some other reasons.
Overall this is basically the same as Zelensky firing Zaluzhniy. Person becomes more positively viewed than Zelensky - so Zelensky simply sacks them or "promotes to mediocrity". At that point either they have no political standing or they are under Zelensky's control.
Don't even get me started on Zele coming out every month and whining that "I'm tired, I'll step down after war is over". He already stated this around 15 times from 2023 to now.