Russia is looking for its next foreign recruits in Indonesia, Kyiv says. Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service reports that it has obtained documents on at least eight Indonesian citizens recruited into the Russian occupation army.
Russia has recruited at least 27,000 foreign nationals from more than 130 countries since February 2022, a joint report by the International Federation for Human Rights and Truth Hounds found in April, separate from roughly 14,000 North Korean troops. Up to 20% of these fighters do not survive the first four months.
The scheme runs on false promises
"The scheme by which Moscow seeks foreign cannon fodder has already been tested on dozens of other countries," the Foreign Intelligence Service said.
Recruiters offer high pay, non-combat work, fast-tracked Russian citizenship, and social guarantees, drawing in people who often have no idea where they are actually being sent, the service said. The same model worked earlier on citizens of Nepal, Cuba, Kenya, and India, and most ended up on the front line without training, with some dying in the first weeks.
Recruitment fills three needs at once
Each foreigner serves several functions for the Kremlin, the service said. A recruit fills a personnel gap at the front and doubles as propaganda about supposed global support for the war.
The third driver is domestic. Discontent over the economy, the war, and plans for a new wave of mobilization has cut the number of Russians willing to sign contracts, bringing dissatisfaction to 69 percent.
The pattern is widening by design
Indonesia is the latest example of Russia's system to fight with its hands of foreign mercenaries.
"Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country with a population of over 280 million, has joined the list of countries that have become the Kremlin's latest market for cheap human labor for the war," the service said.
Ukraine's drone interceptors work until the weather turns. On 28 July, Presidential advisor Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov wrote that fog and cloud in fall, winter, and spring can leave an interceptor pilot unable to see more than a dozen meters, and that success rates fall as soon as winter begins, a problem that is especially severe over the sea.
Cheap interceptor drones have become one of Ukraine's main answers to Shahed saturation. But nearly every system shares the flaw Beskrestnov names: it depends on a pilot or camera seeing the target. Ukrainian and foreign teams are all racing toward the same fix, an onboard seeker head.
The method started simple
The earliest approach was primitive but cheap and effective, Beskrestnov said. A pilot flies the interceptor to the right point using the radar network, then finds the target by eye, chases it, and attacks.
Russia answered not only with jet Shaheds but with onboard electronic warfare, evasion systems, in-flight maneuvers, and rear-facing cameras to watch the sky behind, he explained. Ukraine replied with machine-vision target capture and guidance.
Bad weather remains unsolved
None of that fixes visibility, Beskrestnov wrote, and the problem hits both ordinary and jet interceptors. The way out, he argued, is an autonomous seeker head, acoustic, thermal, or radar, mounted on the interceptor itself.
A radar seeker is the ideal, in his view, because it opens the door to a fully autonomous system with no human in the loop: the network sees the target, launches the nearest interceptor, guides it by tactical radar, and the seeker locks on for the kill.
A US firm has put a price on it
Building a radar small enough for an interceptor has proven hard, and teams in Ukraine and abroad are working on it, Beskrestnov said, adding that he would not discuss the Ukrainian efforts because the subject is sensitive.
He pointed to the American company Archimedes, which he said announced a radar days ago, operating at 24 gigahertz with a 25-by-14-degree field of view and a one-kilometer lock-on range, shown in a promotional video mounted on several Ukrainian interceptors, at about $4,000 per unit. Whether it works remains to be seen, he added, given how hard the problem is.
Ukrainian forces are using unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to evacuate wounded troops from frontline positions, but the robotic systems themselves have become targets for Russian drones and artillery.
Ukraine has increasingly turned to ground robots for casualty evacuation as Russian surveillance and strike capabilities make traditional evacuation routes more dangerous. The systems help deny Russia another opportunity to target medics and evacuation crews. Now, the robots themselves come under Russian fire during evacuation missions.
Maksym Shtrul, commander of the 3rd Medical Company of Ukraine’s 1st Separate Medical Battalion, said Russian forces try to strike anything that moves. He described the challenges of robotic medical evacuations in an interview with Army FM, reported by ArmyInform on 27 August.
In one of the first major operations of this kind, around four UGVs were used to evacuate a single wounded soldier. During one mission, a robotic vehicle moving across an exposed area came under attack from about 15 Russian FPV drones as well as artillery fire.
Russian fire is only one part of the danger
Shtrul said it would be inaccurate to describe Russia as systematically hunting UGVs specifically, but concentrated attacks on robotic systems have occurred.
The robots also face the physical challenges of the battlefield. Evacuation routes are planned in advance, but Russian strikes can suddenly make them impassable. A glide-bomb strike can leave a crater around five meters deep in a road, while a fallen tree can block a route with no way around it.
UGVs cannot cross rivers and can also become stuck in mud, fall into holes or become trapped on difficult terrain. Engineers may need to assist operators when a vehicle encounters such obstacles.
A robotic evacuation takes a team
Getting a wounded soldier out with a UGV requires far more than an operator driving a robot.
A specialist prepares the mission and route, while a medic maintains contact with the wounded soldier and helps prepare them for loading. Operators must also continuously monitor communications, which can deteriorate suddenly at the front.
When a communications problem is expected, the robot can be temporarily moved into cover. Engineers are available to help operators deal with mechanical or terrain-related problems during the mission.
Why Ukraine uses UGVs
Despite becoming targets themselves, UGVs can reduce the number of people exposed to Russian fire during medical evacuation.
Shtrul said the systems are less visible than large tracked or wheeled vehicles and can be more easily concealed under trees or in vegetation. They also generate less heat, making them harder to detect with thermal imaging.
The systems cannot replace medical personnel entirely. Medical treatment available during the journey is limited, and a UGV may have to stop near another Ukrainian position if the wounded soldier needs immediate care.
The growing use of robotic evacuation reflects the increasingly dangerous conditions faced by Ukrainian medics at the front. Even when no medic is physically sent into the exposed area, the vehicle carrying a wounded soldier can still draw Russian drones and artillery fire.
A 77-year-old woman was evacuated from a frontline area around Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, using a ground robot after she was spotted walking alone along a shelled road.
Drone operators from Ukraine’s 60th Mechanized Brigade saw her moving through craters and past the bodies of… pic.twitter.com/DscHXDECjV
A Ukrainian ground robot used to run 12-15 missions. Near Kupiansk, it now survives three or four. The lifespan is collapsing under the denser Russian FPV drone and mining fire, Andrii Kopach, call sign "Matematyk", who commands a ground-robot unit in the "Lava" unmanned regiment of the "Khartia" corps, told Oboronka.
Ground robots have become a daily part of the front in Ukraine. Ukrainian units ran 16,676 logistics, strike, and evacuation missions with them in June, up 122 percent since January, and the military has contracted more than 22,000 for 2026, nearly double the 2025 total. That scale runs into a wall at the front, where Russia now assigns FPV crews, including fiber-optic drones, specifically to kill the robots.
The lifespan keeps shrinking
The pace of technological change is the core problem, Matematyk said. Ukrainian makers keep improving the platforms, but cannot always keep pace with how quickly the fighting evolves.
A machine may last only three or four missions now, as in Kharkiv Oblast, where it was eight or nine before and 12 to 15 earlier still, he said. Mining, Russian fiber-optic activity, FPV activity, and a targeted focus on countering robots all drive the decline.
Speed is the missing requirement
Most robots at the front are technologically outdated in speed and suspension, Matematyk said. Current figures of 10 to 15 kilometers per hour no longer allow a machine to cross logistics routes safely.
He put the problem in an image. Gun-armed combat robots, he said, are "Persian elephants", fearsome but so slow to reach the objective that "a couple of centuries" pass first. What the army needs are "Arabian steeds" that gallop in, do the job, and gallop back.
AI defense is in development
Ukrainian troops are working with Brave1 and the Digital Transformation Ministry on AI-based active-protection systems that could autonomously detect and neutralize enemy FPVs, Matematyk said. The approaches vary, from a camera to a mini-radar to a camera paired with sound.
The countermeasures could be net launchers, or for fast machines, shotgun blasts and shrapnel, he said. The detection and response are trained on models built from the data his unit has logged over previous years. Ukraine still holds a quality edge over Russian robots through better Starlink-based communications and decentralized robot groups in its units, he added.
Ukraine's new defense minister went to Kherson Oblast days after Russia destroyed theheatof its main city. Yevhenii Khmara visited the region and met the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, to discuss the region's most urgent needs, the Defense Ministry reported.
Russia hit the Kherson combined heat and power plant with a glide bomb on 26 August, then struck it again overnight with four more, destroying all the heat- and power-generating equipment that remained, Naftogaz said.
Prokudin has urged residents to leave, warning the city may go without heat and power through the winter. He said that Russia has dropped 170 glide bombs on the oblast since 1 July, more than in the entire first half of 2026.
Air defense topped the agenda
Khmara and Prokudin discussed strengthening defenses against various types of drones and protection against aerial bombs, as well as the safety of roads and critical infrastructure, which are being attacked by Russians day and night. They also addressed giving troops in this direction more capacity to strike the Russian targets that threaten civilians and soldiers.
The needs match the threat Prokudin has described. No region of Ukraine currently has the means to shoot down jet-powered Shaheds or glide bombs, he said, and Russia has begun using both more heavily against Kherson's infrastructure.
The minister met marines and the wounded
Khmara spoke with commanders and troops of the 30th Marine Corps operating on the Prydniprovskyi direction, the ministry said. The talks covered financial support for combat units and larger purchases of strike systems.
"We have taken up the soldiers' requests that need Defense Ministry decisions," the ministry said.
