TWZ: I want to talk a little bit about the ongoing counteroffensive. I know that you're not the general in charge of land forces, but as the eyes and ears of the Ukrainian military, what’s your assessment? Do you still believe that Ukraine will retake Crimea this year or will a counteroffensive push on until next year?
 
KB: Our counteroffensive operation started at the beginning of summer and is still ongoing. It hasn't stopped. And as you've rightly said I'm not the commander-in-chief of the General Staff. That is why questions about the tempo or progress of the counteroffensive operation should be addressed to the General Staff. But speaking of Crimea, you could not have missed that since the middle of August, there's been a certain intensification going on with regard to Crimea, and that might indirectly give you a hint about the answer to your question.

TWZ: And this is part of a coordinated campaign, it’s not just Crimea, right? You're doing this inside Russia, with the strikes on air bases and other targets and on Moscow?
 
KB: Let's put it like this, we have never confirmed [attacks on Moscow] officially (Budanov laughs) and I will be keeping that stance. But I can share my opinion about those strikes. All the above-mentioned factors clearly coincide with the strikes inside Russia. Especially when we're talking about the obviously decreasing demand for Russian weapons because when the whole world sees that some drones are attacking Moscow, nobody wants to buy Russian air defense systems any longer. And that is very painful for them. And it links back to additional factors which are absent when we're discussing Crimea.
 
One side note. There's a completely opposite situation in terms of demand on weapon systems. There's a very high demand on Ukrainian drones now. We can’t sell those now because all of them are used for warfighting, but after the war ends, this will have a lot of meaning.
 
Now speaking about the strikes deep into Russia, including Moscow, that are conducted by someone. There is a social side of it. Because now the Russian population and especially large Russian businesses really start to feel the impact of war. Because before that, it was just a war going on on TV. Yes, it did have some financial impact on big players, but smaller ones weren't even touched. But demonstrative strikes, such as strikes against Moscow city - the skyscraper district in Moscow - demonstrates to everyone that now it touches upon them.  
 
Besides that, it undermines the belief of the population in an all-powerful Russian regime that is the strongest one in the world. They start asking those logical questions, like: "where's our air defenses that are supposed to protect us?" And they start blaming their authorities for that, for stealing all the money. The next aspect is strikes against critical military infrastructure. It includes oil refineries that supply fuel to the warfighting as well as the factories and plants that produce components for military equipment. So that’s the overall picture.

TWZ: Talk to me about the sabotage attack on Chkalovsky Air Field, located less than 20 miles from Moscow.
KB: Those were activities of sabotage groups.
TWZ: Are they connected to you?
KB: Of course all of those [groups] are in some kind of connection with us.
TWZ: Did you suggest that attack? Orchestrate it? Plan it?
KB: Of course. We’re assisting them, let’s put it that way.
TWZ: Did you select the target and help them figure out how to enter the base and blow up the planes?
KB: Let’s skip that one.
TWZ: What effect is being able to breach such a secure base having in Russia?
KB: The explanation here is the same because it was an attack conducted in a secure area actually inside Moscow because that airfield is within the greater Moscow [region]. It demonstrates the obvious inability of the regime to protect even its most critical and secure infrastructure. And if we're talking about airframes, of course, Russia has a lot of those but some of them, such as the Il-20, are not in big numbers available.

TWZ: What is the military chatter you are picking up in the wake of this attack? Is there panic? Consternation?
KB: We're aware of the very negative reaction because they got the blame for it. This surely wasn't the task, but it's a side effect. And they received the blame because they were supposed to ensure security and they let those sabotage people come into that secure facility and conduct this sabotage operation.
TWZ: Who received the blame?
KB: The FSB. Besides that, of course, it's a blow against the political leaders, and military leadership of the Russian Federation because they are not able obviously to ensure proper guarding of strategic critical airfields in Moscow.

