Russia has ordered Hungarian diplomatic staff to leave the country weeks after Hungary expelled 10 Russian diplomats over activities Budapest said were incompatible with their diplomatic status, Euronews reported. 

The tit-for-tat expulsions mark a significant change in relations between Budapest and Moscow following Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule as Hungarian Prime Minister.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned Hungary’s chargé d’affaires Gábor Gergics on 1 October and informed him that staff at the Hungarian embassy in Moscow and consulates in St Petersburg and Kazan would have two weeks to leave. Moscow described Hungary’s September expulsion as “baseless and openly unfriendly,” according to Euronews.

Hungary stands by expulsions

Hungary expelled 10 Russian diplomats on 8 September, citing activities it said were unacceptable for diplomats under the Vienna Convention. The government did not publicly provide details of the alleged activities.

Budapest said it was not seeking an escalation but would maintain its decision, while also saying its diplomatic missions in Russia would continue operating.

The expulsions come as Hungary’s foreign policy shifts under Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who took office after Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz lost the April election. Magyar’s government has moved to strengthen Hungary’s alignment with the EU and NATO while maintaining what it describes as pragmatic relations with Moscow.

A break with the Orbán era

Under Orbán, Hungary maintained unusually close relations with Russia compared with other EU members. Budapest continued cooperation with Moscow after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Orbán repeatedly opposed or delayed EU measures related to Ukraine.

The new government has taken a different position. In September, Hungary expelled the 10 Russian diplomats, and its new foreign policy doctrine identified Russia as a threat to Hungary’s security. Earlier, the government’s guidance for its UN delegation condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine and affirmed Ukraine’s sovereignty and right to self-defense, according to Euronews.

The shift has not amounted to a complete break with Moscow. Magyar has said Hungary will pursue pragmatic relations with Russia, while Budapest continues to seek concessions from Kyiv over the rights of Hungary’s minority in Ukraine.

Kazakhstan detained Ukrainian citizen Liubov Rozhanska in Astana on 1 October at Russia’s request, after she traveled there to receive her grandson, a Ukrainian boy whose father has sought his return to Ukraine, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.

Russia accuses Rozhanska of attempting to abduct the child and is seeking her detention through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led security alliance that includes Kazakhstan. 

She could now face deportation to Russia, despite never having entered the country, according to her lawyers cited by DW. 

A Ukrainian child Russia wants to keep

The case involves a boy born in Odesa in 2018. His mother took him from Ukraine to Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast in 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion. In 2022, she and the child obtained Russian citizenship.

The boy’s Ukrainian father challenged the child’s residence in court. In March 2025, Ukraine’s Supreme Court ruled that the boy should live in Odesa with his father.

According to Rozhanska’s lawyer, Oleksii Pryanishnikov, the boy’s stepfather and step-grandfather contacted her in July 2026 about arranging the child’s transfer to his Ukrainian father and grandmother.

By August, a Kaliningrad court had issued a warrant to detain Rozhanska in connection with an alleged attempt to abduct the child. Russian investigators were also preparing documents to seek her extradition through the CSTO, according to documents cited by DW.

Rozhanska then traveled to Astana and was detained at the airport after arriving from Istanbul.

Kazakh lawyer Riza Nurbaeva told DW that Rozhanska did not know about the Russian criminal case and had never entered Russia. She said the Ukrainian was detained under the Kaliningrad court’s warrant.

Lawyer alleges political motive

Pryanishnikov described the detention as a “planned operation” by Russia’s Federal Security Service and alleged that it has a political dimension connected to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

His allegation comes in the context of Russia’s documented transfer and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia and efforts to assimilate them into Russian society, grant them Russian citizenship and sever their ties to Ukraine.

In this case, Russia is using international legal mechanisms to potentially prevent a Ukrainian child from returning to his father in Ukraine.

Rozhanska is currently being held in a Kazakh pretrial detention center. A court hearing is expected within three days, according to DW.

Russia lost almost 300 km² of Ukrainian territory on net between March and September 2026, and it likely gained no ground in September despite its heaviest casualties of the year, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi accounts for much of the swing. The think tank notes that Ukraine's secrecy around such counterattacks makes exact monthly tallies hard.

Russia has pressed attacks along the entire front through 2026, accepting mass casualties for marginal ground, and its battlefield year has already been called its worst since 2023. Its losses have been outpacing its recruitment for months.

Russia came out behind in September

Russian forces seized 175.54 km² in September but lost 256.35 km², a net loss of 80.81 km², or minus 2.69 km² a day, ISW calculated. The balance stayed negative when Russian infiltrations into areas Russia does not control are counted: Russia seized or infiltrated 143.2 km² but lost 318.38 km², a net loss of 175.18 km².

The September figures include at least 147 km² near Lyman that Ukraine liberated over earlier months, but that ISW recorded only once details of Operation Vivaldi emerged in September. The operation already disrupted Russia's plan to encircle the Fortress Belt cities from the Lyman and Dobropillia directions.

