Russia hit an Antigua and Barbuda-flagged cargo ship in the Black Sea on the night of 22–23 September, killing its Ukrainian captain, according to Ukraine's Sea Ports Authority.

Ukraine says Russia is targeting civilian vessels in the Black Sea to block the country's maritime exports—about 90% of its agricultural exports transit these routes. Ukraine could lose $1.5 to $3 billion in export revenue if the attacks continue, according to Foreign Policy. The latest strike came six days after a Russian drone struck a Tanzania-flagged vessel heading to a Ukrainian port, killing its captain and wounding three crew members, and days after London's marine insurance market expanded its high-risk reporting area to cover the entire Black Sea.

Rescuers evacuated crew despite fire and heavy smoke

The State Border Guard Service said its Maritime Guard dispatched patrol boats to the burning vessel and evacuated the 15 surviving crew members despite heavy smoke and the threat of renewed Russian attacks. The service identified the weapon as a Russian attack drone. The survivors were brought to the nearest safe port and examined by medical personnel.

The vessel had departed from a Ukrainian port, the Border Guard Service said. Oleg Kiper, head of Ukraine's Odesa Oblast, also reported the attack and said it occurred off the oblast's coast. Neither the ship's name, its cargo, nor its destination have been disclosed.

The Border Guard Service said its Maritime Guard evacuated the crew, while Ukraine's Sea Ports Authority said the Ukrainian Navy carried out the evacuation and extinguished the fire aboard the vessel.

"This is another terrorist act by the Russian Federation against civilian shipping," the authority said.

Attacks on civilian shipping have killed dozens of crew members in 2026

Russia has repeatedly struck civilian vessels in the Black Sea this year. A strike on a Turkish-owned bulk carrier off Odesa killed ten crew members in July. Russian drones killed a sailor and wounded five on two ships in June. On the same day as the latest attack, the EU called for a moratorium on strikes against Black Sea shipping.

A Ukrainian service member with the callsign Talisman learned to fly four heavy strike drone platforms and now switches between them when conditions demand it, the 808th Dnistrovska Separate Support Brigade reported on 23 September. Before joining the military, he worked in business.

He began his service in a unit in Rivne Oblast, in northwestern Ukraine, starting as a driver and later moving to battalion management tasks. He was then seconded to the 808th Brigade and eventually transferred to its roster permanently. It was there that he retrained as a heavy strike drone pilot.

Four platforms, one pilot

Heavy bombers were just coming into wide use when the unit was moved onto them. They trained for a week at the manufacturer, then practiced in the unit. Everyone started on the Vampire. After nearly a year on it, Talisman tried a second platform. "When you already have the base and the foundation, mastering another platform is much easier," he said.

Talisman now operates four platforms—the Vampire, a hexacopter with six motors, and three quadcopters: the Ares A1, the Heavy Shot, and the Magura Mini. Each type has its own characteristics—some are more resistant to jamming or navigation suppression than others, he said.

"I'd probably single out the Vampire and the Ares. The Vampire is more pleasant to operate, while the Ares is more resistant to various types of jamming. I've had situations where the Vampire wasn't working, and I continued carrying out missions on the Ares," Talisman said.

The Vampire is a six-rotor bomber built by Ukraine's SkyFall, originally codified with a range of up to 20 kilometers carrying up to 15 kilograms. The company says the current range is 35–40 kilometers. The Ares A1, built by Drones of Ukraine, has been in service since 2023 in strike, remote-mining, and resupply roles.

"The hardest thing is when there's no water. For a shower. Positions are all different: for some it's harder to get there, for some it's harder to work with drones. I have this thing—it's important to me that there's water," he said with a smile.

His crews have worked the Donetsk direction, near Lyman, in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, and later on tasks in Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts. In winter they drove in for the night and had to finish the task in that window, some faster and some slower depending on conditions and on Russian jamming, before the next crew took over. In warm weather they stay on position for four to seven days at a stretch, in crews of four or five.

His callsign came from his time serving alongside his fellow soldiers. "We had luck when I was with them. That's how they gave me this callsign," he said.

After the war, Talisman sees himself returning to civilian life. Before military service he was an entrepreneur and plans to go back to it.

Brigade tops remote-mining rating

In June 2026, the 808th Brigade topped Ukraine's DELTA remote-mining rating, which ranks units by how effectively they turn enemy approach routes into traps with drones.

Russia's large combined missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv early on 24 September killed two people in the capital and damaged residential and civilian infrastructure, including a maternity hospital, according to Vitali Klitschko, the capital's mayor. The strike involved 282 attack drones alongside ballistic and hypersonic missiles, Ukraine's Air Force said.

The strike came as US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were pursuing an energy ceasefire during the UN General Assembly in New York. Ukraine was ready to stop attacks on Russian energy facilities if Moscow agreed to stop striking Ukraine's energy system, Zelenskyy said after meeting Trump on 22 September.

Air defense intercepts over 200 targets

Russia launched Zircon hypersonic missiles, an unspecified number of Iskander-M/S-400/KN-23 ballistic missiles, and 282 Shahed-type and Gerbera attack drones, Ukraine's Air Force said. The drones were accompanied by Banderol and Dan-T loitering munitions, as well as parody decoy drones.

By 08:00, Ukrainian forces had destroyed or suppressed 227 targets, including four Zircons, three ballistic missiles, one Banderol/Dan-T loitering munition, and 219 drones.

The Air Force did not disclose how many ballistic missiles Russia launched at Kyiv. Zelenskyy later said Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 60% of the ballistic missiles targeting the capital during three waves of attacks.

Zelenskyy added that the ballistic attack came while he was meeting US lawmakers in New York to discuss sanctions against Russia. He also called for more ballistic missile interceptors, saying Russia had targeted civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, a maternity hospital, energy facilities, and logistics.

Maternity hospital, residential buildings damaged

In Kyiv's Podilsky district, the maternity hospital's windows and part of its facade were damaged, according to the Ministry of Health. No casualties were reported inside the facility. One person was killed in a nearby parking lot, and a clinic-diagnostic center was also damaged.

In Dniprovskyi district, a residential building, a non-residential building, and several private houses were damaged. One private house was partially destroyed. A three-story administrative building was also damaged, and a body was found there. In the Solomiansky district, a warehouse was partially destroyed and caught fire. Missile debris fell on a roadway in Darnytskyi district.

In Kyiv Oblast, one person was injured, and eight objects were damaged across three districts, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said. The damage included private houses and vehicles.

Zelenskyy called for stronger sanctions against Russia and more air-defense interceptors as the attacks continued during the UN General Assembly week.

EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas called for a moratorium on attacks in the Black Sea to restore safe navigation and allow Ukraine's grain exports to reach global markets. She made the call at a UN General Assembly side event co-chaired with the foreign ministers of France, Romania, and Ukraine on 22 September in New York.

Since June, Russia has systematically struck Ukrainian ports, grain terminals, and commercial cargo ships in the Black Sea, killing crew members and crippling the export corridor that carries the bulk of Ukraine's agricultural output. The campaign—part of Russia's broader war, now in its fifth year—has disrupted global food supply chains and pushed the Black Sea toward a crisis the EU warned could surpass the 2022 grain-price shock.

Kallas said Black Sea exports have effectively ground to a halt since August because Russian attacks made commercial shipping unviable. The Gulf conflict and climate change are adding further pressure, she said. Ukraine supplies 15% of global corn exports, 10% of wheat, 15–20% of barley, and about 50% of sunflower oil, with around 90% moving through the Black Sea corridor, Kallas said. Egypt, the world's largest wheat importer, has shifted some purchases away from Russia and Ukraine as costs have risen.

"Food must never be used as a weapon in the Black Sea or anywhere else," Kallas said. "Wars make affordable food disappear from dinner tables of millions of people around the globe."

Kallas called the proposal a new "Black Sea grain arrangement," separate from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a 2022 deal brokered by Türkiye and the United Nations that Russia left in July 2023. She said the 2022 grain-price surge showed the strategic importance of the Black Sea for global security, international trade, energy, and food security.

She called on the international community to ensure safe passage of civilian vessels, protect critical infrastructure, and restore the trade route. If Russia simply stopped its attacks in the Black Sea, farmers, traders, and international food markets would have the predictability they need at this critical moment, she said. In 2025 alone, the EU mobilized €2.1 billion to strengthen global food security, Kallas added, and the EU Solidarity Lanes have facilitated about €304 billion in trade since May 2022.

