Don's Weekly, 9 June 2025, Part 3

by Donald Hill

(…continued from Part 2…)

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Ukraine

Ukraine destroyed 4500 drones and missiles in May. The source of the Shahed drone charts for May.

The largest Russian airstrikes happened in the last couple of weeks. Ukrainian capabilities to strike Russia have also increased.

A nighttime attack on Kharkiv by Russians was followed the next night by 450 more drones and missiles, killing six and injuring 80.

Three Ukrainian emergency workers were killed during one attack

Four missiles hit Lutsk. Two other missiles and 15 drones hit the city and 15 were injured.

For just the fourth time, Tu-160s were used to conduct airstrikes. 48 missiles and 407 drones were launched. Ukraine said they shot down 32 missiles and 368 drones were shot down or neutralized by EW. Of the six ballistic missiles, four were shot down and two did not hit their targets. Tu-95s are easier to operate and maintain than Tu-160s.

Another training site was struck by a Russian missile, this time at Poltava, over 100 km from the front lines. In this case, there was an air raid warning, and personnel were dispersed in shelters. No one was killed, some were wounded although the number of wounded was not disclosed.

DTEK is building 200 megawatts of battery energy storage complexes that can power 600,000 households. They are needed to store energy created by solar and wind power for later use. Ukraine’s grid used 10% renewable energy before Russia’s invasion and it wants to increase this to 27% by 2030. DTEK lost 90% of its energy generation capacity because of Russian attacks. Ukraine as a whole lost 9 gigawatts of energy capacity. Decentralization of energy production is part of its plan to make their energy grid more durable in the face of Russian aggression.

Magyar’s regiment has been a leading unit in effectiveness (killing Russians and not suffering casualties), innovation, publicity and fundraising, and training other units. He has been promoted as the overall commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

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Diplomacy

Two Chinese citizens were charged with conspiracy, smuggling goods, false statements, and visa fraud in the US. The smuggled goods was a fungus that can wipe out crops and cause vomiting and liver damage if eaten in foods. The US called it potential agroterrorism.

The UK will spend billions of pounds to achieve a “war-fighting readiness”. This includes 12 nuclear-powered submarines, six new munitions factories and utilizing artificial intelligence. The political opposition calls it underfunded.

Darren Beattie disparaged US Secretary of State Rubio and said Western institutions would be improved if they were controlled by Putin, among other things. He was appointed Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs under Rubio, which includes messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism. He eliminated the agency that counters Russian propaganda. He is also married to a Russian who has an uncle that received a personal message of gratitude from Putin. His appointment is limited to 210 days without Senate confirmation.

The former foreign minister of Lithuania would like the Baltic States to have security guarantees from Ukraine whether it is part of NATO or not.

Poland cancelled the purchase of 32 Blackhawk helicopters due to the dynamically changing geopolitical situation and emerging threats.

With the recent absence of US support, the EU has not provided about 60% of the military aid to Ukraine. 59% or EU citizens support aid to Ukraine. 27% consider it the most important issue facing the EU.

China buys more Russian oil than any other country and they send Russia a lot of components that can be used for both commercial and military purposes. China’s also stepping up its efforts to obtain Russian military technology through spying.

In 1935, 8.8% of Latvians were ethnic Russians. Under Russian occupation, that grew to 34% in 1989 and is 24.1% now. A law already existed saying that Latvian is the only language that can be used in the debating chamber of the Saeima. The Saeima recently passed a law that required members to use Latvian when talking among themselves and when communicating to the public anywhere on the premises of the Saeima. With local elections taking place soon, the Saeima was considering a law titled, "Declaration on the criminal Russification of Latvia by the Soviet occupation regime and the prevention of its linguistic consequences". A member protested, saying, “What’s next, banning Russian names?”, “There are more of us, Russian is our language”, and, “We are free people. We’ll do what we want.” He was banned for one session for speaking Russian at the end of his speech.

The latest meeting between Russian and Ukrainians in Turkey was characterized by Russian proposals coming faster than Ukraine could react to them. The meeting only lasted 90 minutes and they did agree to exchange 1,000 more prisoners and the bodies of 6,000 fallen for each side.

