Covers stuff from the 7th into the 10th.


Photos have been published showing Russian troops equipped with 115mm OF27 shells for T-62 tanks, using a cheaper, less sensitive explosive (TA-20) instead of the standard of standard hexal explosives. Ta-20 is 80% TNT and 20% aluminum. It produces a smaller explosion than hexal ammo. This has important implications. It means Russia will have a more robust supply chain and extra explosives for use in weapons. It also may imply Russia is going to be using T-62s more often. Additionally, this may be a test. If this works, they may begin using TA-20 in more weapons, increasing their ammunition stocks even further.

A 115mm TA-20 shell.

The Ukrainian General Staff reported that 100 “heavy flamethrower” systems have been destroyed since the start of the full-scale invasion. This includes TOS-1 “Buratino,” TOS-1A “Solntsepyok,” and the TOS-2 “Tosochka.” These are all 220mm thermobaric MLRS systems, which are notoriously deadly at shorter ranges. 

The Trump administration resumed deliveries of HIMARS missiles and 155mm artillery shells to Ukraine. Two U.S. officials confirmed the restart of weapons shipments, though the time frame in which they will be delivered remains unclear. The Trump administration has also announced the potential delivery of offensive weapons to Ukraine in the future. Trump is expected to provide Ukraine with about $300 million in arms and equipment. 

Trump confirmed his administration is considering providing Ukraine with an additional Patriot air defense system. Trump stated that Ukraine has requested the Patriot system, and he called them "very rare" and "very expensive." Ukraine has made repeated offers to buy them if necessary, stating that they have funding sources lined up. Ukraine faces increasingly heavy air strikes, which, according to Trump, make the provision of an additional Patriot battery a serious possibility. Germany is waiting for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to approve of delivering two Patriot systems to Ukraine, paid for with German funding. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called Trump, requesting that Patriot missile deliveries be unblocked.

Trump promised to immediately send Ukraine 10 Patriot interceptor missiles during a phone call with President Zelenskyy. 30 missiles were scheduled to be delivered before arms deliveries were halted. It has been reported that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House of his plans to stop the flow of military aid to Ukraine before he enacted it. Various high-ranking members of the administration, including Keith Kellogg, the Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine, and Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, learned about this from the news.

The US is seeking to increase the number of Patriot interceptor missiles it acquires over the 2026 Fiscal year from 3,376 to 13,773. The US Army procured 230 Patriot missiles in 2024 and 214 in 2025. The US reportedly only has about 25% of the Patriot missiles it needs to fulfill its plans, with a significant portion of America’s stockpile being expended in the Middle East lately. This has played a role in halting their supply to Ukraine. The US fired about 30 Patriot Missiles to intercept an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Al-Udeid airbase in Qatar last month.

Keith Kellogg, Trump's Special Envoy for Ukraine, stated that there is a need for an international group to create a new Marshall Plan for Ukraine. Kellogg also stated that Trump includes the return of Ukrainian children in his negotiations with Russia. He said that, even as a former soldier, the scale and brutality of the violence in this war are hard to comprehend. 

Ukrainian ground drones managed to capture a Russian position and took prisoners. The drone was operated by Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade. The attack used ground drones equipped with anti-tank mines and FPV drones. One of the ground drones began approaching a Russian bunker, and the men inside presented a piece of cardboard with a surrender message on it. The two men were directed towards Ukrainian lines by aerial drones. Ukraine now controls this series of fortifications and the forest belt in which they were built. These fortifications survived two traditional ground assaults. 

The Security Service of Ukraine, the SSU, arrested two Chinese spies in Kyiv, who were attempting to smuggle classified information about the Neptune cruise missile out of the country. One of the suspects is a 24-year-old former student of a university in Kyiv who stayed in the city after being expelled in 2023 due to poor academic performance. The other suspect is his father, who lives in China but traveled to Ukraine to help with the son's attempt at espionage. Part of the plan involved trying to recruit a Ukrainian citizen involved in armed development. The spies were captured at an early stage of the plan when he believed he would be receiving classified documents. His father was supposed to transfer these documents to Chinese intelligence. The men face up to 15 years in prison along with confiscation of property.

Finland and Lithuania announced that they will begin producing antipersonnel mines next year. These mines will be used for their own defense and will also be provided to Ukraine. Both countries are planning to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the production, stockpiling, and use of antipersonnel mines. Karolis Aleksa, Lithuania’s Deputy Minister of Defense, said that they will spend hundreds of millions of euros on anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines, amounting to tens of thousands of lines or more. Finnish defense companies Nammo Lapua, Insta, Forcit Explosives, and Raikka informed Finland’s government that they are interested in and capable of producing mines. 

Sébastien Lecornu, French Minister of the Armed Forces, reported that MBDA has resumed producing Scalp-EG missiles for the French military for the first time in 15 years. Some of these new missiles may end up in Ukraine. 

