Drone 'downs' Russian Mi-28 helicopter & 'Moscow will fall through Crimea': Ukraine's new campaign

I'm Francis Dernley, and this is Ukraine, the Latest.Today, as Ukraine expands its campaign in the Black Sea, tightening Kiev's stranglehold on occupied Crimea, we report on the fifth consecutive day of combined missile and drone attacks on the southern Odessa region, as civilians continue to bear the brunt of the bombardment.Then we turn to the latest political developments shaping the war, including fresh manoeuvring in Hungary, and later, We open the postbag once again to answer your questions on the Kursh Bridge, the impact of fuel shortages for the Russian harvest and European preparedness for the kind of aerial bombardments Kiev suffers daily.It's Wednesday, the 15th of July, four years and 141 days since the full -scale invasion began.Today, I'm joined by my co -host Dominic Nicholls and later Adly Pojman -Ponte.But first, as ever, over to Dom for the latest in the military realm.

Well, thanks, Francis.Hello, everyone.So Ukraine's opened a new phase in its maritime drone war.They're moving from the Sea of Azov to the wider Black Sea.So the head of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces said the Black Sea chapter of Operation Miloshka has begun.So, Miloshka, you may have seen this term around and about for the last week or so that Ukraine's been whacking oil infrastructure and shipping in the Sea of Azov.

So, where's Miloshka come from?Well, Robert Magyar -Bravdy, the commander of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces, says it's poetry.Not necessarily poetry, it's actually an amalgamation of the words, and I've been practicing this all morning, Mosfer Liasha Terez Krim, which means Moscow will fall through Crimea.Okay.Now Ukraine's army media helps us out here They say the logic behind the name is the logic behind the operation.Crimea is Putin's greatest propaganda trophy Russia's seizure of the peninsula in 2014 was presented as the defining achievement of his regime Its loss would be a blow the Kremlin may not survive So Ukraine is making Crimea impossible to hold systematically ship by ship substation by substation

bridge by bridge.And today, on Ukrainian statehood day, Magyar announced the operation had expanded to the Black Sea.So that's where Miloshka comes from.They say round one in the Sea of Azov was 116 vessels struck, as we reported yesterday.They started this part of this campaign on July the 6th, so Monday last week.So just in the week, they've hit 116 vessels.

That is an extraordinary figure, isn't it?Yeah, huge.Yeah, just over weight 116 and they say Ukrainian army media.This is they say it's around two opens on the Black Sea because last night Tuesday Wednesday 20 more vessels were hit in the Black Sea.17 oil tankers, two gas carriers, and one tugboat.They say the Azov is done, the Black Sea is next.

Miloshko continues, Moscow will fall through Crimea.Now, the Unmanned Systems Forces, also promoting last night's results, the 20 vessels struck, they've put a link to the Pidrahoika I've been practicing that one as well.Basically, it's the online kill board.If you have a look at it, we'll put a link in the episode notes.This is the scoreboard, if you like, for all the different elements of Ukraine's unmanned systems forces.And you can look at each brigade or each regiment, each different unit, and you can see their tally broken down by day and broken down by enemy equipment of what they've been hitting.

This all feeds into that Brave One marketplace to show your results and therefore get more resource.As I said, some people say it's quite controversial.how many people you've killed and bits and pieces that you've destroyed, but it's a very efficient way of moving resource to the most effective place for destroying the enemy.Anyway, Russia's transport ministry has said that it might redirect cargo shipments away from the Sea of Azov following these recent increased attacks on shipping in the region.They said that before this announcement that Molotov was expanding to the Black Sea as a whole, so we don't know what they'd say now.However, we do know that

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's response was.Entirely predictably, he calls all these strikes on oil tankers and associated maritime vessels.Go on, put me out my misery.Acts of terrorism.They're all terrorism.Sergei Lavrov said, what the Ukrainian regime is doing goes beyond even piracy.

Pirates, at least, plunder and keep the spoils for themselves.But here it benefits neither them nor anyone else.The goal is simply to cause damage and intimidate.It is terrorism, pure and simple.Now I disagree with him on that, but to be fair, he would know what he's talking about when it comes to terrorism.

So you're going to say, to be fair to Blackbeard then?