Khmara also visited a medical facility treating wounded troops and presented state awards.
The ministry frames it as direct contact
The Defense Ministry said it plans to keep working directly with troops and the leadership of front-line regions to strengthen the Defense Forces and protect Ukrainian lives.
Russia is filling its assault units from the bars of occupied Donetsk, partisans say. An agent of the ATESH movement inside the headquarters of Russia's Dnepr group of forces reported that local recruiters in the city are hunting men in bars and on the streets, mainly those drinking, and taking them heavily intoxicated to enlistment offices, the partisans say.
The claim fits a pattern documented three days earlier. On 24 August, three Russian legal-aid groups recorded 47 complaints of forced recruitment across 16 Russian regions and occupied Donetsk Oblast in July and August, targeting men with alcohol, drug, or mental health problems. ATESH now reports the same method inside occupied Donetsk.
There, they are pressured into signing contracts with the Russian army.
The recruits fill named units
The first such "volunteers" have already appeared in two Russian units, according to ATESH. The group named the 328th Guards Air Assault Regiment on the Zaporizhzhia direction and the 77th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment in Donetsk Oblast.
Both units use the men to replace losses in formations that the Russian command keeps throwing into assaults, ATESH said. The claim could not be independently verified.
The method points to a recruitment shortfall
Russian authorities can no longer fill losses with promises of payments and propaganda, so enlistment offices, local administrations, and recruiters have turned to deception, pressure, and what the group called the effective abduction of people.
That reading matches what a Russian rights group said. Volunteers are getting harder to find, which is why the pressure is increasing, said Grigory Sverdlin, director of the anti-mobilization group Idite Lesom.
ATESH works from inside the occupation
ATESH is a Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar partisan movement founded in September 2022. It operates in the occupied territories and inside Russia, and says its network includes Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, anti-war Russians, and sources within Russia's military and occupation administrations. Its claims are often impossible to verify independently.
A NATO country's defense minister wanted Mykhailo Fedorov the day after Ukraine dismissed him. Fedorov, Ukraine's former defense minister, has agreed to advise Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto on defense innovation, he wrote on Telegram.
As deputy prime minister and digital transformation minister, Fedorov created the Brave1 defense-tech cluster, then ran the Defense Ministry from 14 January 2026 until his dismissal in July. The removal triggered nationwide protests through July, with demonstrators calling for his reinstatement.
Earlier, Fedorov refused every other post Zelenskyy offered, saying only the defense minister, the president, and the commander-in-chief truly shape the war.
"I thanked Guido for his personal support and for offering me the opportunity to serve as his adviser on defense innovation. In this role, I will help Italy develop modern warfare technologies," he said.
Crozetto moved within a day
The Italian minister said he called Fedorov the day after the dismissal and asked when he would come to Rome to work as an advisor.
Fedorov met Crosetto on the first stop of an international trip focused on digitalization and defense technology.
The focus stays on his own projects
Fedorov said his main focus is unchanged and that he continues working in Ukraine on his own projects to strengthen its defense and attract international resources. In the advisory role, he will help Italy develop technologies of modern war and adapt to new security challenges, he wrote.
The two discussed drones, autonomous systems, air defense, and the development of a defense-tech ecosystem. The future of defense belongs to countries that can quickly test and scale new solutions, Fedorov said, and Ukraine's experience could serve as the basis for a new defense model for Europe.
Earlier, the Ukrainian parliament approved Yevhenii Khmara as the new defense minister. During his first speech, Khmara made it clear that he would continue his predecessor's course — the technologization of the army.
He added that there "would be more Ukrainian weapons, and strikes would be more precise.
Russian attacks have destroyed about 90% of Ukraine’s modern facilities for storing goods, significantly disrupting the country’s retail logistics, Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi said on 28 August, according to Interfax-Ukraine.
Russia has increasingly targeted Ukraine’s civilian commercial and logistics infrastructure in recent weeks, striking warehouses, distribution centers, hypermarkets, postal terminals and other facilities that keep goods moving through the country. The campaign has damaged supply chains and forced businesses to find more expensive and vulnerable ways to store and deliver products.
Vysotskyi said the destruction does not pose a threat of famine, but warned that continued Russian attacks on logistics infrastructure could affect the range of products available in Ukrainian stores. Supermarkets in Kyiv have already seen widespread empty shelves in recent weeks.
Retailers forced to change how goods are delivered
The destruction of warehouses has forced retailers to change how they move products around the country, with deliveries increasingly being made “from the wheels” rather than through conventional storage and distribution facilities, Vysotskyi said.
Such logistics are more complicated and expensive, he said, while some companies have begun relocating their operations to other areas. Russian attacks, however, have also reached some of the relocated facilities.
The comments come as Russia has increasingly targeted commercial and logistics infrastructure across Ukraine. In recent days, Russian drones have struck warehouses, hypermarkets, postal terminals and shopping centers, including in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
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No threat of famine, minister says
Despite the scale of the destruction, Vysotskyi stressed that Ukraine does not face a food shortage severe enough to threaten the population with famine.
The main impact is expected to be on logistics, availability and the range of goods offered in stores. With fewer storage facilities, retailers have less capacity to stock products and must rely more heavily on direct deliveries.
The shift can also increase costs because goods have to move more frequently and over potentially longer routes without the buffer provided by large distribution centers.
Emergency workers respond to a Russian strike on a shopping center in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 28 August 2026. Photo: Ukraine’s State Emergency Service
Calls for risk-sharing after Russian strikes
Vysotskyi also called for a system to distribute the financial risks when Russian attacks destroy goods somewhere along the supply chain.
He said these losses currently fall within private contractual relationships between businesses, with the state not acting as an operator in the supply chain. In his view, the risks should be shared more fairly between companies involved in supplying and selling products.
He said such a system would not necessarily mean splitting losses equally. Different products have different margins, sales conditions and profitability, so the share of risk should depend on the specific product and terms of cooperation.
Russia’s attacks on storage and distribution infrastructure are therefore creating effects far beyond the facilities themselves. Damage to the supply chain can change what products reach stores, increase the cost of getting them there, and make Ukraine’s retail system more vulnerable to further strikes.
Ukraine is bolting the war's most common rifle onto its robots. A company in the Brave1 cluster has developed a turret built around the Kalashnikov that mounts on low-cost unmanned ground vehicles, the state cluster's press service told Defender Media.
Ground robots have become a daily part of the front in Ukraine. Ukrainian units ran 16,676 logistics, strike, and evacuation missions with them in June, up 122 percent since January, and the military has contracted more than 22,000 for 2026, nearly double the 2025 total.
Arming them cheaply is the next step, and the Kalashnikov is the most cost-effective option because it is already the standard rifle across the force.
The robots are already in combat
Ground drones fitted with the turret are undergoing combat testing in Ukrainian units. Fighters of the Security Service Special Operations Center "A" have used one to destroy Russian ambushes set with concealed waiting-mode drones.
The complex is built on a four-wheel chassis with airless tires and an armored body. At the core of the weapon module is a twin turret mounting two Kalashnikov rifles.
The build took under six months
The developers have received a technical assignment and a grant from the cluster to create the turret. The path from idea to finished prototype took less than six months.
Beyond the base version, the turret can be mounted on other wheeled and tracked ground robots. That flexibility is the point: one weapon module across many platforms.
The rifle choice is about scale
The developers chose the Kalashnikov because it is the most widespread small arm in Ukrainian units, according to Brave1. The cluster considers it a simple, effective solution that lets Ukraine quickly scale up strike robots for assaults and for defense against Russian infantry.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it would buy logistics and strike-ground robotic complexes under a new strategy that calls for sticking to the Defense Ministry's specifications rather than approving models one at a time.
Russia flies its missile raids on Ukraine from Engels-2. Ukraine keeps reaching the strategic bombers there. Soldiers of the Security Service's Alpha unit have struck a Tu-95MS missile carrier at the Russian airbase, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote.
The Tu-95 is part of Russia's nuclear triad, a Soviet-era strategic bomber Russia has used to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine since 2022. Ukraine has spent the war whittling down the fleet. On 1 June 2025, Operation Spiderweb smuggled explosive drones deep inside Russia on trucks and hit 41 strategic bombers along with other bombers in a single day.
The satellite image shows the damage
The first image of the bomber has appeared on social media. A satellite photo published on Friday, 28 August, by OSINT analysts Exilenova+ shows the aircraft suffered critical damage in the strike.
The bomber lost about a third of its right wing to the drone hit. Other damage is hard to judge in the image due to low resolution.
The Russian Engels-2 air base is home to Tu-95MS and Tu-160 strategic bombers, which regularly launch Kh-101 cruise missiles at Ukraine. The base also houses ammunition and fuel storage facilities, equipment, and aircraft maintenance infrastructure.
A Russian Tu-95 strategic bomber. Source: Exilenova+
Strikes targeting Russian bombers and the airfield’s infrastructure are critically important. They are aimed at degrading the aggressor country’s military capabilities.
A second Engels-2 bomber in weeks
This is not the first Tu-95 Ukraine has reached at the base recently. Ukrainian drones struck Engels-2 in early July, ArmyInform reported, destroying a different Tu-95 whose tail section was torn off and thrown dozens of meters by the blast.
Analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko of Information Resistance said Russia has up to 12 flyable Tu-95MS left after Operation Spiderweb, in varying states of readiness, and that the one hit overnight belonged to the serviceable group.
