Russian and Chinese warships began conducting joint exercises on  September 10 as part of what is Russia's largest naval exercise since the Soviet era.

"The exercise also took place partly in the Baltic Sea. Russia announced that 90,000 people and 400 ships would take part, but we estimate that the exercise actually happened on a much smaller scale. In the Baltic Sea, the exercise was at a low level. It was mainly flights of strategic bombers and some reconnaissance flights. The exercises were followed by combat sorties in the Kaliningrad area near Gdansk Bay," Kiviselg said at the Ministry of Defense's weekly Friday press conference.

Speaking about the events in Ukraine over the last week, Col. Kiviselg said Russia continues to hold the initiative on the ground.

"Russia's operational pressure on Ukraine has gradually increased this week, reaching 194 incidences of contact per night. This shows that there is still a desire by the Russian Federation to conquer the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts," he added.

As in the previous week, the highest number of combat contact incidences was in the Pokrovsk direction, where half of these nightly attacks took place.

"Despite what is happening in Kursk, the Russian Federation has not withdrawn troops from the Pokrovsk direction, and no major change is expected there in the coming weeks," the colonel said.

In Kursk Oblast, the Ukrainians hold the initiative at an operational level, the EDF colonel explained.

"Russia did launch a counter-attack last week and has advanced slightly, but the Ukrainians are still holding their positions and have also launched counter-attacks of their own. Last Thursday the Ukrainians also opened up a new offensive corridor in the Glushkovo area, where the Ukrainians have advanced almost six kilometers into Russia and are creating an opportunity there to capture Russian units in Kursk Oblast," Kiviselg told the media.

The EDF colonel added that a notable event this week took place not far from the Estonian border, when the Ukrainians managed to attack ammunition depots in Toropets, Tver Oblast using drones.

Col. Kiviselg said that additional ammunition, which had not yet been stored indoors, had been transported by train to the depot shortly before the attack took place. Following the attack, the ammunition in the yard detonated along with bunkers and storage depots.

"According to publicly available information, 30,000 metric tons of explosive ordnance were detonated, which amounts to roughly 750,000 artillery shells. If we take the average battle rate, the Russian Federation has fired 10,000 rounds a day. So that's two to three months' supply of ammunition. As a result of this attack, Russia has suffered losses in ammunition and we will see the impact of these losses on the front in the coming weeks," he said.

The article was updated to adjust information and figures in the final paragraph.

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