Donald Trump called Elon Musk and asked him to lift restrictions on the military version of Starlink in Ukraine, sources told The Wall Street Journal.

Trump expressed frustration that the system still had a speed cap of about 160 kilometers per hour, the newspaper’s sources said. The restriction left some Ukrainian attack drones and interceptor drones ineffective against Russian attacks. The Journal reported that Trump and Musk spoke after it published a report saying Musk himself had ordered the restrictions on Starlink in Ukraine.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials said the system began working “more normally” shortly after Trump’s conversation with Musk.

Ukrainian drone commanders on the front line said the Starlink restrictions had been lifted, according to Oliver Carroll, a journalist for The Economist. “They are still doing tests but ‘this looks to be the case,’” Carroll wrote.

On October 14, the Ukrainian military reported encountering restrictions on Starlink satellite communications terminals — specifically, their military version, Starshield. Drones lost their connection when flying faster than 160 kilometers per hour.

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Singer Yegor Kreed faced fierce criticism from “patriotic” commentators after appearing in his new music video, “Mily ublyudok” (“Sweet Bastard”), wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt with a design inspired by the Soviet film “Come and See” (“Idi i smotri”).

“Come and See,” directed by Elem Klimov, was released in 1985 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II.

The film follows a boy who goes from a cheerful teenager to a gray-haired old man after witnessing the Nazis burn the residents of a Belarusian village alive during a punitive operation.

Readers of Sovetsky Ekran magazine voted it the best film of 1986. Many viewers still consider “Come and See” one of the hardest-to-watch films about World War II.

Moscow concept store KM20 produced the shirt in collaboration with the American brand Marking Distance. Its design is based on the official poster for “Come and See,” which features a large illustration of the main character’s face. On the shirt, tattoos have been added to the face, assault rifles appear on the sleeves, and machine-gun ammunition belts appear on the back. KM20’s website listed the shirt for 38,600 rubles.

After social media users noticed the shirt, pro-government commentators began denouncing Kreed, accusing him of disrespecting the memory of the victims of World War II. Activists in Yekaterinburg filed complaints with the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee, demanding that Kreed be prosecuted under the law against insulting the memory of victims of the genocide of the Soviet people.

Among Kreed’s critics was Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League, who reports various “offenders” to the authorities. She said the shirt was no accident but part of an “effort to wipe humanity’s historical memory clean.” “Western leaders want to erase from the minds of people around the world the memory of how their grandfathers burned people in gas chambers and shot Jews, Slavs and people of other nationalities by the thousands,” she said. Mizulina, who is married to pop singer Shaman, has clashed publicly with Kreed before: She criticized as “indecent” a routine performed by a dancer in lingerie at his concert at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium in summer 2025.

Kreed apologized for wearing the shirt. He said he had never seen or heard of the film and therefore did not know the image was based on the poster for “Come and See.” To him, Kreed said, it was “just a designer item sitting on a shelf, available for anyone to buy.”

I want to say something important: The memory of the Great Patriotic War and the tragedy people endured is sacred to me. This is our shared history, and I will always treat it with respect.

The musician also stressed that he had intended “no political or historical message” with the outfit.

The image was eventually blurred in Kreed’s official music video. KM20 pulled the shirt from its online store and deleted a post about Kreed’s video from its social media accounts. The brand’s owners have not commented publicly on the controversy. The Mosfilm studio said it had not granted KM20 permission to use the “Come and See” poster and is consulting lawyers. The studio said the “distortion” of the poster was “unacceptable.”

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Officers from Poland’s Internal Security Agency have detained a 22-year-old Georgian citizen in connection with the murder of Russian performance artist Semyon Skrepetsky, said Tomasz Siemoniak, the coordinator of Poland’s intelligence services.

RMF24 identified the man as Makhmud A. The outlet reported that he helped the suspected killer, who had been detained earlier, by keeping Skrepetsky’s home under surveillance and gathering information about his habits.

Makhmud A. arrived in Poland the day before he was detained and was traveling with two other Georgian citizens. The other two were expelled from the country, RMF24 reported.

Makhmud A. was charged with aiding and abetting murder and illegally possessing weapons and ammunition. He denied the charges.

Russian performance artist Semyon Skrepetsky was killed on June 15 in the Polish city of Biała Podlaska. The first suspect in his murder was detained near Warsaw on June 18. Police said he “was using a passport issued in the name of a 36-year-old Georgian citizen.”

Skrepetsky was known for his caricatures of figures including Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov. He moved to Poland in 2021, fearing persecution. On June 12 — three days before his murder — he staged a protest outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin. He brought a painting depicting Putin in Stalin’s arms to the embassy. After the protest, Skrepetsky received threats, which he wrote about on his Telegram channel on the day he was killed.