A senior Russian official said out loud what Russia's missiles do every night. Pyotr Tolstoy, deputy chairman of the State Duma and great-great-grandson of Russian writer Lev Tolstoy, has called for massed bombing of Ukrainian cities to break the resistance of the people living in them and force a surrender, the news outlet 24 Kanal reported.
Russia denies striking civilians and claims after each attack that it hit military targets, even as its missiles land on homes, hospitals, power plants, and food depots. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said Tolstoy's words should be grounds for an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, calling them a Russian official's demand for war crimes.
What Tolstoy has urged in public, Russian forces have done for more than 12 years while denying it.
The presenter proposed emptying the cities
On the state talk show Vremya Pokazhet, which Tolstoy hosts, he was reminded that more than 20 million people live in Ukraine and asked what would become of them if the country were turned to scorched earth. He proposed warning residents a day before strikes so they could flee their homes.
"You think we are calling for cruelty? We are calling for demoralizing the population so thoroughly that it comes out to meet our troops with its little paws up," Tolstoy said.
Then he named the reason
In the end, Tolstoy described what Ukraine means for Russia's plans.
"[Ukraine] is the kind of territory that will allow us to export our energy resources to Europe by the short route," he said.
He also characterized European leaders in the same speech.
"So gray-haired dwarves from Europe greet them (Ukrainians), and all these notorious Ursulas and Kaja Kallases, do they represent any value to us? No," Tolstoy claimed.
The descendant of a novelist, sanctioned in 2022
Tolstoy trained in France and worked with Le Monde and Agence France-Presse before working with the Russian state television and politics.
The European Union placed him on its sanctions list on 23 February 2022, the day before the full-scale war, naming him a central figure in Russian state propaganda. In 2024, he told the French channel BFMTV that Russian forces would kill French soldiers if they deployed to Ukraine.
Sweden will transfer 10 coast guard boats to Ukraine, the Swedish government announced on 27 August 2026. Stockholm will also direct additional funds to multilateral defense programs for Kyiv.
Russia's full-scale invasion added to some 13,500 km² of Ukraine's rivers, lakes, and Black Sea coastline now potentially contaminated with explosive remnants of war, in the world's most mined country, and emergency service divers had cleared 190 km² of it by November 2025. Allied nations have committed billions in military support to Kyiv since 2022, from fighter jets to anti-drone systems.
Rescue boats for Ukraine's mined waterways
Ukraine's State Emergency Service will receive the work and high-speed vessels in their current condition, after the coast guard removes their markings and equipment. The agency will use them for waterborne rescue operations, including clearing mines from river channels.
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Sweden's Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said Sweden is further strengthening Ukraine's maritime capabilities. He described towage, mine clearance, and transport as important capabilities that can now increase further. Sweden's Civil Defense Agency will handle transporting the boats to Ukraine.
The donation follows Sweden's broader naval support for Kyiv. In January 2025, Stockholm doubled its pledge of CB90 assault boats for Ukraine's navy to 32 and added 23 naval combat modules to arm them. The coast guard vessels serve a different purpose—rescue and utility work for a civilian agency, not combat operations.
Another $28 million for defense funds
Sweden will also channel 270 million Swedish kronor (about $28 million) to multilateral defense funds supporting Ukraine, mainly for air defense. Of that sum, $14 million goes to the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), to which Sweden contributed $108 million in June. Allies and partners fund high-priority American materiel through the US-led, NATO-administered program, and this package covers advanced air defense systems and ammunition for Kyiv.
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The government said this marks Sweden's fifth PURL contribution. With the new payment, Stockholm's total PURL funding reaches $552 million.
In July, Sweden's defense minister confirmed Ukraine may use the Meteor missiles promised with its Gripen fighters against Russian aircraft over Russian territory.
In July, most of Ukraine’s grain left through its Black Sea ports. From 1 to 26 August, after Russian attacks sharply reduced ship traffic, Ukraine exported just 1.42 million tons of agricultural products—about a third of its potential volume. Rail and the Danube carried about 600,000 tons each, Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi said.
The locomotives carrying that cargo are now among Russia’s main targets.
Ukraine now expects to export 38–40 million tons of grain in the 2026/27 season, down from 43 million before the attacks intensified, Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi told Reuters. Agricultural products generated more than half of the country’s export revenue last year.
By 24 August, the total number of damaged locomotives had risen to 492.
Russia now sends camera-equipped drones to search for trains and redirects others toward rolling stock that their operators spot in flight. The campaign is no longer confined to fixed targets such as stations, bridges, and substations.
Ukraine’s railways keep running. Damaged lines often reopen within hours, while buses carry passengers around closed sections. With far fewer ships calling at the ports, each damaged locomotive leaves the railway less room to absorb the next disruption.
The civilian bulk carrier GOLDEN LEO ablaze after Russian missiles hit it as it left Odesa with a cargo of corn, in the Black Sea, 19 July 2026. Photo: Ukraine’s Navy
Export traffic moves inland
Before the current wave of strikes, the ports of Greater Odesa handled about 80% of Ukraine’s agricultural exports. Rail’s share then rose sharply, but the railway did not carry more grain: Ukrzaliznytsia said 461,000 tons went by rail during the first 25 days of August—67% less than in July and 77% below the corresponding period last year, according to figures reported by Rail.insider. Rail had taken a larger share of a collapsing export flow.
Traffic through the Black Sea corridor collapsed after a series of attacks on civilian vessels in July. One of the deadliest strikes was on the bulk carrier Golden Leo on 19 July, killing 10 people, including a Ukrainian maritime pilot. The ship later sank. On 22 July, for the first time since the sea corridor opened, not a single vessel entered the Odesa ports.
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In July, 169 ships entered, but only 7 did so during the first 11 days of August, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority told Kyiv Post. By 24 August, traffic had partly recovered. Three or four ships were entering and leaving the ports of Odesa each day. However, cargo volumes remained three to four times lower than before the intensified attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed out.
Maerskand Hapag-Lloyd suspended feeder services to Greater Odesa in late July and early August, with Maersk rerouting imports to Constanța.
The attacks changed the calculations of shipowners and insurers, even though the ports remained formally open. The late-August recovery shows that Russia did not impose a total blockade, but commercial traffic remained far below its previous capacity.
Ukraine normally moves 4 to 4.5 million tons of farm goods a month; the National Bank of Ukraine estimated in July that alternative routes could initially carry about 2.5 million tons a month. That leaves part of the usual flow with nowhere to go this year—about $2.5 billion in export revenue delayed from the second half of 2026 to the first half of 2027.
The Agriculture Ministry estimates that elevators and grain warehouses with nearly 59 million tons of capacity could be full by early November, leaving an 11-million-ton storage shortfall by the end of autumn.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s railway infrastructure reached 1,534 by 24 August 2026—already exceeding the 1,200 recorded in all of 2025. Chart: Ukraine’s Ministry of Communities and Territories Development / Interfax-Ukraine / Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk / Euromaidan Press. Made with ChatGPT.
Russia turned the drones on the trains
Russia is going after locomotives to cut the export corridors that tie the industrial regions around Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhia, and the east to Odesa’s ports and the western border, Ukrzaliznytsia CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi told Reuters in June. He also described the method: Russia is using drones with video cameras and remote control, which allow operators to hit rolling stock in real time.
The climb is in the quarterly data: nine locomotives hit in the first half of 2025, 119 in the second, and 81 in the first quarter of 2026.By 15 August, Pertsovskyi put the figure at more than 250 damaged in the previous six months.
In the first quarter alone, Russia struck the railway 541 times, about half its total for all of 2025, damaging 1,718 objects across the network. By 24 August, the number of attacks on railway infrastructure in 2026 had reached 1,534, Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk said.
On 19 July, Russia’s Defense Ministry acknowledged a Geran-4 Seeker drone had struck a locomotive hauling Ukrainian military equipment near Volniansk in Zaporizhzhia Oblast the previous day, and released strike footage.
The Geran-4 Seeker sends video to an operator searching for targets. Once the operator selects one, onboard software guides the final approach. Russia says it has used the system against ships near Chornomorsk, but public evidence does not show how many locomotive strikes involved Seeker; moving trains can also be hit by hand-flown drones redirected in flight.
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Russia's new "Geran-4 Siker" Shahed variant uses machine-vision AI for targeting. Source: Warhronika
Jammers cannot protect every train
Ukraine has fitted trains with jammers, which Ukrainian drone and electronic-warfare specialist Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnovsays have protected a significant number of trains. But Russian drones use different frequency bands, so each train needs several systems, and even those cannot provide complete protection.
“Whatever we do, drones will periodically hit trains in the frontline zone,” Beskrestnov wrote in March. “As, unfortunately, they will hit buses and civilian cars.”
Seeker is not the only way to hit a moving train. Russian operators have repeatedly redirected hand-flown drones after spotting trains below, Beskrestnov wrote in April. He said military airspace data allows railway dispatchers to change schedules or evacuate passengers when necessary, and that several hundred trains had been moved out of danger.
The cost is not only rolling stock. On 13 August, a jet-powered Shahed struck the locomotive of the Odesa–Dnipro passenger train at Buialyk station in Odesa Oblast, killing the driver, Ivan Shevchyk, and his assistant, Vasyl Morozov, both of the Znamianka locomotive depot.
The monitoring team had flagged the drone and ordered a stop; the train was entering the station so its 340 passengers, 67 of them children, could get off. All of them were evacuated unhurt. “A sharp maneuver by a jet Shahed is a matter of minutes, and the locomotive crew did not have enough time to come to a full stop and evacuate themselves,” Pertsovskyi wrote.
Prosecutors opened proceedings under Article 438 of the criminal code, violation of the laws and customs of war, causing death.
