The US has resumed sharing intelligence on Russian ballistic missile launches with Ukraine after a pause of several days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News on 18 October. The blackout fell on days when Russia was firing ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Limits on the Starlink satellite service that Ukraine’s forces rely on remain in place, he said.

Russia has leaned on ballistic missiles in this month’s strikes on Ukraine’s grid, firing 39 in a single attack, and Ukraine is short of interceptors to stop them. Washington has used its support as leverage, reportedly telling Kyiv to spare Russian refineries or lose US intelligence and arms.

Three days without warnings

The sharing had been blocked for some period of time before it was restored, Zelenskyy said on Meet the Press.

“We are very thankful for this. Now it works,” he said.

Ukraine gets other intelligence from Europeans and dozens of other partners, he explained. But only the United States has the data that tells Kyiv when Russia launches ballistic missiles.

“We didn’t get it during ballistic attacks during three days,” Zelenskyy said.

A timely warning gives Ukraine’s air defenses extra minutes to prepare and lets authorities alert civilians, Liga noted. Late on 12 October, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before the air-raid alert reached people, with no advance data on launches from Russian territory. The next day, US President Donald Trump said Washington was still sharing intelligence. Two days later, Zelenskyy said Kyiv had received no US warnings of incoming ballistic missiles while it paused its strikes on Russian refineries at Washington’s request. That pause followed the energy ceasefire Trump declared on 11 October, which Russia never confirmed.

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Starlink still capped, Kyiv says

Starshield, the military version of Starlink, still cuts out above 161 km/h, Zelenskyy said, too slow for Ukraine’s interceptor drones to catch Russia’s jet-powered Shahed-type drones. NBC News, which aired the interview, separately reported that Starlink services had resumed at normal speed. He said Ukraine’s generals and government believe the order came from the US government and SpaceX carried it out, though he did not know who exactly made the call. Ukraine had instead asked SpaceX and Trump to open Starlink over Russia so it could hit ballistic missile launchers, he said.

“If [Trump] will personally decide to lift this decision, it will immediately work as it was before,” he said.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who appeared on the same show, called Zelenskyy’s charge “very reckless” and said Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had denied any administration role. Asked about the break in intelligence sharing, he said he did not know anything about it but that Zelenskyy should be “very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true.” Reuters had reported, citing three officials, that White House officials ordered the Pentagon to limit the service.

Asked whether Ukraine could win without the United States, Zelenskyy said it would be very difficult.

“But if the United States will support Putin, I mean, it’s unbelievable, it’s tragedy. It’s historic mistake and big tragedy,” he said.

He also said his team had received word that US negotiators wanted to meet, and that he had offered to meet in Brussels or London, hoping the US team would be ready this week.

The warnings are back, but they stopped once without explanation. Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s missiles still runs through decisions made in the US.

Ukrainian company Nodrics has developed MAT1LDA, an eight-wheeled amphibious ground robot that can carry supplies across water, swamps, and rough terrain, robot-maker Tencore said, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported on 17 October. The machine joins Tencore’s new family of ground robots, which the company has also shown in the US.

Ukraine’s ground robots now haul supplies and evacuate wounded soldiers through zones where drones make every move deadly, and the Defense Ministry has launched its first competitive tender for them.

500 kg on land, 400 kg afloat

A petrol engine drives MAT1LDA’s eight wheels, and side pontoons keep it afloat, so it can cross water, marshland, and rough ground without preparation, Militarnyi said. Its makers claim it carries up to 500 kg on land and 400 kg on water, with a range of up to 160 km on land and 50 km on water.

Its open frame lets crews swap equipment quickly to suit the task, fitting cargo containers or evacuation stretchers.

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Four robots, one system

MAT1LDA is part of the Tencore Ecosystem, which brings together four classes of ground robots for military and civilian work, Militarnyi reported earlier. Besides the amphibious eight-wheeler, it includes the tracked TerMIT, the wheeled TOR 4×4, and the TRAX Utility firefighting and rescue robot. The company says it has delivered more than 4,000 robots to Ukraine’s armed forces since the full-scale invasion, used across more than 50 brigades.

Tencore calls it Ukraine’s first integrated ecosystem of its kind. Putting the platforms into one system is meant to make them easier to use, maintain, and fit with extra equipment. One of the first shared add-ons is AI KIT, a hardware and software module that lets a robot keep to its route or drive back on its own after losing contact with its operator.

On show in Washington

Tencore displayed MAT1LDA carrying a TerMIT robot at the Association of the US Army’s annual trade show in Washington this month, Breaking Defense reported.

Other Ukrainian makers have built swimming ground robots too: one switches from land to water in seconds, and another can tow 10 tons, its maker says. In April, Tencore formed a joint venture with France’s Shark Robotics.

During their visit to Kyiv in September, US President Donald Trump’s envoys urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to consider restarting the pipelines that once carried Russian gas to Europe, The New York Times reported on 17 October. They presented it as part of a peace deal with Russia. In the weeks that followed, they pressed the idea with European officials, while Washington freed Russian diesel and spared Russia’s oil buyers from new US penalties.

Energy sales fund Russia’s war, and Ukraine’s halt of transit in January 2025 left TurkStream as Gazprom’s only pipeline route into the EU. Meanwhile, Russia has kept bombing Ukraine’s grid through the energy truce Washington declared on 11 October.

The pitch in Kyiv

Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner put the idea to Zelenskyy when they met him in Kyiv, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the talks. Trump officials argued that transit fees, which Ukraine gave up at about $1 billion a year, would benefit Kyiv, and that European voters would eventually want cheaper energy. Russia’s share of EU gas imports had fallen from 45% in 2021 to 13% last year.

The envoys presented renewed Russian gas sales as one of the economic incentives in a wider settlement covering Russia’s relationship with NATO, security guarantees for Ukraine, and territorial control. Some European and Ukrainian officials suspected Washington would seek a cut of the profits. The White House denied that the Nord Stream pipeline had been a subject of recent discussions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that resuming energy cooperation is in Russia’s interest and, right now, even more in Europe’s.

Germany pushes back

At Ukraine talks the envoys hosted in Florida last week, Günter Sautter, security adviser to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, forcefully opposed the idea. German lawmakers have called a return to Russian deliveries a disaster for European security, even treason, as the far-right AfD courts Gazprom to bring the gas back. Former Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who steered Germany off Russian gas after 2022, said Trump “seems to have more sympathies with Vladimir Putin than he has with the Ukrainians.”

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One concession after another

Rather than pressure Putin or strengthen Ukraine, the administration has spent much of its peace effort on economic incentives for Russia, the newspaper wrote. The US Treasury cleared imports of Russian diesel on 9 October. On 16 October, Trump waived the penalties on Russia’s oil buyers that Congress had passed in the Graham Act. Washington is also weighing relief for sanctioned shadow fleet tankers. And the White House ordered limits on the military satellite service Ukraine’s forces rely on, Reuters reported.

Putin’s economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev claimed the ice had broken and more joint initiatives would follow, including data centers powered by Russian nuclear energy. The talks also cover the sale of Lukoil’s foreign assets to a group that includes the US government, the newspaper reported earlier this month. Zelenskyy, who had heard the pitch in Kyiv, alluded to it in a Financial Times interview this week.

“The question will be when will the next deal be? Maybe it will be gas. Definitely it will be gas,” he said.

Reopening the pipelines could hand Moscow back significant revenue and strengthen its sway over Europe’s energy market, Liga noted. Each new concession lowers the price Russia pays for continuing the war.

Two Romanian F-16s shot down two jet-powered Russian Geran attack drones over Romania’s territorial waters near Sulina on the evening of 17 October, Romania’s Defense Ministry said. The ministry released cockpit images of the mission the next day, as NATO allies prepare to discuss Black Sea security at a special session Romania requested.

This comes as Moscow continues its air attacks on Ukraine, while the US is trying to make deals with Russia over its diesel and lift sanctions. Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s energy system and cities, while its drones and suspected saboteurs keep turning up inside NATO, from tankers hit off Romania to a foiled arson attempt at a Starlink site in Lithuania.

Down within minutes

The F-16s took off from the 86th Air Base at Borcea at 17:43 after radar detected a group of air targets about 120 km east of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, flying southwest, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported, citing the ministry. The first drone entered Romanian airspace at 17:59 and was shot down at 18:01 southeast of Sulina. The second entered at 18:01 and was downed at 18:05 east of Sulina.

Both were jet-powered attack drones of the Geran family, the ministry said. The Geran is Russia’s version of the Iranian-designed Shahed. When first detected, the drones were about 65 km from the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea and 140 km from the Ukrainian-held shore, and their southwest course may point to Russian origin, Militarnyi calculated.

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The ministry posted the cockpit images on 18 October, showing a missile launch and a fireball over the sea. “Targets spotted, identified, engaged and neutralized!” it wrote.

Allies to meet on the Black Sea

A special session of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s top decision-making body, will discuss defense and deterrence in the Black Sea on 20 October at Romania’s request. Romanian President Nicușor Dan has confirmed that the two tankers that caught fire near Sulina last week were hit by drones, and a NATO military source told Reuters they were Russian.

Romanian radar has logged 54 drone intrusions into the country’s air and sea space since Russia’s full-scale invasion, 35 of them this year, and the military has shot down six such targets in 2026, Defense Ministry data show.

Searches in Poland and Lithuania

Within hours, Poland’s Operational Command said it was checking a possible airspace violation by an unknown object overnight into 18 October. Troops, police, and military police searched for a possible crash site south of Lublin after residents reported the loud sound of a flying object around 02:00, Militarnyi reported.

On the morning of 18 October, an unknown drone entered Lithuania’s airspace and triggered air raid alerts, the country’s crisis management center said. NATO jets accompanied it but could not shoot it down because of bad weather, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said. Debris preliminarily identified as drone parts was later found in the village of Juodžioniai in Pasvalys district, and the army said the drone may have entered from the direction of Poland.

Romania moved from escorting Russia’s stray drones to firing on them in July, when its F-16s downed three in 72 hours.

Someone tried to set fire overnight to a Lithuanian company that stores Starlink communication equipment, but tipped-off guards foiled the attempt, Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said. He linked the attack to Russia’s hybrid war against Europe. It is the third suspected sabotage of Starlink infrastructure in Europe in under a month.

Russia keeps attacking Ukraine at the front and from the air while running a sabotage campaign behind the lines in Europe, which ISW has linked into one pattern. Starlink keeps Ukraine’s drone units and front-line troops connected, and Poland pays for much of that service.

Fuel canisters and a control unit

The attack came just after midnight, the prime minister wrote. Security services had warned the company about possible attacks, security was stepped up, and the attempt failed.

The company provides connectivity through nine Starlink satellite antennas used by Ukraine, Sinkevičius told Lithuanian public radio LRT. At almost 2 a.m., intruders tried to burn the antennas and their control unit, leaving behind incendiary liquid in canisters of 3 to 10 liters.

“It is obvious that this is part of Russia’s hybrid war with elements of sabotage,” he said, adding that the client was likely “the Russian side.”

He said he believes the people involved, and how many there were, are known, but gave no details, citing the investigation.

Police Commissioner General Arūnas Paulauskas said no suspects had been detained, any damage was minimal, and the company kept working. A pretrial investigation is under way.

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A drone the same morning

Hours later, an object that apparently entered from Poland crossed northern Lithuania, and NATO jets failed to identify it, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said. Possible fragments were found in the Pasvalys district near the Latvian border. Latvia’s military said the object may have blown itself up on a course toward Latvia.

Sinkevičius said the sabotage version had to be checked for the drone too. He called the National Security Commission for Monday, 19 October, to examine both incidents and consider giving services more powers to neutralize drones.

The third Starlink site

In September, a fire destroyed the distribution panel at a Starlink ground station in Wola Krobowska, Poland. Germany detained two Turkish nationals on 12 October, and Warsaw blamed Russian intelligence. In Bulgaria, masked intruders burned 11 of 17 Starlink antennas near Sofia.

Ukrainian infantry encircled and retook the village of Kolodiazi north of Lyman without getting drawn into street fighting, while a drone battalion kept the sky above them shut, the battalion’s chief of staff told Suspilne on 18 October. The village fell during the fourth and final phase of Operation Vivaldi, Ukraine’s counteroffensive in northern Donetsk Oblast.

For years now, Russia has aimed to seize Lyman and cross the Siverskyi Donets River. It needs this area to encircle Ukraine’s fortress belt of Donetsk Oblast cities from the northwest, ISW assesses. Vivaldi’s four phases retook 277 km² and 16 settlements on that approach, and a veteran of the operation has said Ukraine’s assault troops suffered more than ten times fewer casualties than Russian forces doing it.

Drones over the infantry

The 60th Mechanized Brigade fought in all four phases of Vivaldi and took Kolodiazi in the last one, said the chief of staff of the brigade’s Fatum unmanned systems battalion, callsign Krash.

“Our task, as an unmanned systems battalion, was to escort and ‘close’ the air in front of our infantry to make it impossible for the enemy to hit it. To suppress all the firing assets possible,” he said.

The brigade’s 3rd Mechanized Battalion, the main striking force, encircled Kolodiazi and retook it without getting drawn into street fighting, Krash said. The 1st Mechanized Battalion kept Russian reinforcements out of the area, while drone crews suppressed artillery, hit supply runs, and worked against Russian drone operators.

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500 troops and 200-plus vehicles

The drone battalion killed or wounded about 500 Russian troops during the fourth phase and struck Russian armored vehicles, trucks, and motorbikes, its chief of staff said.

“More than two hundred pieces of various equipment: Grad and Uragan multiple rocket launchers, various armored vehicles, tanks, armored combat vehicles. Most of all motorbikes and quad bikes, there the count runs into the hundreds. This is our enemy’s main logistics tool,” he said.

Ghost villages

The villages retaken in northern Donetsk Oblast are nearly empty of civilians, Krash said.

“It’s very typical for de-occupied settlements: these are ghost towns. You can see right away where the occupier stepped. All the settlements are under the control of the Third Army Corps, our forces stand there and prevent enemy infiltration. But civilian life in these towns is either absent or very scarce,” he said.

Third Army Corps commander Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi reported Kolodiazi’s liberation, along with Zelena Dolyna and Lypove, when he summed up Vivaldi’s fourth phase, which secured 101 km².

Russia has started fitting its enlarged Gerbera-2 drones with a 10-kg warhead and an extra bag of incendiary mixture, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported on 18 October. The setup is designed to start a fire where the drone hits and is probably meant for attacks on critical infrastructure and warehouses, the outlet said.

Russia’s industry makes about 3,000 jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones a month, Ukraine’s military intelligence has said, and Russian strikes have destroyed 2.1 million m² of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space since the full-scale invasion began. A cheap drone that carries fire adds one more threat for air defenses that already let nearly half of Russia’s jet-powered Shaheds through.

A fire bag behind the warhead

Ukrainian Telegram channel Polkovnyk HSh posted photos of the payload on 17 October. Gerbera-2 strike and reconnaissance drones had begun to appear with a 10-kg high-explosive fragmentation-incendiary warhead and an extra package of incendiary mixture, the channel wrote. They navigate with Kometa-M12, a 12-element antenna array designed to resist jamming, it added.

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In the photos, the incendiary mixture sits in a separate soft plastic tank behind the main warhead, Militarnyi said. Gerbera-2s have been seen with warheads of 4 to 10 kg depending on range, while strike versions of the original Gerbera usually carried up to 5 kg, the outlet noted.

Half a Shahed engine

Russia has mainly fielded the Gerbera, a cheap drone shaped like a Shahed, as a decoy and reconnaissance platform flying alongside Shahed-type strike drones. It has also used bigger Gerberas to drop FPV drones.

Serhii Beskrestnov, now an adviser to Ukraine’s president, flagged a much bigger Gerbera in Ukraine’s skies on 7 August. The Gerbera-2 has a larger airframe, a reshaped wing, and a bigger tail fin, Militarnyi said. In August, the outlet reported it had a stronger piston engine: half of the one in the Shahed-type Geran-2, at about 275 cm³. Production of these engines was set up at the Izhevsk Motorcycle Plant, according to preliminary information the outlet cited.

