Russia has launched the biggest aerial barrage of its all-out invasion, pummeling Ukraine with a massive wave of missiles and drones on Monday. Russia launched 127 missiles and 109 one-way attack drones in total, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. They primarily targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
At least four people were killed and more than a dozen injured across the country according to The Associated Press, citing local officials.
There were at least seven reported explosions in Kyiv.
One missile hit the roadway over the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant dam on the Dnipro River. The plant provides badly-needed energy for the area and the dam holds back a very large body of water from flooding south.
The plant did not suffer any significant damage, Ruslan Kravchenko, Head of Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said on national television, according to Ukrainian Pravda. He added that power engineers were working to restore the power supply.
Severe damage or destruction of the dam could lead to major flooding in Kyiv. In June 2023, Russia blew up the Nova Kharkova dam across the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast, creating massive flooding and draining the reservoir.
In the city of Lutsk, residents took a video of a Shahed-136 crashing into a building. You can hear the loud buzz of its engine before descending into the building and exploding with a loud bang and ensuing fireball and smoke.
The attack caused widespread power and water outages and forced one Ukrainian television newscast temporarily off the air in the middle of the attack because the electricity was cut.
A Ukrainian Mi-24 Hind helicopter chased and shot down one of the Shahed drones launched today by Russia. This video emerged on social media three days after an Mi-8 Hip door gunner was seen on video blasting one out of the sky with a machine gun.
One of Ukraine’s German-made Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (SPAAG) also supposedly shot down a Shahed drone with its pair of radar-directed 35mm automatic cannons. The video below shows the radar screen view of the encounter.
A machine gunner from the Transcarpathian 650th Separate Anti-Aircraft Machine Gun Battalion made a fairly incredible kill, shooting down a Russian cruise missile on the border of Zakarpattia and Lviv regions. According to the head of the Zakarpattia regional military administration, the target was a Russian Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile.
A group of several Kh-101 missiles was seen flying toward their target, the high-pitched whine of their turbojet engines piercing the air.
One Kh-101 missile fell into the Dnipro River and exploded.
The launch of some of the 28 Kalibr long-range cruise missiles toward targets in Ukraine was caught on video.
Ukraine is alleging that among the missiles fired Monday, Russia used cluster submunitions on sea-launched Kalibrs. While there have been reports of Russian air-launched Kh-101s being adapted to deploy submunitions, it is unclear if Russia has previously done the same for the Kalibr.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said 15 oblasts were struck in the attack.
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Air-launched missile attacks came from the airspace of the Belgorod, Ryazan, Lipetsk, Volgograd and Voronezh regions of Russia, as well as occupied Mariupol, the Ukrainian Air Force stated.
Those strikes included Kh-59 standoff missiles and Kh-69 air-launched cruise missiles fired by Su-57 Felon new-generation fighters, Russia’s most modern combat aircraft, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Tu-95MS Bear-H strategic bombers launched 77 Kh-101s, it added.
Russia also fired Kalibr sea-launched missiles from vessels in the Caspian and eastern Black seas, the Air Force explained.
All told, Ukraine said it downed 102 of the missiles and 99 of the drones.
Zelensky decried the attacks and urged allies to provide promised weapons. He also called upon the air forces of NATO members to work in unison to help protect the skies over Ukraine.
“Like most Russian strikes before, this one was equally insidious, targeting critical civilian infrastructure. The energy sector has sustained significant damage, but in every area affected by power outages, restoration work is already in progress.”
“It is crucial that our partners uphold the commitments we’ve made together, in particular regarding air defense systems, missiles for them,” he added. “And beyond that, we must finally unite in our efforts to shoot down Russian missiles and drones. Today, their targets were in Volyn, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, and Ternopil regions. Across Ukraine, we could do much more to protect lives if the aviation of our European neighbors operated in concert with our F-16s and air defense systems. If such unity has proven effective in the Middle East, it must work in Europe too. Life holds the same value everywhere.”
One of the Russian drones reportedly crossed Polish airspace and landed in that country.