Two days later, Ukrzaliznytsia changed its rules, increasing the distance at which a train is halted and evacuated when a threat appears—a decision Pertsovskyi tied to the growing number of jet drones. Eight railway workers had been killed in the preceding weeks, at Lozova and Erastivka stations and on the train at Buialyk.
Ukraine is going after the equipment that makes the operator’s link work. On 13 and 14 August, Ukrainian forces struck two ground-based relay stations near Zaliznyi Port in Kherson Oblast that transmit control signals between Russian operators and Geran and Gerbera drones, extending their range and steadying the connection, along with five UAV command posts.
Such relays extend the operator-controlled phase of Geran and Gerbera attacks, including variants that may switch to onboard guidance for the final approach.
Russia's Gerbera drones. Photo: Gastello Design Bureau
Delays reveal resilience—and attrition
Russia has not carved the railway into islands. When seven drone strikes hit a junction between Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia in a single day on 30 January, wrecking locomotives, wagons, and track, trains were rerouted through Dnipro, and evening passengers were put on buses.
Freight was moving again within a day; passenger service stayed cut longer, judged too dangerous for civilians, Le Monde reported. Track and power lines are repaired quickly, and a diesel engine can stand in where electric traction is out of service.
The cost lands on the rolling stock. A locomotive is harder to replace than track, and some of that loss is already permanent. By April, around 50 of more than 300 locomotives hit since the full-scale invasion had been destroyed beyond repair, Deputy Communities Minister Oleksii Balesta said. By 24 August, the total number of damaged locomotives had risen to 492, Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk said.
New locomotives will arrive slowly. The first machines from a 55-locomotive order placed with French producer Alstom through a World Bank tender are due in early 2027 for certification, with the full batch expected by May 2029.
Burned grain truck at an open parking lot in Odesa Oblast following a Russian drone strike overnight on 2 November 2025. Photo: Suspilne Odesa
Rail cannot replace the sea
Even undamaged, the railway could not move as much export cargo across the EU border as the ports did by sea. The EU lines are slower, more expensive, and interrupted by a change in track gauge at the border. The Danube is running too low this summer to float full barges, and road haulage was never more than a sliver of Ukraine’s bulk grain.
The strain reaches past agriculture. Ferrexpo stopped seaborne iron ore pellet exports, the Southern Mining and Processing Plant in Kryvyi Rih cut back, and Ukrzaliznytsia throttled some cargo runs to the Odesa port stations, according to Ukrainian industry reports.
The shortfall does not stay inside Ukraine. Egypt, Algeria, and Indonesia together bought about 8.7 million tons of Ukraine’s wheat last season—roughly 62% of the total, with Egypt alone taking more than a quarter.
A long closure of the deep-water ports would send those import-dependent buyers hunting elsewhere: the trade analytics firm ASAP Agri puts Ukraine’s 2026/27 wheat exports at 5 to 10 million tons if the blockade holds, with buyers like Bangladesh turning to Indian wheat instead.
Ukraine is responding with air defenses around key rail nodes, dispersed locomotives, and repair kits pre-positioned for fast fixes, and its transport ministry has taken a railway-resilience plan to NATO, built on early warning and centralized recovery management.
Russia drove most ships from the sea route, leaving Ukraine more dependent on constrained alternatives, and has been hitting the locomotives serving its rail corridors—more than 250 damaged in six months, some beyond repair. But the railway still functions.
Russia has spent the past two days repeatedly attacking Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast with jet-powered drones, hitting commercial and logistics infrastructure and disrupting businesses and supply chains around the capital.
The attacks have struck civilian enterprises, food warehouses, hypermarkets, postal terminals, and warehouses storing books, according to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi. Fires have broken out at multiple warehouse sites, while repeated strikes have forced emergency crews to repeatedly stop their work and seek shelter.
The attacks are also affecting the movement and storage of essential goods around Kyiv, with damage to food warehouses and other logistics facilities contributing to supply disruptions and shortages.
Russia expands its aerial campaign against Kyiv
The latest wave comes after Russia dramatically ramped up its use of ballistic missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent months. Now, improved Russian jet-powered drones are being used to sustain repeated attacks on the capital and surrounding oblast.
Russian forces have been launching the jet-powered drones at Ukrainian regions almost continuously for the previous two days.
The pattern has left Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast under prolonged air raid alerts while putting emergency crews under the threat of repeated strikes.
In Kyiv alone, air raid alerts were issued 13 times on 27 August and lasted for more than 14 hours in total.
Across Ukraine, Russian attacks killed 16 people and injured another 50 during the day, Vyhivskyi said.
Kyiv Oblast has been among the hardest-hit areas. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (DSNS) said on Friday morning the oblast had come under 38 Russian attacks since the first strike overnight on 27 August.
In Bucha district, firefighters worked at several locations where Russian drone strikes caused fires at warehouses and damaged vehicles.
At one site, a drone struck again while rescuers were working. After checking the area, emergency crews returned to the site and continued fighting the fire.
Firefighters also extinguished a fire involving 13 passenger cars. A nearby apartment building was damaged by the blast wave, which shattered windows.
At three locations, crews were still working to extinguish fires at warehouse buildings caused by the repeated attacks.
Aftermath of a Russian strike on Kyiv Oblast, 28 August 2026. Photo: Ukraine's State Emergency Service
Repeat strikes put rescuers at risk
The repeated attacks have made emergency operations particularly dangerous. Since rescuers began working, air raid alerts in the oblast had sounded 20 times as of Friday morning, according to the DSNS.
Firefighters have repeatedly been forced to stop their work and move to shelters or safe distances because of the threat of another strike, before returning to the fires once the danger passes.
Vyhivskyi said one person was killed and others injured in Kyiv Oblast on the morning of 28 August after civilians remained near a site where crews were clearing the aftermath of an earlier strike despite the threat of another attack.
Russia’s latest attacks on Kyiv Oblast have repeatedly put emergency crews in danger, with firefighters forced to halt their work and move to safety as follow-up strikes hit the area.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service said that on 27 August, the oblast came under 28 additional… pic.twitter.com/cPdkj6Wxwa
The attacks on Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast are part of a broader recent pattern of Russian strikes on commercial infrastructure across Ukraine. In recent weeks, Russian drones have hit shopping centers, hypermarkets, warehouses, postal terminals and other civilian businesses.
In Kharkiv, a Russian jet-powered drone struck a closed shopping center in the city’s Kyivskyi district on 28 August, partially damaging the building and starting a fire among equipment and furniture. Firefighters extinguished the blaze despite the threat of repeat strikes. No casualties were reported.
Russia has struck another shopping center in Kharkiv with a jet-powered drone, hitting a closed commercial facility in the city’s Kyivskyi district.
The strike comes amid Russia’s intensified campaign against commercial sites across Ukraine, including shopping centers,… pic.twitter.com/KSj719sSKz
In Zaporizhzhia, another Russian drone strike injured five people and set a shopping center on fire. The blaze covered about 14,000 square meters, and firefighters had to repeatedly take shelter because of the threat of follow-up attacks.
A Russian drone strike on Zaporizhzhia injured five people and sparked a massive fire at a shopping center, with the blaze spreading across about 14,000 square meters.
The attack comes amid Russia’s intensified targeting of commercial and logistics sites across Ukraine,… pic.twitter.com/Iu5OyoGCGx
The strikes are adding pressure to Ukraine’s civilian supply and logistics networks, particularly around major population centers. Damage to food warehouses, retail facilities and logistics sites can disrupt the storage and movement of goods, contributing to shortages and delays for businesses and consumers.
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Authorities warn civilians to stay away
Ukrainian authorities have urged residents to remain in shelters or other safe locations during air raid alerts and avoid areas where emergency crews are working.
The DSNS warned people not to approach sites where the aftermath of Russian strikes is being cleared, citing the continuing threat of repeat attacks.
Vyhivskyi also urged residents to treat every air raid alert as a signal to move to a shelter or other safe location, warning that no urgent task is worth risking a life.
Victim of a Russian strike on Kyiv Oblast, 28 August 2026. Photo: Ukraine's State Emergency Service
Russians are buying their war gear on Ozon. Users of Russia's second-largest online marketplace ordered about $300 million in dual-use and military goods between August 2025 and July 2026, according to internal company data examined by the independent outlet Verstka.
Ukraine is now burning those warehouses down. Its forces struck three Ozon logistics centers covering 314,000 square meters on 24 August, part of a campaign that hit at least four Ozon hubs across southern Russia over several days, Militarnyi reports.
Body armor led the spending
The biggest class by money was tactical gear, six categories covering body armor, helmets, load-bearing vests and belts, armor plates and adapters, and neck and shoulder protection. Users ordered more than 527,000 such items for about $110 million.
Body armor was the single most-ordered product in the class. Almost 157,700 vests were sold for roughly $61 million, at an average of about $388 each.
Optics were the costliest goods
Military optics ranked second by spending and carried the highest prices. Buyers ordered almost 350,000 scopes, night-vision devices, and thermal imagers for about $87 million.
The average thermal sight went for about $1,680, with more than 28,000 ordered. Plain optical scopes were the most common, with over 110,000 orders, followed by almost 99,000 collimator sights.
Drone parts made up the rest
Users also spent about $75 million on drones and drone components. Half of that, roughly $36 million, went to a single category labeled accessories for drones and quadcopters.
That category alone drew 554,000 orders. It consists mostly of the parts to assemble a copter from scratch: frames, propellers, receivers, and cameras.
