France announced it will deliver three of its Dassault Mirage 2000 multi-role aircraft to Ukraine in the first half of 2025, according to the Ukrainian Defense Post news outlet, citing French media. It is the first tranche of an undisclosed number of the jets France said it will give to Ukraine.

“The Mirage 2000s that will be delivered to Ukraine will be equipped with new equipment,’ French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said in an interview with Bordeaux-based news agency Sud Ouest,” Defense Post reported. “This transformation operation will take place at the Cazaux base in Gironde. The aim is to equip them with air-to-ground combat capabilities and strengthen their electronic warfare system.”

As we suggested back in June, it’s now confirmed that the jets will be armed with versions of the MICA beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, as well as the stealthy SCALP-EG cruise missile and the Hammer rocket-assisted precision-guided bomb, according to the French La Tribune news outlet. This is in addition to their 30mm cannons. “But the most important thing is the training of pilots and mechanics, which is continuing in Nancy,” Lecornu added.

An unknown number of Mirage 2000s are being upgraded right now for Ukraine, which will also include enhancements to their electronic warfare suite.

Earlier this month, we reported that France announced details of its plans to put surplus Mirage fighters into Ukrainian hands. The delta-winged jet is set to become the second Western-made fighter to be provided to Kyiv, following the F-16, the first of which arrived in Ukraine this summer.

The Latest

On the battlefield, Russian troops have recently made limited advances in Kursk and eastern Ukraine, but the two sides are largely logged in a stalemate across much of the 800-mile front lines, according to the latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War (IWS).

• Kursk:  Russian forces recently advanced in the northern part of Ukraine’s salient. “Geolocated footage published on October 21 indicates that Russian forces advanced in fields south of Sheptukhovka (southeast of Korenevo) during two platoon-sized mechanized assaults,” ISW stated.

• Kharkiv: Russian forces continued limited offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast on October 22 but did not make any confirmed advances.

• Luhansk: Russian forces continued offensive operations along the Kupyansk-Svatove-Kreminna line on October 22, but did not make any confirmed advances.

• Donetsk: Russian forces recently advanced east of Kurakhove and southwest of Donetsk City near Vuhledar. However, there were no changes to the front lines near Pokrovsk, southeast of Siversk, or near Chasiv Yar and Toretsk.

• Zaporizhzhia: Russian forces continued assaults northeast of Robotyne near Mala Tokmachka on October 21 and 22, but there were no confirmed advances.

• Kherson: Russian forces continued attacks on the eastern bank of the Dnipro RIvert on October 21 but did not make any confirmed advances.

Ukrainian Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told us that thousands of North Korean troops are in Russia, including about 2,600 headed to defend the Kursk region with some due there today. However, they are reportedly not the only foreigners fighting in Kursk on behalf of Russia, according to Ukrainian troops.

“Ghanaian and Nigerian people who came to Russia for a long ruble have already laid down in the soil of Kursk oblast,” the Ukrainian Khorne Group military unit claimed on Telegram Wednesday. “And now it is the turn of Sri Lankans. Sri Lanka is not only tea and elephants. It is also mercenaries, who are not allowed by their religion to kill a cockroach at home, but they are allowed to kill Ukrainians for a small price.”

Speaking of Budanov, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed rumors on Friday that he was going to sack the GUR leader as well as Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.

“I wasn’t going to do that,” Zelensky said, according to the Ukrainian RBC news outlet. “I wasn’t going to change Budanov. This information went, yes. There was no such issue for Umerov either.”

Zelensky was reacting to several stories and social media postings suggesting that both Budanov and Umerov would be replaced in a major shakeup of his military leadership.

As part of the effort to prepare Ukraine’s pilots to fly donated F-16 Vipers, U.K.’s Royal Air Force (RAF) recently graduated a new group of them from its Elementary Flying Training, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (MoD) said on Twitter. “The next step is advanced fast jet training & conversion to F-16 with partner nations.”

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that $800 million in funding for long-range drones Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky talked about on Monday is coming from a pool of money known as the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) announced last month.

The announcement contained one sentence stating that the funding tranche included “Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and components to support Ukrainian production of UAS.”

The Pentagon on Monday announced a new Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) package of military aid for Ukraine with an estimated value of $400 million. Unlike the USAI program, PDA funds provide goods already in U.S. stocks.

The new package “will provide Ukraine additional capabilities to meet its most urgent needs, including: munitions for rocket systems and artillery; mortar systems and rounds; armored vehicles; and anti-tank weapons,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

This marks the 68th tranche of equipment to be provided from DoD inventories for Ukraine under the PDA program since August 2021.