“We are probably dealing with an object that flew into the territory of Poland,” Maciej Klisz, Operational Commander of the Polish Armed Forces, told reporters on Monday. “The object was seen by at least three radars.”
Authorities suspect the drone may have fallen near Tyszowce, approximately 30 kilometers (nearly 19 miles) from the Polish-Ukrainian border, according to Euromaidan Press.
As the attack on Ukraine was underway, Poland scrambled military aircraft, which has become a standard procedure implemented after a Russian missile entered Polish airspace for 39 seconds during a night attack on March 24, the publication reported.
“Please note that in the southeastern part of the country, there may be an increased noise level due to the start of operations of Polish and allied aircraft in our airspace,” the Polish Army’s Operational Command said on Twitter. “Since the early morning hours, intensive activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation has been observed, associated with strikes carried out on objects located, among others, in the western territory of Ukraine. The last such increased activity of Russian aviation, during which strikes occurred in western Ukraine, was recorded on July 8 this year.
NATO reportedly condemned the Russian drone’s intrusion into Polish airspace.
The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) said on Telegram that it “delivered a group strike by long-range air- and sea-based precision weaponry, as well as Operational-Tactical Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, attack unmanned aerial vehicles at the critical power infrastructure of Ukrainian defense industry.”
Strikes “were delivered at power substations in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Kirovograd, and Odesa regions,” the MoD added. “Compressor stations supporting operations of the Ukrainian gas transportation system were hit in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kharkiv regions.”
In addition, “strikes were delivered at the depots of aircraft armament supplied to Kyiv regime by Western countries at an airfield in Kyiv and Dnepropetrovsk regions. All the assigned targets have been destroyed resulting in power outages and disruption of railway transportation of arms and ammunition to the line of contact.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued its drone attacks on Russia. In one such incident, drones struck near Engles Air Base in Svatov, some 350 miles from the border. There is no indication that the airbase itself was hit, but a high-rise apartment building (seen below) in Svatov and one at the satellite city of Engles were hit and several cars were damaged, according to the governor. The base, which has been attacked before, is home to Tu-22M3 Backfire-C and Tu-95MS Bear-H strategic bombers that Russia uses to launch long-range attacks on Ukraine like the one on Monday.
The Russian MoD claimed 20 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight, including over the Saratov region.
“Nine UAVs were shot down over the territory of the Saratov region,” the MoD said on Telegram. Another “three over the territory of the Kursk region, two UAVs over the territories of the Belgorod, Bryansk and Tula regions, and one UAV was destroyed over the territories of the Oryol and Ryazan regions.”
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On the battlefield, Russia appears to be regaining some of the territory it has lost during the 20-day-old Ukrainian invasion of Kursk Oblast.
“Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces recently regained lost positions in Kursk Oblast amid reports of continued Ukrainian attacks in the area on August 25,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment. “The Russian military likely continues to redeploy forces from lower priority sectors of the frontline in Ukraine to the frontline in Kursk Oblast.”
Zelensky said the Ukrainian presence in Kursk makes up for not being allowed to use some long-range weapons systems inside Russia.
“The physical presence of our forces in the Kursk region and our active measures to eliminate the Russian threat on its own territory, among other things, are ways to compensate for the lack of long-range capabilities,” he said.
The Pentagon has asked the Ukrainians what they need to make their gambit successful, U.S. officials told The Washington Post, “but no decisions have been made to materially support the effort.”
“Internal administration discussions have focused on whether to adjust the contents of weapons packages that are now being dispatched every two weeks, to include more armored vehicles or to speed up delivery of certain munitions and other equipment that could help the Ukrainians ‘dig in and defend themselves’ in the nearly 500 square miles of Russian territory Kyiv now says it holds,” a U.S. official told the publication.
While clearing a village of Russian troops, a Ukrainian tank was hit by a Russian Lancet drone but the crew survived.
Ukraine continues to capture Russian war materiel in Kursk, one of the latest hauls being several crates of mortar shells and two police vehicles.