Further reading

• ‘A political execution’: Russian satirist Semyon Skrepetsky mocked Putin and Kadyrov in his caricatures. He was shot dead in Poland three days after an anti-Putin protest in Berlin.

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Every fact in the Russian Justice Ministry’s online exhibition was checked, and the “foreign agents” who found errors in it were knowingly spreading false information, Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko said in a TASS interview cited by the news outlet Agentstvo.

In late July, the Justice Ministry posted an exhibition on its website titled “Zashchita suvereniteta Rossiyskogo gosudarstva. Istoriya i sovremennost” (“Protecting the Sovereignty of the Russian State: Past and Present”), about attempts to “violate the sovereignty” of Russia. Independent journalists found a propaganda film about Hitler in the section containing photographs and documentaries. Elsewhere in the exhibition, they found numerous errors, including factual ones, and signs that artificial intelligence had been used to write the text.

In the interview, Sviridenko was asked whether he had expected such a strong response from “foreign-agent media outlets.”

Sviridenko called the attention “foreign agents” paid to the project “a predictable reaction.” “Their job is to spread distorted information among Russian citizens, falsify history, and replace facts with interpretations that serve their Western ‘employers,’” he said.

He said all the exhibition materials had been prepared with input from “historians, representatives of Russia’s leading museums, historical institutions, and organizations involved in historical scholarship.” Sviridenko said every fact in the exhibition had been checked against primary sources in archives.

The information foreign agents spread has no scholarly basis; it is purely political and deceitful. They don’t deal in facts because the facts work against them. Instead, as always, they use emotionally charged labels and baseless accusations aimed at an audience that lacks the background to assess them.

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Warning: This article contains profanity and descriptions of sexual violence.

Irina, a St. Petersburg resident, has accused an officer at Police Station No. 14 in the city’s Frunzensky District of abuse, beatings, and sexual violence.

It began on October 10, when she filed a police report alleging rape. According to Irina, the day before, she had agreed to visit a man she had met a while earlier through the Daivinchik dating bot. She had occasionally messaged with him, mostly about soccer. Two other people were at the apartment: the host’s brother and a friend of his. Two of the men are police academy cadets, including the man she accuses of rape.

The men and Irina “drank, chatted, and played cards.” “Everyone got pretty drunk, including me,” Irina wrote on Telegram. She said she had no money for a taxi home, so she decided to stay until public transportation started running.

Irina alleges that the host took advantage of her incapacitated state and had unprotected sex with her, without her affirmative consent. “He took advantage of the situation — basically, the fact that I was so drunk I could barely move or say anything,” Irina wrote.

Then, she said, the host took her outside, said, “The stop’s over there. Bye,” and went back inside. Irina went home and slept all day, then went to the police the following day to report the rape. The police accepted her report, although one female officer told her that “it was her own fault, that she should have had the sense to avoid getting into situations like that.” Irina said she spent at least two hours at the station. An acquaintance who had accompanied her was sent home after being told, “This is going to take a while.”

Irina returned home, but about two hours later, the police called and told her she needed to come back to add to her report and undergo a medical examination. According to Irina, the officers refused to let her wait until the next day and came to pick her up and take her to the station.

Mediazona reported that leaked data links the phone number used to call her to Nikita Severov. Phone directory apps list him as an investigator in the Admiralteysky District.

Irina alleges that one of the officers at the station began abusing her. He repeatedly made her strip down “to her socks,” grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the floor, jumped up and down on her, slammed her head “against whatever was there,” and “touched her all over while hitting her.” He threatened to “fuck” her, suggested they “sleep together,” forced her to her knees and moved her face toward his crotch, and said that “all girls like pain.” According to Irina, the officer said that “the Investigative Committee wouldn’t believe her, and neither would anyone else.”

At one point, Irina said, the man she accuses of rape was also brought to the station. He, too, was hit several times, and the officer said, “Two fuckheads couldn’t settle something, and now I’ve got to sit here all night dealing with it.” According to Irina, the officer demanded that they “reconcile,” after which the man she accuses of rape offered her money. She refused.

Other officers watched, including Nikita, whose surname Irina did not give in her post. “He said I was ruining the guy’s life and that he would kick me to death right there,” Irina told Mediazona.

She told the outlet that when she arrived at the station, she was told she would be speaking with the station chief. On Telegram, Irina wrote that the officer who abused her “didn’t introduce himself.”

According to Irina, the abuse lasted four to five hours. She published tracking data from the 2GIS app showing that she was at the police station from 12:42 a.m. to 5:45 a.m.

