Three quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie’s appointment with her regular, as in non-oncology, vet went well. Her vet was very pleased with how she looks. Thank you for all the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

Second, as a brief follow up to last night’s post regarding the election results, several of you have emailed me some questions. All are a variation of “I’ve done X during the election, donated X during the election, etc, should I be worried?” While I’ve answered you individually, I think the answer should be up here. The answer is I don’t think you have much to worry about. The threats, including threats of violence, and actual violence are intended to get you scared, keep you scared, and, as a result, preemptively comply. The combination of these, which are the guerrilla warfare part of where we’ve been at with the political action or threat of political action, are intended to establish a competitive system of control that sets the conditions to subvert (out administrate) the state and other political, social, religious, and economic actors and institutions. Recognize it for what it is, adjust your internal calibration so you have a sufficient level of paranoia, and, as the counter-IED instructors say, “stay alert, stay alive!”

Third, whether we like it or not, the President-elect is the president-elect, the Senate will have a small GOP majority, the House looks like it will have a slim GOP majority, and 25 states are still GOP trifectas. Come January 2025, this will all be the legitimate government of the US and those 25 states. Be alert, do not preemptively give in to fear, threats, and intimidation, do not knee jerk, and take it one day and one event at a time.

President Zelenskyy had a phone call with the President-elect and the Starlink Snowflake. Because, apparently, the Starlink Snowflake was jus hanging around Mar-a-Lago and having dinner. Barak Ravid from Axios (also CNN and Israel’s Walla News) has the details:

Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday included two surprises: Elon Musk was also on the line, and Zelensky was somewhat reassured by what he heard from the president-elect, two sources with knowledge of the call tell Axios.

Why it matters: The new details of the call underscore how influential Musk could be in the second Trump administration, and the uncertainty over how exactly Trump will approach Ukraine.

Between the lines: Trump’s public messages throughout the election campaign — promising a quick resolution to the war, declining to say which side he wanted to win and criticizing the massive aid packages flowing from Washington — raised alarm bells in Kyiv and throughout Europe.

• The Biden administration is now looking for ways to get as much military assistance as possible to Ukraine ahead of Jan. 20, when Trump could turn off the spigot.
• But the private conversations Trump and his team have had with Zelensky and his advisers over the last two months — including on Wednesday — were somewhat more reassuring to the Ukrainians, the sources say.
• Zelensky himself felt the fact that the call happened so soon after Trump was declared the winner was a positive sign, one of the sources told Axios. Trump has yet to speak with Vladimir Putin since the election, but the Russian president said he will pick up if Trump calls.

Behind the scenes: The call between Trump and Zelensky lasted around 25 minutes, according to the sources who were briefed on its details.

• After Zelensky congratulated Trump, the president-elect said he will support Ukraine, but didn’t go into details.
• Three sources briefed on the call all told Axios that Zelensky felt the call went well and that it did not increase his anxiety about Trump’s victory. One source said it “didn’t leave Zelensky with a feeling of despair.”
• Musk also weighed in during the call to say he will continue supporting Ukraine through his Starlink satellites, the sources said. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
  • Starlink has been crucial to Ukraine’s war effort, though Musk has also mocked Zelensky’s requests for U.S. aid, and Zelensky rebuked the billionaire for proposing a peace plan of his own in 2022.

Reality check: Much went unsaid, and much remains unknown. Trump and Zelensky did not delve into policies like Trump’s purported plan to end the war, or the prospect of further U.S. aid, the sources said.

What they’re saying:

“Nothing of what Zelensky and his aides heard from Trump and his team in private has been alarming or made us feel that Ukraine is going to be the one who pays the price.”

— Source familiar with the conversations

“I had an excellent call with President Trump and congratulated him on his historic landslide victory — his tremendous campaign made this result possible,” Zelensky wrote on X after the call on Wednesday.

