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A cautionary tale of how war is governed not by the laws of war, but by the wishes of a dictator detached from reality. Last week, Russian president Vladimir Putin unexpectedly announced that his army had captured the important small town of Sviatohirsk near Lyman, on the Sloviansk axis.
Besides its military importance, it also has major religious and cultural significance for Ukraine. The town is home to the Sviatohirsk Lavra monastery, in the vicinity of which events unfolded that could serve as a lesson to Russians — and explain why they have already lost one million soldiers killed and wounded in Ukraine. One reason is the constant self-deception about where the front line lies.
It works like this: someone in the chain of command reports to their superiors that a position, village or town has been captured, even though this is not true. The superiors, however, then use this information in subsequent planning and order the capture of the next village, even though the enemy still controls the first one. The result is bloody assaults intended to capture both locations — the first so that reports match reality, and the second so that the order is fulfilled.
We do not know whether Putin was a victim of this principle on this occasion, or simply did not know what he was saying, but his subordinates understood his statement to mean that they had to produce evidence. The result is an even greater embarrassment than when he announced the capture of Kupiansk last year. At least there were some Russian soldiers there then, but this time the nearest ones are at least 10 km from Sviatohirsk. So they sent AI there instead.
Russian Z channels picked up the report. For example, Yuri Kotenok acknowledged that evidence was lacking, but a reader from his post would have come away with the impression that Sviatohirsk had genuinely fallen. He wrote about it alongside the equally fabricated claim by the Russian defence ministry that Russian forces had encircled Ukrainian units in the north-east of Kharkiv region.
“One must be prepared for the enemy to deny, ‘until its last breath’, the loss of positions and settlements, because this would immediately shatter the image of ‘Russia’s defeat in the Ukrainian war’ which they have been desperately painting in Europe for at least two years, sparing no paint [weapons and equipment],” wrote Kotenok, who is followed by more than 300,000 users.
The larger and more influential Two Majors channel was still uncritically reporting on Saturday that, on the Lyman axis, “the Russian defence ministry had included Sviatohirsk in its list of settlements that came under the control of the Russian Armed Forces over the past week”.
On Saturday, Russian sources also began circulating a video purportedly proving that Russian soldiers subordinated to the 20th Army of the Western Military District were in the town. Analyst Andrew Perpetua and others pointed out that someone had added new audio to authentic footage from 2025 to make it appear as though it showed a Russian soldier walking through the town’s streets.
The Russian 20th CAA added a voiceover to an old video from Sviatohirsk to claim they recently captured the town. Their influencers took the video uncritically and shared it as fact. Dominik found proof the video is Archival.
First, here is Russian upload from today. This is a… pic.twitter.com/uEF7vpyzGv
— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) September 5, 2026
So the Russians already had their “evidence”, and the maps had to be adjusted accordingly. Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti took care of this in advance. As recently as Tuesday (1 September), Sviatohirsk was shown on its map as being in Ukrainian hands:
In the following days, fictitious Russian advances began appearing on the map, and by Sunday it looked like this:
Both versions are hopelessly inaccurate. Sviatohirsk is in the centre of both. The salient leading to it does not exist; the Ukrainian army is successfully attacking here, its soldiers are in Novoselivka and control all of Lyman, which RIA Novosti also depicts as occupied.
However, there are somewhat more sensible sources even among Russians. One of them is Military Informant. Already on Saturday, it unequivocally described two videos circulating on the Russian internet as fake.
It also explained why this had happened. Russians first announced the capture of Sviatohirsk on Tuesday (1 September), though not Putin personally. A day later, it also appeared on a RIA Novosti map. At that point, however, the town’s mayor posted a video from the town showing that it was fully under the control of the Ukrainian army.
“Apparently, following this move, the higher command began urgently demanding some confirmation of the successful breakthrough and capture of the town from the local army command that had submitted such a report,” Military Informant said.
It confirmed that the video above had been falsified by adding a voice afterwards. The second one appears even more absurd. Someone alarmed by Putin’s statement used AI to cut the Ukrainian mayor, who made the video, out of it and replace him with a Russian soldier:
“We have already seen entirely identical situations in attempts to prove control over Kupiansk and Borova. But then staged videos were filmed in other settlements and passed off as being from the locations in question, which was immediately exposed thanks to the distinctive landscape. They apparently decided not to repeat the same mistake for a third time, and so chose to prove control over Sviatohirsk by directly creating fake videos from its territory,” the author wrote.
The conclusion to the story was provided by Andriy Biletskyi, commander of Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps, who arrived in Sviatohirsk on Monday (7 September), casually walked around the town and announced that there were no Russians there.
Андрій Білецький спростовує заяву путіна: Святогірськ — під контролем Третього армійського корпусу!
Бригадний генерал Андрій Білецький записав відеозвернення безпосередньо з центру Святогірська — на фоні Свято-Успенської Святогірської лаври:
«Я хочу звернутися до російського… pic.twitter.com/NPdoJMnlUO
— Третій армійський корпус (@ab3army) September 7, 2026
After the video was published, Military Informant wrote that claims of Sviatohirsk’s capture were equivalent to “us declaring the complete liberation of Sloviansk — the distance from there to Russian Armed Forces positions is currently roughly the same”.
