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

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

Seven sailors missing after the second fire

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

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

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

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

Three dead in Kropyvnytskyi

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

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

A wave Kyiv ties to sanctions relief

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

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

Strikes from Kyiv to Odesa Oblast

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

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

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

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

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

Six bombers and flight equipment hit, the Navy says

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

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

Fire over the airfield late on 14 October

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

A large fire is raging at the site of the missile strike. https://t.co/l4aqVvNJIg pic.twitter.com/JYjhM57GYh

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 14, 2026

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

A base Ukraine has hit before

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

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

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

Update: Satellite imagery confirms the strike

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

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

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

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

A pause that bought nothing

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

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

The price of another pause

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

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

Washington’s other moves toward Moscow

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

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

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

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

The pitch: a diesel deal as a signal to Moscow

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

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

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

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

Kyiv was asked to hold its fire on Russian oil

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

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

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

What Moscow has offered in return

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seven of 12 tanks out of action

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

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

A terminal that loads fuel for export

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

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

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

A night of drones over the region

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

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

Hours after the US-Russia diesel deal

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

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

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

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

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

A stairwell gone in Kholodnohirskyi district

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Missile suppliers top the list

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

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

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

Ministers reject the diesel deal

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

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

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

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

Washington presses Kyiv

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

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

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

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

Riot police and drone crews in a “peacekeeping” drill

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

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

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

Pressure on Belarus’s neighbors

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

Belarus keeps its army on alert

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

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

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

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

Industry expects attacks to last and change form

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

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

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

German intelligence describes a Russian shadow war

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

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

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

Drone bombs, arson, and paid saboteurs on German soil

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fires at a former motor depot in occupied Khrustalnyi

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

Ukraine’s Defense Forces are carrying out massive strikes in the area of occupied Khrustalnyi in Luhansk Oblast. Three separate fire hotspots and a large-scale blaze have been reported.

According to local residents, a site housing Russian troops was hit. pic.twitter.com/A8RHtuKY5i

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 12, 2026

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

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

Explosions at a Crimean airfield Russia used to launch drones overnight

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

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

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

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

Ukraine keeps hitting Russian rear areas in occupied territory

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

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

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

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

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

Iskander and S-400 launchers hit since September

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

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

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

Strikes on launchers while interceptors stay scarce

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

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

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

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

Russia’s missile and drone attacks continue

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Western answer to Chinese sensors

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

Plants in Europe and the US from 2027

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

Why Europe's supply isn't enough

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

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

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

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

Cheaper fuel out

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

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

Diesel kept at home

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

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

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

Crude carries the revenue

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

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

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

Five Kenyans in a Ukrainian camp

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

Victims or fighters for hire

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

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

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

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

Thousands of foreigners in Russia's ranks

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

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

Some African governments take steps

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

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

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

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

Power cut in Kyiv and other regions

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

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

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

Warehouses and a store

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

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

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

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

Three killed overnight

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

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

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

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

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

The past day's toll

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

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

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

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

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

The plant behind the Kh-101's fuel

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

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

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

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

Yandex loses a second data center

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

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

A refinery in the north, a depot near Belgorod

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

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

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

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

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

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

Across the Siverskyi Donets

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

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

The heights Russia wanted

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

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

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

The Vivaldi playbook

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

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

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

"Distant" and "doomed"

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

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

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

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

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

Tens of thousands of books lost

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

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

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

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

Millions of books burned

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

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

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

All 32 allies at the table

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

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

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

With the whole NATO Military Committee, we visited Kyiv, yesterday, to reaffirm unwavering support for #Ukraine.

Discussions with Major General Drapatyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, focussed on Ukraine’s military priorities and lessons learned to strengthen… pic.twitter.com/kar2l1Xlq4

— Admiral Giuseppe CAVO DRAGONE - NATO CMC (@CMC_NATO) October 7, 2026

Lessons from Ukraine's commanders

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

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

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

To Russia: "You are failing"

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

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

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

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

Kyiv under fire, Russian troops pushed back near Lyman

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