Weekend Briefing

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Morning Headlines

Reuters: A Russian overnight air attack on Kyiv wounded eight residents of an apartment building, including a three-year-old child, authorities in the Ukrainian capital said on Monday.

The Kyiv Independent: Russia has significantly depleted its extensive stockpiles of Soviet-era weaponry since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the flow of military goods from storage facilities to the front lines now returning to pre-2022 levels, according to a new analysis of logistics data by the Kyiv School of Economics.

Reuters: Russia's national carrier Aeroflot said on Monday that a failure has occurred in the airline's information systems, which may cause temporary disruptions in service operations.

ISW: Russian forces appear to be using armored vehicles more frequently in some tactical attacks after a decrease in the use of armor since Winter 2024-2025.

The Kyiv Independent: Serbia will not impose sanctions against Russia and will continue to adhere to its established policy on the issue, President Aleksandar Vucic said, responding to recent comments by Minister for European Affairs Nemanja Starovic.

27.07.2025

CBS News: Russia on Sunday opened a regular air link between Moscow and Pyongyang, a move reflecting increasingly close ties between the two countries.

The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's top drone warfare commander, Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, has hinted that Russia attempted a coordinated strike targeting multiple Ukrainian drone unit leaders.

AP News: Russia on Sunday scaled down the festivities honoring its navy citing security concerns as continuing Ukrainian drone attacks posed a challenge to the Kremlin. Russian authorities canceled the parades of warships in St. Petersburg, in the Kaliningrad region on the Baltic and in the far-eastern port of Vladivostok.

The Kyiv Independent: Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger expressed in an interview with German media outlet Welt willingness to engage in a "national debate" about the country’s potential accession to NATO, citing Europe's evolving security challenges in the wake of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

FT: US-German software company Auterion will send 33,000 of its AI drone “strike kits” to Ukraine before the end of the year under a new contract with the Pentagon to help Kyiv combat mass Russian drone attacks (archive).

ISW: Russia is increasingly targeting densely populated cities as part of a cognitive warfare effort to weaken Ukrainian resolve and to undermine Ukraine's long-term defense capacity.

26.07.2025

The Kyiv Independent: Lithuania plans to contribute up to 30 million euro toward the joint purchase of U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems for Ukraine, Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported on July 26.

Reuters: North Korea may deploy additional troops to Russia to fight in the war against Ukraine in July or August and Pyongyang is continuing to supply arms to Russia, South Korean lawmakers said on Thursday, citing a briefing by the intelligence agency.

The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine’s Khortytsia group of forces reported on July 26 that Russian Colonel Lebedev, commander of the 83rd Motorized Rifle Regiment of the 69th Motorized Rifle Division, had been killed.

Reuters: An Indian firm that shipped $1.4 million worth of an explosive compound with military uses to Russia in December said on Saturday it complies with Indian rules and the substance it had shipped was for civilian industrial purposes.

The Kyiv Independent: A Russian Su-27UB fighter jet caught fire at the Armavir airfield in Russia's Krasnodar Krai, Ukraine's military intelligence agency reported on July 26, hinting it was an act of Russian sabotage.

Bloomberg: “There is growing evidence of challenging times across multiple sectors of the Russian economy,” says Alex Kokcharov, a geoeconomics analyst at Bloomberg Economics. “The impacts of war, Western sanctions, labor shortages, lower oil prices, a more expensive currency and high interest rates” are taking their toll (archive).

The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian troops in Sumy Oblast, disrupting Moscow's attempts to expand its foothold in the region, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on July 26.

Reuters: Ukrainian drones hit a radio and electronic warfare equipment plant in Russia's Stavropol region in an overnight attack on Saturday, an official from the SBU security service told Reuters.

BBC: Putin has repeatedly promised that no 18-year-olds called up to serve Russia will be sent to fight in Ukraine, but a BBC Russian investigation has found at least 245 soldiers of that age have been killed there in the past two years.

Reuters: President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that Ukrainian forces were facing fierce fighting around the city of Pokrovsk in the east, a logistics hub near which Russia has been announcing the capture of villages on an almost daily basis.

25.07.2025

Reuters: During a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022, Elon Musk gave an order that disrupted the counteroffensive and dented Kyiv’s trust in Starlink. Musk told a senior engineer at the California offices of SpaceX, the Musk venture that controls Starlink, to cut coverage in areas including Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea that Ukraine was trying to reclaim.

France 24: Russia could be turning to a new cryptocurrency called A7A5 to allow money to flow in and out of the country and avoid Western sanctions, experts have told AFP.

Reuters: President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday toured a factory producing interceptor drones, increasingly seen as a solution to protecting Ukrainian cities from Russian air attacks, and said a goal had been set to make up to 1,000 of the weapons each day.

The War Zone: Russia appears to be using a new type of air-to-air missile in its war in Ukraine. Evidence is mounting that the R-77M — a significantly upgraded version of the R-77 beyond-visual-range missile known to NATO as the AA-12 Adder — is not only operational but being employed in combat.

Reuters: The United States told China at the United Nations on Friday it should "stop fueling Russia's aggression" in Ukraine, as China accused Washington of trying to shift blame and spark confrontation.

Euractiv: Moscow cannot be expelled from Europe’s top nuclear fusion project, EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen has confirmed in response to concerns raised by members of the European Parliament.

CNN: Satellite imagery shows that construction has sharply accelerated at Russia's Alabuga factory. Dozens of new buildings, including what experts believe to be new dormitories and production facilities, have been rapidly taking shape since the winter snow melted this year.

Reuters: The European Parliament is considering proposals to speed up the EU's phase out Russian gas by one year, to January 2027, documents seen by Reuters showed, as officials in Brussels prepare to negotiate the legally-binding ban.

The Kyiv Independent: President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had reached an agreement with Trump on the sale of Ukrainian drones to the United States. Zelensky estimated the potential contract to be worth between $10 billion and $30 billion.

Reuters: Ukraine has received confirmation from partners that they will provide funding for three Patriot missile defence systems and discussions are underway to finance seven more, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday.

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