• “Strong and unwavering U.S. leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace,” Zelensky said, adding that he and Trump agreed to maintain close dialogue.
• Yes, but: In a speech in Budapest on Thursday, Zelensky made clear that despite his positive call with Trump, he “cannot yet know what his actions will be.”

The intrigue: Musk also joined Trump’s call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who told reporters that Musk and Trump had been having dinner together at the time.

What to watch: Even though they’re wary of potential peace talks, the Ukrainians see some upside in breaking with the current “negative status-quo,” one source briefed on government deliberations said.

• Three sources with knowledge of Ukrainian government assessments said that Kyiv expects that if peace talks do take place, they will agree to participate but Putin will either reject the talks or take steps that doom them to failure.

There is more at the link.

Well that seems not so bad. Weird, but not so bad.

Also, I don’t know if you all saw the pictures of Apartheid Clyde with the President-elect and the latter’s family on election night. Melania was NOT in the picture. As I wrote last night, the Starlink Snowflake is a black hole of neediness. He’s also a not particularly smart junkie with no social skills, which would be worthy of sympathy and empathy if he wasn’t a racist, antisemite, homophobe, and misogynist. He is going to try to hang out with the President-elect 24/7 365. I expect he’ll quickly wear out his welcome and then the President-elect will shiv him.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

We Are Doing Everything to Force Russia into Engaging in Normal, Meaningful Negotiations Based on International Law, Not Terror – Address by the President

8 November 2024 – 20:38

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

Today has been completely filled with meetings and consultations in Kyiv, following the European Political Community Summit in Budapest. Ukraine’s position has been presented. And overall, the development of European policy for the coming period should be collaborative, coordinated, and directly supportive of our partnership in Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community. Just as global affairs collapse without a strong America, maintaining stability for European nations is simply impossible without a strong Europe. And next week should also bring relevant results – results in our work with partners.

Today, I spoke with the President of Finland. About our cooperation – both bilateral and with a wider range of partners. I am grateful to Finland for all the defense and political support we receive. We have already received 26 military assistance packages. I am grateful! We also discussed the prospects for the coming months, as well as Finland’s contacts with other states, with other leaders, which are crucial in ensuring real peace for Ukraine and all of Europe. We are doing everything to force Russia into engaging in normal, meaningful negotiations based on international law, not terror.

The Commander-in-Chief delivered a report today. The frontline. Kurakhove direction and Pokrovsk direction are the most challenging at the moment. The military command and the brigade command are working to strengthen our positions.

I have continued our national tradition of honoring the Heroes of Ukraine – the warriors who have shown tremendous courage and deserve our utmost gratitude. Another 30 apartments for our Ukrainian Heroes. Warriors and families of warriors of the Land Forces, Air Force, Naval Forces, Airborne Assault Forces, Special Operations Forces, Territorial Defense Forces, National Guard of Ukraine, as well as the employee of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region – unfortunately, a fallen Hero of Ukraine. This will always remain the foundation of Ukraine’s policy towards Heroes – not just our memory of those who saved Ukraine with their courage, but also our ability to show the state’s respect through concrete actions, concrete decisions, and concrete care for Ukrainian Heroes.

And one more thing.

There was a special instruction from me to the Government for the entire Ukrainian school system – for all Ukrainian teachers. Something that will support them next year. A fixed supplement for all school educators: starting in January, one thousand hryvnias for each teacher, and in September there will be an increase, and it will be two thousand hryvnias. Today, the Cabinet of Ministers made the decision. We all understand that our state’s resources are limited, but the Government must help people who work in Ukraine and, of course, for Ukraine. The funds are in place. Government officials are now preparing other decisions, including the winter support package for Ukrainians; these decisions will be presented this month.

I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine!

Glory to Ukraine!

The US:

Reuters reports that the the Biden administration has finally lifted the ban on US contractors repairing US supplied weapons in Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) – In its final months, President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to allow U.S. defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday, in a significant policy shift that aims to aid Kyiv’s fight against Russia.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the contractors would be small in number and located far from the front lines. They will not be engaged in combat.

