Wrench in the Works

Hello everybody!

Tragically, one can’t escape ‘following’ developments on the international scene, nowadays. Where it’s really funny to watch the voes of the zombie idiots around Europe, in particular.

Take the coalition negotiations in Germany as example: while negotiating with the SPD and the Greens, the CDU/CSU demanded tax cuts of €100 Billion - foremost for the rich. As 'occupational failures', you know. See: the CDU/CSU wanted to follow in fashion of all the successive US administrations at least since Nixon... with results of the USA being as ruined as they are nowadays...

The SPD - meanwhile little else but a religious sect of confused wannabe/quasi-leftists, 'representing employees and workers' - wasn't against that. Indeed: it was ready to accept the idea. After all, the SPD (just like the 'Democrats' in the USA, ‘Labour’ in the UK, and plenty of other examples elsewhere) has absolutely no other ideas but to 'protect higher national interests' - of its own rich...

Nah... it takes the 'Greens' to demand - and push through - both social justice and an effective climate protection (I know you don't want to hear it, but: let me remind you that, yes, we do need massive and immediate measures for protecting the climate, otherwise the global warming is going to destroy the humanity… all provided Pudding, Dumpf & Co KG GesmbH AG don't manage that already earlier).

Of course, in Austria, we're so neutral, that our political parties can't care less, nor learn anything at all from this. Therefore, the coalition here - meanwhile consisting of a similar combination (the corrupt 'whores of the rich', ÖVP; the incompetent and confused SPÖ; and the 'fans of the super-rich' Neos) - is going to impose stringent cuts on government spending (15% across the board), and additional tax cuts for the rich...

...and then all such parties like the CDU/CSU and the SPD in Germany, and the ÖVP and SPÖ in Austria, and their likes abroad (no matter where, in France, in the UK, in Italy, Spain, Poland etc..). - wonder how comes they can't win any elections any more, and 'right-wingers' are growing in popularity...

But, OK... now lets grab some more popcorn and coke for the next four episodes:

- Adventures of Dumb and Dumber: Dumpf continues savaging the US governance and economy, goes on with his apostolic tariffs on EU goods, while the EU remains unable of quickly organising a meaningful anti-Dumpf front with Canada;

- Adventures of Peter Pan: Macron is leading a military parade in which he and (this time) 100 chiefs-of-staff around the world are the only participants, 'but', this is carefully reported by the media in every minute detail;

- The Empire strikes back: a love affair between Harry and Sally; in the background, Starmer can't decide with whom would he like to have sex: frustrated, decides to join a catholic monastery instead;

- NPCs: the assembly of ‘unimportant’ politicians from other countries - nowadays known as 'non-playing characters' - is frozen in shock, babbling a lot, but has no useful solutions on its own, nor dares speaking out or acting...

…and everybody is so ‘distracted’, yet so ‘civilised’, ‘we’ are happy to ignore - or support - continued ethnic cleansing and genocide on Palestinians.

All of that because sober thinking and logic in politics are meanwhile as rare as snake's sweat. Because incompetence, stupidity, selfishness, and emotions rule.

Good luck, Ukraine: that's your glorious 'Western allies'...

***

The last weekend, Donald was so kind to ready a review of latest 'trends’ in regards of the Ukrainian Air Force and Air Defence (PSZSU; as explained, I’m usually simplifying this with ‘PSU’). Originally, the following was meant to be posted as the ‘final part’ of the usual Don’s Weekly. Eventually, have decided to expand his work and discuss a few additional details.

For the start, the state of the Ukrainian ground-based air defences…

Over the last 2,5 years, Ukraine received ‘a lot’ of air defence systems from ‘the West’. Indeed, there were so many announcements, promises and pledges, that it’s easy to lose the count. Therefore, it’s useful to ‘check’ what has Ukraine really received. The Military Balance has prepared the following table of air defense systems provided to Ukraine:

Now, talking about weapons systems alone is not really useful. What does matter are units operating them. Even if the mass of existing units of the PSU’s units are still the same as at the start of the war, a number of new units has been established. They were necessary because the total number of air defence system increased.

At the same time, after three years of war, stocks of old weapon system - such like S-300, Buk M1, and Osa-AKM - have been completely exhausted. Additionally, many of old systems have been destroyed in combat.

Correspondingly, many of existent PSU units have been re-armed, and the number of units still operating old air defence systems decreased. For example: a brigade that used to include three regiments equipped with S-300s at the start of the war, is nowadays including one regiment still equipped with S-300s, one with PAC-2/3s and one with Aster-30s.

