Ukraine Summer Offensive Update Sept 1 (Europe Edition): ‘Then I Saw a Severed Head’

An updated version of this article is available here.

Overview

• Critics of counteroffensive should “shut up,” Foreign Minister says

• US DOJ charges man with smuggling arms-ready tech to Russia

• Ukrainian forces advance near Bakhmut and in western Zaporizhzhia

• Russian attacks along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line are repelled

• Russia intercepts either a Ukrainian missile or drone in Crimea

• See images of Russian jets destroyed by drones

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Try to liberate Ukraine yourselves, Kuleba tells Western critics

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters on Thursday that Western officials who are complaining about the slow pace of the counteroffensive against Russia should simply “shut up” and come to Ukraine to try for themselves.

Reuters described the remarks as “the sharpest signal yet of Kyiv’s frustration at leaks from Western officials who say its forces are advancing too slowly.”

“Criticizing the slow pace of [the] counteroffensive equals... spitting into the face of [the] Ukrainian soldier who sacrifices his life every day, moving forward and liberating one kilometer of Ukrainian soil after another,” Kuleba told reporters.

“I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimeter by themselves,” he said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Spain.

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US charges man for scheme to sell weapons-ready tech to Russia

A Russian-German man arrested earlier this week in Cyprus was charged Thursday by US authorities with seeking to export American-made electronics to Russia for military use, Agence France Presse reported Thursday:

The US Department of Justice said Arthur Petrov, 33, violated export controls when he planned to sell American microelectronics to a Russian firm that provides “critical electronics components” to the Russian military, according to AFP:

Petrov used a cover company in Cyprus, telling US vendors that the electronics were to be used in Cyprus or other authorized countries for fire security systems, the Justice Department said.

The things he sought to buy were microcontrollers and integrated circuits that cannot be lawfully exported to Russia, and Petrov was aware of that, it said.

The intended recipient of the tech was a St. Petersburg company named Electrocom VPK, which supplies electronic components for Russian weapons makers.

Operations – Luhansk region

Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on Thursday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported but said Russian troops did not make any confirmed advances.

The Ukrainian General Staff and Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar reported that Russian forces conducted unsuccessful offensive operations near Novoyehorivka (16 km southwest of Svatove) and Bilohorivka (13 km south of Kreminna).

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) reported via Facebook that the Russians, across Ukraine, launched a total of 3 missiles, 31 air strikes and rocket launch attacks, resulting in civilian deaths and casualties.

Operations – Donetsk region

Ukrainian forces successfully advanced southward from Bakhmut on Thursday, both the Ukrainian General Staff and Maliar reported. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), countered that Ukrainian forces unsuccessfully attacked near Bohdanivka (6 km northwest of Bakhmut), Andriivka (10 km southwest of Bakhmut), and Mayorsk (17 km south of Bakhmut).

Russia says it shot down Ukrainian missile in Crimea

The Russian MoD claimed on Thursday that its air defenses shot down a Ukrainian missile targeting Russian rear positions in occupied Crimea on Wednesday night. Russian milbloggers claimed instead that what Russian forces intercepted was a Ukrainian drone near Feodosia (98 km from Simferopol).

Footage published on Wednesday shows an explosion near a substation in the vicinity of Feodosia:

Images surface of Russian planes knocked out by Ukrainian drones

New images show the damage to Russian II-76 transport planes at the airbase in Pskov (Kresty Airbase), after a reported drone attack.

Draft-dodging Ukrainians a growing concern

International media have been focusing on those Ukrainian men who have no interest in serving on the front lines against Russia or are no longer interested in doing so.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour filed a story this week contrasting interviews with beachgoers on the Odessa coast with footage of soldiers in a nearby military medical facility, convalescing from shrapnel injuries, etc.

On Thursday, AFP published interviews with men such as Ivan Ishchenko, who volunteered to fight against invading Russian troops, but after a month of combat he was willing to pay thousands of dollars and risk prison to flee the front.

“I saw someone being shot near his spleen; the pain was crazy. Then I saw a severed head. It all built up... I didn't want to see anything else,” Ischenko told AFP.

Ishchenko managed to leave the country despite a ban on the departure of all men aged between 18 and 60. He paid $5,000 for a government-plated car to escort him to a forest on the border with Hungary. He then escaped through a hole in the fence and ran.

Ukrainian pacifists protest in occupied territories

The AFP also reported that members of a Ukrainian resistance movement broadcast Kyiv’s anthem in Luhansk to celebrate Independence Day on August 24, and posted the shaky cellphone video, surreptitiously shot to avoid attention, on social media.

It was one of several initiatives carried out by members of the Yellow Ribbon Civil Resistance Movement, which was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize last year.