They will help ensure U.S.-provided equipment “can be rapidly repaired when damaged and be provided maintenance as needed,” the official said.

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United States has given Kyiv tens of billions of dollars in weaponry. But Kyiv either had to move U.S.-provided weaponry out of the country for heavy repair or rely on video-conferencing and other creative solutions to fix those systems inside the country.

The restrictions in the past have sometimes slowed down repairs and proven increasingly difficult as the U.S. has provided Kyiv with more complicated systems, like F-16 fighter jets and Patriot air defenses, officials say.

A lot of equipment in the country is not being used because it is damaged, a second U.S. official told Reuters.

The move is the latest easing of restrictions by Biden’s administration, which has sought to help Ukraine defend itself against Moscow’s 2 1/2 year-old invasion without becoming directly engaged against nuclear-armed Russia.

A third U.S. official said the decision would move the Pentagon in line with the U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, which already have U.S. contractors in Ukraine.

The official added that no U.S. troops would be required to defend contractors in Ukraine, and that issues like safety and risk mitigation would be the responsibility of those companies entering into contracts with the Pentagon.

Some U.S. defense contractors have already gone to Ukraine in small numbers in the past, servicing weapons that weren’t being provided by the Pentagon, the official said.

Given there are already are a “wide array of American companies” who have personnel in Ukraine fulfilling contracts for the Ukrainian government, there would not be a substantial increase in U.S. company employees working on the ground, the first official said.

The decision comes at a critical time for the conflict. Russian forces are advancing at their fastest rate since Ukraine first repulsed their invasion at the outskirts of Kyiv in early 2022. Ukraine, for its part, has launched its first major incursion into Russian territory.

Still, it’s unclear how sustainable the policy shift will be with so little time left in Biden’s administration. President-elect Donald Trump has criticized the scale of U.S. military and financial support for Kyiv and vowed to end the war with Russia quickly, without saying how. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Ukraine has called on the West to lift restrictions on using missiles to attack deep into Russia, which Kyiv says is necessary to disrupt long-range Russian attacks.

But Biden’s administration has not announced any changes to that policy, which officials say might not be sufficient to change the tide in the war, and which Moscow says would escalate the conflict.

More at the link.

What we’re seeing or going to see with the different lifting of restrictions is that there was never any really good reason for those restrictions other than Jake Sullivan and President Biden wanted them. Not that they were strategically necessary or sound policy, but that they were just there because President Biden and his senior natsec appointees wanted them there.

Germany:

The Kyiv Independent reports that Scholz actually sacked the German Finance Minister over the latter’s proposal to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired former Finance Minister Christian Lindner after he proposed sending Ukraine Taurus missiles instead of financial aid, Lindner said on Nov. 7, according to the German media outlet Berliner Zeitung.

Scholz’s dismissal of Lindner on Nov. 6 triggered the collapse of Germany’s three-party governing coalition. Economic disagreements led to Lindner’s firing, Scholz said.

Lindner, who leads Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP), said his dispute with Scholz centered on Ukraine policy, Berliner Zeitung reported.  According to Lindner, Scholz instructed him to transfer 3 billion euros (about $3.2 billion) to Ukraine, but Lindner disagreed due to the country’s financial difficulties.

Instead, Lindner proposed aiding Ukraine by sending long-range Taurus cruise missiles.

Kyiv has appealed to Berlin repeatedly for the German-made weapons, which have a range of up to 500 kilometers — significantly outstripping other Western long-range missiles. Scholz has persistently denied Ukraine’s requests.

“Three billion euros would not make the difference given the volume of funds available,” Lindner said.

“I said on behalf of the Free Democrats in the coalition committee: if we want different, stronger support for Ukraine … then Germany should make the decision to equip Ukraine with the weapons systems that the Ukrainians need to defend their freedom, in particular the Taurus weapons system.”

