Top U.S. General Mark Milley:

The war in Afghanistan did not go the way we wanted. More broadly, the war was lost. We have many regrets.

When the enemy occupies the capital you support, it is a strategic setback, a strategic failure.

Turkish Bayraktar AKINCI UCAV has completed 30,000 flight hours.

Turkish aerospace company BAYKAR has signed export agreements with 31 countries for Bayraktar TB2 UCAV & with 8 countries for the Bayraktar AKINCI UCAV so far, totaling 32 countries.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un inspecting Russian Su-57 fighter jet.

Trump:

Our country's going to hell, but I can save it.

Ukrainian T-80BV tank supports the infantry assault with BMP-2 IFV.

Chinese Foreign Ministry did not comment on rumors about the “disappearance” of the Chinese Defense Minister:

The department is not familiar with this situation.

Meanwhile U.S. sources leak that Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu was removed from his post, adding that Shangfu was taken away last week by authorities for questioning.

Li hasn’t made a public appearance since late August. The U.S. officials cited unspecified intelligence as the basis for their assessment that he has been relieved of his duties.

Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev:

Moscow had "neutralised" hundreds of foreign spies in recent years.

In recent years, hundreds of employees of foreign intelligence services, as well as other persons involved in organising intelligence and subversive activities against our country and our strategic partners, have been identified and neutralised.

China imposes sanctions against American defence companies Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin over arms sales to Taiwan.

A first in Sudan.

Sudanese Armed Forces now using FPV kamikaze drones against Rapid Support Forces.

UK MoD shares satelitte image of the destroyed Russian Ropucha-class landing ship Minsk & Kilo-class Rostov-on-Don (B-237) submarine in Sevastopol.

Note that they were destroyed by British Storm Shadow cruise missiles fired from Ukrainian Su-24s.

UK MoD notes that “any effort to return the submarine to service is likely to take many years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There is a realistic possibility that the complex task of removing the wreckage from the dry docks will place them out of use for many months.”

Adding that “The loss of the Rostov removes one of the BSF’s four cruise-missile capable submarines which have played a major role in striking Ukraine and projecting Russian power across the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean.”

Putin:

Russia has never refused negotiations on Ukraine, if the other side wants, let them say so.

Russia is not going to violate anything, but will develop cooperation with the DPRK within the framework of international law.

We are not creating any threats to anyone, this is nonsense, North Korea is our neighbor.

The Russian Federation records foreign instructors on the battlefield, they were captured again the other day.

Liberated Andriivka, or what’s left of it.

#BREAKING German Defense Minister Pistorius admits the possibility of supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine in “a few weeks”.

Putin responded to the words of the US Secretary of State Blinken that “it takes two to tango” by advising Ukraine not to forget about its national dance - hopak.

"Tango is, of course, good, but I think that for Ukraine it is important not to forget the hopak.

Otherwise they will always dance to someone else’s music and someone else’s tune."

Bloomberg:

The Senate Armed Services Committee is probing national-security issues raised by Elon Musk’s decision not to extend the private Starlink satellite network to aid a Ukrainian attack on Russian warships near the Crimean coast.

Senators are wondering why the decisions were not made by someone in the government.

Reports about the use of Starlink revealed "serious liability issues regarding national security," committee chairman Jack Reed said.

He added that neither Elon Musk nor any private citizen can have the final say when it comes to US national security.

Russian soldier throws grenade right on the site near the house where the children were in Kazan.

He did this when the children refused to pull the pin of a grenade.

The soldier decided to do it himself, throwing the grenade.

FT:

Military training in the West is not adapted to the realities of the war in Ukraine.

“If I only did what [western militaries] taught me, I’d be dead,” says Suleman, a special forces commander in the 78th regiment.

He says he had trained with American, British and Polish soldiers, all of whom offered “some good advice” but also “bad advice . . . like their way of clearing trenches.

I told them: ‘Guys, this is going to get us killed.’”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited AAK Progress, the company that produces Ka-52 attack helicopters.

Shoigu inspected new Ka-52M attack helicopters.

NYT, citing the opinion of local and Western diplomats:

A new coup may occur in Niger next year.

More than half a dozen Nigerien and Western diplomats said the generals appeared divided on governing strategy, and that a new coup was likely to happen in the upcoming year.

WSJ:

The U.S. is moving closer to providing Ukraine with ATACMS missile Kyiv has long sought to conduct longer-range strikes at Russian forces.

Biden administration officials said they are taking a fresh look at supplying the ATACMS this fall to boost Ukraine’s counteroffensive.

#BREAKING The UK Home Office has added Wagner PMC to its list of terrorist organizations.