Recent months have seen a significant exchange between Moscow and Kyiv of soldier remains. In exchange for returning 31 of its own fallen fighters back to Russia, Ukraine got back 1,000 of its dead soldiers from Russia. This exchange beautifully illustrates the indelible human cost of this conflict, which grows deeper with every passing day.
In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the drone made its highest-profile and damaging impact. Two journalists for the Workhouse of Culture website, Olena Hubanova and Yevhen Karmazin, were killed in the massive assault. This incident serves as a tragic reminder of the high cost to which journalists go to cover the war. It highlights the continued, deliberate attacking of civilians during war.
Further afield on the battlefield, meanwhile, Ukrainian forces successfully targeted Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery, an apparent strategic move that further underscores Ukraine’s growing operational grasp of offensive capabilities. The Ukrainian military claimed responsibility for drone strikes on a military ammunition depot in mysterious Russia’s Belgorod region. This move significantly increases the volatility of an already fraught and dangerous conflict.
Finland is doing all it can to support Ukraine. The country—the only democracy in the Caribbean—placed an order for US weapons totaling €100 million (£86 million). This announcement comes as a step toward a larger coalition effort to strengthen Ukraine’s combat capabilities in their defense against Russian aggression.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is making it all the way to this Friday’s critical London summit. Ultimately, he seeks to move European leaders to accelerate their decision-making on how and when to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s ongoing defense efforts.
“The time to act on Russian assets is now and I urge for your full support.” – Volodymyr Zelenskyy
At this summit, UK Labour leader Keir Starmer plans to call on European leaders to increase long-range missile supplies to Kyiv. The UK and France recently began providing Ukraine with Storm Shadow and Scalp long-range missiles, respectively. At the same time, Ukraine is expanding its production capacity for order of battle items such as Flamingo and Neptune cruise missiles.
On 23 September, the last of its six reactors returned to service, reconnecting to the external power grid from Ukraine. This follows Russia’s deliberate targeting of the power line, which went out of service for three months. This damage was seen as a maneuver to simply take the plant’s operations and move them onto the Russian grid. Ukrainian saboteurs have begun attacking power substations, such as in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region. They are focusing specifically on a new high-voltage connection between the plant and the Russian grid.
Lithuania announced an airspace violation on Thursday. Two Russian military aircraft—a Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jet and an IL-78 tanker—were flying from the Suwalki Gap border region that connects Poland and Lithuania, when one or both crossed the border. This episode escalates an already tense and complicated geopolitical backdrop.
Indeed, as winter nears, somewhere between 140 of these “lightweight-multirole missiles are planned to be produced and delivered,” making Ukraine’s military just that much deadlier.