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Earlier versions ran on a Chinese DLE60 model-aircraft engine of about 61 cm³. The switch was likely possible because Geran-2 engine output partly freed up as jet-powered Geran-4s took a growing share of Russia’s drones, Militarnyi said. The Gerbera-2’s fuel tank also holds up to 63 liters, against 10 liters on the original.

One reached Poland’s Baltic coast

In September, a drone preliminarily identified as a Gerbera-2 was recovered from the Baltic Sea near Rusinowo, on Poland’s coast. It carried a high-explosive fragmentation warhead of about 4 kg, a Polish military prosecutor said.

Ukrainian drones struck St. Petersburg’s oil terminal, a fuel depot, an Ozon distribution center, and a VK data center overnight, setting off fires across the city, monitoring channels reported. Russian outlet Meduza called it apparently the largest attack on the city and Leningrad Oblast since the war began. Russian officials acknowledged fires, damaged homes and substations, and power cuts.

Russia keeps fighting along the front while bombarding Ukrainian cities and the grid behind it. Ukraine’s long-range drones, in turn, target the oil exports and logistics that fund and supply that war, and Russia’s Baltic oil ports have been hit repeatedly this year. St. Petersburg is a symbolic place: Russia’s so-called second capital and Putin’s hometown.

Oil terminal and fuel depot on fire

Ukrainian forces struck the Petersburg Oil Terminal with FP-1 drones, starting a fire, Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said. The company described the terminal as one of the region’s largest, handling 12.5 million tonnes of petroleum products a year, including for export.

St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov acknowledged fires at the terminal and in four city districts, adding that Pulkovo airport had restricted flights. By morning, firefighters were still battling blazes at the terminal, the Ruchyi oil depot, and industrial warehouses in the Kolpinsky district, he wrote. He claimed one person was killed and five injured. Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported that the Ruchyi depot had been burning since the night.

Ozon hub, VK data center, and a bridge

An Ozon distribution center in Kolpinsky district caught fire after the attack, the company said, Russian independent outlet Astra reported. Astra’s open-source intelligence analyst described it as one of Ozon’s busiest fulfillment centers in northwestern Russia, covering up to 79,000 m².

FP-1 drones also hit a VK data center in Novosergiyevka, Leningrad Oblast, causing serious damage, Fire Point said. VK acknowledged a drone attack on the site but claimed its services were working normally. Leningrad Oblast Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko claimed air defenses downed 145 drones over the oblast alone. He acknowledged damage to the data center’s transformer equipment and warehouse complex, and minor damage to the Vostochnaya substation. Two other substations in Yanino went offline, cutting power to about 20,000 people, he said.

A drone also hit the cable-stayed bridge over the Korabelny fairway, part of a toll highway linking the city’s north and south, Exilenova+ reported, adding that the extent of the damage was still being clarified. The channel also reported a fire near a Russian Aerospace Forces radar company outside the village of Kaporskoye.

To reach St. Petersburg, Ukrainian drones had to cover 1,000 km across four Russian regions guarded by air defenses and electronic warfare, said Serhii Beskrestnov, adviser to Ukraine’s president on defense technology.

“And these are not cruise missiles with special systems, these are drones that fly at speeds of up to 200 km/h,” he wrote.

Strikes resume after a one-sided truce

The same night, Russia hit Ukraine’s grid again, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy counted 76 Russian strikes on energy since the ceasefire was announced. US President Donald Trump declared the truce on 11 October. Ukraine paused its refinery strikes for three days at Washington’s request, but Russia struck a Kharkiv power plant within hours and kept hitting the grid. Zelenskyy then said Ukraine was resuming strikes on Russian oil and would stop again only in exchange for more US interceptors for its Patriot systems. Trump called the renewed strikes “a disgrace” and said he found Zelenskyy “more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

Ukraine has hit the St. Petersburg area before. In July, drones set fire to Wildberries warehouses near the city. In August, Ukraine began striking Ozon hubs, starting in Samara Oblast. The hubs move dual-use goods such as electronics and drone components.

Russia has kept striking Ukraine’s energy sector throughout the week since US President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 18 October. From overnight into Sunday, Russian drones and a ballistic missile hit substations, homes, and industrial sites from Odesa to Volyn. They killed civilians and left tens of thousands of families without power.

Russia fights along the front line while hitting cities and the grid behind it with drones, missiles, and glide bombs. Ukraine says Moscow plans up to 1,000 such munitions against 60 key infrastructure sites this winter, and jet-powered drones partly free it to concentrate missiles on fewer targets, the Institute for the Study of War assessed. With Graham Act penalties on hold and US sanctions on Russian diesel suspended, Russia faces no new US cost for its strikes on Ukraine’s grid. Protecting and restoring the grid falls to Ukraine’s air defenses and repair crews.

Russia hit energy sites 76 times in a week

Zelenskyy counted 76 deliberate Russian strikes on energy and oil-and-gas facilities since Trump’s announcement. Overnight, Russia hit substations in Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, and Odesa oblasts, he said. In the past week, Russia fired almost 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 66 missiles, most of them ballistic, mainly to cause a blackout. His message was aimed at Washington.

“America must see that Russia is not taking steps in return for the lifting of sanctions or deals. On the contrary, they take every signal that they can make money as proof that their bet on war is working and they can keep fighting,” Zelenskyy wrote.

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Overnight, Russia launched one Iskander-M ballistic missile and 180 Shahed-type drones, 26 of them jet-powered, the Air Force reported. Air defenses downed or suppressed 152 drones, but strikes hit 20 locations.

Power cuts from Odesa to Ternopil

Strikes left about 24,000 consumers in Odesa Oblast without power, oblast head Oleh Kiper said. In Vinnytsia Oblast, the attack damaged critical infrastructure and forced emergency outages, oblast head Natalia Zabolotna wrote. Drones hit three energy facilities in Ternopil Oblast, one of them for the second time, and cut power to some consumers, oblast head Taras Pastukh said.

Civilians killed and injured

A Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia killed a 27-year-old woman and injured two others, including a 16-year-old, the State Emergency Service reported. In Poltava, an evening attack killed one person, injured four, and damaged 10 detached houses, city council secretary Kateryna Yamshchykova said.

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A drone hit a high-rise in Odesa and set its roof on fire. A 13-year-old girl was hurt, city military administration head Serhii Lysak said, and Kiper put the number of injured at two.

In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Russian drones and artillery injured three people, oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha said. In Donetsk Oblast, Russian attacks killed seven civilians on Saturday, six of them in Sloviansk, oblast head Vadym Filashkin reported.

Fires in the west, alerts across the border

A morning drone strike set warehouse and production buildings ablaze at an enterprise in Manevychi, Volyn Oblast, oblast head Roman Romaniuk said. With heavy smoke blowing toward the town, Romaniuk urged residents to stay indoors, shut windows and doors, and switch off ventilation. A repeat strike set an enterprise in the district on fire again, the State Emergency Service said, adding that air tests found no dangerous concentrations outside the site. In Lviv Oblast, drone debris damaged a logistics warehouse and two houses, oblast head Maksym Kozytskyi said.

Polish military aircraft operated in Poland’s airspace twice during the attack, as the Government Security Centre warned residents of Lublin Voivodeship and later alerted Subcarpathian Voivodeship. In Lithuania, NATO jets failed to identify an object that apparently entered from Poland, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said.

A ceasefire Moscow never confirmed

Trump announced the energy ceasefire on 11 October, news that surprised Zelenskyy. A White House official said Russia was still weighing it. Hours later, Russia hit a Kharkiv power plant, and on 14 October it fired 39 ballistic missiles at the grid. Then Trump waived Graham Act penalties on buyers of Russian oil, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration wants 60 days to weigh the economic effects.

Two tankers caught fire within about 12 hours off Sulina, Romania’s port at the mouth of the Danube, Romanian authorities reported. The crew of one said a drone hit it inside Romania’s territorial waters, while Bucharest says it is still checking whether drones were involved. Bulgaria, where drones sank ships in its economic zone this month, says it lacks proof that Russia launched them.

For months, Russia has struck civilian ships on the sea route that carries most of Ukraine’s farm exports, while its drones have repeatedly crossed into Moldova and Romania during attacks on Ukraine. As long as Bucharest and Sofia wait for drone wreckage before naming anyone, Russia, the party Bulgaria’s own prime minister says the logic points to, pays no price for extending its war on Ukraine’s trade routes into NATO members’ waters.

Seven sailors missing after the second fire

The San Marino-flagged chemical tanker Wine Trader reported a fire in its superstructure around 07:00 on 15 October while anchored in Romanian territorial waters about 13 nautical miles southeast of Sulina, Romania’s Naval Authority said. By midday, five of its 12 crew had been recovered and seven were still missing.

Hours earlier, at 01:34, a drone entered Romanian airspace over the country’s waters southeast of Sulina for about a minute before vanishing from radar, the Defense Ministry said. Authorities have not named a cause for the fire, though unnamed sources

Russia hit central Ukraine’s Kirovohrad Oblast with its largest attack since the full-scale invasion, killing residents of the oblast capital, Kropyvnytskyi, the oblast’s head said. Russian strikes hit more than a dozen oblasts, and Ukraine’s president said Moscow escalated deliberately after sanctions relief.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine continues on the front line and behind it, where its drones, missiles, and glide bombs strike towns daily. Kyiv is drafting winter crisis plans as Russia targets the biggest cities, and logistics is hit too: Russia struck one retailer’s warehouse hub 10 times in a day.

Three dead in Kropyvnytskyi

Oblast head Andrii Raikovych counted almost 360 Russian drones over Kirovohrad Oblast and hits on 26 locations, mostly in Kropyvnytskyi. In his words, “the enemy deliberately struck critical infrastructure, transport enterprises, logistics facilities, and residential buildings.” In a post after midnight, he reported a third death and six injured, five of them in hospital.

Air-raid alerts around the city ran from 15:20 on 14 October to 05:33, and Suspilne correspondents heard more than 20 explosions in Kropyvnytskyi, the public broadcaster reported. The national emergency service counted 25 struck locations, and rescuers were still putting out fires in the morning, the service’s spokesperson in the oblast said.

A wave Kyiv ties to sanctions relief

Nationwide, Russia launched 580 drones and two Kh-59 guided missiles from 18:00 on 14 October, and air defenses downed or suppressed 536 drones by 08:00, the Air Force reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia killed three people in Kropyvnytskyi and three in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha reported two dead.

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Zelenskyy counted more than 850 Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones between the start of 14 October and 09:00 the next day, “precisely at the time of an artificial speed limitation for our defensive capabilities.” Overnight into 14 October, SpaceX capped speeds on its military Starshield satellite service, disrupting Ukrainian missions. He added that Russia escalated “deliberately, having received a relaxation of sanctions and seeing attempts to pressure Ukraine.” Last week, Washington cleared Russian diesel trade after a call between US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Strikes from Kyiv to Odesa Oblast

In Kyiv, a drone fell into a residential yard, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote, later putting the injured at six. Drones hit two industrial enterprises in Poltava Oblast, its head Vitalii Diakivnych wrote, and a later strike on Poltava injured three people, rescuers said in a preliminary count. Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz said a drone set one of its gas production facilities in the oblast on fire, halting its work.

Russian guided aerial bombs injured two women and a man in Izium, Kharkiv Oblast, on 15 October, according to preliminary data from oblast head Oleh Syniehubov, who had counted nine injured in the oblast over the previous day. Over that day, Russian attacks killed three people in Donetsk Oblast, the oblast police said, and one in Kherson Oblast, where oblast head Oleksandr Prokudin reported five more injured. In Kherson city, a drone injured a man, the oblast administration said. In Sumy Oblast, a drone hit a house and left two people in acute stress, its administration said.

In Odesa Oblast, strikes damaged two apartment blocks, a company, and a bank office without casualties, oblast head Oleh Kiper said. Later, a jet-powered Shahed hit a store in the oblast, Zelenskyy wrote, and Kiper counted four injured in a preliminary tally. Drones also hit an enterprise in Ternopil Oblast, and five people sought medical help, rescuers said, while drones damaged two homes in Rivne, oblast head Oleksandr Koval said.

Ukraine’s Navy hit six Su-34M bombers at Russia’s Borisoglebsk military airfield in Voronezh Oblast with Neptune missiles overnight into 15 October, the Navy said. Residents filmed a large fire at the base after a missile alert, and the Navy’s count has not been independently confirmed. The facility is about 400 km from the frontline.

Glide bombs are now central to how Russia’s army fights, used to pin down Ukrainian defenders, including drone teams, before small infantry groups move in. They also hit frontline cities and the civilians who live in them.

Six bombers and flight equipment hit, the Navy says

The Neptune coastal missile system also hit technical equipment that supports flights, the Navy said. It recorded secondary detonations and a fire on the airfield and said details were still being clarified.

The Su-34M can carry several guided and high-explosive aerial bombs at once, along with missiles, the Navy noted. It called the jet one of Russia’s key tools for glide-bomb strikes on Ukrainian positions and frontline towns. In September, a Ukrainian Neptune missile reached a Russian warship at its own pier.

Fire over the airfield late on 14 October

Voronezh Oblast Governor Aleksandr Gusev declared a missile alert across the region shortly before 22:00 local time on 14 October. Within an hour, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported explosions and a fire, preliminarily at the Borisoglebsk airfield. It later wrote that the airfield had come under missile attack and a fire was burning there. Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ posted footage from the town showing the blaze.

On the morning of 15 October, Gusev claimed that 33 drones and several jet-powered aerial targets had been downed over the oblast overnight. He did not mention the airfield.

A base Ukraine has hit before

The airfield hosts the 783rd training aviation center and units of the 105th composite aviation division of Russia’s Aerospace Forces, which flies Su-34, Su-35S, and Su-30SM jets, Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi reported. In summer 2026, it had no permanently based combat jets, and Russia used it mainly as a stopover to refuel and rearm aircraft striking Ukraine, the outlet said, citing satellite observation.

Ukrainian drones hit the airfield overnight on 8 July, starting a fire, and satellite images later showed its fuel and lubricants depot destroyed. Drones also attacked the base’s pilot training center in July 2025.

The same night, Ryazan Oblast Governor Pavel Malkov reported a fire at an oil refinery in Ryazan. It came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was resuming strikes on Russian refineries.

Update: Satellite imagery confirms the strike

New satellite images show damage at Borisoglebsk airbase and six Su-34 bombers positioned in the affected area two days earlier, although the extent of the aircraft losses remains unconfirmed.

The monitoring channel Exilenova+ reports that 4 airframes were completely destroyed, while 2 others sustained significant damage.

Ukraine will resume strikes on Russian oil refineries, ending a three-day pause it held at Washington’s request, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times in an interview published on 15 October. Russia kept bombing Ukraine’s energy system throughout the pause, while Kyiv lost US missile warnings and its Starlink service slowed. Zelenskyy said Ukraine would halt energy strikes again only in exchange for more US air defense.

Ukraine's deep-strike campaign targets the Russian oil industry, which fuels Russia's army in Ukraine and earns the export revenue funding the war. Striking the plants that turn Russian crude into fuel, 12 of them hit in September alone, is one of the few levers Kyiv controls on Moscow’s war income. US President Donald Trump has blamed those strikes for higher US fuel prices, which most analysts attribute to the Iran war, and Washington has threatened to withhold intelligence, and reportedly weapons, unless Kyiv gives it up. Each step Washington takes toward Moscow, from fuel waivers to talk of frozen assets, widens the gap Europe and Ukraine must fill, while Russia gains revenue and time to keep striking.

A pause that bought nothing

Zelenskyy said he stopped the refinery strikes for three days to meet US wishes, but Russia kept hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and killing civilians. During the pause, Ukraine received no US warnings of ballistic missile launches, he said. Starlink also slowed across the country, hampering front-line operations and mid-range strikes on Russian military targets, he added.