The first Ukrainian strikes on Ozon started on 22 August. Ozon and Wildberries—Russia’s two largest online marketplaces—and their smaller rivals collectively sell goods and services worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia’s GDP and employ 4 million people.
Poland's governing coalition under Prime Minister Donald Tusk misread how far Kyiv's ambitions had grown and kept presenting Warsaw as Kyiv's indispensable guide to Europe, Polish journalist Mateusz Mazzini argued in The Guardian on 26 August 2026. It also never readied Polish society to treat refugees as its equals, and it encouraged the belief that Warsaw could decide whether Ukraine gets into the EU, he wrote.
The two countries built their partnership during Russia's full-scale invasion, with Poland becoming Ukraine's main supply route for Western weapons, a leading provider of military and humanitarian aid, and a leading advocate for Kyiv's bid to join the European Union. That relationship has since frayed over refugee policy, historical disputes, and attitudes toward Ukrainians. A July poll by CBOS, Poland's biggest pollster, found that 52% of Poles opposed accepting Ukrainian refugees, compared with 42% who supported it, the first such reversal since the survey began in 2015.
He also points to Russian propaganda on Polish social media, where false stories about Ukrainian "welfare queens" living off Polish taxpayers feed hostility that keeps turning violent. Neither government prepared for the goodwill running out, he says, and Russian disinformation worked the gap they left to drive the two apart and thin Europe's backing for Kyiv.
Historical disputes have added to the tension
On 19 June 2026, Polish President Karol Nawrocki revoked the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest state decoration, previously awarded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The move followed a decree Zelenskyy signed on 26 May giving an existing Ukrainian special operations unit the honorary name Heroes of the UPA, after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
Nawrocki cited Poland's dispute with Ukraine over the UPA's role in the World War II-era massacres of Poles in Volhynia. He said the decision did not change Poland's strategic security policy and that Poland continues to support Ukraine because Russia's aggression threatens Poland and Europe.
The journalist also faults Poland for missing how Ukrainians in the country have become more economically independent. They established more than 33,000 sole proprietorships in Poland in 2024, according to the Polish Economic Institute.
Ukraine has changed internationally as well, in his account, going from taking Western aid after the 2022 invasion to selling military technology and know-how around the world. Kyiv's leaders now approach Washington and Western European capitals on their own, he argues, and no longer need an "advocate," least of all in Warsaw.
Looking ahead, he expects Ukraine to integrate further into the European economy, competing more directly with French and German businesses as it already does with Polish ones. Kyiv, in his forecast, will approach Brussels, Paris, and Berlin as an equal rather than a supplicant, on the argument that the cost it has borne holding Russia off Europe entitles it to that place. His warning is aimed past Warsaw. Poland has already paid for misreading Ukraine, he writes, and other European capitals can still avoid repeating the error.
A wave of anti-Ukrainian attacks
The strain has also turned violent. Ukrainian citizens filed 180 hate-crime reports with Polish police in the first half of 2026, roughly one a day and more than 30% above a year earlier, national police figures showed, Rzeczpospolita reported. The figures count reports filed, not confirmed offenses.
In late July, three men allegedly beat a Ukrainian couple in Wrocław after asking whether they were Ukrainian. Police detained two suspects and treated the assault as a nationality-motivated hate crime. Earlier that month, a man in Łódź attacked a passerby he mistook for Ukrainian, breaking his nose and jaw and telling him his place was not in Poland.
A Russian drone company is developing an interceptor drone—the cheap counter-drone weapon Ukraine has fielded at scale against Russian attack drones—internal documents published by the Russian resistance group Black Spark describe, the defense outlet Militarnyi reported. The documents describe two designs under consideration, and Black Spark alleges the company cooperated with Boeing before the full-scale invasion and spied on European companies.
Interceptor drones—unmanned aircraft that hunt other drones—scaled up out of Ukraine's need to shoot down Russia's mass Shahed attacks without spending million-dollar missiles on them. Ukraine now fields them from dozens of licensed makers, and their spread has pushed Russia toward faster jet-powered attack drones. Russia already flies anti-drone interceptors of its own—Ukrainian troops downed one in July—and the leaked designs would fly far faster than that machine.
Mortar-launched drone-killer
NIK is considering two interceptor designs. The first modifies the company's existing UBB-M, a folding-wing loitering munition that launches from a 160 mm container by mortar-style ejection. For the interceptor role, designers changed the wing from straight to swept, shrank the wingspan, installed a larger battery, and fitted a more powerful motor.
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The modified drone weighs 15-16 kg, carries a 3 kg payload—likely a warhead—and flies at 250-300 km/h with a 20 km operating radius and up to 10 minutes of flight time, operating between 20 meters and 4.5 km altitude. NIK's second design has a cone-shaped fuselage with four electric motors. Its specifications remain unknown.
Espionage claim comes with no documents
Black Spark says the documents came from someone inside the company, not a break-in, and that it holds evidence the firm spied on European companies. It gave no details on the Boeing cooperation beyond dating it before the invasion.
The leak is Black Spark's latest operation against Russia's defense industry. The group, which operates inside Russia, says it infiltrated the Alabuga factory where Russia assembles Shahed-derived Geran drones and copied personnel databases. Ukraine's Special Operations Forces have acknowledged joint missions with Black Spark, including attacks on Russian oil infrastructure.
Bulgaria will add seven minehunter ships to its navy under two agreements with Belgium and the Netherlands, Reuters reported. Parliament cleared the acquisition on 26 August, and the vessels are meant for a sea where mines have drifted since Russia invaded Ukraine. They will work within a three-country task force whose mission widened this summer beyond mine clearance.
Russia's invasion turned the Black Sea into hostile water for civilian shipping: mines drift out of the fighting, strikes fall on port after port, and grain leaves through whatever routes are still open. Mine clearance is the slow work that keeps those lanes usable at all, and every hull committed to it widens the area the navies bordering that sea can actually cover.
What parliament approved
Three of the hulls come through a sale the Netherlands agreed with Sofia, and they carry the gear for locating mines and mine-like objects and blowing them up. The remaining four arrive under a three-way handover deal signed by the two donor countries and the recipient, according to Reuters.
Before the three sale ships change hands, the Dutch will put their systems back in working order and raise how much they can do at sea. The bill for the yard work on all seven, up to the level the alliance requires, falls to the buyer. Alongside the ships, a signed memorandum provides for training the crews and supplying spares and extra kit.
Ukrainian minehunters Mariupol and Melitopol. Both ships are named after Ukrainian cities that Russia now occupies. Credit: ArmyInform
Belgium and the Netherlands, together with the UK, handed Ukraine five mine countermeasure vessels in April, described at the time as the core of a future large-scale Black Sea clearance operation.
A task force that grew
Bulgaria, Romania, and Türkiye signed the agreement creating a joint Mine Countermeasures Task Group in January 2024, and the group began work that summer. Three other states hold coastline on the same sea: Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine.
"Bulgaria is part of the mine countermeasures group established together with our colleagues from Türkiye and Romania, and it is working in excellent coordination to clear the maritime areas of the three countries," Bulgarian Defense Minister Dimitar Stoyanov said.
At a NATO summit in July, the three agreed to expand the force so it also protects critical infrastructure. Romania's national defense strategy had already flagged risks to Black Sea infrastructure.
Moldova will invest in air defense after repeated Russian drone incursions, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said, RFE/RL reported. She spoke at the country's independence celebrations on 27 August alongside the Ukrainian and Romanian presidents, hours after another group of drones entered Moldovan airspace during Russian strikes on Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says the crossings show Putin continuing to normalize the threat that Russia's strikes on western Ukraine pose to European states.
Russia's drones and missiles have worked the southwestern edge of Ukraine all summer, hitting the Danube ports and later the crossings that tie the region to the European Union, and the machines regularly stray past the borders—aerial drones into the airspace next door, sea drones into Black Sea waters and onto the beaches. Romania's fighter jets and Bulgaria's navy now destroy what reaches them, while a neutral country with no alliance behind it and no way to shoot anything down is assembling that capability.
"We cannot be intimidated"
Russian drones have violated the airspace of Moldova and Romania dozens of times, Sandu noted. She met Romanian President Nicușor Dan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Chișinău for the anniversary.
"And today, on the eve of our holiday, Russian drones invaded our airspace with the obvious aim of intimidating us. And now I want to say clearly, in the presence of our friends—we cannot be intimidated. We are investing in air defense in order to have the capability to protect our people and infrastructure," she said.
Sandu also called on every country of the free world to help Ukraine, and specifically to strengthen its air defense before winter. While Ukraine fights in the east, she said, Moldova can sleep calmly. Russian drones have breached Moldovan airspace repeatedly before this month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and Romanian President Nicușor Dan at a joint press conference in Chișinău, Moldova, 27 August 2026. Photo: Moldova 1
Five drones from the Ukrainian border
Moldova's Defense Ministry reported five unidentified drones entering Moldovan airspace from various points along the border area with Ukraine in Odesa Oblast early on 27 August, the day after a single drone crossed the border and left minutes later. The five crossings ran from 03:56 to 06:02, and each drone flew over the country briefly before turning back toward Ukraine, following Russian air attacks there, the ministry said.
ISW says these incidents show that Putin continues to normalize the threat that Russia's strike campaign against the westernmost parts of Ukraine poses to European states, including Moldova and eastern NATO members. The crossings also show the Kremlin accepting the risk that its war can damage other states.