At a press stakeout on 23 September, Kallas said the EU was "particularly concerned by the attacks in the Black Sea" and that "Russia is trying to choke off Ukrainian grain exports, thus jeopardizing global food security."

Russia has not publicly responded to Kallas's call. In August, Moscow dismissed a similar proposal relayed by Türkiye, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stating it saw no grounds for measures that would give Kyiv a "temporary reprieve."

A summer of strikes

Russia intensified strikes on Ukrainian ports and commercial shipping in June and July. Those strikes cut Ukrainian deepwater terminal capacity from roughly 7 million to 4–5 million metric tons per month, according to Barva Invest analyst Bohdan Kostetskyi. Ukrainian forces, in turn, struck Russia's grain terminals at Novorossiysk and Taman. Those strikes and the suspension of navigation in the Sea of Azov since July took more than 90% of Russia's Azov–Black Sea grain export capacity offline by mid-August.

The cost of sailing

The Lloyd's of London Joint War Committee has extended its high-risk designation to the entire Black Sea, pushing war-risk insurance premiums to hundreds of thousands of dollars per voyage. Alternative routes through the Danube have partly compensated, but shipping from Ukraine to Egypt has taken 26–33 days, more than twice as long as before.

For Ukraine, restoring safer navigation would reopen its largest agricultural export route, reduce reliance on slower and more expensive alternatives, and help exporters move the harvest and earn foreign currency.

The attacks have not stopped. Overnight on 23 September, Russia struck a cargo ship under an Antigua and Barbuda flag in the Black Sea, killing its captain, a Ukrainian citizen, Ukraine's sea ports administration said. The Navy evacuated the crew and put out the fire.

Four foreign volunteers serving in the Babai rifle battalion are training to operate FPV drones in Ternopil Oblast in western Ukraine, where they have formed a dedicated drone team, Suspilne reported on 22 September.

Ukraine's military increasingly looks to unmanned systems for roles traditionally carried out by soldiers. In May, an adviser to the commander of Ukraine's Third Army Corps said the corps planned to replace roughly 30% of its infantry with ground robotic systems by the end of 2026 "to save the lives of our soldiers." The plan concerns ground robots rather than FPV aircraft, but reflects the broader move toward using unmanned systems on the battlefield.

From mortars to FPV drones

The team was assembled by Harry, a British volunteer who has fought in Ukraine since arriving in March 2022. He served as a machine gunner in Kharkiv and during the Kharkiv counter-offensive, as well as in Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia.

Before coming to Ukraine, Harry served with People's Defense forces against ISIS in Syria. He said Ukraine's battlefield is fundamentally different, with drones and artillery making combat more dangerous.

For Fuzzy, a former British Army infantryman and counterterrorism specialist, the transition came after more than two years as a mortar operator. He arrived in April 2022 and initially trained Ukrainian defenders before moving into combat roles.

Fuzzy said he had initially been reluctant to switch from mortars to FPVs but found the drones not as difficult to operate as he had expected after training for more than two months.

Not everyone on the team flies. Rupert, who served in the British and Israeli armies, called Ukraine the clearest case of right against wrong since 1939 and said anyone who does nothing will regret it. His role on the team is technical: setting up antennas and checking drones before flights. "The younger guys can fly," he said.

Mac, an American with no previous military service, joined the war in a different role. He arrived in February 2025 and served with the Azov brigade as a logistics specialist in Donbas. Ukraine first appeared on his radar with the 2014 Maidan protests, he said, and when Russia's full-scale invasion began—"seeing the massacre in Bucha, the maternity hospital blown up in Mariupol"—he called it a higher calling and began preparing to come.

Adapting to the battlefield

The volunteers came to Ukraine with different backgrounds and have taken different roles during the war. Harry assembled the FPV team from fighters he had served with in different Ukrainian units. Fuzzy said the changing nature of the war made the transition necessary.

"The war has changed so much that what I was teaching could no longer be applied everywhere," Fuzzy added. "At this stage of the war, we have to keep pace with the times—everything is improving now."

Harry said his long-term goal is to live permanently in Ukraine and open a business. "I see Ukraine as my home," he said. "I want to defend not just the Ukrainian people but also the place where I want to live the rest of my life."

Ukraine's Defense Ministry has approved 650 unmanned aerial systems for military use since the start of 2026, most of them Ukrainian-made, the ministry said on 22 September. The approved types range from strike copters and jam-proof fiber-optic drones to interceptors and deep-strike systems, expanding the arsenal Ukraine fields against Russian aerial attacks.

The approvals are expanding the range of systems available to Ukraine's military in the fifth year of Russia's full-scale war, including drones designed to operate despite electronic warfare and others intended to intercept enemy drones. For Ukraine, the growing range gives its forces more options to counter Russian drones and the electronic warfare used against them. In July, the ministry said the number of UAV systems approved at that point in 2026 was more than 30% higher than during the equivalent period in 2025 and more than 73% above the same point in 2024.

What was approved

The approved systems include 238 strike copter-type UAVs, 231 fiber-optic-controlled systems, 42 interceptor UAVs, 32 middle-strike UAVs, and nine deep-strike drones. The five named categories account for 552 of the 650 systems.

Fiber-optic-controlled drones use a physical cable rather than radio signals to communicate with their operator, making them resistant to jamming from electronic warfare. Interceptor drones are designed to destroy other unmanned aircraft in flight, providing another way to counter drone attacks alongside conventional air defense.

The 650 figure counts types of systems that have cleared the ministry's codification process—the step that allows equipment to be procured for the armed forces—not individual drones produced or deployed.

The interceptor race

By mid-year, the ministry had cleared 413 drone types—more than two a day—with copter-type strikers and fiber-optic systems dominating the list. The interceptor category has filled especially fast: the ministry ordered 8,000 Octopus interceptors, and by September at least 20 firms were racing to field interceptors against Russia's jet-powered Shaheds, with two having completed combat tests.

Domestic share rising

In the first eight months of 2026, the ministry codified 1,526 new weapons and military equipment models for the armed forces, with nearly 91% produced domestically, the ministry said—of those, 565 were Ukrainian-made unmanned aerial systems. In the same period last year, the ministry had approved 983 models, with 86% made domestically.

Ukrainian drone manufacturer Wild Hornets says its new STING-family interceptor drone has destroyed about ten Russian Geran-4 jet drones and several Geran-5s—technically also drones but ones whose jet engines make them functionally small cruise missiles—in limited deployment over recent days, according to an interview with a company representative published by NV on 22 September. The company says it plans to begin mass production within about a month after completing combat tests.

Russia has sharply increased its use of jet-powered Shahed-type drones this year. At least twenty firms were already racing to field interceptors by early September. Their higher speeds can cut the reaction time for Ukrainian mobile fire groups from about a minute to as little as six seconds. Two companies have completed combat tests, and 67 companies are working on interceptors, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

A new product, not an upgrade

Wild Hornets told NV it began work on jet interception in early 2026 and described the new interceptor as an entirely new product rather than an upgrade of the existing STING design. To handle the faster targets, the company developed a remote-control system called Hornet Vision Ctrl that lets experienced pilots operate interceptors across multiple sectors at once—the same system now used against jet-powered Gerans.

"We are working on that, but right now we are focused above all on creating a cheap, mass-producible, and simple-to-use means of countering jet Shaheds," the company told NV, answering a question about expectations that Russia could field mass jet missiles at 700–800 km/h by winter.

The company said it knows of no fully automatic interception system proven in combat and that its own AI integration is aimed at assisting the operator.

The jet-powered threat

Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in August that the use of jet-powered drones had increased roughly fivefold in July compared with June. The Geran-5 can reach speeds of up to 600 km/h and carry a warhead of roughly 90 kg, according to specifications published on HUR's War & Sanctions website. The new jet Shaheds run on turbojets from a single Chinese company. Iran, which originally armed Russia with Shaheds, now wants the jet-powered Geran-5 remake back.