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Almost 300 km² lost since March

Russia's rate of seizing territory dropped sharply in March 2026 and has stayed low, or even negative, since, ISW found. After controlling for the gains Ukraine made during Vivaldi, Russia lost control of 293.59 km² net across the front since March. Counting infiltrations, it gained a presence in only 174.44 km² over the same period.

ISW's monthly chart shows net Russian losses of 116.01 km² in April and 281.1 km² in May, modest gains in June, July, and August, and a net loss again in September. Oleksandr Syrskyi, then Ukraine's commander-in-chief, reported in June that Ukrainian forces had recaptured 100 km² in May.

More than 46,000 casualties for no ground

Russian forces suffered 46,230 casualties in September, Ukraine's General Staff reported. It is the third straight month above 40,000 and the highest monthly toll of 2026, by Kyiv's count. Monthly Russian casualties have climbed from 32,980 in April to 42,860 in July and 42,020 in August, ISW's chart shows.

Russia keeps suffering heavy personnel losses while making extremely limited or even net-negative territorial gains, ISW said, and its current force generation system still recruits fewer soldiers than it needs to replace them.

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Ukraine's effective operational security around Vivaldi, likely to continue in future counterattacks, will make meaningful month-to-month assessments of Russian gains and losses hard, the think tank added.

Ukraine may soon receive a multimillion package of 20-mm rounds for its F-16 fighter jets, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told journalists, Hromadske reported. He called the ammunition critical for shooting down Russia's jet-powered drones and said several partners have already begun transferring it. He expects the larger package after an upcoming high-level visit.

Russia now strikes Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities daily, increasingly with jet-powered drones that outrun the cheap interceptors built for slower Shaheds. Fighter jets are among the tools Ukraine uses against them, while its overall interception rate for jet drones still trails its rate against propeller drones.

"Critically important" ammunition

Sybiha said Ukraine has yet to build up its capability to repel jet drones.

"Given that we have not yet built up the capability to repel jet drones, and given the preparations for new strikes, it was critically important to help our military shoot down these drones. Apart from air defense systems, which are too expensive to use constantly against drones, the most effective tools right now are F-16 fighter jets," Sybiha said.

He thanked Spain, Belgium, and Poland, which have begun the process of transferring the ammunition, and said that thanks to them Ukraine will "very soon" have the rounds it needs.

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A "very serious visit" ahead

Sybiha linked the larger package to a visit he did not name.

"We will soon have one very serious visit. We think that one of the decisions following this visit will be a multimillion package of this ammunition for Ukraine," he said.

Talks on buying the rounds from private manufacturers are also underway, he added.

Ukraine has already received urgent batches of F-16 ammunition from Belgium, Spain, and other partners, and Belgium plans to send three more F-16s by the end of 2026 under an accelerated procedure. The jets' air-to-air missiles and cannon rounds are imported and not always in stock.

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Another night of Russian strikes

Overnight on 2 October, Russia launched 108 drones at Ukraine, 47 of them jet-powered, and air defenses downed 88 of them. In Kyiv, a Russian strike on a 25-story residential building in the Darnytskyi district killed one person and injured two. Russia also targeted the Southern Bridge again, after striking it three times the previous day, and the city restricted public transport across several bridges.

In Kharkiv Oblast, a Russian FPV drone hit a car in the Solonytsivka hromada on the afternoon of 1 October, injuring a man and a boy. A Russian strike damaged a civilian enterprise in Rivne Oblast and started a fire that forced an evacuation of nearby homes, regional head Oleksandr Koval said, and drones attacked Cherkasy Oblast.

In neighboring Romania, an object believed to be a drone crashed near the village of Plauru in Tulcea County during the attack, starting a fire that caused no casualties, Romania's Defense Ministry said.

The Russian government has submitted a draft federal budget for 2027–2029 to the State Duma, Meduza reported on 30 September, citing TASS. In all three years, Russia's expenditures will exceed its revenues, the outlet noted.

Russia's finances have been eroding since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To keep paying for the war, the Kremlin has drained its reserves, borrowed more, and pushed tax burdens onto residents and businesses, while the wider economy stalls.

The government listed social obligations, including aid to those who fought in its war against Ukraine and their families, along with defense needs among the budget's priorities, while its press release left out the planned cuts to social spending and the rise in military spending, Meduza noted, citing The Bell.

Spending will exceed revenue by about 2% of GDP a year

Russia's federal budget for 2027 sets spending at 48.8 trillion rubles ($585 billion) and revenue at 43.3 trillion ($519 billion), the Russian government stated, leaving a deficit of 5.5 trillion rubles ($66 billion). It claimed the draft is "balanced" and that healthcare spending will rise compared with 2026.

Deficits of 5.1 trillion rubles ($61 billion) in 2028 and 5.3 trillion ($64 billion) in 2029 are also planned, about 2% of GDP a year, Meduza noted.