Yuri Kotenok, with whom this account began, also responded to Biletskyi’s video with a post. Note the emojis below it. Those expressing surprise and disappointment predominate. Of course, this is a highly imperfect survey of Russian public opinion, but at least some readers of this channel believed the reports of Sviatohirsk’s capture.
The Finns at Black Bird Group see the situation in the area like this:
The front near Dobropillia moved only minimally over the weekend. The change was marked on its map by the Ukrainian mapping channel Petrenko. Note how close the village of Dobropillia and the identically named town north of it are to one another.
According to Finnish analysts, Russian forces slightly accelerated in August and captured 133 sq km of territory. That is more than three times lower than a year ago, when they occupied 430 sq km during the same month.
The Black Bird Group chart also makes it immediately clear that, from Russia’s perspective, this entire year has been highly unsuccessful. While Russian forces controlled 2,838 sq km of Ukraine in the first eight months of 2025, from January to the end of August 2026 they captured only 819 sq km.
To give a better sense of the scale of this territory, Berlin covers 891 sq km, Prague 496 sq km and Slovakia’s Tatras — from the Roháče Mountains to the Belianske Tatras — 786 sq km.
According to our data, in August the net gains of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine were approximately 133km².
Russian gains are slowly increasing again, but their gains remain extremely limited. Russian gains are a far cry of those from last year.
— Black Bird Group (@Black_BirdGroup) September 5, 2026
There is also a Russian project, Slivochny Kapriz, which tracks movements along the front. Its overall figures are much higher than those of Black Bird Group or DeepStateUA, but they too clearly show the year-on-year slowdown in Russian advances. The data in these Russian charts show the average daily advance in sq km.
Russia’s air-defence system could be reinforced by the seriously ill and wounded. This report can be read in two ways. The first invites ridicule; the second calls for caution. Russia’s president signed a decree allowing people assigned disability category D to enlist in the armed forces. Under the Russian system, this category includes blind and deaf people, as well as people suffering from schizophrenia. It also includes severely wounded veterans from the front.
The idea arose after Yevgeny Poddubny publicly called for it. Officially a war correspondent for Russian state television, he is in fact a pro-war propagandist directly serving the regime, as evidenced by his candidacy for Putin’s United Russia party in the September elections.
According to Meduza, Poddubny told Putin:
“Of course, people in this category have serious health problems, but there are cases in which they are capable of performing certain tasks — for example, serving in regional BARS air-defence units and destroying drones. Naturally, not everyone can do this. But there is a group of volunteers seeking an exemption that would allow them to serve in regional anti-drone defence units. Clearly, this is not the front line, but their own towns, their own villages, their own workplaces.”
Poddubny’s proposal came at a time when an impending mobilisation is being discussed. It is not directly connected to it, but it points to the problem of a shortage of soldiers in the regions for repelling Ukrainian drones, which are penetrating ever deeper into Russia and in increasing numbers.
The idea that seriously ill people should shoot them down may seem absurd to some, but a veteran without lower limbs can operate a machine gun, while a deaf comrade can assist him. For example.
Videos of the day
The technical development of drones is constantly advancing. Ukrainians showed a new version of the naval Magura, which weighs more than two tonnes, can remain at sea for seven days and carries 18 FPV drones, each housed in a separate launch compartment from which it takes off. On a small scale, this is a concept familiar, for example, from US destroyers. They are much larger and launch cruise missiles instead of drones, but if you have ever seen how this works, the sight is very similar.
Who said you need an aircraft carrier?
Meet MAGURA V11: 12 meters, 2,200 kg, 7 days at sea, and 18 Sting interceptors launching straight off the deck.
Russian drones crossing the Black Sea will meet air defense that wasn’t on any map. pic.twitter.com/3rcYkyA43h
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 6, 2026
Ukrainian drones attacked a ship in the Mediterranean Sea that was allegedly transporting Iranian weapons to Russia.
The sanctioned Russian cargo ship Lady Mariia (IMO 9220641), reportedly carrying arms, has been struck by drone-dropped munitions in the Mediterranean, west of Crete and north of Libya. pic.twitter.com/dAOsAKKpyW
— Ukraine Control Map (@UAControlMap) September 6, 2026
The following footage is from the Black Sea and shows the consequences of attacks on two more ships from the shadow fleet.
What are the losses
By Monday (7 September), Russia had verifiably lost 24,066 pieces of heavy equipment, compared with 24,041 on Friday (4 September). Of these, 19,034 (19,009) were destroyed by Ukrainians, 1,000 (1,000) were damaged, 1,194 (1,194) were abandoned by their crews, and 2,838 (2,838) were captured by the Ukrainian army. This includes 4,446 (4,441) tanks, of which 3,351 (3,346) were destroyed in combat.
Ukraine lost 12,097 (12,040) pieces of equipment, of which 9,507 (9,451) were destroyed, 698 (697) damaged, 693 (693) abandoned and 1,199 (1,199) captured. This includes 1,462 (1,459) tanks, of which 1,120 (1,123) were destroyed in combat.
Note: Neither side regularly reports its own deaths or destroyed equipment. Ukraine publishes daily figures for Russian casualties and destroyed equipment that cannot be independently verified. This overview uses data from the Oryx project, which has compiled a list of equipment losses documented exclusively by photographs since the beginning of the war.