Fragments police preliminarily identified as parts of a combat drone, recovered near Crocmaz in Moldova's Ștefan Vodă district, 9 August 2026. Photo: Consiliul Raional Ștefan Vodă/Facebook
Moldova is not in NATO or the EU, and it is a neutral state. Russian drones have crossed its airspace illegally around 70 times since the start of the full-scale war, Moldova's National Army says. Defense Minister Anatolie Nosatîi called the situation extremely serious after one incursion this month halted air traffic over the country for 15 minutes, and said the army needs modernizing.
Romania shoots, Bulgaria clears up
Unlike Moldova, the NATO members in the region act on what reaches them. Romania intercepts what crosses in, and Bulgaria destroys what drifts to its coast:
26 June: Bulgaria's navy destroyed a drifting drone seven nautical miles off Kranevo.
21 July: Bulgarian, Romanian, and Turkish ships destroyed a drifting drone 21 nautical miles off Ahtopol.
24–26 July: Romanian F-16s downed three drones, the country's first shootdowns at home.
Early August: Romanian jets scrambled before Ukraine shot the drone down.
16 August: a Spanish F/A-18 downed a drone north of Galați, the fourth over Romania this year, the Defense Ministry said.
20 August: a Romanian F-16 destroyed an explosive-laden sea drone with its cannon near an offshore gas platform. President Nicușor Dan blamed Russia.
22 August: two more drone wrecks turned up on Bulgarian beaches, one of them a Russian decoy without a warhead.
Finnish police and the Border Guard suspect a scheme that turned paper employment into residence permits and citizenship, Yle reported. Investigators believe one man organized it through companies that did little or no business, and that it may have run for more than two decades. The suspected organizer and the people who obtained citizenship are Russian nationals.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed European states to restrict Russian travel, freeze assets, and harden their borders, while Moscow expanded sabotage, espionage, and recruitment across the continent. A passport from any member state carries movement, residence, and work rights across the whole union, so documents issued on false grounds in one country become an opening into all of them.
Jobs that existed only in documents
Authorities suspect the main figure arranged fictitious employment relationships for foreign nationals. That paperwork let them apply for Finnish residence permits and, later, for citizenship. From 2003 he registered several companies in southeastern Finland, police and the Border Guard said. The firms either did no real business at all or very little of it. The suspected criminal arrangement appeared shortly after 2003.
Applicants are suspected of paying for the fictitious jobs and for help assembling their documents.
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At least 12 citizenships, five unfinished applications
At least 12 people obtained Finnish citizenship without grounds, by the investigation's account. Five more naturalizations were still unfinished when the preliminary investigation opened in 2024. Criminal police commissioner Teppo Tähtinen said the scale of the case came as a surprise to investigators.
Investigators also believe the arrangement ran further back, with people naturalized earlier possibly involved. The statute of limitations has expired on those cases.
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The preliminary investigation found that the main suspect and his accomplices sat Finnish language exams for other people. They also completed study assignments in Finnish on their behalf. Without that, the applicants probably could not have obtained citizenship, the investigation found.
Naturalization normally requires five to eight years ofresidence on a residence permit, Finnish or Swedish at B1 level, and confirmed income, The Moscow Times reported. In 2025, 14,689 people received Finnish citizenship. Russians were among the nationalities filing the most applications, together with citizens of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
Finland's harder line toward Russia
Finland has kept its eastern border with Russia closed, and Helsinki has accused Moscow of steering migrants toward the crossings. The country has also rearmed since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, raising its reserve age and setting a long-term troop target. Last week Finnish authorities opened an inquiry into a suspected Russian airspace violation over the Gulf of Finland.
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Ukrainian drones attacked two Ozon logistics centers overnight on 27 August, one in Ufa and one in Orenburg Oblast, Russia's second-largest online store said. Staff were evacuated at both sites, and preliminary information indicated no casualties. Video published by Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ shows a drone reaching the Bashkortostan warehouse and exploding.
Ukraine's deep-strike campaign has spread across Russian refineries and fuel depots, chemical plants, arms factories, railways, and the warehouses that move consumer goods. Together the strikes take refining capacity, storage space, and freight throughput out of service repeatedly, and sanctions leave Russia fewer parts and crews to restore them with.
The strike on camera
Exilenova+ reported in the morning that an Ozon warehouse was burning after impacts in Blagoveshchensk, a town north of Ufa. The Bashkortostan capital lies roughly 1,300 kilometers from the war zone in Ukraine. Around midday the channel published eyewitness video of what it called the moment of a drone attack on the site, and said the warehouse had not caught fire. The footage shows a drone reaching the site and detonating there.
Drone hit another Russian warehouse
Eyewitness video from Blagoveshchensk in Bashkortostan shows the moment a Ukrainian drone reached Ozon's fulfillment center — the largest logistics complex the online retailer runs in the Volga area — and detonated. The channel that published… pic.twitter.com/oHUgjRz0v0
Earlier, the channel reported that residents of Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan's second-largest city, about 120 kilometers from Ufa, had written about explosions, with nothing then known about impacts. Astra later placed smoke over what it said was probably the Bashkir Soda Company works there.
Ozon said the Orenburg site—about 1,200 kilometers from the war zone—has resumed work. The one it placed in Ufa sustained what it called minor damage but remains closed, because the grounds need a thorough inspection. It is not accepting deliveries.
Russian news Telegram channel Astra identified the damaged facility from the eyewitness footage as Ozon's UFA_RFC fulfillment center in Blagoveshchensk. When it opened in late 2024 it was billed as the largest Ozon logistics complex in Russia's Volga federal district, with a total area of 93,000 square meters.
Smoke over the Ufa refineries
Astra also traced smoke in eyewitness footage to the Bashneft-Ufaneftekhim refinery in Ufa. The plant is one of Rosneft's leading refineries and a dual-use site: it supplies specialized fuel to Russia's armed forces and petrochemical feedstock for defense-grade materials. It burned after a strike on 1 August.
Bashneft runs three refineries side by side in Ufa's northern industrial zone—Ufaneftekhim, Novoil, and UNPZ—forming one of Russia's largest refining complexes, with a combined capacity of up to 23.5 million tons of feedstock a year.
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What officials said, and didn't
Bashkortostan's authorities did not report the attack. Orenburg Oblast governor Yevgeny Solntsev mentioned drone danger in his region but gave no account of consequences. Ufa closed its airport.
Russia's Defense Ministry claimed air defenses destroyed 267 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones overnight across Russian regions, Bashkortostan among them.
The campaign so far
Ukraine's warehouse campaign began with Wildberries, Russia's largest online marketplace, which lost eight warehouses and roughly 860,000 square meters of storage in July alone. It reached Ozon for the first time on 22 August at Chapayevsk in Samara Oblast, where more than 500 employees evacuated and people were hurt. Four more Ozon hubs were hit across southern Russia two nights later.
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Finnish President Alexander Stubb said Ukraine would receive about 90% of the drones that Finnish companies build under a planned Finland–Ukraine framework agreement, Mi-Ukraina reported on 26 August. Three days earlier in Kyiv, he said the other 10% would stay in Finland.
The planned arrangement follows a broader European shift toward co-production with Ukraine rather than supplying weapons from existing stockpiles. Drones have shaped much of the fighting on both sides since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, and Russia has repeatedly struck defense plants inside Ukraine—a Bayraktar plant under construction in Kyiv was hit four times in six months by August 2025—pushing Ukrainian makers to expand production into allied countries, Finland among them.
Asked what still had to be agreed before production could begin, Stubb said nothing did.
"Everything is done. There is a so-called framework agreement on drones that we're working on. It's more about cooperation between states—that is, Zelenskyy and me. And the companies between themselves do what they have to do. I think the doors are already open," Stubb said.
He said the 90/10 ratio is common practice in corporate contracts and that companies would determine the pace of production after finalizing their decisions. Some details could remain classified because of military secrecy, he said.
At a press conference on 23 August after the Nordic-Baltic Eight summit with Ukraine, Stubb had described the deal as still taking shape. He said seven Finnish defense companies interested in cooperation with Ukraine, including on maritime drone production, had traveled to Kyiv with him and that one had already provided production estimates.
"The companies are making actual deals. I'm looking forward to the results, but it seems one of the companies has already provided data on the number of drones that can be produced in Finland. And I think the deal will follow approximately the so-called 90/10 proportion. So 90% of the output is supplied to Ukraine, and 10% stays in Finland," Stubb said, according to Unian.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President of Finland Alexander Stubb took part in a roundtable on Ukrainian-Finnish cooperation in the defense industries, organized with the participation of the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry. Photo: president.gov.ua
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 23 August that three of the seven Finnish companies present had already signed agreements for joint production, including drones. Yle identified the three as Patria, Insta, and Boomeranger, saying they had signed letters of intent with Ukrainian counterparts. Patria and the Ukrainian company General Chereshnia signed a memorandum of intent to produce defense drones in Finland, Patria announced.
Separately, Ukrainian drone maker Airlogix and Finnish technology company Innokas signed a letter of intent to establish joint drone manufacturing in Finland under Ukraine's "Build with Ukraine" initiative. Ukrainian firm TAF Industries and Finnish company Summa Defence had signed a similar agreement earlier under the same initiative.
Zelenskyy said the cooperation would combine Ukrainian combat experience with Finnish technology. Stubb said Finland already faces hybrid attacks, from undersea cable sabotage to drones, and treats sabotage as a standing risk to the plants, adding that Finland ranks among the largest per-capita suppliers of military equipment to Ukraine.
From support to co-production—and a two-way expertise swap
Stubb said the planned arrangement is not far from Denmark's model of directly financing Ukrainian defense production, according to Yle.