Well, you can't hear him, just be careful.Now he had a proper beard.Anyway, moving on.Now the response to Lavrov's comments from Magyar's Birds, which is one of the, one of the units in in the unmanned systems forces they said no piracy Lavrov just business I mean it's very it's very godfather that is just business yours bloody in the sights of the freedom -loving Ukrainian bird into the abyss of the sea your turn has come enemy we will stand Moscow will fall Morozhka is in action I mean it's all quite you know quite dramatic stuff but part of yeah putting it mildly, as a result of enemy drone attack Kerch is entirely is completely without power.Live support facilities are operating thanks to backup power sources.All municipal services are involved in emergency repair and restoration work.

Russian authorities say that 93 Ukrainian drones were brought down across the country and the occupied territories last night but clearly something got through because there was a total blackout in Kerch.Now still on Ukraine's unmanned systems forces and the commander Robert Brovdy is claiming today that a drone has downed a Russian Mi -28 helicopter.They said it happened earlier today in Belgorod Oblast.They say soldiers from Ukraine's 427th Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment were operating when they brought this brought this helicopter down.Now the imagery they've got to to back this up There is an Mi -28 that's either hovering or moving very, very slowly.So we don't know if it's on an anti -drone patrol or whatever it's doing.

But you see the munition, so obviously this is the onboard camera from the Ukrainian drone, it flies into the aircraft and then obviously it all goes fuzzy when we assume the munition exploded.Now, Brovdi, Robert Brovdi is claiming that they've brought down the aircraft.I would just exercise a little bit of caution on that.Unless the munition explodes and, you know, probably did, but unless the ammunition explodes, I think the aircraft would probably have survived.They went for the main rotor head.Now, the blades would have smashed the drone to pieces.

If the weapon was a mortar round, which is huge and heavy and metal, it might have done some damage to the blades, but I think the blades would have put up with that, and it might have necessitated a forced landing, as in suddenly get it on the deck as quickly as you can, but I don't think it would have been catastrophic.I think the absence of any additional video, now this drone might have been on its own, you never know, but I wonder if they could have done, Ukrainians would have put out an extra video showing this burning wreckage on the ground.So the absence of that video means that maybe it didn't happen, or maybe, as I say, the drone was operating on its own.I question why, though, they went for the main rotor.It's always nice to make it juicy, the big sort of whirly thing, but you should always go for the tail rotor.Get the back.

Go for the tail rotor.If you hit that, if you take the tail rotor,out of action, then, because all the tail rotor is there to do is to stop the fuselage of the helicopter going in the opposite direction to the rotors at the same speed.It will eventually wind up, this is Newton's second law, equal and opposite reaction.The fuselage will go the same speed as the rotors in the opposite direction if you leave it long enough.It very rarely gets that long, because if you lose a tail rotor, you go directly to the scene of the accident, do not pass go, and end up in a burning wreck.

But if you lose your tail rotor, you have to turn the engine off, because the fuselage is going to try and start spinning in the opposite direction.Now, that's fine.So that will arrest that counter -torque motion.Your fuselage will be pointing in the direction you want it to, so you can actually see properly without being squished up the side of the window.But you've turned your engine off.So you're going down.

You can do a forced landing.That's fine But you're still going down So hit the tail rotor and the aircraft has to come down hit the main rotor and it might be able to limp back to base I've had a couple of dings on the old I was gonna ask if you ever had a forced landing before I know you've had a forced takeoff before because you had to I mean you accidentally invaded a sovereign country story for another time.Yeah, I have actually had a I've had Two two may days I think in my time.Yes, one of which involved a running landing into a minefield, so stick it on the deck as quickly as you can.That's a bad weekend.Yeah, that focused the imagination.

And the other one, yeah, we just had to stick it on the ground as quickly as possible and go in and have a cup of tea.call the engineers and say i've broken i've broken the helicopter a couple of million to fix well it was actually that was actually turns out that was quite minor the actual fix but it was just very dramatic at the time uh anyway uh onwards onwards and now what else as you said at the top it's been the fifth consecutive day of combined missile and drone attacks across southern odessa or blast with hares on zaporizhia and donetskOblast especially hit, but there were deaths also in the north around Chernihiv and in the northeast around Kharkiv.Port infrastructure in Odessa was hit for the second day in a row.There's another two people were killed on a civilian cargo ship.This one was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands.

This comes a day after, you'll remember we reported yesterday, a ship flying the Togolese flag that was unloading fertilizer in one of the Odessa ports was hit.That killed five, injured 10.So this is the second day that a civilian cargo ship is hit.There were also missile strikes on Odessa city last night in a multi -story apartment building that killed three people, injured six others, according to regional governor Ole Kipa.Across the country, two KH -59 or 69 variant cruise missiles and 122 drones were fired by Russia.I think the missiles got through.

