Don's Weekly, 7 April 2025: Part 2
by Donald Hill
(…continued from Part 1…)
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Chasiv Yar
The front lines have changed very little in the last two months but both sides are very active. These are some of the successes of the 93rd Brigade. There are conflicting reports on whether Russia advanced in western Chasiv Yar or not.
Russians survive the drone attack on their car.
A Russian drone destroys a Ukrainian BTR that was evacuating soldiers. A Russian BTR was destroyed on the western edge of Bakhmut. A kilometer west of Chasiv Yar, a damaged M113 is finished off.
South of the Chasiv Yar, the 5th Brigade stops an assault at the canal.
The crew of a 122 mm gun of the 24th Brigade runs in and out of their shelter in between fire missions. One shell won’t fire. Three Russian bombs land nearby. The gun is safe, but the pressure waves destroyed some houses and injured other soldiers. At least the cows survived.
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Toretsk
Russian reinforcements from two weeks ago have allowed them to re-take the initiative and they’ve made small gains.
Ukrainian drones hit Russian-occupied buildings in Toretsk. Multiple drone attacks destroy an abandoned Russian T-72 4 km behind the front lines.
A Russian MRL attack on Petrivka.
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Pokrovsk
Russian artillery bombards Zelene. Ukrainian infantry in Zelene was attacked. Russians were able to advance one kilometer into Zelene, which was the only change in territory in this sector.
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Andriivka
A machine gun provides suppressive fire while a soldier tosses an AT mine into a Russian-occupied bunker. Five Russians clustered together are wounded by a drone bomb near Solone. Russia was able to occupy Rozlyv but they are currently isolated with all the open ground around the village.
A Russian assault towards Oleksiivka is stopped with the loss of 10 AFVs and scores of infantry.
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Zaporizhzhya
Ukrainians in bunkers are attacked. Russia made small advances of a couple hundred meters in this sector.
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Crimea
Ukrainian drones attack patrol boats and anti-aircraft systems while sometimes dodging missiles.
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Occupied Territories
Of the 1967 religious communities that existed in the occupied territories only 902 remain. Some were destroyed and some are gone because the population has left. A limited amount was formally banned. The rest were eliminated through the killing, arrests and deportation of the priests and the buildings seized for governmental use, such as morgues and concert halls, or turned over to the Russian Orthodox Church. One of the 15 Roman Catholic churches remain. None of the 49 Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches remain. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine parishes were created in 2018 when they became independent from Moscow. All of them were destroyed.
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Russia
A Tu-22M3R bomber crashed in Siberia, killing the pilot. Previous losses of the aircraft include a crash, a shoot-down and two destroyed in drone strikes at an airfield.
Russia plans to conscript 160,000 between April and July.
The US sanctioned three Russian legal entities but lifted the sanctions against the wife of a Putin associate.
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Ukraine
A Russian agent joined the Ukrainian army and sent coordinates for missile and bomb strikes primarily focusing on EW systems and self-propelled artillery, complete with photos of the strikes afterwards. He had been under observation and was caught while sending a report to his Russian handler. He was recruited off of Telegram where he posted pro-Russian comments.
In November 2023, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence staff and Budanov’s wife were poisoned, probably by a Russian agent on the staff. There is a report that she recovered but fell ill again at the end of 2024 and was treated at a US hospital.
The attacks on Ukrainian civilians never stop. The attack on Kryvyi Rih last week killed at least 19 and injured 72. Russia used a ballistic missile with a cluster warhead, which was designed for killing people, and a playground was hit by the blast. Nine children died. Five had known war for over half their lives. Four lived their entire lives while Russia attacked their country. It was not the first playground that was hit. Over 600 children have been killed by Russia so far.
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Oil Production
For two years Saudi Arabia and other oil nations restricted production to drive the price of oil higher. OPEC members Iraq and Kazakhstan have been producing record amounts of crude to take advantage of the high prices despite their agreed upon OPEC quotas, which angered Saudi Arabia. The kingdom also lost market share in China to Iran, and market share in India to cheap Russian oil. After about four months of delay, Saudi Arabia made good on threats and increased their own production for the first time since 2022 to gain back market share. It plans to triple production in May.
