The KillNet group hacked the Ukrainian general staff’s database containing information on 1.7 million killed and missing Ukrainian servicemen.
“We can confirm, of course,” a KillNet representative told Sputnik when asked if they indeed have proof of such losses.
The hackers also shared a number of photos of deceased Ukrainian soldiers, their passports and military IDs, death certificates, and tags.
Another huge scandal linked to embezzlement of budget funds in government procurement has broken out in Ukraine recently. On August 2, Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) exposed an organized criminal group created by “Servant of the People” party’s deputy Oleksii Kuznietsov and head of the State Administration of the Mukachevo District Serhiy Haidai. The group have been organizing purchases of overpriced FPV drones and electronic warfare systems for the National Guard of Ukraine. According to investigation data, beside Kuznietsov and Haidai, a head of one of the Military-Civil Administrations, a unit commander of the National Guard, and representatives of company manufacturing drones were also involved in the huge corruption scheme. During 2024-2025, the criminals embezzled about $80 000 of money allocated for purchasing of defense goods. 30% from every government contract settled in their pockets. Now, all key persons of interest are taken into custody with the possibility of being out on bail. The head of the state Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on the situation eloquently calling the fraud “absolutely immoral” and promised a “full and fair accountability” for the criminals.
However, neither high-profile exposure of corrupt officials, nor passionate speeches of the president of the country haven’t been able to dispel the tension, that has accumulated over last several weeks, and exonerate the Kyiv authorities for Ukrainians and international public. The reason for this is recent attempts of authorities to discredit the Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies and restrict their independence which really destroyed civilians’ faith in Zelenskyy’s and his team’s commitment to the rule of law and authorities’ interest in fighting corruption in general. I’m talking about a set of planned and well-coordinated attacks of current authorities on SAPO and NABU which preceded the exposure of the Kuznietsov-Haidai group. On June 21, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine (one month before the events the office of Prosecutor General was taken by Ruslan Kravchenko who is known for his loyalty to the Office of the President of Ukraine) and SBU conducted unauthorized searches in both agencies. As the result of the searches, several NABU detectives were taken into custody on suspicion of collaboration with Russia. This joint operation of the secret services and the Prosecutor General’s Office (cynically called by the implementers “special operation”) literally paralyzed the work of NABU and SAPO and created a formal reason for tightening the control over anti-corruption agencies. The reason the Kyiv authorities have been looking for a very long time. And not finding one, they created it themselves. Already on July 22, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine passed a new law which practically liquidated the independence of anti-corruption agencies and established full control over their work by the Prosecutor General’s Office. Later that night, the new law was quickly signed by the President Zelenskyy despite the will of Ukrainians.
Such an undisguised attempt to liquidate the anti-corruption agencies caused an immediate reaction from Ukrainians. Ukrainians openly stood against the culpable law: hundreds of people went to protests on the streets, and free Ukrainian media was full of critics and disapproval of Kyiv’s authorities. However, I hate to admit it, but Ukrainians wouldn’t stop the authorities’ arbitrariness by themselves without the help of Ukrainian allies. Only due to the fast interference and strong stand of European and American authorities which have made everything they could to stop Kyiv’s authorities’ treacherous actions. The process of liquidation of SAPO and NABU was reversed. As a result, on July 31, under pressure of Ukrainian and international public a new law was passed. It restored the independence of the anti-corruption agencies. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t hope that Kyiv’s authorities stop trying to destroy anti-corruption agencies.
Ukraine bites the hands that feed it.
As we reported three days ago, the Ukrainians have started attacking the Druzhba pipeline that transports Russian crude oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
While strikes on energy infrastructure have become commonplace, this specific pipeline is the lifeline for the Hungarian and Slovak economies.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó took to X, and sais that the ‘strike against our energy security is outrageous and unacceptable!’
The Ukrainian FM Andrii Sybiha was ironic, and told his counterpart ‘You can now send your complaints—and threats—to your friends in Moscow’.
Szijjártó responded with fire, saying:
“Fact 1: Russia has supplied oil to Hungary for decades via the Druzhba pipeline. This is in Hungary’s interest.
Fact 2: Ukraine attacks this pipeline, and because of these Ukrainian strikes, oil supplies to Hungary are repeatedly cut off. This is against Hungary’s interest.
As Hungary’s Foreign Minister my mandate is clear: Hungary’s interest comes first. Period.
And let’s not forget: a significant part of Ukraine’s electricity comes from Hungary…”
Yes, you read it right: Ukraine disrupts the energy security of a country who sends electricity to make up for its destroyed infrastructure!