Earlier this month, a new interceptor successfully hit a jet-powered Shahed during testing, but "some aspects of controlling the interceptor still need to be refined," Zelenskyy said. Days later, he showed footage of a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) interceptor destroying a jet-powered Shahed during a military counterintelligence operation. The SBU said it was the first footage showing the destruction of a jet-powered Shahed.

Separately, footage published by Wild Hornets showed its STING interceptor striking a Geran-5—a jet-powered drone that functions as a small cruise missile—in flight:

Egypt is increasing wheat purchases from France as it diversifies away from Russia and Ukraine, Reuters reported on 20 September, citing remarks made that Sunday by the country's Supply Minister Sherif Farouk, as quoted by television host Ahmed Moussa and confirmed afterwards by a ministry spokesperson.

Russian and Ukrainian strikes on each other's shipping are disrupting Black Sea trade routes used by both major wheat exporters, pushing up shipping costs and forcing grain buyers to navigate longer and more expensive alternatives. For Ukraine, a disrupted sea route means fewer or more expensive grain exports, putting pressure on farmers' incomes and the country's export earnings.

Egypt is one of the world's biggest wheat importers, and the grain feeds a subsidized bread program that tens of millions of Egyptians rely on. The supply minister also said Cairo had a 50,000-metric-ton wheat shipment en route from France, with further shipments from the country continuing, and that Egypt has stepped up its engagement with Bulgaria and Romania. Its wheat reserves cover more than six months of strategic consumption, he said.

War-risk costs climb as the high-risk zone widens

Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on each other's commercial shipping, and London's marine insurers widened the area they treat as high risk to the whole Black Sea. The Joint War Committee, which sets that listing for the Lloyd's market, extended its reporting requirements to the entire sea, and its guidance shapes what underwriters charge. War-risk premiums have surged as dozens of ships have been attacked in the Black Sea, and are adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of every seven-day voyage.

Russia was continuing attempts to destroy Ukraine's transport infrastructure and block its exports through the Black Sea, Ukrzaliznytsia said on 30 July. More than 90% of Ukraine's agricultural exports were shipped from ports in Odesa Oblast through a maritime corridor.

Ukraine's export capacity falls after July strikes

Following Russian strikes on Ukrainian ports on 10–12 July, the deepwater terminals' monthly handling capacity fell by about 2.5 million tons, from up to seven million to four or five, Barva Invest's Bohdan Kostetskyi said at the time. Industry sources told Reuters that four of 13 major terminals had stopped buying grain.

By mid-August, Ukrainian attacks and the suspension of navigation in the Sea of Azov since July had taken more than 90% of Russia's grain export capacity in the Azov–Black Sea basin offline, agricultural consultancy SovEcon said. Three Novorossiysk terminals were suspended, while the Taman terminal had halted operations in late July.

The Danube detour takes longer and costs more

Two vessels sailing from Izmail to Egypt took 26 days and an estimated 32 to 33 days, and a third bound for Izmir 28 to 29 days, against about 12 days for the Egypt run before the delays, Avalon Shipping operations manager Kateryna Kononenko told Ukrainian Shipping Magazine.

US President Donald Trump repeatedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop attacks on Russian oil refineries during a phone call on 20 September, Axios reported, citing a person familiar with the conversation. The two leaders are due to meet in New York today, 22 September, during the UN General Assembly.

For Ukraine, the strikes are a way to disrupt the fuel supply supporting Russia's military. Trump is now linking the attacks to global diesel prices. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said disruptions to Russia's refining system following intensified Ukrainian attacks have compounded diesel supply losses.

Trump backed the strikes two months ago

At a NATO summit on 8 July, speaking alongside Zelenskyy, Trump said Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries could help end the war. "It's an escalation, but it's also an escalation that can help lead to an end," he said. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine's ability to strike deep into Russian territory was one of the changes in the war in recent months and said the escalation could create space for negotiations.

On 13 September, Trump called on Zelenskyy to stop the attacks.

"Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing: he has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia," Trump said. "There are plenty of other targets. Don't hit diesel fuel. That's hurting the world."

Trump added that the rise in prices was not caused by the Iran conflict. "This isn't done by the Middle East, this is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine," he said.

On 20 September, Trump raised the demand again in his call with Zelenskyy. "The word diesel came up many times" during the conversation, a person familiar with the call told Axios.

What is driving diesel prices

US diesel prices had reached $6.06 per gallon by 13 September, up from $3.71 a year earlier. The IEA said in June that global energy markets were contending with their largest supply disruption in history because of the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, though it also noted that a US-Iran agreement to reopen the strait had begun easing prices from their April peak. A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis attributed the diesel surge to the Iran conflict and did not address Ukrainian strikes.

Ukraine's refinery campaign has also disrupted Russian fuel production. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on 4 July that attacks had disabled 42.7% of Russia's oil-refining capacity. Russia's gasoline production fell an estimated 25% year-on-year in the week of 15–21 June, while Moscow has extended its ban on diesel exports through at least September.

Zelenskyy confirms Tuesday meeting

After the call, Zelenskyy said it had been "an important conversation" and that today's meeting "could change a lot." He said there was "diplomatic momentum" and that Ukraine was ready "to take really serious steps." He also said the call covered ideas for de-escalation and fundamental security issues including energy and food security.

Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service and Kyiv's chief negotiator, told Axios that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had helped with the peace talks, where the number of stumbling blocks had fallen from "dozens to essentially one or two key issues." Umerov was rebutting a Kyiv Independent report that Kyiv was frustrated with Witkoff, which he called false.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski says he has personally warned Russian officials that Polish response to a possible attack from Moscow would include both offensive and defensive actions, according to an episode of the program Front Sikorskiego.

Sikorski's disclosure comes as European governments step up preparations for possible Russian attacks and provocations. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on 17 September that intelligence assessments indicated Russia could stage drone or missile attacks against countries supporting Ukraine in the coming months, while Lithuania said it had access to the same intelligence.

Sikorski says he has told Russian officials to "be careful, because we have more combat aircraft than you do."

"So if you do something that no one wants, we won't just sit back and do nothing. We will respond both defensively and offensively," Sikorski stresses.

He frames the warning as deterrence and points to Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refining infrastructure as an example of what air power can achieve. Ukraine has destroyed what Sikorski described as 30–40% of Russia's oil refining capacity, he says, arguing that European air forces could accomplish far more.

European governments prepare for Russian provocations

Tusk said Russia could try to present such attacks as accidents in an effort to weaken NATO's willingness to respond. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys confirmed the following day that his country had the same intelligence and said officials had discussed the possibility of a Russian false-flag operation, according to Delfi.

France has also moved to prepare for possible Russian hybrid attacks. President Emmanuel Macron ordered a plan to protect critical infrastructure and sensitive defense-industry sites from drone and cyberattacks, the Kyiv Independent reported, after saying the Russian hybrid threat had intensified. "The day we are attacked physically, we will not be warned," Macron said.

Sikorski did not say when he delivered the warning or which Russian officials received it.

Poland will have more than 1,000 automated warning sirens in Lublin Voivodeship by the end of 2026, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said on 19 September, up from nearly 350 now. The region had about 30 remotely activated sirens at the beginning of 2024.

The expansion comes as Russian attacks on the west of Ukraine are reaching closer to Poland. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia is expected to intensify attacks on Ukraine's critical infrastructure and warned of possible "accidental" drone or missile strikes on NATO countries, including Poland. He also said Russia is introducing jet-powered drones that move much faster and at higher altitudes.

Sirens sound as drones approach the border

A Russian air attack on western Ukraine triggered air-raid warnings in Poland's Lublin and Podkarpackie regions on 17 September. Sirens sounded in Lublin and Rzeszów, while residents received an SMS warning: "ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! Threat of an air attack. Find a safe place. Follow the instructions of the emergency services. Await further announcements."

The Polish military said its aircraft were activated in response to Russian strikes involving jet-powered drones against western Ukraine. A Russian drone flying toward Poland fell on Ukrainian territory about four kilometers from the Polish border, according to Polish authorities. Polish airspace was not violated.

Airports in Lublin and Rzeszów temporarily suspended operations to give military aircraft freedom of movement. Polish authorities said the measures were preventive and intended to protect Polish airspace.

More strikes on the border zone

On 13 September, Russian strikes near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing damaged a gas station and hit the locomotive of a Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train about two kilometers from the Polish border. No deaths were reported, and the border crossing temporarily halted operations.

