For years, Serbia’s opposition has struggled to turn public discontent into a credible challenge to Aleksandar Vučić’s political dominance. On Sunday (25 October), a student-led movement that began with demands for accountability after a deadly train station collapse will attempt to do what established opposition forces have repeatedly failed to achieve: translate civic mobilisation into political change.

The upcoming parliamentary elections are about more than the (re)distribution of seats. They represent the endeavour citizens want and need in a democratic society.

For several years now, “the students operate according to the principles of direct democracy,” senior research associate at the University of Belgrade, Vasiljević told EUobserver. They gather in “plenums” and make collective decisions.

The motor behind that movement was anger. The lack of accountability after the collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station on 1 November 2024, which killed 16 people was the main trigger.

Since then, protests have been taken place around in the country. Eventually, they grew into a nationwide challenge to the government. The student movement even marched from Belgrade to Brussels and Strasbourg to appeal to the EU institutions.

“It brought some irreversible changes that will have a lasting impact on society,” said Vasiljević.

And these changes could be now transposed into politics. “The country has been held captive for far too long by one ruling party and, in fact, one ruling elite,” Miloje Savić, a volunteering poll observer, told EUobserver.

For many Serbs, as for Savić, the students’ organisation represent “a tectonic shift in how society is organised and how it should function.”

The Student List, now the electoral vehicle for the mobilisation, has given people frustrated with established politics a new focus for their demands. The main idea being that political participation can be rebuilt from the ground up.

“It is not a good time to be living in Serbia. And during my life, I can’t remember a time when it was,” Ivan Bartoš, a 31-year-old organiser of student protests in Bački Petrovac told EUobserver.

Serbia, as many European countries, is suffering from an ageing population. It brings to the social debate a generational difference. On one side, the middle-aged and “corrupted” regime led by Vučić, on the other, a proposal of change without real political experience.

And the question that is heard in the run-up to the elections is “does Serbia need a professional politician who has been trained for years in kleptocracy, or is society willing to take a risk?”

Vučić’s ‘men in black’?

Yet the movement’s rise has exposed a fundamental tension: society may be changing faster than the institutions through which change must be delivered.

“The institutions have been captured and controlled by the regime. There is not enough institutional space to accommodate these political changes,” Vasiljević said.

Previous Serbian elections have been accompanied by allegations of vote-buying, voter intimidation and ballot-box stuffing. After the last ones, held in December 2023, European MP’s called for “independent investigations into the irregularities”.

Knowing what is at stake, the Student List is trained an unprecedented number of poll monitors (15,000), seeking to protect the vote and document potential irregularities.

Attacks on opposition representatives by groups of unidentified men dressed in black have repeatedly raised concerns during the rule of Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

The media are not safe either.

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Poland’s governing coalition voted in parliament to loosen abortion law on Tuesday (20 October) – but the country’s conservative president is expected to block the change.

Poland has one of Europe’s harshest abortion laws, allowing only two exceptions to a general ban: in case of rape or danger to the woman’s health.

The amendments, passed by a narrow majority, would allow for abortions in cases of severe deformation of the foetus, and partially decriminalise helping others terminate their pregnancy.

Currently, doctors fear facing up to three years in prison for performing an illegal abortion. At least six women have died because they were denied an abortion in the last six years.

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• Battle for Dobropillia — huge Russian losses and the brutal destruction of the city.
• A possible explanation for inaccuracies in Russian maps — they are lying to improve their position in ceasefire negotiations.
• The Wall Street Journal said Elon Musk came up with the idea of cutting off Ukraine’s military Starlink.
• How the Starshield restriction has affected the front line.
• Maps of the day — a Russian death field between Rodynske and Dobropillia, plus an overall view of the front.
• Videos of the day — the funeral of five children killed by Russian bombing; a driver in Kyiv burned alive after a drone strike; war criminal and liar Sergei Lavrov speaks about the bombing of Ukraine; a cat alerted an operator to approaching Russians; an interceptor drone shot down a Geran.

The battle for Dobropillia in images and maps — huge Russian losses and the brutal destruction of the city. The heaviest fighting is currently taking place on this section of the front. Following its defeat in the north near Lyman, the Russian command is now trying here, in the south, to bypass the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, since a direct attack from the east has also failed.

The Kremlin has currently deployed its largest forces to the area north-east of Pokrovsk, where it is trying to break through Ukrainian defences.

Described this way, it sounds highly technical. People can detach emotionally from information written in this manner and follow events merely as arrows on maps.

In reality, however, the arrows conceal tragedies that are very difficult to imagine. This week, visual evidence emerged that may better convey the scale of human suffering and losses on both sides.

The first shows the city of Dobropillia itself from the air after Russian bombardment that is slowly consuming it.

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• For the first time, Ukrainians rescued a wounded soldier by air.
• He spent 500 days at the front, during which he had to amputate his own legs.
• How the operation unfolded and what Ukrainians had to do to distract Russian drones.
• Rubio repeats Putin’s claims about occupied territory in the Donetsk region.
• Videos of the day: the first capture of a Russian tank this year; a swarm of Ukrainian drones.

The information in this text is a summary of events on Monday (19 October). The situation may have changed since then.

Hardly a week passes without some new development being reported on the frontline of Russia’s war in Ukraine. This time, Ukrainians demonstrated something truly unique. For the first time, they succeeded in evacuating a wounded soldier using a heavy rotary-wing aerial drone.

The story was published by the 30th Separate Mechanised Brigade and reported by a journalist from the Oboronka website, who spoke to both the operators and the wounded soldier. The evacuation took place near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, on the left, or eastern, bank of the Oskil river.

Infantryman Kostiantyn ‘Magura’ Vlasenko of the 2nd Mechanised Battalion of the 30th Separate Mechanised Brigade was tasked, together with a comrade, with heading into the grey zone in early June 2025.

Initially, they hid in one place, but when their position was flooded, they had to leave the building and take shelter elsewhere. Returning was impossible because of the dangerous situation. His comrade later died.

In February this year, Magura was also wounded by a Russian drone. Munitions dropped from the drone injured both his legs. According to Oboronka, he had to amputate his own lower limbs in order to survive.

The website did not give details of how he managed to do this. Similar cases have, however, occurred in the past.

In 2018, for instance, during an exercise in Slovakia, an American soldier was trapped beneath a tank. He amputated his own leg to save a fellow soldier, for which he was named Soldier of the Year in 2021.

In Magura’s case, this meant he was left immobile, and it was clear that he would not return from the front by himself.

Ukrainian units considered how to help him. The situation was extremely difficult in this respect.

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First published in Respekt.

Before the Czech election results were announced, a WhatsApp group used to alert journalists of prime minister Andrej Babiš’s public appearances went quiet. Reporters asking if and when the ANO leader would make a statement, were met with the same answer from party officials: ‘we don’t know’.

Anticipating poor run-off results for the Senate (upper house), the party had not planned any major press events. Instead, Babiš arrived at his local polling venue – a sports hall – on Saturday (17 October) afternoon, to concede defeat.

In the 2024 Senate elections, ANO had gained eight seats, but this year lost the one seat it was defending.

The opposition party of Mayors and Independents (STAN) performed best, winning ten of the 14 seats it contested.

Having climbed in the polls in recent months, the party now believes it could lead the opposition into the next general election against the ANO-led government.

Pro-Babiš candidates defeated

Babiš and his supporters could hardly have asked for a better starting position this year: ANO was defending just one mandate, and its senate group had 15 seats before the vote.

Babiš said his party had an exceptional chance to break the opposition parties’ long-standing majority to take control of the upper house.

But that goal was quickly out of reach. ANO would have needed to win in all 27 districts, but fielded candidates in only 24 of them.

When only 13 ANO candidates advanced to the second round, the prime minister’s appearances in the days before the vote suggested he no longer believed ANO could win. “The second round will see the same old story – everyone will join forces against us,” Babiš said.

ANO also fielded low-profile or inexperienced candidates, while STAN party leader Vít Rakušan personally travelled to support candidates throughout the campaign.

Analysts have attributed ANO’s poor performance to its poor choice of candidates. They point, among others, to Sandra Tsoukernik, the wife of a controversial businessman in the gambling industry who ran in the Tachov and Cheb district against incumbent senator Miroslav Plevný, a professor of economics.

Tsoukernik diligently toured her district, but unlike Plevný she did not speak about her programme at meetings with voters — or anywhere else.

Although Tsoukernik managed to fill town squares by hiring the pianist Michal David, this was widely viewed as a publicity stunt.

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In Paris, students have protested over shortages of teachers, overcrowded classrooms and deteriorating school buildings.

In Spain, the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal — who died on 7 October — became a rallying point for housing protests.

In Tirana, students joined wider demonstrations over education costs and corruption allegations.

These are not parts of a single movement, and the protests do not have one common cause. But they bring into focus a shared challenge: whether young people can see a credible route from education to decent work, and from financial dependence to a life of their own. 

France: school conditions shape the starting line

Since September, French students have demonstrated over teacher shortages, overcrowded classes and deteriorating school buildings. Their demands concern more than the day-to-day running of schools. They also raise a question about equal opportunity: can public education give every student the tools to move forward, regardless of where they live or what their family can afford?

The wider figures help explain why that question matters.

In 2025, 25.5 percent of people aged 15–29 in France were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 24.2 percent across the EU, according to Eurostat.

In August 2026, unemployment among under-25s stood at 20.6 percent, against 8.2 percent for the population as a whole. The corresponding EU rates were 15.4 percent and 6.1 percent.

These figures do not show that school shortages cause youth unemployment. They do show how difficult the step from education into work remains for many young people and why well-resourced schools matter most in areas with the fewest opportunities.

Housing can make that transition harder still. In Paris, one-in-two private tenants under 30 spends more than 51 percent of their income on rent. A Eurostat indicator also shows that 70 percent of 20–24-year-olds and 25 percent of 25–29-year-olds either live with their parents or are financially connected to their household. 

France scored 66 out of 100 and ranked 27th of 182 countries in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. The index measures perceptions of public-sector corruption, not the number of proven incidents. It does not explain the school protests, but it underlines why transparency and accountability matter when public services and resources are at stake.

Spain: when housing delays independence

Abascal’s eviction from the Madrid flat where she had lived for decades prompted demonstrations in several Spanish cities and renewed calls for stronger tenant protections. Her case was not a youth protest, but it put a human face on a housing crisis that also shapes whether younger people can leave home and build an independent life.

In 2025, 67.1 percent of Spaniards aged 18–34 lived with at least one parent, according to Spain’s National Statistics Institute.

Among those living with a parent, 28.3 percent said they could not afford to rent. The average age at which young people left home was 30.2, compared with 26.3 across the EU, according to Eurostat.

Housing pressure does not operate in isolation. In 2025, 27.6 percent of Spaniards aged 15–29 were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, above the EU rate of 24.2%.

In August 2026, unemployment among under-25s was 22.7 percent, more than twice the overall rate of 10 percent. When joblessness is so much higher among the young and rent is beyond the reach of many, delayed independence cannot be reduced to personal preference.

Spain scored 55/100 in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking 49th of 182 countries. That score does not establish a link between corruption and housing protests. But when people are asking for effective action on housing, transparency over how decisions are made — and accountability for whether they work — are part of the debate.

Albania: growth is not enough if young people see no path forward

In October, students in Tirana protested over education costs and corruption allegations, joining a broader anti-government movement. Their participation brought education and young people’s prospects into a wider debate about living costs, employment and trust in public institutions.

Albania’s official figures show that 19 percent of the population was at risk of relative poverty in 2025, while 31.2 percent experienced severe material and social deprivation, according to INSTAT. The two measures describe different aspects of hardship: one compares household income with the national poverty threshold; the other captures enforced inability to afford basic goods and activities.

Young people also face a difficult entry into the labour market. The World Bank’s ILO-modelled estimates put overall unemployment at 10.9 percent in 2025, rising to 25.6 percent among 15–24-year-olds. The estimated average age of leaving the parental household seemed to be 30.9, compared with 26.3 in the EU, according to Eurostat’s dataset. Together, however, these indicators describe the hurdles between education, employment and independence.

Albania scored 39/100 and ranked 91st of 182 countries in the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. The measure is not a count of actual cases, but corruption allegations are part of the protests themselves. That makes transparency, accountability and public trust more than abstract principles: they shape whether people believe institutions respond fairly to their concerns.

Behind the statistics

Behind the statistics are millions of young people struggling to turn their ambitions into reality. The obstacles reinforce one another: under-resourced schools can narrow choices, unemployment can delay financial independence, and high housing costs can prolong dependence on family.

