1. Commander of the 3rd Army Corps Andrii Biletskyi officially reported that about 75 km² had been cleared of russian infiltration groups, and another approximately 10 km² had been directly returned under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The operation was named “Vivaldi”.
Ukraine is conducting a full-scale counteroffensive operation in the north of the Donetsk oblast and has thwarted one of the key parts of russia’s plan to encircle the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration. This indicates that the russian Armed Forces have lost the initiative in this section of the front.
2. Overnight, Ukrainian drones attacked the Syzran Oil Refinery in the Samara oblast and industrial facilities in Taganrog. Volodymyr Zelensky personally confirmed the strike on the oil refinery in Syzran.
The attack on a russian oil refinery following Trump’s statement about an “energy truce” between Ukraine and russia, as well as the publication of his demand that Zelensky stop strikes on such facilities, is Kyiv’s signal that there will be no unilateral concessions and that Trump must exert corresponding pressure on the kremlin as well. Trump found himself in a delicate situation, since Zelensky’s open defiance undermines his image as an “all-powerful leader” on the eve of the congressional elections. At the same time, he cannot punish Ukraine by cutting off aid to it either — accusations of playing along with russia also hurt the Republicans’ ratings.
3. The Verkhovna Rada gave its consent to the dismissal of Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko. The conflict was preceded by Kravchenko’s open confrontation with NABU and SAPO: the Prosecutor General signed a notice of suspicion against detective Kryvonos and left the country. On the same day, the High Anti-Corruption Court extended for 60 days the procedural obligations of former Head of the Office of the President Andrii Yermak, but removed his electronic bracelet: “he may pose a threat to life and health”.
Kravchenko’s resignation defuses another stage of the authorities’ confrontation with the anti-corruption hierarchy, but does not eliminate its cause: an institutional conflict over who controls investigations into top officials. Essentially, the Office of the President of Ukraine is defending the right of top officials to “controlled” corruption.
4. In the occupied part of Donbas, early voting in the elections to the russian State Duma is taking place from September 9 to 17, with the main voting days being September 18–20. The head of the “DNR”, Pushilin, reported that about 699 mobile teams operate daily, collecting votes from apartments and building entrances under the supervision of “observers”.
Mobile voting from building to building is essentially a census of loyalty, a ritual of “initiation”: it records who has remained, who agrees to sign up for russian citizenship, and who can be registered for mobilization and “social” obligations. In addition, it shifts responsibility for the actions of the russian authorities regarding Donbas from putin to the “choice of the people” who support him.