On 19 September, Poland again activated ground-based air-defense systems and increased radar reconnaissance in response to another wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine. The operation ended the same day with no violation of Polish airspace recorded.

Shelters, sirens, and a 1939 echo

Beyond sirens, authorities have marked nearly 3,500 official shelter locations in Lublin Voivodeship. More than 500 State Fire Service stations and volunteer fire units took part in special exercises on 19 September to practice responses to warning signals and emergency alerts.

"We are building a civil-protection system virtually from scratch," Kierwiński said at a briefing in Lublin. "We have very, very little time."

The 17 September strikes fell on the anniversary of the Soviet Union's 1939 invasion of Poland. Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the Russian attack as "massive, extremely brutal."

The 13 September strikes near the border also drew a response from Kyiv. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described them as Putin's terror "knocking" directly on the doors of the EU and NATO and called for a "full trade embargo, a total entry ban, and complete sanctions against Russia's military-industrial complex."

Intelligence assessments indicate that Russian plans include drone and missile strikes against countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament on 17 September. He said Russia could seek to make such attacks appear accidental in order to weaken NATO's resolve.

The warning comes after an escalating pattern of drone incidents and suspected sabotage in Poland, Lithuania and Germany, as European governments face growing security risks linked to Russia's war against Ukraine.

Tusk cites NATO, US and Ukrainian intelligence

Tusk said he was relying on intelligence from NATO, Ukraine, and the United States. He described late autumn and winter as the most critical phase of the war so far and warned of escalating attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.

"There is a real risk that the territory of one or several NATO countries on the eastern flank may be entered by drones or other types of missiles," Tusk said.

He said the purpose could be to show that Article 5 "exists only in theory" and to weaken NATO's willingness to respond.

Jet-powered drones near the Polish border

The 17 September attack struck near Yahodyn, close to the Dorohusk border crossing. Tusk said Russia had used jet-powered drones that travel at higher speeds and altitudes, making them harder to intercept.

A pattern of incidents near NATO territory

The warning follows several incidents near NATO's eastern border. On 13 September, a drone struck a passenger train at Yahodyn, near the Ukraine-Poland border. Ukraine's state railway company said it was "highly probable" that the Russian drone's intended target was a diplomatic train that had carried former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt. Former CIA Director David Petraeus was on a separate train that remained at the station. No one was injured.

On 15 September, Italian NATO jets shot down a drone in Lithuanian airspace after it apparently entered from Belarus. Lithuanian authorities said the wreckage indicated it had likely been carrying explosives. Poland also recovered a Gerbera-type drone carrying a live warhead from the Baltic coast near Rusinowo.

Germany on 1 September blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack involving explosives at Leipzig/Halle Airport on 4–5 August, adding another NATO country to the series of incidents.

From warning to coalition

Tusk visited Ukraine on 18 September for the inaugural Carpathian Eight summit. Zelenskyy said Ukraine and its European partners were building an anti-ballistic coalition, while Polish Deputy Prime Minister Radosław Sikorski said Warsaw was preparing its largest military aid package for Ukraine, potentially including Patriot missiles.

Russia's Foreign Ministry rejected Tusk's accusations as "contrived" and "far-fetched".

Latvia's State Security Service (VDD) opened a criminal case on 9 September over threats of terrorism against Latvian companies that supply weapons to Ukraine, after a pro-Kremlin group issued the same demand to Latvia, Poland, and Portugal.

The threat comes amid a series of fires and explosions at European sites connected to Ukraine's war effort, at least four at ammunition facilities alone since 10 August. No common cause has been established, and authorities have not publicly linked any of them to Global Citizens Against War 1984.

VDD detained one person in Riga on 10 September, searched their home and vehicle, and seized data storage devices and other items, the service said on 17 September. The suspect has been remanded in custody, and the case runs under part two of article 79.6 of Latvia's criminal law.

The ultimatum and the group behind it

The group, calling itself Global Citizens Against War 1984, published its ultimatum on 8 September, demanding that Latvia, Poland, and Portugal stop supplying weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

The seven companies are Latvia's Eraser, a military drone maker, and Unitrack, which develops all-terrain vehicle prototypes; Poland's PGZ, WB Electronics, JFG Composites, and Nitro-Chem; and Portugal's Tekever, according to inbox.lv. VDD did not name the companies in its statement.

The group said the companies would face operational shutdown "by any means necessary" if the demands were not met by 7 October. It also circulated photographs of graffiti bearing its abbreviation, which it says was sprayed in Riga, Warsaw, and Lisbon.

The group previously claimed responsibility for planning an arson attack on the Slovak plant of Skyeton, a Ukrainian drone maker. Slovak police announced the detention of three foreign suspects on 25 August. Authorities have not said whether the suspects are connected to the group.

An investigation by The Insider found evidence suggesting Russian origins for the group: Russian-language folder labels on its English-language Instagram account, an Orwell quotation on its website back-translated from a common Russian rendering rather than taken from the original, and a proprietary Yandex font left in the page code. The outlet did not establish which Russian organization, if any, operates the group.

European security services have also reported suspected sabotage targeting defense companies and infrastructure, including a fire at an Estonian military robotics company, fires at a Bulgarian ammunition facility, and an explosion at an ammunition plant in Italy. Authorities have not publicly linked those incidents to Global Citizens Against War 1984.

Salvo, a large black-and-tan dog rescued as a puppy in Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast, now visits patients at the UNBROKEN rehabilitation center in Lviv with his owner, volunteer Kostyantyn Bidnyi, according to a 16 September report by Ratusha. The visits bring dogs and patients together for play, simple activities, or time spent nearby.

The visits are part of UNBROKEN ANIMALS, a volunteer project in which people bring their own household dogs to the rehabilitation center. UNBROKEN says its center has treated more than 20,000 wounded Ukrainians since Russia's full-scale invasion and provides physical, psychological and psychosocial rehabilitation, making the dog visits one small part of a much larger rehabilitation setting.

Patients can choose whether to play with a dog, walk it on a leash or simply spend time nearby. One patient, Vyacheslav, said, “I almost never skip the dog sessions.”

In one session, a blind patient who had lost both arms could not take part in most of the usual activities with Salvo. Volunteers described the dog's size, coloring, ears and tail to him, and he tried to touch Salvo, spoke to him, and then talked with people nearby, Bidnyi told Ratusha.

The activities can include throwing a ball, giving a command, offering a treat or walking the dog on a leash. Bidnyi said these simple actions can work on movement and coordination while the dog provides emotional motivation.

“We don't treat anyone,” Bidnyi said. Doctors and rehabilitation specialists handle patients' medical recovery, while the volunteers provide emotional support.

Salvo is one of several dogs that take part in the sessions. Ratusha reports that two or three owners usually come with their pets, giving patients different dogs to interact with. The animals are not specially trained working dogs; they are the volunteers' own pets, who accompany them to UNBROKEN on designated days. What starts as a regular outing becomes an hour of volunteering before the pairs return to their usual routines.

Salvo's name carries both halves of his story: in Latin, the language medicine still runs on, salvo means I heal, I keep safe — and the same root gave English "salvo," an artillery volley.

The EU plans to use money remaining under its €150 billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program to create a new program for joint projects with Ukrainian companies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on 16 September. She announced the plan during her State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has pushed the EU to spend more on defense and build up its own weapons industry. SAFE was created as part of that effort, giving EU member states €150 billion in loans for defense spending. Ukraine is also facing heavy defense costs, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy putting its additional defense funding gap for 2026 at $27 billion.

"Using the remaining funds from SAFE, we will be setting up a new programme for joint projects with Ukrainian companies," von der Leyen told the European Parliament.

EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius estimated that the unused portion of SAFE could amount to €10 billion to €20 billion, UNN reported. The exact sum will be known only after member states report on their SAFE projects by the end of October. The announcement caught several governments off guard: Poland and other capitals say the Commission never discussed it with them, and Warsaw had been counting on taking up the funds other countries declined for its own projects.

The proposal would allow unused money from member states' SAFE allocations to be redirected to joint projects with Ukrainian firms. One likely destination is Freya, the joint European-Ukrainian air and missile defense system meant as a cheaper answer to the American Patriot, which von der Leyen described as the start of the collaboration rather than the end of it.