Across the EU, house prices rose by 55.4 percent and rents by 26.7 percent between 2010 and 2024, often outpacing income growth, according to Eurofound.

That is why the response cannot be confined to one policy area. It means properly staffed and maintained schools, routes from education into decent work, more affordable and social housing, targeted help with rent, and stronger protections for tenants.

Young people should also have a meaningful say in policies that shape their education, employment and housing.

A strong welfare state and effective social protection can help ensure that a young person’s prospects are not determined solely by family income or place of birth. If a low-income family cannot support a young person’s move towards independence, financial dependence can pass from one generation to the next. Tackling that cycle is part of building social justice and societies in which young people can plan a future with greater confidence.

The future will show whether today’s protests lead to lasting policies. The test will be whether young people can study, find decent work and afford a home without their prospects being set by the circumstances into which they were born.

As protests ripple through big cities across the continent, a quieter, more forgotten population at Europe’s edge sits through weeks of strikes and blockades, while largely ignored. 

Italy’s southern regions of Puglia, Calabria, Sicily, Molise and Basilicata are facing empty supermarket shelves and plummeting fuel supplies since transport and agriculture workers have been protesting against climbing costs of living. 

Entire sectors have been put on pause due to the excessive costs it now takes to run them, from delivering food goods to producing them, for unbalanced competition with foreign suppliers and sustained neglect from Rome. 

While protestors in large cities like Milan and Bologna joined a European choir of protests fighting unaffordable housing last weekend, truck drivers from Bari to Palermo have joined in blocking roads to important ports and highways connecting isolated southern regions, and denouncing the outrageous costs of fertilisers, seeds, and fuel for tractors and transport for over two weeks.

“For us, and for the community, it’s become impossible to face the costs of fuel,” Luigi Di Benedetto, manager of an agriculture company in Caltagirone, Sicily, told EUobserver. 

“Italy import products that do not meet legal specifications,” he said, echoing the worries of his colleagues and fellow protestors, since the market was flooded with cheaper foreign imports, which have left them unable to pay the bills.

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• These are not yet Star Wars, but we may be approaching the first destruction of an enemy satellite in space.
• Fighting is taking place directly in Dobropillia.
• On the first day of restrictions on Starlink functionality, Ukrainian army attacks on Russian logistics dropped sharply, before beginning to return to their previous level — chart.
• Russia continues to pound Kyiv with ballistic missiles, while power outages occurred across Ukraine.
• St Petersburg experienced one of the largest air raids of the entire war over the weekend, but the damage was limited.
• Maps of the day — Dobropillia
• Videos of the day — a Russian glide bomb fails to explode and bounces off an apartment block in Sumy; a bomber drone destroys a Smerch multiple rocket launcher; the road between Pavlohrad and occupied Pokrovsk

These are not yet Star Wars, but we may be approaching the first destruction of an enemy satellite in space. Marco Langbroek is a Dutch scientist whose original field was Palaeolithic archaeology. He now works at the prestigious Dutch Delft University of Technology, at its Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, where he observes and tracks objects orbiting the Earth.

Among other things, he specialises in observing classified spy satellites. After the downing of flight MH17, he was among the experts involved in the investigation. He was the first to publicly point out that the Russian missile which shot down the civilian aircraft may have been detected by US early-warning satellites.

The same scientist was the first this time to notice the unusual behaviour of the Russian military satellite KOSMOS 2612, which began carrying out manoeuvres in the immediate vicinity of the European satellite ICEYE-X36.

At first glance, this report appears to have nothing to do with the war in Ukraine, but that is not the case. ICEYE-X36 is originally a Finnish satellite, launched into space in March 2024 from the Vandenberg space base in the United States, which is also used for the space programme — both military and civilian.

ICEYE-X36 uses radar observation and has cooperated with the Ukrainian government since 2022. Radar can monitor the Earth’s surface even through cloud cover, and Langbroek speculates that it is probably working for the Ukrainian military.

He began reporting on the situation on Saturday (17 October), calling it highly concerning.

“If Ukraine is indeed using ICEYE-X36, this means that a satellite of one country — Russia — is closely approaching a satellite of another state — Ukraine — with which it is at war,” Langbroek wrote. He wondered whether “we are perhaps witnessing the first real anti-satellite attack directly in orbit in the course of its preparation”.

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• In 2022, the Neptune missile sank the cruiser Moskva; in 2026, it is destroying aircraft at airfields.
• Ukraine has run out of Patriot missiles, while parts of Kyiv are without electricity following new air raids.
• The order to slow down Starlink came from the White House, Reuters reported.
• What is new in the “captured” part of Kharkiv region? Ukrainian soldiers capture a Russian soldier in its centre.
• Drones sank a ship off the Bulgarian coast, and Sofia turned to Nato.
• Maps of the day – Kharkiv region
• Videos of the day – a Russian drone destroyed a grocery store in Odesa while it was fully operational; a strange drone with a strange name

In 2022, the Neptune missile sank the cruiser Moskva; in 2026, it is destroying aircraft at airfields. On Thursday, the Ukrainian president released a report saying that a strike on the Borisoglebsk Russian military airfield in Voronezh region had destroyed four Su-34M strike aircraft on the ground and damaged two more.

Volodymyr Zelensky also released a satellite image, which is the lead photograph of Friday’s Ukraine Battlefield update.

The airfield lies around 340 km from the front line and was built to accommodate even the largest aircraft types in the Russian air force’s inventory: the Tu-160 and An-124.

In this war, however, it serves as a base from which smaller Su-34s take off for glide-bomb attacks. It is therefore a place from which otherwise almost invulnerable aircraft operate, bombing Ukrainian army positions directly on and near the front line.

Ukraine does not yet have fighter jets capable of shooting down enemy aircraft at the distances from which they release their bombs, while the Patriot system has no missiles of the type that have already shot down several Su-34s in mid-air. The destruction of four aircraft and at least damage to two more is therefore a major success.

Several aspects are noteworthy: the weapon used; the apparent capacity to react exceptionally quickly; the Russian military’s continuing reluctance to build protected aircraft shelters at airfields; as well as its carelessness during operations. Crucially, the impact on operations is easy to calculate in this case.

Zelensky confirmed that the successful attack was carried out using a Neptune missile. It is one of the Ukrainian arms industry’s most successful achievements.

It was originally designed to fight enemy ships. It is launched from ground-based launchers and flies close to the terrain on its way to the target. The manufacturer completed the first battery shortly before the invasion began.

Until it sank the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship in April 2022, it was not known whether the Ukrainians had made it operational. The sinking of the cruiser Moskva provided a clear answer.

Since then, the missile has been repeatedly upgraded. The aim was not only to extend its range, but also to enable it to strike ground targets. Both have been achieved, as the attack on Borisoglebsk demonstrates.

As almost always, local residents managed to record the moment of its arrival and impact on the target:

Ukrainian forces carried out a missile strike on Russia’s Borisoglebsk airbase tonight, with at least one massive explosion and post-strike fire seen. pic.twitter.com/aA1xxZlhCl

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 14, 2026

The photographs below most likely show the consequences. There are signs of fire at the aircraft stands marked one and six. The damaged aircraft probably stood there.

Two Su-34 wrecks are clearly visible at positions two and five, while at positions three and four, alongside a crane clearing debris, there is mainly a large burnt-out area and the outline of one Su-34.

Even the Russians do not keep so many aircraft together for long at an airfield relatively close to the front line during wartime. The Ukrainians therefore had a very short window between detecting the target and carrying out the attack. That they succeeded points to highly accurate intelligence and a very short response time.

Even so, it was very careless of the Russians to park at least four, but more likely as many as six, valuable combat-ready aircraft so close together, even for a short time.

Russian Z-bloggers criticised the fact that, despite repeated assurances that hardened shelters were being built, there are still none at Borisoglebsk airfield.

By 2022, Russia had built 147 aircraft, including prototypes. Exact production figures since the start of the invasion are not known, but according to Polish analyst Jaroslaw Wolski, Russia lost between a quarter and a third of its annual production on Thursday, which is estimated at between 18 and 24 aircraft. This is more likely an upper estimate, and average actual production over the entire period of the invasion is probably lower.

Meanwhile, the Oryx website has counted 44 Su-34s lost to date; with the additional six, the total has now reached 50.

Russia has therefore produced no more than around 200 aircraft of this type, a quarter of which it has lost in combat, while at least half of the remainder are unfit for combat as a result of wear and tear.

The Russian Z-channel Fighterbomber said on Friday that the annual flying time of a Russian air force fighter jet amounted to thousands of hours: “No, not hundreds, not one thousand, but thousands. Divide that by the number of days in a year and you will see how much each individual fighter jet works on average per day.”

It wrote this in connection with its claim that, although the Ukrainian air force was incapable of fighting the Russian one, it and Ukrainian drones were nevertheless “consuming the resources of all our fighter jets, which have essentially been continuously in the air for five years, taking turns with one another”.

Fighterbomber did not mention Su-34s in this context, but these aircraft bear the main burden of front-line missions, meaning they too are heavily used: “This inevitably leads to malfunctions and crashes, resulting in repairs that take an aircraft out of combat readiness, with another aircraft taking over its tasks …”.

Fighterbomber concluded that although “we have many aircraft, there are still too few of them”.

Since this year, Russia has been able to mount six glide bombs under each Su-34, rather than four. The loss of six aircraft — since even damaged aircraft cannot fight, at least temporarily — therefore means at least 36 fewer precision-guided bombs against Ukrainian positions each day.

This assumes, of course, that every aircraft flies only one mission per day. In practice, they fly more, making this a significant relief for soldiers on the front line.

Ukraine has run out of Patriot missiles, while parts of Kyiv are without electricity following new air raids. A shortage of the most advanced surface-to-air missiles, which alone can effectively shoot down Russian ballistic missiles, is nothing new. Ukrainian batteries have previously had nothing to fire, leaving them to watch Russian air raids helplessly.

CNN reported most recently that this had happened again. Russian missiles consequently damaged three Kyiv power plants again on Wednesday morning.

The destructive air raid was repeated on Friday morning. It led to emergency power cuts. “Power outages have been recorded in Kyiv, as well as in Kyiv, Volyn, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions. Work to restore supplies has already begun wherever the security situation permits,” NEC Ukrenergo said.

The NV website reported that 370,000 customer connections in Volyn region alone had been left without power.

The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the heating season officially began in Kyiv on Thursday. However, as NV wrote, this was not possible in two Kyiv districts because energy workers had not had time to deal with the consequences of the attacks.

At the same time, a dispute is under way between Volodymyr Zelensky and the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. According to the president, Kyiv’s leadership had “almost entirely” failed to meet the deadlines of the so-called Resilience Plan, which was intended to prepare the city for winter. Klitschko rejects this, but he had already come under criticism from the media in previous months.

The order to slow down Starlink came from the White House, Reuters reported. The respected news agency said, citing sources within the administration itself. However, it has no information on who specifically issued such an order.

The restriction concerns the military component of the system, called Starshield. Elon Musk also drew attention to this in a post, which essentially confirms the accuracy of the Reuters report.

No reliable information on whether the system was functioning was available on Friday.

What is new in the “captured” part of Kharkiv region? Ukrainian soldiers capture a Russian soldier in its centre. In the context of the entire war, this is an insignificant episode, but the Russian defence ministry still insists that it has captured 65 villages and 1,200 square km of territory in the north-eastern part of Kharkiv region, and has moreover encircled some Ukrainian units.

A video has appeared online from the village of Buzove — its location is highlighted in red on the map of the Ukrainian Petrenko account — where a group of Ukrainian soldiers captured a Russian hiding in bushes by the road. There was also a dead Russian soldier there.

For comparison, this is how Russian maps — specifically those of the state news agency Ria Novosti — depict the same territory. Buzove is not named on the map, but it lies roughly halfway between the village of Reznikove — marked by a black assault-rifle symbol in a white circle — and Ivanivka, which is a short distance to the left and below. According to the Russians, the village is 12 km in a straight line from the nearest Ukrainian positions.

Drones sank a ship off the Bulgarian coast, and Sofia turned to Nato. Drones attacked in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone as recently as last week. One of the vessels sank and all 10 sailors are presumed dead.

Earlier this week, the HS Dignity, flying the flag of Guinea-Bissau, was sunk 31 km off the Bulgarian coast. According to the BBC, 10 people were missing.

As many as 18 drones damaged the Ukrainian vessel Chelsea-3, which was sailing from Turkey to a Ukrainian port along the Black Sea coast to avoid the Russian military.