KB: Regretfully I don't possess precise numbers of our casualties. But it is completely logical that all of our casualties - both killed in action and wounded in action - went up as we shifted to offensive operations if we compare those with the previous periods. But there is still this very interesting peculiarity that even though we're on the offensive, our numbers of casualties are still lower than on the enemy’s side who are in defense.

KB: The offensive operation in the south will continue as it's been ongoing as long as we have resources. In parallel to that, of course, are operations for the de-occupation of Bakhmut. You’ve very rightly mentioned that we recently have taken back Klischiivka, which looks like it's a very small [spot] of land, but it's important because it's on a hill overlooking the rest of the terrain.  
The next step is to cut off all the supply routes that go into Bakhmut. Practically this operation we’re following is a track really similar to the Russian one which they used to take Bakhmut. The only difference is that they still conducted those frontal attacks on the city which led to very high casualties in manpower. We won’t be doing that. We will try and envelop the city and only after it's enveloped will we be entering the city.
And you mentioned the Russian actions in Kupiansk. Those are just local operations that cannot be called a campaign or an offensive operation. They had certain success a few months ago but after that they were stopped at certain defense lines and there's nothing happening since.

TWZ: Is the operation in Bakhmut designed to pin down Russian forces and keep them from reinforcing the Berdiansk and Melitopol attack axes?
 
KB: For sure, and it has delivered the result that we wanted. For example, the Russians recently redeployed their only reserve force - the 25th Army - which was just recently raised and hasn't completed its creation. Now it's redeployed to roughly the north of Bakhmut and that's the place where it's going to be buried.

TWZ: Will you strike the Kerch Bridge again and if so, what will Putin do?
KB: It's not a question of will we strike or won’t we strike. We're doing that regularly so we will finish it. It’s just an issue of time.
TWZ: And what will Putin do?
KB: He'll get upset once again. What can he do?

TWZ: I want to do a complete shift here. Were you guys involved with the attack on a Wagner-backed militia in Sudan? CNN reported that Ukrainians were likely involved in the attack on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) forces with FPV drones.
KB: I will only say the following: About two to three months ago I was giving an interview to one of the media, I don’t remember which specific one. I answered them back then that anywhere across the world we will be seeking and hunting down Russian military criminals, and sooner or later that time will come whenever they are. That is why we shouldn't be surprised when in any territory, something happens to Russian military criminals.
 
Then speaking about your specific question about Sudan, regretfully I cannot confirm or deny. I suppose it's not a big secret that there were and there still are Wagner fighters in the same way as everywhere in central Africa. Russia has led itself to a situation where it's on the verge of strategic collapse. Russia step-by-step will be gradually lose what it has won. It has paid a large price in terms of men, in terms of financial resources, everywhere across the world. The more Russia fights against us, the more it loses.

Éric Zemmour tient donc à préciser que la responsabilité est partagée. Notamment par «les Français, les Allemands, les Américains, qui n'ont pas fait respecter les accords de Minsk et qui n'ont cessé d'étendre l'Otan pour qu'elle soit autour de la Russie comme une sorte d'encerclement». «Le coupable c'est Poutine, les responsables c'est l'Otan qui n'a cessé de s'étendre. Ce n’est pas la même chose», a-t-il encore martelé.

La responsabilité de cette situation incombe d’abord à la Russie, mais est aussi le résultat de la politique menée par les Occidentaux et l’OTAN, qui n’ont cessé d’ignorer les préoccupations sécuritaires légitimes de la Russie en refusant tout dialogue sérieux sur l’ordre de sécurité européen.

A meme shows an imaginary dialogue between Prigozhin and Chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov:
 
Budanov: "I'll give you a signal when to start"
Prigozhin: "What signal?"
Budanov: "You'll know"
Prigozhin: "How?"
We see Budanov with his latest new haircut and surprised Prigozhin

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/sta [...] 9223581802
 
An IL-76 which reportedly belongs to Wagner PMC crashed in Mali. The number of dead is currently unknown.