In 2025, Ukraine gained associate partner status in SAFE and access to the EU's European Defense Fund, allowing Ukrainian companies to compete for contracts and co-develop military systems with European firms.

Fifteen member states have since said they plan to buy Ukrainian weapons through the program, and Canada joined it in December 2025 as the first non-European partner. Bulgaria agreed SAFE-funded joint weapons production with Ukraine in March 2026.

The war is costing Ukraine more every year, the government says. Its draft 2027 budget proposes ₴4.885 trillion ($110 billion) for defense needs, nearly 44% of GDP.

The UN is considering moving humanitarian supplies into underground facilities after strikes hit 10 of its warehouses in Ukraine this year and destroyed millions of dollars' worth of aid, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine Matthias Schmale said on 15 September.

Repeated strikes on aid warehouses have forced the UN to rethink how it stores and buys supplies in Ukraine, including moving them underground. More of the humanitarian budget now goes to protecting aid rather than delivering it.

"These deliberate attacks on warehousing capacities … is a new trend of the last few months," Schmale told Reuters after briefing states in Geneva.

Strikes destroyed medical supplies, food, and generators worth millions across Ukraine

On 3 September, an air attack destroyed a major medical-supplies warehouse in the Kyiv region. The attack came after two other medical-supply warehouses were destroyed in the previous three months, including a double strike in Dnipro in late August that wiped out half the supplies earmarked for some 225,000 people in frontline and hard-to-reach areas.

In July, a strike on a warehouse near Kyiv destroyed nearly $3.9 million in UNICEF supplies, including power generators, water supplies, and hygiene kits. In May, an Iskander missile strike on a World Food Programme warehouse in Dnipro destroyed food meant for around 130,000 people.

Added security costs strain an already underfunded aid operation

Schmale said the UN is now weighing whether to store supplies underground rather than in conventional warehouses, and is delaying some purchases while it works out how to protect what it buys. The added security costs come on top of an already strained budget: the UN's 2026 humanitarian appeal for Ukraine seeks $2.3 billion to reach 4.1 million people.

Zelenskyy responded to the "win-win" framing in a CBC interview published on 16 September during his visit to Canada, saying the war's human losses made such an outcome impossible from the first day of the full-scale invasion.

The US and Ukraine are framing a possible end to the war differently. Washington has pushed for a negotiated settlement in which both sides could gain something, while Kyiv has rejected territorial concessions and pressed for security guarantees.

The US approach was to "think about things in the context of win-win" and "create opportunities for both sides," Jared Kushner told reporters after visiting Kyiv on 6 September alongside US special envoy Steve Witkoff, following a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Zelenskyy argued that Russia's aims could not be reduced to a territorial claim.

"He has the biggest territory in the world and you need, I don't know, some kilometers. For what?" Zelenskyy said. "That's why it's very strange when some partners say, look, he needs just this part of Ukraine, just these kilometers and that's all. No, it's a crazy idea."

"No, he doesn't need kilometers. He needs Ukraine. He needs Ukraine to be a part of Russia," Zelenskyy said. "I know that this person wants to occupy totally us. And he will not change his goal. Never," he said.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready for a ceasefire "without conditions" if Russia agreed—"just ceasefire and speak"—but added that any lasting peace required security guarantees to prevent another Russian attack.

Zelenskyy said he expects to meet US President Donald Trump in the second half of September, with the UN General Assembly in New York expected to provide an opportunity for the meeting.

Ukraine's military intelligence agency, HUR, published data on 54 Russian enterprises within KRET, a defense holding under Russia's state-owned Rostec corporation, on 15 September. More than a third of KRET's enterprises face no sanctions from any country in the international sanctions coalition, HUR reported on 15 September.

Russia's defense industry is vast, and sanctions have targeted companies and individuals across the sector in multiple rounds since the full-scale invasion to restrict its ability to produce and finance weapons. But complex networks of state-owned holdings and subsidiaries can leave gaps, allowing some companies involved in military production to remain outside international sanctions. An August report by the anti-corruption organization NAKO found that the EU had sanctioned only 23% of 482 Rostec-linked entities.

What KRET makes for Russia's military

• KRET makes electronic warfare systems, friend-or-foe identification systems and onboard electronics for Russian fighter jets and helicopters, HUR said. Its companies also make other military equipment, including anti-drone systems and remotely operated machine guns.
• KRET also supports Russia’s missile production. The Signal plant in Stavropol makes compact jamming stations for 9M723 Iskander-M missiles, and the Kaluga Research Radio Engineering Institute makes electronic protection systems for 3M22 Zircon missiles.
• KRET’s main organization covers funding shortfalls for state defense contracts carried out by its companies, according to HUR.

Unsanctioned companies make missile and drone parts

HUR also named several of the 19 unsanctioned companies that it says are involved in Russian weapons production. 

Among those firms, HUR identified manufacturers of navigation systems for Kh-59M2 and Kh-59M2A guided air-launched missiles and Orion drones, gyroscopes for 9M727 cruise missiles used in the Iskander system, and electric motors for drones.

The enterprises include JSC Inertial Technologies of Technokompleks, JSC Tambov Plant Elektropribor, and JSC Ulan-Ude Instrument-Making Production Association.

HUR calls for broader sanctions

The intelligence agency called for more defense companies to be added to international sanctions lists, better monitoring of compliance, and punishment for violations. KRET is the 10th Rostec holding whose enterprises HUR has published on its War&Sanctions portal. The portal now lists 764 Rostec enterprises, UNN reported.

On 8 September, HUR published data on 155 enterprises belonging to Roselektronika, another Rostec holding. Nearly half were not under international sanctions.

Falling Russian drone debris started 17 forest fires in Chernihiv Oblast between 7 and 13 September, burning 10.8 hectares, Ukraine's state forestry enterprise Forests of Ukraine said.

Russia's drone campaign is causing damage beyond its immediate targets, as falling debris can start fires in forests and other open areas. Forest fires linked to military activity have become a recurring problem across Ukraine. The previous week, 56 forest fires covering 84 hectares were recorded nationwide, with 95% attributed to hostilities, according to the state forestry enterprise.

Drone wreckage also started fires in eight other oblasts during the same period. Kherson Oblast recorded 3.7 hectares burned, Odesa 2 hectares, and Sumy 1.91 hectares. Smaller areas were affected in Zaporizhzhia (0.7 hectares), Dnipropetrovsk (0.5 hectares), Kyiv and Zhytomyr (0.12 hectares each), and Mykolaiv (0.1 hectares), according to Forests of Ukraine.

Russia kept up the daily barrages all week. Between 7 and 13 September, it launched more than 2,000 strike drones at Ukraine, by the Air Force's daily counts, and air defense downed or suppressed about 1,800 of them. The heaviest came on the night of 13 September, when 453 drones and S8000 Banderol munitions flew in from six directions and 405 drones and four Banderols were brought down. Twice that week, Russia also attacked in daylight, sending 410 drones on 12 September and 323 on 13 September between 06:30 and 18:00.

About 165,000 hectares of Ukrainian forest have burned since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, with most of the damage linked to fires caused by shelling and combat.

In total, 46 forest fires covering 25.7 hectares were recorded across the enterprise's territory that week, with about 72% linked to military activity, according to Forests of Ukraine.

The wider environmental toll

The fires are part of a wider environmental toll from Russia's war. The Initiative on Greenhouse Gas Accounting of War, working with the NGO Ecodiya and Ukraine's environment ministry, put emissions from war-driven landscape fires over the first four years at 70 million tons of CO2 equivalent, in an assessment reported by the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group.

The same review recorded 2,643 environmental incidents monitored by Ecodiya, with 2025 accounting for 931 of them.

Lithuanian troops began military exercises across 12 municipalities in the southern half of the country on 14 September, training to respond to different types of military threats, LRT reported. The exercises will run through 18 September.

NATO's eastern flank has faced growing security pressure from Russia's war against Ukraine. Lithuania borders Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest and Belarus to the east, while its territory forms part of the land route connecting the Baltic states with Poland and the rest of NATO.

The exercises involve multiple types of drones, boats, weapons, and wheeled military and civilian transport vehicles, with troops moving on foot and by vehicle during the day and at night. No imitation ammunition or pyrotechnics will be used, the army said.