🛳️ Route of the vessel hit by drones off Bulgaria's coast overnight

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said that the Chelsea 3 is Ukrainian-owned and sails under the Maltese flag.

The crew — seven Ukrainians and eight Azerbaijanis — was rescued.

An accelerated screen… pic.twitter.com/yIjgHZ0Lqr

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 13, 2026

Video of rescue operations after the Chelsea-3 was hit:

Екипажът на моторен кораб CHELSEA 3 е спасен източно от Бяла pic.twitter.com/sSK7Nw7ABW

— Maritime.bg (@MaritimeBul) October 13, 2026

It is almost certain that Russia was behind the attacks. Even the government, which is otherwise sympathetic towards Russia, is convinced of this and has summoned the Russian ambassador. Sofia has also asked Nato to deploy aircraft to protect vessels in the Black Sea.

Videos of the day

A Russian drone struck an ordinary grocery supermarket in Odesa while it was fully operational.

Russian forces carried out a drone strike on a Ukrainian supermarket in Odessa this morning.

A Geran-4 slammed into a busy Tavria V supermarket in Mayaky, injuring multiple people and setting the building ablaze. pic.twitter.com/iuDmascrvV

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 15, 2026

The drone in this video not only looks unusual, but also has a highly unusual name — Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich. This design allows vertical take-off, after which the drone transitions to conventional flight, increasing its speed and range compared with ordinary FPV drones. According to the manufacturer, its range reaches 50 km.

Це — новий російський дрон-камікадзе «Князь Владимир Святославич». Був.

Ворогом цей безпілотник заявлений як «ударний для середніх дистанцій». Але до цілі він не долетів — один із підрозділів «Дронопаду» збив його перехоплювачем, який ми передали бійцям завдяки вашим донатам.… pic.twitter.com/UXN9lFLkTP

— Повернись живим (@BackAndAlive) October 15, 2026

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Brussels with two main requests for his meeting with EU leaders on Friday (16 October): more funds for Kyiv for defence and more sanctions against Russia. 

“All of us in Europe want this war to end. And for that to happen, strong signals are needed – more real pressure on Russia and more defence support for Ukraine,” he said on X.

“It is especially important now to act together to protect lives,” he added.

Zelensky’s plea comes days after US president Donald Trump announced a deal to bring Russian diesel to the US and global markets, raising questions about the consistency of Western efforts to restrict Russia’s energy revenues that are feeding the Kremlin war machine. 

EU leaders are expected to “regret” the Trump-Putin deal in their summit conclusions, where they also mention more financial, humanitarian and diplomatic support to Kyiv ahead of what many predict to be one of the most difficult winters for Ukraine.

Dutch PM Rob Jetten said the diesel deal was “not a good step”, adding that “Europe has to show that we are not only dependent on the US”.

But he also appealed directly to the US, calling for more support: “Do what is necessary to support the Ukrainians. They need not only sufficient weapons to defend Ukraine, but also the information they need to repel Russian attacks.”

Despite the diesel deal, Estonian PM Kristen Michal, whose country hosts a US military base, also said the US is still a “partner” of Europe in the war in Ukraine.

“We will see what happens in the midterm elections. But I will never give up trying to talk to and convince … our transatlantic partners that we are better off united than divided on this issue,” European Parliament president Roberta Metsola said during a press conference on Thursday after meeting EU leaders.

And in a warning to Moscow about Nato’s unity, US top military commander Alexus Grynkewich also said earlier this week in Warsaw that any “foolish” attack on the Nato alliance would be “utterly futile”.

Funding gap

In December 2025, EU leaders failed to agree to use over €210bn in Russian frozen funds sitting in Europe and instead decided to go for a €90bn loan, aimed at covering about two-thirds of Ukraine’s external financing needs. 

“The remaining third is the problem,” Tetiana Shevchuk, from the Kyiv-based Anti-Corruption Action Center, told EUobserver, referring to commitments by other countries like Canada and Japan coming only for 2026. “2027 is the real gap”.

The €90bn loan is split into €45bn for 2026 and 2027, but recent reports point to about a €23bn financial gap amid an expected Russian escalation ahead of the winter. 

Zelensky has asked Brussels to bring forward part of the loan to cover this gap in the defence ministry. But Brussels fears this advance “could unravel the compromise on gradual instalments and leave a hole later in 2027,” Shevchuk also said.

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The series continues as we report on developments following April’s historic election and on the steps taken since then by the Tisza government. This week, we cover the following topics:

• Another blow for Hungary’s richest man;
• New chief prosecutor nominee, plus a former chief prosecutor ready to testify on political pressure;
• Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law;
• A state secretary has unexpectedly left the government;
• Orbán to keep quiet on one of Hungary’s most important national holidays;
• Ukraine adopts the minority education law;
• More EU funds and money from the Norway Grants have become available.

Another blow for Lőrinc Mészáros

Last Friday (9 October), prime minister Péter Magyar and Dávid Vitézy, minister for transport and investments, announced that the state was suspending implementation of one of Hungary’s largest rail projects – the Budapest southern circular railway, and will launch a new public procurement procedure.

The works had been carried out by V-Híd, the most profitable company of Lőrinc Mészáros, who became Hungary’s richest man during Viktor Orbán’s premiership.

However, the European Court of Auditors uncovered serious public-procurement irregularities: V-Híd may have colluded with the company that drafted the project plans and thus already possessed information at the time of the tender that its competitors did not have. Because of this, the European Court of Auditors would withdraw EU funding from the project.

The Hungarian government does not want to forfeit the EU money and make Hungarian taxpayers foot the bill for the costs of the project, which is why it is terminating the contract with Mészáros’s company and launching a new tender.

The Hungarian state had already taken away from Mészáros the right to operate a motorway section, and later also terminated the 35-year motorway concession.

Previously, one of his food-industry companies had EU funding already granted to it withdrawn, while his energy company was excluded from a call for proposals financed from the repatriated RRF funds.

New chief prosecutor nominee, plus former chief prosecutor ready to testify

On Monday (12 October), president András Baka nominated a former chief prosecutor, Péter Fejes, for the post of chief prosecutor. His first nominee, Zoltán Szathmáry, was not voted through by the Tisza group in parliament after it emerged that his brother was implicated in the so-called gold convoy case, in which a Ukrainian cash shipment was stopped and confiscated by the Hungarian authorities.

Fejes was dismissed in 2012 from his position as chief prosecutor of Vas county by Péter Polt, the chief prosecutor serving the Orbán system, citing loss of confidence. Since then he has continued to work within the prosecution service and as a university lecturer, and he has no party affiliation. For the time being neither prime minister Magyar nor the Tisza group has stated whether they support Fejes’s nomination.

Since the change of government, another former chief prosecutor, Pál Fürcht, has frequently spoken to the media. Among other things, he has claimed that the gold convoy case was created for political purposes, and that the authorities raided the Ukrainian cash couriers on Orbán’s orders.

On Sunday (11 October), Magyar sharply criticised Fürcht in a Facebook post, reproaching him for having been a servant of the system himself. According to Magyar, Fürcht constructed a criminal case, on political orders, out of the notorious nightclub altercation for which the prime minister is currently under investigation on charges of theft.

It was likewise Fürcht who left former propaganda minister Antal Rogán out of the corruption case known as the Völner–Schadl affair.

In response to Magyar’s criticism, Fürcht said he was ready to make an official statement before any authority. In parliament on Monday, the prime minister was already referring to the former chief prosecutor as a future witness.

Parliament has adopted the new child-protection law

Child protection was one of the most important topics of the campaign and played a major role in Orbán’s downfall. Magyar kept the issue on the agenda even after his government took office; most recently, last Thursday, the prime minister and the state secretary responsible for the field, Szilvia Gyurkó, presented the report on the children’s home in Bicske.

This home had been run by a director who was decorated by Orbán and later convicted of paedophile crimes, together with his deputy, who helped cover up the abuses. The presidential pardon granted to the deputy shook the Orbán government and helped lead to its collapse.

On Tuesday (13 October), parliament adopted an amendment to the child-protection law, which takes a tougher stance against media content accessible to minors that propagates sexual violence, manipulation and exploitation, and would speed up the placement of babies abandoned in hospital.

The amendment removed those homophobic passages that the Orbán government forced into law in 2021, and which the Court of Justice of the European Union also ruled to be contrary to EU law.

Fidesz, the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) and the far-right Mi Hazánk did not vote for the amendment; Magyar called this a disgrace.

A state secretary unexpectedly leaves the government

On Tuesday, András Tótth, state secretary for energy at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy and minister István Kapitány’s most important aide, unexpectedly resigned.

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• Zelensky has lost patience; the US is acting as Putin’s ally.
• How Ukrainians attacked Russian targets without Starlink.
• If Musk did not switch off Starlink, who did? The main suspects.
• Ukrainian attacks on data centres hit Russia where it hurts.
• Why this type of attack will continue to escalate and not only in this war.
• Videos of the day: a hero robot returns without a wheel; attacks on ammunition depots.

Zelensky has lost patience; the US is Putin’s ally. Despite problems with Starlink, which Kyiv said cut connections with attack drones when they exceeded a certain speed, major Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory continued in recent hours. Long-range strikes over Russia are carried out by drones without Starlink.

These included an attack on the military airfield in Borisoglebsk, more than 300 km from the border, as well as on a refinery in Ryazan, which the local governor confirmed. The Ryazan refinery belongs to Rosneft and is one of the largest, with a capacity of around 17 million tonnes of oil a year.

This came after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky told the Financial Times that he had had enough after Russian attacks during the so-called energy truce, and announced that refineries would once again become Ukrainian targets.

It was precisely a limitation of such Ukrainian strikes that US president Donald Trump had demanded, after last week concluding a controversial agreement with Moscow to buy Russian oil without asking for anything in return from the Russian side.

This was followed by steps that raised serious suspicions that Trump had begun acting in favour of Putin’s war against Ukraine.

The US threatened Ukraine with restricting supplies of weapons or critically important intelligence and, ultimately, as we examined on Wednesday in the Ukraine Battlefield update, Ukrainian soldiers began experiencing a serious problem with the full internet connection provided by the military version of Starlink, which Musk’s SpaceX developed for the Pentagon.

This is crucial to the Ukrainian army not only for attacks on Russian logistics at the front, but also in defending against more dangerous Russian jet-powered drones, which have terrorised Ukrainian cities in recent months.

Russia’s pro-Kremlin scene naturally noticed this as well. The Z-blogger Rybar called for the use of an “opportunity” in which Russian forces could inflict maximum damage on Ukrainian infrastructure.

“I think the crisis is entirely clear and understandable. The crisis lies in Trump’s position, which is trying to help Russia in every possible way,” expert Volodymyr Ohryzko commented on the situation.

We write below about what the company’s owner, Elon Musk, has said about these developments.

How Ukrainians attacked without Starlink. In the first of the Ukrainian attacks mentioned above, on the airfield in Borisoglebsk, Ukrainian Neptune missiles were used, according to the Ukrainian navy. Ukrainians said they destroyed as many as six Su-34M aircraft. They have their own navigation systems and do not need SpaceX services.

⚡️ BREAKING: Ukraine’s Navy claims to have struck SIX Russian Su-34M fighter-bombers in a Neptune missile attack on Borisoglebsk military airbase in Russia’s Voronezh region overnight. https://t.co/kMEuVbmrVX pic.twitter.com/fH8igvygd5

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 15, 2026

The attack on the refinery in Ryazan involved drones that are likewise not connected to Starlink, as SpaceX has geographically restricted Ukraine’s access to both Starlink and Starshield services.

“The Ukrainian armed forces therefore rely on alternative means of communication and point-to-point navigation to strike targets in Russia. The speed restrictions under the Starshield service are unrelated to this and will not prevent the Ukrainian armed forces from attacking Russian oil refineries, data centres and other stationary targets in Russia,” the Institute for the Study of War said.

However, Ukrainians felt the problems mainly at the home front.

An unnamed Ukrainian officer compared it to nuclear strikes in comments to Politico. “All operations have been suspended. It will cost many of us our lives,” an experienced soldier commanding a medium-range unmanned aircraft unit in south-eastern Ukraine told the Brussels-based website.

They use Hornet drones to attack targets at distances of up to 150 km.

Ukrainian soldiers contacted by Politico said the restrictions had halted some medium-range drone attacks over Ukraine, disrupting strikes on Russian logistics and reducing support for Ukrainian units at the front.

The scale of the disruption is unclear, however, and it is not known whether the restriction remains in place.