101 drones were brought down.But across the country, 12 people killed, nearly 100 injured.

These are high figures relative to earlier in the year.

Yeah, they are relative.Take my next comment in the manner which it's meant.Now, we report on this.We've been staring at this for four and a half years now.We've got friends out there.We've been out there.

Obviously, we spend most of our time in the safety of London.So it might be very glib what I have to say.But a country that has 12 people killed every day and 100 injured, It can take that.It can keep going.It's each death individually a tragedy, but as far as society, society is not breaking.That does not put pressure on Zelensky to cut any kind of deal to make this stuff stop.

You know as well as I do that Ukrainians look at this and say that's horrific and Russia has to be stopped, but we're still going to keep going.This is not going to stop them.So these kind of numbers and the increasing number of ballistic missiles, which I'll come on to in a sec, that seem to be getting through at the moment because of the paucity of air defences.or Patriots in particular.That's not good.We're seeing these numbers and this kind of magnitude every day, but Ukraine can take it.

It's that same calculation that we made in the Second World War with the Blitz here.

London could take it, despite the horror.

Now, on to another one of my pet projects, having spoken about helicopters.The United Nations.So the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report released yesterday that June was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since April 2022, with at least 293 people killed and nearly 2 ,000 injured.Now amazingly, this story made the front page of the UN website.Obviously it wasn't the lead story, that was about World Youth Skills Day, but it was on the front page.So well done, UN, for highlighting it.

And you only had to get 14 words into this story before they attributed it.Amazingly, they actually used the word.They said, civilian casualties in Ukraine soared during the first half of 2026 amid escalating Russian attacks.and intensifying use of deadly weapons.This is, I say, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country said on Tuesday.So they say during the first six months of 2026, monitors verified 1 ,396 civilians killed and nearly 8 ,000 injured.

They say that's a 37 % rise over the same period in 2025 and a 114 % rise increase compared with 2024.Now, Danielle Bell, the head of the monitoring team, The figures show an alarming escalatory trend with mounting civilian toll driven by the intensifying use of powerful weapons that are particularly deadly when used in densely populated urban areas.This trend should serve as a warning that the risks facing civilians are not only beingbut growing in both scale and complexity.Short -range drones have transformed the environment for civilians living near the frontline.The accounts we hear from civilians displaced from frontline communities are deeply consistent and terrifying.

Many described feeling hunted by short range drones simply for attempting everyday tasks such as shopping for food, walking dogs, cycling, working in the yard or traveling to safety.Now that last bit there, she was referring to the so -called drone safari that we've reported on often.So, you know, there were not many more mentions of Russia.I think only three in total in the thing.And certainly no calls for action to be taken against Moscow to end the war.But at least the references are there.

I just wish the UN would do it more in their social media posts.They can say it and the sky doesn't turn purple.You can attribute this to Russia.Anyway, well done the UN.Now, we were talking about ballistic missiles.There's been a lot of reporting recently about the lag between ballistic missile attacks and the air alerts.

In some cases, the air alerts, increasingly in recent days, the air alerts coming after the missiles have actually landed, which obviously is not good.Yesterday, Serhiy Beskretsnov, who's the advisor to Ukraine's Defence Minister Mihailo Fedorov, offered an explanation for this.He said, why do ballistic alerts sometimes go off after the missile has already arrived?All information about launches or launch preparations comes to us from our partners.None of us knows, nor should we know, how they obtain this information.But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the main sources of information are satellite surveillance of launch sites and systems that record launch data.

A missile reaches Kiev in two to four minutes, so time is very limited.Any system failure will cause a delay in receiving information.No system can be perfect, so failures do occur, and the alert may be delayed." He also said there might be false alerts, as in,you get an air raid alert when actually nothing's happening and he said this happens because satellites detect activity at launch pads that precedes missile launches but the launches themselves may not take place for some reason.Reconnaissance satellites visually detect activity at a launch pad but it's unclear whether a launch will actually take place or not.

I mean, it's not just visual, the stuff that satellites can do.But I thought that was quite a telling insight there and maybe told a little bit too much.A couple more for me.Estonia has condemned Russia after it carried out unannounced live fire exercises over the lake which borders the two countries.Estonian officials say this is unprecedented.Interior Minister Igor Taro says it's a provocation.

Defence Minister Hanno Pavko said Russia has never previously conducted weapons exercises on that lake.He suggested the move reflected broader disarray.He said this is certainly not an ordinary event.Russia has not conducted any exercises involving the use of weapons on Lake Peipus, Peipus, forgive me.That's why I've been avoiding the name until now.It's the lake between Estonia and Russia.

