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

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

Fires at a former motor depot in occupied Khrustalnyi

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

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

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

Explosions at a Crimean airfield Russia used to launch drones overnight

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

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

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

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

Ukraine keeps hitting Russian rear areas in occupied territory

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

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

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

Ukraine's campaign of so-called "middle strikes" targeting Russian supply lines isn't generating the same headlines it did back in the spring, when the campaign was intensifying.

But that doesn't mean Ukrainian units aren't launching thousands of drones a month and blowing up a lot of Russian trucks. Indeed, the pace of Ukrainian strikes, concentrated along the main supply routes threading through occupied southern Ukraine into occupied Crimea, has leveled off without ever really decreasing since an early summer surge.

It's evident Ukraine's middle-strike campaign "didn't stop and wasn't slowed down," noted French mapper Clément Molin, one of the most important observers of the counterlogistics campaign.

For September, Molin tallied 770 confirmed drone strikes on Russian trucks in the logistical zone 10 km beyond the line of contact. That's up from 630 strikes in August, 656 in July, and 586 in June, the month the campaign really got underway. There were just 214 strikes in May and at most a few dozen in each of the previous three months.

Whether Ukrainian troops can take advantage of the Russians' weakening logistics anytime soon is less evident.

Since June, the Ukrainians have hit around 700 Russian trucks a month that analysts can confirm with video and photographic evidence. There are undoubtedly many more damaged and destroyed trucks that left no digital evidence.

There are thousands of Russian trucks on the road in Ukraine every day, so hitting 700 of them in a month won't immediately strangle Russian logistics. But that accumulating destruction does strain Russian logistics—and terrify the truck drivers who are in the drone crosshairs. "Russian drivers post videos on a daily basis, showing how dangerous a ride in southern Ukraine is getting," Molin wrote.

What's remarkable is that the counterlogistics campaign hasn't faltered even as the Russians have adapted. Early on, Russian trucks mostly traveled alone and without protection, making them fairly easy picking for a bevy of Ukrainian middle-strike drone types including the Hornet, the B-2, the RAM 2X, the Chaklun, and various high-endurance first-person-view quadcopters.

The drones ride along Ukraine's overlapping command and control systems, which include Starlink satellite terminals (some dangling from balloons) as well as mesh radio networks. Many of the drones have built-in AI for autonomously detecting and homing in on trucks in the final seconds of flight.

Convoy operations

Reeling from the truck strikes, the Russians adapted this spring. Commanders began requiring all trucks to travel in convoys including mobile fire support groups, analysis group Tochnyi reported in May, citing Dmytro Putiata, a retired command post battle captain from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces 20th Brigade "K2."

Today the Russian convoys have a standard structure, according to Molin. "Convoys usually gather three to five trucks and two to three air-defense trucks." Combined with radio jamming gear that's increasingly common on both the supply trucks and the gun trucks, that's seemingly a lot of protection.

But the drones target the gun trucks, too, peeling back the protection in order to expose the supply trucks to follow-on attacks. In that way, the Ukrainians have sustained their attacks on the supply trucks despite the increase in mobile air defense activity along the most important supply routes.

And it's going to get worse for the Russians as fall wears into winter. "Supplying Crimea is turning into a nightmare and the arrival of winter and more difficult conditions will not help," Molin wrote.

There will be less foliage on the trees lining the roads, and thus less cover from Ukrainian surveillance. Moreover, Molin pointed out, "it will be more difficult to go off-road" and avoid the big paved roads that are the main drone kill zones.

Russian logistics are under pressure, and that pressure is only increasing. Ultimately, the Ukrainians aim to starve Russian forces in Crimea. Strikes on cargo ships plying the Black Sea prevent the Russians from simply shifting the logistics off the coast. Meanwhile, strikes on overland logistics "may lead to substantial softening of front-line positions," Tochnyi noted in May.

Softening those front-line positions to the point of melting away could facilitate what Tochnyi described as "eventual breakthrough operations" in occupied southern Ukraine.

It's not inconceivable. Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps recently proved, by way of its successful Operation Vivaldi, that local Ukrainian counteroffensives are possible.

But that doesn't mean they're easy. To win, the 3rd Army Corps had to carefully husband its forces and meticulously prepare the battlefield under conditions of strict secrecy before attacking. That same kind of preparation is underway along the supply lines into Crimea, but it's unclear whether local Ukrainian forces have enough combat power in reserve to shift from defense to offense and exploit Russia's deepening supply woes.

At least not yet.

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Ukraine has turned ground robots into a frontline workhorse, and the state is now trying to buy them at scale through its first competitive, ministry-spec tender. Viktor Pavlov, an officer of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade's UGV battalion, laid out the risks of that model to Army Inform, the Defense Ministry's outlet, in an interview. Once a robot clears the military's technical requirements, price becomes the main criterion, Pavlov says. The order is split into lots, and no maker can take more than half a class. He warns the model may not tell a cheap, makeshift machine from one that actually survives at the front.