Recent airspace incidents

Vilnius International Airport was closed on 13 September for 38 minutes after radar detected what was initially feared to be a drone. An Italian air force detachment based at Šiauliai as part of NATO's Baltic Air Defense mission scrambled a fighter jet, which identified the contact as a flock of birds.

Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania's National Crisis Management Center, told LRT radio that a large concentration of birds moving in one direction can register on radar as a drone-like object.

Separately, Poland said on 14 September that its military had found a suspected Russian military drone near its Baltic Sea coast. Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said a preliminary inspection indicated it was a Russian military drone.

Operational Command spokesman Jacek Goryszewski told TVN24 it was most probably a Russian Gerbera, a cheap long-range drone built from plywood and foam that is often used as a decoy but can carry explosives, and said it had drifted to shore under military observation, with no violation of Polish airspace recorded since late July.

Multinational drills near Belarus

Another multinational exercise, Strong Griffin 2026, is also underway in Lithuania's Švenčionys district near the Belarusian border. Running from 2 to 20 September, it involves about 2,500 troops and 500 pieces of equipment from Lithuania, the United States, Poland, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal, plus partner countries Ukraine and Moldova, according to LRT. Drone work is integrated across it, from reconnaissance to long-range strikes and countering enemy drones.

European intelligence services expect the danger to grow rather than fade. Dutch military intelligence assesses that Russia could mount a regional conflict against NATO within a year of the fighting in Ukraine ending, and reports that preparations for sabotage across Europe have been rising again since mid-2025.

Ukraine's Economy Ministry expects losses from Russian strikes to reach up to $10 billion this year and plans to submit a three-part business support package to the Cabinet next week, Economy Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko said on 12 September.

Russia has escalated its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine through 2026, striking first at power plants, substations, and residential blocks, then widening the target list to trains, factories, retailer warehouses, and medicine depots. Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotsky said on 28 August that Russia had destroyed about 90% of retail chains' food logistics, but that supply would shift to direct deliveries, with no shortage of basic foods expected.

Kravchenko said business is an absolutely important source of funding for the defense forces, and that it ensures critical goods are supplied and communities can function.

Three-part package aims to support businesses affected by Russian strikes

• The package has three elements, Kravchenko said. The first would extend the geographic coverage of existing damage compensation programs to include Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, and simplify the application process so affected companies do not wait months for support.
• The second would expand subsidized lending for large businesses, with loans of up to about $22 million (UAH 1 billion) and an interest-rate subsidy of about 5 percentage points. The loans could fund investment projects, including fortification and protection, as well as working capital.
• The third would expand the state's 5-7-9 lending program, which sets the borrower's rate at 5%, 7%, or 9% depending on the purpose of the loan and the size of the business, to suppliers whose large retail clients are losing money to strikes.

He said all three programs had been finalized and hoped businesses would begin receiving substantial support within the coming weeks. The package followed a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and discussions with businesses, he said.

Russian strikes have damaged logistics networks and businesses across Ukraine

An overnight strike on Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast on 5 August killed 17 people and destroyed or damaged warehouses and distribution centers belonging to Rozetka, Epicentr, Nova Poshta, Silpo, and other major companies. Co-founder Iryna Chechotkina described Rozetka's warehouse complex in Brovary, valued at $70 million, as beyond repair. The same strike killed six Silpo employees.

Further strikes through early September hit Auchan, Nova Poshta again, Varus, Dnipro-M, and Coca-Cola.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney attended a presentation of Ukrainian drones, Ukrainian-Canadian developments, and defense-component manufacturers in Calgary on 10 September, the Ukrainian presidential readout said.

The event followed the signing of documents on defense and security cooperation, which Kyiv calls the first step toward a Drone Deal on the American continent. That deal would take cooperation beyond individual Ukrainian-Canadian production projects toward a broader industrial model pairing Ukrainian technology with Canadian manufacturing capacity.

The systems shown included the Vampire 4S, a heavy multirotor that drops munitions at night and that Russian troops call Baba Yaga, and SkyFall's P1-SUN interceptor, designed to bring down Shahed-type drones and priced at about $1,000 at this year's World Defence Show. The lineup also included the Shrike FPV drone and the Hor reconnaissance UAV. Companies also presented projects involving drones, ground robotics, and secure communications.

The systems and joint projects

The presentation featured Himera radio sets alongside the four drone systems. Zelenskyy and Carney were also shown the remote operation of the Ratel ground robotic complex and uncrewed maritime systems from UFORCE and Scorpena.

Airlogix plans to produce the Hor reconnaissance UAV with Canada's Sentinel. Ai Drones UA and Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) showed a prototype ground robotic complex, while Himera and Quantropi presented secure communications solutions. The announcements at the event covered future cooperation between GTH and General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada, JK Land Vehicles and General Dynamics Land Systems, and a training program between SkyFall and Calian.

The readout said that 21 Canadian companies took part and that they already integrate their components into Ukrainian systems.

Canada's drone problem

Canada's armed forces hold 2,000 drones today and will need millions, Carney said in Calgary. A new national drone marketplace is meant to build the capacity for those millions inside two years, with Ukrainian firms teaching Canadian ones while Canadian manufacturing and AI expertise flows back the other way.

A third of all the drones Canada builds will go to Ukraine's defense, Carney pledged. The presidential readout puts the share at 30% of the drones the joint program is to produce.

Callsign Bilyi, a former air-assault soldier, stepped on a PMN-2 anti-personnel mine in July 2025 during a combat mission in Kharkiv Oblast. Callsign Terri, a former industrial worker from Kharkiv Oblast, lost part of his lower leg after stepping on a petal mine near a position in the same oblast shortly before. Both underwent amputations, rehabilitation, and prosthetic fitting, then chose to return to Khartiia, the National Guard formation they had served with, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Over 100,000 amputations have been performed in Ukraine over four years of war, and the fighting has added as many as 390,000 disabilities, according to the World Health Organization. While the figure does not distinguish soldiers from civilians, these two men show one route back into the war for soldiers who cannot return to the ground: the screens of a drone-saturated battlefield, where what they learned on foot still counts.

Both men could have been discharged, they told Ukrainska Pravda, and chose instead to keep serving in ISTAR (intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance). The operator watches drone feeds, tracks friendly and enemy positions, and passes targets to strike teams. 

Bilyi's path back to service

Bilyi says the job needs what he already had: "An ISTAR operator should have combat experience, to understand where things are, to know what a position looks like. If you come in without it, they show you a picture. But if you have never felt what that is, it is not the same."

He moved to Khartiia at the end of 2024 and was wounded on his first mission with the unit. His tourniquet remained on his leg for two days before scouts carried him out. Bilyi returned to Khartiia on 12 May 2026, less than a year later, fitted with an electronic Allux prosthesis.

"I've gotten used to it. Sometimes I forget I don't have a leg," Bilyi said.

Part of why he returned was to set an example for the men in his unit: "He serves on a prosthetic, so why should I be down? You can keep moving forward."

From the trenches to the monitors: Terri's shift in perspective

Terri was wounded on his third frontline mission at the end of June 2025. His tourniquet was on for 25 hours before his amputation, and the next day, he refused when a doctor suggested removing his knee as well. He returned this summer, choosing ISTAR over a posting with ground robots.

Sitting at the screens changed how he understood the war. As a foot soldier, he had felt frustrated with drone crews when resupply failed.

"Back then I thought, why aren't they dropping us water," he said. "But when I sat down at the monitors and saw how it all works, I realized we'd blamed the guys for nothing."

A Russian strike hit a warehouse across the street from Liudmyla and Leonid Ryzhak's Kyiv apartment overnight into 8 September, sending a blast wave through their home hours before they were due to get married, the Associated Press reported. Leonid, 43, a soldier on leave from the front, had come back for the wedding.

Ukrainians keep marrying and rebuilding through a war that keeps interrupting both. More than 79,000 couples registered their marriages in the first half of 2026, 16% more than in the same period last year, nearly 40% of them online, according to Ukraine's Ministry of Justice figures. In July alone, the UN counted 437 civilians killed across the country, the deadliest month since May 2022.

The explosion blew out the windows, scattered furniture, and left the apartment uninhabitable. The couple fled to a shelter with Liudmyla's 6-year-old daughter and two guinea pigs. Their cat hid and could not be found. A second strike hit after they reached the shelter.

