Ukraine War ☠ Drone Footage and Updates ⚠ Day 179

News from August 21

• Russia has lost more than 45,000 of its soldiers in Ukraine since 24 February.
• Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov reported that Ukraine has already received 100 long-distance drones for the Drone Army project but 100 more are needed to cover Ukraine’s long-distance needs. According to Fedorov, the length of the front is 2.5k km and the depth of the front is divided into sectors of 3, 60, 70, and 120 km. For the 3 km sector, 10,000 small drones are needed. Ukraine is constantly looking for opportunities to buy drones, repair old ones, open hubs for their restoration and train pilots on an ongoing basis.
• A Levada Center survey shows that the percentage of Russians who think the country is on the right track has risen since the start of Putin’s war in Ukraine. This does not reflect the success of regime propaganda. Instead, it is because most Russians see the war as establishing or confirming the place of Russia in the world that they would like to see, one in which the rest of the world fears Russia and thus respects it.
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• Six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the consequences are posing a devastating threat to the global economy. Gas is not only much more costly, it might not be available at all if Russia completely cuts off supplies to Europe to avenge Western sanctions, or if utilities can’t store enough for winter.
• Half a year into the conflict with Russia, life far from the front lines feels relatively normal. But the burdens and losses are hard to avoid, despite the public’s bravery, as a woman from Toronto notes.
• Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, three hospitals in Ukrainian-controlled areas of war-torn Donetsk region had facilities to care for premature babies. One was hit by a Russian airstrike and the other had to close as a result of the fighting ‒ leaving only the maternity hospital in the coal mining town of Pokrovsk still operating.
• In the early hours of this morning, nine Turkish Airlines flights operating the Moscow-Antalya rotation departed in quick succession. It remains clear that Turkey is continuing to benefit from Russian tourism, as the choices for Russian holidays continues to remain limited in the wake of the Ukraine Crisis.
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• The daughter of an ultra-nationalist Russian ideologue who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine, Darya Dugina, was killed in a suspected car bomb attack outside Moscow on Saturday evening. The prominent ideologue Alexander Dugin’s daughter was killed after a suspected explosive device detonated on the Toyota Land Cruiser she was travelling in.
• The meeting in Lviv between Erdogan and Zelensky has brought some optimism that peace talks between Russia and Ukraine could be forthcoming. The Turks have been proactive in trying to push the two sides towards peace, with the Antalya and Istanbul peace talks earlier this year, and the grain deal for which the Turkish side must get substantial credit.
• UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called for wealthier countries to help developing nations purchase Ukrainian grain as supplies begin returning to global markets, in an appeal from the Black Sea port of Odesa on Friday, World Humanitarian Day.

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Drone Footage from the last 24 hours