Weekly Ukraine war summary: Russia “heroically defends” a women's prison near Kursk, Ukraine's first F-16 goes down, Battle of Selydove

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In this week's summary:

• The combat zone in Russia’s Kursk Region has been stabilized, with the Russian Armed Forces recapturing the village of Korenevo and the AFU isolating Glushkovsky District.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defense and pro-war journalists have compared the “heroic defense” of a women's colony in the Kursk Region to Soviet forces’ defense of Brest Fortress in the days following Nazi Germany’s invasion in June 1941.
• The command of the Russian Armed Forces is pulling reinforcements from faraway locations, including mercenaries from Burkina Faso, to the Kursk sector.
• The AFU has failed to divert Russian forces from the Pokrovsk sector, and fighting continues in Selydove and elsewhere on the approaches to Pokrovsk.
• Ukraine withstood the largest air attack since the beginning of the full-scale war: Russia launched 127 missiles (102 downed) and 109 drones (99 downed).
• Ukraine has lost its first F-16 fighter jet, with the AFU Air Force commander dismissed in the aftermath.
• The sides organized the first exchange of prisoners since the start of Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk Region, seeing captured conscripts returned to Russia while defenders of Mariupol were returned to Ukraine.
• Volodymyr Zelensky announced the successful test of a Ukrainian-designed ballistic missile.

Situation at the front

After more than 20 days of fighting in Russia’s Kursk Region, movement along the front line in the area has virtually come to a standstill. The Russian military managed to dislodge the AFU from the village of Korenevo, located near the district center of the same name, and to eliminate the threat of the town's encirclement. Ukrainian forces, in turn, expanded their zone of presence in the east of the Glushkovsky District, occupying Byakhovo, Viktorovka, and Uspenovka. The AFU continued to take measures to isolate Glushkovo from the “mainland” by striking pontoon crossings and remnants of bridges over the Seym River (1, 2).

Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense and pro-war “correspondents” recount the story of the “heroic defense” of the IK-11 women's penal colony in Malaya Loknya, comparing it to the defense of the Brest Fortress — the first battle in the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. If we are to believe the reports, the Russian soldiers stood their ground with small arms against Ukrainian forces bearing heavy equipment — though, unlike the real Brest Fortress defenders, the Russians eventually withdrew from the facility they were defending.

In the meantime, the Russian command continues to move varied and exotic reinforcements into the Kursk Region. These include individual units from different parts of the front, newly formed units, mercenaries who served in Burkina Faso, and conscripts, including recently sworn-in soldiers. Some conscripts are drawn from the Strategic Missile Forces.

The situation in the Pokrovsk sector has been much more concerning for the Ukrainian forces. AFU Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has admitted that one of the objectives of the Kursk operation — to divert Russian troops from the Donbas — has not yet been fulfilled. Russian troops have been capturing communities in the Pokrovsk sector almost daily, occupying nearly the entire town of Novohrodivka (pre-war population 14,000) in a swift move. Russia’s Armed Forces reached Selydove and engaged Ukrainian troops in the urban area. Also, the Ukrainian soldiers withdrew from Karlivka, which now risks encirclement.

Despite these developments, Volodymyr Zelensky is confident that the start of the AFU operation in the Kursk Region has slowed down Russia's advance in the Pokrovsk sector, even if OSINT analysts (1, 2) argue the contrary. Zelensky may have fallen victim to false reports, which Ukrainian volunteers and military bloggers cite as one of the causes of the crisis in the east — along with a shortage of personnel, faulty interaction between units, and the countering of Ukrainian drones by their own electronic warfare assets.

Mutual strikes and sabotage

Earlier this week, Ukraine suffered the largest air attack of the full-scale war. According to the AFU Air Force Command, Russia fired at least 127 missiles (102 of which were downed) and 109 UAVs (99 downed). To repel the attack, Ukraine used F-16 fighter jets, among other weapons. Fifteen regions were affected, with the attacks mainly targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure: strikes were reported at the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant; several units of Ukrainian nuclear power plants were disconnected from the grid; and emergency power cuts were introduced throughout the country. The air raid killed seven people and injured 47 more.

During the week, the Ukrainian military also repelled the following missile and drone raids:

• On the night of Aug. 25, the Russian Armed Forces attacked Ukraine's frontline regions with Iskander-K cruise missiles, Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and six Kh-59/Kh-69 guided air missiles. Russia also launched nine Shahed drones, eight of which were shot down over the Mykolaiv Region.
• On the night of Aug. 27, Russia launched 10 missiles (five were downed) and 81 Shahed drones (60 were downed). At least six Shaheds flew to Belarus. In Zaporizhzhia, two civilians were killed, and four injured, in a night attack.
• On the night of Aug. 29, Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 60 of 74 Shaheds and two of three Kh-59/Kh-69 guided missiles. Two other unidentified missiles were also launched, with no interceptions reported. One of the Shaheds once again flew into Belarusian airspace, causing the Belarusian military to use its own aviation against a Russian UAV for the first time.
• On the night of Aug. 30, the Russian Armed Forces launched 18 Shaheds, 12 of which were shot down, and an Iskander-M ballistic missile.

During the week, Russian forces also struck two radar stations in Sumy Region (1, 2), hit a previously destroyed bridge in the same region, and fired missiles at Snake Island in the Black Sea — the alleged location of a Ukrainian garrison.

On the night of Aug. 25, a Russian missile hit a hotel in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, injuring four Reuters journalists and killing their security adviser. On Aug. 30, UMPB D-30 glide bombs were fired at Kharkiv, with one of the strikes hitting a high-rise apartment block. The reported casualty toll stands at six dead and 97 injured. The retaliatory shelling of the Russian city of Belgorod with multiple-launch rocket systems killed five people and wounded 37.

Civilian casualties resulting from Russian strikes have been reported in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk (1, 2, 3), Donetsk (1, 2), Kharkiv, and Sumy regions.

Throughout the week, Russia’s Ministry of Defense has been reporting the repulsion of Ukrainian raids on Russian regions and the Crimean Peninsula:

• According to the ministry, on the night of Aug. 24, Russian armed forces destroyed seven Ukrainian UAVs. An ammunition depot near Voronezh was hit, prompting a state of emergency in neighboring villages of the Ostrogozhsk District due to the «detonation of explosive objects».
• On the night of Aug. 26, Russian air defenses destroyed 20 UAVs.
• On the night of Aug. 27, five UAVs were destroyed.
• On the night of Aug. 28, 12 UAVs were destroyed. One of the strikes hit the Atlas oil depot of the Federal Agency for State Reserves plant in Rostov Region, causing a fire that as of Aug. 30 had not been extinguished. Drones also reached Kirov Region in the north-east of Moscow for the first time, hitting an oil depot in the town of Kotelnich — a strike that the Russian Ministry of Defense failed to report.
• On the night of Aug. 29, six Ukrainian UAVs and three unmanned surface vessels (sea drones) were destroyed.
• On the night of Aug. 30, 18 UAVs were downed.

Over the course of the week, Russian forces launched at least 291 drones and 151 missiles at Ukraine, while Ukrainian forces responded with 71 drones (including sea drones).

Losses

The General Staff of the AFU has reported the first crash of an F-16 aircraft transferred to Ukraine. The incident, which claimed the life of the pilot, Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes, appears to have occurred on Aug. 26 as the Air Force was repelling a Russian missile attack. According to Ukrainian MP Maryana Bezuhla, the F-16 was downed by friendly fire from a Patriot surface-to-air missile system. President Zelensky announced the dismissal of the AFU Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk shortly thereafter.

Russia and Ukraine have completed the first exchange of prisoners of war since the start of the AFU operation in the Kursk Region, using the 115-by-115 formula. As Russian MP Shamsail Saraliyev stated, all 115 Russian POWs were conscripts who had been captured in the Kursk Region. Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported that among the Ukrainians who had returned home, there were also conscripts, including some captured back in 2022. In addition, the list of exchanged prisoners had 82 Mariupol defenders, 50 of whom had taken part in the defense of the Azovstal Steelworks in the opening months of the full-scale war. In total, according to AFU's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, 594 Russian servicemen have been captured in the Kursk Region.

As the Russian publication Ostorozhno Novosti reports, Russian servicemen who have returned from captivity are once again being sent to the line of engagement — to dig trenches. This is in violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the return of former captives to military service. Earlier, the independent publication Holod wrote about Russia using former POWs from among recruited inmates as a workforce at the front; however, the fighters in question in this case had been mobilized from the general population.

Weapons and military equipment

The U.S. announced another $125 million PDA (Presidential Drawdown Authority for Military Assistance) aid package for Ukraine. It includes ammunition for artillery, HIMARS MLRS and counter-drone systems, anti-tank weapons, and HMMWV-based medical vehicles. The Biden administration is also discussing the possibility of adjusting supplies to help Ukraine better hold on to territory in the Kursk Region. The options on the table include additional armored vehicles and accelerated shipments for several types of ammunition.

It also became known that U.S. specialists had reprogrammed the electronic warfare systems of Danish and Dutch F-16s delivered to Ukraine, most likely to protect them from Russian air defenses. At the same time, the U.S. does not seem to be in a rush to accelerate the training of Ukrainian F-16 pilots — as the defense company Lockheed Martin reports, the U.S. government has not yet requested access to the company's new flight center for this purpose.

This week, Volodymyr Zelensky announced the first successful use of the Ukrainian-designed “missile drone” Palianytsia and the first test launch of a Ukrainian ballistic missile. In the latter case, it is still unknown whether the system in question was the well-known Hrim-2 complex, or something completely new.