There's no R in box.It's going to be flooded now by Estonians, angry at your pronunciation.

But he said, in this sense, this is something new.It seems they're facing a variety of problems.We have information, you're like this, we have information that the fuel crisis has even reached the Russian border guards.They're already mowing the grass around their border posts with scythes.As I said before, nothing says your lightning three -day offensive is going quite so well as having to use scythes to cut the grass four and a half years later.Right, a couple more for me.

Yesterday we reported after that coalition of the willing meeting in Paris that Emmanuel Macron had said that France is going to allow Ukraine to produce the French -designed Scalpe cruise missile, Scalpe being the British Storm Shadow, same thing, different badge, as well as glide bombs and other air defence interceptors as well.Now a senior Ukrainian official, Kiev Independent, said earlier today that this officialsays that the u .s.s.Has begun the process of granting Ukraine licenses to produce Patriot missiles, moving the matter beyond political statements.We thought it's quite easy for Donald Trump to say this back on 8th of July, I think he said it, NATO.

And we go, OK, well, it might take might take years before you actually get these licenses and it's going to take a long time then to build them.Well, things seem to be seem to be moving.This official speaking to the Kyiv Independent said that Lockheed Martin, that's the defense company that builds the missiles, backs granting Ukraine the licenses.So maybe there is a a little bit of political impetus already.And then finally for me, a couple of apologies, folks.Sorry.

Yesterday, I gave a report that the Russian MOD had recruited about 195 ,000 personnel contract soldiers as of July 2026.And they said this is less than 50 % of their annual contracts I then had another figure in mind that was only 10 ,000 more and I was trying to do the maths and I said It doesn't sound like 50 50 % Anyway, Russia's annual contract recruitment goal is four hundred nine thousand.So yes 195 thousand is less than half.So I got got my got my maths wrong I should have taken my shoes off anyway, and then the second apology as I was talking about Well, I'm not from Norfolk, so I've only got 10, you see.The second apology is Patriot production.I said they were producing one or two a month.

Of course, it's not.It's one or two a day.So about 500 -ish, 500 -plus Patriots made a year.And I got that badly wrong, decimal point in the wrong place.So I apologize.But that's us up to date.

Well, record corrected.Thanks, Tom.It's good to be back.Beard's grown a little bit since I was last here.

Yeah, yours isn't doing too bad either.

Oh, very good.Well, in preparation for the Q &A, I did go through the postbag earlier.This was a gem of a comment from Belinda.She says, early indications of amplified gravity.thanks to beard.Congruent persevere, she says.

A less flattering one from LJ, though, who just said it's lesser beard, more beard debris.Charming, but anyway diplomatic updates.Let's start with that story from Monday Lindsey Graham's death quite an extraordinary one this and I know you covered it in detail as you predicted a bipartisan group of u .s.Senators have unveiled the latest version of that sanctions bill that we've been speaking about now for what feels like forever It seems like they're going to try and use his death as an impetus to finally get this to pass through Congress So the latest version of this long delayed legislation that's been stuck in Congress since April Last year scales down a blanket 500 % tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian energy to a maximum of 100 % tariff.That seemingly is to appease the White House.

It applies the same tariff rates to the top five countries that facilitate Russian sanctions of Asia.That top five would then be re -evaluated every 180 days or so.The US lawmakers backing the bill aim to push that quickly through Congress.This is a classic example of using the death of a politician, a sudden death, to try and invoke the change very quickly.was on the cards prior to their dying.The most classic example is what happened with civil rights after Kennedy's death.

And if you're interested in that, I highly, highly recommend Robert Caro's extraordinary biography series of LBJ, which will be familiar to many of you, which I'm hoping to talk about in an episode soon, because they are a huge favorite of Mark Rutter, who actually met the author, Robert Caro.And that has some implications, which, again, I'll talk about in a future episode.But moving over to the EU, European Commission President Ersland Lyons arrived in Kyiv today.As you say, it is Ukraine statehood day.It was preparing a combatpurchased by the Safe Defence Loans Programme.

Staying with the EU, I know how many of you value updates from Hungary.Budapest is closing the door on Russia and more closely aligning with its allies.Not a shock, but interesting to see it articulated in quite that manner in black and white, as it were, a shift away from what we came to expect under Viktor Orbán.The more dramatic news is that Peter Magyar is moving to remove the president, as he pledged to do, with Parliament approving an amendment to the constitution which would allow Orbán's political puppets, their term, to be replaced, including President Solyuk, who was the Fidesz KDP candidate for the 2024 presidential election.Solyuk now has five days to sign that constitutional amendment.to urged instead a diplomatic solution.

