Dec. 3 2025 - p2 continued

Jim Bell

Q: Yalie ’94 here…when a soldier/unit is designated ‘paratroop-er’ does that mean they have gone thru a jump school somewhere? Any female paras? Where do rotax-style engines come from — buy and/or build — for those prop driven drones? Are some made in-country? Same question for micro/mini gas turbines that so many advanced drones use. And like to say that your weekend missives are the best!

A: Go Bulldogs! In the ZSU no unit is fully jump qualified excepting, perhaps, a few sections of the special operations. The “air assault” title mostly means “higher recruiting standards + heavy equipment, but it all should be fairly easily air transportable”. So APVs not IFVs, Soviet MBTs not NATO MBTs, towed artillery not self-propelled artillery. There are plenty of female air assault soldiers, the general ZSU figure is about 12 percent of the force. In the forward troops women seem to gravitate to medical, supply, admin, and operations. Pretty much the entire ZSU acknowledges that the bravest soldiers of all after the front line infantry — and platoon HQ doesn’t count — are the female combat medics.

I assume the Rotax-type engines are imported, the logic being that’s easier in a war than spending the time and resources to develop a domestic version. Ditto gas tubine engines, there’s no question the Ukrainians could engineer it, but given limited resources it’s probably not sensible to try to do that right now.

Rosie the maid, from the 1960s cartoon Jetsons

Natalia Shevchuk

Q: Dear Stefan, apologies for asking a question not directly related to the subject… you’re welcome to ignore it, but I thought it would be a good time to ask because it’s still “fresh”. NYT (I quote a third party source here) reports that Dan Driscoll told his European counterparts about consistently growing stock of long-range weapons manufactured by russia, particularly ballistic and cruise missiles, He insisted that Ukraine must sign the deal because “it will only get worse” due to lack of the interceptor missiles supplied by the West to Ukraine. Fabian Hoffmann from Oslo University points out that only limited russian launch capabilities impede their ability to carry out more devastating strikes on Ukraine. Goggle search tells us that russia has significantly increased its missile production since 2021, with a multi-fold rise in some types. So, here is the sad truth — instead of limiting russian ability to wage a war, the “civilized world” only stimulated their war machine. Does it look like an ultimate evidence of general mental decline, spreading over the western governments? Is it hopeless?

A: Hello Natalia it’s always nice to hear from you. Hopeless it’s not. I think you can see how even the passage of a few days has made Driscoll’s threat seem, well, outdated. It seemed like he was just talking when he said it, now about a week later it seems more that way.

The Ukrainian read based on intel reports reaching the public domain is that yes Russia is attempting to amass missiles but the less missiles they shoot the better the chances the ones they do shoot will get shot down, and also, in order to threaten NATO they need a missile reserve that won’t go to Ukraine, otherwise NATO will take the Russian conventional threat less seriously.

Driscoll said “it will only get worse”. I don’t’ know what intelligence he’s seeing or not seeing, but I do know he’s a young guy with little experience in this kind of decision-making and analysis, I know he got his job because of political connections and ideological commitment, and I know his entire chain of command sees every reason to manipulate the public narrative by lying to the media, and little or no obligation to be honest with the American people. So I trust little of what he says and my starting question will always be “Would he gain something if this weren’t true, but he said it anyway?”

Another factor is, the Ukrainians are not sitting on their hands, and one of the things the Ukrainians have been targeting are Russian missile/rocket fuel factories.

A final point is, were Russia to attempt a major missile bombardment, that would require the concentration of a lot of launch systems and a lot of missiles, and the bigger the concentration the better the chances the Ukrainians would spot it, and again, the bigger the concentration the more time the Ukrainians would have to take action.

So although I don’t exclude the possibility of big Russian missile strikes against Ukraine, it seems to me that if they had the capacity they would have used it.

Save democracy in Ukraine

Q: Every month russia sends a thousand Ukrainian soldier bodies back. Why is Ukraine leaving so many out there when they are fighting mainly a defensive war?

A: As I understand it the actual figure is about 850 dead soldiers, but I get your point.

Since the Ukrainians generally are defensive and being forced back, obviously, over time advancing Russian forces will uncover Ukrainian remains. There have been a few instances of Russian soldiers being turned over to the Ukrainians in a possibly sneaky move to avoid paying the Russian soldier’s family disability, but generally the attacking side capturing ground captures most of the corpses.

HAL from Space Odessy 2001

Stephen Yuzwak

Q: I have one. Are there any indications of linkage between the current ‘US peace proposal’ and the seemingly sudden accusations of corruption within Ukraine? I am being paranoid and conspiracy oriented, but it seems very coincidental that key Ukrainian officials are now sidelined while ‘negotiations’ are taking place.

A: Is this a setup? Of course there is, it’s obvious. The West has been pressuring Ukraine to “do something” about corruption, and at the same time it’s become fashionable in Washington etc. to blame Yermak for the “stalled peace process”. This clearly is, Yermak was the point guy not backing down to US demands, so naturally the Americans concluded the problem was Yermak rather than the looney tune craziness of the American demands. I have no doubt it was easier for the present US White House to tell itself Yermak was the “problem”, rather than admit the White House has little or no leverage over Ukraine.

I think it is possible that Zelensky as part of the negotiation process plan, which seems to me to be calculated to drag things out, calculated that now was a useful time to “sacrifice” Yermak, in order to take away from the Europeans the accusation his administration isn’t serious about taking on corruption.

A basic problem for the Ukrainians is that they are taking the Westerners at their word, and since the Ukrainians can see epic corruption in more than a few western states — I mean, Trump’s son-in-law is now negotiating directly with Putin, the Europeans still can’t wean themselves from Russian oil, etc. Etc. — they are continually surprised when the western states call Ukraine on the same thing.

As to “sidelining”, it’s abundantly clear that from the Ukrainian perspective both the Russians and Americans are ignorant, because they seem to think switching out members of the Ukrainian negotiating team or even the Zelensky administration will somehow make the Ukrainians more agreeable to concessions.

Zelensky keeps saying he can’t cede territory because the constitution forbids it, but what he isn’t saying, but what is obvious in Ukraine, is that any politician attempting a move like that would get strung up, armed units would come hunting for him as a traitor and the police wouldn’t stop them. It doesn’t matter who’s in the Ukrainian delegation, they’re always going to take the same position. Russo-American faith that the problem is just Zelensky’s personality is just staggering ignorance, and an excellent lesson about how little the big countries have learned about Ukraine, even after four years of war.

Remember when Vance yelled at Zelensky in Trump’s office and when Trump yelled “You don’t have any cards!”? Four months later Ukraine trashed about 1/3 of Russia’s strategic bomber force with the most effective drone-based special operation in history; as Vance and Trump were yelling at Zelensky, planning for that operation was already in its final stages. Yet even after that, and now the Ukrainians shutting down about 20 percent of Russian oil production with long-range drone strikes, Vance and Trump are still talking like TASS: Ukraine is doomed, Ukraine has no resources, Ukraine can’t hurt Russia, bla bla bla bla. They’re just talking, they’re ignoring the war.