Don's Weekly, 7 October 2024: Part 4

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 3…)

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Zaporizhzhya

It was reported that three Russians terrorized the local population in occupied Melitopol. While riding in a car, they were killed by partisans that planted mines. This is not the first partisan attack in Melitopol. In January, four Russians were killed. In December, 24 Russians were poisoned. In November, six Russians were killed, three from a bomb blast, two policemen were shot in the back of the head and an FSB officer was killed by a sniper. The FSB officer and policemen were investigating partisan activities. Ukraine claims that by June 2022, over 100 Russians were killed near Melitopol.

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Kherson

Using a Shark reconnaissance drone, Ukraine follows a pair of rocket launchers until they stop moving and then call a GMLRS strike on each. Then a Thorne-MDM EW system is detected and destroyed. This system detects and locates electronic signals.

Russia continues to hunt civilians around Kherson.

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Unknown Location

After showing all the Russian supply vehicles that were destroyed on the road to the front, the vehicle they were riding was struck by a drone. Aside from losing the backs of their seats and maybe some supplies, the vehicles look to be in decent shape.

A Russian drone intercepted a Ukrainian drone. Currently, Russia has more reconnaissance drones than Ukraine, so production needs to be increased and countermeasures developed.

Somewhere in Russia, an ATACMS missile with a 300 km range destroyed a component of the Nebo-M radar system. Ukraine believes there are only ten of these systems left. Three radars and a command post track objects across the VHF, UHF, L and X wave bands up to 1200 kilometers. In April, a Nebo-U was hit in Bryansk by seven drones. Losing these radars will make it easier for Ukrainian drones and missiles to penetrate Russian airspace.

A command school near Moscow was hit.

One Serbian mercenary traveled to Russia in November, 2022, out of support for his Slavic brothers (in order to fight other Slavs). He received two months of training and saw about 70 other Serbs while he was employed as a mercenary for Redut. As time went by, the training for new Serbs was decreased to 14 days or less. After six months, it was clear that he would never get the Russian passport that was promised and he was disappointed by the corruption so he returned to Serbia.

A limited number of mercenaries also come from Moldova, but 15,000 have come from Nepal.

Andrew Perpetua just started to count the Russian dead that he can identify in the hundreds of videos he watches each day. In the first two weeks of this effort he saw 60 dead Russians each day. Ever since, he’s been seeing 100-150 dead each day and believes that is the normal range. He establishes the annual rate to be 34,000 dead a year. This does not take the wounded into account.

Constantine believes the number is much higher. He says there are a lot of units that don’t have channels to publish the videos, who don’t have anyone to edit the videos, and who don’t know how to download the videos from drones. He doesn’t even publish all the videos he has. And, of course, this does not take into account all the dead that are not captured on video.

Mediazona uses Russian documents to determine confirmed deaths and say that over 71,000 have been confirmed dead since 2022. They acknowledge that the total number of deaths, confirmed or otherwise, would be much higher. Last February, Zelensky said that 180,000 Russians have been killed. Ukraine says that Russia’s total combat losses, both dead and wounded, are over 660,000.

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Ukraine

From June to August, 589 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 2,685 were wounded.

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Diplomacy

Back in July, NATO leaders said that Russia has been carrying out attacks on the US and Europe in the form of disinformation, sabotage, and cyberattacks. The Helsinki Commission (CSCE) says that Russia is conducting a shadow war of assassinations, election interference and sabotage. The US discovered a plot to assassinate the chief executive of Rheinmetall, which is producing military equipment for Ukraine. A Russian agent was arrested in France after he was injured making an explosive device. 12 people in Poland were arrested for sabotage. A munitions factory in the UK suffered an explosion. There was an unexplained fire at a US munitions factory. A German metal factory also had a fire. A fire broke out in a weapons factory in Poland, killing one person. Russian hackers targeted water systems in the US, Poland and France. Russia trained and paid operatives to launch a coup in Armenia. NATO’s response is that these hybrid operations could eventually lead the North Atlantic Council to invoke Article 5, but in the meantime, they will develop their capacity to analyze disinformation and misinformation campaigns, they will increase their alert and sharing mechanisms, and they will strengthen their joint responses, in particular in strategic communication. If Russia does not halt their years of hybrid operations they will almost certainly generate more discussion.

The Helsinki Commission tracks the Russian hybrid attacks against Europe and the US.

Fico wants Ukraine to continue to send Russian gas to his country through their pipelines even after the contract to do so expires. He also says that Slovakia supports Ukraine’s integration into Europe and is expecting friendly actions from Ukraine. While most would say the war continues because Russia won’t go home, Fico claims it’s because the West wants to bring Russia to its knees. He accuses Europe of supporting bloodshed but makes no mention of Russia. In unrelated news, Fico will travel to Moscow next year to celebrate the 80th anniversary to the end of WWII in Europe. Without irony, he says the past has no bearing on the future.

For the period of 2024-2030, France will increase its military spending by 40%. They can produce 144 Caesar artillery pieces per year but it takes two years between ordering and delivery. They have just a single Japanese-made robot to produce 155 mm shells. They produce 50,000 shells a year and could double production in 2025. 100,000 shells is what Ukraine fired in ten days during its offensive last year.

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Like many organizations, the US military has been using 3D printing to manufacture discontinued parts or smaller parts that would otherwise cost a lot in terms of money and time. They currently have a large 3D metal printer that is a prototype for future 3D production of even larger objects. They are in the process of deploying a 3D printer at each base that could produce anything from battery cases to overhead protection for fighting positions. The plan is to expand the capability to lower level units to ease logistical issues and facilitate the initiative of soldiers.

The objectives of a plan aren’t always met, but a Czechoslovak Group-Ukrainian joint effort plans to produce 100,000 155 mm shells in 2024 and 300,000 shells in 2026.

A Ukraine company makes proximity fuses for grenades so they burst in the air to do more damage.

Over 6,000 Russian IFVs and APCs have been visually confirmed as being destroyed.

From August 2023 to January 2024, Russia was losing 50-86 artillery pieces a month and about half of them were self-propelled. From March to September, they’ve been losing 95 to 188 guns and around 3/4 of them are towed artillery.

Russia is producing new self-propelled guns each year at about the rate that they lose them each month. Refurbishing stored self-propelled guns is difficult and they are running out of stored guns. Towed guns in storage have been reduced by 60%. Much of the remaining towed guns are very old and some use ammo that doesn’t exist anymore. While North Korea is an unknown factor, Ukraine artillery should be stronger than Russian artillery by the summer of 2025.

General Dynamics is restarting large barrel production at a facility in Spain.

Russia uses 6,000,000 artillery shells a year and over half of them come from North Korea. The quality of the shells have been poor and have been responsible for the destruction of some of Russia’s guns but - except for UMPK glide bombs - they have also been a major reason why Russia has been able to advance. What isn’t clear is how long North Korea can continue shipping shells at this rate.

The first of 239 Swedish PBV-302 IFVs are being shipped to Ukraine.