Russian forces keep pressing closer to the key logistics town of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. The updated DeepState map shows Moscow’s troops are less than 10km (about 6.2 miles) from Pokrovsk after recent gains along the rail line and into Novohrodivka.
There is some better news for Ukraine in Kharkiv.
Ukrainian officials say they are beginning to push Russian forces out of Kharkiv Oblast but are offering few details.
“Currently, we cannot comment online on tactical episodes that are taking place right now,” Col. Vitaliy Sarantsev, a spokesman for the operational and tactical group “Kharkiv,” said on national television, according to Ukrinform. “We have some positive aspects. We are partly able to improve the tactical situation in certain locations. We will definitely report on this later, when it will be safe to talk about it.”
Sarantsev added that the Kharkiv region remains difficult as the enemy is trying to storm all active frontline areas.
“The areas of Vovchansk and adjacent settlements, as well as the Lyptsi-Hlyboke direction remain under attack,” he said. “The occupier is also trying to conduct assault operations there. However, all the enemy’s attempts to advance are stopped by the Defense Forces – they suffer losses and retreat.”
Ukrainian officials “are preparing to present a list of long-range targets in Russia to top U.S. national security officials that they think Kyiv’s military can hit if Washington were to lift its restrictions on U.S. weapons,” Politico reported.
Ukraine is using the list “as a last-ditch effort to convince Washington to lift the restrictions on U.S. weapons being used inside Russia,” the outlet wrote. “While Ukraine has previously provided the U.S. some of its potential targets in Russia, this list is supposed to be more tailored.”
The arrest in Paris Sunday of the founder of the Telegram social media app has many in Russia very concerned.
French authorities detained Pavel Durov on allegations that his Telegram social media platform was used for a litany of crimes, Politico reported.
Russians are freaking out over the arrest because Telegram is “widely used by its military for battlefield communications thanks to problems with rolling out its own secure comms system,” Politico wrote. Telegram is also one of the main sources of information about the war for the media, including The War Zone, as well as millions of ordinary Russians. Much of it is provided by pro-Russian milbloggers. The app is also said to be used by those fighting for battlefield communications. Handing over encryption keys to French authorities could compromise many, including those actively supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“They practically detained the head of communication of the Russian army,” Russian military blogger channel Povernutie na Z Voine said in a Telegram statement. Exactly how true such a statement is remains unclear.
Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) has charged an Iranian general with violating “the laws and customs of war provided by international treaties” for helping Russians attack Ukraine with Iranian-made drones.
The SBU “has collected evidence against Brigadier General of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Sharifi Molasarei Abbas Musa, who is involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine,” the security agency said on Telegram. “According to the investigation, he directly assisted the command of the Russian occupation groups in conducting air strikes against Ukraine using Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Investigators found that “the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps transferred at least 1,500 Shahed-136 and Mohajer-6 combat drones to Russia in August-September 2022,” according to the special service. “At the same time, in 2022, General Sharifi Molasarei Abbasu Musa personally came to the temporarily occupied Crimea and brought a group of Iranian UAV instructors with him,” the SBU said.
“Comprehensive measures are underway to bring the perpetrator to justice for war crimes against our state,” SBU added.
Zelensky on Saturday confirmed the first combat use of a new jet drone which he said was named Palyanytsya.
“Just today, the first and successful combat use of our new weapon took place,” he said. “It’s an absolutely new class of weapon –the Ukrainian Palyanytsya missile/drone. This is our new method of retaliating against the aggressor. The enemy was hit. I thank everyone who provided it: all developers, manufacturers, and our warriors. I’m proud of you.”
The specifications are classified, but Zelensky offered some hints about it, saying it took 18 months to develop, has a turbojet engine and has the range to strike two dozen airbases inside Russia.
A Ukrainian military video suggested that the new drone’s range is up to 430 miles, The Associated Press reported. Ukraine has been working on jet drones for a while. Back in February, we wrote about a new Ukrainian jet-powered attack drone that appeared in Russia. A short while later, an image of a much more intact Ukrainian jet drone downed by Russian electronic warfare measures appeared on social media. As we noted at the time, it appeared to be similar to the British-designed Banshee jet-powered drone, or a design identical to it. The following image shows that drone.
