Ukraine Live Blog: ++ Ukraine reports shooting down Russian drone ++

Ukraine said last night that it had shot down 61 of 70 Russian drones. Russia warned against supplying Ukraine with more weapons. Live blog developments.

Russian news portals and the BBC have confirmed that more than 70,000 Russian soldiers have died in the Ukrainian war. The tally, made in conjunction with the independent Russian news website “Mediazona”, is based on analysis of official declarations, obituaries, death reports from online networks and observations of graves in Russian cemeteries. It covers the period from February 2022, when the war began, to September 19.

“Mediazona” and the BBC do not claim that their figures are complete. It is known that the data do not include unidentified dead soldiers or militiamen killed in the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions. “Mediazona” and the independent Russian portal “Meduza”, analyzing the data of the Russian notary public on inheritance, assume that the total number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine is at least 120,000.

According to media reports, the European Commission is planning to provide Ukraine with a €35 billion loan. The Financial Times, citing three sources familiar with the process, reported that this is part of a plan by the Group of Seven (G7) of major Western industrialized countries. The loan is part of a G7 plan to provide Ukraine with $50 billion (about €46 billion) using frozen Russian state assets.

Ukraine reported that it was unable to manage its own electricity supply, especially considering the coming winter. ARD correspondent Isabelle Shayani. So Ukraine should also be connected to the European power grid, which could provide about 25 percent of its needs, he said. Shayani.

The Moscow government is warning the West not to ignore its warnings about long-range weapons being fired at targets in the Russian interior, which would change the nature of the conflict, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a news conference. “You are playing with fire,” she said.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 61 of 70 Russian drones overnight. It also destroyed one of four Russian missiles.

According to the Telegram short message service, the shootings took place in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kiev, Vinnitsa, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Khmelnytsky, Mykolaiv, Odessa and Kherson regions.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has arrived in Kiev for another visit, with a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky scheduled among other things, she announced on an online platform.

Support for energy infrastructure, which Russia has repeatedly attacked, should also be a point of focus. On Thursday, the commission’s chairman said €160 million from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets could be used to meet Ukraine’s most urgent humanitarian needs this winter, particularly energy supplies.

President Zelensky is scheduled to visit the United States next week to meet with President Biden and his successor candidates. Russia appears to have seized another village in the Donetsk region. Here’s a live blog you can read.