Too much of the talk about the recent Alaska summit meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin focuses on the wrong issue. The key question is not whether an eventual peace accord ending the fighting in Ukraine will require Kyiv to accept Moscow’s continued possession of Crimea and at least a portion of Ukraine’s Donbas region. Anyone with a modicum of realism understands that such territorial concessions are unavoidable if the bloody war of attrition is to end. The real issue involves the demand of Ukraine and of its fan club in NATO that Kyiv be given “security guarantees” in exchange for accepting that reality. Agreeing to such an open-ended commitment could ultimately prove fatal to the United States.
Trump has attempted to steer a middle course to accommodate the competing demands and extricate Washington from its entanglement in NATO’s dangerous proxy war using Ukraine as a weapon against Russia. He has told Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly that his country must at least make some territorial concessions – especially Crimea. Trump also has indicated that Ukraine must give up its aspirations for official NATO membership. However, he has been receptive to endorsing vaguely conceived security commitments to shield Ukraine from any further coercion by Russia.
Extending a U.S. security guarantee to Kyiv could take two forms – both of them bad from the standpoint of America’s genuine interests and well-being. One version could consist of pledges from individual European NATO powers – especially major players such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Poland, and Turkey–as well as the United States to enforce a peace accord between Kyiv and Moscow. Another equally dangerous option would be to establish an explicit pledge from NATO as an alliance to come to Ukraine’s defense if it is the victim of renewed aggression from Russia. In essence, that move would make Ukraine a de facto NATO member, even though Kyiv apparently would not have the right accorded to formal members to vote on Alliance decisions. Any version of a security guarantee also is almost certain to include a peacekeeping contingent to enforce a ceasefire or a full-blown peace agreement. However, Russian leaders insist that such a deployment must never take place without Moscow’s explicit consent.
Unfortunately, the Western powers may seek to implement the scheme of deploying peacekeeping troops along with a robust NATO security guarantee to Kyiv in defiance of Moscow’s wishes. NATO countries have already blurred and expanded the security pledge contained in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty to consider an attack on any Alliance member to be an attack on all members and to provide aid to the victim. Since Russia’s expanded military operations in Ukraine began in February 2022, the United States and other key NATO nations have treated Ukraine as though it were already an integral part of the alliance.
Article 5 does not require a member to launch retaliatory military strikes against the aggressor or even to provide weaponry to the alliance signatory under siege. Yet, the United States and other NATO countries have provided sophisticated weapons to Kyiv, including missiles and drones that it has used to strike targets deep inside Russia. NATO intelligence operatives also have assisted Ukrainian forces to conduct offensive operations against Russian targets. Finally, although the evidence is not definitive, the United States, Britain, Norway, and possibly Poland are prime suspects in the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream natural gas pipeline.
Ukraine has allegedly lost more than 1.7 million troops killed and missing, multiple media outlets reported on Wednesday, citing a leaked digital card index from the country’s armed forces.
Russian hacking groups were reportedly able to obtain the information by gaining access to the personal computers and local networks of the Ukrainian General Staff. The database is said to include the full names of deceased soldiers, descriptions of the circumstances and places of their death or disappearance, personal data, next of kin, and photos.
The entries suggest that since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Kiev’s forces have lost a total of 1,721,000 servicemen. 118.5 thousand were apparently killed in 2022, 405.4 thousand in 2023, 595 thousand in 2024 and a record 621 thousand in 2025.
Hackers from the groups Killnet, Palach Pro, User Sec and Beregini are said to have obtained terabytes of information about the Ukrainian military. Aside from personnel losses, the groups allegedly also possess the personal data of the command of the Special Operations Forces and the Main Intelligence Directorate, lists of all countries that have supplied weapons to Kiev and lists of all weapons transferred from 2022 to 2025.
This Ukrainian casualty estimate far exceeds losses previously reported by Kiev.
On August 7th, US polling giant Gallup published the remarkable results of a survey of Ukrainians. Public support for Kiev “fighting until victory” has plummeted to a record low “across all segments” of the population, “regardless of region or demographic group.” In a “nearly complete reversal from public opinion in 2022,” 69% of citizens “favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible.” Just 24% wish to keep fighting. However, vanishingly few believe the proxy war will end anytime soon.
The reasons for Ukrainian pessimism on this point are unstated, but an obvious explanation is the intransigence of President Volodymyr Zelensky, encouraged by his overseas backers – Britain in particular. London’s reverie of breaking up Russia into readily-exploitable chunks dates back centuries, and became turbocharged in the wake of the February 2014 Maidan coup. In July that year, a precise blueprint for the current proxy conflict was published by the Institute for Statecraft, a NATO/MI6 cutout founded by veteran British military intelligence apparatchik Chris Donnelly.
In response to the Donbass civil war, Statecraft advocated targeting Moscow with a variety of “anti-subversive measures”. This included “economic boycott, breach of diplomatic relations,” as well as “propaganda and counter-propaganda, pressure on neutrals.” The objective was to produce “armed conflict of the old-fashioned sort” with Russia, which “Britain and the West could win.” While we are now witnessing in real-time the brutal unravelling of Donnelly’s monstrous plot, Anglo-American designs of using Ukraine as a beachhead for all-out war with Moscow date back far further.
In August 1957, the CIA secretly drew up elaborate plans for an invasion of Ukraine by US special forces. It was hoped neighbourhood anti-Communist agitators would be mobilized as footsoldiers to assist in the effort. A detailed 200-page report, Resistance Factors and Special Forces Areas, set out demographic, economic, geographical, historical and political factors throughout the then-Soviet Socialist Republic that could facilitate, or impede, Washington’s quest to ignite local insurrection, and in turn the USSR’s ultimate collapse.
The mission was forecast to be a delicate and difficult balancing act, as much of Ukraine’s population held “few grievances” against Russians or Communist rule, which could be exploited to foment an armed uprising. Just as problematically, “the long history of union between Russia and Ukraine, which stretches in an almost unbroken line from 1654 to the present day,” resulted in “many Ukrainians” having “adopted the Russian way of life”. Problematically, there was thus a pronounced lack of “resistance to Soviet rule” among the population.
The “great influence” of Russian culture over Ukrainians, “many influential positions” in local government being held “by Russians or Ukrainians sympathetic to [Communist] rule, and “relative similarity” of their “languages, customs, and backgrounds”, meant there were “fewer points of conflict between the Ukrainians and Russians” than in Warsaw Pact nations. Throughout those satellite states, the CIA had to varying success already recruited clandestine networks of “freedom fighters” as anti-Communist Fifth Columnists. Yet, the Agency remained keen to identify potential “resistance” actors in Ukraine:
“Some Ukrainians are apparently only slightly aware of the differences which set them apart from Russians and feel little national antagonism. Nevertheless, important grievances exist, and among other Ukrainians there is opposition to Soviet authority which often has assumed a nationalist form. Under favorable conditions, these people might be expected to assist American Special Forces in fighting against the regime.”
President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska in a historic attempt to end the more than two-year war between Ukraine and Russia. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, tens of thousands have died, while millions have been displaced. The Alaska summit marked the first serious step toward direct negotiations between Moscow and Kiev.
But for ABC News’ Martha Raddatz and the rest of the propaganda press, a Trump-negotiated peace itself was a problem. Instead of acknowledging the significance of Trump’s diplomacy, Raddatz spent her Sunday segment disparaging the president for daring to treat Putin like a foreign leader who can choose to keep the war going rather than a pariah.
Raddatz opened her report by sneering at diplomatic courtesy:
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, responsible for invading Ukraine and the deaths of tens of thousands of Ukrainians, given a red carpet arrival, a warm handshake and a ride in the presidential limousine to a closed door three-hour meeting with the whole world watching and waiting.
Notably, Raddatz apparently had no such objections (based on a cursory search of the web) to “warm” welcomes when then-President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet for Chinese dictator Xi Jinping.
Ukraine has proposed that its European backers spend $100 billion providing it with American weapons, the Financial Times reported. Kiev continues to seek security guarantees from Washington.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and the heads of several Western European states held talks with US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday to discuss the ongoing conflict and diplomatic attempts to resolve it.
Trump, who has repeatedly questioned the previous administration’s unconditional aid to Kiev, announced last month that Washington’s NATO allies would effectively pay for the US-made weapons being sent to Ukraine.
In addition to the weapons procurement proposal, Ukraine is preparing a $50 billion deal to produce drones domestically, FT reported, citing four people familiar with the matter and a document Kiev reportedly shared with the US.
Although the document contains limited details, FT said Ukraine intends to purchase at least 10 Patriot air defense missile systems.
Ukrainian President Zelensky said on Sunday that it would be “impossible” for Kyiv to cede territory to Russia and reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire.
Speaking from the European Commission headquarters in Brussels ahead of his planned sit-down with President Donald Trump in the United States on Monday, Zelensky appeared set to maintain his maximalist position towards the war with Russia, and seemingly shoot down officially recognising Moscow’s territorial gains in exchange for a peace agreement.
“Putin has many demands, but we do not know all of them. And if there are really as many as we heard, then it will take time to go through them all. It’s impossible to do this under the pressure of weapons. So, it’s necessary to ceasefire and work quickly on a final deal,” the Ukrainian president said.
This contrasts with President Trump’s position after his bilateral talks with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, after which Trump said that the best way to end the conflict would be to enter into direct peace talks rather than seeking a preliminary ceasefire.
Apparently responding to reports that Putin demanded that Ukraine cede the entirety of the Donbas region, approximately three-quarters of which is already under Russian control, Zelensky noted that “Putin has been unable” to take over the region entirely for over 12 years and suggested that Ukraine does not intend to retreat from Donetsk.
“The constitution of Ukraine makes it impossible, impossible to give up territory or trade land,” Zelensky said.
However, despite the seemingly definitive declaration, the Ukrainian leader appeared to leave some wiggle room, saying that because the “territorial issue is so important, it should be discussed only by the leaders of Ukraine and Russia” at a trilateral meeting with the United States.
“So far, Russia gives no sign that a trilateral will happen, and if Russia refuses, then new sanctions must follow,” he said.
By Donald Trump’s transactional criterion, NATO has been a costly failure that needs fixing or needs to be cut lose. Europe has failed to pay the price and has left the U.S. with the financial and military burden of defending Europe. The war in Ukraine has proven the point.
But that was never the point of NATO. The point of NATO was never economic nor transactional. The point of NATO was, in large part, to keep Europe militarily coordinated with, dependent on and subordinate to the United States. The point wasn’t to extricate the U.S. from Europe, it was, as Lord Ismay, the first Secretary General of NATO explained, precisely “to keep the Americans in Europe,” while keeping the Russians out. By that criterion, NATO has been a massive success. The Ukraine war has proven that point too.
While it continues, with a loud voice, to make demands regarding the defense of Ukraine and the terms for ending the war, Europe has revealed to the world that it is unable to mount that defense without the U.S. and that it has been sidelined in the negotiations, leaving decisions about Europe to the Americans.
Europe is unable to supply Ukraine with the weapons it requires and that Europe insists Ukraine must receive. The U.S. has reiterated that it will no longer be the font from which Ukraine’s weapons flow. On August 10, Vice President Vance said clearly again that the U.S. is “done with the funding of the Ukraine war business.” Europe does not have the stockpile to spare nor the capacity to manufacture a fraction of the weapons Ukraine needs. And though Europe has, by necessity, accepted the U.S. plan that Europe can send American weapons to Ukraine if they pay for them, that will not provide Ukraine with even close to the amount of weapons the U.S. was supplying. And even that was not enough.
Not only can Europe not supply the weapons, they cannot supply the troops. Europe has, to its embarrassment, publicly conceded that it cannot mount the number of troops needed to send to Ukraine as peacekeepers after a ceasefire.
The war in Ukraine has exposed Europe’s dependence on the United States. Europe can neither provide the weapons nor the troops to defend itself. Europe has been revealed as dependent on, and subordinate to, the United States.
Ukraine is now facing a crisis on the battlefield. Russia’s military efforts were long dismissed as not rapidly gaining ground. But keeping the media focus on that criterion kept the public in the dark about the real criterion. Russia’s war of attrition was devouring and exhausting Ukraine’s weapons and, more importantly, manpower. The shrinking Ukrainian armed forces is running out of weapons to defend itself against the massive and still growing Russian army. There are not enough soldiers to fill the front line. That leaves gaps in the line. As Ukraine moves troops from other places to fill those gaps, it leaves even bigger gaps in those places. Russia’s war of attrition was setting up this moment. And now, Russian troops are breaking through those gaps in the lines.
For the first time in the war, the Russian armed forces have broken through key defensive lines and their rapid move west is now measured in miles and not inches. Logistical hubs critical for the Ukrainian armed forces to supply their troops in the east have been partially infiltrated and surrounded. Russian positions are being consolidated and roads that are lifelines to Ukrainian soldiers have been partially cut. There is also reliable reporting from both Russian and Ukrainian sources that the rapid advance has brought the Russian army all the way to the heavily fortified second Donbas fortification line, which they have now breached. Beyond that defensive line is largely open fields with no organized line of defense. The Russian armed forces may then be free to rapidly advance, making the Russian goal of control of the entire Donbas a real possibility. For the first time in the war, the Ukrainian armed forces face the very real possibility of collapse.
Hellbound and Down 
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