Exactly that same line that Orban's government reiterated to me again and again and again when I was there a few months ago.So, interesting distinction.the EU.clip going around of Zelensky tearing off a bottle cap because of his obvious frustration at the fact that it's still attached on.People are saying that's going to have to be something that they do contend with.We've all been there, Vladimir, it is rather frustrating.

But let's end the diplomatic updates here in London.Today marks a big moment for Sakhir Starmer, the outgoing Prime Minister, of course, as it was his last time facing the leader of the opposition at Prime Minister's Questions.Now, for those who aren't familiar, Prime Minister's Questions, PMQs, is a very British bit of political theatre.that happens every midday every Wednesday during parliamentary time when the Prime Minister goes to the House of Commons and answers questions from members of Parliament of all political parties.It was unusually friendly today.It had a bit of a last day of school feeling before the summer holidays.

And the reason I mention it is because Ukraine and President Zelensky got a shout out.Here is the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenok.

Week after week, the Prime Minister and I have clashed at this dispatch box and rarely agreed on anything.But there is one thing I did admire.When President Zelensky was attacked in the White House, the Prime Minister showed leadership and invited him to Downing Street.That was the right thing to do.Ukraine is on the front line in the battle for freedom.So does the Prime Minister agree that cross -party support for their cause must end here?

And here was Stammer's answer.Ukraine in this house.We supported the last government in the approach that they took, and we've taken that approach on.That meeting with President Zelensky, the day after he was evicted from the Oval Office, he left alone.He got a plane.We got him to come to London, and I asked him to come to Downing Street straight away.

And I walked out to meet him.I gave him a hug, and then I showed him and what was in the street which was many people who had come thinking that he was visiting Downing Street and the moment he got out the car and hugged me they cheered on the top of their voices the British people to tell President Zelensky exactly what they thought of him and the way that he had been treated.And that was a really emotional moment because it was the first human contact he had effectively had outside of his immediate team since he left the Oval Office.I had a meeting with him to tell him that in this country we will stand with him and Ukraine.And I didn't let him leave alone.I walked him out to his car.

Because we don't let people in Britain walk out of our buildings alone.We escort them out.

He was rather chipper in that clip, I imagine, because he's going to go and watch the football later, as are we.But later this week, we're doing a deep dive for you into Stammer's successor, Andy Burnham, a man unknown to many of you around the world.And to be honest, many of us in the UK as well.Stay tuned for that.

But it's post -bag time.

Radley, you'll be remiss not to send our condolences to the French football team.Did you watch the game yesterday?

I did.Francis is a sore point.alongside my sore head as well, I would say today.

So his foot won't be sore.He barely kicked the ball.

Well, exactly.I mean, thank God I have England to fall back on.Jude, Harry, please don't disappoint us.

I was really hoping for an England France final, a replay of the Hundred Years' War.

Yes.Well, I was really hoping for that.Also slightly dreading it.But, you know, we've been beat by a monarchy on Bastille Day.So I'm not going to regret that.further.

Love it.Well, as I say, it's postbag time.Look, we've even got a symbol of the postbag here in this envelope which came in this morning.So we're going to throw these questions out here.This one's from Mick.Could you tell me if the UK was unexpectedly attacked by missiles or drones, do we have the capability to deal with this?

And if so, would it be a naval capability or land -based or even aerial?I think that's one relevant to lots of other European countries as well.Who wants to take this one?

I will.I'll have a go.Thanks, Mick.Short answer is not really.The only real capability we have is a Type 45, Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer that is able to bring down ballistic missiles.We've only got six of those, and they're not all serviceable at any one time.

In fact, hardly any of them are serviceable at any one time right at the moment.You may remember during the 2012 London Olympics, we had a Type 45 berth alongside on the Thames for exactly this purpose.But they can't be everywhere.all the time.Their job is to protect the carrier strike group and, you know, be bobbing around the organ in the North Atlantic looking for mermaids.So the short answer is no, not really.

Now there is some emerging counter drone technology for base protection, with nets and shotguns and all that kind of stuff and electronic warfare, clever, clever stuff.But I mean, if you think about the opportunities, the number of military sites available to attack and the political sites and all the rest of it, I mean, we don't nobody has an answer to this yet about how to how to counter all drones everywhere all the time.It's a massive a massive ask.But at the higher end of things, the ballistic missile threat, as we reported yesterday, Ukraine and nine European nations coming together to try and develop a European ballistic missile shield.But at the moment, Mick, no.Hadley, anything to add on that?