If Musk did not switch off Starlink, who did? The main suspects. Several Ukrainian soldiers reported on Wednesday that they had had to suspend their operations because of restrictions on satellite connections with drones that exceeded 160 km/h.

According to former minister Mykhailo Fedorov, this capability was later restored. NV sources, by contrast, said the speed limit remained in place on Wednesday evening. The following day, operation of the system was fully restored, according to Ukraine’s defence ministry, while the circumstances of the outage are being investigated.

Importantly, Zelensky said it was not a technical problem but an apparent deliberate act. It is not yet certain who was behind it, although the main suspect is clear.

Musk claims that, because the military version of the Starshield satellite internet connection is military in nature, it is controlled by the US government, which also owns it.

“Any decisions on speed or usage restrictions are made by the US military and, ultimately, the US president (POTUS),” the world’s richest man wrote on his social network X. However, the White House, according to Axios sources, claims it had nothing to do with the restriction and wants Musk’s company to investigate the circumstances.

Republican senator Tom Tillis is also calling for this in Congress. “I do not expect defence secretary Hegseth to ensure transparency, and therefore we will ask the defence department’s inspector general to launch an investigation and report to Congress and the American people,” he wrote on X.

Starshield differs from the regular network in its greater resistance to jamming and its specialisation for military use.

Oleksandr “Serg Marco” Karpiuk, a well-known Ukrainian specialist in military aerial reconnaissance, wrote on Facebook that standard Starlink terminals currently have a preset speed limit of 22 m/s.

“To be able to fly at speeds above 22 m/s, Ukraine signed contracts for the Starshield system, which is managed by the Pentagon. This is a military system using Starlink terminals that offer greater functionality, although these accounts are substantially more expensive,” he explained. According to him, the Pentagon did two things within a single day: it restricted intelligence-sharing and changed the parameters of Starshield accounts.

“It was a decision by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, evidently on Trump’s orders,” Karpiuk believes, as quoted by Illia Ponomarenko in a post.

Pro-Kremlin propaganda has welcomed the latest developments.

The Russian daily Kommersant quoted a Musk post in which he wrote that it was “time for Zelensky to leave”. His words followed Trump once again pushing Ukraine to hold elections in which it would choose a new president.

Zelensky responded that they would be happy to organise elections if Russia observed a 60-day ceasefire.

Experts agree that it is unrealistic to organise a proper vote under the wartime conditions Ukraine faces.

Ukrainian attacks on data centres hit Russia where it hurts. Although it has not yet been confirmed that pro-Kremlin bots became less active after Ukrainian drones struck Russian servers, ordinary Russians felt the impact. Russia started such attacks in September, amid escalating air raids on Kyiv.

As many as around 100,000 households lost internet access at the time. Now, this tactic has been turned against Moscow.

Researchers studying Russian trolling did not observe any real decline in the activity of pro-Putin bots either, according to a BBC analysis. Far more interesting, however, are the real-world consequences of Ukrainian attacks on the data centres of Yandex, Russia’s Google, which have manifested themselves in a range of ways.

According to Politico sources, Ukrainians wanted to show Russians that it takes two to play this game. According to the Financial Times, they have already managed to seriously damage three of Yandex’s six data centres: in Sasovo, Kaluga and Vladimir.

The consequences of these attacks subsequently showed how vulnerable Russia’s centralised internet ecosystem is.

“Russia has become a victim of its own policies, which has led to the worst possible scenario,” Alena Epifanova, an expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told the FT.

The impact of the Ukrainian attack has affected the daily lives of Russians. Here overview of services that were affected to a greater or lesser extent, according to the British daily:

• problems accessing Yandex email;
• Yandex Taxi was taken offline;
• several websites — including a dating app and the Russian equivalent of McDonald’s — were inaccessible;
• saved files and documents could not be opened;
• bus timetables disappeared in some cities;
• residents of some Moscow apartment buildings could not get through electric gates;
• banking services were not fully operational.

All the affected data centres also have supercomputers used to train AI, which is playing an increasingly important role on the battlefield.

For example, one of Yandex’s three supercomputers — Chervonenkis — in Sasovo had long ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful supercomputers, and only in 2026 fell to 101st place, according to the BBC.

However, it has not been confirmed that Ukrainian attacks damaged any of them. According to the Russians, an attack on a similar Sberbank facility did not cause significant damage.

“If the supercomputers are damaged, replacing the loss will be difficult — they were powered by chips from the US company Nvidia, which Yandex imported through ‘complex and complicated schemes’ because of sanctions,” a former company employee told the BBC.

Given the current shortage of Nvidia chips, Yandex’s data centres may not be restored until 2028, according to the website.

Why this could escalate. Attacks on buildings that provide computing capacity are comparable, according to Politico, to strikes on a power plant supplying electricity, heat and fuel, on which both military and civilian functions depend.

That is also why this type of attack sits on the edge of international law.

“It may weaken the enemy’s military effort, but it can also completely paralyse ordinary life,” the Brussels-based website wrote. According to Politico, the cost of restoring data centres in Russia is particularly high because the necessary materials are scarce and their import is restricted by Western sanctions.

“Obtaining a large quantity of equipment to replace what has been destroyed will not be easy,” cyber specialist Oleg Shakirov told Politico.

For now, Ukrainian expert Yevhen Pronin is cautious in assessing the effectiveness of attacks on data centres. “For example, after the attack on Sberbank’s data centre — Russia’s largest bank and one of its key technology companies — its representatives said its systems were operating without disruption, and reports indicated that the centre itself was still under construction,” Pronin told Denník N.

However, a series of such strikes fundamentally changes the scale of the risk, he said. If attacks continue to hit large operational centres on which banks, state services and corporate services depend, the consequences could be far more serious.

“They range from widespread outages to data loss and disruption to critical digital infrastructure. We do not yet see a catastrophe for all of Russia, but rather the vulnerability of a system that is increasingly dependent on a few major technological hubs,” he added.

Attacks on data centres themselves are not a new feature of the Russia-Ukraine war.

At the start of Trump’s war against Iran, Amazon data centres in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were hit. This was followed by an attack on a data centre in Tehran, after which soldiers’ salary payments were interrupted and banks’ online services stopped working.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies examined at the time how data had become a new front line of warfare. Following a trip to Kyiv, its researcher Emily Harding concluded that “state-of-the-art software, flexible operational procedures, and the strategic migration of data to cloud storage both inside and outside the country have given Ukraine the advantage it needs to fight”.

The problems linked to Starlink only confirm this digital vulnerability of modern warfare.

Videos of the day

It returned even in critical condition. Ground robots are being deployed increasingly often at the Ukrainian front, saving more and more lives in the deadly zone where drones hunt people. In this case, one such robot returned from a demanding mission even without one wheel.

A Ukrainian logistics UGV returns from a combat mission despite sustaining critical damage pic.twitter.com/d8fT8sh21T

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 14, 2026

Attacks on ammunition depots. FPV drone operators from Artan, a special unit of Ukrainian military intelligence — apparently also thanks to Starlink — launched a series of attacks on field ammunition depots. Over several months, they reportedly struck 2,308 enemy targets.

Enemy tanks and self-propelled artillery systems probably accounted for a significant proportion of them.

View this post on Instagram

The Black Sea has become a new frontline between Russia and Ukraine, as the two agricultural powers join battle to halt each other’s exports.

On Tuesday (13 October), the Ukrainian-owned Chelsea 3, sailing under a Maltese flag, was struck by three drones only 30km off Bulgaria.

According to Bulgarian prime minister Rumen Radev, two ships were hit by drones, one of which sank.

The recent incidents underline the vulnerability of commercial shipping in a region where Russia and Ukraine depend on maritime routes for their international trade.

And on the coast, Bulgaria’s position is particularly sensitive, as a Nato member bordering the Black Sea.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen condemned the attacks on social media, calling them an “escalation” of the Russian war in Ukraine.

Nato general secretary Mark Rutte also reiterated the alliance’s commitment to regional security. “Nato would continue working closely with its Black Sea allies and had strengthened its posture along the eastern flank,” he said.

Shipping route under pressure

For Ukraine, access to the Black Sea is essential to exporting grain, sunflower oil, metals and other goods.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian Black Sea ports handled exports worth more than $40bn (€35.74bn).

Russian attacks on port infrastructure and shipping have severely undermined this trade, while the threat of further strikes raises the cost and risk of operating in the region.

Severe problems with Ukrainian agricultural exports became apparent as early as August, when the country managed to export only 20 percent of the grain it had shipped during the same period the previous year.

“With grain, it is more difficult,” Ukrainian agriculture minister Taras Vysotsky said.

He added that Ukraine’s domestic market was not suffering for now. Although buckwheat could become scarce, the main challenge for Kyiv now is to be able to export the supplies before they perish.

And alternative routes offer only partial relief.

Ukraine has increasingly relied on Danube ports, including Izmail and Reni, with cargo moving towards Romania’s Constanța port before being transferred to larger vessels for international markets.

But this corridor is under growing pressure from low water levels on the Danube, congested terminals and also drone attacks.

Waiting times for vessels seeking access to the river have exceeded two weeks.

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• Trump’s America is becoming a rogue state.
• The Russians are making a mockery of Trump’s energy ceasefire.
• What the restrictions on Starlink mean and how they are being felt.
• The Russians are pushing towards Dobropillia.
• The 3rd Army Corps reported on the next phase of Operation Vivaldi, but we learned nothing new.
• Maps of the day — Lyman, Dobropillia
• Videos of the day — a drone hit a flying Mi-28 helicopter; how a heavy machine gun is used in drone warfare; civilians fleeing the fighting were struck by artillery and mortar fire

Trump’s America is becoming a rogue state. Ukraine, as well as Europe as a whole, must now accept that the United States is openly supporting Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Under the pretext of efforts to end the war, the US government — and, as of Tuesday, a major technology company as well — are openly backing the fight against Ukraine and, therefore, against European security.

The United States has recently taken several decisions in quick succession that could help Russia win the war, at a time when it was failing to do so on the battlefield.

US president Donald Trump eased sanctions on trade in Russian oil, enabling Russian president Vladimir Putin to better finance his aggression against Ukraine, and effectively called for the overthrow of Ukraine’s legitimate president.

A growing number of voices claim that the US has stopped providing intelligence on Russian air raids (this has not been confirmed, and some authorities deny it).

And the United States has now also deprived the Ukrainian army of the ability to carry out effective medium-range strikes.

It did so by dramatically restricting the Starlink service over Ukraine’s occupied territories. In practice, this will have serious consequences for the Ukrainian army’s ability to use drones for its previously highly effective attacks on Russian logistics.

What the restrictions on Starlink mean and how they are being felt. Since this morning, the Ukrainian army has reported restrictions on the operation of receivers for SpaceX’s satellite system.

Thanks to Starlink boss Elon Musk’s equipment, they destroy hundreds of Russian army trucks and other military equipment every month at distances of 30 to more than 100 km.

However, on the night of 14 October, Ukrainians lost access to the military part of the system known as Starshield, meaning that the devices did not function at speeds above 160km/h. This means drones cannot carry out combat missions because their operators cannot guide them to their targets.

The situation deteriorated further during the day. Serhii Sternenko reported that the army later reported losing control at speeds above 70 km/h. This means grounding Ukraine’s drone fleet for medium-range attacks.

It is highly likely that this is not a technical problem but a response to a request from the Trump administration, since otherwise the Ukrainian army would have received an explanation — which, according to Ukrainian sources, did not happen.

According to our observations, communications may have been interrupted for 10 to 20 seconds during drone flights,even at speeds of 110 to 120 kilometres per hour,” Oboronka news outlet quoted a military source.

A technical problem is unlikely, as the Ukrainian military would have received an explanation in that case, which,according to Ukrainian sources, did not happen. The question now is how long the outage will last. It is also unclear to what extent the decision was made by Musk and to what extent by Trump.

“Our defence forces received no warning of such a restriction, which led to the cancellation of several missions. It is clear that this is no coincidence and is connected to the current political situation,” wrote Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, for example.

He described as an even more serious problem than the restriction of medium-range attacks the fact that Starlink is now crucial to intercepting Russian air raids on Ukrainian cities.

“Through their actions, our partners are depriving us of one of the few means of protecting the country against jet-powered Shahed drones,” said Beskrestnov, a leading drone expert.

Among European politicians, Poland’s foreign minister responded by asking Musk whether he was once again engaging in politics, and reminding him that his European customers were watching him closely.

Naturally, the Russians are delighted.

However, the change will not affect Ukrainian long-range air strikes. The drones carrying them out are not guided using Starlink, so the restrictions will not affect their operations.