Afterward, Irina hurriedly left St. Petersburg and flew to Kamchatka, where her family lives. She published her first Telegram post about what had happened while she was already on her way. In Kamchatka, Irina sought medical attention and was diagnosed with a closed traumatic brain injury and bruising of the soft tissues of her head. She also reported the incident to the Investigative Committee’s office in Yelizovo, Kamchatka Krai. According to Irina, investigators there told her they would “send everything to St. Petersburg, since that’s where it happened.”

In another post on October 21, Irina indicated that before going to the police, she had told someone she had been in contact with for two years about the rape, and he “decided to take advantage of the situation and started trying to extort money from that guy.” Irina maintains that she stopped the extortion attempts, but the police learned about them. (Her post indicates that the officers examined the messages on her phone, including those she sent after her first visit to the station.) According to Irina, the police deleted the messages in which she tried to dissuade her acquaintance from extorting money, but an archived copy of the conversation survived. When she told this person that she had been beaten because of his extortion, Irina said, he cut off contact with her.

As of publication, no official inquiry into St. Petersburg’s Police Station No. 14 had been announced. Journalists from the news outlet Bumaga reached the station chief by phone. He said the Investigative Committee was looking into what had happened overnight on October 10–11. The station chief categorically denied any involvement in the abuse of Irina. Investigative Committee officials in Yelizovo told Irina that the committee’s St. Petersburg office had taken an interest in the case and that she had been summoned for an interview.

In comments to Mediazona, the Team Against Torture, which helps victims of police violence, described the abuse Irina reported as “the height of cruelty.” “We can’t remember the last time we saw violence this severe in St. Petersburg or elsewhere in Russia,” the human rights advocates said.

More from Meduza

• ‘I have no emotions left’ A former investigator on how the Russian press and justice system tried to blame her for her own rape
• ‘Don’t ruin their lives’ Russian woman says police pressured her to withdraw rape report against off-duty soldiers
• A woman in Magnitogorsk says she was raped by the cops. Her husband cut off two fingers to draw attention to her case. Now she’s been convicted of filing a false police report.

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Cover photo: Walenrod / Shutterstock.com

Three-way talks between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine could resume in November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this, following statements from the Kremlin that it was ready for such talks.

“We’ve received feedback that Russia supports a three-way meeting between our teams. The American side is proposing that we hold it as soon as possible. We support that,” he said late on October 21.

Zelensky gave no specific dates for the possible meetings, saying only that the United States was “doing everything possible” to arrange them sooner. “I think no later than early November,” he said.

Zelensky said that, alongside ending the war and bringing peace closer, the negotiators’ main task would be to prepare for a meeting between the leaders. He said Kyiv would support any ceasefire — full or partial — at the talks.

Yesterday afternoon, after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said talks could begin in mid-November. Russia, he said, was ready to resume negotiations “on the main issue,” which “concerns establishing a security framework for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends.” Ushakov said the talks could begin in mid-November, immediately after the U.S. congressional midterm elections.

Ushakov said, however, that the “new approaches” Witkoff presented to Putin, which had been announced ahead of the meeting, contained “not all that much that was useful for resolving the Ukrainian crisis.” But when later asked whether the war was nearing an end, he suggested that “things are heading that way.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that the talks could take place in Abu Dhabi. Asked whether Russia would prepare any documents for signing at the meeting, Peskov said: “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Don’t do that.”

Witkoff flew from St. Petersburg to Oslo, where he briefed allies on his conversation with Putin. He then wrote on social media that three-way talks would “continue at the technical level.”

Commenting on Witkoff’s visits to Oslo and St. Petersburg, U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed an end to the war was now “perhaps closer than ever.” He said he had spoken to Putin about it himself “the other day.”

Despite both sides’ statements that they were willing to negotiate, they continued exchanging strikes overnight. Russia attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles, killing one person and injuring more than 20 in Kyiv. Zelensky said the attack showed there had been no “real changes in [Russia’s] attitude toward everything that is happening.”

Ukraine, in turn, launched drone strikes on several Russian regions, including Moscow and the surrounding Moscow region. Two people were injured in the Novaya Moskva district.

The war in photographs: The aftermath of an overnight Russian strike on Kyiv

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Meduza

Rosneft officials are concerned that even a few more months of the war in Ukraine could cause lasting damage to the company’s business, Bloomberg reported, citing sources.

The company’s finances are deteriorating as profits fall and debt rises, Bloomberg’s sources said, despite expectations that the war in the Middle East would boost its earnings.

Rosneft has suffered significant damage from Ukrainian strikes on its oil refineries. The company operates 12 refineries that account for about a third of Russia’s total refining capacity. According to Bloomberg’s tally, five of the 15 confirmed drone strikes on Russian refineries in September alone targeted Rosneft facilities that supply fuel to European Russia.

