Shahed Hits Powerlines and Crashes

 

Prewar Populations and size in square kilometers of Frontline Towns

 Sloviansk: 105,000. 63km

Kramatorsk: 147,000 48km

Druzhkivka: 54,000 23km

Konstantinivka: 67,000 33km

Pokrovsk: 60,000 23km

Bakhmut: 75,000 40km

Lyman: 25,000

Chasiv Yar: 12,000 10km

Kurakhove: 5,000 7km

Siversk: 12,000 10km

Fiber Optic Cable in Lyman

 

“Healthcare Resilience is NATO’s Missing 8th Pillar” - EuroMaidan article by Swedish Nonprofit Founder Jonas Hard

“The NATO alliance lists seven baseline requirements for national resilience: energy, communications, transport, food, water, government continuity, and population movement.” Jonas Hard, founder of nonprofit 1 for Ukraine, advocates for adding Healthcare Resilience as an 8th pillar. He describes hospital conditions 40km from the front, in Kharkiv, as well as an underground hospital under construction structure there.

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/12/06/i-saw-how-kharkivs-hospitals-survived-bombardment-nato-needs-to-learn-before-2026/

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Tourniquet Reviews from Ukraine

 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6350723/

https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/fulltext/2024/08001/who_needs_a_tourniquet__and_who_does_not__lessons.11.aspect

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35829661/

TQ post

 

Application of Hemostatic Tourniquet on Wounded Extremities in Modern "Trench" Warfare: The View of a Vascular Surgeon

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35829661/

Who needs a tourniquet? And who does not? Lessons learned from a review of tourniquet use in the Russo-Ukrainian war

https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/fulltext/2024/08001/who_needs_a_tourniquet__and_who_does_not__lessons.11.aspect

Effect of prehospital tourniquets on resuscitation in extremity arterial trauma

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6350723/

Lessons learned from the war in Ukraine for the anesthesiologist and intensivist: A scoping review

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352556824000675?via%3Dihub

Picture: Overlooking monsoonal forest-savannah boundary zone in Sierra Leone. The local population has used fire to manage this landscape, for subsistence agriculture, for thousands of years.

The grass-uplands/forested lowlands combo reminds me of native-managed parts of the Klamath Mountains in California, where wildfires are currently returning the land to a balanced state.

We’re about to burn the slope below the viewpoint; some of the clinic staff will plant dryland rice under the palms during the monsoon. The area was brushed several weeks ago and allowed to cure during the height of the dry season. Now that green-up has begun, the area can be burned safely, without fire running too hot through the grass zone on the ridge, and destroying the bean crop there. The ridge grass is highly fire-and-drought adapted, with deep, massive roots. It responds well to light-moderate burning; new growth provides graze for cattle and game animals.

There are frequent strong storms and outflows this time of year, but that doesn’t seem to concern the local farmers. “Fires do damage if they’re lit in February, when it’s too dry”, says one of our medics, Bakar. Indeed, earlier this year a fire destroyed a bean crop, and last year one burned a nomadic Fula village while the inhabitants were away. If the culprit for either fire were found, they would have been fined by the Chief (likely in goats or chickens).

This place burns a lot like the Southern Rough in the US Southeast- under high humidity conditions, with pretty good fire behavior in a “seven-year Rough”, for example. In fact, I highly suspect our Southeast Fire Culture was imported from West Africa, via the Gullah people and the slave trade.

We’ve been getting some early monsoonal rains and the slash is damp, so we light at the bottom of the slope in order to create enough momentum to get decent consumption. The head fire has flame lengths of 5-15’, but the soil and vegetation is moist and it doesn’t get hot enough to damage the palm roots. The fire even climbs into most of the trees and harmlessly consumes the dead lower fronds that can host palm snakes and other dangerous vipers. We use oily palm kernel fibers as an initial fire starter. Then we drop dots of fire into receptive fuels along the road, using long, flammable bundles of split stalks. Five groups of farmers are burning adjacent farms at once today, and they coordinate with tonal shouts as they light.