This year's deficit is now set to reach a record 7.345 trillion rubles ($88 billion), nearly double the previous forecast of 3.785 trillion ($45 billion), The Moscow Times reported on 1 October. To help close the gap, Moscow plans an array of tax hikes for 2027–2029 to fund military spending. Already by May, its four-month deficit had run 50% above what it had planned for the whole year.

Even as the deficit widens, Russia plans its highest defense spending since the full-scale invasion began: 17.1 trillion rubles ($202.58 billion) in 2027, 27% more than the 13.5 trillion originally planned.

Only 2.3 trillion rubles ($28 billion) of that sum is itemized in public documents, and 34.9% of all 2027 spending will be classified, the highest share in at least 12 years, exiled outlet Vyorstka reported. The Duma is expected to hold the first of three readings on 29 October, the date proposed by Budget Committee chairman Andrei Makarov, Interfax reported.

Ukraine has cracked the riddle of strange metal "whiskers" that appeared on Russian jet-powered drones striking Kyiv, and they don't appear to be some clever new sensor. They are a simple mechanical detonator, a metal tube, and a rod that, on impact, closes a circuit to set off the warhead, Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, presidential adviser, says, ending online guessing about the strange devices.

Photos of Russian drones with long metal prongs jutting from the nose had set off speculation about what they were for. The answer, Flash explains, is low-tech: when the prong hits something, the contact closes, and the charge goes off, with no sensors or electronics.

That simplicity sits against a more worrying trend: Russia is steadily upgrading what its drones carry, from the mix of warheads on the jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 to a new charge designed to sever power pylons.

A contact closes the circuit

"It's all mechanically simple, no sensors or complex detectors," Flash says, commenting on the "whiskers".

It is the kind of crude, cheap fuze that suits a weapon meant to be built and spent in the thousands, where cost matters more than finesse.

Russia upgrades the warheads

Russia's jet drones, now built at roughly 3,000 a month, have become the dominant threat in its nightly campaign. The day when Flash published his "whiskers" post, Russia hit Kyiv with another round of drone strikes, hitting a school, a café, and warehouse buildings across the capital. The children inside the school were in its shelter. Fires broke out across two districts, and one person in the city was wounded.

On 28 September, Russia struck Kyiv's Academy of Sciences, which has a century-old history.

On the same day, Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, said Ukraine must "pay a price" for its actions in recent months and calls Russia's intensified strikes "part of this price."

Less than 50% of the F-16 fighter jets delivered to Ukraine may be operational, Defense Express reports, citing a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial published on 29 September. On the same day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Belgium would deliver three F-16 fighter jets this year.

F-16s are used extensively to intercept Russian cruise missiles and drones. As the number of Russian attacks has increased, these aircraft have become particularly important for Ukraine. However, the jets Ukraine receives are old, and keeping them flying takes regular maintenance, extra work, and hard-to-find parts.

Routine inspections are taking as long as 40 weeks in Belgium, retired US Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery told the WSJ.

The maintenance process for these aircraft for Ukraine is lengthy

A likely reason for the problem is the lengthy maintenance process handled by Belgian company Sabena Aerospace Engineering, according to the WSJ, whose questions the company declined to answer. This process, according to Defense Express's estimates, takes 6–20 times longer than maintenance in the United States, which usually takes between 2 and 6 weeks. Ukraine uses the services of the Belgian company, meaning its F-16s are not being serviced quickly enough.

Delivering three additional fighter jets will not significantly help the Ukrainian military until the issue with aircraft maintenance times is resolved, Defense Express notes. The lengthy turnaround may be caused by a large maintenance backlog at the company, limited capacity, or logistical constraints, and older jets may need extra work and scarcer parts.

The delivery is part of an earlier commitment. Belgium plans to provide seven fighter jets this year: three for operational use and four for spare parts, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said in June.

"I'll propose to the government to send all our F-16s to Ukraine in the coming years. It depends on having the F-35s in place because, of course, we have DCA [dual-capable aircraft] capacity. We have our role in the nuclear doctrine of NATO," Francken said.

Belgium has pledged its entire F-16 fleet of 53 aircraft as F-35s replace them, according to Defense Express.

F-16s in Ukraine have already shot down several thousand Russian aerial targets

F-16s operated by Ukrainian pilots have shot down more than 3,150 aerial targets. These include 666 cruise missiles and around 2,500 drones of various types. The aircraft have also carried out more than 650 strikes against Russian ground targets, Lieutenant General Anatolii Kryvonozhko, Commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, said during a meeting between a Ukrainian Air Force delegation and representatives of Lockheed Martin on 29 September.

At the meeting, Conor McGuire, Lockheed Martin's head of F-16 capability development, highly praised the combat use and operation of F-16s by Ukrainian pilots and the entire ground aviation personnel. He also expressed his intention to help Ukrainians enhance the capabilities of the existing platform, the statement said.