According to Lindner, Scholz was not willing to entertain the suggestion, and he was fired shortly after.

Scholz’s decision to fire Lindner will likely propel the country into a snap election in the near term.

According to members of the budget committee, Germany will still be able to provide most of the 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) promised to Ukraine, even if the 2025 budget is not approved in time due to the coalition collapse.

Political instability in Berlin may spell trouble for Kyiv as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party continues to rise. The Kremlin-friendly faction has continuously called for cutting funding for Ukraine.

Now we have to see what happens with the snap elections.

Kyiv:

The Minister of Foreign Affairs for Estonia, Margus Tsakhna, reports that the Estonia ambassador to Kyiv’s residence was hit in last night’s/this morning’s drone attack:

Early yesterday, the building where #Estonian amb @AnnelyKolk lives in #Kyiv was hit by a Russian drone.
She was lucky not to be harmed.

No one is safe in #Ukraine until Russia stops its aggression. 🇺🇦needs more air defense to protect its residents.
We must not get used to this.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, the head of the Kyiv School of Economics, has a deep dive into these drone attacks and the new thermobaric warheads that the Russians have outfitted their Shaheds with:

I can’t sleep. Every night this past month, Russian drones are over Kyiv, often just outside my window that I wake up to their buzzing. In a new, twisted upgrade, they’re now armed with thermobarics—fire clouds that burn up all the air, and people, in any space they hit 1/

These drones basically randomly hit something on their way, sometimes an apartment, sometimes an office, sometimes even a playground. That happens both at night and during the day. Air alerts are non stop 2/ 

On my drive to work every day, I see air defense machine guns out in the open—stationed on roadsides, near rivers, and in parks. Dozens. Sometimes they shoot while traffic is driving around them. All of this has become ridiculously mundane 3/ 

It is impossible to live and function in underground shelter all the time. So many people continue to go about their lives as if nothing is happening. The only new change is that we now watch to close doors between rooms to hamper fire cloud travel in case of a hit 4X 

Some people have asked for sources. Here are some links. They are in Ukrainian. They describe a new payload that is a mixture of a new generation of thermobaric explosive and shrapnel (2306 metal pieces). They payload is 54 kg

novynarnia.com/2024/11/07/ros…
defence-ua.com/weapon_and_tec…

Urgent need for additional air defenses for Ukraine highlighted by the increasing number of Russian drones whose buzzing sounds and explosions are surprising Kyiv’s downtown residents.

[image or embed]

— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) November 8, 2024 at 3:32 PM

From The Kyiv Independent:

As Russia launched another swarm of killer drones to attack Kyiv on one day in early November, one of them came dangerously close to Petro, a 55-year-old resident of a high-rise apartment building in downtown Kyiv.

“I saw this motherf*cker just maybe 200 meters above my head, very low. I could see its shape and color. It was black, a triangular shape of the Shahed (drone),” Petro told the Kyiv Independent.

“Machine gunners were trying to hit it from one of the tall buildings. You could see the red traces of bullets … I heard an explosion a couple of seconds after that,” he added.

He was describing one of the latest in a surging wave of Russian drone strikes that are rattling infrastructure, towns, and cities across Ukraine, including – as of late – the very downtown area of the country’s capital.

Petro, whose last name is not being revealed due to his advisory role in Ukraine’s war effort against Russia’s full-scale invasion now in its third year, continued, saying: “A week ago, I saw two of them at the same time. They were a little bit higher than this time.”

The Shahed kamikaze drones he was referring to are designed and built in Iran, an ally of Russia in its war against Ukraine. They have been supplied in large numbers by Tehran to Moscow and account for the majority of Russia’s strike drone capabilities. Russia is also producing them locally on its turf.

“What surprises me is that they make it to the downtown area quite often now. It was a rare occasion earlier in the war, but now it’s pretty much every night … so many of them flying at such low altitudes,” Petro said.