The Ryazan refinery, which has repeatedly come under attack, is among the hardest hit. The Syzran refinery has spent most of the past six months either shut down completely or operating at less than a third of capacity. The Tuapse refinery has been shut down since April.

Bloomberg reported that Rosneft managed to restart some refineries within weeks of an attack, only for them to be struck again once repairs were complete or nearly complete. The constant need for repairs is driving costs to levels that cannot be sustained in the long run, the outlet’s sources said. As a result, they said, some plants have deliberately slowed repairs, stretching work that would normally take a few days into weeks.

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The Moscow City Court has refused to release political scientist Alexander Kynev from pretrial detention on charges of attempted drug dealing, Mediazona reported.

During the hearing, Kynev said he could not walk normally “given the injuries I’ve sustained.” He said he had managed to reach the room where he could take part in the hearing by video link only by “climbing flight after flight of stairs” and crossing cold floors, even though his leg was “essentially in a cast.”

His lawyer, Vera Goncharova, said injuries had been inflicted on Kynev during his arrest. “If Kynev doesn’t receive medical care soon, he will be left with a permanent disability,” she said. She called his continued detention “inhumane.”

A hospital discharge summary reviewed by Judge Natalya Nikishina says Kynev was treated in a surgical ward for a closed fracture from September 25 to October 8. He was discharged in satisfactory condition and can walk independently “with the aid of a cane,” the document says.

Alexander Kynev is charged with attempted drug dealing. He was arrested on September 25. The legal reporting project Slovo Zashchite reported that Kynev was severely beaten during his arrest and was diagnosed with two fractures in his lower leg. Political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann said Kynev’s leg had been broken as he was pressured to plead guilty to treason. Schulmann did not say where she got the information.

Kynev denies the attempted drug-dealing charges.

Background

• Russian elections expert Alexander Kynev stayed in the country to keep studying its politics. After criticizing the latest vote, he was arrested on drug charges.

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Kirill Sukhanov, Ksenia Sobchak’s former commercial director, has been released from a penal colony, the Telegram channels Mash, Baza, and 112 reported.

Sukhanov spent four years in prison. According to 112, the Skopin District Court in Russia’s Ryazan region granted his petition, presumably for parole.

Sukhanov, former Tatler editor-in-chief Arian Romanovsky, and former Life journalist Tamerlan Bigayev were accused of extorting 11 million rubles from Sergey Chemezov, the head of the state defense conglomerate Rostec, for a “stop order” preventing negative posts on the Telegram channel Tushite Svet.

In February 2024, a court sentenced Sukhanov to seven and a half years in a penal colony. Romanovsky and Bigayev each received seven-year prison sentences.

In September 2024, an appeals court eased the sentences, reducing Sukhanov’s term by two years and cutting Romanovsky’s and Bigayev’s terms from seven years to five. Romanovsky was released in May 2026.

Further reading

• Hunting down the haters How Rostec, the Russian military’s industrial supplier, waged a PR war on Telegram

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A Ukrainian citizen, Vadym Y., was detained in the German state of Brandenburg on suspicion of spying for Russia, Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office said.

According to investigators, the suspect had been in contact with Russian intelligence services through an intermediary since no later than July 2025. Prosecutors believe he collected military intelligence, including information on the production of armored vehicles, ammunition, and explosives, as well as on personnel and military facilities in areas intended to ensure the security of NATO’s eastern flank.

Some of this information was publicly available, while other information was obtained from representatives of the European defense industry.

The court is expected to consider a motion to place the suspect in pretrial detention on October 23.

According to a report by Der Spiegel, the suspect is 53 years old. The outlet’s sources said he had “shown interest” in the Bundeswehr’s 45th Tank Brigade, which is planned to be fully stationed in Lithuania in 2027.

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Russia and Ukraine conducted another exchange of fallen soldiers’ bodies, the Russian business news outlet RBC and BelTA reported.

The exchange took place at the Novaya Guta checkpoint in Belarus, where Russia returned 252 bodies to Ukraine and Ukraine handed over 25 fallen soldiers’ bodies to Russia.

Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed the exchange.

It was the first such exchange in more than a month. The two sides last swapped bodies of fallen soldiers on September 17, when Russia handed over 252 and Ukraine handed over 23.

The two sides last exchanged prisoners of war in August, when 10 POWs returned to Russia and Russia handed over to Ukraine 10 civilians who had been detained in Belarus for legal violations.

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Nikita Gorelov, the mayor of the town of Sosnovka and a graduate of the presidential personnel program “Time of Heroes” for participants in the war against Ukraine, was dismissed, he announced on his Telegram channel.