Neighbors clearing debris stopped to congratulate them.

“We should all be celebrated, that we survived,” Liudmyla replied.

They dug their wedding clothes out of the debris. Liudmyla, 33, shook broken glass from her white tulle skirt, which had small holes. Leonid could not find his dress trousers, so he wore army trousers with his embroidered shirt and sneakers.

The strike was part of a mass Russian attack on Kyiv that came once US peace envoys left the capital, ending a lull that had held for three days. Russia launched 166 drones and 32 cruise missiles at Ukraine overnight, along with ballistic and anti-ship missiles, and air defenses downed 142 drones, 31 cruise missiles, and two ballistic missiles, the Air Force said. Three people were killed in Kyiv, Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said.

The couple arrived at the registry office on time, at 10:40, but another air-raid siren sounded soon after and the office closed. They waited in the courtyard for almost three hours as explosions hit the surrounding districts.

Eventually, the alert ended, and the couple went inside.

"If God gave me a continuation of life, then why should I put it off?" Liudmyla said. "At least for now, I have the right to be happy," she added.

They got married.

Viktor Hurniak was a Ukrainian photojournalist who worked for UNIAN, a major Ukrainian news outlet, and for Reuters, and co-founded the LUFA photo agency, according to Ukrainska Pravda. He joined the fight in the Russo-Ukrainian war in September 2014. Russia killed him on 19 October that year near the village of Smile in Luhansk Oblast, as he helped evacuate wounded soldiers under mortar fire.

Since the Russo-Ukrainian war began in 2014, Ukrainian media workers have been killed while reporting, as civilians, and after joining the armed forces.

From photographer to volunteer

Hurniak had been photographing since he was 14. He started at the Ternopil newspaper 20 Khvylyn, and UNIAN picked up his work after he happened onto a fire on Crimea’s Ai-Petri in 2007.

By summer 2014, Viktor was raising money and finding helmets, body armor, clothing, and vehicles for Ukrainian troops, often delivering the supplies himself. His network and ability to source equipment earned him the callsign Oligarch among Aidar soldiers.

On one trip to Italy, Viktor, his father Petro, and friends returned with 550 helmets.

Friends, including Vitalii Derekh, tried to persuade him not to go further. They argued that he was more useful finding equipment than carrying a rifle.

Hurniak answered: “Well, I want to fight.”

In September 2014, he joined Aidar’s 24th territorial defense battalion.

His decision did not make him more distant from his family. Olesia Yedynak-Khoma recalled that after joining the battalion, he contacted them more often, sent photographs, and shared more about what was happening in Donbas. He told his sister Olia that there was “real life” in Donbas and that he had found sincere people and a strong sense of brotherhood there.

The day Russia killed him

On 19 October 2014, Hurniak was helping evacuate wounded soldiers from checkpoint 32 on the Bakhmutka road near the village of Smile in Luhansk Oblast when mortar fire hit. He was killed by shrapnel.

Viktor was 27. His daughter Yustyna was two.

Seven years later, Ukraine posthumously named Viktor Hurniak a Hero of Ukraine and awarded him the Golden Star.

His photographs were later exhibited in Poland, Estonia, Germany, and the United States, including at the European Parliament in an exhibition titled “Donbas: War and Peace.”

His story continues

Writer Iryna Vovk's Viktor Hurniak, published by Folio in its "True Heroes" series, was presented at a memorial festival in his home region in October 2025 and in Ternopil in January 2026, 11 years after his death. The book is built from the recollections of his family and friends.

Olesia Yedynak-Khoma, one of Hurniak’s friends, founded a scholarship in his memory at the Ukrainian Catholic University’s School of Journalism and Communications.

The question Hurniak once asked himself later became a guiding phrase for his sister Olia:

“What have you done for victory?”

He had already given his own answer. Urged to keep sourcing equipment rather than carry a rifle, he said he wanted to fight, and in September 2014 he went.

As of 1 September, Russian mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) had harmed 1,688 civilians since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine's Main Directorate of Mine Action, Civil Protection and Environmental Safety said. The figure breaks down into 1,515 adults and 173 children, with farmers the worst-hit occupational group at 296.

More than 20% of Ukraine's territory—139,000 km²—was suspected of contamination as of mid-2025, according to the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS). The contamination poses a long-term civilian hazard because mines and unexploded ordnance can remain dangerous long after fighting has moved on. UNMAS has described Ukraine as the most heavily contaminated country since the end of the Second World War.

Ukrainian law enforcement opens criminal proceedings after each civilian detonation on a Russian mine as part of investigations into Russia's violations of the laws and customs of war, the directorate said. The data is collected under Protocols II and V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, Ukrinform reported.

Beyond farmers, the occupational groups most affected were the unemployed (238), pensioners (166), schoolchildren (165), critical infrastructure workers (164), and drivers (108), the directorate said.

UN human rights monitors recorded 51 civilian casualties from mines and explosive remnants of war in June, including seven killed and 44 injured.

The danger also extends to the people clearing contaminated areas: a Russian strike killed two Norwegian People's Aid deminers and wounded four in Kherson Oblast the same month. Russian forces had hit a clearance team before, killing two Danish Refugee Council workers near Chernihiv in September 2025.

The annual economic losses from contaminated land are estimated at around $11 billion, largely from lost exports and local tax revenue, according to the deputy minister coordinating Ukraine's demining.

The soldier, known by the call sign Tatarin, is part of a Ukrainian unit that recovers damaged battlefield vehicles on the Pokrovsk front. The work aims to keep the vehicles out of Russian hands and return them to service, ArmyInform said. Tatarin told ArmyInform that his team has recovered everything from armored personnel carriers to tanks.

Tatarin said he spent more than 20 years working in a mine in Donetsk Oblast. He is from Myrnohrad, lived in the same place his whole life, and stayed there until 2024, when he joined the army.

"I'd like to go back, but there's nothing left there. Everything is smashed," he said, adding that he is now fighting for his own home.

After the training center, he was assigned to the 155th Separate Mechanized Brigade, where he now commands a technical reconnaissance squad. When an order comes down, his team drives out ahead in a US-made HMMWV, known as the Humvee, to see how a damaged vehicle can be hooked and how another vehicle can reach it, then plans the run before the recovery vehicle goes in.

A mission through the minefields

One of the hardest runs was for a damaged French VAB armored personnel carrier, left in an area Ukrainian units were already withdrawing from. It had to be taken out so Russian forces would not get it. Four men went: Tatarin, Did from Dnipro, Blogger from Zhytomyr, and Patron from Ternopil Oblast.

They reached the VAB, but their Humvee hit a mine nearby, and the men suffered blast concussions and other injuries. A wheel was torn off, and Tatarin drove them to a treeline on the remaining three, he said. Then a Russian first-person-view (FPV) drone found them. They had just jumped out and started moving away when it struck the vehicle, he said. It burned, along with their radios.

There were no Ukrainian positions left nearby. Tatarin said they walked more than 10 kilometers to get out, through minefields and tripwires. "We were caught between two fires. We walked blind," he said. With no cover, they ran across the open stretches. The treelines had been destroyed, and the sky was filled with drones, leaving them unable to tell whose was whose.

Eventually, they found a beaten path and heard voices—Ukrainian infantry from a neighboring unit, weapons already charged. Tatarin is from Donetsk Oblast and speaks mostly Russian, and his comrades told him to say nothing so the group would not be taken for the enemy, he said. They called out that they were from the 155th. The infantry then passed their identity back by radio. Their own brigade, it turned out, had already been searching for them, including with drones.

The neighboring unit collected them the next day in another Humvee, and another FPV drone came at that vehicle. Tatarin and a comrade with the call sign Vovchyk fired back from the moving Humvee, Vovchyk with an automatic rifle and Tatarin with a pump-action shotgun. The drone detonated about 30 meters away. "In the best blockbusters you wouldn't see this," he said. "It was hard. War is war." They reached a safer area, where medics were waiting. The main thing is that everyone came out alive, he said.

Russia is accumulating missiles for autumn and winter strikes on Ukraine's critical infrastructure as well as for possible provocations against European NATO members, Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service (SZR) reported. Major General Oleh Luhovskyi, the service's first deputy head, gave the assessment to the national security advisors of European leaders, SZR said on 6 September. SZR did not say how they responded.

