“Ukraine – Russia”

The EU’s top general warned in an interview with the German Die Welt this week that the Russian war machine has much more longevity than most observers believe and that the current Ukrainian counteroffensive is failing to produce the results needed to restore the nation’s full territorial integrity.

Four-star Austrian general and chair of the European Union’s Military Committee (EUMC) General Robert Brieger said he was “cautious to expect a breakthrough” by Ukrainian ground forces as President Zelensky again reiterated his country’s commitment to retaking Crimea, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

#Ukraine: A Russian 2S19 Msta-S 152mm self-propelled howitzer was taken out of action by a GMLRS strike of the Ukrainian army near Skelyuvate, #Zaporizhzhia Oblast. pic.twitter.com/xAbES3l0V4

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 25, 2023

As threats go, it wasn’t particularly veiled. It was as if Vladimir Putin either couldn’t quite be bothered to disguise his warning, or simply didn’t want to.

The day after Evgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash, he described his formerly loyal fixer as a “talented businessman” who had “made some serious mistakes”.

Putin was asserting himself as the top dog in Russia and if anybody dared to challenge him, as Prigozhin had done so in a failed mutiny two months ago, they would also die.

A mercenary group controlled by Russian military intelligence is among the most likely successors to Wagner as Yevgeny Prigozhin’s group has been left leaderless.

Wagner occupied a unique position among Russia’s private “security” firms.

Although bankrolled by the Russian state and reliant on the ministry of defence for ammunition, it swelled to an enormous size and achieved a degree of autonomy, notoriety, and battlefield success that few private armies can boast of.

#Ukraine: A Russian S-400 air defense battery was targeted by Ukrainian forces in Cape Tarkhankut, Crimea- at least one TEL was hit and detonated, with other elements of the system nearby likely suffering damage. pic.twitter.com/GYmaAiOfiu

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 23, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday made his first comments about Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s presumed death in a plane crash.

“I’ve known Prigozhin for a very long time, since the early 1990s. He was a man with no easy fate. He made some serious mistakes in his life, but he also achieved the needed results—both for himself and, when I asked him, for the common cause,” Putin said during a televised meeting, according to the Kremlin-controlled news agency Tass.

A PUNCH IN THE GUT: The headline on this morning’s Washington Post is bound to infuriate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“U.S. expects Kyiv to fall short, UNLIKELY TO RETAKE VITAL CRIMEA HUB, Dug-in Russian defenses stymie counteroffensive,” screams the headline in the print edition that landed on driveways and doorsteps of Washington homes this morning. The report cites a classified assessment from the U.S. intelligence community that Ukrainian forces are unlikely to reach the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, a principal objective of the counteroffensive aimed at severing Russia’s land bridge by year’s end.

Tucker Carlson finally SNAPS on Ukraine approved narrative: "Everything the media has told you about the war in Ukraine is a lie."

pic.twitter.com/b4pmaovCsz

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 22, 2023

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was on the passenger list of a jet which crashed killing all on board, Russia’s civil aviation authority has said.

Earlier, Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone reported the Embraer aircraft was shot down by air defences in the Tver region, north of Moscow.

The jet, which was flying from the capital to St Petersburg, was carrying seven passengers and three crew.

The leaders of "Wagner" confirm the fact of the death of Prigozhin and Utkin, – said the gauleiter of Zaporizhzhia Region, Rogov.

Some Russian media, citing their sources, also claim that Prigozhin and Utkin were on board the crashed business jet.

The Russian Investigative… pic.twitter.com/RbQfAVTdtb

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) August 23, 2023

BREAKING:

A private jet owned by Prigozhin was just shot down by Russian air defenses over Tver.

Around 10 people onboard have been killed. pic.twitter.com/mUCHws77Y0

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) August 23, 2023

Ukraine has thrown its rebuilt Azov Brigade into battle for the first time since its defence of Mariupol last year, as it seeks a breakthrough in its faltering offensive.

The push comes as Vladimir Putin visited the command centre of his invading armies for the first time since March and as new estimates said that Russia has taken 300,000 casualties.

Announcing the deployment of the enlarged Azov Brigade, Ukrainian commanders said that its most famous unit was already back fighting Russian forces on the front line.