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Equipment

Zelensky announced a Ukrainian missile hit a target 700 km away during a test in September 2023, and that a successful test of a domestically-made ballistic missile was conducted in November 2024. In the middle of May, Ukraine launched a ballistic missile that hit a Russian command post 300 km away. The missile has a warhead that weighs over 400 kg and production is now being scaled up, although the rate of production or even the name of the missile was not disclosed. Ballistic missiles are more difficult for air defenses to hit than cruise missiles because they are heavier, faster and descend almost vertically. An air defense missile has to actually hit the ballistic missile instead of exploding next to it. The program began in May 2022 but progress was slow until changes were made in defense leadership in July 2024.

Russian missile production increased by at least 66% compared to 2024. They are currently producing 840-1,020 ballistic missiles a year. The PAC-3 Patriot missile and the SAMP/T systems are the only options to intercept ballistic missiles and there is a report that the SAMP/T isn’t effective against ballistic missiles. Two of Ukraine’s eight Patriot missile systems are usually out for repairs or maintenance at any one time. Patriot missile production is probably less than 200 and the hope to increase it to 650 missiles per year by 2027.

The US defense manufacturing base is not what it was during WW2 and there are few investments to increase its capacity. A year ago, Japan was producing 30 Patriot missiles a year under license. The US wanted Japan to increase its production to 100 missiles a year. Rheinmetall is now licensed to produce 10,000 GMLRS (used by HIMARS), Hellfire JAGM and Patriot missiles beginning somewhere between 2026 and 2027. It is unknown how many of those 10,000 missiles will be Patriot missiles. Naturally, the western bureaucracies couldn’t come to this decision 2-3 years ago.

NATO urged European members to increase their air defense systems by 500% and to focus on ballistic missiles.

NATO’s Mark Rutte says Russia produces 16 times the amount NATO countries do in a year despite having an economy that’s 25 times smaller than the combined economies of NATO. He urged all allies to spend 5% of their GDP on defense.

A Czech company created a small drone that can automatically take off, fly to the target and hit it. It has a speed of 250 kph, with a range of 60 km and an altitude ceiling of 2500 meters. It also has a larger jet interceptor with a speed of 450 kph, range of 200 km and a 10 kg warhead. It must be manually launched but can automatically lock onto a target and hit it. The smaller drone costs ‘thousands’ of dollars and the larger drone costs “tens of thousands” of dollars. A Russian Shahed or Geran drone flies at 185 kph.

A Czech defense company has almost completed a factory in Ukraine that will produce three different types of 155mm artillery rounds, a 105mm artillery round and a 120mm tank round of an unspecified type. Last October, the goal was for the factory to produce 100,000 shells in 2025 and 300,000 shells in 2026. It was built in a low risk zone for Russian missiles.

Montenegro will be producing drones for Ukraine and NATO.

One component of explosives is nitrocellulose, which is created with nitric or sulfuric acid and cotton or wood pulp. China dominates the world market and 70% of Europe’s imports of nitrocellulose comes from China. Germany is increasing its production of nitrocellulose in order to meet the increased demand for explosives and reduce its reliance on China. A Czech company is doing the same by producing it in Germany.

In 2014, an employee for Swiss intelligence set up an independent IT infrastructure with their own hacking devices and operated autonomously from the rest of the intelligence service. Private phones were used for business. For five years they built a reputation of success with foreign partner intelligence services. During this time, his organization stayed in close contact with the Kaspersky cybersecurity company which has been long suspected of working with the Russian government. The first classified leaks happened in 2018 and the Swiss were warned. By 2020, partner services told the Swiss that they would stop sharing information if that employee wasn’t fired. Two years after the first warning, the employee was fired. He brought in his personal/official laptop three months later and his team wiped it clean. The investigation is ongoing.

Belgium contracted for 34 F-35s and nine have been delivered. As they arrive, Belgium will transfer up to 30 F-16s to Ukraine by 2028.

A winged mother drone has been developed to carry two interceptor drones to higher altitudes. The interceptor drones then hunt reconnaissance drones.

A fiber optic unspooling test at 120 kph. The fiber optic cable is difficult to break by hand unless folded 180 degrees. A coating on the Chinese-made fiber optic cable makes it difficult to break.

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(…to be concluded in the Part 4…)