Gorelov was mobilized to fight in the war against Ukraine in September 2022. He served two years as a sniper, after which, on the recommendation of the Kirov region’s governor, he received an offer to head Sosnovka, the independent Russian news outlet Verstka reported. In October 2024, he took office as mayor and soon began accusing “crooks from previous administrations” of corruption. By December, he had already received orders to return to the front.

The order angered local residents, who held a public rally in Sosnovka in his support. 4,000 people signed a petition backing him. In the end, Gorelov kept his post, but the Kremlin called his case the “most unsuccessful” example of appointing a war participant to a leadership position.

Gorelov’s final dismissal was formally the result of a local government reform. In November 2025, authorities in the Kirov region passed a law abolishing municipal districts and creating new districts in their place, and Sosnovka, a town of about 8,400 people, lost its own administration as a result. Deputies in the newly formed Vyatskiye Polyany municipal district decided to remove Gorelov from office.

Gorelov said he had been under pressure for two years and that officials had now decided to get rid of him “quietly.” As mayor, he secured a criminal case against the city council speaker over violations in the construction of housing for resettled residents and collected signatures opposing the local government reform.

Gorelov accused regional authorities of using war participants for their own PR. “In essence, they use us like toy soldiers for hype, and then write us off,” he wrote.

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President Trump has repeatedly promised to end the Russia–Ukraine war within 24 hours, though peace talks have made little substantive progress so far. Just as often, he returns to a story about the early days of the full-scale invasion — tweaking a minor detail each time — describing Russian tanks that were advancing on Kyiv but got stuck in the mud.

During a conversation with reporters at the White House on October 20, Trump repeated the story again, this time focusing on one Russian general.

A stupid general for Russia, a very stupid gentleman. They had a thousand tanks riding up a concrete highway. They would have been in Ukraine in four hours, going maximum tank speed, which is 48 miles an hour, to be exact. Nothing to stop them. The war would have been over in one day. And this very stupid general — I have no idea who he is. I doubt he’s still with us. I doubt he’s still living. He decided to hang a right onto the farmland and then take a left and go up to Kyiv, rather than staying on the highway — the concrete highway, perfectly good highway — where they were doing very nicely. It would have been three and a half, four hours, and the whole war would have ended. He ended up getting stuck in the mud.

BBC Russia fact-checked Trump’s claim. According to the outlet, Colonel General Alexander Chayko led Russia’s advance on Kyiv from Belarus in February 2022, and the offensive’s failure had nothing to do with any decision by him to turn off the road.

Ukrainian forces stopped the advance on Kyiv. On February 26, 2022, Ukraine’s military blew up a bridge over the Irpin River on the outskirts of the capital, then destroyed the Kozarovychi dam when Russian forces tried to go around the obstruction. Ukrainian forces also destroyed a column of Russian armored vehicles in Bucha. As the Russian army’s losses mounted, its command brought in reinforcements from Belarus.

After the failed advance, Russian military command removed Chayko as commander and sent him to lead the Russian contingent in Syria. He stayed there until June 2025, a tenure that spanned the coup that forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee to Moscow.

None of this hurt the general’s career, BBC Russia said. He returned to Moscow, became deputy chief of the General Staff, and was later promoted to commander of Russia’s Aerospace Forces.

In August 2026, General Chayko did indeed nearly die: an explosion occurred near the Balzi Rossi restaurant in Moscow, where he was celebrating his 55th birthday and his promotion to the new post. Five people were killed, including Chayko’s son-in-law, and 19 others were injured. Chayko himself was unharmed.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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The Ukrainian command is trying to stop the Russian offensive — the decisive push in the battle for Donbas — on the approaches to the Kramatorsk-Sloviansk urban area. To do this, it has created two operational groupings, both led by veterans of the Azov Brigade: the “Center” grouping, tasked with holding Sloviansk, is commanded by Andriy Biletsky (former commander of the 3rd Army Corps), while the Azov grouping guarding the approaches to Kramatorsk is commanded by Denys Prokopenko (former commander of the 12th National Guard Brigade, which was reconstituted after the 2022 capture of its forces in Mariupol in 2022). Biletsky’s troops have already distinguished themselves with a successful offensive: they pushed Russia’s 20th Army back across the Siverskyi Donets north of Sloviansk, and are now trying to drive back the forces advancing on the city from the east and south. Prokopenko’s task is harder: he took up his new post in the midst of a fresh Russian breakthrough between Dobropillia and Kramatorsk. In this sector, Ukrainian forces are dealing with a full-blown crisis — possibly more serious than the one caused by the Russian breakthrough in the same area 14 months ago. Russian troops have already cut the Dobropillia-Kramatorsk road, are storming the first city, and are pushing toward the outskirts of the second.