Russia used those days to fire 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones at Ukraine’s grid overnight into 14 October, leaving at least 600,000 people without power. “We hold energy ceasefire from our side,” Zelenskyy told Piers Morgan on 14 October. Of the Starlink slowdown, he added: “I’m sure that they knew what they did.”

The price of another pause

Ukraine could again stop hitting Russian energy only if it receives more US interceptors for its Patriot systems, Zelenskyy told the FT. He warned that a halt could simply invite more US-Russia deals that feed Russia’s war machine, and predicted the next one would involve gas.

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US intelligence officials had warned Ukraine’s embassy in Washington that a new strike on Russia’s energy facilities would end all intelligence sharing at once, The Washington Post reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. Washington has not fully cut it off, but the threat stands, the person said. Trump said on 13 October that the US was still sharing intelligence.

Washington’s other moves toward Moscow

A senior US official told Axios the administration had nothing to do with the Starlink limits, which Elon Musk had blamed on the US military. The administration is also considering easing sanctions on shadow fleet tankers, which have carried oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, so the blacklisted vessels could haul non-sanctioned cargo, a US official told Reuters. The US Energy Department said the move would not help Russia ship its oil or fuel.

Washington eased sanctions on Russian oil this spring, after which Russia’s oil income jumped $890 million in a week, and it extended that waiver despite telling allies it would not. US envoys also proposed unfreezing part of Russia’s frozen assets to lure Moscow back to talks, an idea European officials rejected, the Financial Times reported.

US President Donald Trump’s envoys told Kyiv that letting Russia sell diesel could draw Moscow back to peace talks, Reuters reported. In the same meeting, they said Russia’s leader was not ready to negotiate. Since then, Moscow has offered nothing in return, and Trump has brushed off claims that Russia helps Iran.

Washington is pressing Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries and offering Moscow economic incentives to return to peace talks, even though Russia has made no commitment in return. Yesterday, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before air raid sirens sounded, amid disputed warnings that the US could cut intelligence support. Meanwhile, Ukraine is being asked to halt its long-range campaign against the oil infrastructure that fuels and finances Russia's war.

The pitch: a diesel deal as a signal to Moscow

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met the Ukrainian delegation in Miami on 9 October. They described Russian President Vladimir Putin as unprepared to negotiate but said the diesel deal could help restart three-way talks, two of the sources said.

The third source said the deal could “soften” Moscow because it “sends a signal that Trump is open to do things” with Russia. One of the sources described the plan:

“The idea was that the US could go back to Russia and say ‘See, the Ukrainians stopped striking and we gave you this deal. Now it’s your turn to do something.’”

Ukraine’s part was to stop hitting Russian refineries. Kushner repeated Trump’s request at the meeting, noting the administration had made it several times, two sources said.

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Kyiv was asked to hold its fire on Russian oil

The Ukrainians agreed to nothing formally, Reuters’ sources said. They signaled they would accept an energy ceasefire if Russia did the same, but saw the US approach as an attempt to appease Russia with business deals.

Two days later, Trump declared an energy ceasefire, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready if Russia reciprocated. Euromaidan Press has monitored official and unofficial Ukrainian and Russian sources and found no reports of new Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries after Trump’s announcement. One of the last, on the night of the diesel announcement, knocked out more than half the tanks at a fuel-export terminal in Rostov-on-Don.

Three sources told Reuters the envoys did not threaten to cut US support over the refinery strikes. A Ukrainian official told Axios, however, that the envoys warned Trump could cut Ukraine off from US intelligence, which a US official denied. US officials are also believed to have told European allies that Trump would halt PURL, the NATO scheme for Europe-funded US weapons for Ukraine, unless the strikes stopped, according to FT.

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What Moscow has offered in return

A person close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Putin would return to the table only when he gets “the remaining 11% of Donbas.” Ukraine refuses to cede more land. During the 9 October call that produced the deal, Putin declined to commit to resuming talks, his aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters, Axios reported.

Moscow has not confirmed the energy ceasefire either. Trump insisted on 12 October that the sides had agreed “because I said they agreed,” RFE/RL reported. On the evening of 12 October, Russian munitions collapsed an apartment stairwell in Kharkiv, killing four people. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak, meanwhile, claimed diesel exports could reach 3.0–3.5 million tons a month by year-end, above the volumes Trump announced.

“Too much to lose”: Trump on Russia and Iran

Late on 12 October, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he did not believe Russia and China were helping Iran, since they have “too much to lose.” In March, he told Fox News that Putin “might be helping them a little bit.” Asked about Russia’s possible support for Iran, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on 2 September that his message to everyone was to “stay away.” That month, a Financial Times investigation found Russia secretly helping Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles that could threaten US warships.

A drone strike on 10 October put more than half of the large fuel tanks out of action at an oil-loading terminal in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don, Russian news Telegram channel Astra found. The terminal loads fuel onto river and sea tankers for export, and it burned for two days while a local channel wrote that reeds might be on fire. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has officially acknowledged the hit. It came hours after US President Donald Trump announced a diesel deal with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Russia has spent the autumn hammering Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter. Ukraine’s long-range drones keep hitting the refineries, depots, and terminals that fuel Russia’s army and earn it export revenue. Every burned tank turns that revenue into repair bills, while Moscow is already subsidizing its own fuel pumps. A refinery-only truce of the kind the White House described a day after the strike would shield the Russian plants that feed terminals like this one.

Seven of 12 tanks out of action

Astra’s analysts concluded from eyewitness footage that at least seven of the terminal’s 12 large tanks had been knocked out. Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ counted seven burned-out tanks and one more scorched by the fire.

The fire was still burning in the early hours of 12 October. Local channel Rostov Glavny posted video of the burning tank farm, passing on rumors that reeds were on fire and noting the city’s second day under smoke, The Moscow Times reported. Footage filmed in the daytime on 12 October showed no more open flames, only gray smoke, according to Astra.

A terminal that loads fuel for export

The site is the oil-loading terminal of the Novoshakhtinsk Oil Products Plant, formerly known as Yug Rusi, in Rostov-on-Don’s Zheleznodorozhny District. It receives, stores, and transships fuel onto river and sea tankers, including for export, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ said.

The terminal also supplies fuel to the Russian army and earns Moscow hard currency, ZN reported. The Moscow Times put its loading capacity at 3.5 million tons a year and its tank farm at about 60,000 cubic meters, roughly 16 million gallons.

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The refinery itself stands in the town of Novoshakhtinsk near the border with Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast. The terminal sits on the Don River with access to the Sea of Azov, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi noted. Ukraine hit the refinery in June, and Ukraine’s General Staff reported striking the Yug Rusi terminal on 9 July, placing it in Bataysk.

A night of drones over the region

Exilenova+ posted images of the burning terminal in the early hours of 10 October. It presented them as the site after Trump’s phone call with Putin. The channel later shared NASA satellite fire data showing the blaze.

Rostov Oblast Governor Yuri Slyusar claimed the attack injured six people. Slyusar further stated air defenses downed more than 100 drones over the region. Radio Liberty’s Russian Service noted that neither side had officially confirmed the hit on the terminal.

Hours after the US-Russia diesel deal

The strike came hours after Trump announced on 9 October that Russia had agreed to supply diesel to US and global markets. The US Treasury then cleared the trade with a sanctions license.

On 11 October, Trump declared an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine. Under it, he expects Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries, a White House official told Axios.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that evening that Ukraine’s armed forces had received all relevant orders. Neither Ukrainian monitoring channels nor Russian officials have reported a new strike on a Russian oil facility since. On 13 October, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to guarantee an energy ceasefire if Russia took matching steps.

Russian munitions brought down a stairwell of an apartment building in Kharkiv on the evening of 12 October, and rescuers recovered three bodies from the rubble overnight, local authorities reported. Survivors described fire, falling glass, and pets left behind. The strike came days after Washington waived sanctions on Russian diesel, as it expects Kyiv to stop hitting Russian refineries.

Russia hits Ukraine’s cities every day as it readies a winter campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure, and its oil exports keep bringing in the money that pays for the drones and missiles. A halt to Ukraine’s refinery strikes with no matching halt to Russia’s strikes would leave Moscow’s fuel income intact while Kharkiv digs through rubble. Estonia’s prime minister has already urged Europe to help Ukraine destroy those refineries instead.

A stairwell gone in Kholodnohirskyi district

Russian munitions hit Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district repeatedly from around 21:17, and Mayor Ihor Terekhov preliminarily identified them as Banderols. At 22:21, he said one strike had hit a residential building, possibly trapping people. He then added in a follow-up post: “Very serious destruction—an entire stairwell has collapsed.”

The strike destroyed an entrance of the four-story building, the State Emergency Service (DSNS) said. It counted 11 injured across the city’s evening strikes, and a rescuer was hospitalized, while Terekhov put the number at 10. By 06:56 on 13 October, rescuers had found a third body. Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov confirmed three dead and said the search continued. Experts will check whether the building is still fit to live in, he added.

Over 24 hours, Russian attacks killed three people in Kharkiv and injured 37, including two children treated for acute stress, Syniehubov reported.

“I realize I’m on fire”: two residents recall the strike

Larysa Maksimenko had just put her bedridden husband to sleep when the strike hit, she told Suspilne Kharkiv. She suffered a head wound and burns.

“I went to the kitchen to switch on the kettle for myself, to have some coffee. I realize I’m on fire. Then glass fell on me. I came to, and I’m buried under everything. All covered in blood,” she said.

The window bars were broken, and medics carried her husband out through the window. Rescuers later found a woman under the rubble in her apartment, likely a neighbor, Maksimenko said. All she wants now, she said, is to get to her husband in hospital.

Viacheslav Chibitko, who lives on the second floor next to the collapsed entrance, saw a flash, and then everything blew out. He got his three dogs out, but five cats are still inside. During the clearing, a concrete slab fell on a rescuer, Suspilne’s correspondent reported. Crews pulled him out and handed him to medics.

Kyiv’s toll rises, and strikes hit other cities overnight

The evening drone strike on a 25-story building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district killed two people, Kyiv prosecutors reported. The second victim was found dead in a car near the building. Prosecutors counted at least seven injured, including a 17-year-old girl, while Mayor Vitali Klitschko counted 11 in the capital.

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From 18:00 on 12 October, Russia launched five ballistic missiles, nine loitering munitions, and 108 attack drones, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. Air defenses downed or suppressed 88 drones. A Russian drone attack injured four patients at a medical facility in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, oblast head Serhii Tiurin said. In Dnipro, a Russian attack injured a 64-year-old man, oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha reported. A downed Russian drone set two houses on fire in Murovane near Lviv, oblast head Maksym Kozytskyi said.

On 12 October, a Russian Smerch rocket with a cluster warhead hit a house in Cherkaske, Donetsk Oblast, killing three people, including a 13-year-old girl, oblast head Vadym Filashkin reported.

Russian attacks killed more than 150 people in the week to 11 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Russian bombs killed at least 20 people in Zaporizhzhia on 10 October, by the oblast’s count. On 9 October, the US waived its sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027. The White House expects Kyiv to halt refinery strikes under its proposed energy ceasefire.

The EU adopted its largest-ever round of sanctions listings on 12 October, targeting the suppliers behind Russia’s war industry, the Council of the EU announced. The bloc acted as Russia keeps killing Ukrainian civilians every day, while US President Donald Trump eases sanctions on Russian diesel.

Russia’s planned winter campaign against Ukraine’s infrastructure depends on arms factories fed by a web of component suppliers and on oil revenue that still flows despite Ukraine’s refinery strikes, so every supplier cut off from that web raises the cost of waging it. As Washington eases off, Europe’s own pressure has a gap: its ports still take record volumes of Russian Arctic gas, and a full ban on long-term contracts starts only in 2027.

Missile suppliers top the list

More than half of the new listings hit the supply chain for ballistic missiles that Russia “uses to kill Ukrainian civilians every day,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in the statement. Russian attacks killed more than 150 people in the past week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 11 October.

The list names 826 Russian companies, mid-level firms the Council calls the “core” of Russia’s arms industry, with at least €20 billion in yearly turnover, and 743 people who run them. They make parts for missiles, drones, and military aircraft, from semiconductors and radars to explosives and navigation systems. Their assets are frozen, EU firms may not finance them, and the executives may not enter the EU.

Foreign ministers ratified a deal EU envoys reached on 7 October. Ukraine’s sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said 60% of the listings came from Ukrainian proposals.

Ministers reject the diesel deal

EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg vowed to keep the sanctions despite Trump’s diesel deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Euronews reported. Kallas addressed Washington directly as she arrived.

“The US is our biggest ally, but our message is clear: if we want to end this war, the only way we can do this is (by) putting more pressure on Russia,” Kallas said.

Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee called the deal “concerning,” and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said it was “not the European way.” Kallas warned that an energy truce covering only refineries would favor Russia, since Ukraine has one refinery and Russia “plenty.”

Trump announced the diesel deal on 9 October, and the US Treasury waived sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027. Zelenskyy said the EU would provide about €3 billion more in military aid this week.

Washington presses Kyiv

Trump expects Ukraine to stop hitting Russian refineries under his proposed energy ceasefire, a White House official told Axios. Zelenskyy said Kyiv would halt such strikes if Moscow did the same. On 10 October, Trump told reporters it was time for Ukraine to get a new president. Germany’s foreign minister, Britain’s defense secretary, and a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party backed Zelenskyy, while the Kremlin sided with Trump.

Zelenskyy offered to hold elections after a 60-day ceasefire, and Kallas said elections are impossible while the war goes on. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Russia exploits Ukraine’s legal ban on wartime elections to drag out the war.

Russia and four allies began five-day military drills in Belarus on 12 October, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said. The troops are rehearsing peacekeeping and a biological-threat response. Minsk insists the drills target no one, while Belarus’s army chief calls them deterrence against hostile states.

Russian troops crossed Belarus to advance on Kyiv in 2022, and it now hosts Russian units with Oreshnik missiles and equipment guiding attack drones into Ukraine. Every foreign deployment there worries Kyiv and neighboring NATO members, which blame Minsk and Moscow for border pressure.

Riot police and drone crews in a “peacekeeping” drill

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan brought more than 1,500 troops and over 300 weapons and vehicles, including about 80 drones, The Moscow Times reported, citing the bloc. Armenia, the sixth member, is not among them. The peacekeeping drill runs in Vitsebsk Oblast, bordering Latvia and Lithuania, with Belarusian riot police and internal troops joining, the bloc’s command said.

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Russia sent motorized rifle, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and drone units from its Central Military District, the CSTO said. Russia, this year’s chair, prioritized peacekeeping readiness and the joint biological protection and medical unit, a bloc general said.

Belarus’s military insisted the drills are planned, yet its army chief called them “one of the measures of strategic deterrence against aggressively minded states” and claimed the West is “effectively preparing for a new hot war.”

Pressure on Belarus’s neighbors

In Latvia, armed, masked escorts from Belarus tried to force migrants across this month, the military said, and raiders stole border cameras hours later. Estonia’s police and border guard chief warned migration pressure could jump before winter, as Russia eases entry from countries like Ethiopia and Belarus passes migrants on to the EU. Lithuania posted up to 100 soldiers on its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad, and in September NATO’s Italian jets downed a drone that crossed in from Belarus. On 9 October, Minsk summoned Ukraine’s envoy over an alleged drone strike on a Belarusian truck in Russia, and Kyiv rejected the “absurd accusations” of “an accomplice in the crime of aggression against Ukraine.”

Belarus keeps its army on alert

In September, Belarusian armor drilled near the Suwałki Gap, NATO’s land link to the Baltic states, and Lukashenka said the whole army would be checked, up to mobilization. On 12 October, he ordered a snap check of a 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade battalion, state news agency BelTA reported. European spy agencies also warn of more Russian assassination plots against defense executives.

Ukraine’s intelligence still rates the threat from Belarus as low, but each new contingent, missile unit, and airborne brigade there widens what Kyiv and NATO’s eastern flank must watch.

