06 Oct: Nice. Russians Close Another Week with Deadly Friendly Fire - Reporting from Ukraine

Day 590: Oct 06

Today, they are a lot of news.

First of all, in the aftermath of the comprehensive amphibious operation combined with marine and aerial strikes, Ukrainians were able to reopen their harbors. And this is one of the questions that many of you were asking in the comment section – if Russians were forced to remove their Black Sea Fleet away from Sevastopol, does this mean that Russians lost their ability to conduct blockade and control the Black Sea? As it turns out – yes – Ukrainians have organized a safe corridor for commercial ships, Ukrainians have opened all 3 major Black Sea ports, and the first 10 ships have entered Ukrainian waters.

In response, Russian forces started attacking the seaports with kamikaze drones in order to destroy the cargo that was meant for these ships. Even though 25 Shaheds were shot down, 8 of them managed to hit the facilities, and as the recently released footage indicates, the targeted objects were hangars and containers with products for export.

The destruction of infrastructure for exports is one of the strategic objectives of the Russian forces because by reducing Ukrainian exports, Russians are shrinking the Ukrainian economy, which means that Ukrainians cannot finance the military-industrial complex. And this is especially important in the light of recent uncertainty about external help, as the US experiences a government shutdown, and the parliamentary elections in Slovakia were won by the anti-Ukrainian party.

Several days ago, the Russian Air Force also struck a tank production factory in Kharkiv. Even though Ukrainians have not been using this factory since the beginning of the war simply because it is too close to the Russian missile launchers to be protected, the Russian effort still represents a decisive wish to undermine the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.

From better news, Russians once again shot down their own fighter jet. Today, Russian sources reported that a Russian air defense operator in Mariupol confused the Russian jet with a missile and shot it down. One of the reasons is that today, Ukrainians conducted certain strikes in the area, and it was assumed that Ukrainians are trying to destroy the bridge that connects Crimea to Russia, which is the main supply artery of Russian logistics, so the air defense operators were likely too anxious and did not think twice. In total, Russians intercepted their jets already 5 times – and this is only from what has been officially admitted – there are still plenty of unexplained accidents in Braynsk, for example, where Russians lost 4 aircraft, or during the Wagner coup, when at least 7 aircraft were shot down. Some Russian analysts critiqued the lack of coordination and said that if this trend continues, Russians will run out of jets.

In order to precipitate this process and protect Ukrainian skies from missiles, Germany announced its plans to provide Ukraine with an additional Patriot system. And this would be especially helpful during winter as the risk that Russians start hitting the energy infrastructure to create societal pressure is extremely high. Hopefully, the system will arrive very soon.

But the biggest news today is that Ukrainians have detected and destroyed a Russian training base near Donetsk. Ukrainian fighters from the Shadow detachment released a video showing how Russians gather at the training camp just 11 km from Avdiivka. Setting up the camp so close was a terrible idea because Ukrainians quickly detected it and hit with HIMARS rockets. As a result, at least 35 troops were killed and wounded.