Dobropillia

• Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had fully captured Dobropillia and released several videos of Russian assault troops in the city as evidence. Some of the footage shows clear signs of AI processing (a practice that is becoming more common), though other clips appear genuine. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, have published videos of their own strikes on Russian forces in Dobropillia.
• Troops advancing from the south have reached the city center, while forces attacking from the east have reached the northern outskirts via the village of Hannivka. A third group is advancing between Dobropillia and the Pokrovsk–Dnipro road, threatening to outflank the entire area from the west. The apparent goal is to drive a wedge between the “Azov” group in Dobropillia and the forces defending the eastern part of the Dnipropetrovsk region, in the area around Mezhova.
• North of the Pokrovsk–Dnipro road, Russian forces have reached Hulive, while to the south they have captured Serhiivka.
• The main danger, though, comes from a Russian breakthrough east of Dobropillia. Russian command has moved additional forces there from the eastern part of the Zaporizhzhia region and repeated, on a much larger scale, a maneuver that failed last year: a large grouping has pushed through to the Dobropillia–Kramatorsk road and now threatens to break through to Kramatorsk’s southwestern outskirts. Russian forces have retaken Kucheriv Yar and part of the large village of Zolotyi Kolodiaz — the same settlements where a Ukrainian counterattack in August 2025, reinforced by large forces redeployed from the Sumy region, halted the well-known Dobropillia breakthrough. Both sides have simultaneously published videos meant to prove they control Zolotyi Kolodiaz, so it remains unclear which side holds the village. Russian forces, however, have already managed to get behind its Ukrainian defenders near Petrivka. Russian forces earlier reached Novoandriivka on the road to Druzhkivka farther east, raising a real threat of a breakthrough directly to Kramatorsk’s southeastern outskirts.
• At the same time, on the opposite flank of the area overseen by Denys Prokopenko’s group — along the front southeast of Kramatorsk — another Russian grouping continues to advance. It is moving around the northern outskirts of Kostiantynivka and Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka, heading generally toward Bilokuzminovka. The terrain there is difficult: Bilokuzminovka is home to a park with cliffs dozens of meters high, backed by a ridge of hills. Even so, Ukrainian forces still have reason to fear a Russian breakthrough toward the airport on Kramatorsk’s southern edge.
• East of Bilokuzminovka, Russian forces have resumed their advance along the Bakhmut–Sloviansk highway, aiming to reach Kramatorsk’s northeastern outskirts.
• Ukrainian command also faces an additional problem: figuring out the plan behind the Russian offensive in the northern Donbas. Ukraine had previously been confident that Russian forces intended to swing deep around the Kramatorsk–Sloviansk urban area from the west and east, forcing Ukrainian troops to retreat under threat of encirclement while avoiding urban combat. Ukrainian command said the western Russian grouping aimed to reach Barvinkove in the Kharkiv region, while the eastern grouping aimed to reach the confluence of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers near Izyum. However, it now appears Russian command may have another plan as well (and perhaps not only one): to approach Kramatorsk from several directions at once and begin storming the city itself, whose prewar population was 150,000. In that scenario, the battle for neighboring Sloviansk, whose prewar population exceeded 100,000, would begin at the next stage.

Sloviansk and Lyman

• Over several months, Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi eliminated the threat of a breakthrough by Russia’s 20th Combined Arms Army toward the confluence of the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers near Izyum, as well as Russian attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets near Sviatohirsk.
• Andriy Biletsky’s group has finally confirmed, with video evidence, a long-anticipated development: Russia’s 20th Army has abandoned a large area west of the Chornyi Zherebets River and is now trying to organize a defense along its banks between Torske and Zarichne. Ukrainian assault troops are already operating inside Zarichne but have not yet crossed the river.
• Russian command’s evident task is to defend not only along the river but also the northern flank of the 25th Combined Arms Army, which continues to control the area west of the Chornyi Zherebets all the way to the outskirts of Lyman. This sector matters even more to Russian forces than the 20th Army’s: beyond hopes of capturing Lyman, the 25th Army is meant to support the flank of another Russian grouping operating on the Siverskyi Donets’s southern bank and advancing directly on Sloviansk.
• For now, the 25th Army is holding its territory despite problems on its northern flank near Zarichne and Yampil, and is even trying to advance into Lyman’s residential areas.
• Biletsky’s group, meanwhile, is trying to address the Russian advance on the Siverskyi Donets’s southern bank more radically. The commander received reinforcements for this: two brigades that had previously been fighting in the eastern Zaporizhzhia region. Using these forces, Ukraine’s “Center” group launched a counterattack against Russia’s “South” group, which had previously been advancing on Sloviansk from the east.
• Ukrainian forces tried to retake Rai-Oleksandrivka from Russian assault troops, who had been infiltrating from there into the town of Mykolaivka, 6 kilometers (4 miles) east of Sloviansk, in recent weeks. Ukrainian units appear to have gained a foothold in central Rai-Oleksandrivka, but Russian forces continue to hold the village’s northern outskirts.
• South of Rai-Oleksandrivka, Ukrainian forces have not yet managed to turn the situation around: Russian troops continue to infiltrate between the Siverskyi Donets–Donbas canal and the Bakhmut–Sloviansk road.