German industry expects Russian sabotage against the country’s companies to persist and take more forms, the deputy head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) told Handelsblatt. His warning follows alarms from Germany’s intelligence services, which describe the country as a main target of Russia’s covert campaign in Europe.

Russia keeps striking Ukrainian cities and power plants every day while trying to weaken the European support that keeps Ukraine fighting. Germany is home to arms makers producing with and for Ukraine, so pressure on its companies targets the supply behind Ukraine’s defense.

Industry expects attacks to last and change form

The warning came from Holger Lösch, the BDI’s deputy managing director.

“German industry is preparing for the threat to persist and for attack methods to become more varied,” he told Handelsblatt. “Companies don’t end up in the crosshairs by chance,” he added.

Russian influence and sabotage operations are no longer an abstract scenario, and companies, critical infrastructure, and defense supply chains are already among their targets, Lösch said. Companies now receive more threat warnings, and their cooperation with the authorities has improved significantly, he noted. “What is still missing are joint procedures to quickly derive concrete measures from warnings,” Lösch said, calling the protection of the economy a cornerstone of national security.

German intelligence describes a Russian shadow war

The warning comes a week after a public hearing of the intelligence oversight panel of the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, on 5 October. There, Martin Jäger, head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), said Russia was waging a shadow war against Germany. “Germany has become a main obstacle to Russian hegemonic power projection in Europe and thus a target of Russian action,” Jäger said. “The danger of attacks against targets in Germany remains real and present,” he warned.

Sinan Selen, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, told the same hearing that Russia was showing a readiness for sabotage and killings.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on 1 October that Germany was preparing for further hybrid attacks, “including serious ones,” and would respond “quickly and very clearly,” as it did after the drone attack at Leipzig airport.

Drone bombs, arson, and paid saboteurs on German soil

In August, a drone carrying Semtex explosives hit the wing of a Ukrainian An-124 cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle Airport but did not explode. Germany blamed Russia on 1 September, and German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Germany was not at war with Russia but was a “target of war.”

German authorities suspect Russian intelligence of commissioning an arson attack near two Munich defense firms, and a confidential Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) assessment counted more than 165 suspected sabotage cases in Germany between January and August. The same assessment recorded 747 suspicious drone incidents involving 1,068 drones over critical infrastructure, military sites, and defense companies.

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Germany’s Military Counterintelligence Service (MAD) warns that the threat from low-level agents, locals paid small sums for one-off jobs such as arson or photographing military sites, has increased significantly. European intelligence agencies also report that Russia is increasingly targeting defense company executives, including at smaller drone makers, and the BfV has advised some German firms to hire close protection.

As long as Germany keeps backing Ukraine, Russian pressure on its companies is unlikely to ease, and the gap between warnings and action that industry flagged leaves smaller firms, with fewer resources for security, the most exposed.

Ukrainian strikes hit a site housing Russian troops in Khrustalnyi, a city in Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast, overnight on 12 October, according to local reports. Satellite fire data recorded blazes at a former motor depot there, in an area Russia once used as a logistics base for its offensive in the region.

Russia keeps attacking in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast and strikes Ukrainian cities and power plants every day. Its offensive depends on troops, ammunition, and fuel moved through occupied Ukraine, so strikes there reach the supply chain behind the front.

Fires at a former motor depot in occupied Khrustalnyi

Ukrainian forces launched heavy strikes around Khrustalnyi in eastern Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported. It counted three separate fires and one large blaze, and said local residents reported a hit on a site where Russian troops were based. Ukraine’s military had not officially commented on the strike by the publication time of this article on 12 October.

NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), which tracks active fires by satellite, shows blazes at a former motor transport enterprise and an industrial zone in Khrustalnyi, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported. Three fire hotspots appeared there at 01:10 and spread by 02:07, the outlet said.

Ukraine also hit the site on 16 June 2022, striking an ammunition depot there, and local residents then heard secondary detonations, Militarnyi said. The site served as an important logistics base for Russia’s 2nd Army Corps in its offensive on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, two cities in Luhansk Oblast, the outlet added.

Explosions at a Crimean airfield Russia used to launch drones overnight

Drones attacked occupied Crimea from the evening of 11 October into the night, and Russian air defenses, including mobile fire groups, fired across the peninsula, Krym.Realii, Radio Liberty’s Crimea service, reported. Explosions sounded in Simferopol, Feodosiia, and Yevpatoriia, among other places, the Crimean monitoring Telegram channel Crimean Wind said, according to the outlet.

Subscribers told the channel about a series of explosions and a glow at Russia’s Hvardiiske military airfield in Simferopol district as air defenses fired. Krym.Realii said neither Ukraine’s nor Russia’s military had commented and that it could not verify the reports independently.

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Overnight, Russia also launched attack drones at Ukraine from several directions, including Hvardiiske in occupied Crimea, Ukraine’s Air Force reported.

Ukraine’s General Staff said in August that a 3 August strike on the Hvardiiske airfield destroyed nine aviation fuel tanks and damaged two aircraft hangars.

Ukraine keeps hitting Russian rear areas in occupied territory

On 10 and 11 October alone, the General Staff reported hitting a Russian repair base and supply depots in occupied Luhansk Oblast, along with Russian troop concentrations near Lysychansk and two other towns there.

Ukraine has also kept up its campaign of so-called middle strikes, drone attacks on Russian supply lines in occupied territory beyond the front. French mapper Clément Molin counted 770 confirmed drone hits on Russian trucks in September, up from 630 in August, with the strikes concentrated on supply routes running through occupied southern Ukraine into Crimea.

Strikes on troop sites and airfields far behind the front leave Russia fewer safe places in occupied territory to house troops and launch drones, adding to the battlefield losses Ukraine’s drones already inflict.

Ukraine has been striking the launchers Russia uses to fire ballistic missiles at its cities, Ukrainian Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara told journalists. He said the strikes have already disrupted some Russian attack plans, but supplies of anti-ballistic interceptors still fall short of the threat.

Russia strikes Ukraine’s cities and power grid with drones and missiles every day as it prepares to leave civilians without power and heat this winter. Ballistic missiles are the part of that barrage Ukraine still struggles to stop, so every launcher put out of action before it fires means fewer missiles to intercept.

Iskander and S-400 launchers hit since September

Ukrainian forces hit eight launchers used for ballistic strikes on Ukraine in September and early October, destroying three and damaging five, Khmara said. They belonged to Russia’s Iskander tactical missile systems and S-400 air defense systems, he added. Such strikes have already forced Russia to cancel or change planned ballistic attacks, the minister said.

The S-400 was designed to shoot down aircraft and missiles, but Russia also uses it to fire ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv. In mid-September, Ukraine reported hitting two S-400 launchers near Vygonichi in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast. Russia had used the same systems against Kyiv the night before.

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On 23 August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had hit an Iskander launcher near the border. He described it as part of a separate operation to hunt nearby launch positions and linked the tactic to low stocks of anti-ballistic missiles.

Strikes on launchers while interceptors stay scarce

Khmara called the launcher strikes Ukraine’s asymmetric response to a ballistic threat that remains critical.

“Existing and potential supplies of missiles for anti-ballistic defense are not enough to fully cover this threat,” he said.

Instead of waiting for large long-term contracts, the Defense Ministry is looking for missiles in partners’ available stocks to speed up transfers, Khmara added. “We need dozens and hundreds of missiles, not one-off deliveries,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, Russia significantly cut its 2026 state orders for Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s military intelligence said on 12 October. It redirected the production capacity, components, and raw materials to Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the agency added.

Russia’s missile and drone attacks continue

Overnight on 12 October, Russia attacked Ukraine with a Kh-59 guided missile and 121 attack drones, 76 of them jet-powered, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. Air defenses downed or suppressed 89 drones, but strikes hit 15 locations, and the attack was still going on in the morning.

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In the week to 11 October, Russia hit Ukraine’s power generation and transmission facilities more than 200 times and its gas and oil sites 17 times, Zelenskyy said. Russian attacks that week killed more than 150 people and injured more than 700, he added.

Jet-powered drones are still the main problem for Ukraine’s air defense. It stops more than 90% of slower propeller-driven Shaheds, compared with about 55% for the jet ones.

Ballistic missiles have struck Kyiv repeatedly this autumn. On 24 September, Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles damaged a maternity hospital in the capital. On 7 October, a Russian missile barrage killed 22 people in Pryluky, Chernihiv Oblast.

Two Ukrainian defense-tech firms, The Fourth Law and Odd Systems, have joined forces to mass-produce thermal imaging sensors in Europe and the US, The Fourth Law told Militarnyi. The goal is to wean Western militaries off foreign suppliers, chiefly China, for the core part of every thermal camera.

Amid Russia's daily attacks, Ukrainian drone makers have been shifting production to allied countries. Linza and Zoom drones are now built in Germany, and another top manufacturer has taken its technology to Canada and Finland. Sensor plants would move a core component west, not just finished drones.

A Western answer to Chinese sensors

The project, called Project Foundation, will build long-wave infrared sensors, known as microbolometers. These chips register heat, so a camera can pick out a person or vehicle at night or through smoke. The aim, The Fourth Law said, is to "ensure the sovereignty of Western countries in the field of thermal imaging technology."

Plants in Europe and the US from 2027

The project will run two sites, First Foundation in Europe and Second Foundation in the US, from a headquarters in Eindhoven, a Dutch semiconductor hub. Mass production is due to start in 2027. Within three years, the partners want to quadruple Europe's output of these sensors and double America's.

Why Europe's supply isn't enough

Ukraine's front line burns through sensors faster than Europe can make them. "Europe currently produces less than 500,000 such sensors per year, while Ukraine consumes this amount in about five months," Odd Systems co-founder Yaroslav Azhniuk said in February, when he first announced plans for a plant able to make one million sensors a year. European sensors cost about five times as much as Chinese ones and are hard to buy at all, because Europeans need them too, he added.

Factories working for Ukraine abroad have already become sabotage targets. In March, an arson attack in Pardubice, Czechia, destroyed nearly all the production capacity of a plant making drones and thermal sights for Ukraine's army. Czech investigators are looking into a possible Russian trail behind the attack.

Russia's seaborne exports of refined oil products rose to a three-month high in September, but the growth came from cheaper fuel oil and naphtha as diesel shipments fell to their lowest in more than a decade, Bloomberg reported, citing Vortexa data. Russia kept diesel at home after Ukrainian refinery strikes and paid oil companies to supply its pumps, while high crude prices lifted its crude export earnings.

During the ongoing deep-strike campaign, Ukraine's long-range drones have knocked out more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity, Kyiv says, and Russia's budget oil revenues are falling even as it raises war spending. High global crude prices are softening that blow.

Cheaper fuel out

Total seaborne product exports reached about 1.17 million barrels a day in September. Fuel oil shipments rose 6% to about 613,000 barrels a day, the highest since April. Naphtha, a feedstock for petrochemicals, jumped 35% to 363,000 barrels a day. Exports of refinery feedstocks, including vacuum gasoil, rose to about 32,000 barrels a day, according to Bloomberg.

The trade has moved north. Almost 80% of fuel oil cargoes left from Baltic ports, and naphtha loadings there rose almost 50% as Ukrainian attacks disrupted Black Sea infrastructure. In September, Ukraine reported hitting an oil terminal in Novorossiysk, Russia's main Black Sea oil port—one in a string of attacks on Russia's Black Sea ports and oil sites.

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Diesel kept at home

Diesel and gasoil exports fell 28% to 144,000 barrels a day, the lowest monthly volume in Vortexa data going back more than a decade. Russia has restricted diesel exports to protect domestic supply after Ukrainian attacks on its refineries. Drones kept hitting them into October, from a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd to Gazprom's Salavat complex in Bashkortostan.

In September, Russia paid oil companies the biggest subsidy in more than four years to keep road fuel on the domestic market. It also imported about 350,000 tonnes of motor fuel by sea, mostly gasoline from India, Morocco, and Türkiye, Reuters calculations showed. Officials are considering letting some producers resume diesel exports in October to avoid overstocking, according to Interfax.

The diesel squeeze has reached the White House. US President Donald Trump stated on 30 September that diesel was hurt "not by the Middle East, but by what's going on in Russia, because those diesel refineries are being knocked out at a pretty alarming rate."

Crude carries the revenue

Russia's crude exports reached about 3.99 million barrels a day in the week to 27 September, and the estimated value of its seaborne crude shipments neared its highest since the full-scale invasion began, Bloomberg reported. Brent crude traded at about $102.60 a barrel on 9 October, according to Trading Economics data.

Kenya wants five of its citizens captured fighting for Russia in Ukraine to be treated as victims of human trafficking rather than prisoners of war, Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi told Kenyan lawmakers on 8 October, Bloomberg reported. Botswana is also seeking a citizen's return.

In 2025, Ukrainian ambassador Ivan Kholostenko called Russia's role in Africa neocolonialism. As Africa Corps troops prop up friendly regimes, the Kremlin is carrying out "a typical colonial practice of resource extraction," taking gold, diamonds, bauxite, and uranium, according to Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence. Russia also uses the continent as a recruiting ground for its war: nearly 500 Africans have died fighting for Russia, Ukraine says.

Five Kenyans in a Ukrainian camp

Kenya is negotiating to bring the five men home, and President William Ruto has raised the matter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Mudavadi told the Senate. One has been held since November 2025, the others since March and April. The youngest is 23, Bloomberg reported. Kenya's honorary consul found them held in humane conditions at the Zakhid-1 camp, with access to medical care, the government said. Ukraine also holds the remains of four Kenyans.

Victims or fighters for hire

African governments say some of their citizens went to Russia for promised work as drivers, security guards, or cooks and were then forced into military service. The Kenyans "report having been recruited under false promises of employment," Mudavadi said.

"The circumstances of their recruitment and conscription are consistent with trafficking in persons," he said.

Ukraine's POW authority sees most foreign recruits differently. "The main motive for most of these mercenaries is financial gain," Dmytro Usov, secretary of Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, said in November 2025, while stressing that many had ended up in Russia's army through fraud or coercion.

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Ukraine holds that prisoners of war go home through exchanges, but Russia has never asked to trade for any foreign fighter except North Koreans, the headquarters said in May, adding it may consider other solutions if diplomats and lawyers find one.

Thousands of foreigners in Russia's ranks

Russia has recruited more than 28,000 foreigners from 135 countries, and more than 5,000 have been killed, a Ukrainian government website cited by Bloomberg says. Ukraine holds at least 213 foreign prisoners of war, not counting Russians and North Koreans, 37 of them African, according to documents Bloomberg saw. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claimed on 3 September that people are "coming forward voluntarily and signing contracts."

Kenya's government counts 354 citizens linked to the war: 84 killed or missing, 34 hospitalized in Russia, and 62 repatriated. Petitioners told senators that 841 Kenyans remain unaccounted for. Mudavadi said his March visit to Moscow put Kenya on a Russian recruitment "stop list," with no new Kenyans enlisted since.

Some African governments take steps

In August, Botswana stopped eight citizens from joining the Russian military at airports in Botswana, South Africa, and Ethiopia, Bloomberg reported.

Ghana accused Russia of luring its citizens into the war the same month, after Kenya and South Africa. The European Parliament said in March that Russia strips African recruits of their documents. Ukraine, meanwhile, is drafting its first Africa strategy.

Russian drones hit Ukraine's power grid, warehouses, a food warehouse, a home-improvement store, and a farm overnight on 9 October, Ukrainian officials and emergency services reported. The strikes triggered emergency power cuts in Kyiv and other regions and killed at least three people across the country.

As Russia continues its daily terror attacks, it has likely begun its winter strike campaign early, aiming to make civilian life in Ukraine unbearable, ISW assessed. Those strikes now reach beyond the grid to the businesses that store and sell goods, adding to damage Ukraine's Economy Ministry expects to reach up to $10 billion this year.

Power cut in Kyiv and other regions

Russia launched 136 drones overnight, 93 of them jet-powered, Ukraine's Air Force said. Air defenses downed or suppressed 114. Drones hit eight locations, and debris fell at seven more.

DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, introduced emergency power cuts on Kyiv's right bank and in the Bucha and Vyshhorod districts on the grid operator's orders. Ukrenergo, the national grid operator, imposed emergency outages in some regions, citing the strain Russian attacks put on the system. Planned schedules were suspended there. Hourly cuts across parts of Ukraine had already been set for the whole day.

The cuts came a day after a Russian strike knocked out several grid elements supplying Kyiv, leaving many consumers without power. Russia has sharply stepped up attacks on Ukraine's energy system in recent weeks, deliberately targeting power lines and transformers, Ukraine's Energy Ministry said.

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Warehouses and a store

In the Bucha district of Kyiv Oblast, Russia hit warehouses and injured three people, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. One was hospitalized. Rescuers were searching for a woman who may be under the rubble.

In Odesa, a strike damaged the roof of a warehouse storing food and started a fire, the region's emergency service reported. In the south of the oblast, Russia damaged buildings at holiday resorts and destroyed a café.

Near Chernihiv, Russia hit a site just outside the city after 03:00, the city council said. A Suspilne correspondent at the scene reported that a drone hit the Epicenter store, part of a large Ukrainian home-improvement chain. Russian forces also struck a farm in the Kulykivka community. No one was hurt in Chernihiv Oblast.

Russia has already destroyed more than two-fifths of Ukraine's modern warehouse space.

Three killed overnight

In Zaporizhzhia, Russia struck near an apartment building, killing a man, the Zaporizhzhia Oblast administration said. The number of injured rose to nine, including a 14-year-old girl, regional prosecutors said. One strike landed near an after-school education center.

In Ivano-Frankivsk, falling drone debris started a fire, and a man born in 1959 was killed, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast head Svitlana Onyshchuk said.

In Shyroka Balka, Kherson Oblast, a Russian drone dropped explosives on a house at about 06:20, killing a 74-year-old woman and injuring a 68-year-old man, regional prosecutors reported.

Russia injured three women in a Kharkiv suburb, Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov said. In the Nikopol district, a 24-year-old woman was injured, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha said.

Poland scrambled military aircraft as Russia struck targets in western Ukraine, its Operational Command said.

The past day's toll

Over the past 24 hours, Russia killed two people and injured 18 in Zaporizhzhia and the Zaporizhzhia district, regional council head Ivan Fedorov said. In Sumy Oblast, one man was killed and 14 people were injured, including two 12-year-old boys, the regional administration reported.

In Kherson Oblast, four people were injured, including a child, Kherson Oblast head Oleksandr Prokudin said. In Mykolaiv Oblast, a Russian drone injured two children aged three months and one year, acting oblast head Heorhii Reshetilov said. Three people were injured in Kharkiv Oblast, Syniehubov reported.

In Donetsk Oblast, Russia killed 35 people and injured 25 on 8 October, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin said. Thirty-two of them died in Kramatorsk, most in a Russian bomb strike on two passenger buses.

Drones struck a plant making fuel components for Russia's Kh-101 cruise missiles and a second Yandex data center overnight on 9 October, Russian officials and monitoring channels reported. The same night, fires were reported at a refinery in Russia's far north and an oil depot near Belgorod. Russia claimed it downed more than 500 drones, and Ukraine has not claimed any of the strikes.

Ukraine has spent months hitting refineries and arms suppliers deep inside Russia. Russia, meanwhile, keeps firing Kh-101 cruise missiles at Ukrainian cities, including the one that killed 22 people in Pryluky on 7 October.

The plant behind the Kh-101's fuel

The Redkino Experimental Plant in Tver Oblast came under attack overnight, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported. It said the plant makes components of Decilin-M, a fuel for Kh-55 and Kh-101 cruise missiles, as well as additives for diesel and aviation kerosene.

Tver Oblast Governor Vitaly Korolev claimed a plant in Redkino caught fire as a drone attack was being repelled. He did not name the plant. No workers were hurt, he said.

The plant also makes ferrocene derivatives, which serve as burn catalysts in solid-fuel rocket motors, Militarnyi reported. The UK sanctioned it in September 2025. Drones attacked it in September 2023 and twice in one night in June 2024, the outlet said.

In February, drones of the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) Alpha unit struck the plant, sparking a large fire, SBU sources told Kyiv Post. The Kh-101 is the missile Russia used against Pryluky on 7 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Yandex loses a second data center

Part of Yandex's data center in Kaluga was damaged in the drone attack, and several modules were completely knocked out, the company's press service told Interfax, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported. Some Yandex services may run with interruptions, no one was hurt, and the company is still assessing the damage, Yandex said.

Kaluga Oblast Governor Vladislav Shapsha claimed nine people were injured in the overnight attack on the region. A day earlier, a drone attack forced Yandex to fully shut its data center in Sasovo, Ryazan Oblast.

A refinery in the north, a depot near Belgorod

Locals reported an attack on the Ukhta refinery in the Komi Republic, followed by a fire, Exilenova+ said. The Lukoil-owned plant can process about 4.2 million metric tons of oil a year, making gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, and vacuum gasoil. The extent of the damage is unclear.

An oil depot north of Belgorod was also burning after the night's attack, the channel posted. Belgorod's regional headquarters claimed two people were killed and four injured, including a child, in the Belgorod district.

A large fire also broke out in Pushkino near Moscow, likely at a truck parking lot, Astra reported. The cause is unknown.

Repeated strikes on Redkino target a specialty fuel that Russia's cruise missiles depend on, while two Yandex data centers hit in two nights bring the war to services ordinary Russians use every day.

Ukrainian forces are advancing east of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and even Russian milbloggers now acknowledge it, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on 8 October. The gains may follow months of groundwork like the one that preceded Operation Vivaldi near Lyman, which Ukraine says returned 176 km² to its control. Russian commentators are already doubting that Moscow can reach the two cities.

Russia's years-long push on the Fortress Belt, the chain of cities anchoring Ukraine's defense in Donetsk Oblast, has been stalling since Vivaldi began. Unable to take those cities, Russia keeps hitting them from the air. On 8 October, a Russian bomb killed 30 people on two buses in Kramatorsk.

Across the Siverskyi Donets

Russian milbloggers said Ukrainian forces liberated Ozerne and advanced east of Pyskunivka toward Kryva Luka, ISW reported. They also acknowledged that Ukrainian troops drove Russian forces out of Pyskunivka. Ukrainians are now counterattacking toward Kryva Luka from the west and northwest, from across the river.

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ISW called the repeated Russian claims of a river crossing notable, because the Siverskyi Donets is a significant natural obstacle. Kryva Luka is a dominant height just south of the river. From there, Ukraine could launch further counterattacks. Ukrainian forces appear to have pushed Russian troops off both banks in this area, ISW assessed.

The heights Russia wanted

After Vivaldi cleared ground near Lyman in September, Russia shifted its push south toward Mykolaivka and Sloviansk. Russian forces likely see Mykolaivka, just east of Sloviansk, as a primary objective, ISW said. Its heights would favor an offensive on the city. Ukrainian pushes northeast and southeast of the town now deny Russia that terrain.

East of Kramatorsk, milbloggers claimed Ukrainians liberated Malynivka and advanced between Fedorivka Druha and Holubivka. They also reported gains into southern Minkivka and near Fedorivka. The lines remain tangled. Geolocated footage shows Ukrainian forces striking a Russian position in central Tykhonivka after what ISW assesses was a Russian infiltration.

ISW said the counterattacks may point to a broader Ukrainian goal: pushing Russian forces east, away from the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area and toward the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas Canal.

The Vivaldi playbook

The counterattacks have run for weeks. On 29 September, Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets reported them in the same areas, saying Russia's 3rd Combined Arms Army had failed to make significant gains. ISW assesses that the attacks build on months of shaping meant to wear down Russia's offensive capacity.

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Before Vivaldi, Ukrainian forces targeted Russian drone operators, gaining drone superiority before the counteroffensive. They used the same approach ahead of their Oleksandrivka counterattacks in early 2026.

Moscow appears to see the pattern. A Ukrainian military official said on 7 October that Russia is moving drone units and Spetsnaz from quieter sectors to the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk direction. Ukraine also reorganized its command in and around Donetsk Oblast in early September, which may be blunting Russian attacks from the east, ISW said.

"Distant" and "doomed"

One Russian milblogger called an advance toward the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area a "distant" prospect, ISW reported. A Russian offensive from Siversk toward Sloviansk may be "doomed" to failure or heavy losses unless Russia retakes the forests south of Lyman, he said.

The counterattacks east of the two cities appear to support Vivaldi, ISW assessed. Together with Russia's defeat north of the river, they could disrupt Russia's offensive toward Sloviansk from the east entirely.

If Ukraine holds Kryva Luka and keeps Russia off the Mykolaivka heights, Moscow's pincer on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk loses the ground it was built on.

A Russian missile attack on Kyiv overnight on 7 October destroyed warehouse premises in the Podil district and badly damaged a book warehouse of Ukrainian publishing house Knyholav, the publisher said. Tens of thousands of books were lost, but no staff were hurt. It was the second time this year that Russia has destroyed Knyholav's stock.

Russia has destroyed Ukrainian books since the start of its invasion, seizing them from libraries in occupied areas and burning them in boiler houses. Since spring, it has also been aiming missiles and drones at the industry that makes them—printing houses, publishers' warehouses, and bookshops—destroying books by the millions. Each strike takes out not only stock but the reprints, new titles, and textbooks Ukrainian readers were waiting for, at a time when publishing in Ukrainian is part of how the country holds onto its identity.

Tens of thousands of books lost

The publisher can't yet say how many books were destroyed or can no longer be saved, it said, but tens of thousands were lost. The final count will be possible only once staff get full access to the warehouse and check the state of every book.

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The losses include new titles Knyholav received over the past two months. They also include reprints of books Russia had destroyed in July at its previous warehouse. Knyholav had moved its rebuilt stock to this new warehouse after a Russian strike on 19 July destroyed its previous one outside Kyiv, along with about 250,000 books.

"This is a tangible blow for us. These are books we created, printed, and prepared for you," the publisher wrote. "But despite everything, we are holding on!"

The strike hit Kyiv's Podilskyi district, where a Russian attack caused a fire and the partial collapse of the floors of an office and warehouse building, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The same overnight attack killed people in Pryluky, Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia.

Millions of books burned

Russia's attacks destroyed more than 1.5 million books in July alone, Culture Minister Tetiana Berezhna said. On 1 August, a strike on the logistics center of publisher Ranok and the distribution center of the KnyhoLand bookshop chain in Kharkiv destroyed 8 million books, including 628,000 new school textbooks. Over three months, Russia burned about 13 million Ukrainian books, nearly a third of everything the country printed in 2025. In August, Russian missiles also hit Kyiv's largest book market.

NATO's Military Committee, the Alliance's highest military body, visited Kyiv on 6 October to reaffirm support for Ukraine, its chair, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, said. It was the committee's first official visit to Ukraine's capital in eight years. The officers came to hear how Ukraine is fighting Russia and to draw lessons for NATO's own defense, and Dragone used the visit to warn Moscow.

Russia's war no longer stays inside Ukraine: its drones, saboteurs, and pressure campaigns increasingly reach NATO members. That turns Ukraine, the only European army facing Russia in combat, from a country the Alliance helps into one it learns from.

All 32 allies at the table

Dragone brought the military representatives of all 32 member states to hear the latest battlefield assessment directly from Ukraine's commander-in-chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi, and his staff. They also came to learn what more NATO can do to support Ukraine, he said in an address recorded in Kyiv.

"After eight years, the NATO Military Committee comes back to Kyiv for an official visit. But while we were not physically present here, Ukraine is in our thoughts, in our discussions, in our decisions and following action every single day," Dragone said.

The visit fulfilled a promise he made to Drapatyi during their last conversation in August, the admiral said. It also follows a June visit to Kyiv by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's main political decision-making body. "We are here in full strength with a clear message. The bond between NATO and Ukraine is stronger and stronger," he said.

Lessons from Ukraine's commanders

The talks with Drapatyi focused on Ukraine's military priorities and lessons learned to strengthen Allied preparedness for current and future threats, Dragone wrote on X. The delegation also paid respects at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine in Kyiv.

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In his address, Dragone said Ukraine's courageous and resilient spirit remains unbreakable and serves as an example to other nations.

"An example that combines with all the lessons we can learn from your commanders, from their experience, which will ultimately help our Alliance too to better face today's and tomorrow's threats," he said.

To Russia: "You are failing"

Dragone also addressed Russia directly. NATO stands unwavering with Ukraine in the face of Russia's continued aggression and its reckless hybrid activities in member countries, he said.

"To those who think that by perpetrating acts of sabotage, cyberattacks, and violation of the airspace in national NATO territory they will undermine this support and our resolve, I will respond: You are failing. NATO support for Ukraine continues to grow, and our unity is stronger than ever."

Russia bears full responsibility for such dangerous and unacceptable behavior, and allies will keep sharpening their tools and strengthening deterrence and defense, the admiral added.

Drapatyi became Ukraine's commander-in-chief in July, when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced Oleksandr Syrskyi after a week of political turmoil.

Kyiv under fire, Russian troops pushed back near Lyman

The day after the visit, Russia struck Kyiv and 12 oblasts with about 70 missiles. In recent weeks, Russian attacks have cratered the capital's bridges and hit a school, a café, and warehouses, as well as a maternity hospital. Ukrainian troops also retook ground near Lyman in the Vivaldi counteroffensive.

Armed escorts in masks pushed a group of migrants from Belarus toward Latvia and threatened Latvian soldiers, and hours later masked people crossed into Latvia and stole border surveillance cameras, Latvian Interior Minister Jānis Dombrava said on 6 October. Latvia's military described the incident as part of a continuing hybrid campaign on the border, and Ukraine's foreign minister blamed Moscow.

Russia keeps probing the EU's eastern defenses with migrants pushed from its own soil and through its ally Belarus, alongside drone incursions and sabotage that ISW has linked into one Russian pattern across Europe.

Armed escorts threatened Latvian soldiers

Latvian soldiers stopped at least 20 migrants trying to cross the border illegally from Belarus, the Latvian National Armed Forces said. Masked escorts led the group, and this time they were armed, threatened the soldiers, and urged and drove the migrants toward Latvia, the military said.

"Unlike many previous incidents, this time the provocation was particularly demonstrative and aggressive," Dombrava said.

The incident confirms that deliberate provocations and hybrid threats on the border will continue, the armed forces said. Illegal migration is being used as a tool to pressure Latvia's border and, with it, the external border of the EU and NATO, they added.

Belarus began funneling migrants toward the EU in 2021, a campaign Poland's government called a hybrid attack in which the migrants end up as weapons. In 2023, Finland closed its border crossings with Russia, accusing Moscow of the same tactic, and by mid-July Latvia had logged 111 straight days of migrants pushed across from Belarus.

Masked people stole the cameras

Several hours after the standoff, people in masks entered Latvian territory, damaged a distribution cabinet, and stole surveillance cameras, Dombrava said. They returned to Belarus before the border guard patrol could arrive.

"Belarus should understand that such incidents could lead to more serious consequences for Belarus itself," he said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine stands in full solidarity with Latvia. "Make no mistake: Moscow is behind it," he wrote, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin "deliberately weaponizes migration, with the help of Lukashenka, to destabilise Europe."

Tunnels, tear gas, and damaged cameras on the border

Latvia's border guards stopped 11,384 attempts to cross illegally from Belarus between the start of 2026 and 24 September. In January, Latvia's armed forces and border guard published evidence that Belarusian security agencies were organizing illegal migration across the border. Latvia has also recorded deliberate damage to cables, distribution cabinets, and camera poles on its eastern border, aimed at slowing the rollout of an automated border control system.

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On 22 July, Latvian soldiers fired warning shots and used tear gas against migrants trying to cross. The next day, Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said Russia and Belarus were stepping up their hybrid war against the Baltic States to distract from Russia's failures in Ukraine. Latvia temporarily halted crossings on the Belarus border on 31 July. In August, Latvian guards found the first tunnel dug from Belarus and turned back 15 migrants who used it.

