Weekly Ukraine war summary: Russia “heroically defends” a women's prison near Kursk, Ukraine's first F-16 goes down, Battle of Selydove

Civilian casualties resulting from Russian strikes have been reported in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk (1, 2, 3), Donetsk (1, 2), Kharkiv, and Sumy regions.

Throughout the week, Russia’s Ministry of Defense has been reporting the repulsion of Ukrainian raids on Russian regions and the Crimean Peninsula:

• According to the ministry, on the night of Aug. 24, Russian armed forces destroyed seven Ukrainian UAVs. An ammunition depot near Voronezh was hit, prompting a state of emergency in neighboring villages of the Ostrogozhsk District due to the «detonation of explosive objects».
• On the night of Aug. 26, Russian air defenses destroyed 20 UAVs.
• On the night of Aug. 27, five UAVs were destroyed.
• On the night of Aug. 28, 12 UAVs were destroyed. One of the strikes hit the Atlas oil depot of the Federal Agency for State Reserves plant in Rostov Region, causing a fire that as of Aug. 30 had not been extinguished. Drones also reached Kirov Region in the north-east of Moscow for the first time, hitting an oil depot in the town of Kotelnich — a strike that the Russian Ministry of Defense failed to report.
• On the night of Aug. 29, six Ukrainian UAVs and three unmanned surface vessels (sea drones) were destroyed.
• On the night of Aug. 30, 18 UAVs were downed.

Over the course of the week, Russian forces launched at least 291 drones and 151 missiles at Ukraine, while Ukrainian forces responded with 71 drones (including sea drones).

Losses

The General Staff of the AFU has reported the first crash of an F-16 aircraft transferred to Ukraine. The incident, which claimed the life of the pilot, Lt. Col. Oleksiy Mes, appears to have occurred on Aug. 26 as the Air Force was repelling a Russian missile attack. According to Ukrainian MP Maryana Bezuhla, the F-16 was downed by friendly fire from a Patriot surface-to-air missile system. President Zelensky announced the dismissal of the AFU Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk shortly thereafter.

Russia and Ukraine have completed the first exchange of prisoners of war since the start of the AFU operation in the Kursk Region, using the 115-by-115 formula. As Russian MP Shamsail Saraliyev stated, all 115 Russian POWs were conscripts who had been captured in the Kursk Region. Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War reported that among the Ukrainians who had returned home, there were also conscripts, including some captured back in 2022. In addition, the list of exchanged prisoners had 82 Mariupol defenders, 50 of whom had taken part in the defense of the Azovstal Steelworks in the opening months of the full-scale war. In total, according to AFU's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, 594 Russian servicemen have been captured in the Kursk Region.