This week, fighting continued to rage all along the front lines with the most intense battles being fought on the eastern fronts. Russia continued to strike Ukrainian cities and towns far behind the front lines with missiles and drones. Russia’s military hit a new casualty record in September, the British Defence Intelligence said. Yet Russian forces continue to utilize mass to overwhelm Ukrainian defensive positions and achieve tactical gains, it added.
Early in the week, Ukraine shot down 32 attack drones and two Kinzhal missiles launched by Russia. Two Russian attacks on Kharkiv on Tuesday killed at least two civilians and injured more than 30 people, including two children. Russian drone strikes have become a nightly occurrence across the country.
Ukraine’s defense intelligence disabled the Aleksandr Obukhov minesweeper from Russia’s Baltic Sea Fleet in a sabotage operation. Ukrainian troops struck a Russian depot in Bryansk region housing North Korea’s munitions and Khanskaya airfield in Russia’s Republic of Adygeya hosting 57 aircraft. A series of strikes hit Russia’s military targets in Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi has presented the victory plan to the leaders of Britain, France and Italy, and the incoming head of NATO. On Thursday, he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in London, held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, and met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome.
Russia trades bodies for ground in Ukraine with September being the bloodiest month for Russia since the invasion.
Russia has made slow but steady gains in recent weeks against Ukraine but at a steep cost — the bloodiest month in the nearly three-year war, U.S. officials said Wednesday, according to Politico.
Casualties from the offensives in the Donbas have brought Russia’s total number of dead and wounded to over 600,000, according to officials granted anonymity to brief reporters at the Pentagon on the course of the war.
The estimate of the casualties — more than 40 times Russia’s losses during its decade-long invasion of Afghanistan in the 1990s — is in line with previous Ukrainian estimates, but tells only part of the story.
Russian forces have seized ground over the past several months in eastern Ukraine, capturing several key towns that the Ukrainians have stubbornly held in the face of massive Russian onslaughts.
The plodding and bloody gains are nearing the town of Pokrovsk in Donbas, a major transportation hub for front-line Ukrainian forces, one of the officials said.