Hey, @elonmusk, big man, are you playing politics with your products again?
As your European customers, we are watching you. https://t.co/T385xpUEUu

— Radosław Sikorski 🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@sikorskiradek) October 14, 2026

The Russians are making a mockery of Trump’s energy ceasefire. The US president characteristically announced with great fanfare that he had brokered an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.

Although the Russian army did not observe it for a single day, the Ukrainians stayed away from Russian refineries for 48 hours. That is no longer the case after today, but before then the Russians carried out a massive air raid, including on the capital.

They used as many as 39 ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones. Since Trump had earlier deprived Ukraine of effective air defence in the form of missiles for Patriot systems, it has nothing with which to defend itself against such attacks. As a result, the Russians struck three Kyiv thermal power plants on Wednesday.

Overnight, the Russians used 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions against our energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the Kyiv region, and Kharkiv. A targeted Russian ballistic missile strike specifically against energy infrastructure…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 14, 2026

The Kremlin does not even conceal that a Trump ceasefire means nothing to it.

“Tonight, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike using precision-guided weapons and long-range strike drones against communications and energy infrastructure facilities in Kyiv, Kyiv region and Kharkiv region,” said a statement by the Russian defence ministry.

It also included a list of the power plants hit. The Russians boasted that they had struck six of them. For each one, they used the formula that it was “supplying electricity to military logistics facilities, weapons depots and military equipment”.

Mike Pence, who served as Trump’s vice-president during his first term, wrote that Putin did not want peace but Ukraine, and that Trump should impose harsh sanctions rather than strike a deal with Putin. None of this, however, will happen.

Putin doesn’t want peace. Putin wants Ukraine. Enough is enough.

President Trump should rescind the diesel deal with Russia and return to the strong policies of our four years in the White House; use the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia Act to impose harsh sanctions on any… pic.twitter.com/uw11mEkh0x

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) October 13, 2026

The Russians are pushing towards Dobropillia. All analysts agree on this. Their advance is slow, but persistent. It is enabled by the mass deployment of Russian soldiers.

The Kremlin has currently concentrated its largest number of forces in this sector. It therefore appears that the capture of Dobropillia is the Russian command’s main objective in these weeks.

“The Russians here have a seemingly endless pool of manpower and a clear numerical advantage, allowing them to significantly increase the flow of infiltrators and thus the likelihood that some will penetrate Ukrainian defences,” wrote the OSINT account Playfra, whose map can be found below. However, the price of the unceasing waves of infantry is, according to it, “colossal losses” on the Russian side.

Dobropillia sector.

In the same way, this sector is also worsening.

The Russians have a seemingly infinite manpower pool here and a clear numerical advantage, which allows them to significantly increase the flow of infiltrators and, as such, the chance of some passing through… https://t.co/BoiqRuCRs5 pic.twitter.com/pKBIhHZW3d

— Playfra (@Playfra0) October 13, 2026

French analyst Clément Molin published a time-lapse map of the past four months based on DeepStateUA data. Its latest version is not the most accurate and does not correspond to other sources, but it illustrates the slow pace of the Russian advance.

During the last 4 months, Russia 🇷🇺 made a slow but steady progress in the direction of Dobropilla

Russian forces continue to advance and capture villages and small towns south of Dobropilla. Shevchenko and Bilytske fell, Russian forces are now attacking Dobropilla from the… pic.twitter.com/mTDRo4DcPf

— Clément Molin (@clement_molin) October 13, 2026

The Polish analytical account Thorkill examined the situation north-east of Dobropillia in greater detail. It sees a significant Russian advance there.

It bases this assessment on Sentinel satellite data which, it said, showed no signs of Russian bombardment in the areas of Zolotyi Kolodiaz, Novotroitske and Andriivka — an indication, in its view, that they are under Russian army control.

Sytuacja w rejonie: Zołote Kołodiazi – Nowotroickie – Andrivka (Dobropole).

Mniej więcej miesiąc temu we wpisie o bardzo dużej liczbie FAB-ów z modułami UMPK zrzucanych przez rus w rejonie Andrivki, sygnalizowałem że sytuacja 1 Korpusu "Azowa" GN na płn od Dobropola jest dużo… pic.twitter.com/KihWWAuI7u

— Thorkill (@Thorkill65) October 13, 2026

Playfra sees the situation far less negatively. It did confirm Russian infiltration in Andriivka, which lies as much as 20 km behind the notional front line, but said that around eight Russian groups of two to four soldiers were moving throughout the area and did not pose a threat.

For easier orientation: Zolotyi Kolodiaz is at the tip of the green salient on Playfra’s map. On Thorkill’s map above, it is located in the lower centre, within the red area.

The two depictions of the situation therefore differ radically. However, there is agreement that the Russians are currently exerting the greatest pressure near Dobropillia and are advancing slowly.

Dobropillia direction.

The situation is quite peculiar tactically:

South, after the clearing conducted since August, some Russian groups still remain in the dotted square, mixed with some new infiltrators, but they aren't significant.

Much further north, above Andriivka, a… pic.twitter.com/J1N67oLDyT

— Playfra (@Playfra0) October 13, 2026

The 3rd Army Corps reported on the next phase of Operation Vivaldi, but we learned nothing new. Andrii Biletskyi, the commander of what is perhaps the strongest component of Ukraine’s army, published a new video confirming the liberation of another 101 square kms north of Lyman. Since the start of Operation Vivaldi, this brings the total to 277 square km.

Четвертий сезон операції «Вівальді»: Білецький оголосив про взяття ще 101 км²

Третій армійський корпус та придані підрозділи звільнили ще три населені пункти — Зелену Долину, Липове й Колодязі, — повідомив у своєму зверненні бригадний генерал Андрій Білецький. Протягом… pic.twitter.com/0Msxrau6yw

— Третій армійський корпус (@ab3army) October 14, 2026

The Ukrainian project DeepStateUA, which is close to the army and respects the operational silence it has declared, also published its map of the area.

The latest version includes the liberation of the villages of Kolodiazi, Zelena Dolyna and Lypove. However, this is not new information but merely reflects changes that have been discussed since August.

Russian sources, especially Rybar, have also repeatedly reported that fighting is actually taking place further east. According to them, Ukrainian soldiers have already reached several locations, including the village of Terny on the Zherebets River. This area is marked red on DeepStateUA’s map, indicating that it is under Russian control.

Poland’s Thorkill has more recent data. Over the weekend, it published a map consistent with Rybar’s claims that Ukrainians had reached the Zherebets near Terny and further north.

Sytuacja w rejonie Nowego (Łyman), część IV.

Po blisko miesięcznej przerwie wczoraj w Donbasie była w końcu bezchmurna pogoda i można było przyjrzeć się na Sentinelu co się mniej więcej dzieje na tych najciekawszych odcinkach frontu. Jeżeli chodzi o rejon na płn od Łymanu -… pic.twitter.com/2yods3H3Yk

— Thorkill (@Thorkill65) October 10, 2026

Videos of the day

A Ukrainian drone pursued and caught up with a Russian Mi-28 attack helicopter in Kharkiv region. The Russians were on a combat mission; the footage clearly shows a missile being launched. The outcome of the attack is not yet known.

Ukraine's 115th Mechanized Brigade "Aliens" struck a Russian Mi-28 with drone, downing it pic.twitter.com/wefYKaMDk4

— Ukraine Control Map (@UAControlMap) October 14, 2026

The following photographs are related to the previous video. The image on the left appeared on the Russian internet at the beginning of the month, described as the result of an FPV drone strike. It is currently unknown whether this is the same incident or another, as yet unidentified one.

In early October, Russian sources published photos showing damage to the right side of a Mi-28 attack helicopter, specifically the pneumatic emergency escape ladder just below the pilot’s cockpit, claiming it had been hit by an FPV drone.

Newly released Ukrainian footage shows… https://t.co/JnEf5B2oh5 pic.twitter.com/IGdhaH8ffb

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 14, 2026

A 12.7mm US heavy machine gun being fired. The close-up footage shows what the trigger looks like, but above all reveals the tactics for using the weapon. The machine gunner fires a short burst at Russian positions, then reports over the radio that the task has been completed.

A confirming “plus, plus” is heard twice from the other end — “plus” is used in radio communication to confirm receipt of a message — after which the soldier covers the machine-gun position with a camouflage net and goes into hiding to avoid being detected by Russian drones.

Ukrainian soldier supresses Russian assault with a Browning M2 from WW2.

Then hides it right before Russian drones can blow him up#Rubizh pic.twitter.com/joUzQG96OU

— Rubizh (@RubizhBrigade) October 13, 2026

Only the Ukrainian version of events is known about the footage below. It shows civilians from the Kupiansk area attempting to move to safety. However, they are struck by fire while on the move — the number of casualties is unknown and they cannot be seen in the footage.

According to the Khartiia unit, which published the video, the Russian army subjected the group to artillery and mortar fire. The claim cannot be verified. In any case, it illustrates that it is a mistake to remain in areas affected by fighting.

Цивільні – живий щит росіян, а потім – їхня мішень для інформаційної провокації.

У Купʼянську вранці 13 жовтня росіяни прикривалися мирними жителями, виводячи їх до труби газогону, й самі ж накрили групу мінометним та артилерійським вогнем. Серед людей були жінки та дитина. pic.twitter.com/lB6AGd7fFk

— КОРПУС ХАРТІЯ (@khartiia_corps) October 13, 2026

This article was updated.

• Russia is estimated to be recruiting 10 percent fewer soldiers this year than last, despite regions raising signing bonuses.
• There is growing talk that criminal gangs have begun to take part in recruiting “volunteers”.
• According to the Ukrainians, Russia is losing large numbers of soldiers, and October could be a record month.
• Attacks on the land route to Crimea continue, reportedly prompting Russia to transport fuel in jerry cans in smaller vehicles.
• Map of the day: Where Russia is advancing and where Ukraine is advancing
• Videos of the day: Ukrainians hit a Russian radar; a man surfed on a Russian drone near Odesa; speculation spreads that Iran is supplying Russia with fuel.

Many Russians have left Russia in recent months. They feared the mobilisation that had been so widely discussed. Ukrainians said Russian president Vladimir Putin might resort to it after the September parliamentary elections. Many Russians fled to Armenia and Georgia, affecting rental prices in the capitals of these Caucasus states.

So far, no mobilisation has taken place. Russia continues to rely on its existing system of voluntary — and, in some places, involuntary — recruitment of new soldiers in Russian regions.

German economist Janis Kluge, who tracks regional data, wrote last week that Russia recruits around 1,000 new soldiers a day (30,000 a month). That is less than last year — down six percent in September and 10 percent over the year as a whole.

Nor did it help that, by his estimate, the sum paid by regions as a signing bonus had risen from $16,000 (€14,000) to $22,000.

In some places, recruitment is also beginning to move into the illegal sphere. Kluge wrote that local criminal gangs were now becoming involved in the system.

He mentioned the case of a prosecutor in Nizhny Tagil, a city of 400,000 in the Urals. In September, he appealed to the budget committee of the local duma.

He complained that signing bonuses for Russian soldiers were leading to an increase in crime in the city. He called for payments to agents who find volunteers willing to sign an army contract to be stopped.

According to Kluge, the prosecutor complained that criminal elements had become involved in recruitment in the city. He said an agent received $4,500 for finding one person to sign a contract.

Many turned to gangs to help them, with the assistance of corrupt police officers or military recruiters who are part of the scheme. “And this ‘persuasion’ may also involve violence, as another case from Sverdlovsk region shows: two criminals forced their victims to sign contracts and then seized their bonus payments,” Kluge wrote.

In Nizhny Tagil, 580 new soldiers were recruited last year, compared with 330 this year. It is not known how many of them criminal gangs helped to “persuade” in exchange for payment. In any case, the city does not want to change its system of rewards for agents because, in the words of the deputy mayor, it helps “fulfil our tasks”.

Overall, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Russia to supply enough manpower to the front. Moreover, it is currently losing large numbers of soldiers there, and October’s losses could even be record-breaking.

Ukraine publishes daily figures for killed and wounded Russian soldiers. These figures cannot be verified and may be inflated, but the trend suggests that the situation is worsening for Russia.

The table below also shows this. According to it, Russia lost around 46,000 soldiers in September — more than 1,500 a day — making it, according to Ukrainian data, the second-worst month since the start of the war. The figure was higher only in December 2024.

This October is on course to become Russia’s worst month in this respect. By the 12th day of the month, Russia had been losing an average of 1,620 soldiers per day. If Ukraine maintains this pace, it will be a record.