Yeah, well, actually, if you're interested in what this scenario could look like, I highly recommend you listen to The War Game by our colleagues at Sky News, because it's a fascinating podcast, which It's basically a war game.It is what it says on the tin.where the UK is being attacked by Russia, there are missiles being fired at London, I believe.London and the shipyards as well, crucially.Piccadilly Circus, I think, and how the UK would respond and how NATO would respond and what the different relationships with the US and with Putin would be or Putin, Russia.Fascinating.

And to the point of the question, it underscores how basically limited our options are because of the deficiencies in defensive aerial technology.So a really fascinating, fascinating listen.Another question relating to a kind of similar theme.Peter in Melbourne asks, I understand that Ukraine has now significantly weakened the air defenses surrounding the Kursh Bridge.But is there a question here about whether Ukraine actually possesses the weapons to bring it down?Is Dom thinking of a few well -targeted storm shadows being capable of wreaking the necessary damage or what?

Dom, one for you.

Thanks, Peter.I mean, I suppose you gotta ask why do it now?I mean, why do you destroy anything?You destroy it to deny the opposite side that capability.So if Russia was using Crimea, as they have been doing for the last Well, since the start of the full -scale invasion over the last four and a half years as a military base and a logistic route into southern Ukraine.Well, Ukraine's done a huge amount of damage elsewhere to snip those things off.

So they don't actually have to have a go at the bridge right now.Also, I mean, if you want to go back to Sun Tzu, he says always leave your enemy a route out, because if you don't give them a route out, they'll fight to the death.

Well, just hold that thought, Dom, because John said, I've heard a hypothesis that the bridge is being intentionally kept open so that the Russians can leave?

they're because of their wider activity, they don't have to bring the Kirchbridge down now.It's actually now serving a purpose for Ukraine to allow these Russians a route to get the hell out of there.And that, coincidentally, is rather helpful to show Russians that Putin is not able to extend his veil of security across the jewel in the crown.

We've also got a question about Dragonfire, but I'm going to hold that to the end.for a second and go to you, Adelaide, because this one I think was a question you've been doing a lot on the ships this week.What is happening with these ships?Are they being sunk?I just want to know that and I'll be happy, I hope.

OK, well, our collective wisdom, I hope my answer will make you happy.So it's been a recurring question.And as you said earlier in this report, we're over 100 ships in just a matter of a week, 10 days.It's incredible.And actually, we've been struggling a little bit in the newsroom here when we're coming up with titles every day and we're coming up with our reports because we have to say the same thing over and over again.The ships have been hit and sometimes it's a bit frustrating, but it is the price of precision.

We say hit.because usually they haven't been sunk or destroyed.Otherwise, we would say so, or we don't know about it.So there have been a few instances in the last few months where the ships have been sunk or at least reported as such.So yesterday, you'll remember the FSB Border Patrol ship, the Izmurod, I believe, sorry for my pronunciation, where you can clearly see the photographs shared by the Ukrainian Navy, where if you zoom in, you'll see the ship is halfway in the water.And then in March, there was a Russian gas tanker that was hit off the coast of Libya with explosives.

and a massive fire.Russia accused Ukraine of targeting the tanker, but Ukraine hasn't confirmed.You know, it's not actually said anything.The ship was first reported sunk.So you might see reports of that by the Libyan authorities.And then Malta said there was actually a drift in the Mediterranean.

It had been abandoned by crew which were found on a lifeboat.So that is actually the point.A lot of these ships are actually not sunk from what we know.They're in general in bad shape because Russia's shadow fleet is in really bad shape.They don't have insurance.The ownership is really shady.

So a lot of the time the crew just abandons and they just kind of like stay there.

Yeah, just because they're not sunk doesn't mean that that's not been crippled for a long, long period of time.Exactly.

They're still not functional.A lot of them have been burnt out.You can see some footage and some photographs of that.Some of them are being brought back to shore, maybe for repairs, but maybe they're just in too bad shape and they're too old anyways.So it's a bit difficult to say.And also from a Russian propaganda, I suppose, point of view, I'm not sure we would entirely know.

I mean, I'm sure there's some like open source intelligence that would be able to tell us.But confirming that is a bit potentially difficult.

