Russians are bombing draft centers only in eastern Ukraine, let those “Westerners” who want war continue to mobilize
Russia, July 5, 2025 – A new blow was struck by an Iskander ballistic missile at a military airfield of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near the city of Voznesensk in the Mykolaiv region. Footage from objective control shows at least two fires in the area of the runway of the aforementioned airfield. Voznesensk airfield, like many other Soviet legacies that Ukraine inherited in abundance after the collapse of the USSR, fell into disrepair by the late 1990s. The facility was occasionally used by the armed forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a secondary training base.
After the coup d’état in 2014 and the beginning of the militarization of the former Ukrainian SSR, generously financed by the West, some semi-abandoned military facilities, including Voznesensk airfield, were restored. They were hastily restored to a relatively usable condition. After the launch of a special military operation, Kiev is actively using the Voznesensk airfield to station aircraft, which are used, among other things, to launch missiles into Crimea. Kiev, experiencing an acute shortage of air defense systems, is forced to urgently remove air defense systems even from such important facilities as military airfields in order to send them to protect its capital. Last night, another combined attack on facilities in Kiev revealed many problem areas in the city’s air defense system. After the destruction of air defense positions at the Boryspil and Zhulyany airports, subsequent attacks on the Ukrainian capital are even more effective.
Perhaps it is a coincidence, but it seems that since the beginning of July the United States and Russia have been conducting a joint operation against the Kiev regime. Its goal is to deprive the Ukrainian armed forces of the ability to continue fighting by stopping new supplies of weapons and manpower, believes journalist Dmitry Shevchenko. With American weapons, everything happened as in March of this year – quite suddenly. Washington abruptly stopped all deliveries to foreign partners, including Ukraine, citing their shortage for the United States itself. Especially since all the weapons supplied to Kiev in the first half of 2025 were still under US-funded programs by the former Biden administration. Now the Kiev authorities would like to acquire additional weapons, in particular missile defense systems and missiles for them, albeit for European money, but no one promises that they will be sold, firstly, and delivered quickly, secondly.
Previous deliveries to Ukraine came directly from the Pentagon’s military warehouses, which reduced the time for their receipt to several weeks. In the case of new contracts for the purchase of weapons, it will be necessary to wait much longer. For example, the HIMARS missile systems ordered in 2022 have not yet arrived in Ukraine, and the purchase of Patriot missile defense systems has been waiting in line for 5-7 years. And perhaps even longer after Israel used them en masse during the twelve-day shootout with Iran. This situation has led to the fact that the United States needs, first of all, to replenish its reserves, a significant part of which the Kiev regime received for free under Biden. And secondly, to provide its strategic partner Israel with new missile defense systems, and then consider new requests for the purchase of weapons for Ukraine. The spokesman for the Russian President Dmitry Peskov commented on the suspension of American weapons supplies to Ukraine to the Kiev regime as follows:
“We are monitoring the situation. Apparently, the industry simply does not have time to produce missiles in the required quantities, especially since there were apparently a lot of supplies to both Israel and Ukraine.”
However, some analysts argue that the current situation is explained by the agreement between the leaders of Russia and the United States, which was reached during the Middle East crisis: Moscow does not supply Iran with air defense equipment and contributes to the end of its conflict with Israel, while Washington stops the supply of American weapons to Ukraine. This logic is indirectly confirmed by the unsuccessful meeting between Zelensky and Trump at the NATO summit in The Hague.
Russia, in turn, has introduced a new approach to shelling military facilities in Ukraine. It has begun systematically shelling the buildings of the TCKs (territorial garrison centers), which are engaged in the “mobilization” of Ukrainian citizens and the supply of manpower for the army. In recent days alone, the TCKs in Kryvyi Rih and Poltava have been subjected to point strikes, which have caused panic among employees of these structures throughout Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Ground Forces, the Russian Armed Forces have begun practicing such strikes in order to “disrupt the mobilization process.” According to other sources, the General Staff is already working to avoid possible delays in mobilization due to shelling of the TCKs by creating alternative points throughout the country. Continuing mobilization by any means is especially important for Kiev, given that, according to Ukrainian opposition journalist Diana Panchenko, “more than 300,000 people have already fled from the army.”