Number of Russian military casualties per month, according to Ukraine. Source: minfin.com.ua

Naturally, the question is how much these figures can be trusted. However, the Unmanned Systems Forces, a unit commanded by Robert Brovdi, known as Magyar, also publish figures for killed and wounded Russian soldiers.

The Ukrainian units under its command compete with one another over which can strike more Russian targets. They receive points based on this, which they can then use to buy more drones. Individual strikes should therefore be confirmed by video.

Given this, the data published by the Unmanned Systems Forces can be considered credible. They too indicate that October could be a record month, although their data cover only one-third of Russia’s total losses.

Number of Russian soldiers killed and wounded by SBS drones

Record-high losses and less substantial numbers of newly recruited soldiers suggest that Russia may have difficulties replenishing its units and, consequently, advancing further in Donbas or elsewhere.

Attacks on the land route to Crimea continue. Last week, French OSINT analyst Clément Molin published a table according to which the number of Russian lorries and trucks struck had reached a record 770. Several videos show that the number of attacks on vehicles heading to Crimea or to the front in southern Ukraine remains high. They are simply not discussed as much because this is no longer new.

I continue, on my side, to gather statistics on these mid-range strikes against logistics, not only in southern Ukraine, but also near Donetsk or Luhansk.

In September, at least 770 trucks/vehicles were targeted, only on the videos published by Ukraine more than 20km from the… pic.twitter.com/w9DrQTnGEM

— Clément Molin (@clement_molin) October 7, 2026

Ukraine also destroyed the Chonhar bridge, which connects Ukraine with the Crimean peninsula. Russia has used a pontoon bridge there instead. This video shows Russian cargo vehicles crossing the pontoon bridge.

Russian truck drivers crossing into Crimea via a pontoon crossing at Chonhar, with a view of the damaged Chonhar Bridge and its support structures, before one of its spans collapsed. September 2026. https://t.co/YLDiB7lJQu pic.twitter.com/3oU4GVylDd

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 10, 2026

The commander of Ukraine’s 41st Pilum Unmanned Systems Regiment, part of the 1st Azov Corps, recently provided interesting information on this issue. In an interview with Radio NV, he confirmed that the number of medium-range strikes was not declining and was increasing in some areas.

He said that the operational zone overseen by Ukraine extended from 30 to 300 km.

According to him, Russia is trying to bring as much fuel as possible to the front. Soldiers need generators to charge equipment, power radios and drones, and keep warm.

However, Ukrainian attacks on fuel tankers are reducing Russia’s ability to bring fuel to the front. According to the commander, in the Dobropillia direction, where his unit operates, Russia began transporting fuel in convoys this summer and switched to distributing it in passenger cars or small trucks, carrying the fuel in jerry cans.

This does not, of course, apply to all directions. However, an ongoing stream of new videos also confirms the destruction of fuel tankers.

Map of the day

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s latest — though certainly not final — deadline for capturing Donbas is by the end of this year. As on 14 previous occasions, it will not be met.

Unlike in previous years, however, it appears entirely possible that by the end of the year the territory of the free part of Donetsk region could be even larger than it is now. This is suggested by a map published by French OSINT analyst Clément Molin. It highlights areas where Ukraine is advancing and areas where Russia is pushing forward.

As can be seen, Russian forces largely hold the initiative in the north of Kharkiv region and at one location in the south of Zaporizhzhia region.

In the crucial Donetsk region, however, the situation is balanced; indeed, it could be said that Ukraine holds the initiative in more places. More specifically, it is clearing the northern area above Lyman and pushing further south towards Velyka Novosilka.

Source: Clément Molin

Videos of the day

Ukraine’s 15th Reconnaissance Artillery Brigade published a video showing it striking a Russian 96L6 radar. This is a key component of the S-300 and S-400 air-defence systems.

The radar can be seen moving and hiding in a tree line. Nevertheless, a Ukrainian drone struck it. It is unclear whether it was actually destroyed, as the accompanying text claims.

Ukraine’s 15th Artillery Reconnaissance Brigade “Black Forest” located and destroyed a Russian 96L6 radar, a key detection component used with S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. The radar is valued at around $50 million and has a stated detection range of up to 300 km. #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/1K4BUZXZrg

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) October 13, 2026

A man near Odesa decided to surf on a downed Russian drone floating on the water off the coast. It hardly needs to be said that this is a fairly risky pastime. However, it indicates how at least some residents of Odesa view the daily Russian attacks.

❗️In 🇺🇦Odesa, a man decided to go surfing on a downed Russian kamikaze drone “Geran”. pic.twitter.com/l3MG3YkQiz

— 🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦 (@front_ukrainian) October 12, 2026

This could be a potentially rather interesting plot twist. The United States is at war with Iran, which has raised petrol and diesel prices at US filling stations. Donald Trump therefore agreed with Putin to import diesel from Russia. Russia itself, however, does not have enough diesel and has to import it.

This video shows a tanker truck with Iranian registration plates in Russia. Some infer from this that Iran is importing diesel — or other fuels — into Russia, which then sends diesel to America, despite America being at war with Iran.

However, it is too early to draw conclusions: we do not know what is in the truck or how many such Iranian tankers are heading to Russia. In any case, Russia is helping Iran in other ways.

A Western official told Bloomberg that Russia was supplying Iran with missiles that it uses in the war against the US and Israel. It was also previously reported that Russia was helping Iran target US bases in the region.

⚡️BREAKING: Convoys carrying Iranian Diesel Fuel are on their way to Russia, where there is a Fuel Shortage

This also raises the question of whether the fuel Russia exports to the United States might originate from Iran pic.twitter.com/J9Fzk7LVDa

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) October 12, 2026

Britain is expected to push for a new post-Brexit trade deal and increased information-sharing on immigration at a UK-EU summit in Brussels next month.

This comes as Andy Burnham, the country’s prime minister, says the post-Brexit “status quo is not good enough for Britain”, in a hint that he might seek to rejoin the European Union.

And, more than a decade after the Brexit vote, he also accused Russia of having meddled in the 2016 British referendum.

The UK leader will meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa in Brussels on 20 November.

And Costa has also said that European and British security and prosperity are “closely intertwined”, while a closer relationship could “promote stability in Europe and beyond”.

Made in Europe and immigration

The November summit will be an opportunity to “raise concerns” about ‘Made in Europe,’ Burnham told members of UK MPs on Monday (12 October).

The ‘Made in Europe’ proposal in the Industrial Accelerator Act would require companies to source a certain number of parts from within the EU to be eligible for public money in strategic sectors.

But UK officials are worried the law could hurt British manufacturers, with Burnham expected to seek concessions.

But the British premier also wants to go further in renegotiating his country’s ties with the EU. 

“On the table is a trade deal on food and drink products, a deal on emissions trading, progress towards linking our energy systems, a new youth experience scheme, and deeper cooperation on immigration,” he said. 

Burnham aims to address an EU import ban on UK meat, seed potatoes, and shellfish and wants to reduce costs for shipping other goods to mainland Europe. 

He also hopes for closer work between European and UK border forces on immigration.  

“On immigration, we could link up our law enforcement efforts once again [since brexit], sharing more data and criminal records of foreign nationals,” Burnham said.

He may aim to rejoin the Schengen Information System, a database for border management and law enforcement cooperation in Europe.

And he could also pursue greater freedoms for UK citizens to live in the 27 member states.

“It would be a major dereliction of duty to turn away [from the EU]” the UK leader told parliament.

10 years on from Brexit vote

The last EU-UK summit, held in London in 2025, was already branded as a reset in relations across the English channel, with a new defence and security partnership, reciprocal access to fishing waters, and expansion of student exchanges. 

And leaders are expected to build on the previous agreements by discussing defence, energy, and climate, as well as trade and migration, at their meeting next month.

But under the terms of the EU and UK’s legal divorce in 2020, the two sides remain bound by complex limitations.

And Burnham told MPs on Monday that renegotiating Britain’s relations with the EU could add over £10bn (€11.8bn) per year to the UK economy by 2040, “with the potential to add significantly more,” even if it did not rejoin.

Russian meddling?

Burnham also told a podcast on 11 October that Russia had meddled in the country’s Brexit vote 10 years ago. 

Upon assuming office in July, Burnham asked officials if there had been Russian interference in the 2016 referendum, he told The Rest is Politics, and officials gave him a “clear answer that yes, there was.”

“We haven’t informed people [the general public] sufficiently,” he added, amid similar Russian electoral interference in France, Germany, and further afield in Europe.

For his part, British foreign secretary Stephen Doughty subsequently told the LBC broadcaster: “I don’t think [Russia] succeeded in their efforts to undermine our election”.

And Burnham also rowed back in the parliament debate on Monday when pressed by opposition MPs, by saying the outcome of the Brexit vote remained legitimate.

But he added that Russia’s meddling in the UK’s 2019 general election was a matter of record and that it was “inconceivable that this was the first time”.

Appetite for EU re-entry 

Burnham also dropped hints on Monday that Britain could rejoin the European Union.

“One thing I think is true is that public opinion has moved more quickly than political opinion. I think the political class is behind the public on this issue,” he said.

“At every stage, the British public will be the boss,” he added, while promising a “pragmatic approach” to the hot-button issue, which has the potential to enflame right-wing anger in England.

“We need to draw a line on a decade of drift and division [from Europe],” he said.

But questions of a holding second referendum were “jumping ahead too far” according to Burnham.

The Westminster debate came after YouGov polling commissioned by Best for Britain, a pro-EU lobby group, indicated that pushing for closer EU ties would be politically advantageous for Burnham’s ruling Labour party.

The organisation also claimed Britain could reenter the union within five years.

Brexit was “not a sacred cow”, said Emily Thornberry, a fellow Labour MP, on Monday.

Sandro Gozi, an Italian liberal MEP and chair of the UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly, also said in a statement: “As a former member, and with much of the regulatory framework already in place, I personally do not see any serious reason why an application from the UK would not be achievable.”

“When countries are already closely aligned to EU rules, such as was the case for Sweden and Finland, the process for accession is faster than for applicants essentially starting from scratch,” he said.

“The issue is, do we have another leader to replace Pedro Sánchez?”.

Former Spanish congresswoman Hana Jalloul Muro is among her prime minister’s closest allies in the European Parliament.

“It has not been an easy mandate. Every day is a survival day, all the challenges that prime minister Pedro Sánchez has faced have been unprecedented,” the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEP told EUobserver.

They had faced the Covid pandemic, a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands in 2021, and the migrant crisis in the Ceuta enclave in north Africa in the summer of 2026, she said – not to mention the corruption allegations levelled at his close relatives.

And he now risked being unseated in a snap election on 5 October, called after nationwide protests against lack of affordable housing.

Sánchez’ PSOE party is trailing behind the centre right people’s party (PP) in the polls, which is also growing closer allied to the increasingly successful far-right Vox party. 

“These elections will pit two models against each other,” Jalloul said.

“On the one hand, a progressive government that defends public services, improves wages and pensions, expands rights and protects the social majority. And on the other, a model represented by the PP and Vox, which, wherever they govern, have opted for privatisations and policies that risk widening inequalities,” she said.

Ceuta-linked election

Jalloul, who spoke to EUobserver at the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels, used to lecture on international terrorism at the University of Madrid, before she became vice-chair of the EP’s foreign affairs committee.

And she recalled the heated debate on the Ceuta incident on 31 July, including accusations that Morocco had engineered it to gain leverage over Spain. 

“This is a crisis that we could not expect,” she said.

But had there not been a “good relationship with Morocco, [we] would never be able to return 90 percent of the 70,000 people that came in less than 72 hours,” she added.  

This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership

• They looked like Russian “porcupines” and fought where the Kremlin considers Russian rear territory. They were protected by their own drone.
• Drones also struck Yandex’s third data centre.
• The battle for Dobropillia on a new type of map.
• Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles caused the largest single massacre of senior Russian officers of the entire war in August.
• Maps of the day — Dobropillia, Kharkiv region
• Videos of the day — Abrams as a porcupine; MANPADS against a Geran; Russian port during an air raid; nighttime FPV drone combat; Kyiv resident narrowly escapes death at a playground

They looked like Russian “porcupines” and fought where the Kremlin considers Russian rear territory. They were protected by their own drone. Both the Russian and Ukrainian armies are continuing their efforts to return tanks and combat vehicles to the battlefield.

Russia recently attacked near Dobropillia with tanks fitted with upgraded Arena-M active protection systems.

The system itself proved effective, but was ultimately unable to withstand the flood of drones, and the attack ended in defeat and the destruction of the tanks deployed.

