Photo: Reuters

Monday’s Coverage: “Significant Losses” — Kyiv’s Latest Strikes Inside Russia

UPDATE 0913 GMT:

Ukraine air defenses downed 89 of 113 drones launched by Russia overnight.

Six locations were struck by 22 drones.

In Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, one person was murdered and 13, including two children, injured by rockets.

In the Mykolaiv region in the south, a man was slain when Russian troops struck a farm.

UPDATE 0903 GMT:

A senior Russian legislator has threatened an invasion of Poland.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chair of the Federation Council’s International Affairs Commander, responded to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski’s suggestion that Russian drones and missiles over Ukraine should be downed.

Declaring that Poland has always been an “unfriendly” country for Moscow, Dzhabarov said that if Poland continues to “look to the East”, “It is possible that it will once again experience a partition, as it has more than once in its history.”

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chair of the State Security Council, said NATO countries will effectively go to war with Russia if they establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He said Western politicians who proposed the zone are “morons”.

UPDATE 0850 GMT:

Ukrainian drones struck the Saratov oil refinery in southwest Russia overnight.

The Rosneft refinery, with a processing volume of 4.8 million tons in 2023, produces more than 20 types of petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel, fuel oil, and bitumen. It is about 150 km (93 miles) from the border with Kazakhstan and almost 600 km (373 miles) east of the frontline in Ukraine.

The facility was forced to halt operations on August 10 after an attack.

UPDATE 0833 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has responded to the latest Russian attacks on Ukraine’s civilians:

Since the beginning of September alone, more than 3,500 drones of various types and nearly 190 missiles, along with more than 2,500 aerial bombs, have been launched against our people. There have also been provocations against our partners.

This is precisely the kind of aerial terror against which Ukraine is calling for joint defense – so that no one has to scramble combat aircraft in haste and feel Russia’s pressure on their borders. Now is the time to implement the joint protection of our European skies with a multi-layered air defense system.

Zelensky told Sky News that Vladimir Putin “definitely wants to trick the US”:

He’s doing everything he can to avoid sanctions, to prevent the U.S. and Trump from putting sanctions on him.

If you keep postponing applying sanctions any further, then the Russians will be better prepared.

He called on Trump to take a “clear position” over sanctions against Russia and security guarantees for Ukraine: “Donald Trump has enough force to make Putin afraid of him.”

UPDATE 0814 GMT:

Poland’s security service intercepted a drone flying over government buildings in Warsaw.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said two Belarusian citizens have been detained.

The drone was operating near the Belweder Palace, one of the official Presidential residences and a guest house for international dignitaries.

UPDATE 0719 GMT:

A Russian court has imposed prison sentences on the five members of the feminist protest collective Pussy Riot in absentia.

The group’s members were given terms from 8 to 13 years over performances and music videos criticizing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Authorities declared that the December 2022 video for “Mama, Don’t Watch TV” spread “false information” about the Russian military. They cited an April 2024 performance in Munich, Germany, in which a Pussy Riot member urinated on a portrait of Vladimir Putin.

The group – Maria Alyokhina, Taso Pletner, Olga Borisova, Diana Burkot, and Alina Petrova – said the trial and sentences were politically motivated.

Burkot, the group’s songwriter, posted that she stands “by every single word and my anti-war stance is clear”: “I continue to believe: Ukraine must win, and Putin must face trial in The Hague.”

I sincerely and passionately wish every person in this world to use their voice. Activists are not some kind of “heroes” with criminal cases.

Every single person matters. The collective matters. Activism now is needed like daily practice, because only together can we resist and overcome the crisis of democracy.

Fortunately, they have no access to my physical body.

And even if I were in Russia, I would say the same thing: go fuck yourself.

UPDATE 0626 GMT:

Russia is expanding its re-education of abducted Ukrainian children.

In a report published on Tuesday, Yale’s School of Public Health identified more than 210 sites where the children have been taken for military training, drone manufacturing, and other forced instruction. More than 150 locations have been discovered since the Humanitarian Research Lab published findings in 2024, when it revealed that Russian Presidential aircraft had been used to transport abducted juveniles.

“[We] can conclude that Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time,” the report summarized.

Ukraine has confirmed the forcible displacement of almost 20,000 children, and says the actual number is far highter. In June, the Humanitarian Research Lab put the figure at close to 35,000.

The International Criminal Court have issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s “Children’s Rights” Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over the abductions.

During Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine from February 2022, children have been taken to locations across 5,600 km (3,500 miles), most frequently to camps and sanatoriums. They have also been placed in cadet schools, a military base, medical facilities, a religious site, secondary schools and universities, and orphanages.

Military training of Ukrainian children is taking place in at least 39 locations. Minors aged eight to 18 were taken to camps and a military base where they underwent combat training, ceremonial parades and drills, assembly of drones and other materiel, and education in military history. They also did shooting competitions, grenade throwing competitions, tactical medicine, drone control. and tactics training.

In one case, abducted children from the Donetsk region in eastern Ukriane were brought to a military base on an aircraft managed by the Russian Presidential Administration. They received “airborne training” at the base.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia is reviving the barter system in its foreign trade to evade international sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

For the first time since the 1990s, Russia is exchanging goods, such as grain and flax seeds for Chinese cars and construction materials.

Moscow is under more than 25,000 sanctions over its seizure of Crimea in 2014, its hybrid warfare in support of separatists in eastern Ukraine, and the 43-month full-scale invasion.

In 2024, the Russian Government issued a 14-page “Guide to Foreign Barter Transactions, and the Economy Ministry has suggested the creation of a barter trading platform.

The Guide cited “conditions of sanctions restrictions” and explained, “Foreign trade barter transactions allow the exchange of goods and services with foreign companies without the need for international transactions.”

The resurgence of barter is being fuelled by the threat of secondary sanctions on Russia’s trade partners, notably China and India.

The Trump Administration has imposed 50% tariffs on India, in part because of its purchases of Russian oil, and Donald Trump is demanding that the European Union put duties of 50% to 100% on China.

Some Chinese banks have reportedly stopped accepting Russian payments after the tightening of international restrictions.

Reuters identified eight recent barter deals, including an exchange of Chinese cars for Russian wheat and the trade of flax seeds for Chinese household appliances and building materials. China’s Hainan Longpan Oilfield Technology has sought to trade steel and aluminium alloys for marine engines.

A transaction with Pakistan was also confirmed, although details were not disclosed.

Multiple sources confirmed the transactions.