War in Ukraine, day 920 | Moscow says it foiled a “massive” drone attack

(Moscow) Russia said Saturday evening that it had foiled new nighttime drone attacks in the West, including a “massive” one in the Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine, and another that targeted the Russian capital, without reporting any casualties.

“Our defense foiled an attempt of a massive drone attack over the territory of the Bryansk region,” local governor Alexander Bogomaz reported around 1 a.m. (6 p.m.) [heure de l’Est] SATURDAY).

At least 26 devices were “identified and destroyed” by the Russian army without causing any injuries or damage, Mr Bogomaz said on the Telegram social network.

He said last week that the army had prevented an attempted incursion by a group of Ukrainian “saboteurs” there, while the neighboring Kursk region has been the scene of an offensive by Kyiv’s forces since August 6.

Three aircraft flying towards Moscow were also neutralized by Russian forces, according to the mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, more than a week after what the elected official had described as “one of the most important” drone attacks in Moscow’s history – the defense had then destroyed 11 drones, according to the authorities.

The Russian defense also shot down missiles in the regions of Belgorod and Voronezh, also bordering Ukraine, as well as in those of Lipetsk and Ryazan, without their governors reporting their exact number.

“The glazing of three residential buildings in Belgorod was damaged. Within a private residence, a utility building was completely destroyed,” said Vyacheslav Gladkov, head of the Belgorod region.

In the Orel region, a drone was neutralized during the night, according to the governor Andrei Klychkov.

On Wednesday, two fuel depots caught fire in the Russian regions of Rostov and Kirov following attacks by Ukrainian drones.

More than 66,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine identified by media

Independent Russian website Mediazona, in collaboration with the BBC Russian Service, reported on Saturday that it had identified more than 66,000 Russian soldiers killed since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Their count, published in a joint survey and stopped on August 30, 2024, comes from the exploitation of certain information, such as official press releases or publications in the media and on social networks, and from the observation of tombs in cemeteries.

“As of August 30, we know the names of 66,471 Russian soldiers who died in the war,” Mediazona said in a statement on Telegram.

In mid-April, the two media outlets said they had identified more than 50,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine since February 24, 2022.

Both media outlets warn that their count does not claim to be exhaustive.

At the end of February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky estimated the number of Ukrainian servicemen killed at 31,000, while the Russian army has only very rarely communicated on its military losses and these figures are considered to be largely underestimated.

The Kremlin cited “the law on state secrets” and “the special regime” to justify the lack of official communication on Russian military losses.

In early June, when asked about the subject during a meeting with international press agencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to quantify Russian losses in Ukraine, stating only that they were “lower” than Ukrainian losses by “a ratio of one to five.”

In August 2023, the American daily The New York Timesciting U.S. officials, estimated Russian military losses at 120,000 dead.