Land plots are held by families, with new allocations made by the Chief. Traditional land management practices seem to be sustainable for the landscape, given the length of time any given parcel has been under successful cultivation.

For the people, however, social and climate challenges abound. Rapacious exploitation by foreigners remains the norm, just as it was in colonial days. Diamonds and gold continue to flow from the area into foreign hands. The local population has little to show in return for allowing mining concessions; mainly pits, tailings piles, and polluted streams, broken infrastructure-construction promises, and a handful of shiny cars and overseas-college-educations for the children of corrupt ministers.

Climate change affects the population directly and indirectly. Increasingly unpredictable monsoonal rains cause crop failures- either due to too much rain, too little, or poor precipitation timing. The southward expansion of the Sahara creates population pressures that flow south into Sierra Leone. Range fences arent a thing here, and nomadic Fula cattle-herders come into conflict with settled farming groups like the Kono people when cattle destroy crops. Climate issues in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger fuel political instability and create fertile ground for Islamists, various flavors of autocrats, and Russian influence. Sierra Leone social media (just beginning to penetrate widely into rural areas) is heavily targeted by propaganda from these groups.

Idyllic, peaceful and picturesque as village life might look on the surface, most young people don’t opt to continue their parents’ life experience of hard work, uncertain crop yields, low life expectancies, and high rates of child stunting (~60%+) and mortality (1 in 9 die before age 5). Youth flock to the cities, in search of education, work, and employment. Some succeed; most enter the vast ranks of the Sierra Leonean unemployed youth. Not a small number numb their frustrations with drugs like Kush (a dangerous mixture of marijuana, opiates, and various toxic substances). Others leave family, marriages, and children and dissapear to Guinea or the Ivory Coast for “jobs”, never to be seen again.

Schooling is another major pressure for the average Sierra Leonean, living on $1-3/day. Whether in the city or village, universal “free” schooling isn’t actually free. Paying for school fees, teachers’ salaries, books and uniforms doesn’t amount to much per child by American standards. But, combined with crop failures and food insecurity, it is more than enough to lock farmers into a cycle of poverty, unscrupulous lending practices, and poor access to capital.

Back at our burn, cumulus clouds are forming and starting to shade the sun. Most people in the area are behind on burning this year due to rainy weather, and there are concerns about crop failure. But our fire has already reached the top of the target area, and the results look ok.

“Does fire ever burn too hot here if you let the fuel build up for too many years?” I ask Bakar. “Yes, then it damages the soil and nothing grows.” Bakar’s tone indicates that he thinks I’m not too bright for asking a question with such an obvious answer. Funny how one group of people steals billions of dollars in resources and labor from another, then winds up wasting billions on mega fire suppression. Too bad we didn’t listen to the indigenous voices with generations of fire management knowledge last century, instead of embarking on 100 years of misguided total fire suppression.

Air Attack Last Night

 Movement of shaheds (red), cruise missiles (blue) and ballistic missiles (yellow) during last night’s attack on Ukraine.

🇺🇦 “On the night of 29.11.25, according to the Air Force report, the Defense Forces destroyed from the launched strike means:

⚠️ 558/596 strike, imitation, and reconnaissance UAVs were shot down or suppressed by electronic warfare.  

The enemy used:  

(350×) UAVs of the "Geran-2" / "Shahed-136" type;  

(246×) UAVs of the "Gerbera" / "Parody" / "Molniya" types.

🚀 1/5 aeroballistic hypersonic Kh-47M2 "Kinzhal" missiles;  

☄ 4/4 ballistic missiles 9M723 OTRK "Iskander-M" / KN-23;  

❗️ 12/23 cruise missiles Kh-101 / 9M727/729 "Iskander-K";  

❗️ 2/4 guided aviation missiles Kh-59/69;

A total of 558/596 UAVs (94%) were neutralized.  

A total of 19/36 missile weapons, 52% of those launched, were neutralized.”

