Thursday’s Coverage: Kyiv — No F-16 Fighter Jets This Year

Map: Institute for Study of War

UPDATE 1703 GMT:

US officials estimate Russian military casualties during Vladimir Putin’s invasion at up to 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured.

They assess that Ukraine has suffered 70,000 fatalities and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded.

UPDATE 1654 GMT:

Canada is sanctioning another 15 Russian individuals and three entities over human rights violations and violence faced by political opponents and Government critics in Russia.

Those blacklisted include senior officials of the Russian Government; judiciary and investigative committee; and federally funded courts.

The Canadian Foreign Ministry cited the attempted assassinations of Vladimir Kara-Mursa and Alexei Navalny. Kara-Murza is now imprisoned for 25 years and Navalny for 30.

The Putin regime has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to use all means possible to silence political opponents and critics and to violently repress internal dissent. This has been particularly true since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, as a wave of domestic repression against anti-war protests and criticism and the control of the information flow regarding the war have allowed the Kremlin to continue to commit countless atrocities against Ukrainian civilians.

UPDATE 1459 GMT:

A Russian online campaign recruited refugees from eastern Ukraine to sabotage rail deliveries of weapons from Poland to Kyiv, according to Polish investigators.

Russian operatives initially recruited the Ukrainian refugees to post fliers or hang signs in public spaces. Within week, they were asked to scout Polish seaports, to put cameras along railways, and to hide tracking devices in military cargo. In March, orders were sent to derail trains carrying weapons to Ukraine.

Polish authorities believe that Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU was behind the operation to disrupt the Polish transport, which delivers more than 89% of the military hardware sent to Ukraine.

Investigators said Russia also asked recruits to carry out arson attacks and an assassination.

“This threat was eliminated, but the broader threat remains,” said one investigator. “[The Russians] will try to eliminate the mistakes they made.”

UPDATE 1155 GMT:

The fuel oil terminal in Russia’s Novorossiysk, one of the largest ports on the Black Sea, is on fire.

The cause has not been established.

Novorossiysk is about 172 km (107 miles) from occupied Crimea. On August 3, a Ukrainian drone strike badly damaged a Russian military landing ship in the port.

Ukraine War, Day 527: Explosions at Naval Base Inside Russia

UPDATE 0738 GMT:

Turkey has told Russia to avoid further escalation in the Black Sea, after Russian forces fired warning shots and boarded the cargo ship Sukra Okan last Sunday near the Turkish coast.

The Center for Combating Disinformation, which is part of the under the Turkish Presidency’s communications office, said, “After [Russia’s] interference, our partners in the Russian Federation were appropriately warned about the importance of avoiding such activities.

The owner and the crew of the Palau-flagged ship are Turkish citizens.

The office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan initially refrained from comment, saying Palau should respond. However, the Government soon faced domestic criticism over its reticence.

UPDATE 0644 GMT:

Citing leaked documents from a worker, the Washington Post reports that Russia is struggling with production of a domestically-produced drone to replace the Iranian “kamikaze” UAVs which it uses to attack Ukraine.

The facility in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone hoped to build 6,000 drones by 2025, improving Iran’s Shahed-136.

But experts say the documents indicate that Alabuga has only manufactured external components for 300 drones and is about one month behind schedule. The complex is struggling to fill specialist positions. There are morale issues with staff, even though the plant has promised increased pay while seizing passports to retain workers.

Alabuga is also facing difficulties with supply of drone components from foreign sources, as Russia only produces four of the 130 internal parts. US sanctions have further hindered Russia’s ability to acquire some electrical components.

The US has reportedly told Iran, which has provided thousands of drones to Russia since last summer, that a cut-off of supply must be part of any deal over Tehran’s nuclear program and the lifting of American sanctions.

UPDATE 0632 GMT:

The commander of a leading Russian proxy force has suggested that Moscow “freeze” the current frontlines, effectively giving up its ambition of seizing four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Alexander Khodakovsky, who leads the Vostok Battalion, said Russia will not be able to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield in the near future. He added that Russian forces are unlikely to occupy additional Ukrainian cities.

The commander concluded that Russia will probably have to enter a “truce” with a phase “of neither peace nor war”.

The Vostok Battalion is defending on the southern front along the borderes of the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions. Khodakovsky’s remarks follow Ukraine’s liberation of the village of Urozhaine this week.

The US-based Institute for the Study of War assesses, “Russian forces have dedicated significant effort, resources, and personnel to hold settlements such as Robotyne and Urozhaine, and recent Ukrainian advances in these areas are therefore likely reflective of a wider degradation of defending Russian forces.”

UPDATE 0613 GMT:

A Ukrainian drone has damaged the Expo Center in Moscow.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed forces downed the drone about 4 a.m.

However, it acknowledged that it “fell on a non-residential building in the Krasnopresnenskaya embankment area”.

Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the damage was not significant, and there were no casualties.

Russian State outlet TASS indicated the impact was more serious, with one of the walls of Expo Center’s pavilion partially collapsing.

“The area of the collapse is about 30 square meters (323 square feet),” emergency services said.

The Expo Center is 100 meters from Moscow City, a tower block which includes the offices of Russian ministries. The block was damaged twice in drone strikes earlier this month.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: After months of discussion, the US has approved the delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a letter to counterparts in Copenhagen and The Hague:

I am writing to express the United States’ full support for both the transfer of F-16 fighter aircraft to Ukraine and for the training of Ukrainian pilots by qualified F-16 instructors.

It remains critical that Ukraine is able to defend itself against ongoing Russian aggression and violation of its sovereignty.

Blinken said Kyiv can take “full advantage of its new capabilities as soon as the first set of pilots complete their training”.

F-16s Operational by March 2024?

Ukraine Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat had said Wednesday that the F-16s would not be operational in 2023:

It’s already obvious we won’t be able to defend Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets during this autumn and winter….

We had big hopes for this plane, that it will become part of air defense, able to protect us from Russia’s missiles and drones terrorism.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was more optimistic: “Ukrainian pilots will return from the training, and the planes will come back with them.” However, he gave no timetable.

On July 12, Kuleba said he expected the F-16s to be in use by March 2024.

US President Joe Biden supported training programs in May. However, it was only last week that American officials said the first group of Ukrainians were ready to begin instruction.

A coalition of 11 other countries announced at July’s NATO summit that training would begin this month in centers in Denmark and Romania.

Denmark’s Acting Defense Minister Troels Poulsen said in July that he hoped to see “results” from the training in early 2024.