Last week, we also wrote about a successful operation by Ukrainian tanks from the 475th Assault Regiment.

And the same Ukrainian unit, also known as CODE 9.2, demonstrated a new use of heavy armoured equipment over the weekend.

Compared with the first case, this one revealed an important detail about the operation of accompanying drones and, thanks to geolocation, can also be used to verify the accuracy of Russian maps.

The battle took place in the Kharkiv region and involved a US-made Bradley combat vehicle as well as a tank. According to one source, it was an Abrams of Australian origin, although the appearance of its gun barrel does not suggest this.

In a video released by the unit, the Bradley advances first towards Russian positions and begins laying down covering fire. The tank joins it later, firing directly at the target.

While the Bradley’s turret has retained its mobility, the tank has effectively become an assault gun of the type known from the Second World War.

Its turret does not appear to be capable of moving, and the crew must aim the entire tank at the target. This reduces the effectiveness and speed of firing, while increasing its chances of survival.

A tank modified in this way is virtually indistinguishable from similar Russian adaptations. What distinguishes these attempts is, once again, the involvement of accompanying drones.

Aside from the heavy Vampire, first seen at 1:30, this primarily includes an FPV drone which, at 1:58, neutralises in an aerial duel the same type of Russian weapon that had attempted to strike the tank.

This is another example of how heavy equipment must be accompanied by drones at this stage of the war if it is to remain combat-capable.

Despite air support, another drone strikes it at 2:16 — after another had narrowly missed earlier. The tank remained mobile and withdrew successfully.

Beyond the operation itself, its location is also noteworthy: near the village of Anishchyne in the north-eastern part of the Kharkiv region, on the axis Russia calls the Velykyi Burluk direction.

The Ukrainian Telegram account Petrenko, which also provided the map below, precisely identified the site of the battle.

“The video reveals a discrepancy between reality and Russian claims of an alleged massive advance, the encirclement of Ukrainian units and the capture of more than 65 settlements,” the author wrote.

He noted that both vehicles operated in territory that most Russian maps mark in red — as a “Russian” zone.

This is the same area about which we have written repeatedly. For comparison, below is a map by the Russian state agency Ria Novosti. The village of Anishchyne does not appear on it, but the settlement of Vilkhuvatka — Olkhovatka in Russian — serves as a reference point in the centre-right.

The tank and Bradley were fighting around five km north of a location that Russia marks as securely captured.

Drones also struck Yandex’s third data centre. Graphs circulated online, particularly on Sunday, suggesting that Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s largest internet provider had restricted the operations of Russian bots around the world.

However, this has not yet been objectively proven. Russia has indeed reported outages affecting various internet-based services after each attack, but that is so far the only confirmed effect.

On this occasion, French analyst Clément Molin pointed out that the Russian Varyag drone brigade had attacked data centres in Ukraine in recent weeks and had boasted, among other things, of damaging Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest operator.

The situation has now been reversed, as it was previously with attacks on ships and warehouses. This time, however, to Russia’s disadvantage.

Russia 🇷🇺 bombed multiple data centers in Kyiv, Dnipro or Odesa these last few weeks and proudly showed footage about it

Now, Ukraine is bombing Yandex data centers and causing much more harm to Russia than Russia did to Ukraine.

This is another example of symmetrical war. In… pic.twitter.com/yAXzcUN3FQ

— Clément Molin (@clement_molin) October 12, 2026

The first centre hit was in Sasovo, in the Ryazan region, followed by a second in Kaluga, in the Kaluga region. On Sunday, the third of Yandex’s four largest centres was struck, this time in Vladimir, in the Vladimir region.

“This complex houses one of the company’s Galushkin supercomputers, which is among the most powerful in Russia,” Kommersant wrote, adding that the facility had been taken out of service, affecting 10 core Yandex services, including its email service.

The situation is serious enough that, according to digital development minister Maksut Shadayev, “Yandex is facing an unprecedented attack on its data centres”.

The defence ministry is also working on the issue in an effort to protect the company’s remaining facilities. Citing its sources, Kommersant said replacing the damaged capacity could take up to six months.

The battle for Dobropillia on a new type of map. As the war evolves, so do the ways it is mapped. This Ukrainian OSINT profile, for example, has depicted the fighting for the important Donbas town — which protects the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration from the south-west — on a dynamic map.

Among other things, it shows that Russian forces are infiltrating the town through the village of Hanivka from the Nove Shakhove area.

Mashovets Dobropillia
Russia wants Kramatorsk, to the north-east. Its strongest attack here heads west, into Dobropillia: up to 40 men a day along the Byk river.

If Dobropillia and Druzhkivka hold to late December, Russia would have to replan the offensive. pic.twitter.com/OXg8F1WYXy

— Vitaly (@M0nstas) October 8, 2026

For a clearer picture, we are also including a static DeepStateUA map, as the previous one is rotated and does not follow the usual compass orientation.

The two maps are rotated by around 90 degrees in relation to each other. On the following one, Dobropillia is in the centre-left. Nove Shakhove, from where Russian infiltrators are advancing, is almost at the centre, exactly 10 km to the east as the crow flies. A small arrow directly next to the settlement’s name indicates the direction of Russian attacks.

The green area in the upper part of the map is the so-called Dobropillia salient, which was fought over a year ago.

Russia reported nothing significant concerning Dobropillia after the weekend. “On the Dobropillia axis, our forces continue to push forward, but Ukrainian units retain the ability to counterattack. Heavy fighting is under way,” the Two Majors wrote, for example.

The Ukrainian Telegram channel Petrenko published a map over the weekend showing sites of new infiltrations. Its interpretation differs considerably from DeepStateUA’s version. Russian forces are shown closer to the town, but the direction of their advance is the same as in the two previous sources.

The sites of the recorded incursions were established on the basis of videos showing drones killing Russian soldiers attempting to advance further west.

Storm Shadow missiles caused the largest single massacre of senior Russian officers in August. On Friday (9 October), a joint project by Russian exile newspaper Meduza and the BBC’s Russian service added another 17,124 names to its list of Russian war casualties. This was the number it had counted since 21 September. In total, 276,113 Russian soldiers killed in the war are now known by name.

On the same day, the project’s authors published a detailed analysis of events in Donetsk on 26 August. The Ukrainian air force had attacked a building in Donetsk with Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missiles.

The strike was so intense that the target must have been something significant. Almost immediately, there was speculation that the building housed an important Russian headquarters.

Meduza and the BBC counted 20 high-ranking Russian military personnel killed during a joint meeting of the headquarters of the Centre group of forces and its subordinate 41st Army — 18 at the scene and another two from their injuries in the following days.

This week, in our update of Russian losses in Ukraine:
– 17,000 names added to our list since September 21https://t.co/lBGxPNvv8z

– one Ukrainian strike takes out more Russian officers than ever during the entire war; we reveal their nameshttps://t.co/BU4B66hwTN pic.twitter.com/X9l0o5MGkz

— Mediazona (@mediazona_en) October 9, 2026

They included seven colonels, six lieutenant colonels, five majors, one captain and one senior non-commissioned officer. They were identified thanks to access to nominal lists of headquarters staff as of 25 July and after that date.

It also emerged that this was not the first time officers of the 41st Army had had a bad day. During an attack on 8 September 2025, it lost a lieutenant colonel, two majors and a lieutenant. The toll on 4 August 2026 was even worse, when the army lost two lieutenant colonels, three majors, two captains and one lieutenant at once.

The following images illustrate the scale of destruction caused by the strike on 26 August:

Some of the aftermath of the today’s mass missile strike on Donetsk. https://t.co/rymUEYGOc5 pic.twitter.com/Bv2jUrIuhj

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) August 26, 2026

Videos of the day

As Russian jet-powered drones become more widespread, videos are also appearing more frequently of Ukrainian soldiers shooting them down with man-portable air-defence systems, known by the English acronym MANPADS. This is one of them.

A Ukrainian soldier shot down a Russian jet-powered Geran-4 drone using an Igla-1 MANPADS over Ukraine’s Rivne region this morning. pic.twitter.com/4onx7UNclQ

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 11, 2026

Despite its best efforts, air defences at one of Russia’s ports were unable to shoot down a Ukrainian drone, which subsequently struck a Black Sea Fleet vessel. Note the beams of light used to assist with targeting.

Один из Z-блогеров опубликовал видео работы ПВО в гавани (Новороссийск?) и попадание дрона ВСУ в военный корабль. Дата съемки неизвестна, однако, уже видны те самые синие лучи, которые пару лет назад решили ввести как лучшее средство подсветки цели. Покупали их военные обычно за… pic.twitter.com/WvDuR369Z3

— IanMatveev (@ian_matveev) October 10, 2026

The Russian soldiers in this nighttime video appear relaxed. They were probably moving through an area they still considered relatively safe. But a waiting drone equipped with a thermal camera was tracking them.

A Ukrainian FPV drone lying in ambush at night spots a passing Russian assault group of four soldiers on a quad bike, waits for the right moment, then takes off and strikes them. pic.twitter.com/MD83B4RkKk

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 10, 2026

A Kyiv resident narrowly avoided a Russian drone at the last moment as it crashed into a playground.

A man narrowly escaped a Russian drone strike on the grounds of a kindergarten in Ukraine’s Kyiv region yesterday. pic.twitter.com/aOwWNAa6Vj

— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) October 9, 2026

Student protests in France are an expression of the country’s deep political and economic crisis, says Jan Rovný, a Czech professor at Paris’s Sciences Po.

Students from elite schools and universities have joined secondary-school pupils from deprived suburbs in protesting for education reforms. Rovný explains how these young people protest in solidarity with less fortunate peers, invoking ideals of equality embedded in French minds.

He explained how traditionally violent protests in the republic are often met by disproportionately heavy-handed policing.

The French government has tried to hide students’ dissatisfaction by blaming far-left groups.

What do the protests say about French society? Are they a revolt by young people against poor conditions or part of broader woes?

It is important to realise that the situation in France does not concern only young people and education, it goes deeper than that. The era of French president Emmanuel Macron is coming to an end. For several years now, the country has been run by unstable minority governments, which all face one key problem: how to draft a budget, unveiled on October 1, and push it through parliament.

It is clear that the country is in a very difficult economic situation, because its debt stands at around 117 percent of GDP. The interest rate is rising and approaching five percent. Every day, newspapers write that France cannot bear this burden.

French society is realising that it is at an impasse both politically and economically, that the current elite has no answer, and that savings must be made in various areas. People from many sectors are now speaking out to say they do not want cuts. Or that they have problems that are not being addressed. And young people have a clear view of this, and that is why they are mobilising.

The protest began with specific demands from secondary-school pupils, who clearly identified shortcomings in education — notably missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms and schools in poor condition, some with rats running around and no running water. Yet the protest quickly grew into a nationwide movement. Why have these particular issues proved so powerful?

Partly because they underscore this whole situation, and partly because this is a young generation that represents France’s future. Young people are protesting to say: look at the future we are facing. And parents and teachers largely agree with them.

The protests began in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis and did not arise as a result of a new government reform, but from the everyday experiences of students. What does this tell us about how young French people view the state and its ability to provide public education?

France generally has relatively low trust in political institutions. Young people tend to feel this even more strongly, because they are generally less politically engaged and therefore feel they are, in some way, discriminated against. They see the state as failing to care sufficiently for them and unable to cope.

This is compounded by the approaching elections. We know that the current government is fragile, and we also know that society, as well as the political establishment as a whole, is deeply polarised, with the extremist camps in particular set to enter the elections strengthened.

Staying with the protests, it is interesting that private secondary schools have joined state schools. On Tuesday, the French daily Le Monde showed protests outisde Paris Lycée Henri-IV attended by children from elite families – and where Macron studied. How do you explain the involvement of private schools unlikely to experience the same problems as public ones?

Exactly. That is my situation as well. I teach at a very prestigious university with a beautiful campus a short distance from the Louvre.

Yet our students are protesting. They are protesting because they recognise that French society has major inequalities affecting young people in suburbs like Saint-Denis or Val-de-Marne where conditions are worse.

Better off students are mobilising in solidarity – the concept of equality has been part of France’s political consciousness since the French Revolution. Those privately educated pupil therefore see it as their duty to join protests even though they enjoy far better conditions.

France is described as a strong state where education is regarded as a public service and a fundamental pillar of the French Republic. Could frustration over lack of basic conditions in schools be a reason for current anger?

Of course, and it has several dimensions. The French Third Republic was based on the idea that public education was the means through which modern citizens are created. State schools, established by law at the time, were seen as a fundamental pillar of the new, young democracy.

