Don's Weekly, 10 August 2026: Part 3 (Russia)

(…continued from Part 2…)

Russia

The laws of dictatorship continue to tighten. Anyone that fled arrest in Russia or left for political reasons is stripped of citizenship, bank accounts and property. Anyone who spreads “false information” about the armed forces can now get up to 15 years. Anyone who “discredits” the army is threatened with five years. Media outlets cannot use the words “war”, “invasion” or “assault.” People and organizations can now be labeled foreign agents. 25,000 websites have been blocked in the last year.

The Saratov refinery was hit and is expected to be offline for 2-3 weeks. The Yaroslavl refinery was hit and cars in a parking lot were hit by falling Pantsir cannon fire. The Ufa-Bashneft refinery was hit.

There are dangers in starting up refineries quickly. Russia cannot afford to tolerate any down time with their refineries so they are re-starting them after repairs quickly. The Syzran refinery had a fire after startup and the effect was the equivalent of a drone strike.

18 refineries were attacked in July, surpassing the previous record of the 17 refineries that were attacked in May. Russian refining fell to the lowest levels since May 2022.

A Ukrainian drone attacking a radar at the Black Sea port of Gelendzhik is shot down, killing 7 people.

A woman carried a homemade bomb packed with ball bearings to the entrance of a restaurant in Moscow and it was remotely detonated, killing her and four others while wounding at least 21 others. The event was a birthday party for Alexander Chayko, commander-in-chief of Russia’s Aerospace Forces, who is being tried in absentia in Ukraine for war crimes.

Wildberries attacks: 2 August, Samara. 3 August, the Vladimir warehouse was largely destroyed. 4 August, Krasny Bor was attacked successfully. A 4 August attack in Yekaterinburg failed, Chekhov district in Moscow succeeded. 5 August, Alesksin in the Tula region, a top 10 warehouse was hit twice. Novosemeykina was mostly burnt down.

Russian media says that Wildberries is removing electronics, jewelry and other good to separate warehouses, and then when the large warehouse is burnt, the stored goods are declared destroyed. This has not been confirmed. At the same time, there are many that believe the fuel shortage is a corruption scheme.

The Morrigan is a mid-strike drone that was developed with the 412th Nemesis Brigade and has been used for at least two months. The characteristics of the drone and the company that worked with the brigade to build it were not reported for operational security reasons. Here are the results of the 412th using the Morrigan drones.

Russia is using Geran-4 drones to attack Ukrainian naval drones. For some reason, some Russians parked an airplane in the Belgorod airport.

Ukraine destroyed an expensive Volna-Kupol-Garant Starlink jamming system at Gelendzhik, 20 km southeast of Novorossyisk. Soon after, an S-400 system was attacked at Gelendzhik and at least one launcher was destroyed based on the description. There were no details on whether more components of the system were attacked. Five other air defense components in Russia were destroyed on the same night, and an oil tanker and two cargo ships were hit on the Black Sea.

The Nadezh RO-RO (roll on, roll off) ferry was attacked on the way to Novorossiysk my multiple drones and the crew was evacuated. Russia only has 1-2 ferries left in the Kerch Strait.

Russia hasn’t produced a heavy bomber drone so they’ve been using captured Ukrainian Vampire drones. Sometimes Russia uses EW signals in Russian and Kaliningrad to spoof navigation satellite signal and steer Ukrainian drones into NATO territory. Russia also downed Ukrainian long-range drones with electronic warfare and captured them with little to no damage. Poland believes that Russia might use them in a false flag operation to blame Ukraine for attacks on NATO countries. Poland said a month ago that they were working in a pre-war state of heightened readiness, which was apparently not enough to intercept a Russian cruise missile that approached their border over several hours.

Russia had been completely dependent on China for drone motors. Recently, China sold a large number of production lines to Russia, who will now build their own drone motors. The Chinese company offers to sell and install the equipment for 379,000 yuan ($56,000). The company would cover hotel accommodations, airfare, visas, and insurance, while the Russian customer would cover meals, local transportation, and translation services. Payment was proposed to be made through Russia’s VTB Shanghai branch.

Chinese motors are inexpensive because the process is almost completely automated. First, laminations are cut from sheet iron to match the shape of the stator (the motor’s stationary part). They are stacked, pressed, and their surface is machined. Then, copper wire is wound onto the stator. The stator is mounted on a base. Meanwhile, on another part of the production line, the rotor—the moving part—is manufactured: a cylindrical base is taken, magnets and an end cap are glued to it, the adhesive is sintered for increased strength, and the shaft is installed. Then the rotor is attached to a bearing on the stator base.

(…to be continued…)