Wherever this was not possible, much of the force has been re-armed in different fashion. Good example: the majority of PSU’s Buk M1s were modified into ‘Franken-SAMs’, and are nowadays firing RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and Aspide surface-to-air missiles.

‘Still’ the total number of successful intercepts by PSU’s ground based air defences is somewhere between ‘remaining the same like before’ and ‘in gradual decline’.

Principal reason is that the Russians have learned a huge volume of lessons and are deploying their cruise missiles and attack drones in ever more sophisticated fashion. This means: their missiles and attack drones are nowadays much better supported by electronic intelligence gathering, electronic warfare, ‘grouped’ and routed in a fashion that’s regularly overpowering the PSU’s integrated air defence system.

The second reason is that the stocks of Western-supplied missiles are in constant decline: their production and supplies to Ukraine can’t keep up with the expenditure.

Presently, the US is producing 48 PAC-3 surface-to-air missiles a month. They can intercept cruise missiles and attack drones (and yes; Patriots are used for the latter purpose, too). The US is also manufacturing 20 PAC-2 missiles a month: they can intercept ballistic missiles. PAC-2 production will eventually increase to 35 missiles a month by the end of 2027. Germany, Romania, Spain and the Netherlands ordered 1000 PAC-2 missiles, and much of the production will take place in Germany, but delivery for that order won’t begin until 2027.

It is not much better in regards of older weapons systems: the stocks of such old missiles like RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and MIM-23 HAWK are anything else than ‘limitless’.

This is why the availability of F-16 and Mirage 2000 interceptors is growing in importance: they are offering the PSU the option of multi-layering its air defences; of intercepting incoming cruise missiles by manned interceptors before these have to be engaged by ground based air defences. This is even more important considering that - thanks to their superior avionics - F-16, but especially Mirage 2000s, are far better in this business than old MiG-29s and Su-27s.

However, in turn, this is prompting the question about the stocks of air-to-air missiles available for such aircraft. For example, presently, the US is producing just 137 AIM-9X air-to-air missiles a month. Theoretically, AIM-9X is the principal short-range air-to-air weapon of the F-16. Obviously, production of 137 missiles a month is hopelessly insufficient. The situation is even more critical in regards of French-made missiles for Mirages: the production of Matra R.550 Magic - which were considered ‘outdated’ already back in the 1980s - is long since over. That of MICAs is nowhere near the production rates of AIM-9X, and the production of Meteors (which haven’t even been delivered to Ukraine) is nowhere near being similar to that of the comparable AIM-120 AMRAAM/Slammer in the USA…

Unsurprisingly, Ukrainian F-16s are regularly seen in action armed with older AIM-9Ms instead: they are ‘still perfectly enough’ for ‘such targets’ like cruise missiles and attack drones. The stocks of old AIM-9s left over from the times of the Cold War are, at least in theory, still ‘huge’ (over 50,000 AIM-9s were manufactured in the 1960-1980s alone). It’s for similar reason that we must expect to see Ukrainian Mirage 2000s continuing to regular deploy old R.550 Magics.

Moreover, keeping 30-40-years-old F-16s and Mirage 2000s in operational condition is going to become an ever bigger problem, the longer this brawl goes on. Not only are they old, but the availability of spares for them is ever lower. Both types are at the end of their service life in ‘the West’, and thus the production of spares for them was slowed down, even ended. At some point in time, both the West Europeans providing F-16s and Mirages, and Ukrainians will be forced to start ‘cannibalising’ them: remove parts from one aircraft to keep another in operational condition…

And that’s not to talk about the fact that the constant pressure through Russian missile- and drone attacks means that the PSU is forced to constantly keep a large part of its F-16- and Mirage-fleets at quick reaction alert (QRA), for air defence purposes. This in turn is leaving very few airframes available for offensive operations: whether for flying air strikes on the Russian ground forces, or for trying to counter some of Russian air strikes…

And then the Russians…

Nowadays, after more than three years of this war, the principal means of Russian strikes on Ukraine are attack drones. Such like Shahed/Geran, and Gerbera. Meanwhile, they are relatively cheap to manufacture. The Alabuga Works came into being in November 2022: began as an assembly plant for components imported form Iran. Obviously, the plan was to develop expertise, increase the production rate and ultimately produce most of the components locally and minimize reliance on foreign components. While production has increased, Russia still relies on components from Iran and China, as well as western high tech - especially US-made electronics - shipped through intermediaries. 900 drones a month are being produced, and the Alabuga plant is responsible for 400 a month.

