The story of Aleksandr: a soldier running through the Siversky Donets river to rescue a Russian soldier in Lyman

When Aleksandr was captured last week, he was barely dressed and so did not wear an oath of loyalty to either Russia or Ukraine. The soldiers gave him a parka that was lying around in their trench.

“He came out of the forest and went to our positions,” said Serhiy, one of the Ukrainian soldiers who had found Aleksandr, recounting the capture to a pair of reporters from The New York Times visiting their position near the front line.

The US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian battlefield setbacks, coupled with the unease in Russian society over mobilization, “was fundamentally changing the Russian information space.” That has included criticism from men of power such as Kadyrov and pro-war milbloggers who have often provided insights into battlefield realities for Russian forces.

Lyman, a strategically important rail hub, sits on the northeastern bank of the Siversky Donets river amid a mesh of fields and forests. The Russians captured it in May, but over the weekend Ukraine’s forces retook the city as part of a stunning offensive that is pushing back Russia in the east. Future Ukrainian advances could be served by an important foothold in Lyman.

The battalion commander came across an abandoned armored vehicle as he was racing down the road in pursuit of retreating Russian soldiers. Inside there was a sniper rifle, rocket propelled grenades, helmets and belongings. The men were out of sight.

“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. “I think it was a special unit, but they were panicking. It was raining and the road was bad, they dropped everything and moved.

Putin’s “Gaps” on the battlefield: The misdemeanors of Ukrainian forces and the role of their quislings

Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. In a recent four-minute rant on the messaging app Telegram, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing “gaps” on the battlefield that had allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances in the region, which is illegally claimed by Russia.

Russian President Putin told people that the campaign was not a war, and they could forget about it. Draftees, he promised falsely, would not fight, and military operations would be left to the professionals. And Putin’s Ministry of Defense delivered platitudes about progress on the battlefield, talking points quickly parroted by Russian state television.

Some of this criticism is not new, as Stremousov might be aware of the fact that troublesome leaders of Russian-backed separatist entities have a habit of dying violently. Ramzan Kadyrov, one of Putin’s top domestic enforcers, urged the Russian military to expand its campaign, suggesting that the approach Moscow had taken was not brutal enough.

“First of all, we need to stop lying,” said Andrei Kartopolov, a former colonel-general in the Russian military and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. “We brought this up many times before … But somehow it’s apparently not getting through to individual senior figures.”

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Valuyki is located in Russia’s Belgorod region. When struck by Russian targets across the border, Kyiv has typically adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance.

Stremousov did not say ‘traitors’, but ‘inept commanders’, who did not bother and were not accountable for the processes and gaps that exist today.’ Sergei Shoigu, the Minister of Defense, could shoot himself if he wanted to. But, you know, the word officer is an unfamiliar word for many.”

Kadyrov has become a lot less reticent about blaming Russian commanders after the retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman.

Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov personally blamed Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

“The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control,” ISW noted in its recent analysis.

One of the central features of Putinism is a fetish for World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. The tactics used by the Red Army to defeat Hitler’s Wehrmacht were praised by many of the people in Russia’s party of war.

One of the most prominent voices in arguing against the use of draconian methods is Kadyrov, who was promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general. He recently stated in a Telegram post that he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers if he had his way.

“Yes, if it were my will, I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.

The video from Monday showed a soldier using a missile on a cruise missile to shoot down a Russian projectile.

As Ukraine races to shore up its missile defenses in the wake of the assault, the math for Moscow is simple: A percentage of projectiles are bound to get through.

It’s not clear how far the Russian inventories are being depleted, and if they will use older, less accurate and equally powerful missiles.

The Pentagon’s view at the time was that of its weapons stocks, Russia was “running the lowest on cruise missiles, particularly air-launched cruise missiles,” but that Moscow still had more than 50% of its pre-war inventory.

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.

Ukraine’s Defense Contact Group Meets Vladimir Zelensky: A New Era of Air Defense Embedded in Ukraine and aimed at destroying the Middle East

Ukraine’s energy operators are getting used to fixing electricity substations and power plants. Zelensky said Tuesday: “Most of the towns and villages, which terrorists wanted to leave without electricity and communication, already have electricity and communication back.”

He mentioned that this was the first time that Russia has targeted energy infrastructure since the beginning of the war.

The Defense Department continued to work on improving Ukrainian air defenses by finding soviet-era capabilities and donating them to other countries, according to a senior official.

It is un economic to take cheap drones with advanced systems. But there may be other answers for the hundreds of attack drones Russia is now deploying. Zelensky claims that Russia has ordered 2,400 Shahed-136 drones from Iran.

“This is only the beginning. The item on today’s agenda is bolstering Ukrainian’s air defense, which was one of the topics that Reznikov discussed with Ukraine’s donors at the meeting. Feeling optimistic.”

Missiles for their existing systems and a transition to Western-originlayered air defense system were some of the things that the Ukrainians wish-list included.

Speaking after the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, he said such a system would not “control all the airspace over Ukraine, but they are designed to control priority targets that Ukraine needs to protect. It’s a mix of short-range low- altitude, medium-range medium altitude, and long-range and high altitude systems.

Westernsystems are starting to trickle in. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Tuesday that a “new era of air defense has begun” with the arrival of the first IRIS-T from Germany, and two units of the US National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAM) expected soon.

But these are hardly off-the-shelf-items. The IRIS-T had to be manufactured for Ukraine. Western governments have limited inventories of such systems. Ukraine is being attacked from three directions.