Zelenskyy said the agreements cover drones built in Finland for Ukraine and Europe, expanded maritime unmanned systems, and a plant for ground robotic systems, and Stubb said the documents signed during the visit concerned air, land, and sea.
The Finnish president said in the Mi-Ukraina interview that Europe's relationship with Ukraine has changed since the full-scale invasion. Ukraine once needed European support, while Europe now needs Ukraine's battlefield experience, he said. What Finland learned, by his account: trench warfare is over, a 40-kilometer kill zone means tanks firing at shorter range have no role, and Ukraine holds more data on modern war than the rest of Europe combined.
Shares in Russia’s second-largest bank VTB fell to an all-time intraday low of just under 50 rubles ($0.60) on 26 August, RBC’s exchange data showed. That was more than 40% below the 87-ruble (about $1) price set for a share sale partly intended to finance its Wildberries partnership. At that price, offering participants would pay about 75% more than investors buying the same shares on the stock market.
In the second quarter, the bank set aside 28% more for troubled loans while its profit fell by one-third.
VTB’s drop came amid a wider decline in Russian stocks. Kommersant’s market report said analysts also linked the fall to VTB’s own large new share issue.
Share issue could cut existing stakes by one-third
Under the bank’s offering plan, VTB could issue almost one new share for every two already in circulation. If VTB sold the full amount, an existing shareholder who bought no new shares would see their ownership stake fall by about one-third. VTB planned to finish the sale and close its Wildberries deal by 1 September.
The bank expected to raise 300–400 billion rubles ($3.6–$4.7 billion). VTB said it had assembled a group of large investors willing to participate but would not disclose who they were. Those investors would receive the same class of shares traded on the Moscow Exchange, but at the price fixed by VTB.
VTB described the partnership primarily as a route into Wildberries’ 80 million users—more than twice the bank’s own customer base. VTB would initially acquire a 5% stake in Wildberries’ banking arm, with the option to increase its holding later.
Reuters described both companies—Wildberries and rival Ozon—as central to Moscow’s plans to use online commerce as an engine of economic growth.
VTB held its price as shares fell
On 9 July, VTB kept its price even after the stock had fallen well below the offering price. The bank said its large, long-term investors were willing to look past short-term price swings.
On 16 July, VTB hit another low as investors prepared for its dividend cutoff and the new share issue. The first drone strikes on Wildberries warehouses followed two days later.
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VTB’s first-half results showed that its profit fell by one-fifth from a year earlier. In the second quarter, the bank set aside 28% more for troubled loans while its profit fell by one-third.
After the attacks, Moscow considered supporting Wildberries and its sellers, with VTB expected to play a central role. VTB shares fell 2.5% on 28 July amid uncertainty over the partnership. “If we receive such a request, we will, of course, be open to various forms of lending support,” VTB’s first deputy CEO Dmitry Pyanov told Reuters.
Norway's Air Force has put its first counter-drone system into service at Ørland, the country's only combat aircraft base, NRK reported. A launcher now stands beside the runway where Norway's F-35 stealth fighters are parked, bought specifically to bring drones down. The deployment follows a wave of drone sightings across Europe last autumn and will be phased in at other Norwegian bases.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion, European states have logged drone sightings over airports and bases, airspace violations, sabotage, and arrests for espionage, much of it attributed to Moscow, which denies involvement. This month, a suspected case turned physical: an explosive drone struck a Ukrainian cargo plane at a German airport but failed to detonate.
The launcher came from the British company ISS Aerospace and works as one of several effectors inside a system the military calls Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems, or C-UAS. Radars and other sensors spot the drones first. It is built to protect fixed installations against drones weighing up to 150 kilograms, and it can either jam a machine or destroy it. Ørland already has NASAMS air defenses, the Norwegian-American missile system Ukraine also uses, but firing interceptor missiles at small drones is expensive and described as shooting sparrows with cannons.
"We received a system in the spring, which we are introducing now, and it gives us a hugely increased capacity in drone defense," said the head of the counter-drone unit at the base, Sondre Steinsvik.
Officers of the base defense battalion and the counter-drone unit beside the British-supplied launcher at the Ørland fighter base in Norway, 26 August 2026. Photo: Ingrid Lindgaard Stranden / NRK
What pushed it forward
Police reported observations of possible drones near the base in September last year, part of a wider wave across Europe that also closed Oslo airport. Trøndelag police later concluded the lights had most likely been blinking celestial bodies. The purchase was already underway, but the sightings accelerated it, and the new sensors are meant to make such calls easier in future. Ørland's mayor said at the time the drone defense was arriving far too late.
A NASAMS air defense launcher at the Ørland fighter base in Norway, 26 August 2026. Photo: Ingrid Lindgaard Stranden / NRK
Small drones have become easily available, are relatively easy to smuggle in or rebuild locally, and could potentially do serious damage to aircraft parked in the open, according to Lars Peder Haga of Norway's Air Force Academy, who said that from a defense standpoint, such purchases can never move fast enough.
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Next bases, and Norway's own drones
Evenes air station, which handles Norway's quick-reaction alert mission among other duties, is among the sites due to receive it, NRK reported. Parliament's long-term plan set aside nearly $2 billion for drones, electronic warfare, and autonomy through 2036.
The base has also built a drone troop of its own, flying machines for search and mapping, with the aim of arming them to strike other drones.
"That is the direction we want to go. We see it is very effective in Ukraine," said the head of the base defense battalion, Tormod Overland.
All of Lukoil’s major refineries in Russia are now offline after a Ukrainian drone strike halted crude processing at its NORSI plant on 26 August, Reuters reported the shutdown. NORSI is Russia’s fourth-largest refinery and second-largest gasoline producer.
The latest attackproduced the plant’s fifth drone-related shutdown in less than five months.
Ukraine’s General Staff said it had struck the refinery in Kstovo, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, where a fire subsequently broke out. It said the refinery helps supply Russia’s armed forces.
Industry sources told Reuters that several processing units and other plant infrastructure had been damaged. No repair timetable is available, and Lukoil did not respond to the agency’s request for comment.
NORSI can process about 15 million tons of crude annually and produce about 5 million tons of gasoline and more than 5 million tons of diesel, according to Reuters.
A Reuters dispatch in The Moscow Times said Lukoil listed no NORSI-made gasoline, diesel, or other petroleum products for sale on the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange after the shutdown.
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NORSI’s closure followed the complete shutdown of Lukoil’s Perm refinery after a 21 August drone strike. The company’s Volgograd plant had already stopped processing on 31 July.
The Moscow Times listed four previous occasions this year when drone strikes stopped NORSI from processing crude: 5 April, 20 May, 24 June, and 2 July. The latest attack, therefore, produced the plant’s fifth drone-related shutdown in less than five months.
Lukoil also operates a smaller refinery in Ukhta, which remains active.
Kremlin threatens retaliation
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Governor Gleb Nikitin wrote that Russian forces had “repelled” more than 40 drones. He also reported damage to an unnamed industrial enterprise, several homes, and cars.
A day later, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov promised a “harsh response” to Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s economic and trade infrastructure.
Russia is facing its second bout of fuel shortages this summer. Gasoline sales limits have returned to Moscow and St. Petersburg, while Rosneft has capped purchases at 30 liters per vehicle across its filling-station network, The Moscow Times reported.
Kommersant reported that Astrakhan Oblast had capped gasoline purchases at 30 liters and was serving drivers according to odd- and even-numbered license plates. Orenburg Oblast introduced a similar system and capped purchases at 30 liters to preserve supplies for emergency services and public transport, Governor Yevgeny Solntsev announced.
Five days before NORSI stopped, the Russian government ordered officials to distribute available fuel more evenly between and within regions. Russia also plans to extend its diesel export ban through September as refinery outages constrain domestic supplies.
A car bomb killed a lieutenant colonel of Russia's Aerospace Forces in St. Petersburg on the morning of 27 August, the local outlet Fontanka reported. His wife survived and reached hospital in serious condition. Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal case, and nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ukraine's war reaches deep into Russia's rear, where officers, arms-industry figures, and quisling officials keep dying in blasts far from the front. Who put the bomb in this car is a separate question. It could be Kyiv, or it could be a criminal score being settled — Russia has no shortage of those.
A bomb inside the car
Witnesses said the officer and his wife were pulling away from their house in a southern suburb of the city at around 10 a.m. when an improvised explosive device went off inside the car, Militarnyi reported. The officer died on the spot, and the blast tore off the legs of both spouses. Fontanka placed the dead officer in Russia's Air Force and Air Defense branches, which sit within the Aerospace Forces.
Russian channel Ren TV published a video of the wreckage and said the explosion followed the driver starting the engine. The Geely lost its rear window, hood, and rear bumper, and its body was badly deformed, and parts landed dozens of meters away, according to the channel. Footage from the site shows debris across the roadway and emergency crews arriving.
A car bomb killed a Russian Aerospace Forces lieutenant colonel in St. Petersburg
The unnamed officer died where he sat on the morning of 27 August. The Geely's hood and rear bumper ended up on the road, and parts landed dozens of meters away. Investigators opened the case as… pic.twitter.com/g132U7Oaft
Witnesses told the Russian news Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti that the blast wave badly deformed the driver's door and damaged cars parked alongside. Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ posted several clips from the site and described the dead man as a military pilot.
The Investigative Committee's St. Petersburg directorate said it had opened a criminal case over the burning of a car in which two people were hurt. It confirmed that one of them died and one was hospitalized, and it did not name the article of the criminal code.
Russia's Defense Ministry bought a significant share of the housing in that part of the city for servicemen and their families, according to available information.
