Estonian intel chief: Russia greatly exaggerating its success in Ukraine war
Ants Kiviselg, head of the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center, says Russia's leadership is distorting the situation at the front. Moscow also continued massive strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and reports emerged of a Russian satellite coming dangerously close to a Finnish company's satellite.
Russia has continued to overstate its battlefield gains in Ukraine over the past week while carrying out large-scale attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure. This was said by Ants Kiviselg, head of the Estonian Defense Forces Intelligence Center, at his weekly press conference. Reports also surfaced of potentially hostile Russian activity in space.
Inflated claims of an offensive
Kiviselg said Russia's leadership consistently tries to present the war in a far more favorable light than reality. On October 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that 310 settlements and 6,500 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory had been captured this year. Army Gen. Valery Gerasimov reported that in September alone 92 settlements and 1,800 square kilometers were taken. According to Kiviselg, there is no objective evidence for these claims, and the Ukrainian General Staff has refuted them in detail.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff presented Putin with peace proposals from Ukraine and European countries. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov described them as not containing much that was useful. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is willing to freeze the war along the current line of contact, but Moscow reiterated that it wants peace only on its own terms, not a ceasefire. Kiviselg said Russia's inaccurate portrayal of the front line could become a point of contention if ceasefire talks ever begin.
The front and energy
An average of 240 combat engagements took place each day. The heaviest fighting was along the Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka axes in Donetsk Oblast. Russian losses averaged 1,900 personnel per day, and weekly totals exceeded 10,000 for the eighth consecutive week.
According to the UN, civilian casualties in September were 85 percent higher than in the same month last year. Since July 16, Russia has carried out more than 2,100 attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure. Between October 12 and 18, Ukrainian energy workers restored power to 1.7 million customers. Naftogaz, Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company, has built up its largest winter gas reserves in six years, at 16 billion cubic meters.
Space incident
Russia's military satellite Kosmos 2612 reportedly came dangerously close to ICEYE-X36, a U.S.-registered satellite owned by a subsidiary of Finland's ICEYE. The distance may have ranged from a few meters to several hundred meters. Kiviselg said the move may have aimed to disrupt the satellite, gather intelligence or signal to Western countries that their satellites are not protected in space.
