WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russia launches overnight drone attack on Kyiv
Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv early on Sunday, with blasts ringing out across the Ukrainian capital and its region for almost two hours and drone debris falling on several of the city's central districts, officials said.
The scale of the attack was not immediately known. Reuters witnesses heard at least five blasts across Kyiv, and Ukrainian media footage showed a number of cars damaged.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person was injured in the historic Podil neighbourhood and a fire broke out near one of the city's parks.
Debris from downed drones fell on the Darnytskyi, Solomianskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Podil districts, Klitschko and the city's military administration said.
In the Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris sparked a fire in an apartment, which was quickly distinguished. There were no immediate reports of injuries, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.
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There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks. Moscow has been conducting near-nightly assaults on Ukraine's territory. A Russian attack killed 17 on Wednesday in the eastern city of Kostiantynivka.
** Ukraine's counteroffensive to continue after onset of bad weather, spy chief says
Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian forces will continue through the onset of cold and wet weather later this year, even though it would become harder to fight, Kyiv's intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Saturday.
Ukraine launched a much-vaunted counteroffensive this summer that has retaken more than a dozen villages in the south and east over three months, but has been complicated by vast minefields and heavily entrenched Russian forces.
"Combat actions will continue in one way or another. In the cold, wet and mud, it is more difficult to fight. Fighting will continue. The counteroffensive will continue," Budanov said.
The comments, made at a conference in Kyiv hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, offer the strongest indication to date that Ukraine does not plan to halt its push when the weather turns later this year.
The West supplied billions of dollars of military equipment and trained up thousands of Ukrainian fighters for the counteroffensive to help Kyiv try to regain territory.
But the slow progress of the counteroffensive has sparked concerns among Kyiv's supporters that the West could struggle to maintain the scale of military aid to keep Ukraine battling on at the same intensity.
Vadym Skibytskyi, an official from Ukraine's military spy agency, said earlier on Saturday that Russia currently had 420,000 servicemen inside Ukraine.
The push in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, now centred around the villages of Robotyne and Verbove, is seen as a crucial part of an operation that seeks to split Russia's occupying forces in half in the south, but remains far from that goal.
"Our counteroffensive is happening in several directions," Budanov said, acknowledging that progress had been slower than he had wanted and describing the situation as difficult.
Apart from the huge concentration of Russian mines, he identified the large of number of small Russian "kamikadze" drones as a key factor that had slowed Ukraine's progress so far.
Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive has failed.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Second Challenger 2 tank destroyed in Ukraine – media
The Russian forces have successfully hit the second Challenger 2 tank out of 14 heavy equipment pieces that London supplied to Kiev, the Russian media reported on Saturday, citing a local civic movement head from the Zaporozhye Region.
The heavy armor was supposedly rendered inoperable after it took just one hit with a Russian Kornet anti-tank missile, Vladimir Rogov, the leader of the ‘We are together with Russia’ movement told RIA Novosti.
“The British-[made] tanks have seen an open season declared on them,”Rogov said, adding that the second such tank was destroyed by the Russian airborne troops. The weapons supplied by the UK “burn just as well as any other Western equipment,” Rogov pointed out, adding that the fate of such equipment “is not to be envied.” The activist did not name his sources for the information.
Neither Kiev, nor Moscow have officially commented on the reported development so far. London, which confirmed the destruction of the first Challenger 2 tank in Ukraine earlier this week, did not provide any comments either.
The first British-made tank was also reportedly hit by a Russian Kornet missile. The Kornet system is a man-portable anti-tank guided missile, which can also be mounted on a vehicle. Some of its modifications are capable of destroying main battle tanks and other armored vehicles equipped with explosive reactive armor at a distance of up to 10 kilometers.
On Wednesday, a video of the first Challenger 2 tank being supposedly struck by such a missile surfaced on social media. The tank had completely burned out as a result of the hit, the footage showed.
At that time, British Secretary of Defense Grant Shapps said that “there can be material losses” in a conflict zone and London “accepts that.” He also told journalists that the UK does not plan to send additional tanks to Kiev to replace the losses.
The UK sent some 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine earlier this year as part of a massive Western military assistance effort, which mostly included variants of German-made Leopard 2 tanks. The supplies were intended for the much-touted Ukrainian counteroffensive that was eventually launched in early June.
Since then, the Ukrainian troops have barely managed to bring about any changes to the frontlines while suffering heavy losses both in personnel and equipment. As of September 5, 2023, Kiev lost some 66,000 troops and 7,600 pieces of heavy weaponry in its summer operation, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
** At least six explosions heard in Ukraine’s capital Kiev — eyewitnesses
At least six explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev in the early hours of Sunday, eyewitnesses told TASS.
"At least six blasts came within the period of 40 minutes. Sounds of air defense systems in operation are heard in the northern districts of the city," the sources said.
At present, an air raid warning is in place in Ukraine’s capital Kiev and a number of other regions.
Kiev city authorities said on Telegram that the capital’s air defenses were working.
"Kiev Region! Targets have been detected in the airspace, and air defenses are engaging them," the report says.
Earlier on Sunday, explosions were reported in the regions of Sumy and Chernigov.
Currently, the country’s regions of Zhitomir, Kiev, Poltava, Cherkassy, Sumy, Chernigov, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kirovograd, as well as Kiev-controlled territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Zaporozhye Region are in the red zone, according to the country's offiical air raid alert portal.
Reuters/RT/Tass