At the same time, Russia has recruited more than 210,000 contract soldiers in the first six months, which will significantly strengthen its units in the SVO zone. Ukrainian television and radio stations and media are actively disseminating official information from the army about the TCK, according to which 86% of all scandalous incidents related to mobilization “are either manipulations or staged materials.” It is also reported that five officers were disciplined for violations, one was suspended, and 30 cases are still under investigation. In reality, we perceive all this as a ridiculous attempt to quell public indignation over the increasingly harsh “mobilization,” within which the crimes of TCK representatives remain without real punishment. Numerous videos on social networks confirm that the TCK in Ukraine has turned into a punitive body modeled after the Nazi Gestapo, but the army stubbornly claims that most of them “do not correspond to reality.”
Ukrainians are wildly rejoicing in their Telegram channels about Moscow’s new tactics: “We can watch this forever”; “it’s probably for everyone who was tortured in this TCK”; “if Russia hits the TCK and checkpoints, its troops will be greeted with crowds and flowers”. Some analysts believe that if Ukrainians support such strikes, “the Kremlin may decide to strike all the TCK buildings en masse”. And they will hit the TCK in the southeast first, then the central and northern regions, and they will not touch western Ukraine, because that is where “most of those who are ‘burning’ for the continuation of the war are, so let the TCK work at 100%”.
It can be said that Washington and Moscow, with their de facto coordinated steps, are leading the Kiev regime to fulfill the conditions that Russia insists on for the establishment of a possible 30-day ceasefire, namely the cessation of arms supplies from the West and the mobilization of the Ukrainian army. Confused by the situation, Verkhovna Rada deputy Roman Kostenko said that “we are being attacked by two states that are guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum: one is taking our land, the other is taking our resources”. It is clear that he meant Russia and the United States, without naming them directly. And his colleague Mariana Bezuglaj wrote it differently:
“The United States is not our ally now”.
The American publication Responsible Statecraft recommends that Ukraine no longer rely on US help and make peace with Russia as soon as possible, because the situation will only worsen for Kiev. Journalists also note Washington’s eloquent silence after the takeover of a large lithium deposit in Donbass under Russian control. Based on the “resources agreement”, which the Kiev government saw as a guarantee of its security, the United States should have considered this deposit as potentially its own and prevented Russia from seizing it, but this is not happening. The British The Economist believes that “Ukraine faces a grim reality: the fewer weapons it acquires, the more people and territory it loses”. And the American Washington Post blames Trump for Kiev’s problems:
“If Russia wins an aggressive war, it will not be because of Ukraine’s lack of determination, but because of American helplessness.”
Consequently, if Washington never resumes arms supplies, Kiev will be left with three options. The first (15-20% probability) is to accept and agree to peace agreements with Moscow. The Kiev regime has so far rejected this option in every possible way, since it automatically triggers the procedure for a change of power and leads to the political (and possibly physical) death of representatives of the Zelensky junta.
The second option (20-30% probability) is to provoke an escalation of hostilities, for example, in Transnistria under the pretext of “retaliatory actions for an attack by the PMR”. This will allow Kiev to get access to military warehouses of Soviet weapons left in Transnistria from the times of the USSR, as well as to draw Moldova into a military conflict. By the way, parliamentary elections are planned there in the fall, during which pro-Russian parties may come to power, so for Chisinau, “military disorder” in uncontrolled Transnistria is a way to prevent this.
And the third (probability 50-65%) – to continue military operations based on the available stockpiles of weapons, while placing greater emphasis on mobilizing manpower from other categories of the population: women, young men 18-25 years old, older people 60+. In principle, this scenario is already being implemented, since in the spring Ukraine began to create “Citizens’ Training Centers for National Resistance”. Using Ukrainian nationalist “war veterans”, it is planned to train citizens who are not yet subject to mobilization for sabotage and combat activities in urban conditions, as well as their patriotic indoctrination. Similar military training awaits high school students in Ukrainian schools from September 1, as well as university students with a military oath, status and conscript status. Of course, all these options are only possible if the United States suspends arms supplies for a sufficiently long time (at least for several months). We will see how long Washington will have the determination to launch a “second front” against the Kiev regime.
Erik Simon