Russia attacked Kyiv and 12 oblasts overnight on 7 October with about 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, as well as Shahed drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The strikes killed at least 20 people, with the deadliest hit on an apartment block in Pryluky in Chernihiv Oblast. Russia also hit Kremenchuk, Oleksandriia, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia, while Poland scrambled its jets.

Moscow has likely begun its winter strike campaign earlier than usual, aiming to make civilian life in Ukraine unbearable, and UN figures already show civilian casualties running 55% above last year's.

Update: Pryluky death toll rises to 14, including four children

The death toll from the Russian strike on Pryluky has risen to 14, including four children, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said on the afternoon of 7 October. Fifty people were injured, seven of them children, and rescuers pulled 15 people from the rubble, including a child.

Russia attacked Pryluky with cruise missiles, and one scored a direct hit on the five-story apartment building, Chernihiv Oblast head Viacheslav Chaus said. Earlier in the day, he reported that 27 of the injured had been hospitalized, three in serious condition. The search-and-rescue operation was still under way.

Morning repoting: five dead in Pryluky

A Russian missile struck a five-story apartment building in Pryluky early in the morning, while residents were still asleep, Chernihiv Oblast head Viacheslav Chaus said. The strike completely destroyed one sectkion of the building, killing five people and injuring 26, including five children, Ukraine's National Police reported. Rescuers pulled three people from the rubble, including a child, and more people may still be trapped, Chaus said.

"Today, for Putin's birthday, the Russian army 'gave' him the destruction of an apartment building in Pryluky in Chernihiv Oblast. It was an ordinary five-story building," Zelenskyy said.

Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia

In Kyiv, Russian missiles hit non-residential buildings and warehouses in the Obolonskyi and Podilskyi districts, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Strikes also hit the Shevchenkivskyi district, and debris burned in the Darnytskyi district, he added. In the Darnytskyi district, a missile set fire to a garage cooperative, where firefighters rescued two people and found two men dead, Klitschko wrote. Police and rescuers worked to defuse an unexploded ballistic missile that fell among apartment blocks in the same district, the National Police said.

In Kremenchuk, Russian missiles hit a densely populated residential area, killing two people and injuring seven, Poltava Oblast head Vitalii Diakivnych said. Zelenskyy later put the number of injured at eight and said four high-rises were damaged.

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In Oleksandriia in Kirovohrad Oblast, Russia hit an enterprise. One person was killed, three injured, and two were out of contact, Kirovohrad Oblast head Andrii Raikovych said. Zelenskyy later put the death toll there at two.

Drones and other targets

In Dnipro, Russian strikes damaged an industrial enterprise, apartment buildings, and a sports club, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha said. In Nikopol district, the attacks injured a 65-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man. Russia also struck Lozova in Kharkiv Oblast with a missile, and a drone hit an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, police said.

In Zaporizhzhia, Russia attacked a transport infrastructure facility, acting oblast head Mykhailo Semikin said, a day after a strike on one of the city's bridges over the Dnipro halted traffic. In Kyiv Oblast, three production and warehouse buildings were damaged in Obukhiv district, with no casualties, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said.

Air defense downed five ballistic missiles, 39 cruise missiles, and 117 drones, while missiles and drones hit 18 locations, the Air Force said. Polish military aircraft took off and Poland put its ground-based air defense on alert during the attack, Poland's Operational Command said.

Russian ballistic missiles remain the biggest challenge, Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine is searching daily for Patriot missiles.

Strikes across the front over the past day

Russian attacks killed one person and injured 11 in Kherson Oblast over the past day, the Kherson Oblast Military Administration reported. Russia injured 12 people in Donetsk Oblast on 6 October, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin said. Two people were injured in Kharkiv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov said.

Bridges and a maternity hospital in Russia's sights

Russia has stepped up strikes on Kyiv's bridges and has now extended them to Zaporizhzhia. In September, a Russian ballistic and hypersonic missile attack on Kyiv damaged a maternity hospital.

Drones sank two merchant ships and set a third on fire in the Black Sea economic zones of NATO members Romania and Bulgaria on 5 and 6 October, killing at least two seafarers, Romanian and Bulgarian authorities reported. Ukraine blamed Russia for the first attack. Neither Bucharest nor Sofia has said who launched the drones.

Russia has spent months striking ships bound to and from Ukrainian ports while denying responsibility or staying silent. Now merchant vessels are sinking inside NATO members' economic zones without either government naming the attacker, so Moscow pays no political price for hitting allied waters.

Grain ship sinks off Romania

The Royad Mammadov, a Turkish-owned ship carrying grain from Ukraine's port of Izmail to Italy, sank on 5 October near Romania's Pescăruș offshore platform, 20 nautical miles from the Romanian coast, Digi24 reported. The Romanian Naval Authority described the incident as a fire on board. Romania's Interior Ministry said 11 crew members were rescued and two people died.

Three injured sailors aged 22 to 50 were taken to the Constanța county hospital, conscious and stable, with multiple injuries. Adrian Mihălcioiu, the leader of Romania's Free Seafarers' Union, said the ship was attacked by Russian sea and aerial drones in waters Romanians consider safe.

"It is a commercial ship, a ship that is not part of the war… people who have nothing to do with the war, it is not their war," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed the attack on "two Russian drones" and said the ship was in neutral waters carrying corn. Citizens of Azerbaijan and India were on board, and the captain was killed, he said. Romanian authorities have not attributed the sinking to Russia.

Two more ships hit in Bulgaria's zone

A day later, drones struck two merchant ships in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone east of the town of Byala, the first known attack on ships there, Maritime.bg reported. The Togo-flagged Alfa Watan, sailing from Al-Arish, Egypt, to Sulina, Romania, suffered critical hull damage and sank, Militarnyi said. The Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria found only an overturned lifeboat and life jackets at the scene, and the search for the crew continues, Euronews reported.

The Palau-flagged Able, sailing from Galați, Romania, to Istanbul, caught fire, and the Dioscuria rescued its 18 crew members. Both ships are Turkish-owned, Türkiye Today reported. Two sailors with severe injuries were flown to a hospital in Varna, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said, according to AP. Sea and aerial drones hit the ships at about 3 a.m., he said, calling the attack "a blatant violation of international law and maritime law."

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Radev called an emergency meeting of four ministries, the presidency, and the security services. No one from the Alfa Watan has been found, he said, warning that if the war is not ended in time, it "will continue to expand its spatial scope." The origin of the drones is still being clarified, Maritime.bg said. Several Bulgarian media outlets cited sources as saying the drones were Russian, Sofia Globe reported.

Russia's war on Black Sea shipping

Russia had already killed the captain of a Tanzanian-flagged ship in September, and days later it struck another civilian vessel, killing its captain too. Ukraine says that route carries 90% of its farm exports.

Romania has destroyed a sea drone near its Neptun Deep gas project and found Russian drones floating in its economic zone. In September, ISW linked drone crashes in Romania and Moldova to a wider Russian pattern of pressure on NATO.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called for a moratorium on Black Sea attacks. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Ankara was stepping up diplomacy to restore grain exports. Türkiye and the UN are organizing new Black Sea truce talks between Russia and Ukraine, Bloomberg reported, citing a diplomat. Russia earlier dismissed Kyiv's offer of a Black Sea ceasefire.

Russian FPV drones hit three ambulances and, separately, a residential high-rise in Kramatorsk late on 5 October, the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor's Office said. The strike on the high-rise killed a woman and injured another, and three medical workers were wounded trying to save their vehicles. Prosecutors have opened war-crimes investigations.

Russian drones attack Ukrainian civilians every day, and Ukraine's UN envoy has cited "human safari" and repeat strikes on medics as grounds to strip Moscow of its Security Council seat. Kherson, Nikopol, and Kramatorsk are all cities where drone operators pick civilian targets in real time.

Drones aimed at ambulances

Between 22:00 and 22:25, the Russian army deliberately directed two FPV drones at ambulances parked on a Kramatorsk street, prosecutors said. Three workers of the ambulance service were injured while trying to save the vehicles after the first hit. They suffered blast injuries, shrapnel wounds to the body and limbs, burns, and concussions, and received medical care. Three ambulances were damaged.

FPV drones are flown by an operator watching a live camera feed until the moment of impact. Prosecutors called the strike targeted.

A woman killed at home

At 22:10, a Russian drone hit a residential high-rise in the city. A 49-year-old woman was killed. Another resident, a 68-year-old woman, suffered a broken foot, shrapnel wounds to the body and limbs, and a concussion, according to prosecutors. The Kramatorsk district prosecutor's office has opened criminal proceedings over war crimes.

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Across Donetsk Oblast, Russian attacks killed three people on 5 October, in Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, and Sukhanivka, and injured 11, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin said. His morning tally, posted before the prosecutors' report, did not include the Kramatorsk death.

Kramatorsk under the drone hunt

Russian drone operators have hunted people in Kramatorsk for months. In June, a Russian pilot chose to kill a man he saw on a city street. Russia strikes the city daily, and in August it dropped eight FAB-250 bombs on Kramatorsk, killing one person and injuring 18.

The same drone hunting of civilians has run for years in Kherson, where Ukraine's Security Service has named 10 Russian servicemen it ties to the "human safari." A UN inquiry has traced the Kherson campaign up the chain of command. In April, ISW found Russians using such tactics across southern Ukraine, including in Nikopol.

Medics have been repeated targets. In March, a Russian FPV drone killed two medics in an ambulance in Kharkiv Oblast, and in February, Russian drones hit an ambulance and a shop there, killing three. In Kyiv, a Russian missile attack damaged a maternity hospital in September.

Drones attacked Moscow and Moscow Oblast overnight on 6 October, and a fire broke out at the Volodarskaya pipeline station, the region's largest oil depot, monitoring Telegram channels reported. The station supplies jet fuel to Moscow's main airports. Local authorities did not mention the fire, while claiming to have downed hundreds of drones.

Ukraine's long-range drones have spent years working through Russia's oil industry, and Kyiv says its strikes have now disabled more than half of Russia's refining capacity. The storage and pipeline hubs that move the remaining fuel are what keep the army, the capital, and the export flows supplied.

Fire at the Moscow region's largest fuel depot

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ wrote that the Volodarskaya station was burning after the attack, and Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ reported the strike on the depot. Exilenova+ then posted the site's coordinates near the village of Konstantinovo. Supernova+ said a storage tank was on fire, and Exilenova+, citing locals, later wrote that two tanks were burning.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra geolocated a Supernova+ video to Konstantinovo in Ramensky district. The station had not been reported attacked before, Astra said.

The station lies 40 km from central Moscow, Militarnyi reported. Drone alerts in the area began at 23:43 on 5 October. From 03:24, reports came in of Ukrainian Peklo drones flying through Oryol Oblast toward Moscow Oblast, the outlet said. Ukraine's military has not commented on the strike.

Early in the night, Exilenova+ claimed a strike on the Moscow refinery in Kapotnya. It later said the footage circulating from there was most likely archival.

Jet fuel for Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Sheremetyevo

The station has 27 tanks with a combined capacity of about 250,000 m³, according to Militarnyi. It connects to the ring pipeline for petroleum products around Moscow, which carries aviation fuel to Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Sheremetyevo airports. Russia's state pipeline operator Transneft has said the station can move up to 3 million tonnes of jet fuel, 2.8 million tonnes of diesel, and 1.6 million tonnes of gasoline a year.

Astra gave a lower figure: about 3 million tonnes of petroleum products a year in total, arriving from the Moscow and Ryazan refineries. Supernova+ described Volodarskaya as a branch of Transneft–Upper Volga, as did Militarnyi, while Astra named Transnefteprodukt.

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Russia claims hundreds of drones downed

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed that 650 drones flew toward the Moscow region from the evening of 5 October to the morning of 6 October. Most were downed far from the city, and 105 near Moscow, he claimed, without mentioning any damage. Adding up his later posts, Astra counted at least 718 drones aimed at Moscow. Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov claimed that 185 drones were downed over 16 municipalities. He later called it one of the largest drone attacks and put the toll at two killed and nine injured, with 47 detached houses damaged in seven municipalities.

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Not the first Transneft site or Moscow fuel target

Ukraine has targeted Russia's pipeline network before. On 2 October, drones set Transneft's Samara station on fire. During Russia's Duma elections on 20 September, a strike reached Moscow's fuel supply. The Moscow refinery fully stopped processing oil after that attack. Days later, Kyiv offered to halt refinery strikes if Russia stopped hitting Ukraine's power grid. Russia has not taken the deal.

The EU Delegation and all EU embassies will keep working in Kyiv despite Russia's warning that foreign diplomats should leave or risk their lives, EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová said on 4 October. Poland and Estonia also said their embassies would stay, calling the threats an attempt to intimidate Europe.

Russia attacks Kyiv daily as Moscow tries to make the city unlivable. Alongside the strikes, it now threatens the foreign missions that anchor Ukraine's support in the capital.

"We are staying"

Russia's Foreign Ministry singled out the embassies still working in Kyiv and the foreign officials who keep visiting Ukraine, Mathernová wrote. Moscow claimed that if something happened to them, the responsibility would be theirs.

"The responsibility for russian attacks belongs to russia! Not to anybody else," Mathernová wrote, adding: "Moscow wants to scare Europe into reducing its support for Ukraine. That will not happen."

The EU Delegation continues its work while taking the security of its team seriously, she added.

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She pointed to the morning's strike on the Northern Bridge, saying the repeated attacks disrupt the connections between the two banks of the Dnipro. People worry about getting to work, reaching their families, and getting home safely, she wrote.

Poland and Estonia keep their embassies open

Poland's Foreign Ministry said it had no intention of changing how its Kyiv embassy works. The Kremlin's threats and calls for diplomats to leave show it is trying to intimidate Europe and undermine support for Ukraine, the ministry said. Such threats contradict international law and will not work, it added.

Estonia's Foreign Ministry said its embassy stays in Kyiv and its support for Ukraine remains firm. Russia's threats only strengthen Estonia's resolve to stand with Ukraine, the ministry said.

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The European Commission also responded. Russia's threats show the Kremlin is losing the war and losing its self-control, Commission spokesperson Christian Wigand said, Suspilne reported.

More aid, more sanctions

This year alone, the EU has approved €28.3 billion ($32.3 billion) in defense procurement plans for Ukraine and is releasing another €6.6 billion ($7.5 billion) linked to military aid, Mathernová wrote. It is also moving forward with its biggest-ever sanctions listings against Russia, and this week imposed new sanctions over the deportation of Ukrainian children.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz came to Kyiv on the same day, as Russian attacks on the city continued. He and Zelenskyy visited the National Academy of Sciences building, hit by a Russian drone in September, and Zelenskyy thanked him for coming despite the air raid alert, calling it "a needed and brave signal," in a post on Telegram. Germany remains a reliable partner at Ukraine's side even in difficult times, Merz wrote.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit on 4 October and announced more than €1.3 billion ($1.5 billion) in new German support for Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at a joint press conference. Part of the money will fund interceptors against Russia's jet-powered drones, as Russian drones struck Kyiv again during Merz's visit. Merz also pledged to speed up Ukraine's EU accession and announced a Coalition of the Willing meeting in Berlin this winter.

Russia now attacks Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities daily, increasingly with jet-powered drones that outrun the cheap interceptors built for slower Shaheds. That leaves Ukraine dependent on scarce air defense missiles and on partners willing to pay for new weapons fast.

A package aimed at Russia's jet drones

The €1 billion ($1.13 billion) military part of the package includes funding for joint production of interceptor drones against jet-powered drones, Merz said. Recent technological progress means the new interceptors can quickly enter serial production, he added.

"This will quickly and noticeably strengthen Ukraine's air defense," Merz said.

The package also includes long-range weapons, combat drones, and satellite equipment, which Merz said should help Ukraine destroy Russian launchers more effectively. A separate €350 million ($394 million) will go to Ukraine's energy sector before winter, covering generators, transformer substations, and repair kits, Liga reported.