He spoke with the Kyiv Independent one day after a Russian drone crashed into the top floor of Jack House, a skyscraper apartment building in Kyiv’s centrally located Pecherskyi District, sending a European diplomat residing there for cover.

“Early yesterday, the building where Estonian ambassador Annely Kolk lives in Kyiv was hit by a Russian drone … She was lucky not to be harmed,” the Estonian Foreign Minister, Margus Tsahna, said in a Nov. 8 post on social media platform X.

“No one is safe in Ukraine until Russia stops its aggression. Ukraine needs more air defense to protect its residents. We must not get used to this,” he added.

While hearing explosions from drones being intercepted or hitting targets on city outskirts has been a common overnight occurrence in the past two years, hearing their buzzing sound in downtown Kyiv is a sign that they – by their sheer higher numbers – are now getting through multiple layers of air defenses.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said early this week that Russia had launched 500 Shahed-type drones across the country since late October, targeting civilian and critical infrastructure.

Kyiv faced one of the longest air raids in recent months overnight on Nov. 2. On that Saturday, after a long working week, the Ukrainian capital was under mass drone attack for five hours straight. Although none of the drones hit their target, their debris still caused much damage across the city.

The Ukrainian capital has always been one of the most coveted trophies for Russia. Having failed the assault to capture Kyiv at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Moscow continues to terrorize the city in other ways, including with drones.

The last large-scale missile attack on Kyiv took place back in September, but Russia has changed its tactics and is now depleting Ukraine’s air defense with much cheaper unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Shooting down a drone takes longer as it is not as fast as a missile and can be harder to detect, especially at night. Drones also often maneuver and change altitudes, making it difficult for mobile air defense fire groups and other military units to down them. As a result, air raid alarms can stay on for hours.

“Now they (Russian forces) are using the tactic when Shaheds enter the city at low altitudes, the attacks come in waves,” Mykhailo Shamanov, the spokesperson of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said on national television on Nov. 2.

“They (Russian drones) try to circle in certain areas, attracting the attention of mobile fire groups. The main goal is to confuse the air defense forces as much as possible. They try to make mobile groups move, thus creating corridors for the next waves to pass through.”

Shamanov added that Russian drones are constantly trying to spy out air defense locations so that the next waves of UAVs can bypass them.

“At this point, the biggest advantage that Russia may have in such attacks is sheer numbers of drones,” Samuel Bendett, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, told the Kyiv Independent.

Bendett mentioned the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan, where a Shahed-type drones plant is located. In May, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing a contract leaked by the Prana Network hacker group, that the factory already produces 4,500 Shaheds annually and aims to increase this number to 6,000.

“It appears that Russian efforts in Alabuga have ensured that the Russian military has thousands such UAVs at its disposal along with other simpler, smaller variance identified recently that fly alongside these official Geran (Russian name for Shahed-type) UAVs,” Bendett said.

Taras Rud, a Ukrainian developer of weaponry, including drones, estimated that it costs Russia about $100,000 to produce one Shahed-type drone, adding that it is a “nothing” price tag for the defense industry. In the meantime, Russian forces are trying to force Ukraine to shoot down these cheap air targets with expensive Western-produced missiles.

“The winner is the one who can deliver more explosives from point A to point B in the cheapest way. In the end, it is a war of economies,” Rud said.

Russia is seeking to replace aircraft with drones, creating air superiority and depleting Ukraine’s air defenses, using aerial dummy targets, among other means. If they are sufficiently drained, Russia will be able to use its large fleet of planes and bombers in the skies over Kyiv, causing even more destruction, Rud added.

According to the expert, the situation may become significantly more complicated if drones start flying at an altitude of 2-3 kilometers (nearly 1 mile) because then most of the cheaper means of shooting them down will no longer be effective. Intercepting them with more expensive and sophisticated air defenses like the U.S.-produced Patriot missiles, which cost several million dollars each, will not be a sustainable option.