Zaporizhzhia region

• As noted above, Ukrainian command was forced to redeploy two brigades to the Sloviansk area from the Zaporizhzhia region — more precisely, from the junction of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. They had previously been part of a Ukrainian corps that had spent several months advancing on the northern flank of Russia’s “East” group, which in turn had been moving along the front toward the central districts of the Zaporizhzhia region.
• To organize this offensive, Ukrainian command had redeployed the 7th Air Assault Corps from the Dobropillia area back in late spring, a move that weakened Ukrainian defenses around the town. There was no choice at the time: after capturing Huliaipole in the winter, Russia’s “East” group was rapidly advancing toward Orikhiv, threatening to collapse Ukrainian defenses in the western districts of the Zaporizhzhia region and the eastern part of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• The 7th Corps’ offensive achieved relatively modest results: the “East” group’s advance on Orikhiv slowed sharply, and Russian command was forced to redeploy forces to its northern flank. However, Ukrainian forces never managed to cut the “East” group’s supply lines or force it to retreat, and Ukrainian command is now being forced to gradually dismantle its strike grouping at the junction of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
• Russian forces have also attempted to storm Orikhiv. So far, only forces from the “Dnipro” group are directly involved, since Ukrainian attacks on the northern flank have delayed the “East” group from reaching Orikhiv from the east.
• About a month ago, Russian forces captured Novodanylivka south of Orikhiv, as well as the now-famous village of Mala Tokmachka to the east. Airborne forces redeployed to the area from the reserve simultaneously launched an offensive southwest of Orikhiv, reaching Novoandriivka and Novopavlivka.
• Ukrainian forces have responded with counterattacks. Russian airborne units reportedly may have been pushed out of Novopavlivka, west of Orikhiv, though there is no visual confirmation yet.
• At the same time, east of Orikhiv, Ukrainian forces again attacked Mala Tokmachka from several directions. Published videos show Russian forces holding only part of the village’s center and its southeastern outskirts, including the area around a penal colony whose ruins have already changed hands many times.
• The situation around Orikhiv continues to worsen for Ukrainian forces, however: Russia’s “East” group has resumed its offensive on a broad front toward Orikhiv and the Orikhiv–Novomykolaivka road, previously one of the main Ukrainian supply routes in the area.
• Troops from the “East” group have already infiltrated Omelnyk, north of Mala Tokmachka and 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of Orikhiv. Russian forces are advancing not only on Orikhiv itself and its supply routes, but also on Novomykolaivka to the north.
• So far, there are not many Russian assault troops along the Orikhiv–Novomykolaivka road. Ukrainian forces, however, are busy repelling the “Dnipro” group’s attempted storm of the city and apparently lack the strength to dislodge the Russian troops from their positions.

Interactive map

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Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the Russian military’s strikes on Kyiv overnight on October 22.

“Three waves of ballistic missiles have been launched at Kyiv by Russian ‘humanitarians’ since yesterday evening. They used 21 missiles. Unfortunately, numerous sites across the city have been hit and damaged,” he wrote on social media.

Zelensky said the strike came “almost immediately after another round of talks” and that it showed “no real change in [Russia’s] attitude toward everything that is happening.” He called on allies to speed up deliveries of air defense systems to Ukraine and increase sanctions pressure on Moscow.

Russian forces struck Kyiv with drones and ballistic missiles overnight on October 22. One person was killed and more than 20 were injured.

The Ukrainian military, in turn, used drones to strike several regions of Russia overnight after the talks, including Moscow and the Moscow region. Two people were injured in New Moscow.

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European Union officials are searching for someone to represent Europe’s position in negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Politico reported that discussion of candidates intensified after U.S. presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in St. Petersburg on October 21.

“President Putin disregards the European Union as an authority,” Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview with the Axel Springer Global Reporters’ Network, of which Politico is a part.

“He doesn’t want to talk to [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen, he doesn’t talk to [the head of European diplomacy] Kaja Kallas. He stopped talking to other European leaders, including [French President] Emmanuel Macron,” he said.

