RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Ukrainian forces lose more than 4,800 servicemen over week
The Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 4,855 servicemen over the week, with the most fighters - 1,490 - in the Donetsk area, according to TASS calculations based on the data of the Russian Defense Ministry.
The Ukrainian forces lost: 1,180 servicemen in the South Donetsk area, 820 in the Zaporozhye area, 665 in the Kupyansk area, 485 in the Krasny Liman area and 215 in the Kherson area.
Since the beginning of the special military operation, the Russian forces have destroyed a total of 466 Ukrainian aircraft, 247 helicopters, 6,152 unmanned aerial vehicles, 433 anti-aircraft missile systems, and 11,527 tanks and other armored combat vehicles.
Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov reported on August 4 that the Ukrainian armed forces had lost more than 43,000 servicemen and about 5,000 units of various armaments, including 26 aircraft and 25 Leopard tanks, during the June-July counteroffensive.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that the Ukrainian army had been unsuccessfully trying to launch an offensive since June 4. Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that the Ukrainian troops had no success in any area. On July 23, at a meeting with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg, he said that Kiev's counteroffensive had failed.
**West enabling Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets – The Economist
Ukraine relies on Western intelligence and satellite surveillance to guide its drones toward targets within Russia, The Economist reported on Sunday. The report backs up Moscow’s claims that the West is complicit in these “terrorist” strikes.
Russia’s extensive air defense and electronic warfare capacity mean that Ukrainian drone operators often need outside help to hit targets deep inside Russia, The Economist reported, citing anonymous sources within Ukraine’s multiple drone programs. This assistance includes “intelligence (often from Western partners) about radars, electronic warfare, and air-defense assets,” the report stated.
Feedback on the success of a strike is compiled from satellites, the report noted. Ukraine has only a single surveillance satellite, meaning that any imagery collected in between its 15 daily orbits is likely provided by Western satellites.
While Ukraine often attempts to hit military targets within Russia, many of its strikes are focused on civilian infrastructure and residential areas. In the most recent incident, a small drone slammed into an apartment block in the city of Kursk, shattering windows but leaving nobody injured. Successive waves of drone attacks have targeted Moscow’s central business district in recent weeks, and although the strikes on the capital have not killed anyone, an attack on the border region of Belgorod earlier this week left three people dead.
Moscow has previously accused Ukraine’s Western backers of complicity in these “terrorist strikes.” Speaking after a small drone hit the Kremlin in May, government spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated: “We know very well that decisions about such actions, about such terrorist attacks, are made not in Kiev but in Washington." Moscow has also accused British and American special forces of assisting Kiev’s recent missile attacks on the Crimean Bridge.
According to Peskov, Moscow views the attacks as “acts of desperation,”carried out to compensate for Ukraine’s failures on the battlefield. The strikes are viewed similarly in the West, the New York Times reported on Friday. Citing US officials, the newspaper said that the drone operations are intended “to bolster the morale of Ukraine’s population and troops,” and show that Kiev “can strike back” amid its failing counteroffensive.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russia launches overnight air attack on northern, central Ukraine
Russia launched an overnight air attack against Ukraine on Sunday, sending missiles over other northern and central parts of the country, authorities said.
The Ukrainian military reported shooting down four cruise missiles out of up to eight total airborne targets detected, adding that the rest of the targets were "probably false".
It also said there were no immediate reports of strikes.
The governor of Kyiv region, Ruslan Kravchenko, said two people had been wounded and 10 buildings damaged by falling missile debris in one unspecified area of the region.
"Thanks to the professional work of the air defence forces, there were no strikes on critical or residential infrastructure," he said in a statement.
All of Ukraine was under air raid alerts for about three hours early on Sunday before they were cleared at around 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).
Russia has carried out a campaign of regular air strikes involving missiles and drones against Ukrainian targets far from the front line as part of its 18-month-old full-scale invasion.
Meanwhile, Russia's defence ministry said on the Telegram messaging channel on Sunday that its forces had shot down two drones overnight in the Bryansk and Kursk regions, which both border Ukraine.
"The regime in Kiev made further attempts to commit terror attacks using fixed-wing drones on targets in the Russian Federation during the night and in the morning of Aug. 27," the ministry said.
It gave no information about possible casualties or damage.
The governor of Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, posted pictures on his Telegram channel which he said showed damage caused by a drone to an apartment block in the city of Kursk, with windows blown out.
Drone attacks on Russian targets, especially in Crimea - annexed by Moscow in 2014 - and in regions bordering Ukraine, have become almost a daily occurrence since two drones were destroyed over the Kremlin in early May.
The attacks have disrupted flights in and out of Moscow in recent weeks. Ukraine rarely takes direct responsibility for such drone strikes but says destroying Russian military infrastructure helps a counter-offensive begun by Kyiv in June.
** Zelenskiy says elections could happen under fire if West helps
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, responding to calls by a US senator this week to announce elections in 2024, said on Sunday voting could take place during wartime if partners shared the cost, legislators approved, and everyone got to the polls.
Elections cannot currently be held in Ukraine under martial law, which must be extended every 90 days and is next due to expire on Nov. 15, after the normal date in October for parliamentary polls but before presidential elections which would normally be held in March 2024.
Top American legislators visited Kyiv Aug. 23, among them Lindsey Graham, who heaped praise on Kyiv's fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin but said the country needed to show it was different by holding elections in wartime.
Zelenskiy, in a television interview with Natalia Moseichuk, an anchor for the 1+1 Channel, said he had discussed the issue with Graham, including the question of funding and the need to change the law.
"I gave Lindsey a very simple answer very quickly," he said. "He was very pleased with it. As long as our legislators are willing to do it."
He said it cost 5 billion hryvnia ($135 million) to hold elections in peacetime. "I don't know how much is needed in wartime," he said. "So I told him that if the US and Europe provide financial support ..."
He added, "I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections. And this is stipulated by the law."
Zelenskiy said he told Graham that election observers would have to go to the trenches. "I told him: You and I should send observers to the frontlines so that we have legitimate elections for us and for the whole world."
Ukraine would also need help setting up additional voting access for millions of people overseas, especially from the European Union, he said.
"There is a way out," he said. "I am ready for it."
Graham, a Republican, told reporters during a briefing in a bunker with fellow Senators Richard Blumenthal and Elizabeth Warren, both Democrats, that his message to Zelenskiy would be they would fight to keep weapons flowing "so you can win a war that we can't afford to lose."
He added, "But I am also going to tell him this: You've got to do two things at once. We need an election in Ukraine next year. I want to see this country have a free and fair election even while it is under assault."
Zelenskiy said those fighting Russia's invasion would have to be included. "They are defending this democracy today, and not to give them this opportunity because of war - that is unfair. I was against the elections only because of this."