Rud also assumed that the Russian military is working to make drones less dependent on GPS signals and able to navigate the territory of Ukraine without them.

“The Russians will accumulate drones. What will they do next? They will launch not 100 drones, but, for example, 500 or 1,000,” the expert said.

“And then out of this number, 20 or 30 will fly to Kyiv instead of 2-3 per night.”

It’s not entirely clear what Ukraine could do immediately to counter these increasing waves of drone attacks until it gets more air defense systems from Western allies.

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister in charge of innovation and digitization, pointed to efforts underway to improve “situational awareness in the sky, of the enemy’s drones, of our drones, and how to react.”

Answering a question from the audience about the drone attacks hitting the capital during the Kyiv International Economic Forum held in the capital on Nov. 7, he described “a system of rapid reaction, which allows analyzing in real-time and seeing what needs to be improved.”

More at the link.

Kharkiv:

Maria Avdeeva brings us footage of the aftermath of yesterday’s Russian attack on Kharkiv:

Three Russian glide bombs hit Kharkiv at 3 am — once again near Derzhprom in the city center, near Naukova metro entrance, and striking 12-story apartment building on Saltivka. How much longer will this terror go unpunished?

Video at the link.

And of the post attack efforts in Kharkiv:

You may have heard that Kharkiv cleans up immediately after every attack. This is what it looks like just a few hours after a glide bomb attack. The big board in the background reads: Kharkiv – Unbreakable

Video at the link.

More on the earlier morning strike on Kharkiv from Kate from Kharkiv:

Tonight around 3 AM, Russia struck Kharkiv with several glide bombs, injuring at least 24 people who were peacefully sleeping in their beds Burrying people beneath the rubble and destroying their homes on the brink of winter.

Picture at the link.

Zaporizhzia Oblast:

Maria Avdeeva also reports on the civilian toll in Zaporizhzhia:

This scratched photo found in the rubble is all that remains of the home of Sonya and her 1-year-old son, Adam. Sonya, Adam, and her grandmother, Tetyana Vasylivna, were all killed in Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia yesterday

📸 annap_photo

More on the Vasylivnas:

“The only thing that survived from the apartment was a single photo in the kitchen. It shows my sister and my one-and-a-half-year-old nephew, who were killed yesterday by a Russian bomb,” wrote the victim’s sister. Sonya & her little son Adam were killed yesterday in Zaporizhzhia. Their 4 storey apartment block was literally obliterated – killing 9 people & injuring 42. R.I.P #Ukraine

There are more pictures at the link.

The Chief Rabbi of Ukraine addressed the murder by war crime of the Vasylivnas:

This heart-wrenching image shows mom Sonya with her 1.5-year-old son Adam, who tragically lost his life in the recent airstrike. The devastating attack claimed the lives of 9 people and left 42 others wounded. Moments like these are a stark reminder of the human cost of conflict and the innocent lives affected. May the Almighty avenge the innocent blood spilled!

Odesa:

NoelReports reports that Odesa has been struck again:

Odesa has been struck by a massive Shahed drone strike. Several fires are observed.

Video at the link.

More on the strike from Kate from Kharkiv:

Odesa right now. Russia attacked the city with drones 💔

Different video of the strike’s aftermath at the link.

The Russians struck a school in Odesa earlier today:

Today Russia attacked a school in my native Odesa. I’m sure Russia will say that NATO soldiers were there. Locals came to help clean up the rubble in school.

Video at the link.

Zarina Zabrisky has the butcher’s bill from Russia’s overnight attack in Odesa:

#Odesa The prosecutor’s office:

20 private houses
an educational institution
a gas pipeline
a private enterprise
civilian cars

damaged during the night attack

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There are no new Patron tweets or videos. Here is the next of his cartoons that I had not yet posted.

Open thread!