Robots now handle the war's deadliest chores—driving supplies through kill zones and reaching the wounded where people can't—and Ukraine has already contracted more than 22,000 for 2026. How the military buys them now shapes whether the push yields machines troops trust or a stockpile of cheap ones they don't.

From disposable drones to the next mass weapon

Aerial drones became disposable, mass-produced weapons years ago. Ground robots—the tracked and wheeled machines that haul supplies, pull out the wounded, and attack Russian positions—are only now reaching serial state supply. In August, the Defense Procurement Agency (DOT), the body that buys Ukraine's arms, opened its first competitive tenders for logistics and strike robots built to specs set by the Defense Ministry. Pavlov, founder of Ukraine's UGV School, calls it an experimental format that can work where market prices are inflated. Splitting the order into lots also gives smaller engineering teams a real chance, he said, because many large producers are already busy with state contracts.

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Why the lowest bid may beat the best robot

A tender rewards the cheapest product that formally meets the requirements, not the best one, Pavlov said. A thermal camera, for example, can be listed as desirable rather than mandatory, so a maker chasing the lowest price will most likely leave it off. On any given feature the machines diverge—suspension, cameras, comms channels, a winch—one has it, another doesn't, yet both can land in the same class.

The machines themselves are very different. One carries 250 kilograms, another up to 349, but both fall into the "200-plus" category. Unlike FPV drones, which share standard sizes and parts, ground robots have no common frame—Ukraine fields many local variants. Pavlov compared the choice to picking an iPhone over a cheaper Android: on paper the features match, but soldiers know which machine they can run and repair.

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He also fears the model punishes innovation. A company can spend 18 months and a 20-person team building a robot, then watch a rival copy it, skip the research costs, and undercut it. A design troops already know how to run and repair—like the Ratel—is a known quantity. An untested bargain can break down mid-mission with no spare parts.

A mixed system, not tenders alone

Price competition should be one tool, not the only one, Pavlov argued. New robots should first reach units through pilot buys, letting soldiers test them and say what works. Proven systems can then be contracted in bulk, with tenders saved for classes where the offers are truly comparable. Ukraine's robots are too varied, he said, and what units need can't always be squeezed onto a spec sheet.

A Ukrainian ground robot drove toward the front, reached the water in its path, and kept going, swimming across with ammunition and food aboard and no soldier at risk. It ran the first logistics mission with an amphibious ground robot, covering more than 40 kilometers over land and water to resupply positions, the Defense Ministry said.

Water is one of the front's quiet chokepoints: rivers, canals, and marshes that stop ground robots and force risky detours, and that air resupply cannot always solve. The amphibious robot drives like a normal ground vehicle, then switches to swimming in seconds, letting one machine cross terrain that halts the rest.

It is the latest of Ukraine's battlefield-robot firsts, which this year have included air-dropping robots behind Russian lines.

Water stops the others

The robot was developed through Brave1, Ukraine's state-backed defense-innovation cluster, which links developers with the military and government.

The one such robot gains additional capabilities to carry out missions across different terrains.

For this operation, the system was refined over several months in close cooperation with the military, taking into account real tasks, operational experience, and the specifics of frontline terrain. The Brave1 defense innovation cluster provided grant support for the system, helping bring the solution to practical use.

The ministry says it is "expanding the capabilities of robotic systems" so soldiers have more tools for the fight.

Robots with grenade launchers

Earlier, Ukraine employed a new tactic during its major Operation Vivaldi in Donetsk Oblast. During the 3rd Army Corps' offensive, fighters from the world's first experimental unit of unmanned ground-strike vehicles, "NC13", upgraded their kamikaze ground drones with grenade launchers.

During the operation, UGVs equipped with two Bullspike grenade launchers attacked Russian positions, then detonated directly inside their shelters. The occupiers believed they were being attacked by an entire assault group. In reality, they were being torn apart by robots from the 3rd Assault Corps.

Drones get most of the attention in this war, and deservedly so—but the snipers are still out there, two Ukrainian marksmen told Army Inform, and the same drones have made their work far harder to survive. It now turns on watching, not shooting: long stretches at a hidden position, a thermal scope always running, and a constant fight to stay unseen.

Across the drone-saturated front, cheap cameras overhead have rewritten nearly every job—infantry, logistics crews, and now marksmen—so that surviving depends less on firepower than on never being seen.

The job is mostly watching

The men—a squad leader in a special-purpose sniper company, callsign Efiop, and his partner Maister—serve in the National Guard of Ukraine's 3rd Operational Purpose Brigade Spartan. Maister worked a factory milling machine before joining in 2022. He saw what Russian troops were doing, he said, and Ukrainian children started dying: he went to fight for the children, and he has a daughter of his own. A team takes a sector and holds it around the clock through a thermal scope.

"We can sit 40 days and never fire a shot. Or we go in, and in a single day we take down a lot of them," Efiop said.

His longest stint at one spot ran 48 days, and the greatest distance he has worked was 2,540 meters—more than a mile and a half.