The capabilities in this announcement include:

• Ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);

• 155mm and 105mm artillery ammunition;

• 60mm, 81mm, and 120mm mortar systems and rounds;

• Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) missiles;

• Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems;

• M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;

• Satellite communication equipment;

• Small arms and ammunition;

• Grenades and training equipment;

• Demolitions equipment and munitions;

• Equipment to protect critical national infrastructure; and

• Spare parts, ancillary equipment, services, training, and transportation.

Claiming that at least four merchant ships have been recently damaged by Russian air strikes on or near Ukrainian ports – and in some cases, the vessels themselves – the U.K. is donating about $155 million to provide Ukraine with additional aerial and sea drones to protect Black Sea shipping.

The UK is donating those funds “toward the Maritime Capability Coalition and is seeking partners to co-fund delivery of hundreds more maritime drones (aerial and uncrewed boats), as well as surveillance radars to protect the Grain Corridor,” U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office announced Wednesday. “And together, the UK and Norway are seeking a further £100 million ($129 million) to co-fund hundreds more.”

The donations would boost Ukraine’s drone stocks. As we have frequently reported, its indigenously built sea drones have caused widespread havoc on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, with attacks on ports in Crimea and ships. They have been so devastating that Russia has moved the bulk of its BSF from Crimea to Novorossysk in Russia. Ukrainian Sea Baby drones were used to attack the Kerch Bridge in July 2023.

The U.K. is also giving an extra £2.26 billion ($2.93 billion) in aid to Ukraine, using the profits from Russian assets held in Europe, according to the BBC.

The funds form Britain’s contribution to a £38 billion ($50 billion) fund announced in June by members of the G7 group of leading economies.

“Defense Secretary John Healey said the new money will help Ukraine bolster its frontline military equipment,” the news outlet reported. “He described it as ‘turning the proceeds of Putin’s own corrupt regime against him, by putting it into the hands of Ukraine.”

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the aim was to release the money as quickly as possible.

A video emerged on social media showing a loitering munition designed to chase after Russia’s Iranian-made Shahed drones.

Called the Sting, it “will be deployed to pursue and intercept the Shahed-136 instead of conventional air defense munitions to protect Ukrainian cities from Russian strikes,” according to The Telegraph.

Its developers, the Wild Hornets group, “say their latest innovation will be able to fly faster than 100mph and at altitudes nearing 10,000ft,” the publication reported.

In what the Ukrainian Defense Ministry last week called the largest attack of its kind, waves of Shahed drones were captured on video flying in a loose formation.

The massive number of drones were likely sent to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. The formations didn’t appear to involve cooperative capabilities but are far more tightly packed than we have seen before, pointing toward saturation tactics being dialed up. But they are also so close together it is something of a liability because one interceptor could potentially take out multiple craft.

During that Shahed wave, a Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopter chased and took down one of them. The video below shows the helicopter firing a machine gun at the drone until it explodes in a ball of flames. Helicopters are becoming a more prominent means of taking down long-range one-way attack munitions as of late.

The Shaheds were captured on video over the town of Poltava in eastern Ukraine.

The first view from a camera-equipped Russian Shahed drone was seen in a recently posted video of one being used as a long-range, remotely controlled reconnaissance aircraft. While the video is new, we examined the benefits of such an arrangement back in March after the wreckage was found of a Shahed equipped with a camera and modem. 

“The Russian Federation uses Shaheds now also as scouts,” Andrii Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram earlier this week. “In addition, a significant number of them fly without a combat unit and are controlled remotely (including contraband Starlinks).”

Soldiers from Ukraine’s Wild Division drone unit used an FPV drone with added guidance to destroy a Russian armored vehicle.

A video posted on Telegram by Ukrainian drone innovator Serhii Sternenko shows the drone apparently lost connection with its controller but continued on to strike the target.

“Bright destruction of a Russian armored personnel carrier with a smart drone,” Sternenko bragged. “Soldiers of the Wild Division…in Kurshchyna with the help of FPV with additional guidance took out enemy armor, and it burned very nicely.”

As we previously reported, automated terminal attack capabilities began appearing in Ukrainian drones back in March.

The results of testing on Ukraine’s indigenously produced ballistic missiles “will soon be known,” a member of parliament said on national television.

“If we talk about the Vilkha-M, there are certain questions, let’s say, about the production of these missiles,” Yehor Chernev said, according to the Ukrainian RBC news outlet. I will not go into details now, but there are components that, unfortunately, we cannot get quickly today.”

The War Zone was the first to write about the Vilkha-M. It is a modified 7.6m (25-foot) long Soviet BM-30 Smerch multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) artillery rocket with a range of 110km (68 miles) and a 300mm, 485-pound warhead. 

Chernov added that in the case of the use of operational-tactical missile systems, such as the Hrim, “work is being carried out on their use.”

A U.S.-donated Abrams main battle tank and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle were seen in Russia’s Kursk region working in tandem on the streets of an unidentified village.

“The Bradley infantry fighting vehicle in interaction with the Abrams tank is a terrible force and terror for the invaders,” Ukraine’s 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which operates the armor, said on Telegram with an accompanying video of the event. “American equipment decides on the battlefield. In this case, it’s personnel rotation, fire support, and destruction of enemy infantry stuck in houses.”

A building housing Russian FPV drone operators was severely damaged by a Ukrainian airstrike.

It was discovered after Ukrainian forces noticed airframes and equipment at the site, according to the Ukrainian Scout Telegram channel, which first posted the video seen below. It shows an explosion on the roof, a ball of flames erupting followed by a large plume of black smoke.

The exact number of Russian troops affected is unknown at this time.

In another battlefield improvisation, Ukraine displayed a Croatian 128mm RAK-SA-12 multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) placed on a U.S.-provided Humvee. Ukrainian journalist Andrii Tsaplienko offers a tour of the vehicle, which has 12 launch tubes. The video ends with several of those rockets being fired.

A Ukrainian MiG-29 Fulcrum was seen rocking nearly 70 bomb “kill mark” stencils indicating the aircraft took part in that number of strike missions, primarily using U.S. and French-supplied extended-range guided munitions.

A still image from a video circulating on Russian social media shows a Su-57 Felon fighter, Moscow’s most advanced warplane, armed with what appear to be two Kh-59 standoff missiles. The image sparked discussion by Ukrainian media about how carrying external weapons negates the low observability of the stealthy Felon.

A fierce firefight was captured from the Russian perspective on a helmet video. It shows the soldier firing at a Ukrainian position with his grenade launcher then running through the woods with his fellow soldiers to the loud popping sound of voluminous small arms fire.

In an intense battle near the city of Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian troops reportedly repelled a Russian attempt to storm the positions of foreign volunteers from the 28th Brigade. This harrowing video shows the intensity of that battle.

Camaraderie under fire was on display in this video as an Australian fighting on behalf of Ukraine came to the aid of a Canadian, who thought he had been shot.

“Fuck, I’m hit,” the Canadian shouted as he writhed on the ground in pain. The Australian came over to help and checked the Canadian for any wounds.

“…you look good,” he said above the rat-a-tat cacophony of ceaseless gunfire.

A Russian Tu-22M3 Backfire-C bomber pilot whose aircraft is said to have carried out a deadly July 2022 attack on a Ukrainian shopping center was bludgeoned to death, likely with a hammer, GUR claimed on Telegram.

“On the morning of October 20, 2024, the corpse of the war criminal Dmitriy Vladimirovich Golenkov was found in an apple orchard in the village of Suponevo near Bryansk in Russia,” GUR stated. “He was found with multiple head injuries, probably caused by a hammer.”

Golenkov was a pilot with the 52nd Heavy Bomber Aviation Regiment. It is based at the Shaykovka airfield and flies Tu-22M3 bombers.

He was “involved in rocket attacks on Ukrainian civilian objects, in particular on the Amstor shopping center in the city of Kremenchuk, Poltava region,” GUR stated. “At the time of the attack on June 27, 2022, there were about 1,000 people in the shopping center. As a result of the war crime, 22 people died and dozens were injured.”

Golenkov “is also responsible for a rocket attack on a residential building in Dnipro on January 14, 2023, when 46 Ukrainian civilians died, including six children, GUR claimed.

The spy agency did not directly take credit for the death but offered a cheeky hint.

“GUR reminds that there will be a fair retribution for every war crime,” the directorate announced.

After one of two Russian troops on a motorcycle was struck by a fragment from a Ukrainian drone-dropped munition, the driver didn’t try to help his comrade. As you can see in the following drone video, he instead roughly grabbed the wounded soldier’s rifle and fled, leaving the man behind.

And finally, there is a long tradition of inscribing bombs and missiles with messages for the enemy. However, in the case of one Russian jet, there was a message written on an FAB-500 bomb with a UMPK unified gliding and correction module meant for Russian military leadership, not Ukraine.

“Dear Ministry of Defence, I’m FAB with UMPK,” the message read, according to the Estonian-born blogger who runs the @wartranslated Twitter account. “Soon I will fly to destroy occupiers in Kursk Obl. I’m upset for my crew, they have not received bonus pay for counter-terrorist operation since August. Sort it out! P.S. You can make mistakes, but you can’t lie.”

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