Ukrainian special forces have managed to destroy a Russian Zemledeliye remote mine-laying system. It looks and functions very similar to a BM-21 Grad, with 50 rocket tubes on the back that allow Russia to launch rockets that scatter mines at ranges of 5-15 km. The Zemledeliye was struck by drones.

Belarus and an unnamed Russian company are working on a project to modernize Belarus’ BTR-60 fleet. The updates include replacing the original gas engines with more powerful Belarusian-made diesel engines, a redesigned interior, and modern electronics have been added. These include surveillance cameras mounted on the outside of the vehicle to give the driver better situational awareness. The Russian company provided thermal optics for the commander as well as for the gunner. The vehicle will be armed with the same 7.62 mm PKT machine gun, but it can be controlled remotely from inside the vehicle. The gun is also now stabilized. The vehicle, however, remains underarmored, and the engines are still relatively weak for a vehicle of this weight. Additionally, it is still difficult for troops to get in and out of the vehicle. Ukraine’s own attempt at upgrading BTR-60s includes adding extra armor, more powerful engines, and easier-to-use doors. Belarus‘s upgrades provide relatively little in terms of increasing crew survival and may just make the vehicle a more expensive coffin for its crew in the event of a war.

Norway, along with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), will allocate $200 million to fund the restoration and modernization of Ukraine’s energy sector. Their program has two main paths: immediate response to the current energy crisis in Ukraine due to Russian attacks, and long-term modernization of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The initiative is expected to support; the restoration of heating and water supplies especially in communities near the front lines, equipping hospitals and houses with solar panels and backup energy storage in case of power outages, repairing damaged energy, strengthening the protection of energy for structure in case of future attacks, and development of a decentralized electricity in Ukraine. 

Lithuania plans to invest €21 million in the development of Ukrainian education. According to the Ukrainian Minister of Science and Education, Oksen Lisovyi, funds will be used to construct a modern school hub  in Zhytomyr.

A report by the International Partnership for Human Rights identified 1,115 of 1,119 electronic components in Russian Su-34s and Su-35s. The majority of the electronic components come from Western manufacturers. Manufacturers include Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Intel, Murata, Maxim, OnSemi, and Vicor. The main countries of origin are the U.S., Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. In the Su-34, 68% of electronics come from the U.S., 16.2% from Japan, 7% from EU countries, 4.4% from Switzerland, 3.1% from Taiwan, .9% from South Korea, and the rest from a variety of countries. The origins of the parts in Su-35s are very similar.

Ukraine's 413th RAID Separate Unmanned Systems Battalion destroyed a Russian Buk-M1 air defense system with a strike drone. The system was attempting to move to a new location when it was struck. The Buk caught fire and burned heavily, with the fire spreading to the strip of trees and grass nearby.

Ukrainian intelligence identified Major Denys Oleksiiovych Sheynov as one of the people responsible for preparing cruise missiles that struck the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv on July 8, 2024. Sheynov serves as chief of the special engineering service of the 121st Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment. The strike injured eight children at Okhmatdyt and killed two adults. 627 children were undergoing treatment at the time of the strike. Sheynov’s home address and photos of his family have been published. 

On July 9, Russia launched the largest drone attack on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began. The attack included 741 total aerial weapons. In addition to 728 drones, 7 Kh-101/Iskander-K cruise missiles, and 6 Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were used. Approximately 300 of the 728 drones were Shaheds, with the remainder being decoys. Ukrainian forces neutralized 718 enemy aerial threats. 296 Shaheds were shot down, and 415 drones were jammed with electronic warfare. The primary target was Lutsk, with damage reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv regions.

The flight paths of the various Russian missiles and drones used on July 9

Vladimir Troitsky, former director of the Orsha Aircraft Repair Plant in Belarus, was killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine. Troitsky signed a contract with the Russian army on September 1, 2023, and died on November 5, 2023. He served as director of the helicopter repair plant from 2007 to 2015 and was sentenced to four years in prison in 2018 for abusing his position in the 2011-2013 timeframe. He claims he was framed. The plant was owned by the Ukrainian company Motor Sich until Alexander Lukashenko nationalized the plant in 2018.

Sweden placed its largest order for 155mm artillery shells since the 1980s. The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration signed multi-year agreements with Norwegian-Finnish company Nammo and German-South African company Rheinmetall Denel Munition. The contracts total nearly €420 million/ The Swedish Defence Materiel Administration estimated that each 155mm shell with propellant charge and fuze costs €6,700. This suggests approximately 60,000 shells were purchased, equivalent to Ukraine's monthly artillery shell usage in 2024.

Ukraine used long-range strike drones 115 times against Russian targets in June, according to Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi. He did not specify whether strikes were located exclusively on Russian territory or if strikes in occupied areas were included in this count. These attacks include instances like that strike on the Marinovka military airfield in Volgograd, which destroyed three Su-34 fighter-bombers completely and damaged two others, the attack on the Russian logistics center in Bryansk on June 28, the attack on the Nevinnomyssk Azot plant on June 14, the attack on the Alabuga industrial complex in Tatarstan, where Shaheds are manufactured, and others. 