This is a still of an interactive map available here. It shows the suppliers, facilitators and other relationships with the Alabuga Special Economic Zone and whether they are sanctioned or not. The factory was established in November 2022 but the US and EU didn’t start to sanction the enterprise until December 2023.

Between 2023 and 2024, Russian missile production increased from about 120 to 170. Western components are in 95% of Russian drones and missiles, and 72% of the western components were manufactured in the US.

Drone and missile attacks in 2025. Russia averaged 83 drones per strike in January, 139 drones per strike in February, and 128 drones per strike so far in March.

One of ‘interesting bi-products’ of Russia’s continuous ‘missile offensive’ on Ukraine is the issue of costs. Arguably, this is a ‘typical Western approach’ to this issue: the principal thing any decision-maker asks whenever having to make a decision is, ‘how much is that going to cost’ - in monetary therms. For Putin, ‘costs’ do not matter. His calculus is that ‘regardless the price’, the outcome he wants to achieve is ‘worth’ far more (‘than money’). Also, some of older weapons deployed by Russia are not in production for decades already and thus, at least in theory, Moscow is ‘not spending any money’ when deploying them. Perhaps the best example for such calculations would be Kh-22 air-to-surface missiles.

However, please keep in mind that their deployment over the last three years has shown that much of the stock was successively re-built into Kh-32s - whose guidance sections also includes US-made electronics.

On the other hand, mind that it is actually unclear how much is the General Staff in Moscow really paying to what of manufacturers around the Russian Federation: Moscow has ceased airing TV-shows with related reports (the last I recall was aired in early 2022). Certain is only that the mass of weapons in question remains cheaper than those made in ‘the West’. Therefore, and in grand total, the following table is of interest as a ‘good orientation tool’, but offering no ‘definitive facts’.

Pay attention at ‘S-300’ surface-to-air missiles: sure, they are still in production. But, and foremost: dozens of thousands are left over from the times of the (First) Cold War. When deployed in ‘ballistic mode’, they are extremely inaccurate. So much so, Ukrainians mostly do not even try to engage them. Moreover, many of what the Ukrainians report as ‘S-300s’ are, actually, BM-27 and BM-30 artillery rockets. They are still in production, but much cheaper to manufacture and deploy than S-300, and, worst of all, far more precise. Thus, that entry in this table is actually misleading. One point missing are North Korean-made KN-23s. They are not included, ‘but’, one should keep in mind that - following these proving extremely unprecise, early during their deployment - the stocks sold to Moscow by P’yong Yang, were meanwhile re-built by the Russians. As a result, nowadays, they are significantly more effective than they used to be.

Finally, mind that while the costs of the weapons are estimated and relatively unimportant, the fact is although they are shot down a lot, Shahed and similar drones remain ‘effective’.

Reason?

Because they are a lot cheaper to construct and deploy, than it costs to shot them down.

***

Conclusions are plain obvious - and that already for three years (indeed: they are exactly the same like back in 2022).

The current rate of production of air defence systems in ‘the West’ is hopelessly insufficient. Means: governments must - and that urgently - issue orders for the defence sector to, massively, ramp up the production both of air defence systems, and (especially) missiles. This is ‘not only’ important for Ukraine, but for entire Europe, too (and, for the USA as well… yes, ‘even in the case’ of Dumpf deciding to launch an invasion of Canada, Groenland, and Mars too…).

The only difference in this regards is that now, in 2025, this is even more urgent.

Europe’s overdependence on buying US-made F-35 stealth bomb-trucks is a very bad idea. Not only because it’s making dozens of air forces extremely sensitive to all sorts of malversations by the government presently in the White House, or because the type is no ‘interceptor’: right now, European air forces - and that’s including the PSU - need an interceptor capable of operations under austere conditions, while carrying ‘dozens’ of air-to-air missiles. A new generation of ‘stealth multirole combat aircraft’ of European design is still nearly a decade away from entering service, while the production rates of such types like EF-2000 and JAS-39 Gripen are hopelessly insufficient (also insufficient to the degree where none can be delivered to Ukraine, although this needs them more than anybody else). Means: the politics must, urgently, place orders for an increase in production of existing types, and accelerate research and development of new types.

…and then get as many of these to Ukraine as only possible, too.

Otherwise, the same narcissists currently turning every single buck two times before spending it, will have to spend much more to, belatedly, try manufacturing for purposes of self-defence.