#Ukraine: A Russian 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled mortar was destroyed by a FPV loitering munition strike of the Ukrainian 92nd Assault Brigade in the area of Bakhmut, #Donetsk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/8dGQ3N5TKJ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 22, 2023

Ukraine’s grinding counteroffensive is struggling to break through entrenched Russian defenses in large part because it has too many troops, including some of its best combat units, in the wrong places, American and other Western officials say.

The main goal of the counteroffensive is to cut off Russian supply lines in southern Ukraine by severing the so-called land bridge between Russia and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. But instead of focusing on that, Ukrainian commanders have divided troops and firepower roughly equally between the east and the south, the U.S. officials said.

#Ukraine: Two Russian MT-LB armoured vehicles were destroyed by the Ukrainian 44th Artillery Brigade after the targets were discovered by a recon unit of the 65th Mechanized Brigade in the vicinity of Robotyne, #Zaporizhzhia Oblast. pic.twitter.com/hF76lh7CtC

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 22, 2023

This is one area in which the West is still struggling to get its act together

When personal sanctions on Russian oligarchs and officials were imposed by the US, EU and UK after Putin’s invasion, the rationale was that this would undermine the Kremlin. In the main, this has failed — and there is still no coherent strategy to encourage those Russians willing to turn against the regime.

No end in sight.

Ukraine war: The men who don’t want to fight

Ukraine is struggling to meet its demand for soldiers.

Volunteers aren’t enough. The country constantly needs to replace the tens of thousands who’ve been killed or injured. Many more are just exhausted, after 18 months fighting off Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Some men though don’t want to fight. Thousands have left the country, sometimes after bribing officials, and others are finding ways of dodging recruitment officers, who in turn have been accused of increasingly heavy-handed tactics.

“The system is very outdated,” says Yehor. He watched his father suffer from mental health issues after fighting with the Soviet Army in Afghanistan.

While both sides have made good use of drones, they will likely not become the weapon that wins the Ukraine war.

Politicians and pundits want to declaim the lessons we should learn from Russia’s war against Ukraine despite the fact that the war — now eighteen months old — may not yet have reached its halfway point.

Russian President Putin, as I have written before, wants to keep the war going at least until 2025 when U.S. support for Ukraine will diminish whether or not we have a new president. If the Republicans keep the House, they will seek a significant decrease and if a Republican is elected president, all bets are off.

#Ukraine: A Russian UR-77 mine clearing charge launcher was destroyed by the 79th Air Assault Brigade near Marinka, #Donetsk Oblast- using a 40mm HEDP grenade adapted to be dropped from a drone.

The outcome for a vehicle carrying no less than 725kg of explosives is as expected. pic.twitter.com/A5QUDfIAVQ

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 14, 2023

Russian journalist Elena Kostyuchenko was most likely poisoned in Munich in October 2022. That is the conclusion of a joint investigation carried out by Latvia-based Russian publication The Insider and the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, reports Novaya Gazeta, a Russian opposition newspaper that moved its offices to Latvia last year following a crackdown by Russian authorities.

A flagship Russian long-range bomber has been destroyed in a Ukrainian drone strike, according to reports.

Images posted on social media and analysed by BBC Verify show a Tupolev Tu-22 on fire at Soltsy-2 airbase, south of St Petersburg.

Moscow said that a drone was hit by small-arms fire but managed to “damage” a plane. Ukraine has not commented.

The Tu-22 can travel at twice the speed of sound and has been used extensively by Russia to attack cities in Ukraine.

At the Army 2023 expo of Russian military technology last week, it was not the vast Yars intercontinental missile or the captured western armoured vehicles that stole the show but an inflatable church.

The mobile chapel, or military field temple, is meant to serve the spiritual needs of Russian soldiers in the red zone at the front in Ukraine. It includes hanging space for icons, the sacred pictures used for devotional purposes in the Orthodox tradition.

#Ukraine: A Russian 2S4 Tyulpan 240mm self-propelled mortar was destroyed by counter-battery fire of the Ukrainian 45th Artillery Brigade after being spotted by the 100th TDF Brigade and National Police forces in the vicinity of Kreminna, #Luhansk Oblast. pic.twitter.com/8dCCrwBVIV

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) August 20, 2023