The United States and Ukraine are using kamikaze drones in the fight against Iranian attacks and other terrorist attacks on Ukrainian soil: the case of Vinnyt province

Ukraine’s senior military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, tweeted Tuesday his thanks to Poland as “brothers in arms” for training an air defense battalion that had destroyed nine of 11 Shaheeds.

He said Poland had given Ukraine “systems” to help destroy the drones. Last month there were reports that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment (Israel has a policy of not selling “advanced defensive technology” to Kyiv) and was then transferring it to Ukraine.

Which drones are being used in Ukraine by Russia? The Ukrainian military and US intelligence say Russia is using Iranian-made attack drones. The US told CNN that Iran had begun to show its Shahed drones to Russia in July. The drones can carry up to 50 kilogrammes (120 pounds) and have a targeting accuracy of more than 95 per cent.

The drones are disposable so the namekamikaze refers to that. They are designed to hit behind enemy lines and are destroyed in the attack — unlike the more traditional, larger and faster military drones that return home after dropping missiles.

Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have replaced their larger drones with batteries-powered commercial drones for a fraction of the cost. Small weapons like grenades are dropped on enemy troops and vehicles by quadcopters. They are designed to be recovered, rearmed and used again after their batteries are recharged.

In March, the Pentagon announced it would send 100 “tactical unmanned aerial systems” called Switchblades. The administration promised another 300 in the next month. Eight days later, the Defense Department said it would send 120 Phoenix Ghost drones to Ukraine. The United States gave Ukraine money in July to buy more of them.

In August, the Pentagon said it would send Puma drones — small aircraft that soldiers toss into the air to launch and then control by remote control from up to nine miles away. Pumas can stay at altitudes of about 500 feet.

The Ukrainian military said in a statement last week that they have downed at least 237 drones in the country’s east. Mr. Sak said they are trying to adapt quickly to the new reality.

One Ukrainian MiG pilot won folk hero status in Ukraine this month for shooting down five Iranian Shahed-136 drones over the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia, only to be forced to eject after crashing into the debris of the last one. The pilot, Karaya, who identified himself only as his nickname, told local news media that they are going to destroy the weapon successfully within a few days.

After colliding with the airborne debris, he said, Karaya steered his MiG away from Vinnytsia and ejected. The jet crashed into houses in an outlying area, but injured nobody on the ground. The site was visited by Karaya to apologize.

The first day of the Ukrainian war with Russia was chaotic: Anatoliy Nikitin and Sergei Volovyk fought together on a highway

“I visited the scene, said I was sorry for the discomfort I caused the residents and thanked them for their steel nerves,” he wrote on Instagram, saying he showed up in his tattered uniform, missing epaulets. He joked that it was a violation of military protocol. “Lost them while leaving the office,” he wrote.

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — On the second day of the war with Russia, Anatoliy Nikitin and Stas Volovyk, two Ukrainian army reservists, were ordered to deliver NLAW anti-tank missiles to fellow soldiers in the suburbs north of Kyiv. Then, as they stood exposed on a highway, Nikitin, who goes by the battle nickname Concrete, says they received new orders.

A man said that there were two Russian tanks coming at him. Nikitin was sitting on a park bench in the southern city of Mykolaiv as the shelling continued.

Neither soldier had ever fired an NLAW. So, as the tanks approached, they hid amongst some trees and looked up a YouTube video on how to do so. They took their positions, prepared the missiles.

Then the commander said, ‘Oh, it’s ours!’ Volovyk goes by the nickname Raptors and says ‘It’s ours!’ “So, we did not fire. It was a really close call.”

The two men fought in both environments and described their on-the- job training as mix of terror, adventure and black comedy. The two men offer an unvarnished view of the fighting and say the first days of the war were filled with confusion.

“It was chaotic, very chaotic, that’s why I wear a salt-and-pepper beard,” says Nikita, who heads a construction company. “It’s lucky for us that the Russians were more chaotic than us.”

Volovyk is a 33-year-old software engineer who learned English by playing video games. He says Russian tactics and decision-making have improved during the war, but he found some of their early actions perplexing. Riot police who were deployed by the Russians were wiped out.

“We see how they advance, we see how they fight and we were like, ‘Okay, is this their best or are they just mocking us?’” recalls Volovyk, who wears a camouflage cap with the message “Don’t Worry, Be Ready.”

The Russians started to leave the suburbs in late March. After this, the two men followed orders and headed south to fight a very different kind of war. Outside the capital is where the protection of suburbs and forest was left behind for sweeping farm fields. They started at the bottom: working the trenches.

“It sucks,” says Volovyk. You dig. You dig. That’s the only thing you can do, because this is an artillery war and unless you dig, you’re pretty much dead.”

After two weeks, the men were offered new jobs doing reconnaissance. It’s dangerous work that involves getting close to enemy lines and trying to evade detection. The men leaped at the chance to get out of the trenches.

Their recon team, known as the “Fireflies,” has its own Instagram account and YouTube channel. The videos show them setting up in an abandoned farmhouse after flying a drone from a field. Then they help guide a shell that just misses a Russian armored personnel carrier, enveloping it in a cloud of smoke. It’s a reminder that, even with all the advanced technology, it’s still hard to hit a moving target.

The soldiers have gone through some difficult times. The Russian soldier was discovered by a team of engineers when they traveled with them.

“He just jumps into the bushes, after I look at him, he just looks at me, and then he jumps into the bushes,” recalls Nikitin. He ordered the engineers to shoot the Russian and any of his fellow soldiers.

Six years ago, after the Russians invaded Crimea, Nikitin and Volovyk joined the army reserve. They knew Russia would attempt to take the rest of Ukraine and they weren’t prophets. Kherson, the regional capital, is their goal down south.