Student journalists, their advisors, and legal advocates say colleagues and administrators are attempting to undermine student reporting on Jeffrey Epstein, Gaza, and other issues that public institutions would rather not have their reputations connected to.

Public records obtained by 404 Media show administrators taking meetings with parents and alumni when they take issue with student reporting and asking advisors to compromise their professional ethics. They also show escalating tensions between student newsroom staff and administrators, prompting more legal aid requests to advocacy groups. 

This comes as student journalists at The Cornell Daily Sun earned recognition for breaking the “Cornell Seven” story regarding the lawsuit filed in New York’s trial court last month by a Jane Doe accusing current and former Cornell University students of drugging and sexual abuse. The student journalists told The Cut this week that a vague university and campus police statement from nearly two years ago prompted more questions than answers. Such is the basis for most accountability journalism on college campuses. 

The cases we reviewed involved the phase of the reporting process that comes later, where a factual dispute the newsroom has defended or a complaint where the person doesn’t bother to explain what is allegedly wrong with the students’ reporting. 

In Colorado, a high school social studies teacher emailed the student publication’s advisor at the time, accusing a student’s opinion piece called “Why is Gaza Important?”of being “published with factually inaccurate and racist information,” but then said in the same email, “I’m not going to start listing the inaccuracies along with the omissions.”

In California, a high school principal told a student journalism advisor to redact the name of an individual threatening to sue the district for defamation after student journalists published an Instagram carousel to their school’s newspaper account about the number of times their county turned up in the Epstein files. In this case, which has already been widely reported on, the administrator told the journalism advisor to redact the name of the woman who was threatening suit without determining whether the reporter made a factual mistake (the students did not). 

“I can’t remove the name without your help,” the principal told the advisor via email, after the advisor said the students would first seek legal guidance from the Student Press Law Center before taking any actions.

Soon after the op-ed was published, the student newspaper’s advisor was reassigned to another role within the district. The advisor from the California school district stepped down from her role during the last school year; she now consults schools and nonprofits on best practices for their student media programs. Mike Hiestand, who is a lawyer with the Student Press Law Center, has spent decades advising student newsrooms. He says it’s common for administrators to target advisors, adding that it’s one of the more effective censorship methods available to them. 

“School officials, they see employees as kind of an easy target over whom they have some authority, and they know that in many places, that relationship between the students and their advisor is a tight one,” Hiestand told 404 Media. “Unfortunately, some school officials take advantage of that bond and definitely go after advisors.” 

In 2025, the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) claimed that the nonprofit had responded to nearly 1,000 hotline inquiries from student newsrooms in 46 states and Washington D.C. The most common inquiries involved censorship, libel and copyright. Overall, SPLC says calls are down, but hotline inquiries about censorship specifically are up 17 percent from the year prior. 

“One of the biggest things we’ve certainly found with censors over the years is they want to be called everything but a censor,” he added. “What they’re doing is everything but censorship.” 

This tracks with what 404 Media is observing through public records requests into school, library and university censorship. The same state laws that have been used to restrict how topics like race, gender, and systemic inequality can be accessed and taught have also put student journalists covering those beats in a bind. 

Records from Pensacola State College obtained by 404 Media show that last spring, an administrator tried to block funding for a journalism professor to print students’ class assignments for their portfolios because at least one of the stories involved reporting on the LGBTQ+ community. The campus later relented and agreed to release funding for students’ portfolios. In an email to the advisor, an administrator involved in the situation wrote that “the proper role of administration is to facilitate rather than impede the completion of legitimate classroom projects.” 

“When you have a principal coming in who doesn’t have a lick of journalism experience claiming that they’re there to guide young journalists, that’s where I have problems,” Hiestand said. “Every principal and every superintendent in the country seems to think that they are qualified editors.” 

Similar verbiage has appeared in other public records requests involving student journalists, like in the case of a Maryland school district memo about principals reading and approving every story before publication. In the memo, the chief of schools wrote that “[a]s responsible adults and educational leaders, we have the duty to guide the work of our students as they are developing their skills in a school setting during a school-directed activity.” But internal correspondence obtained by 404 Media suggests that the memo was “really to be sure an administrator could initial any printed posters, review school apparel, and scan over the yearbook to be sure that there is no violation” of the student handbook. 

Marie McMullan, program manager and counsel for the Student Press Legal Hotline with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, says so far, 2026 has been a very consequential year for students leading their school publications. 

“Student journalists are a very bright group,” McMullan told 404 Media. “They are great at sounding the alarm and bringing advocates out of the really blatant examples. But I always just worry about making sure that student journalists know their rights so that they can assert them in cases where there are subtler forms of censorship.”

At Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), student reporters with The Alestle, the university’s student newspaper, claim that the institution’s marketing and communications department had become more insistent on attending interviews conducted by student reporters in recent months. The department took issue with editor-in-chief Dylan Hembrough’s framing of the dispute, calling several of the claims “inaccurate.” In an interview with 404 Media, Hembrough said the paper investigated and determined there was nothing inaccurate about the story. When Hembrough did not retract the story, the executive director of marketing and communications at SIUE sent an open letter to the entire campus—a mailing list of more than 14,000 people, including faculty and staff—taking issue with that story, along with other stories throughout the years as well. 