When you walk around Paris or anywhere else in France, you notice that every school has both the French and European flags above its entrance, along with the words “liberty, equality, fraternity” — the motto of the republicand revolution. Historically, schools drew children out of traditional families, which at that time were highly Catholic, and turned them into modern citizens. That is the country’s foundation.

Another factor is that the French state is very powerful: public spending accounts for more than 50% of GDP. The state is hierarchical, yet it seeks to show that it can do everything, including providing schooling for all. That position is increasingly hard to defend, particularly when money is short and public spending must be cut.

France has a long history of street protests. Is the current situation different in any way from previous social conflicts?

It is difficult to say. What is interesting is that secondary-school students are mobilising. That is relatively unusual, though not entirely unprecedented. It has happened in the past too, but was less visible. Teachers’ unions are now joining these students, as are broader trade unions and public-sector employees generally. University students are also already on strike. There is talk that farmers could join them. It may gather momentum and, as with the yellow vest protests, everyone who criticises the government may take to the streets. That is essentially the majority.

What is interesting about the current protests is that they are led by underage young people who are not yet able to vote, yet can still place the government under enormous pressure. How do you explain this?

They are young and have the time and ability to mobilise. They are able to sustain it and have their own internal organisation. Certain political forces, primarily from the far left, are helping or supporting them, but only to a limited extent. I think the protest is genuinely organic, rather than being directed by a political party or political agitators.

Young people feel they have something to say, and they can mobilise with the support of some teachers, some parents and now also broader sections of society — both university students and some trade union organisations. It may last for some time.

The French government may fear protesting young people more than other protest groups. Why do protesting young people carry such particular political weight in France?

It is probably a memory of 1968 when student mobilisation shifted the entire country to open up certain issues. Sudents are able to mobilise and persevere because they do not lose income when they strike, whereas workers who go on strike do not receive pay for those days, which can be a serious problem for some.

There is also a significance of young people being the future, who say: no, we simply want this country to be different, because it will be ours and we will be responsible for it when you are no longer here.

On Monday, a 15-year-old boy lost his hand after a police grenade exploded, with several other injuries caused by police being investigated. Could this fundamentally change the public mood?

Protests in France tend to be more violent than others are used to. I think it works both ways. I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of protesting students are peaceful, but some people with somewhat different intentions join them. They are called ‘casseurs’ (wreckers)who simply exploit the situation to throw stones at police or set bins on fire.

On the other side are the police, who can become highly aggressive quickly. There is now a major debate over whether the police response is proportionate. These responses divide the left and the right quite clearly with the government and the right wing supporting police, while the left argues that police brutality is pervasive.

It is quite shocking to see footage of armed police officers beating children in the street.

Exactly. And the police will have to be careful not to lose control of the situation. The response of the education minister, who has told students that he will listen to them, is also interesting. The interior minister and the prime minister have instead responded that the police are doing their job and that the interventions are proportionate.

The government is blaming radical left-wing groups for the violence, accusing the far-left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) of inciting riots. Do you find this political explanation convincing, or does it take attention away from students’ genuine demands?

It is difficult to say. I would not be at all surprised if extremist groups of any kind joined the protests, although left-wing groups are probably more likely. It is difficult to speculate on the extent to which this is directed from the leadership of France Unbowed. However, I do not think it is to any great extent.

Representatives of this left-wing party, including its MPs and local politicians, joined student, thereby legitimising these protests. But I very much doubt that the party would seek to organise greater violence in order to draw attention to the situation. That suggestion seems somewhat extreme to me.

France is only a few months away from presidential elections. Could this discontent become one of the issues in the election campaign?

Everyone is trying to gain political advantage from it in some way. It is quite clear that the typical Jean-Luc Mélenchon voter supports the students and government criticism more generally.

Ordinary citizens do not want to see violence or rubbish being set on fire, and this sentiment is probably much stronger on the right, which automatically sees Mélenchon as an instigator of unrest.

Mélenchon needs to be careful. To win a larger number of voters, he must also appear as someone who is trying to prevent violence. That is what he attempted to do. A few days ago, he addressed students, saying: mobilise, but your actions must be non-violent. He specifically added that they must be disciplined.

In your view, what could be the boiling point at which governments will no longer be able to calm the situation through promises or concessions?

That is a difficult question. These protests cannot go on forever, since many students realise what they want is better teaching conditions, so that they can prepare better for the baccalaureate examinations, which are approaching in the spring for those in their final year. So they may want to sit down and study.

If the government manages to offer at least some concrete solutions to the fundamental problems — above all, on timetables and teacher allocation on lycées — it may calm the situation. If it does not, I do not know.

Can we therefore understand the current protests as an expression of a crisis in French society, or as evidence that some form of civic mobilisation and the belief that protest can change something still function in France?

It is both. From young people’s perspective, the positive aspect is that they are able to mobilise, take their future into their own hands and say: this is a problem. We told you this, you did not listen to us, so now we are changing tactics and will protest visibly. I think that is fundamentally positive — without the violence.

On the other hand, French society is in deep crisis, and overcoming it will require an explicit change in the narrative – a change in the system. There will need to be some recognition that France is no longer what it used to be; while it remains one of the larger countries of the EU, it is now more or less an ordinary country and it must behave accordingly and see itself in that way.

Understanding this is quite difficult, and it will certainly require political courage and a political figure capable of turning frustrations into something positive.

First published in Deník N.

Until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Czech Vanadium was among the European companies which clearly had Russian owners.

Since 2007, the company has been controlled through the Evraz group by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, who is close to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The ferrovanadium producer was part of a chain through which vanadium ore mined in Russia reached Europe before being sent on to Abramovich’s factories in the US. Ferrovanadium is an alloy added to steel to help improve its properties. And Czech Republic accounts for six percent of global production.

But sanctions following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 forced the oligarch to sell up.

Evraz, the holding company in which Abramovich is the largest shareholder, supplied the Russian army, according to media reports. But Evraz denied this.

In 2024, the Abu Dhabi-based company Metco (now ‘Metco Holding’) became the sole shareholder in the Czech factory, but it is not clear who controls it.

Czech authorities and police suspect the transfer of the vanadium factory to a new parent company in the UAE may conceal the true owner. They are seeking to establish who is really behind the opaque company in the Persian Gulf, and whether it is still Roman Abramovich.

According to Deník N sources familiar with the investigation, specialists from Czech police bodies for organised crime (NCOZ) and the financial intelligence unit (FAÚ) are involved.

“Yes, we are investigating who is behind the company. There are many leads and the suspicion is clear that the company may still be backed by its former owners from Russia,” a source close to the investigation confirmed.

NCOZ spokesperson Jaroslav Ibehej declined to comment in more detail on the search for Czech Vanadium’s beneficial owner. “As a rule, we neither confirm nor deny what we are working on,” he said.

According to documents in the Czech judicial database, the company is formally controlled by one owner — a Dubai-based lawyer of Indian origin who provides nominee services for beneficial owners. The lawyer has been linked to money-laundering investigations in Ukraine and Moldova.

Apparent fake owner scheme

The officially declared owner of Czech Vanadium is Nikhil Skariah Kolekunnel. According to the ADGM free zone business register in the UAE, he is both the sole shareholder and director of Metco Holding.

However, the Gulf state’s database does not disclose so-called beneficiaries, who are entitled to the company’s profits and may also secretly control it.

Although the Czech judicial register lists Skariah as Czech Vanadium’s beneficial owner, this does not necessarily indicate the person exercising control in the background. For example, trustees of trust funds are also listed in the registers as beneficial owners.

The nature of Skariah Kolekunnel’s business suggests that he performs the specific role of an administrator, a so-called fiduciary — someone who accepts an ownership mandate and effectively manages another person’s assets.

He is a lawyer originally from India who founded two law firms in the UAE years ago. His companies represent large corporations and businesspeople who do not wish to publicly acknowledge ownership of a business.

“South Bridge Legal is an advisory firm for comprehensive business establishment in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the UAE. Our highly experienced team has been active in the sector for more than 10 years, providing services tailored to the unique needs of every ambitious entrepreneur setting up companies in Dubai,” the company wrote on its website.

“We have all activities, which is tax management, tax consulting, accounting, corporate services, offshore company formation, free zone company formation…everything,” Skariah said in a recently published video on YouTube.

Metco Holding’s address in Abu Dhabi suggests it may be a shell company. And it is headquartered from a WeWork.

Moldova and Ukraine links

‘Skariah’, the name of the Indian administrator, had already emerged eight years ago in connection with the concealment of ownership structures during an investigation into the privatisation of Moldova’s national airline. At the time, Skariah appeared as the owner of the opaque company Gold Craft FZE, established in Dubai in 2015.

“On Monday 1 October 2018, one day before the privatisation agreement for Air Moldova was signed, a plane from Istanbul landed at Chișinău International Airport. One of the passengers, a 39-year-old man, was carrying nearly €2.6m in cash in his luggage. He declared the money to customs officers, which, according to the Office for the Prevention and Fight against Money Laundering, he had borrowed four days earlier from Gold Craft FZE in the United Arab Emirates,” the investigative outlet RISE Moldova reported.

It finds that Andrei Ianovici brought cash from Dubai, equivalent to tens of millions of Czech crowns. Later that day, he deposited the money in a bank, and it ended up in the accounts of Civil Aviation Group SRL. That company privatised Air Moldova, and Ianovici was one of its partners.

The true origin of the money was never established, leading local investigators to suspect that the money had not been earned legally. No charges were brought, however.

According to court records, Skariah was also involved in disputes in Ukraine, where Gold Craft FZE claimed ownership of an Ilyushin aircraft which the company allegedly purchased in 2017.

Skariah’s Russian-linked empire

However, the UAE-based lawyer was not the only individual to have emerged as an administrator of Czech Vanadium. Another is Sergei Gushchin.

A man of this name was formerly a prominent Russian businessman in rail freight transport and, although he withdrew from Russia three years ago, he appears on Ukrainian sanctions lists for supporting the Russian army.

Gushchin became a senior manager at PJSC TransContainer, a Russian rail freight carrier, after Evraz sold its stake. In the past, a quarter of the company was owned by the holding company of Abramovich.

Meanwhile another of Gushchin’s companies, Rail Service, formed a joint venture with Evraz in 2019 focused on the production of railway wheels.

According to a UAE register, Gushchin was a director and shareholder of Metco, which became Czech Vanadium’s parent company from 2022-23.

US credit-rating agency Moody’s shared data with Deník N that listed Gushchin as a recent beneficiary of Metco Holding and as the company’s director.

Russia’s ferrovanadium monopoly

Czech Vanadium’s revenues regularly exceed €81m, and in 2024 the company reported profits of more than €8m. This summer, the company sent over €0.6m of that sum to the Dubai company, the remaining funds staying in its retained earnings account.

Last year, the company recorded a modest €0.2m loss. Its accounts retained more than €12m in undistributed profits in total.

Czech Vanadium’s business remains closely tied to Russia. Last year alone, vanadium oxides or hydroxides worth nearly €82m were imported into the Czech Republic from the Russian Federation. Russia is effectively the sole supplier of the raw materials needed to produce ferrovanadium. According to the statistical office database, exports mainly go to the United States, as well as Germany and Taiwan.

Czech Vanadium did not reply to requests for comment or an explanation of its ownership structure.

It also did not answer the question of how a Dubai lawyer had bought the Czech company, which, according to some estimates, is worth more than €40m.

Company representatives have not responded to questions about its owners since 2024, when the company left the Evraz group structure.

Fake owner model in US

Jiří Skuhrovec, an analyst at Datlab, specialises in the global vetting of business partners. He says Abramovich uses a similar model for concealing ownership in the United States.

Sanctions also forced the Russian oligarch, who became better known through his former ownership of the British football club Chelsea, to withdraw from US companies. But Skuhrovec concluded that they were probably still controlled by people linked to Abramovich just like the factory in Czech Republic.

“We mapped the entire chain, from the Russian ore supplier through the Czech smelter to the final recipient: the US company Strategic Alloys LLC. Until recently, all three companies officially belonged to Abramovich, and all three are now controlled by people with links to his Evraz group. Abramovich may therefore still secretly control the entire supply chain for this strategic raw material. This would be a textbook case of sanctions circumvention, as well as an obvious security risk,” Skuhrovec said.

Findings led Datlab and Transparency International to submit a complaint to police. “We believe that the 16m Czech crowns (around €655,000) in distributed profit may have gone to Abramovich, who is on a sanctions list. That would constitute a criminal offence,” the analyst explained.