The D Brief: Russia’s long barrage; Hasty training for Ukrainian troops; Germany’s government collapses; Army’s new all-digital vehicle; And a bit more.
Russian drones attacked Ukraine’s capital city for eight consecutive hours, injuring at least two people, the Associated Press reported Thursday from Kyiv.
Russian forces launched more than 100 Iranian-designed “Shahed” drones at various targets across Ukraine, Kyiv’s military said Thursday on Facebook. At least 74 of those were allegedly shot down over Ukraine’s Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv regions. Another 25 were marked as “lost,” according to Ukraine’s General Staff.
Three dozen drones were shot down over Kyiv, “but falling debris caused damage to a hospital as well as residential and office buildings,” AP reports.
New: Russia is using decoy drones without warheads to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses, the New York Times reports.
Ukraine’s president congratulated Donald Trump “on his historic landslide victory” on Wednesday. “Strong and unwavering U.S. leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace,” Volodymir Zelenskyy wrote on Trump ally Elon Musk’s social-media platform. Trump’s “tremendous campaign made this result possible,” and Zelenskyy “praised his family and team for their great work,” he said.
The pace of war has shortened EU-based training for Ukrainian troops, Sam Skove reported for Defense One weeks after a late-August reporting trip to Poland. Instruction has been trimmed down to the basics in everything from combined arms to officer training, he learned.
Ukraine is in desperate need of experienced soldiers. “Western military training, like that seen in Poland, could be the answer. Western officers say their high-quality training, which emphasizes initiative, is a key advantage that their armies have over Russia. Polish staff, Ukrainian trainers, and Ukrainian soldiers say the effort is bearing fruit,” Skove writes.
But: “With Kyiv straining to hold a 600-mile front line against Russian assaults, Ukrainian and Polish officers said soldiers must be rushed through training cycles to get them back to the front. Ukraine’s system for selecting soldiers for training, meanwhile, is plagued by inefficiencies that keeps trainers and trainees in a constant scramble to adjust.” Story, here.
Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1918, the United States stood up the Third Army—today’s U.S. Army Central—to disarm and disband German forces during World War I.
Europe
Germany’s government collapsed Wednesday, prompting snap elections and a new wave of uncertainty for a country with the world’s third-largest economy. “The collapse of [Chancellor Olaf] Scholz’s three-way alliance caps months of wrangling over budget policy and Germany’s economic direction, with the government’s popularity sinking and far-right and far-left forces surging,” Reuters reported from Berlin.
“With France also facing political uncertainty after snap elections this year, turmoil in the European Union’s two largest economies could hamper efforts to deepen the bloc’s integration at a time when it is facing challenges from east and west,” the wire service reports.
The Brits just sanctioned 56 people and organizations linked to Russia, “including those in the Wagner mercenary group that operates unofficially on Vladimir Putin’s behalf, and companies based in China, Turkey and central Asia supplying parts to Russia,” Sky News reported Thursday. One of those sanctioned includes a military officer believed to have helped poison former double agent Sergei Skripal back in 2018.
Around the Defense Department
What the Army learned from its first all-digital ground vehicle design. The XM-30—once known as the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle—“is being built through a modular open standard that allows us, in theory, to more rapidly replace components, which allows us to modernize more quickly,” Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean, the program executive officer for ground combat systems. Read the story and watch the interview by Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams.
This afternoon in Washington, Jason Rathje of the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital is set to speak at a panel discussion themed around “Funding Allied Innovation: Ensuring Advanced Capabilities for the Future Warfighter,” hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Rathje will be joined by NATO defense startup official Barbara McQuiston, and alliance innovation official Dame Fiona Murray. That event is slated for 1 p.m. ET. Details and livestream here.
Additional reading: “Marine recruit flees boot camp, stopped at airport,” Task and Purpose reported Wednesday;
Middle East
Israel signs $5.2 billion deal to buy 25 Boeing F-15IA jets, with an option for 25 more. Annual deliveries of four to six aircraft are to begin in 2013, Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir said in a Thursday statement. The deal is part of a larger package of U.S. aid approved earlier this year, Zamir said, adding that Tel Aviv has secured procurement agreements worth nearly $40 billion since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, 2023. Reuters has more, here.
Etc.
And lastly: 2024 will all but certainly bust through what scientists call the 1.5-degree warming line. European Union climate monitors say they are ‘virtually certain’ that 2024 will become the warmest year on record, and like that it will be “the first full calendar year when temperatures rose more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average — a critical line signaling that Earth is crossing into territory where some extreme climate effects may be irreversible,” writes the Washington Post.
What that means: “Scientists have long warned what would happen if Earth consistently stayed at 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial era: heavier precipitation, more extreme temperatures, more intense and frequent droughts, an ice-free summer in the Arctic and more. Exceeding 1.5 degrees could cause an irreversible collapse of some places on Earth, such as our ocean circulation systems and coral reefs, and thawing permafrost.” More, here.
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