“The Alestle appears willing to substitute alarming headlines for verified facts, to rely on posturing rather than careful reporting and to treat corrections as an inconvenience rather than a professional obligation,” the open letter reads. With the letter was a link to a 27-page document of corrections the department expected student leadership to act on.

“I have been on the other side of panicking over things like this,” Hembrough told 404 Media. “Something that has helped me get through that, or at least stave it off, is the idea that the truth is more important than whatever I feel about it. Embarrassment or humiliation should have no bearing on how or even whether a publication makes a correction.” 

Then in September, Hembrough learned via email that he was being investigated by the campus police for harassment against the department. When Hembrough’s journalism advisor asked the officer to clarify on what grounds, the officer said the report was based on a line in an email, which read: “Marketing and communications’ insistence on interfering with our newsgathering process is dangerous and detrimental to both press freedom and freedom of speech.” Hembrough shared his email with 404 Media, which reads as an editor defending another student reporter’s right to conduct an interview without the department exercising prior restraint over the publication. In her statement to campus police, she reportedly told the officer that “other members of my office have approached me stating Alestle reporters have been by my office uninvited,” and that she didn’t have a lock on her door. 

“Due to the media between Marketing and Communications and the Alestle I am worried a ‘January 6th’ type of crowd may be outside my office,” the complainant told the officer, according to the campus police report. The officer advised her to contact facilities management about getting a lock for her office door and concluded that the facts of the case don’t “meet the statutory threshold for Harassment by Electronic Communications.” 

The public records reviewed by 404 Media from SIUE support the claims The Alestle’s journalists make throughout their reporting on the department. SIUE did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment.

The situation at SIUE serves as an example of a dispute about institutional reputation that’s escalated to involve campus law enforcement, but law enforcement nonetheless. McMullan says this escalation has an undeniable chilling effect on free speech, noting that policies and laws that public institutions use to silence young reporters still need to abide by the First Amendment. But overall, she’s impressed with how students at SIUE and other campuses are meeting the moment, even when the adults in the room aren’t.

“Whether it’s in a court of public opinion or a court of law, students are not accepting censorship,” she said. “They’re pushing back against it.”

The Kremlin is signaling that it will hold the Russian assets of European companies hostage to pressure Europe into rethinking its sanctions, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote on 30 September. Moscow has already put well-known European retailers and food makers under Russian "temporary management." A senior Russian official has now hinted that European banks could be next.

As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, it has long turned hostages and threats into weapons. Its record includes nuclear threats against Europe from its Oreshnik missile launch sites and a fresh warning over Kaliningrad. It has played games with Europe's largest nuclear plant that it occupied in 2022, applied gas and water pressure on its neighbors, and Kyiv accuses it of blackmailing the families of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Europe's companies are now one more lever in that kit.

"Let them be scared"

Russia is taking "asymmetric measures" to make Europe rethink its sanctions, a senior Russian government source with direct knowledge of the seizures claimed, Reuters reported. "Let them think about what measures they are taking and what sanctions they are introducing," the source said.

Asked whether the Russian units of Italy's UniCredit and Austria's Raiffeisen could be placed under temporary management, the source answered: "Let them be scared."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the decisions were driven by "the increasing level of involvement of these unfriendly countries in direct battlefield hostilities" against Russia. He suggested the moves were "reversible," but added: "For now, we do not see any grounds for a reversal."

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Nestlé, Auchan, and Metro under "temporary management"

Putin's decree of 17 September placed 16 companies under the "temporary management" of a firm called L.E.V. Management, with no end date. They include the Russian units of France's Auchan and Lemana PRO, formerly Leroy Merlin, and of Switzerland's Nestlé. A second decree, on 28 September, handed the Russian assets of German wholesaler Metro AG to UK Torg Rus.

Both decrees amend Putin's April 2023 decree No. 302, which lets Moscow take over the property of firms tied to countries it labels "unfriendly." Because the "temporary" management has no expiry date, ISW considers it effectively nationalization. Independent outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe identified L.E.V. Management's director as retired Russian Major General Andrei Krayushkin.

European companies as corporate hostages

The Kremlin likely wants to use the seizures to take European companies as corporate hostages, ISW assessed. It also likely expects a temporary fiscal boost from the revenues of the seized businesses.

The strategy assumes that European firms will judge the benefits of staying in Russia to outweigh the risk of losing their assets, the think tank said. Whether a company is seized depends entirely on Moscow's relations with the country where it is headquartered, ISW added.

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Seizing others' property is an old Moscow habit

Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia has introduced temporary administration at 135 foreign-linked firms, mostly from EU countries, according to TASS data cited by Reuters. Earlier targets included French food group Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg.

The method was tested on Ukraine first. Russia's proxies in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts stole most Ukrainian assets there in 2014 and 2015. In March 2017, after Ukrainian activists blocked rail trade with the occupied areas, they placed the remaining Ukrainian-registered firms under "temporary administrations," a label close to the one Moscow uses today. The published Donetsk list alone ran to 43 assets, from coal mines and ironworks to the Donbas Arena stadium. Much of the coal and steel business later ended up with firms tied to Serhii Kurchenko, a fugitive oligarch from Yanukovych's era.

Ukraine is about to tell Washington exactly which Russian targets it wants punished under America's new sanctions law, the Associated Press reported. A senior Ukrainian diplomat said Kyiv will hand the Trump administration and Congress a wish list of companies, ships, and people this week—and at the top are the firms supplying parts for Russia's answer to Starlink.

The law requires Washington to act but lets the president waive the sanctions if he certifies that doing so serves US national interests, and the first choice falls due in weeks. For Ukraine, a measure that names no targets changes nothing on the ground—which is why the fight now is over whose names make the list before the clock runs out.

A list topped by Russia's Starlink clone

Denys Sienik, chargé d'affaires at Ukraine's embassy in Washington, said the priority is a group of Russian firms making components for Rassvet, Moscow's homegrown satellite network, which Russia hopes to complete by the end of the year—though its own officials have put the start of service in 2027. Bureau 1440, the firm building Rassvet, is not itself on US sanctions lists, but its parent company, ICS Holding, is under US blocking sanctions, according to Militarnyi. The suppliers feeding the network parts are not sanctioned, and those are the ones Kyiv wants added to the list.

Russia sped up the project after Ukraine and SpaceX cut off the Starlink terminals its troops had used without authorization at the front. If Russia completes the constellation, Sienik said, it could strike Ukraine at will with real-time information—a danger he warned would bite hardest this winter. "If these entities are not sanctioned, it will actually make this program possible for Russia and that will be a game-changer," he told reporters, Reuters reported. Kyiv wants access to Starlink inside Russia, too, so it can strike targets there.

Euromaidan Press has reported how such a network would change the battlefield: the satellites transmit in high-frequency bands that are hard to jam, and a relay overhead would feed drones and missiles fresh coordinates mid-flight, letting them fly low under air defenses that struggle to see them.

Oil tankers and attacks on US firms

Ukraine is pushing for tougher action against Russia's shadow fleet, too—the aging tankers that sell its oil around Western restrictions—and is asking the administration and American industry to publicly condemn Russian attacks on US companies' operations inside Ukraine, Sienik said.

The deadline Washington is now facing

The requests arrive as the administration faces an 18 October deadline to decide which Russian entities, if any, to sanction under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which US President Donald Trump signed into law on 18 September. The law directs the White House to impose tariffs on Russia's biggest oil buyers and to block its banks, officials, and tankers—but lets the president waive those measures, which is why Kyiv is lobbying for the toughest list it can get.

Russia has a new warhead for its drones, and it is built to cut down power lines. For the first time, a jet drone has carried a shaped "cumulative-cutting" charge designed to sever high-voltage pylons and iron bridges, Serhii Beskrestnov, presidential adviser, known as Flash, said, as Russia opened its heaviest assault on Ukraine's power grid since last winter.

On 30 September, Russia launched its massed fall-winter campaign on Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the last heating season, hitting power sites across 11 regions overnight with missiles and drones, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said.

The new warhead fits the aim: Flash says it is meant to bring down the high-voltage lines that carry the country's electricity. And Ukraine enters the winter exposed, with its energy resilience plans less than half complete.

A new charge targets the pylons

The device, which Flash calls a cumulative-cutting special load, is designed specifically to bring down high-voltage pylons and iron bridge structures.

"It consists of a main charge weighing 40 kilograms and four strike modules," he says.

In his reading, Russia intends to go after the major transmission lines that move power across the country, the backbone of the grid, rather than the substations it has struck before.

The campaign builds toward November

On 29 September, two senior Ukrainian officials told The Economist that Russia launched a three-part campaign of attacks on Kyiv, combining massive bombardments, sabotage, and the creation of political chaos. These efforts aimed at destabilizing the Ukrainian capital would peak by November, they said.

According to a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine, Russia has "thousands" of drones in its arsenal and is simultaneously expanding its stockpile of ballistic missiles. The plan is to "deploy the entire arsenal over the next two months," given that Ukraine lacks an effective weapon against jet-powered drones.

The Russian army deliberately struck a school in Sumy with a 250-kilogram aerial bomb while students—children in grades 1–4—were there, Serhii Kryvosheienko, head of the Sumy City Military Administration, reported on 29 September. The strike was one of a series of mass attacks on Ukrainian territory over the past 24 hours.

Across Ukraine, children now begin the school year in bomb shelters, because Russian missiles, drones, and glide bombs keep hitting schools, hospitals, and homes far from the front. The first eight months of 2026 brought more civilian casualties than all of last year, the UN says, and places where children gather are part of that toll.