Thanks, Adelaide.I'm going to ask a question about Dragonfire.So this is from Ross in Wales.He says, I've got a question about Dragonfire.You reported on it a few years ago and said it would be a game changer for Ukraine in shooting down drones for $5.What is the latest on it?

When will it be deployed?I saw the Chinese were showing that they had them in their last military parade.Just remind us, Dom, what is Dragonfire and what's the latest on it?

So Dragonfire is a laser, basically, but a weapon.I mean, we are quite used to lasers now.You use lasers to change the channel on your telly.You use laser pointers when you're giving a boring Not you, Francis, just one.Do you know if he's giving a boring presentation?I never give a boring presentation.

So we know about lasers.Obviously, laser stands for, I have told you this.

Oh God.

I'm not even going to attempt.No, you said radars yesterday.Yeah, radar, radio detection and ranging.Different thing entirely, but I can tell you about that afterwards.Laser, light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.I'm not very stimulated by that answer, I'm afraid.

Basically, it's very condensed light, such that it almost has physical property.It can burn through stuff.

I wonder if we knew that bit.Condensed light that has physical property.

It's light amplification.It's been amplified.Anyway, it goes pew -pew like in Star Wars.Pew -pew Star Wars.To either burn through the components of an incoming munition and cause it to explode, or to burn through the wing, if you like, so it then tumbles out of the sky.It's no longer aerodynamically sufficient such that it can stay in the sky.

That's probably a better way of saying that.So Dragonfire, but it takes a huge amount of power.You need massive power supplies for this.So it's not yet, certainly not on a rifle.We can have laser power.pointers to see where you're shooting, but not to actually be a weapon itself, not even on a car or a vehicle, that kind of thing.

We're up to the size of a ship.You need these huge power banks to be able to supply the requisite power to the laser.So that's why it's been a Navy lead.Under our defence investment plan, the UK's defence investment plan a couple of weeks ago, just under half a billion quid was pushed towards Dragonfire.This is with a view to getting into service with the Royal Navy by 2027, so next year.Now, into service doesn't mean that everyone's going to have it and it's going to be all singing and all dancing.

It's probably that they'll be able to do one thing on one ship one day of the month, if you're lucky.I think we always knew that date, 2027.I don't think we knew about this extra half a billion quid or 490 million quid that's been pushed to it in the defence investment plan.But for them for each shot, It's supposed to only be a fiver or something, whatever the MOD keeps saying, only 10p for a shop, but it costs 15 billion quid.get it in the first place.But laser's obviously a much, arguably a much better way of doing it, degraded by weather and sort of sea conditions, which you get if you're a Navy.

So it's not infallible, but a very good capability, hence they're backing it to this degree.But yeah, Dragonfire, we are told, Ross, in service 2027 with the Royal Navy.There we go.

Mike asks, as Russian fuel stocks become more strained, how will this impact the Russian harvest?Who wants to take this?

We actually mentioned that a couple of days ago on the podcast as a final thought.So I thought it was worth digging a bit deeper on this, because there was a social media clip that was going viral about I mean, which appears to show we've not been able to verify it.A Russian woman appears to be a farmer and explains that, you know, the fuel shortage means no diesel in the tractor, in the harvesting machines.No tractor, no grain, no grain, no bread.You know, you know, we know where that leads.Remember yesterday, 200 years ago?

Yes, of course.

Well, the diesel shortage.So it's particularly severe in the regions where Russia produces about one -fifth of its grain, and bear in mind that Russia is the biggest exporter of grain in the world.So that's the Rostov region, Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai as well, so all of that southwestern bit, which is like slightly to the east of Crimea.And the sea navigation on the Sea of Azov, which is the main corridor going down into the Black Sea, is completely paralyzed.I mean the shipping route has been completely stopped by Russia and that's a quarter of Russia's grain exports.So that could drive global prices up by three to five percent.

Russia's agriculture of ministry andtransport ministry have said that obviously the situation would not affect volumes or domestic food supplies and they've not really addressed whether the shipping route was actually closed.But they also said that it would be redirected through alternative ports.So I don't know how or when that's going to be implemented.I'll keep an eye on that.And then I was reading an expert, Andrei Sezov.

He's the managing editor of an agricultural research firm, SovEcon, who specializes in grain exports on the Black Sea.And he says that on top of the harvest, less fuel is also higher shipping costs.So it's not only the harvesting, but also moving the grain, you know, from the farms to the shipping and the processing facilities.The road fright rates for grain have already increased by an average of 20 to 30 percent.That's according to an analyst cited by the Commissant newspaper that we often quote.And so here is what Andrei Sisov says.

fuel.So it's likely that big producers will have stocked up on fuel over the winter months because you just apparently you need to harvest grain.Again, not an expert.Very quickly.Once it's ripe, you've got like a one week to 10 days window.So they would have stocks of fuel to just like carry on doing it as fast as possible.