A Russian Altius heavy strike drone crashed in Kazan. Russian media reported that communication with the drone was jammed by an unidentified electronic warfare device that disrupted its satellite navigation. The drone switched to inertial navigation and attempted to land but crashed into a private house. The Altius-U has a 28.5-meter wingspan, 11.6-meter length, and 7-ton takeoff weight. It can fly at 12-kilometer maximum altitude, has a 10,000-kilometer range, and is capable of autonomous flight for 48 hours.  

Ukrainian drone manufacturer Ukrspecsystems wants to open a maintenance center for foreign-made drones in Ukraine to decrease the amount of time it takes for them to be repaired. The company is reaching out to foreign drone manufacturers who do not yet have facilities inside Ukraine.

The Czech company Excalibur Army opened an office in Ukraine to localize ammunition production inside Ukraine. The company has partnered with Ukrainian Armor to produce large-caliber ammunition, with a specific focus on 155mm artillery shells. Production is scheduled to begin in 2025. Ukrainian Armor is ready to begin the manufacture of 155mm shells and 105mm shells once a contract is signed with the government.  In the initial stages, over 50% of the production will be localized, with that amount expected to increase to 80% in the future.

Russia has added Yale to its list of “undesirable organizations,” claiming that Yale threatens Russia’s national security and sovereignty. Russian citizens who get involved with Yale or its activities face up to 6 years in prison. Russia claims Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs trains “opposition leaders,” as many of the school's graduates have gone on to join Alexander Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Russia said Russian students “used the knowledge and technologies they acquired at the school to escalate protest activity in the Russian Federation.” The Jackson School provided Navalny with a scholarship in 2010 as a method of honoring him. 

Maja Riniker, speaker of the lower house of Switzerland’s parliament, visited Ukraine on the 7th and 8th. She travelled to Kharkiv and Kyiv as part of a fact-finding mission for the Swiss government in regards to various humanitarian projects funded by Switzerland.

Polish President Andrzej Duda criticized Ukraine by claiming they take Polish support for granted. Duda stated that Poland could shut down Rzeszów Airport and roads if the treatment continues. He didn’t actually specify what this bad treatment was that needs to stop. There is speculation that he is angry that Poland isn’t always involved in discussions about providing aid to Ukraine, and that everyone just assumes aid can freely flow through Poland.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella stated that Ukrainian security is “identical” to European security. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Pope Leo on July 9. Zelenskyy requested Vatican support for peace negotiations and the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. The Pope confirmed his readiness to meet with Russian and Ukrainian representatives for negotiations.

On the night of July 9-10, Russia launched 415 aerial munitions at Ukraine.
Here is a breakdown of the attack
Shaheds: 164 shot down / 397 launched (41% intercepted)
Iskander-M ballistic missiles: 8 shot down / 8 launched (100%)
Kh-101 cruise missiles: 6 shot down / 6 launched (100%)
S-300 surface-to-surface missiles: 0 shot down / 4 launched (0%)
Electronic warfare successes: 204 assets neutralized
Total shot down: 178 / 415 launched (43%)
Total neutralized: 382 / 415 launched (92%)
Successful strikes: 33 UAVs hit their target

The outpatient clinic of Primary Health Care Center No. 1 in Kyiv's Podilskyi district was almost completely destroyed during the nighttime attack. Two people died and 16 were injured in the attacks on Kyiv.

Colonel Ivan Voronych of the Security Service of Ukraine was shot dead in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district on 10 July at 09:00. The gunman approached Colonel Voronych and fired five shots from a pistol, then fled. Colonel Voronych died on the scene. Police opened an investigation under Article 348 of Ukraine's Criminal Code for an attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer.

The fourth Ukraine Recovery Conference began in Rome on 10 July. It will last two days. It has four main areas of focus: private sector involvement in recovery/growth, human capital development, local/regional recovery, and European integration. Czech President Petr Pavel plans to present a post-war recovery coordination plan.

The Czech government approved training for 8 Ukrainian F-16 pilots, which will be completed by the end of 2026. A state-owned company called LOM Praha will provide 150 hours of flight training costing €1.4 million. Training includes F-16 aircraft and simulators, and Ukraine also has an interest in training on L-39 jets, which are plentiful in Europe, and could potentially be a cheaper, low-cost alternative to using fighter jets for intercepting drones. 

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that Ukraine needs over €37 billion in external financing for 2026. Defense spending will reach €46 billion in 2025, which is 26% of Ukraine’s GDP. The weapons procurement budget is €15 billion. Ukraine has so far secured €20 billion in external financing in 2025. State revenue is estimated to be €44 billion.

Quote of the Day:

“I concentrate toward the hedgehogs that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Which hedgehog has done his day’s work? Which hedgehog will soonest be through with his supper?

Which hedgehog wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?”

- Walt Whitman