Kryvosheienko said the Russians aimed the bomb at the school on purpose.

"With no pity or compassion whatsoever, they strike at children? There is nothing human in the enemy! He is not fighting on the battlefield—he is destroying a nation," Kryvosheienko said.

About 40 students were in the school's shelter at the time, a school employee told Suspilne correspondents. Preliminary reports indicate the children were not injured, Suspilne said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the strike on the school.

"Four KABs struck the city center, right at the school building, where classes were underway. Thank you to the teachers and the school administration: the children and teachers were in the shelter, a total of 100 people were evacuated in time," he wrote.

Two people were killed in Sumy, and children are among those injured

Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces carried out more than 60 strikes on 25 population centers in 13 territorial communities of Sumy Oblast, the Sumy Regional Military Administration reported. Two people were killed and 15 others were injured, including two children, according to the administration's figures for each community. Over the course of the day, the oblast was under an air-raid alert for 22 hours and two minutes.

In particular, a 74-year-old man and a 70-year-old woman were killed in the Sumy community as a result of strikes by guided aerial bombs (KABs), the report said. Four people were injured and three people sustained trauma as a result of the Russian attack, including a one-year-old girl. A six-year-old girl was also injured, while a 49-year-old man sustained injuries in a UAV attack.

Over the past 24 hours, the Russians attacked Mykolaiv Oblast with Shahed/Gerbera-type attack UAVs, killing a 56-year-old man, the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration reported. The attack destroyed one detached house, damaged two others and four outbuildings, and caused fires, according to the report.

An 8-year-old girl and an 85-year-old woman suffered acute stress reactions as a result of Russian shelling

Russian forces attacked Kharkiv and 10 population centers in Kharkiv Oblast, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration. Two people were hurt, both with acute stress reactions.

In Kharkiv, an 8-year-old girl suffered an acute stress reaction, as did an 85-year-old woman in the village of Ohurtsivka, Syniehubov reported.

The Russians used various types of weapons against Kharkiv Oblast: one guided aerial bomb (KAB), one multiple rocket launcher system (MLRS), five Molniya-type UAVs, seven FPV drones, and eight UAVs whose type is still being determined, according to the report.

In Kharkiv, Russian shelling damaged the windows of an apartment building, two cars, a private house, and the roof of a shopping center. A car was also damaged in the village of Myronivka, and three cars in the village of Mali Fesky.

The Russians also injured six residents of Donetsk Oblast: three people in Bilbasivka, one person in Sloviansk, one person in Shabelkivka, and one person in Druzhkivka, Donetsk Regional State Administration head Vadym Filashkin reported on his social media.

Over the past day, 18 population centers in Kherson Oblast came under Russian airstrikes, drone attacks, and artillery shelling, leaving five people injured, says Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration. He adds that Russian forces targeted critical and social infrastructure as well as residential areas, damaging two detached houses in particular.

Russian forces carried out 686 strikes on Zaporizhzhia Oblast

Over the past 24 hours, the Russians carried out 686 strikes on 51 population centers in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, but no civilians were injured, co-chair of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Defense Council Ivan Fedorov reported, adding that:

• Russian forces carried out 22 airstrikes on 18 population centers.
• 530 UAVs of various modifications, predominantly FPV drones, attacked 37 population centers.
• Five MLRS strikes were recorded against Orikhiv, Novoandriivka, and Kosivtseve.
• 129 artillery strikes hit 19 population centers.
• 44 reports were received concerning damage to infrastructure, homes, and vehicles.

Seven facilities in Zhytomyr Oblast were damaged during the evening and overnight hours leading into 30 September, says Vitalii Bunechko, head of the Zhytomyr Regional Military Administration. Food and processing industry enterprises as well as energy facilities came under Russian attack. Four cars also burned as a result of the attack, Bunechko added.

The Russian army attacked three districts of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast with UAVs, Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration head Oleksandr Hanzha wrote on social media. The attacks damaged infrastructure, and a fire broke out in one of the communities, he said, adding that there were no casualties.

Air defense forces neutralized three Russian UAVs over Cherkasy Oblast, with no casualties, Ihor Taburets, head of the Cherkasy Regional Military Administration, reported. However, the fall of an enemy target caused a fire at an infrastructure facility, which was quickly extinguished, he added.

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A former Wagner fighter captured by Ukraine has described alleged training sessions in Mali where Russian mercenaries used African prisoners as live subjects, deliberately inflicting severe injuries so recruits could practice battlefield medicine and killing.

Training built around real victims

The fighter told Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Karpenko that Wagner instructors brought captured Africans to training sessions and turned them into human practice targets.

“We gathered for medical training, and they brought in a captured terrorist. They tied a block of TNT to his leg. They set it off, everyone moved away, and of course his leg was blown off,” he said.

The recruits then practiced stopping the resulting bleeding. According to the fighter, the prisoner was later shot in the artery near his armpit so they could practice the same procedure on his arm.