Russian Aerospace Forces officer killed by a bomb in his own car in St. Petersburg
Bombings in Russia's rear
The killing follows a run of blasts against people tied to Russia's war. Earlier this month, a bomb under the car of Vladimir Tkachuk, who heads the plant making Upyr first-person-view drones, killed his bodyguard and put Tkachuk in intensive care. Major General Valery Plokhotnyuk reportedly died on 1 August in a blast at an Italian restaurant in Moscow.
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At least four senior officers have died in bombings in and around the capital since late 2024, including chemical defense chief Igor Kirillov, General Staff officer Yaroslav Moskalik, military planner Fanil Sarvarov, and Damir Davydov, who ran missile and shell deliveries for the Defense Ministry. Ukraine's security service claimed the Kirillov operation openly and, through a source, a 2024 Sevastopol car bombing that killed a Black Sea Fleet brigade commander. Kyiv has stayed silent on most of the rest.
The Financial Times reported that Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, and Poland are jointly urging the European Commission to restart work on using more than €200 billion ($233 billion) in frozen Russian central bank assets to fund Ukraine. Belgium blocked the proposal in December over legal and financial concerns.
The Council says the EU’s €90 billion ($105 billion) loan covers two-thirds of Ukraine’s projected funding needs for 2026 and 2027. In the Financial Times,Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard called the loan a “manifestation of the EU’s commitment to support Ukraine,” but said it was “clearly not enough.”
A draft obtained by the Kyiv Independent is dated 27 August and asks EU foreign ministers to hold an initial discussion in Ireland on 1–2 September. Three EU diplomats told the outlet they expected it to be sent the same day.
EU rules already channel profits from frozen assets to Ukraine, primarily to help repay EU and G7 loans. The Commission proposedusing cash balances from the Russian holdings for a separate reparations loan, while leaving the assets frozen.
In February, Kaja Kallas acknowledged that EU officials had done no further work on the option since December. Separately, Ukrainians and their supporters rallied across dozens of countries from 22 to 24 August to demand that Europe use the assets.
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Belgium’s objections remain unchanged. The government fears Russian legal retaliation and wider risks to financial markets because most of the assets are held in Belgium. No new proposal has resolved those concerns, and the coalition is asking the Commission for a progress report on possible legal and technical solutions.
Belarus is fitting a new base near its border with Ukraine to receive heavy military hardware by rail, according to Radio Svaboda, the Belarus service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. On paper it is a training ground—but the leaked design documents describe a site built to unload trainloads of vehicles. The work is moving ahead even as Belarusian commanders have begun saying there is no real threat from the West.
Belarus keeps adding permanent military infrastructure on its Ukrainian frontier even as its own commanders now drop the Western-threat case behind it.
A rail line sized for military trains
Construction is under way near the village of Yakimaŭka in Homiel Oblast, the part of Belarus that runs along Ukraine's northern edge. Radio Svaboda reported that the new rail infrastructure is designed to receive military trains. The finding rests on project documents obtained by a community of Belarusian railway workers.
The papers describe a separate access track sized for up to 60 railcars and a cargo platform with a ramp for unloading wheeled and tracked vehicles. A state military-design institute, Vaenpraekt, is listed as the client.
A base for a new assault brigade
The papers pin the range only to Homiel Oblast, but Radio Svaboda links it to a wider military complex built near Homiel since late 2023. That complex is the planned home of the 37th separate air-assault brigade of Belarus's Special Operations Forces. Cadastral maps split it into an eastern "military town" and a western "training-tactical field."
Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government created the brigade in 2025 to strengthen the country's southern sector, ostensibly against a threat from Ukraine. Part of the military town was reported finished in June 2026, and crews have since moved to the rail tracks.
Belarus drops its own threat talk
For months, Belarusian officials have claimed the West was preparing to attack. In June 2026, the Minister of Defense of Belarus Viktar Khrenin pressed the line at a meeting of defense ministers from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Moscow, and again at an "anti-fascist congress" in Minsk, where he accused Europeans of a "Nazi mentality."
Khrenin told Lukashenka the situation around Belarus was calm, with no sign that neighbors were preparing to act. On 16 August, the commander of Belarus's air force and air defense, Andrei Lukyanovich, said there was no external threat and that operational contacts with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were ongoing.
China is helping Russia build a faster Shahed. Russia has begun using upgraded Shahed drones with Chinese-made turbojet engines that fly at speeds close to three times those of earlier versions, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Shahed jet is designed to beat Ukraine's air defenses. Ukrainian interceptors have downed about 90 percent of the older piston-engine drones, which cruise at roughly 180 kilometers per hour, so Russia switched to the jet-powered Geran-4, which cruises at around 500 kilometers per hour.
The engines come from one Shenzhen firm
The turbojets come from Telefly Telecommunications Equipment, founded in Shenzhen in 2010. The company chiefly makes computer hardware and communications equipment, but also sells its own line of micro-turbojets for drones.
China has long been the main clearinghouse for Shahed parts, including engine components, servomotors, and gyroscopes, the newspaper reported.
The company scrubbed its own website
After Ukraine publicized the discovery of Telefly engines in Russian drones, the turbojet section disappeared from the English-language pages of the company's website. The pages in Chinese and other languages still carry them.
China's foreign ministry, which did not respond either, has previously said it strictly regulates exports of dual-use components and rejects unilateral US sanctions on such trade.
Western parts fade as Chinese parts arrive
Downed Shaheds once carried microcontrollers from Texas Instruments in the US and linear regulators from STMicroelectronics, which the newspaper lists as being based in Switzerland. Over time, the Western components are disappearing even as the drones gain better navigation and attack systems, because US Treasury investigations found nearly all the Western parts were being diverted through Chinese intermediaries, often shell companies in Hong Kong.
Ukrainian government researcher Colonel Oleksandr Zaruba said in June that Shaheds now hold more antennas, modems, and SIM cards to correct their flight paths through local mobile networks, and that the components increasingly come from China.
Ukraine has drawn up a list of those who build Russia's ballistic missiles and wants all of them sanctioned by its allies. Kyiv is asking partners to impose sanctions on more than 100 Russian ballistics producers, presidential sanctions commissioner Vladyslav Vlasiuk said at a press conference in Kyiv, according to Ukrinform.
The demand rests on physical evidence. An Iskander that Russia fired at Kyiv Oblast on 10 July held more than 140 foreign components, 62 of them American, alongside parts from Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan, China, and Japan, Vlasiuk reported in July. Most were made recently, which means the parts are still reaching Russia. Naming the factories is Ukraine's attempt to close the gap at the production end rather than chase each shipment.
The plan runs on synchronization
The commissioner laid out several parts of the plan at the press conference. The first is getting the same producers sanctioned everywhere at once, so a firm blocked in one country cannot operate through another. He said the files were handed to partners a few weeks ago, and Ukrainian specialists expect to identify every producer on allied lists by September or October.
The plan also covers what Vlasiuk called kinetic sanctions, meaning strikes on Russian defense-industry sites. He named the Kamensky Combine, which makes components for rocket fuel, as one such target.
The critical parts are still foreign
Ukraine keeps finding Western microelectronics in identified Russian ballistics, including Iskander-M missiles and those used by the S-400 system, with parts traced to the US, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, France, Britain, and Switzerland. The most sensitive elements are the Kometa satellite navigation system and autonomous inertial guidance units, which run on American, Swiss, and French microelectronics.
Ballistics is the most demanding product for quality and precision, Vlasiuk said, which is why those two systems are the chokepoint.
Ukraine wants smaller packages, sooner
The commissioner asked partners to adopt more stringent export controls, up to licensing or banning the export of sensitive components to third countries that help Russia evade sanctions. Ukraine has also compiled a list of more than 10 critical materials, including ammonium perchlorate, aluminum powder, and tungsten, as well as the numerically controlled machine tools Russia needs to build the missiles.
The EU has already begun work on a large 22nd sanctions package. Ukraine is urging it not to wait, asking instead for an interim ballistics package in September and another in October, moving in small steps as Ukraine, Britain, and Canada already do.
Ukraine is turning ordinary cars into robots instead of building them from scratch. Three units of the Armed Forces received the Kaban remote-control system, which converts vehicles into uncrewed ones, developer Drone Fight Group told Defender Media.
Ground robots have become a daily part of Ukraine's front. Ukrainian units ran 16,676 logistics and evacuation missions with them in June, up 122 percent since January, and the military has contracted more than 22,000 ground robots for 2026, nearly double the 2025 total. Most are purpose-built platforms. Kaban takes the opposite route, converting vehicles that a unit already has.
The developers say Kaban was passed to the 3rd Army Corps, the 429th Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment "Akhilles", and the 49th Brigade of the Armed Forces.
The system bolts on without modification
Kaban installs on a vehicle without altering its construction and works with different models, Drone Fight Group said. It lets the operator switch between remote and manual control.
The operator navigates on a digital map, plotting routes and setting markers. Manual correction is built in for GPS spoofing cases. The system predicts its trajectory and can automatically stop the vehicle if the connection is lost.
Starlink carries the control link
The main communication channel is Starlink, and the system also supports analog video transmission and radio control, according to the developers. A vehicle can be fitted with thermal cameras if needed.
Kaban provides two-way audio and remote control of lights, infrared illumination, and searchlights, and it can pull data from the vehicle's onboard computer. Among the optional add-ons, the developers list net launchers and platforms for launching drones.
Combat testing came before the handover
Kaban is developed with support from the Brave1 cluster, and the system has already passed combat trials, according to the developers. Work continues to refine it using feedback from military units.
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