The two countries also signed an agreement on counter-drone cooperation, Merz said. He stressed that the help runs both ways, with German defense companies learning from Ukraine's war experience. The broader deal also covers joint development of weapons with a range of more than 1,000 km, Reuters reported.

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Among interceptor drones, the Bars has so far shown the best results, downing up to 30% of its targets, Zelenskyy said. He expects the first results from small missiles designed to counter jet drones in the second half of October.

"We will not be intimidated"

Before the visit, Russia's Foreign Ministry warned foreign nationals and diplomats against staying in Ukraine and threatened new massive strikes on Kyiv. Merz arrived by train with Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a delegation of German business executives.

"Despite the threats that have reached us from Moscow in recent days, I came today... This shows: we will not let ourselves be intimidated," Merz said.

Merz and Zelenskyy visited the National Academy of Sciences, where a Russian drone killed two people and injured seven on 28 September, the State Emergency Service and the Office of the President said. An air-raid alert sounded while they spoke with rescuers, and emergency service chief Andrii Danyk showed Merz the movement of Russian drones in real time. The same day, a Russian drone hit Kyiv's Northern Bridge again.

"I can only repeat it once again from this point: Mr Putin, put an end to this senseless war," Merz said during the visit. "We are ready for talks, we are ready to discuss bringing this war to an end, but these barbaric attacks on the civilian population of Ukraine must stop," he added, Reuters reported.

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Zelenskyy called the chancellor's presence despite the alert "a needed and brave signal" from Merz personally and from all of Germany.

EU path and a Berlin meeting

Germany wants to speed up Ukraine's EU accession and is working toward that in Brussels, Merz said. He welcomed Zelenskyy's assurances on rule-of-law and anti-corruption reforms, which he said matter for further financial aid. Together with France and the UK, Germany plans to host a Coalition of the Willing meeting in Berlin this winter to coordinate further support, he added.

The trip was Merz's second to Ukraine as chancellor and his fourth since the full-scale invasion. He arrived just as his standing at home is slipping: the far-right AfD reached 30% for the first time in an INSA poll for Bild, while Merz's CDU/CSU fell to a record low of 18%. Days earlier, Merz had directly accused the AfD of having "Russian backers."

Russia struck Kyiv's Northern Bridge with a drone again on 4 October, the second hit on the crossing in two days, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The attack damaged a heating main and rerouted public transport, as overnight and morning strikes also hit Kyiv Oblast, Dnipro, and Sumy, where one person was killed.

Russia's air attacks on Ukrainian cities are daily, and in recent days they have hit a Kyiv school sheltering children and turned supermarkets into targets. Strikes on the crossings between the capital's two banks add another layer: they disrupt how millions of people move through the city every day.

A crater on the Northern Bridge, no hot water across the river

The drone hit the bridge's roadway, and videos posted by local channels showed a crater, Liga reported. The strike also damaged a heating main, cutting hot water in Kyiv's Desnianskyi district on the left bank, Klitschko wrote. Repair crews are working to restore it, he added.

Kyiv's transport operator Kyivpastrans cut trolleybus routes short of the river. Routes 29, 30, 31, and 47 now run from the left bank only to Darnytsia Square, and routes 29, 30, and 31 run from the right bank only to Pochaina metro station. Buses 21, 73, 101, and 114 run only to Darnytsia Square because the bridge is closed to traffic.

Russia first hit the Northern Bridge on 3 October, damaging its roadway and trolleybus lines. Two people were injured, and one of them was hospitalized, Klitschko said. A day earlier, repeated drone strikes hit the Southern Bridge and forced its closure. Overnight on 4 October, drone debris also fell on two locations in Kyiv's Dniprovskyi district, Klitschko reported.

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Ukraine's government has already begun work on earth dams and pontoon crossings in case the city's Dnipro bridges are knocked out, Restoration Minister Mykola Kalashnyk told Suspilne.

The strike came as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited Kyiv. Ukraine and Germany would reach important agreements during the visit, Zelenskyy said. This week alone, Russia launched more than 1,900 attack drones, 1,700 guided bombs, and 25 missiles at Ukraine, more than 800 of the drones jet-powered, he added.

135 drones overnight

Russia launched 135 attack drones at Ukraine overnight, 52 of them jet-powered Shaheds, Ukraine's Air Force reported. By 08:30, air defenses had downed or suppressed 123 drones and two Banderol or Dan-T missiles. Strikes hit five locations, and debris fell on five more.

In Kyiv Oblast, Russian drones damaged six detached houses, a car, a church, a primary school, a café, and a medical facility in Boryspil Raion, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said. No one was killed or injured.

Dnipro and Sumy

Russia attacked a communications company's building in central Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha reported.

"The whole street there is covered in broken glass, debris, and branches," Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov wrote, adding that nearby homes and schools escaped damage.

In Sumy, Russian drones struck an ordinary medical supplies warehouse and killed one person, Zelenskyy said. Strikes across the city injured seven people, two of them seriously, the Sumy city council said. The attack also damaged gas networks and left 70 apartments without gas.

Drones attacked Russia's Khanskaya military airfield in the Republic of Adygea overnight on 4 October, Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi reported. Local reports, footage, and satellite fire data point to a blaze near the base, which trains Russian military pilots and also serves combat aviation. Neither side has reported the extent of the damage.

Ukraine is pressing its long-range campaign against the bases, refineries, and depots that keep Russia's war going, and Kyiv is vowing to hit harder as Russia escalates its strikes on Ukrainian cities. Airfields are part of that target list: in August, Ukraine struck one in Krasnodar Krai in the same overnight wave that hit Russia's second-largest refinery.

Hours of drone alerts, then a fire

Locals reported an attack and a fire at the airfield, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ wrote, sharing footage of the blaze. Drone warnings for the area began at 01:42 and lasted until 05:34, Militarnyi said. Over that time, Russian monitoring channels reported drones and active air defenses in the region and around the airfield.

NASA's FIRMS fire-detection data from geostationary orbit also showed a fire in the airfield's area, Militarnyi noted. It also published a video of a Ukrainian drone flying toward the base.

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A pilot school that also serves combat aviation

The airfield lies 6 km northwest of Maykop and 3 km east of the village of Khanskaya, about 500 km from Ukrainian-controlled territory, according to Militarnyi. Before the war, it was used mainly for training flights and hosted L-39 trainer jets.

The 761st Training Aviation Regiment was based there until it was disbanded in 2009, when the 272nd Training Aviation Base was formed in its place. The base, military unit 55661, belongs to the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots. Ukraine's General Staff said in October 2024 that Su-34, Su-27, and Su-35 jets, which Russia uses in its war against Ukraine, were based at the airfield, Militarnyi wrote. In March 2026, the General Staff said Russian forces actively use it for operational-tactical aviation.

Ukraine has struck the base before

Ukrainian drones attacked the airfield as early as October 2024. On 25 December 2025, Ukraine's General Staff said its forces had hit the Maykop airfield and started a fire. That was the same night Ukraine hit the port of Temryuk. Drones attacked the base again on 29 December, when Russian authorities claimed to have repelled the attack. Ukraine struck the airfield once more in March 2026.

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.

Drones attacked Russia's Volgograd and Samara oblasts overnight on 2 October, sparking fires near an oil refinery, a chemical plant, and likely a major oil-transport hub, Ukrainian and Russian monitoring channels reported. Regional officials acknowledged the attack but not the fires, and the extent of any damage remains unconfirmed.

Explosions and a glow over Volgograd's refinery district

Explosions sounded for a long time in Volgograd itself and around the refinery's industrial zone, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ wrote.

Residents reported drones flying over and blasts "in all districts of the city," and complained that no air raid alert sounded, Russian news Telegram channel Astra reported. Its OSINT analysis of eyewitness footage placed the glow near the Lukoil refinery and the neighboring Kaustik chemical plant, though the available videos do not show which facility caught fire.

Volgograd Oblast Governor Andrei Bocharov claimed a "massive drone attack" on the region's industrial infrastructure. He mentioned a fire in an apartment building and one person hospitalized, but no fires at plants.

Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka is one of Russia's largest refineries. It processes 14.8–15.7 million tons of crude a year, about 5% of Russia's refining, and makes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, and bitumen, according to Astra.

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Drones have hit the plant repeatedly. In May 2025, strikes damaged its ELOU-AVT-1 and ELOU-AVT-6 primary processing units. A 29 May 2026 strike halted production at the plant, about 500 km east of the war zone, Ukraine's General Staff said. On 31 July, drones set the refinery ablaze again, and Astra reported the AVT-1 and AVT-6 units stopped.

Kaustik sits in Volgograd's southern Krasnoarmeysky district. It is one of the region's leading plants and makes basic chemicals with dual civilian and military use, Astra wrote. The outlet called that output critical to Russia's military industry. The plant runs chlor-alkali production built on salt electrolysis. It makes hydrochloric acid, plastics, synthetic resins, and industrial gases, according to OSINT-Varta. Such products can serve military industry too, including polymer parts and protective coatings for hardware, Militarnyi noted.

Europe's largest tank farm likely on fire near Samara

Explosions also rocked Samara, with an especially strong one around 06:30, Astra reported. Its OSINT expert linked reader photos to a fire at the Samara linear production dispatch station in the settlement of Prosvet.

Ukrainian monitoring channel Supernova+ shared video of thick black smoke on the horizon and reported a fire at the station. Exilenova+ reported explosions in Samara followed by a fire.

The station belongs to Transneft, Russia's state pipeline operator. It covers more than 216 hectares and holds 71 tanks with a combined capacity of over 1.6 million m³ of crude. Astra called it Europe's largest tank farm.

Four trunk pipelines converge there, carrying oil from Western Siberia, Tatarstan, Orenburg Oblast, and Kazakhstan. The station blends high- and low-sulfur crude into Urals, Russia's flagship export grade, according to Militarnyi.

Samara authorities did not comment on the fire. Mayor Ivan Noskov stated only that ground public transport was suspended. Samara Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev did not report an attack at all.

The station has been hit before. Operators of the 14th Regiment of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces struck it again overnight on 23 September 2025. On 21 April 2026, drones of the Security Service of Ukraine's Alfa special operations center hit it, reportedly damaging five crude tanks of about 20,000 m³ each.

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Ukraine's long-range drones have already pushed Russia's fuel shortages into Central Asia, and Washington has pressed Kyiv to stop, so every hit on processing or export logistics tests how long oil can fund Moscow's war.

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.

Russian glide bombs that struck central Sumy on 29 September damaged a 19th-century church, the city cemetery around it, and a bronze statue of Christ, NV reported, citing the diocesan outlet Pravoslavna Sumshchyna. The same strike hit a school and nearby homes. Russia kept up its attacks across Ukraine over the following night and day.

Russia continues its terror campaign against Ukrainian civilians, and churches are among its routine targets, from a church its incendiary drone burned to the ground in Donetsk Oblast to one its drone damaged in western Ukraine's Lviv. Its strikes keep landing in city centers where people live, study, and pray, as when a drone hit Kyiv's Academy of Sciences in broad daylight.

The church near the epicenter

Russia struck Sumy with four guided aerial bombs. The blast damaged the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, a national-level architectural monument that stood near the epicenter. The church belongs to the Sumy Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

Almost the entire building was damaged, said the rector, Archpriest Mykola Holyk. The blast wave knocked out windows and broke nearly every pane.

Plaster fell and the ceiling collapsed in several places. It tore out doors and wooden fittings, knocked some icons from their places, and holed the roof in many spots. Large and small fragments of the bomb pitted the walls.

Local patrons paid to build the church between 1843 and 1851, in the late classicist style.

A cut across Christ's chest

In front of the church stands a bronze statue of Christ, placed in the late 19th century on the grave of Dmytro Sukhanov, a merchant and former mayor of Sumy. Bomb fragments left a cut across the statue's chest. The statue is a local landmark of monumental art, the outlet Tsukr noted. The strike also damaged about 50 graves in the Central City Cemetery beside the church.

"The godless enemy continues to kill civilians, endanger children, and destroy schools, homes, hospitals, churches, and cemeteries," the diocese said.

The same attack hit a school where students were sheltering, and a residential area where two people were killed and six injured, three of them children. In September, Russian strikes on Kyiv also damaged two churches belonging to the same Moscow-linked church, the Exaltation of the Cross on Podil and the Pokrova Church on Priorka.

Another day of Russian strikes

Overnight on 1 October, Russia launched 107 Shahed-type drones at Ukraine, 63 of them jet-powered, the Air Force said. Air defenses downed or suppressed 87, and drones hit 11 locations. In Sumy, a guided bomb hit private homes, injuring two women and damaging about six houses, city military administration head Serhii Kryvosheienko reported. On the morning of 30 September, a Russian strike set a shopping center in Sumy Oblast's Romny district on fire, and crews fought the blaze until late that night, the State Emergency Service said. In Kyiv on the morning of 1 October, a drone hit a school in the Solomianskyi district while children sheltered inside, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 100 students and about 60 staff were in the shelter, and no one was hurt, police said. A warehouse fire in Kyiv's Obolon district injured one person.

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Over the past 24 hours, Russian mortar fire killed two men in Sumy Oblast's Seredyna-Buda hromada, and 15 people were injured across the oblast, the regional administration reported. A morning drone attack killed a 50-year-old man in Mykolaiv Oblast, and drones killed a 44-year-old man in Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. In Kherson Oblast, Russian attacks killed one person and injured four. Eight people were hurt in Kharkiv Oblast, six in Kyiv Oblast, five in Donetsk Oblast, and three in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, according to regional authorities.

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.

Lithuania is getting its US troops back although the overall American presence in Europe will shrink, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said. He tied the wider drawdown to Washington's demand that Europe take more responsibility for its own defense. Lithuania's case, he suggested, is the exception.

While waging all-out war on Ukraine, Russia keeps probing Europe with drones and sabotage that stop just short of open attack. Its small Baltic neighbors are already preparing their people for a possible invasion, and American soldiers on their soil have long been the clearest sign that attacking them means fighting the US. With Washington weighing a pullback and telling Europe to fend for itself, each US unit that stays on Russia's doorstep carries more weight than its size.

"There will be fewer US troops in Europe"

Nausėda spoke in an interview with LNK television on 28 September.

"There will be fewer US troops in Europe. This is partly related to what US President Donald Trump says, to the signals the US administration is sending us that Europe must take on more responsibility itself," he said.

Europe must do more for itself, and it is already doing so, Nausėda added. The US presence in Lithuania matters not only for its military power but also for deterrence, he argued.

"The presence of these troops is precisely what reduces the likelihood of military conflict or military aggression," he told LNK, ELTA reported.

"The heavy battalion will be here"

Nausėda called the decision a kind of encouragement for Lithuania. "As the overall number of US troops in Europe decreases, in Lithuania that number will at least remain, will not decrease, and perhaps will even be slightly larger," he said. "In any case, the heavy battalion will be here."

The battalion will keep its Abrams tanks, but an engineer battalion will replace the artillery battalion, Nausėda said on LRT's Savaitė program. The rotation will again last nine months. The Americans will number roughly as before, over 1,000, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said.

Estonia has also secured the return of US troops, at least temporarily, LRT noted.

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More than 1,000 US troops began leaving Lithuania when their rotation ended in early June, and no replacement arrived, LRT said. It was the country's first gap in the US presence since 2020. American heavy battalions have rotated through Lithuania since 2019.

The Pentagon is weighing a withdrawal of about 25,000 US troops from Europe, and possibly as many as 40,000, NBC News reported, adding that no final decision had been made. About 80,000 US troops are now stationed on the continent. Germany, Italy, and Spain would likely be among the countries most affected.

Ukraine likely neutralized Russia's drone defenses north of Lyman before sending armor into the third phase of its Vivaldi counteroffensive, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed. An intermediate-range strike campaign against Russian logistics and electronic warfare paved the way, the think tank said.

Drones have made this front so deadly that armor now mostly fights from kilometers back. That is what makes Ukraine's armored push onto fortified positions near Lyman stand out. Russia has already shifted its effort south toward Sloviansk after losing the Lyman pincer.

Armor reached Russian bunkers without drawing drone strikes

To break the strongest Russian fortifications, Ukraine used old Soviet BTR-60 armored personnel carriers rebuilt as remote-controlled explosive vehicles, the 3rd Army Corps says.

Ukrainian forces drove them up to heavy Russian fortifications without coming under Russian drone strikes, ISW noted. The think tank said this indicates Ukraine neutralized or otherwise negated Russia's drone defenses in the area.

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Strikes on fuel starved Russia's jammers

Ukraine achieved tactical drone overmatch through extensive shaping operations and an intermediate-range strike campaign, ISW said. Those strikes targeted the Russian drones and electronic warfare (EW) systems that would otherwise have hunted the advancing vehicles.

The 3rd Army Corps reported on 17 September that strikes on Russian logistics in occupied Luhansk Oblast had degraded Russian fuel supplies to the front, ISW wrote that day. The corps said that strained Russia's ability to use drones and EW against Ukrainian drones. EW systems consume a lot of power, and Russian troops run them on diesel generators, ISW explained.

Deputy corps commander Maksym Zhorin credited strict information silence and a "Protective Drone" system of EW assets, according to the same assessment. He said it helped neutralize around 20,000 Russian drones. The corps had earlier described mapping Russian command posts and striking them to sow panic.

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Five settlements and 2,000 Russian losses

The corps liberated Nove, Ridkodub, and Katerynivka and restored control over Karpivka and Novomykhailivka, it said on 28 September. The phase added 51 km², bringing the total since the offensive began to 176 km².

Russian losses reached 2,000 personnel, and more than 250 Russians were taken prisoner, according to the corps. Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi said a feint from Shandryholove toward Zelena Dolyna drew Russian reserves away from the real target, Nove.

The first two phases had reportedly cleared more than 125 km² north of Lyman.

Russian intelligence services have sharply stepped up building websites and social media pages that impersonate Ukrainian state bodies and media, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) warned. Moscow uses the fakes to spread disinformation and to steal personal data it can turn into spy recruitment. The SBU says it has already blocked dozens of clones of its own brand.

Counterfeit pages built for propaganda and data theft

The fake sources serve Russian psychological operations and disinformation campaigns, the SBU said on 28 September. Their aim is to destabilize the situation inside Ukraine and damage its position abroad. Russian intelligence also uses them to extract Ukrainians' personal data, the agency said.

Alongside its full-scale invasion, Russia wages war on Ukraine in the cyber domain and through espionage and sabotage. Every agent Russia recruits inside Ukraine can help steer missiles and drones onto targets, and the SBU keeps catching such recruits.

Hacked accounts become recruitment leads

Russians often hack the accounts of users who subscribe to the fake pages and messenger channels, the SBU found. They then use the stolen information for recruitment operations and to collect confidential data.

Moscow is most interested in the combat and operational work of Ukraine's defense and security forces, the agency said. The SBU's cybersecurity department found and blocked more than 50 resources that copied the agency's own branding and positioning.

The fake pages are not Russia's only digital tool. Earlier in September, Anthropic said it had caught Russian spies running a campaign against Kyiv on its Claude AI chatbot.

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How Ukrainians can protect themselves

The SBU urged citizens not to follow suspicious links and to rely only on official sources. Anyone who sees a dubious web address, or gets a message from someone posing as an SBU officer, should call the 1516 hotline, the agency said.

What Russia's recruits are sent to do

The SBU's own reports from the past week show what Russia's recruits are tasked with. A mobilized soldier allegedly recruited by the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, tried to direct a Russian missile strike on his own unit in Kharkiv Oblast, the SBU said. His repair battalion restores Ukrainian drones.

A Lviv Oblast resident who worked at a drone production site in western Ukraine was allegedly recruited to guide a missile strike on it, the agency reported. The strike was meant to disrupt the steady supply of strike and reconnaissance drones to Ukrainian troops, the SBU said.

A court also sentenced a 17-year-old agent of Russia's military intelligence (GRU), exposed in November 2024, to 10 years in prison, the SBU announced. She tracked Ukrainian air defenses in Chernihiv Oblast under the cover of taxi rides. She talked to her GRU handler through an anonymous messenger chat.

Russia has quietly started a new round of mobilization and plans to bring in more North Korean troops, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He cited a new report from Ukraine's military intelligence. The same day, the Kremlin published a decree enlarging Russia's army for the fourth time this year.

Russia widens recruitment at home and abroad

Zelenskyy spoke in his evening address on 28 September, after a briefing from Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR).

"In effect, the Russians have already begun additional mobilization—they are increasing the number of people they recruit through various means," he said.

Moscow also plans to recruit more foreigners, Zelenskyy said. He urged the governments of countries whose citizens Russia recruits to counter it, and said Kyiv would inform each of them.

Ukraine says Russia has been losing soldiers faster than contract recruitment replaces them. If so, an unannounced call-up lets the Kremlin refill its ranks without a formal draft. ISW says Putin may hold off on such a draft until he sees whether his strikes work. Ukrainian intelligence had expected Russia to announce a mass mobilization after this month's State Duma elections.

More than 8,000 North Koreans in Russia, 10,000 more in preparation

More than 8,000 North Korean troops are currently on Russian territory, Zelenskyy said. Pyongyang is selecting another 10,000 for training and deployment to Russia, he added.

Russia is paying, among other things, with technology, according to Zelenskyy. North Korea has launched production of Shahed-type attack drones with Russian technical support, he said.

That is a step beyond what Kyiv reported in June 2025. Moscow and Pyongyang had then only agreed to start preparing such production. In August, Zelenskyy warned that Russia could receive up to 50,000 North Korean troops.

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Kremlin raises the army's size again

Putin's decree sets the authorized strength of Russia's armed forces at 2,441,630, including 1,550,500 military personnel, Vedomosti reported. The decree gives no reason.

The order adds 15,500 troops and is the fourth such increase this year, Euronews said. Since March, the combined increase has reached 47,860 soldiers. Putin's 2022 "partial mobilization" decree also remains in force, the outlet noted.

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Moscow keeps denying a call-up

In early September, Putin claimed that reports of a coming mobilization were "complete nonsense" and "an information attack on Russia." Russian officials gave similar assurances days before the 2022 call-up.

Ukraine's military and foreign intelligence had earlier said that Russia's General Staff prepared a scenario to mobilize 600,000 people over 2026 and 2027, 300,000 each year.

Russian troops retreating near Kupiansk abducted civilians, including children and elderly residents, and drove them into a gas pipeline to cover their withdrawal, the 2nd National Guard Corps Khartia said. The men of military age walking with them in civilian clothes were most likely Russian soldiers who had removed their uniforms, the corps added. Its reconnaissance drones filmed the group on 27 September. Ukrainian forces watched the column but did not open fire because of the civilians, ArmyInform reported.

Ukraine's military has accused Russia of using civilians as human shields in Kupiansk before. During its offensive, Russian troops also tried to enter the city through an inactive gas pipeline. Now, Khartia says, a pipe once used by Russian saboteurs is carrying abducted civilians toward occupied territory.

Nine people forced into the pipeline

Khartia filmed the group as the corps pressed its counteroffensive in the Kupiansk community in Kharkiv Oblast. The footage shows nine people: children, elderly residents, and a person on crutches. Men of military age in civilian clothing walk alongside them.

The group was led from Kupiansk through Holubivka village to the Shebelynka-Ostrohozhsk gas pipeline.

The footage shows them being led into the pipe, where they face a walk of about 10 km in darkness. The pipe exits in a forest, and the civilians will likely be taken to occupied territory.

"We documented this case. The materials will be handed over for a war crimes investigation," the corps said.

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Ukrainian forces held fire—Russia counted on it

Ukrainian troops saw the group and did not open fire because children and elderly people were among them. Russia counted on exactly that, Khartia said.

The corps warned that Russian propaganda could present the footage as an "evacuation" or "rescue" of civilians, Militarnyi reported. Khartia calls it an abduction.

Khartia's counteroffensive near Kupiansk comes alongside other Ukrainian advances farther south. In northern Donetsk Oblast, the Third Army Corps' Operation Vivaldi has regained control of 125 km², including 50 km² previously under Russian occupation, and inflicted more than 3,000 Russian personnel losses, the corps said. The operation has effectively erased Russia's planned Lyman pincer. Near Kupiansk, Ukraine's defense forces continue pushing Russian forces toward the Oskil River, and the liberation of forests near Dvorichna and Zapadne has reduced the threat to the city.

Russia has fielded a Geran-5 variant that can steer by images of the ground below without satellite navigation, the Ukrainian monitoring channel Polkovnyk GSh reported. A second Russian jet drone also filmed a strike on Kyiv live and relayed control signals to the drone that hit it, presidential adviser on defense technology Serhii Beskrestnov, known as Flash, said.

Russia's air war on Ukrainian cities has turned into a race of adaptations. As Ukraine got better at catching slow drones, Moscow made them fly faster, and now its jet drones also see for themselves and talk to each other.

A Geran-5 that reads the ground

The channel labels it the Geran-5 K5. Its DSMAC-type module corrects the drone's route by matching images of the ground below against stored references, like the one on Russia's Kh-101 cruise missile. The K5 also has a new fuselage, the channel said.

Because it flies faster than the Geran-4 and the standard Geran-5, it is often mistaken for Dan-T cruise missiles, the channel said. Official Ukrainian sources have not confirmed the K5 designation or the DSMAC-class system, Militarnyi noted.

The base Geran-5 carries a warhead of about 90 kg and cruises at 450–600 km/h, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) found in January. It relies on a jam-resistant Kometa-M12 satellite navigation system and a mesh modem. HUR's component list includes no terrain-matching optics.

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One drone struck, another filmed and relayed

Russia published footage of its 25 September strike on the Inkom business center in Kyiv, which killed four people, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The video was filmed from high above the target and fueled speculation about how it was shot. Beskrestnov dismissed the theories.

"Let me say right away: no secret satellites, no FPV from a Shahed, no Russian agents, no mysterious drones," Beskrestnov wrote.

Russia hit the building with a Geran-5, a jet-powered drone that functions as a small cruise missile. At the same time, a jet Shahed flew into Kyiv and circled the target at almost 3 km altitude, he said. It served as a mesh relay, passing radio signals to the Geran-5. It also filmed the attack and transmitted the video immediately. The Shahed then left Kyiv and destroyed a McDonald's warehouse.

Mesh networking lets Russian drones relay control signals through one another. Russia already flies its jet Shaheds under mesh control.

Status-6, an X account that monitors the war, reposted the Russian video and suggested a Gerbera-type drone had filmed it. Beskrestnov identifies the camera as the second jet Geran.

"This is certainly a complex Russian drone operation that requires precise calculations and coordination between pilots. I'm even sure they were sitting next to each other," he wrote.

New sensors across the Geran family

Russia's jet Shaheds sometimes switch off their engines before an attack and glide toward the target, Beskrestnov wrote. It is still unclear whether that is a malfunction or a deliberate move to approach slowly and precisely. In the same post, he showed a Geran-4 Seeker, a jet drone that hunts for targets with a front camera. It carries two mesh antennas on its tail, one pointing down and one up.

With colder weather, warm objects will become prey for Geran Seekers equipped with thermal cameras, Beskrestnov warned. He posted a thermal image of a locomotive that a Shahed operator filmed from 5–6 km away.

Ukraine catching up again

Ukraine's interceptors are catching just over half of Russia's jet drones. Beskrestnov confirmed on 19 September that a Ukrainian jet-powered interceptor works and has enough speed margin for different targets, calling it "functional, real, and ready for refinement." Separately, drone maker Wild Hornets says its STING interceptor is heading toward mass production after its first kills against jet Gerans.

Speed alone will not catch them, Beskrestnov argued earlier. Interceptors need machine vision to lock on and guide themselves in.

The threat is in the skies daily. On 28 September, a Russian jet drone hit the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv in the middle of the working day, killing a woman.

A Russian strike on an apartment building in Kharkiv injured dozens of people, many of them children, early on 28 September, regional prosecutors reported. Through the rest of the day, Russian drones hit Kyiv, Dnipro, and other cities, killing civilians in several of them.

Russia has moved much of its aerial campaign to jet-powered drones that fly too fast for the cheap interceptors Ukraine built against older models. Every switch to a faster weapon reopens gaps in city defenses that Ukraine had only just begun to close.

Two floors partly destroyed in a Kharkiv apartment block

Russia hit a nine-story building in Kharkiv's Saltivskyi district around 04:00. By early afternoon, the count had risen to 43 injured, including 11 children, prosecutors said.

A man of 43 and a girl of 14 remain in hospital with blast wounds, and the others have moderate or light injuries, Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov said. Three children lived in the apartment that took the hit. Their father carried them out himself, and none of them was seriously hurt.

The strike hit the second floor and destroyed the ceiling between the third and fourth floors. Rescuers brought 32 people out of the building. Across the district, the attack damaged 18 apartment buildings and blew out more than 1,500 windows. More than 100 volunteers are helping city services seal them, Syniehubov added.

A resident who fled Kramatorsk a year and a half ago said her family never heard the blast itself.

"We didn't hear any explosion. Glass came pouring down, and a column of smoke stood there," Yuliia Baldzhy told Suspilne Kharkiv. "The children were sleeping in another room, and my husband and I barely squeezed through, grabbed them, and got out."

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the city had not taken a hit "of this level" in some time. Officials are still establishing the weapon. Syniehubov named guided aerial bombs (KABs) and counted six of them over the oblast in the past day. Prosecutors named a UMPB-5, a Russian munition, as the preliminary version. Terekhov said the city was checking whether it was a KAB or a Banderol, a small cruise missile.

Russia has hit Kharkiv high-rises with guided bombs before. In November 2024, one such strike injured 25 people, including an infant.

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Kyiv hit through the night and into the day

In the middle of the working day, a Russian jet drone struck the main building of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv's historic center. The attack killed a woman and injured five people, the Kyiv City Military Administration said. Three of them were hospitalized, Klitschko said. People climbed out of windows to escape the fire.

"Russia will definitely get a response to this," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Overnight and into the morning, Russian drones hit a gas station in Obolon, a café by a gas station, office buildings, and a 16-story residential building in Podil. The attacks injured three teenagers in Podil, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. A 17-year-old boy was hospitalized.

Nationwide, Russia launched 165 drones overnight, 79 of them jet-powered, the Air Force reported. Air defenses downed or suppressed 112, and hits were recorded at 14 locations.

The capital is now under attack daily. On 27 September, Russian strikes injured nine people in Kyiv, and Russia hit a Kyiv data center twice. That evening, a Russian drone struck the Stolychnyi market in Sofiivska Borshchahivka, just outside the city, and killed two people. Zelenskyy wrote that one of the two killed in Kyiv Oblast was a citizen of Azerbaijan.

Deaths in Dnipro and Synelnykove

Around 11:15, a Russian drone hit a business center in central Dnipro, killing three people. The number of injured rose to 15, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha said. Rescuers led 47 people out of the burning building, regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said.

"Nearby are residential buildings, a park, a library, offices, shops. The center of Dnipro. In the middle of the working day, hundreds of people are here," Hanzha wrote.

In Synelnykove, a Russian strike on a logistics company's branch killed one person. It injured three others, including a 15-year-old boy now in hospital in serious condition.

Overnight, Russian drones also hit infrastructure in the Vasylkivka community and a market in Nikopol.

Strikes across other regions

In Kharkiv Oblast on 27 September, a Russian FPV drone killed a 67-year-old driver in Shestakove, prosecutors said. A drone on fiber-optic control also killed a 41-year-old woman in a car in Velykyi Burluk and injured a 46-year-old man.

Explosions sounded in Poltava overnight. In Rivne Oblast, a Russian attack damaged a detached house without injuring anyone. In Odesa Oblast, Russia struck a warehouse, and an evening attack injured a man of 62 and a woman of 63. Zelenskyy also listed a Palau-flagged ship hit in Odesa Oblast and an ice cream plant damaged in Zhytomyr Oblast, in the same post.