The prisoner died after the training.

In another session, he said, instructors had a prisoner's leg chopped off with an ax so recruits could practice applying a tourniquet under realistic conditions.

“They cut off his leg. Then they put on the tourniquet – everything as if it were an extreme situation, so everything would be realistic,” he said.

‘Here, strike the heart’

The alleged exercises also included training in how to kill.

The fighter said another prisoner was drugged before recruits were taught how to kill someone with a knife.

“They showed us how to kill with a knife to the heart. They chose two people who were willing and said: ‘Here, strike the heart,’” he said.

The fighter said all three prisoners died during the exercises.

From Mali to Ukraine

The testimony comes from a Russian mercenary who joined Wagner in 2023 and was sent to Mali that September via Syria. He said around 120–130 recruits traveled with him and that Wagner paid them $3,000 a month.

Wagner was a Russian paramilitary formation that operated as a deniable arm of the Kremlin in Ukraine, Syria, and Africa. After Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's death in 2023, the group's independent role was largely dismantled, with many of its fighters and operations brought under Russian state control. Its African operations were increasingly taken over by Russia's state-run Africa Corps.

The mercenary remained in Mali until April 2024. After returning to Russia, he signed a contract with the Russian Defense Ministry in August 2025 and was assigned to the 14th Separate Special Forces Brigade, which is subordinate to Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU.

He was subsequently captured by Ukrainian forces.

A record of alleged abuses

The account has not been independently verified, but it adds to years of allegations of serious abuses by Wagner and other Russian personnel in Africa.

Wagner fighters have long faced allegations of abuses in Africa, including killings and violence against civilians. In Mali, the group became a key part of Russia’s military presence after the country’s military junta turned to Moscow for support, with Wagner fighters operating alongside Malian forces. Ukrainian intelligence has also documented and targeted Wagner’s activities in Africa.

The pattern of alleged abuses has continued under Russia’s Africa Corps, the Kremlin-controlled force that replaced Wagner in Mali. Human Rights Watch reported in August 2026 that Africa Corps fighters summarily killed nine civilians, including four children, beat dozens of others, and burned and looted homes in central Mali. In June, the group also carried out airstrikes that killed eight civilians, including three children.

Small groups of Russian infantry could slip into regional capital Zaporizhzhia this winter, a frontline commander warned in a mid-September interview with Dnipro TV, in a debate later compiled by Radio Svoboda. His forecast drew quick pushback from a military analyst, who called it far more categorical than the situation warrants. At the center of the dispute lies the drained Kakhovka Reservoir, whose dry bed Russia now uses for cover.

Dense drone surveillance has made large mechanized assaults costly, pushing Russian commanders toward small groups that probe for gaps. That shift turns unwatched terrain — here, the drained reservoir bed—into the seams they test.

Solitary groups, not massed forces

Dmytro Filatov, callsign Perun, commands the 1st Separate Assault Regiment named after Dmytro Kotsiubailo. The danger will come not as a massed assault but as infiltration, he said. He expects solitary infantry groups to reach and enter Zaporizhzhia over the winter. He pointed to the Stepnohirsk axis and the dense buildings along the Dnipro shore. Fog and rain raise pressure across the whole front, and Russian troops have long fought well in winter, he said.

A city on the front's edge

Zaporizhzhia is a regional capital and industrial center in southeastern Ukraine, with more than 700,000 residents before the full-scale invasion. The city sits about 25 km from the nearest active front, around Stepnohirsk to the south—unusually close for a regional capital of its size. Russian missiles, drones, and glide bombs hit the city daily. It has held since 2022, and Russia has not taken a Ukrainian regional capital since the war's first months.

The dead reservoir as cover

Russia blew up the Kakhovka dam in June 2023 and drained the reservoir behind it. Reeds now stand several meters high across the dry basin, giving foot soldiers cover to move unseen. Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces reported in November 2025 that Russian groups use it to press into the Ukrainian flank.

Russian troops increasingly use the bed to infiltrate and haul supplies, said Kostiantyn Mashovets of the Information Resistance group. One of their assault groups pushed as far as Malokaterynivka before Ukrainian forces blocked it, he wrote. Ukrainian troops hold northern Plavni, including the railway station and part of the E-105 highway, Mashovets added. The Institute for the Study of War pointed to the same route in its 26 September assessment, citing Ukrainian military observers.

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An analyst is not convinced

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political expert and Information Resistance coordinator, rates the threat far lower. He wrote that the warning "sounded far more categorical than it should have." Stepnohirsk, about 25 km south of Zaporizhzhia, is the closest active fighting to the city. Russia has tried for years to take the town but now controls only its 3rd microdistrict and southern Plavni.

Infiltration becomes possible only if Russia takes the whole foothold and reaches the north bank of the Konka river. That will not happen by the end of 2026, and no ground push on the city looks possible, he said. The main danger stays daily Russian strikes on the city, not a ground advance, he added.