Don's Weekly, 9 June 2025: Part 2

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 1…)

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Komar

A treeline north of Komar was bombed by the Russians, as was Komar itself. Fedorivka was bombarded by artillery and thermobaric rockets before Russian troops entered it and raised their flags. The Russian bombardment of Komar continued all the while during the assault on this village.

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Kherson

The Kherson Regional Administration building was bombed twice within 15 minutes. The 15 minute delay in the second attack was likely an attempt to kill emergency workers. Artillery and drone attacks followed, damaging a post office warehouse, supermarket and residential buildings.

A mystery weapon with a 100 kg warhead hit a portion of the railroad tracks elevated over swampy ground 1300 meters south of the Dnieper river.

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Crimea

After a surface drone attack in December 2024, Russia used barges to stop surface attacks and underwater screens to protect against underwater sabotage

On 3 June, the Ukrainians attacked the Crimean bridge for the third time. Like the airfield attacks, this operation was developed over 18 months. The Marichka naval drone has been attacking Russian surface ships for over two years. This time it was loaded with 1100 kg of explosives and attacked the base of the vehicular bridge. There was some minor damage to the surface of the road. The extent of the damage to the base is unknown but the bridge was open to traffic soon after.

The bridge is weakest where the ships can cross underneath it.

Soon after, the leader of the Crimea Tatar people warned Russians to leave Crimea before it’s too late.

For the first three years since the all-out invasion on Ukraine, Russia was heavily dependent on the Kerch Bridge to supply its military in Crimea since the railroads through Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk were too close to the front lines. After the Kerch bridge was damaged, Russia transferred much of the heavier loads to ferries, but that was effectively eliminated in August 2024. In 2023, Russia began constructing a new rail line along the Sea of Azov. Several sections were constructed simultaneously and it was completed in April 2024. The destruction of the Kerch bridge would be politically and logistically significant but it would not have the same military impact it might have had a couple years ago.

Russia celebrated the 7th anniversary of the opening of the Kerch bridge by, surprisingly, showing videos of its construction and Putin driving a truck with his shirt on.

Trucks were searched entering Crimea at Chonhar, north of the peninsula. Trucks were also denied entry to the Kerch bridge. It’s uncertain how long these heightened security measures will last. They’ve had them before, as seen from July 2024, but 100% vehicle checks are hard to maintain and over time they are reduced.

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Black Sea

Russia’s ships in the Black Sea are constantly breaking down. When inspected, it was found that most of the breakdowns were caused by the crews. When breakdowns happen, the scheduled work and combat duties are slowed. Over 50 minor incidents occurred on the submarines Kolpino and Krasnodar in a year. The most common type of incident was a leak on the fuel cylinder. Loose lubricator drives and gearbox failures are also common. Junior officers are believed to be the source of most of the sabotage.

In March, Ukraine resumed rail ferry service from Chernomorsk to Batumi, Georgia across the Black Sea. They plan to start another rail ferry between Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi Seaport and Pot, Georgia.

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Survival in a Drone War

After watching 5,000 videos a researcher found that targets had a 67% survival rate if they were in dense forests or buildings, a 92% chance of dying if they were in the open, and smoke increased survival chances by 32%. This means if you were in dense woods and covered by smoke from a burning vehicle or a smoke grenade you had a 99% chance of survival. These figures are for all the videos he watched and doesn’t mention whether EW or fiber optics were involved.

Armored vehicles provided protection but if the vehicle was disabled and the crew dismounted they then had a 33% chance of survival if they made it into a building or dense woods, or an 8% survival rate if they dismounted in the open.

Being detected in the open didn’t matter if the target was on foot, on a motorcycle or on top of an armored vehicle. They all had the same 92% chance of dying. Being in a vehicle still matters, though, because it reduces the time a target will be in an open field. Three soldiers on motorcycles might theoretically be attacked by one drone, likely killing one soldier while the other two could cross the field before more drones are launched. Three soldiers on foot might be attacked by three separate drones while trying to cross that same open field in the same amount of time.

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Rates of Advance

There are a lot of Ukrainian mistakes that resulted in the unnecessary loss of territory, life and property. A different perspective, though, is the rate of the Russian advance.

During the Somme offensive in WW1, the French and British advanced 80 meters per day. From February 2024 to April 2025 Russia advanced from Avdiivka to Pokrovsk 135 meters per day. From November 2024 to June 2025 they averaged 50 meters a day around Kupiansk. Since January 2024, Russia has captured less than 5,000 square kilometers (a 70 km x 70 km square).

In the fall of 2022, Ukraine advanced 7400 meters a day at Kharkiv and 590 meters a day at Kherson. During the 2023 Summer offensive they moved forward at just 90 meters per day.

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Russia

Engels-2 and Dyagilevo air bases, a fuel depot, and a missile and aviation plant were all struck on the same night by conventional strike drones. The Bryansk air base was also struck as was an Iskander launch site in Bryansk.

A chemical plant in the Tula region was hit a couple days later.

A fire broke out in a Topol missile factory, burning 400 square meters in a workshop where high-performance diesel engines were built.

Ukraine released a five minute video of the Spider Web operation. For a detailed explanation of the results, click here.

What was likely the upper stage of a Chinese rocket enters the atmosphere by the Russian-Kazakhstan border. There was speculation that it might have been a failed Oreshnik IRBM.

Russia is upgrading its rail infrastructure on the Finnish and Estonian borders. This is in addition to the military infrastructure it is building on the Finnish border. The belief is that Russia expects to shift troops to these regions once the fighting in Ukraine is completed.

In Irkutsk, there were very long lines of trucks being inspected. One truck driver said he was stopped three times for inspections in Siberia.

Anti-aircraft weapons were found in a container in Poland.

A Russian citizen was sentenced to 18 years in prison for trying to bomb the head of a defense company.

From 2022 to 2024, over 22,600 court cases were filed to declare individuals missing or deceased. Since the beginning of 2025 there have been over 26,000 court cases.

The 15th Motor Rifle Brigade, based in Samara suffered 7,436 confirmed dead and 5,253 confirmed missing. They had a peacetime strength of 2,000. A full strength brigade would have 3-5,000 troops. 89% of the casualties were enlisted and 1% were officers.

It doesn’t matter that Russia is the aggressor. Anytime Ukraine fights back the Russians swear revenge. On the bombs they write, “For Tu-22M3”, “For Tu-95MS”, “For Long-Range Aviation” and “For the train.”

Major Russian export companies sent less metal and oil products by train due to reduced demand. Iron and steel is 5% of Russia’s economy but they are also shipping less product due to reduced demand. Aluminum production is being reduced by 250,000 tons because the high cost is reducing demand. Trade between China and Russia is down 7.5%. There is less demand to build and invest in businesses because of the 21% interest rates on loans. Russian Railways planned to spend 40% less on building and maintenance because of high interest payments and will now reduce spending by another 3.5%. A lot of railroad employees have been mobilized or left for higher paying jobs in the defense industry. Defense shipments have priority over commercial shipments and rail cargo is headed for China and India instead of high-margin markets of Europe. Overall, Russian cargo volumes fell by 9.4% in May compared to the previous year. This is the third month in a row that Russian rail cargo has declined.

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(…to be continued…)