Attack On Europe: Documenting Russian Equipment Losses During The 2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine (2 year anniversary)

There are close to 700,000 Russian service members deployed in Ukraine, including National Guard soldiers, special forces, and support units, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) spokesperson Andrii Yusov said on Sept. 5.

“The majority is deployed in Donetsk Oblast, which shows... (Russia's) priorities,” Yusov said in an interview with Ukrainian news channel Novyny.Live.

Ukraine's army fields almost 900,000 service members across the country, but President Volodymyr Zelensky said in January that Russia continues to hold a numerical advantage in some front-line sectors due to the concentration of forces. At the time, the Russian contingent in Ukraine counted 600,000 troops, Zelensky said.

Despite reportedly suffering over 1 million soldiers killed and wounded during the full-scale war, Russia has been consistently able to offset its losses by fresh contract soldiers, while Kyiv faces increasingly critical manpower shortages.

Moscow has also received North Korean reinforcements, with thousands of troops expected to arrive after the initial batch of 11,000-12,000 soldiers who were deployed in Russia's Kursk Oblast in late 2024. The North Korean contingent helped Russia fend off a Ukrainian incursion into the Russian border region, reportedly suffering 2,000 soldiers killed in combat. When asked if North Korean troops have joined hostilities on Ukrainian territory, Yusov responded that Pyongyang's forces currently remain in Russia. Along the entire front, 40-60% of artillery shells fired at Ukraine and Ukrainian soldiers are North Korean-made — these are huge numbers,” Yusov said. “If this factor were taken away, Russia's fire support and strike capabilities would be much smaller,” the spokesperson said, noting that North Korean artillery and missile supplies play a much more significant role than the troop deployment.

https://kyivindependent.com/nearly-700-000-russian-military-personnel-deployed-in-ukraine-intelligence-says/

Special forces have evacuated four Ukrainian soldiers who spent three years hiding in Russian-occupied territory, Oleksii Neizhpapa, commander of the Ukrainian Navy, said on Sept. 5.

He said that they had been evacuated by the navy's Angels special forces unit.

The soldiers had been injured in combat and had been hiding in the occupied territories in a hospital where “sympathetic doctors” helped them avoid Russian secret services, Neizhpapa wrote on Facebook. The evacuees include a marine, three National Guards and a medical worker who helped hide the soldiers.

“The operation was planned and divided into several stages, taking into account the illegal status of all persons and the high intensity of combat operations, which was complicated by increased filtration measures on the part of the Russian special services,” Neizhpapa said. “Our guys survived where it seemed there was no chance.”

The Angels unit has rescued 88 people in total.

https://kyivindependent.com/four-ukrainian-soldiers-rescued-after-hiding-for-three-years-in-russian-occupied-territory-ukrainian-navy-s/

Bodyguards for Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un got into a scuffle over the air conditioning remote during a meeting between the two leaders in China earlier this week, according to Kommersant journalist Andrey Kolesnikov.

The conflict allegedly began when one of Kim's bodyguards silently adjusted the room temperature to 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit). His Russian counterpart objected, insisting it be lowered to 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit).

According to Kolesnikov, the dispute started as a verbal exchange, with Putin's guard speaking in Russian. Although Kim's bodyguard understood him, he refused to comply — prompting a physical altercation over the remote control. “They spent some time prying each other's fingers off the remote before one of them finally lost his cool and settled the matter with a single move,” Kolesnikov writes. “The Korean guy probably felt a bit of pain.”

One of the photos in Kolesnikov’s report is captioned “The heat was never turned up,” implying that the Russian guard won the dispute. Kolesnikov also observed that the meeting venue had been hastily arranged — initially, there were only two chairs in the room, insufficient for delegation-level talks. Staff were seen swapping out Belarusian flags for North Korean ones in full view of the press.

The meeting between Putin and Kim took place on September 3 in China. During their talks, Putin emphasized the “allied relations” between the two countries and expressed gratitude for North Korean soldiers participating in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/09/05/prying-each-other-s-fingers-off-the-remote

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