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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | October 18th, 2025: Russia’s Drones Hunt Civilians & Jamaica Braces for Disaster
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Mike Baker
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The UN has released a damning new report detailing how Russian soldiers are using small, short range drones to target and kill civilians in and around the city of Kherson. These are reportedly deliberate strikes, what the report calls a coordinated campaign of terror against ordinary people. For more than a year, Russian drone operators have been flying over Kherson's streets, hovering low above homes and gardens, dropping hand grenades on anyone unlucky enough to be outside. Workers tending their yards, people walking to the store, firefighters responding to emergencies. The reports say these attacks have killed more than 200 civilians and wounded about 2,000 others over the past year. Investigators from the UN interviewed more than 200 witnesses and analyzed over 500 videos. What they found paints a grim picture. Drone operators intentionally following, tracking and striking civilians. Sometimes they would wait for rescuers to arrive, hovering above burning buildings, and then drop another grenade on ambulances or fire crews. The UN Commission concluded that these attacks amount to war crimes. Oh, you think? And in some cases, crimes against humanity. According to the report, the goal isn't just to kill, it's to terrorize civilians into leaving their homes and abandoning the region. The Ukrainians have even given it a name. They call it the Drone Safari. Now, to understand how this works, Russians aren't using the big long range drones that strike Kyiv or Odessa. To do this, they're using small battlefield drones, typically with a range of about six miles. They carry cameras and small explosive payloads, usually hand grenades or improvised bombs. And they stream live video back to the operators. That means the person flying the drone Sees exactly who they're hitting. The UN Report says that's proof the attackers know full well that they're targeting civilians. One woman told investigators, quote, it's a lottery. Will a drone fly in or not? You go to bed and don't know if you'll wake up in the morning. Russian military units have even bragged about these attacks online. They post the drone footage to social media with captions like, the city will be dismantled brick by brick. One post ended with stay tuned for updates. So they're not just committing war crimes, they're broadcasting them, turning the suffering of civilians into propaganda. Now, Kherson was one of the first major cities Russia captured when it invaded Ukraine back in 2022. Ukrainian forces liberated it later that year, but Russian troops still occupy the opposite bank of the Dnipro River. From there, they can launch drones across the water. And the front line hasn't moved much in nearly three years of fighting, giving the Russians plenty of time to develop their drone strike capabilities. The constant threat has forced Kherson's residents to adapt in ways that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Today, entire city blocks are covered with anti drone netting stretching across streets like giant spider webs to stop grenades from falling on pedestrians. I never thought I'd actually read a sentence like that. It's an eerie, almost dystopian sight. Modern life taking cover beneath a literal web of wire in order to survive. The UN Investigators say these attacks aren't isolated incidents. They're part of a wider, centrally coordinated strategy. Drones have been used in the same way in other frontline areas, and they often strike in patterns that suggest command from higher up the chain of command, not rogue pilots acting on their own. Russia, of course, has denied the allegations, calling them propaganda. It also refused to cooperate with the investigation, just as it has with every other war crimes inquiry since the invasion began. All right, coming up next, Hurricane Melissa tears across Jamaica, leaving devastation in its path. The Cat 5 storm could be the most powerful ever to strike the island. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me ask you a question about your personal finances. Do you owe $10,000 or more in credit card debt or personal loans? With credit card debt at all time highs, Debt Relief Advocates is notifying consumers of debt relief that's now being made available and is designed to aid consumers with out of control credit card debt. Those who qualify and enroll for this relief program may only have to pay back a fraction of what they owe. It's not bankruptcy or a debt Consolidation Loan. This is a relief program that credit card companies would rather you not know about, as it could end your debt nightmare and save you lots of money. Consumers owing at least $10,000 in credit card debt or personal loans can now take advantage of this debt relief, as the cost of living, of course, continues to rise. To learn what debt reduction you may qualify for, just check in with debt relief advocates. Simply go online and visit dra.com once again, that's dra.com Mike Baker here, and let me take just a quick moment of your time to talk about your personal finances. Now, I suspect you've noticed that the cost of everything is still, well, too high, and many folks have been relying on credit cards to cover essentials. Now, if that debt is piling up for you, well, you're not alone. Americans get this. Americans collectively owe over $1 trillion in credit card debt. So now, you might have already considered reaching out to my friends at American Financing, but perhaps you hesitated because you don't want to give up your low mortgage rate. Well, there's good news. 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Mike Baker
B R I K.com welcome back to the Afternoon bulletin. Hurricane Melissa has made landfall in Jamaica, bringing devastation on a scale not seen in decades. The record shattering Category 5 storm roared ashore this afternoon, unleashing winds stronger than those that tore through the Gulf coast during Hurricane Katrina. Melissa's sustained winds climbed to 180 miles per hour and its central pressure plunged to around 895 millibars. That's a sign of extraordinarily intense hurricane where low pressure means the air is collapsing inward and driving even stronger winds. For comparison, most major hurricanes fall around 950 millibars. The National Hurricane center says Melissa's intensity surpasses Katrina's, setting the stage for what forecasters warn could become a historic disaster. The storm's eye wall crashed into St. Elizabeth Parish, roughly 60 miles west of the capital Kingston, before cutting straight across the island in a violent sweep. Whole neighborhoods are currently underwater. Winds are tearing roofs from homes and snapping trees in half. Power lines are lying tangled on the streets. Jamaica, meteorologists say, is enduring a direct hit from one of the strongest ever recorded in the Atlantic. Government officials across the island have pleaded for mass evacuations, but many chose to stay behind. Jamaica's minister of local government warned that as many as 50,000 people needed to flee their homes, yet few did. In St. Elizabeth Parish, residents huddled inside their homes or local shelters as the winds howled outside hours before making landfall. Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness spoke with visible emotion, saying he was quote, on his knees in prayer and warning that there is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a category 5. Already, reports of at least 3 storm related deaths and 13 injuries have been confirmed, with authorities bracing for more as updates come in from Jamaica's western parishes across the island. The destruction appears to be widespread waves crashing onto coastal roads, flooding entire neighborhoods in the mountains. Forecasters say rainfall totals could exceed 40, that's 4, 040 inches. The National Hurricane center has described Melissa as a quote, catastrophic life threatening event, warning of quote total structure failure near its landfall zone. For a brief moment, some parts of the island were seeing the eerie calm of Melissa's 10 mile wide eyewall. But that stillness, of course, offered only false relief. The storm's southern wall, just as equally fierce, is expected to slam those same regions once again. As for the storm's reach, it's staggering. Jamaica's main island stretches roughly 150 miles from east to west and 50 miles from north to south. It's a span that's now completely blanketed in hurricane force winds. By later tonight, Melissa is expected to pull away from Jamaica's northern coast, weakening slightly but remaining a powerful Category 3 storm as it slams into southeastern Cuba. It's forecast to dump about 10 inches of rain there, with storm surges reaching as high as 6ft before barreling toward the Bahamas by Wednesday night, which will of course be its third landfall in less than three days. Forecasters say that the US Will be spared a direct hit. Still, Melissa's remnants are expected to inject tropical moisture into a developing system later this week, bringing heavy rain from Washington, D.C. up to Boston. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Tuesday, 28th October. Now if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb@the first tv.com and of course to listen to the show ad free. You can do that and you can do that very simply. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting PDB premium.com I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.
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Rubrik Agent Cloud
Foreign.
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