Up to 154 pounds on your back, over 12 miles to cross

Reaching a position is often the hardest part. A sniper carries a vest, helmet, an assault rifle and the sniper rifle, and what supplies will fit—60 to 70 kilograms, or 132 to 154 pounds. They stay more than a month, and a month's worth will not go on one back. That load sometimes crosses more than 20 kilometers, over 12 miles, of open ground with no tree line to hide behind.

"You don't walk, you run," Maister said.

Lately it has eased a little: food can be dropped in by a heavy Vampire bomber drone.

Drones rewrote the rulebook

The biggest shift came from the sky. Russian drones with thermal cameras can see a bullet in flight because it is warm, Efiop said, and then burn out the position.

"They caught us like that once. We took out three, they saw where we fired from and burned the spot. We moved right away, and everyone lived," Efiop noted.

Now the snipers watch remotely from a safer place instead of lying behind the scope for hours. Once, that safer setup saved a life outright: a mortar round came in and pierced only the rifle scope.

Ukrainian drone strikes on the warehouses of Russia's biggest online marketplaces will cost the country's e-commerce 400 million orders and 400 billion rubles ($4.8 billion) in revenue this year, the research firm Data Insight estimates, The Moscow Times reported. It prices what the campaign has done to a whole consumer market, not only to the companies whose warehouses burned. Sellers are cutting back on the platform at the center of it, and Wildberries' payout delays are pushing some of them out.

The forecast, cut by a fifth

Data Insight lowered its growth forecast for Russian online retail by 20%, founder Fyodor Virin said. The market will now grow to 9.6 billion orders this year instead of 10 billion, and to 15 trillion rubles ($178 billion) in sales instead of 15.4 trillion.

That is exclusively the effect of the Ukrainian strikes on marketplace warehouses, Virin said, and most of the loss falls on Wildberries. The bombardment of the depots cut sales because goods were unavailable in a given city or entirely, and because delivery times grew as parcels had to travel further.

All of it lands in the second half of the year. Strikes on Wildberries warehouses began on 18 July and on Ozon's on 25 August, according to Virin. Euromaidan Press reported the first strike on an Ozon warehouse on 22 August.

About 30% of the orders that got stuck or disappeared from sale were cancelled outright, Virin estimates. The rest of the unmet demand went mostly to other online platforms and, to a lesser degree, to physical retail. Payout delays that began in mid-August have pushed some sellers to pull their stock, and Wildberries blamed the first missed round on a DDoS attack.

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What the companies lost

Damage to RWB, the company that runs Wildberries, from the loss of warehouses and infrastructure may reach 147 to 280 billion rubles ($1.7–3.3 billion), while sellers have provisionally lost 445 to 507 billion rubles ($5.3–6 billion), Data Insight's lead analyst Sergei Semko estimated. All of the marketplace's key logistics complexes have been hit, and it could lose a fifth of its network and over half its main hubs at once.

Much of what the sellers lost will not come back. On 22 July, Wildberries' founder said the warehouses were insured but that standard policies do not cover drone-strike risk, and Ozon has told sellers that losses from military action are an entrepreneurial risk neither it nor insurers will compensate.

Total losses for Ozon and its sellers are far lower, at around 100 billion rubles ($1.2 billion). Ozon has a much more branched warehouse network and rents most of its large complexes, Alfa-Bank analysts said. Its shares still fell as much as 29% in a single August session on a day when the Moscow exchange lost 2.9%.

Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

Ukrainian forces reportedly struck a Russian logistics hub and an oil depot in Russian-occupied Luhansk and a military base in occupied Donetsk on June 30 and July 1, with fires breaking out in the two cities.

"Russian logistics in temporarily occupied Luhansk are burning," head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation Andrii Kovalenko said.

The drone attack was reported by the local media, publishing what appear to be videos of the burning logistics hub and the sound of drones.

Leonid Pasechnik, head of the Russian occupation authorities in Luhansk Oblast, reported that air defenses shot down 35 of the 40 drones over Luhansk Oblast. Drone wreckage fell on the premises of an oil depot, and a woman was injured, Pasechnik claimed.

Overnight Ukrainian attacks were also reported in occupied Donetsk, with Telegram news channels sharing apparent footage of damaged buildings and fires in the city.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the Russian occupation authorities in Donetsk Oblast, claimed that one person was killed and three were injured in the attack. Ukrainian news channel Supernova+ reported that the attack targeted the headquarters of Russia’s 8th Combined Arms Army.

The Ukrainian military has not commented on the claims, which could not be independently verified.

Ukraine's military regularly strikes military targets in Russian-occupied territories and deep within Russia in an attempt to diminish Moscow's fighting power as it continues its war against Ukraine.

Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) destroyed three Russian air defense systems using drones in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast on June 14.

"Strike drone masters of the Department of Active Operations of the HUR of the Ukrainian defense ministry discovered and destroyed expensive air defense systems of the Russian invaders in the temporarily occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region," HUR reported in a post to Telegram.

A Russian Buk-M3, a Pantsyr S1, and a 9S19 Imbir radar from the S-300V air defense system were destroyed in the Ukrainian drone attack.

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The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk