- A senior Pentagon official estimated that 80,000 Russians have been killed or wounded in Ukraine. “The Russians have probably taken 70,000 or 80,000 casualties in less than six months,” Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl said.
- Russian citizens should not be able to take vacations in Europe while the government of Russia carries out a war in Ukraine. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas wrote Tuesday on Twitter that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right” and that it is “time to end tourism from Russia now.”
- Everyone must recognize that Vladimir Putin is attacking not just Ukraine but the entire world of normal people with his Orwellian insistence that what he is doing is not a war because he isn’t calling it that and that no one should be allowed to contradict him, according to Russian commentator Aleksandr Skobov.
- Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister of digital transformation says that since the Russian invasion, digital transformation has been put on a “war footing,” including several projects: a chatbot that allows people to send information about the Russian army, a joint project on drones, as well as the use of artificial intelligence for facial recognition for identifying slain Russian soldiers and informing their families via social media.
- Russia uses Amnesty International report to fuel war propaganda. The Report said Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by setting up military bases in residential areas. It “shifts responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.”
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- A total of 375,131 tons of grain spread across 12 shipments have left Ukrainian ports since last week under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, according to Joint Coordination Centre for the Black Sea Grain Initiative by the UN. The final buyer in Lebanon refused to accept over 26,000 tons of corn from Ukraine, according to the Embassy of Ukraine in Lebanon.
- The Russian army is increasingly reliant on poorly trained units including some comprised of convicts, U.S. think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in its Aug. 8 report.
- Ukraine reported intense Russian shelling across the frontlines on Tuesday. Heavy fighting was reported in towns near the eastern city of Donetsk, where Ukrainian officials said Russian troops were launching waves of attacks as they try to seize control of the industrialised Donbas region.
- Ukrainian ambassador Ankara Vasyl Bodnar said the Turkish company Bayrak plans to build its drone factory in Ukraine and already procured land for it. Bodnar said that Bayrak has already created a company in Ukraine and that a factory, which was rumored to be under construction before the beginning of the Ukrainian war in late February, is still in development.
- “On the one hand, it supplies us with famous Bayraktars and actively carries out intermediary functions. On the other hand, Turkey strengthens its cooperation with the Russian Federation, helping the aggressor country to circumvent sanctions.” Cooperation with Russia includes an agreement with Ankara to pay for Russian gas in rubles and the introduction of the Russian payment system “Mir” by five Turkish banks.
- The U.S. Defense Department detailed the contents of the latest security assistance package to Ukraine, worth $1 billion. Under presidential drawdown authority — the 18th drawdown so far — the package includes additional ammunition for both the high mobility artillery rocket and howitzer systems. “This is the largest single drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment utilizing this authority to date,” Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said.
- Since Ali Khamenei has openly and unconditionally come out in support of Putin’s war in Ukraine an allegedly civilian airline has been playing a key role. Mahan Air is a small, insignificant airline, but regional wars have made it major by Iranian standards and the war in Ukraine will probably make Mahan Air world-famous; key players like NATO will soon be perusing its flight schedules.
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