Ukraine War Watch Thread

[wjfox]

F*cking evil.

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Video shows Russian drone chasing Ukrainian street vendor in 'human safari' attack

4 August 2026, 17:11 BST

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has shared a video on social media of a drone hunting down a man in southern Ukraine, saying it showed an instance of a Russian "safari" attack against civilians.

The video shows the drone pursuing a street vendor on a city street in the Kherson region. The man moves away from the drone hovering above, before it chases him as he runs around a white van. Eventually, the drone swoops down on him and explodes on impact.

The man escaped with multiple shrapnel wounds, concussion and trauma, a doctor said.

Sometimes called "human safari", the deployment of remotely-operated drones against civilians has often been used by Russians to terrify residents of front line areas in Ukraine.

"The world must see this," Zelensky wrote on Telegram. "It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad, and every fact that Russian soldiers are enjoying killings and tormenting people."

The video showed a "barbaric war crime", said Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4n03xg981o

[wjfox]

Ukraine hits two Russian oil refineries in 'long-range' attacks, says Zelensky

- Ukraine's President Zelensky says the country's military has hit two Russian oil refineries in "long-range" attacks

- Zelensky says refineries in Bashkortostan and Yaroslavl were hit - in Yaroslavl, huge clouds of black smoke were seen over the city

- Russia's regional governor in Yaroslavl calls it the "largest ever attack by enemy drones", saying 93 drones have been destroyed, but oil storage tanks have been hit by falling debris

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c242dmen8y3t

[firestar464]

Ukraine denies targeting Bulgaria as drone explodes near pipeline

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 ... r-pipeline

[firestar464]

Russian family denied asylum in Finland fear reprisals for pro-Ukraine activism

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/ ... e-activism

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

VEB Chief Economist Fired After Warning Russia Cannot Win ‘War of Attrition’ – The Bell

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/ ... ell-a93513

[firestar464]

Judge Sentences Lev Shlosberg to 11 Years in Prison for Anti-War Statements

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/08/ ... nts-a93516

[firestar464]

Suspected Russian drone shot down in Romanian airspace

https://periscope.corsfix.com/?https:// ... 026-08-16/

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

[firestar464]

Shootout in Kyiv between Ukrainian spy services ‘disgraceful’, says Zelenskyy

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/ ... sgraceful-

[firestar464]

Russia Is Integrating AI Models into Its Cognitive Warfare Campaign Against Ukraine

https://understandingwar.org/research/g ... t-ukraine/

[caltrek]

As Russia Attacks Ukraine’s Grid, Solar Offers a Path to Resilience
By Anna Conkling
September 16, 2026

Introduction:

(Grist) On a spring day earlier this year, 10 men stood on the rooftop of a door manufacturing facility in the central Ukrainian town of Bila Tserkva, surveying the rows of solar panels that surrounded them. Since Russia invaded in 2022, the town has endured repeated attacks, triggering mass power outages. For the factory, which supplies doors to homes and businesses, keeping production going had become extremely challenging. The outages were particularly brutal in the winter, when limited power supplies led to rolling blackouts across the country.

Some days, the employees burned discarded wood in a fireplace to keep the warehouse warm. The facility has backup generators, but they were expensive to run. Tired of relying on a grid that was being routinely bombarded by Russian missiles, Yaroslav, the facility’s owner, decided to switch to solar earlier this year.

Switching to solar energy will enable them to “further expand our capacity and be a bit more independent from the general grid,” he said. “It will be cheaper, more economical, and more ecological.” (Yaroslav requested that Grist use only his first name and withhold details about the facility for fear of Russian retaliation.)

In the spring, he contacted Yasno, a private Ukrainian electricity and gas supplier, to install solar panels on his rooftop. Yasno’s clients pay for the panels to be installed, often with the help of a government program that covers some of the installation expenses. Ukraine created incentives to encourage businesses to switch to renewable energy, like the “Affordable Loans 5-7-9” program, which offers loans to purchase solar panels and other equipment. The preferential loans have interest rates of 5, 7, or 9 percent, depending on the type of business, and can cover up to 80 percent of the installation costs.

Read more here: https://grist.org/international/as-rus ... lience/

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Worsening economic situation in Russia, but they're still determined to push on in Ukraine. And openly boasting about harming civilians.

Latest from Steve Rosenberg:

[wjfox]