Months earlier, back in December 2023, an image emerged on social media showing the Ukrainian UJ-25 Skyline jet-powered drone.
As you can see, those two drones have a very different wing design than what is seen in the image provided about the Palyantsia, which was posted on Saturday.
The U.S. Army has formed a new unit to learn from Ukraine’s experience with drones and electronic warfare, according to Business Insider. The Pentagon plans to integrate lessons from Ukraine’s use of these technologies into its own military, recognizing their significant impact on modern warfare.
The U.S. Army is not alone in learning lessons from Ukraine. Seeing the success it had in using propeller-driven Yak-52 primary training aircraft to hunt down drones, Russia is now working to repurpose its fleet of Soviet-era Yaks to do the same.
The modification and upgrade of the plane to the Yak-52B2 standard for a dedicated “UAV countermeasure” role is a priority, Russian aviation officials said, according to The Aviationist, citing the official Russian RIA Novosti news outlet.
“Today, one of the priority projects for our bureau is the modernization of the Yak-52 training aircraft into the Yak-52B2 ‘UAV countermeasure aircraft,’” said the head of this project at the Aviasroitel Design Bureau. Dmitry Motin. “At present, we are expecting to receive an airworthiness certificate from the Federal Air Transport Agency.”
A Ukrainian Air Force S-300PT air defense system is seen in this rare image launching against an aerial target.
Alarmed by what it says is an increasing presence of Belarusian troops and equipment along its border, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Minsk to pull back from one of the areas used by Russia to launch its all-out invasion.
“According to data from Ukrainian intelligence agencies, the Republic of Belarus’ armed forces are concentrating a significant number of personnel, including Special Operations Forces, weapons, and military equipment, including tanks, artillery, [multiple-launch rocket systems] MLRS, air defense systems, and engineering equipment, in the Gomel region near Ukraine’s northern border under the guise of exercises,” the ministry said in a statement late Sunday night. “The presence of mercenaries of the former Wagner PMC was also recorded.”
“Conducting exercises in the border area and in close proximity to the nuclear power facility, the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, poses a threat to the national security of Ukraine and global security in general,” the ministry added. “We warn Belarusian officials not to make tragic mistakes for their country under Moscow’s pressure, and we urge its armed forces to cease unfriendly actions and withdraw forces away from Ukraine’s state border to a distance greater than the firing range of Belarus’ systems.”
The ministry emphasized “that Ukraine has never taken and is not going to take any unfriendly actions against the Belarusian people. We warn that in case of a violation of Ukraine’s state border by Belarus, our state will take all necessary measures to exercise the right to self-defense guaranteed by the UN Charter. Consequently, all troop concentrations, military facilities, and supply routes in Belarus will become legitimate targets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
Konrad Muzyka, director of the Rochan Consulting open-source intelligence company, suggested that Ukraine is most concerned about “small-scale incursions aimed at seizing territory aimed at seizing limited territory to compel a redeployment of Ukrainian forces from other regions. While the probability of such a scenario remains low, it cannot be entirely ruled out.”
The movement of forces in Belarus along Ukraine’s northern border near where part of Russia’s all-out invasion begun could be a ploy to lure Ukraine’s already overstretched forces away from other parts of the battlefield.
The Wagner Private Military Company said that it is not fighting in Ukraine.
“As of today, employees of the PMC ‘Wagner’ work only [in Africa] and in Belarus,” Wagner claimed on Telegram. “There are no divisions of the Company in the Russian National Guard, the Russian Ministry of Defense, or anywhere else. PMC ‘Wagner'”‘ is not currently participating in the Special Military Operation. If the situation changes, an additional announcement will be made.”