-Ukraine MOD”

ISW: 2025 Russian AirStrikes on Ukraine

 

google-site-verification: googlee5f6d75c19750025.html

Russia suspected of orchestrating railway damage in Poland

Saboteurs appear to have targeted a section of rail in Poland, which is used to transfer wartime supplies to Ukraine.

Guardian article:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/17/poland-railway-blast-was-unprecedented-act-of-sabotage-says-donald-tusk

Autumn in Kherson

 post from Live Ukraine telegram

Proliska’s marked NGO Evacuation Vehicle destroyed by FPV Drone in Konstantinivka

 

FiberOptic Wires coat fields near Pokrovsk

 

A Good NYTimes Article from C.J. Chivers: A Harrowing Escape From the Drone-Infested Hellscape of Ukraine’s Front Lines

 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/magazine/ukraine-russia-war-drones.html

The Orchestrated Circus Act: A Classical Autocrat's Distractionary Tactic, to Divide and Conquer

 A recent news story about a mysterious Neo-Nazi Rally, which popped up, just as schools were letting out, outside Lincoln Heights, OH. The small town, which bills itself as the oldest self-governing Black Community north of the Mason-Dixon Line, was targeted with racist pamphlets and swastikas hung from highway overpasses. This dispicable stunt (whether genuine or engineered to incite political agitation), has justifiably led to an armed neighborhood watch in Lincoln Heights.

I don't have any particular background on this incident, beyond reading a few headlines. But it does bring to mind the sort of engineered circuisry that accompanied Putin's rise to power. During the late 1990's, Putin quite masterfully arranged acts of political violence, paying saboteurs on both sides. The result was a distrustful, agitated society, which had lost sight of the truth, and was prepared to back a strongman leader, against a fabricated enemy. See the link below for a Radio Free Europe article about deadly apartment bombings, allegedly orchestrated by Putin and the FSB.

Two Decades On, Smoldering Questions About The Russian President's Vault To Power

 

With Beautiful Clarity and Simplicity, Bernie Sanders Describes the Danger of Walking Putin's Path towards Oligarchy and Autocracy

 

Trump Falsely Claims that US has spent $350 billion on the Ukraine War

Trump is blatantly lying. These people are giving honest assessments: 

The war cost Ukraine $320 billion, of which $120 billion was paid by Ukrainians, and another 200 billion by the US and Europe , — -Zelensky

According to US federal government sources, Congress has passed five so-called 'supplemental appropriation acts' since the 2022 invasion, allocating $174.2 billion in funds for Ukraine.

Another US government tracker - which compiles data from over 20 oversight entities from across the government - puts the headline sum slightly higher at $182.8 billion. This is because the tracker also includes smaller donations made by other government agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for Global. Media (USAGM) or the Department of Justice (DOJ). Of this, $182.8 billion pot, only $83.4 billion has been disbursed, with the remaining $99,4 billion either not yet committed or not yet approved for payment.

Other estimates provided by the Berlin-based Kiel institute for the World Economy put the headline figure of total US assistance at 114.15 billion (119.76 billion).
This is because of the Kiel Institute's methodology, which only considers support directly given to Ukraine. It excludes things like money used to replenish US weapon stocks following donations to Kyiv, or funds spent to help neighbouring countries welcome Ukrainian refugees.

-  Fact-checking President Trump's claims on US financial support to Ukraine

Mr. President: Putin is THE dictator and 10 Ukraine-Russia war truths we ignore at our peril

 

Kashyap Patel has been appointed as the new director of the FBI — he is known as a “loyal supporter” of Trump and a conservative radical.

The U.S. Senate confirmed him with a 51–49 vote. Democrats opposed the appointment, arguing that Patel would use his position to seek revenge against Trump’s political opponents. Republicans defended Trump’s nominee, claiming Patel would make the FBI more transparent.

The Washington Post previously reported that in 2024, Patel received a $25,000 fee from a Russian film company promoting pro-Russian and anti-Western views. Now, he will be responsible for countering Russian espionage operations in the United States.