In order for Saudi Arabia to balance its budget, oil needs to be $90 per barrel, so it reduced budget expenditures. In the meantime, Brent oil prices, the international benchmark, dropped 11% from $74 per barrel to $66 in just five days. That’s their lowest level since 2021 and it won’t stop there.
Lower oil prices will mitigate some of the inflation that will result from Trump’s tariffs, but the tariffs will also slow or contract the global economy, resulting in lower demand for oil and even lower oil prices. The MOEX tracks 43 of Russia’s largest publicly traded companies and it lost $23.7 billion (8%), it’s worst performance since 2022 when mass mobilizations were announced.
Trump also imposed 25% tariffs on any country importing Venezuelan oil, threatened both bombing Iran and imposing secondary tariffs on nations importing Iranian oil, and spoke of imposing 25-50% secondary tariffs on Russian oil buyers, but only if he finds Russia at fault for blocking the peace talks. 25 Republican and 25 Democratic senators have a plan to impose a 500% tariff on imported goods from any country that buys Russian oil, gas and uranium if Russia doesn’t negotiate in good faith for a lasting peace with Ukraine.
Russian oil and gas revenues in the first quarter of 2025 were down 10% and down 17% in March alone compared to the previous year. They were influenced by aggressive sanctions imposed by Biden before he left office. As global oil prices fall, Russian oil prices will need to be reduced in order to compete. Since energy exports are Russia’s largest source of income, smaller revenues will result in less spending on social services, such as infrastructure and healthcare, or less spending on military equipment, or a combination of both.
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Diplomacy
Trump continues to modify a minerals deal and Zelensky said that he’d only sign one if it provided security guarantees and did not prevent Ukraine from joining the EU. Trump accuses Zelensky of trying to back out of the deal and says if he does, he’ll have big, big problems. At the same time, Trump backed off his comments about being pissed off at Putin and said, "I've known him for a long time. We've always gotten along well. You're talking about Putin. I don't think he's going to go back on his word."
Iran wants to reinstate the 2015 nuclear arms deal that Trump withdrew from in 2018. Trump wants Iran to completely disarm and gave them a two-month deadline in March. B-2 bombers were sent to the Indian Ocean airbase of Diego Garcia. Iran threatened to attack the base.
When Trump fired the last Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump nominated a retired three-star general that impressed him after a meeting in Iraq. Besides being called out of retirement, Dan Caine did not serve in any of the leadership positions that normally precede a nomination to the position of Chairman JCS. Trump said Caine wore a MAGA hat at their meeting in Iraq and said, “I would kill for you, sir”, but Caine said he’s never worn political merchandise or said anything to that effect. Caine testified that Ukraine has a right to defend itself and as Europe increases its support the US should provide the capabilities that are unique to the US.
Marine LePen was convicted of embezzling more than €4 million over 11 years. She was fined €100,000, sentenced to four years house arrest, two of which were suspended, and banned from politics for five years. She was the presumed front runner for the next election and called the proceedings a witch hunt.
Historical feelings about Japan are changing in South Korea as those who think favorably of Japan are at a historical high of 41.7% compared to just 28.9% last year. In 20 years, the importance of Japanese-Chinese relations never dropped below 60% in either country until 2024, when only 26.3% of the Chinese thought it was still important. Against this backdrop of change, increasing Chinese aggression on the oceans and expansion in Chinese diplomacy, Japan, South Korea and China agreed to work together to respond to the US tariffs with negotiations for free trade agreements, a topic that saw little progress since 2012. Japan, China and South Korea make up 20% of the world's population and 23.4% of its total gross domestic product. The US use of blunt economic force to compel more favorable conditions continues to slowly isolate its markets.
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(…to be concluded in the Part 3…)
Let's see what happens to Russia with the low oil prices!!
Small advances in Zaporizhzhya related to the weather. In the last week was rained three days in a row. One day, the rain fell for at least 20 hours. On Monday, snow fell on the ground and melted. Today, the snow fell on the ground during 5 hours. Now the snow has melted. There is a big swamp on the battlefield. The help for Ukraine comes from an unexpected source: the weather.