Summary
It is now approaching 8pm in Kyiv and the blog is now closing. Here is a wrap-up of the main stories from today:
Russia is exploiting foreign nationals in its effort to acquire more personnel for its war effort in the face of mounting casualties, and probably views millions of migrants from central Asia as potential recruits, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
Russian drones hit Danube River port infrastructure that is critical to Ukraine’s grain exports, injuring at least two people in the attack on southern parts of the Odesa region on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine’s South military command said at least two civilians were injured in the early morning attack on what it called “civil infrastructure of the Danube”. The Ukrainian air force said air defence systems shot down 22 of the 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia. The Russian defence ministry was quoted by Interfax as saying that a group of Russian drones successfully struck fuel depots at the Reni port used by the Ukrainian military.
Ukrainian forces have decisively breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia after weeks of painstaking mine clearance, and expect faster gains as they press the weaker second line, the general leading the southern counteroffensive has told the Observer. Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskiy estimated Russia had devoted 60% of its time and resources into building the first defensive line and only 20% each into the second and third lines because Moscow had not expected Ukrainian forces to get through.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, spoke on Sunday, discussing the “functioning” of a sea corridor set up by Kyiv for safe navigation of ships after Moscow exited a landmark grain deal in July.
Ukraine expects a boom in drone production as early as this autumn, according to its defence minister.
Updated
Ukraine expects a boom in drone production as early as this autumn, according to its defence minister.
According to Reuters, Oleksii Reznikov told the state-run Ukrinform news agency on Sunday: “I think this autumn there will be a boom in the production of various Ukrainian drones: flying, floating, crawling, etc, and this will continue to grow in volume.”
He said one reason for the growth of production was that authorities had reduced various regulations and laws.
Ukraine has been conducting more frequent drone attacks on Russian territory.
Updated