But it's much less likely for smaller, maybe more independent farmers who may not have the facilities and the capacity to stock up or the money to buy fuel ahead of time.And also apparently there's some limits in fuel stations to how much you can buy, which are barely enough for regular cars, let alone any tractors or harvesting equipment.

Very interesting.Well, you gave the French historic example a moment ago.Of course, it was peace, land and bread that was the most famous slogan of the Bolshevik Revolution.So things to talk to the urgency and the priority that that those things have.But I think that's probably all we've got time for on the Q &A today.Of course, do keep sending them to us either in YouTube comments.

We do check those, but also via our email address or on X. The email address, of course, is ukrainepod at telegraph .co .uk.And we do continue to read every single message.drawn from the World Aquatics and the International Gymnastics Federation after both reinstated Russian athletes.You'll recall from the reporting that I did on the Biennale that a very similar thing happened there.

The EU pulled its funding and that did have a consequence as to the manner in which the Russian pavilion opened.It was still there.They were still able to show some arts, but they didn't actually open it entirely up.So it is possible that this could have some ramifications.Money talks, as they always say.But nonetheless, a rumbling story, which we will continue to report on.

I think one of the most extraordinary things has been the justifications given for trying to bring Russia back into the the sports fold when really, of course, nothing has changed in this war.If anything, Russia continues to escalate in how it fights this war.So one that we will continue to return to.Adly, where do you want to leave listeners today?

Yes, Dom, you've been talking a lot about birds these days, Magyars, birds.How do you feel about flamingos?

Yeah, I like flamingos.

Yeah, flamingos.Well, obviously, flamingoshave arrived has a very different meaning in Ukraine these days, but I'm actually talking about real flamingos today.Real flamingos, not the missiles.Yes.We've been talking so much about birds.

I went on birdinginyukraine .

com.

birdinginukraine .com.Absolutely.Wow.So you'll be very happy to know that earlier this year about 500 flamingos have returned to the Tuzli Lagoons National Nature Park in the Odessa region because that's where they're nesting into the spring.So for the past several years they've chosen this park as a nesting site but they've been either not nesting or even leaving the site and not returning because of the war.

So explosions, drones, all the constant danger.Very, very, very, very stressful for the flamingos.And therefore they've not been producing babies and eggs.There's also been some natural predators, I'm told, like the yellow footed gull that has been messing with the nests.Also the weather that's got in the way.But all of these are natural elements.

The war obviously isn't one.And that's very much prevented the flamingos from doing what they do.And they've abandoned their nests, but they're back.And so we're hoping that the flamingos will nest again in the Odessa region, in the Tuzla lagoons.And birding in Ukraine concludes, only a victorious peace and silence will give these birds a chance to flourish in Ukrainian Bessarabia.So, if you want more updates on the purple heron, the Dalmatian pelican or the red -footed falcon, you can go to birdinginyukraine .

com.I think that's my favourite website for us to link to for quite some time.

After the war, I want to go on a birding trip in the desert.

We'll make sure we add that to the show notes.Dom, anything to leave us with, a wildlife -connected one or something else?

No, afraid not.Well, I think life is going to get quite wild in Novorossiysk in the next few days if Operation Moloshko is moving to the Black Sea or concentrating even more on theSea rather than the Sea of Azov, I would have thought Novorossiysk is going to get a lot of attention, that both the oil tankers there and what's left of the Russian Black Sea fleet.And in particular, I think Russia would be very nervous about the Kilo -class submarines that are still there.We're not sure how many there are.I think we're talking maybe two or three that moved from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk when the Black Sea fleet was kicked out of Crimea.

They will be they would be very nervous.Russia will be extremely nervous about losing Well, I was going to say a but it's another another kilo class submarine.The first one was hit by in dry dock with a storm shadow missile But now if if the unmanned systems forces are concentrating on the black sea That is a a massive prize that they'll be going for.I'm pretty sure so I think it's going to get quite hot in the black sea the next few days Well, you heard it here first everybody.

Thanks very much dom.Thanks adelaide for your time today.Thank you all very much for listening and watching We'll be back same time, same place tomorrow.Until then, goodbye from us here in London.

Come on England.