At its apex, Wagner had tens of thousands of fighters in Ukraine, including about 36,000 fighting for the besieged city of Bakhmut in the winter and spring of 2023. The organization largely ceased operations in Ukraine after its late leader Yevgeny Prigonzhin called off his putative putsch in June 2023. Exactly one year ago today, Russian authorities say he was later killed in a plane crash. Russia is widely believed to have been responsible for its cause.
Russia launched a missile strike against Snake Island, the oft-fought-over chunk of Black Sea rock
The island has strategic value, because of its location, as a surveillance and weapons launch area. But for Ukraine particularly, the island has tremendous symbolic value. It was the site of the infamous incident where one of the Ukrainian Border Guards on the island responded to a call to surrender from the Russian Navy cruiser Moskva, then the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, by saying “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!”
Aside from striking Snake Island, it appears that Russia also hit two strategically important Black Sea oil rigs east of Snake Island now controlled by Ukraine.
Satellite imagery obtained by open-source investigator MT Anderson (@MT_Anderson) shows one of the rigs hit by Russia burning and one billowing smoke.
“All 3 drilling platforms have now been attacked east of Snake Island,” Anderson wrote on Twitter. “During the battle for Snake Island, Ukraine struck the northernmost platform. As of Aug. 24, “the middle platform is burning and there is a plume of smoke from the 3rd.”
However, it is unknown when those other two platforms were hit.
Ukraine recaptured the rigs, known as “Boyko Towers,” in September 2023. Russia was using them to surveil Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the Black Sea.
A Russian strike on a hotel in the Donetsk region two days ago killed a British safety adviser and wounded two journalists, Reuters reported.
Ryan Evans, a former soldier, had been working with Reuters since 2022 and advised its journalists on safety around the world including in Ukraine, Israel and at the Paris Olympics, the news agency said.
An image emerged on social media of a Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum with a U.S.-donated JDAM-ER GPS-guided glide bomb under its wing. Ukraine began using this munition against Russian targets in early March of 2023.
A new FPV drone flight simulation program was developed by Ukraine, offering a sense of what it is like to fly one of these now-ubiquitous weapons and providing a new tool for future operators.
A Russian Mi-8AMTSh helicopter was damaged in a hard landing, reportedly caused by a Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drone. This would be the latest incident of Ukraine using FPV drones to down Russian rotary wing aviation.
“Not long ago, our helicopter was flying out from under very dense fire,” the Russian Pioneer Stock Telegram channel reported. “In a safe place, it was decided to land the bird, due to violations of some control functions. The landing was very hard, but there were no casualties, the entire crew is fine!”
To help protect it against Ukrainian drones and shrapnel, Russian troops kitted out a “Loaf” electronic warfare-equipped van with a screen, extra metal and slices of old tires on the sides. They even took out the indicator light for the EW equipment so that it can be operated at night without giving its position away.
The Netherlands will provide Ukraine with six additional F-16 Vipers on top of the 24 already in the pipeline for a total of 30 Vipers, according to the French Avions Legendaires news outlet.
The publication reported that the Netherlands called off a deal with the U.S.-based opposition air contractor Draken to purchase the six jets, which will now go to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Air Force began to operate F-16s donated by the Netherlands and Denmark in combat last month.
Images emerged on social media reportedly showing one of Ukraine’s newly donated Vipers in reinforced concrete shelter. The date and location were not provided.
And finally, during a memorial service for Ukrainian Air Force Maj. Andrii Pilshchykov, better known by his callsign “Juice,” the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force let his mother sit in the cockpit of an F-16. It was an aircraft Juice, who flew Soviet-era MiG-29 Fulcrums, advocated for his Air Force and longed to fly.
“Unfortunately, ‘Juice’ did not live to see his deployment for training,” said Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuck. “And today, sitting in the cockpit of the F-116 is his mother – Liliia Oleksandrivna. She continues her Hero of Ukraine son’s mission!”
The defacto voice of Ukraine’s Air Force, who gave frequent media interviews, including to The War Zone, Juice was one of three pilots killed in a mid-air collision in Zhytomyr Oblast on Aug. 26, 2023.
That’s it for now
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com