Russia has repeatedly tested NATO's eastern flank through drone incursions, airspace violations, and military activity, increasing pressure on the alliance's eastern members. But no Russian missile strike on NATO territory has been established as deliberate, so SZR's warning points to a potential new form of escalation rather than an established pattern.

Russia's missile buildup

SZR said Russia has accumulated about 400 hypersonic missiles of various types, without specifying which systems are included, and could produce up to 300 ballistic missiles by the end of 2026.

Russia has also deployed additional launchers in the Bryansk, Kursk, and Voronezh oblasts bordering Ukraine, according to the service.

About 60% of the enterprises involved in missile production are still not under international sanctions, SZR said, presenting that as a gap allowing the Kremlin to sustain production. The service called for urgent sanctions on at least 55 more companies still supplying Russia's military-industrial chain with electronic components and machine tools, or handling its payments.

Ukraine's Defense Intelligence (HUR) has estimated that Russia can produce 60–70 Iskander-M missiles per month. In August, HUR said Kinzhal mass production had been suspended in April and that about 50 Kinzhals remained in reserve. Kinzhal is one hypersonic type among several that SZR's undivided figure of 400 may include.

Pressure on NATO's eastern flank

• Russia's military aircraft repeatedly approached NATO airspace in July, and allied fighter scrambles along the eastern flank jumped by more than 250% compared with July 2025.
• Russian drones have also approached Romania's airspace and entered Latvia's.
• A Russian Kh-101 cruise missile landed in a field in Poland during a strike on Ukraine in July, putting a Russian missile on NATO territory.

The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lost the 330-kV Ferosplavna-1 line—which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called the plant's only remaining off-site power line—on 20 August and has since run on emergency diesel generators, Ukraine's state nuclear operator Energoatom said on 6 September. A day earlier, the IAEA said the plant's diesel reserves were under increasing strain and warned it could lose all power within days unless external power was restored or fuel deliveries continued.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has been under Russian control since March 2022, when Russian forces seized the facility during the invasion. The plant stopped generating electricity in September 2022, and all six reactors have been in cold shutdown since April 2024, leaving the plant dependent on external or backup power for cooling and other essential safety systems. Repeated damage to the plant's external power connections has forced it onto emergency diesel generators multiple times, including during a month-long loss of off-site power in 2025.

How much diesel the Zaporizhzhia plant has left

The plant's most recent delivery to its off-site fuel farm took place in March, and the next one, set for May, is still held up by military activity, the IAEA reported on 20 August. At that point, the plant reported having more than 10 days of diesel available for its emergency generators.

By 29 August, the plant was down to about 10 days of diesel—its minimum regulatory reserve—and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that was roughly how long it had left without restored power or more deliveries. Several dozen tons reached the plant on 27 and 28 August, but a week later the agency shortened the warning to within days, with the plant down to two generators and running its cooling pumps on and off to save fuel. No nuclear plant should have to throttle its essential cooling systems to conserve diesel, Grossi said.

How the plant lost its last external power line

Ferosplavna-1 is a backup line from the thermal plant next door, one of 10 the IAEA counted before the war. The main 750-kV Dniprovska line failed on 24 March. Technicians repaired it under a June ceasefire, but it has never been switched back on, because a substation more than 100 kilometers away was badly damaged. Ferosplavna-1 has carried the plant alone since. It went down on 26 April for the 15th time since 2022, by both counts, and cut out repeatedly around a June attack on the thermal plant. It went dead on 20 August—the 27th loss by Energoatom's count, the 26th by the IAEA's.

Ukrainian technicians began repairs on 5 September under a local ceasefire the IAEA brokered, with a few days' work expected. The line was still dead on 7 September, its 19th day without off-site power, the plant's Russian-installed management claimed to Russian media. Fixing it may not bring the power back anyway, Rosatom chief Aleksei Likhachev claimed the same day, blaming Ukrainian inaction for the other line still sitting repaired and unconnected—which the IAEA puts down to the wrecked substation.

Energoatom's assessment of the generator risk and Russian claims

Russian forces run the plant's emergency generators as everyday power, outside the conditions they were built for, Energoatom said on 6 September. Weeks of continuous running raise the risk of several backups failing together, and constant starts under load make the systems that start them likelier to fail. Even in cold shutdown, a blackout would threaten control of the safety systems and the spent fuel pools, and the plant is already in gross violation of its safe-operation limits, it said. Only a Russian pullout, military and civilian, and a handover back to Energoatom would guarantee safe operation, the company said, which also wants both grid lines back.

The plant has enough fuel for its generators but cannot restock while the access roads are shelled, the plant's Russian-installed management claimed to Russia's state news agency TASS on 31 August. TASS blamed Ukrainian forces for the shelling, though the quoted remarks named no one.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted a decision to introduce two levels of air alerts, with yellow for drone attacks and red for a heightened threat of missile or combined strikes, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said on 3 September. Under the yellow level, designated businesses can operate if they meet safety requirements, while a red alert will require work to stop and people to move to shelters.

Russia continues to attack Ukrainian cities with drones and other long-range weapons, repeatedly disrupting civilian and economic activity. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia is using mass drone attacks to wear down civilian life and economic activity, while the existing system of signaling all aerial threats in the same way no longer fits Russia's tactics.

How it will work

Businesses cleared to operate under a yellow alert must ensure staff and visitors can reach shelters. Where that access is missing, the Cabinet is giving businesses three months to provide it.

The General Staff, the Air Force, the government, the Defense Ministry, the Interior Ministry, and the State Emergency Service will set the specific indicators for declaring each level weekly, Zelenskyy said.

What still has to be worked out

Zelenskyy also directed officials to develop geographic targeting for alerts, so warnings can be limited to areas facing an actual threat. The measure is still being worked out and is not yet part of the new system.

The new approach is intended to allow economic activity to continue during drone threats while preserving stricter measures for more serious attacks. The government has not yet finalized which businesses will qualify to remain open under a yellow alert or all of the criteria for applying the two levels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Armenia's 2025 law launching the EU accession process "amounts to a declaration of withdrawal" from the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan replied that Armenia had filed no notice to leave and had violated none of the bloc's rules. The leaders met on 1 September in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, during a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

The exchange turns Armenia's westward shift into an open dispute over how far it has already moved from Moscow. Yerevan is preparing an EU application and has frozen participation in Russia's military alliance, but it still belongs to the trade bloc. Russia remains Armenia's largest trade partner, accounting for about 35% of its foreign trade.

The disagreement

In the opening minutes, Putin acknowledged that Armenia's aspiration to join the EU was the country's "legitimate right," but said it "creates difficulties" given Armenia's membership in the bloc that links Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. He told Pashinyan that adopting a law launching the process of joining another organization "amounts to a declaration of withdrawal from ours."

Putin urged Armenia to decide quickly and repeated his call for a referendum on whether Armenia should remain in the trade bloc or pursue EU membership, telling Pashinyan to give the people a choice so the matter could be closed.

Pashinyan pushed back. He noted that the bloc's rules have no mechanism to expel a member state—only a voluntary withdrawal process requiring six months' notice—and that Armenia has filed no such notice. He told Putin the issue had not matured enough for a referendum, arguing that Armenia first needs to submit a formal EU application, receive a response, and agree on an accession roadmap.

How far Armenia has moved

Armenia's parliament passed a law launching the EU accession process in March 2025, though the government has said the law does not amount to a formal membership bid. On 24 August, Pashinyan told lawmakers that the government would begin preparing a formal application "in the near future." Armenia has also dropped the "strategic partner" label for Russia from its new government program and effectively frozen its participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization since early 2024.

Russia's response

Since May 2026, Moscow has imposed a series of bans on Armenian agricultural imports—including fruit, vegetables, and mineral water—citing phytosanitary concerns. The EU called the measures "economic coercion" and announced a support package of more than €50 million for Armenia in June.

Pashinyan says dialogue will continue

After the meeting, Pashinyan posted a video describing the talks as "very good" and saying the two leaders had agreed to continue a "sincere and constructive dialogue" during a future visit to Moscow. He said bilateral relations needed to be "rethought" under new circumstances.