Day 225 Roundup: Putin Appears to Acknowledge Losses as Ukraine Retakes Three More Settlements in Kherson

Facts

• On Wednesday, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin appeared to acknowledge the extent of the country's losses in annexed regions of Ukraine, telling teachers during a televised video call: 'We are working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilize.'¹
• It came as Ukraine reported a breakthrough in the southern Kherson region - one of the territories annexed by Moscow this week - with forces claiming they had liberated eight settlements in the region in the span of a day. In his nightly address, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed the liberation of three further settlements - Novovoskresenske, Novohryhorivka and Petropavlivka – in Kherson.²
• Meanwhile, Putin signed a decree on Wednesday ordering his government to take over operations at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP). The ZNPP has been under Russian control since March and is located within annexed territory. It came as Vladimir Rogov, a Ukrainian in Russia's administration in Zaporizhzhia, claimed without evidence that Britain was preparing Ukrainian special forces to launch an attack on the ZNPP.³
• Elsewhere, American intelligence officials - speaking on the condition of anonymity for a New York Times report - said they believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car-bomb attack that killed 29-year-old Darya Dugina in the outskirts of Moscow on Aug. 20. US officials said they didn't know of the attack ahead of time and reportedly admonished Ukrainian counterparts following the assassination. Ukrainian officials rejected the allegations.⁴
• In a separate report in the Intercept, other US officials said America has vastly expanded the presence of CIA and special forces operatives in Ukraine following the outbreak of the war. 'There is a much larger presence of both CIA and US special operations personnel and resources in Ukraine than there were at the time of the Russian invasion in February,' the report said.⁵
• On the ground, two separate Russian attacks were reported in Ukrainian-controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least one civilian and injuring at least two others. Russian attacks were also recorded in Sumy, Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Khmelnytskyi with no additional reports of civilian casualties. Pro-Russia separatists in Donetsk reported two civilians were killed in Ukrainian shelling.⁶

Sources: ¹Guardian (a), ²UKRINFORM, ³I24News, ⁴New York Times, ⁵Intercept and ⁶Guardian (b).

Narratives

• Anti-Russia narrative, as provided by 19FortyFive. Putin started this illegal war that has jeopardized the world's energy security, and he is now threatening the deployment of nuclear weapons. One thing is clear - Putin has to go and the US and its allies must be steadfast in calling for regime change in Russia.
• Pro-Russia narrative, as provided by TASS. American officials are continuing to escalate this conflict, thereby increasing the prospect of a global war between Russia and the West. Why is no one calling for the West to take accountability and stabilize the situation by improving bilateral relations with Russia?