Pavel said the EU needs to “identify a person or a group of people who would speak for Europe.” These don’t necessarily have to be representatives of EU or NATO leadership, he said, but “simply leaders who would be given a mandate by the others to negotiate.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb is among those being considered as a potential lead negotiator for the EU. European diplomatic sources told Politico that Stubb has “the best relationship with Trump among EU leaders” cited Finland’s long border with Russia as another factor.

Stubb took part in a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Witkoff in Oslo that preceded Witkoff’s trip to Russia, according to Politico. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also attended that meeting and is being considered as a key negotiator for the EU, Politico said. Another candidate is European Council President António Costa.

Sources told Politico that it is critical for the EU to take part in the negotiations as a single entity rather than through the leaders of its individual member states.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, with whom he maintains a friendly relationship, could serve as a negotiator.

WSJ sources reported a few days ago that Putin had proposed a trilateral meeting between the leaders of the U.S. and China to discuss ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. The outlet said EU representatives were not going to be invited to the meeting.

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Russian forces struck Kyiv overnight on October 22 with drones and ballistic missiles.

In the Dniprovskyi district, the strikes damaged homes and vehicles and set residential and non-residential buildings on fire, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. One person was killed and five others, including a child, were injured. In the Darnytskyi district, the strikes damaged transportation infrastructure.

In the Obolonskyi district, two people were injured. In the Pecherskyi district, eight people, including three children, were injured. In the Holosiivskyi district, six people were injured. The strikes also damaged non-residential buildings, ambulances, and a monastery.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the strikes damaged part of the metro system’s infrastructure at the South Bridge. He did not provide further details.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes in Kyiv hit “Ukrainian military-industrial facilities involved in the production and storage of long- and medium-range cruise missiles and drones, as well as transportation infrastructure sites.”

In the Odesa region, Russian forces struck a food production facility, Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported. A fire broke out, destroying the administrative building. No one was injured.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted “port infrastructure facilities in the Odesa region and vessels used in the interests of Ukraine’s Armed Forces.”

Russia strikes Kyiv with drones and various types of missiles daily. The latest attack, on October 22, came just hours after U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to St. Petersburg to meet with Vladimir Putin for talks focused on ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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Ukrainian forces attacked several Russian regions with drones overnight on October 22, including Moscow and the surrounding Moscow region. In Voronovo, part of the New Moscow area, two people were injured in the strike.

In Serpukhov, outside Moscow, a strike hit the Defense Ministry’s “75 Arsenal” plant, which produces weapons and ammunition, according to the independent Telegram channel Astra. The Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ said the strike on the Moscow region involved not only drones but also missiles.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 163 drones were shot down as they approached the city since the evening of October 21. In total, he said, 630 Ukrainian drones were headed toward Moscow and the Moscow region, and most of them were destroyed at “distant frontiers.”

Ukrainian drones also struck Lipetsk. Lipetsk Governor Igor Artamonov said the attack damaged windows and facades of private homes and apartment buildings, as well as a clinic, in the regional capital. A man born in 2001 was injured and hospitalized. Astra reported that the strike sparked a fire on the upper floors of a building in the “Atmosfera” residential complex.

Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev said 44 drones were shot down overnight over the city of Voronezh and the Voronezh region. Local authorities in the Tula region said 70 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight. In Voronezh, the attack damaged the roofs and facades of private homes, apartment buildings, and a public facility. In Tula and the Zaoksky district, private homes sustained damage.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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Poland has suspended delivery of a large weapons package to Ukraine over the Lviv Regional Council’s decision to declare 2027 the year of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a source told the news outlet RBC Ukraine.

Lviv Regional Council members voted at an October 20 plenary session to declare 2027 the year of the UPA, its commander Roman Shukhevych, and Ukrainian political figure Oleh Olzhych.

The source told RBC Ukraine that the Lviv regional authorities had “managed” to hold the vote just as Poland was preparing to send Ukraine a large military aid package. “Their irresponsible actions have now put delivery of this package on hold. Intensive efforts are underway through back channels to resolve a problem that was created out of nothing,” the source said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the Lviv Regional Council’s decision “unwise” and said it “harms Ukraine itself.” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz called the decision unacceptable, saying it “deepens divisions” between the two peoples. “The Ukrainian authorities must distance themselves from this position,” he said.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said Ukraine had assured Poland that the Lviv Regional Council’s decision would not take effect. He said the resolution had disappeared from the council’s website after Poland intervened.

The Lviv Regional Council’s Facebook post announcing the year of the UPA is now unavailable.

Issues surrounding the Ukrainian Insurgent Army regularly strain relations between Poland and Ukraine. The most recent such dispute arose in the spring of 2026, when Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree awarding the honorary title “Heroes of the UPA” to the Separate Special Operations Center North, part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Special Operations Forces. The decision drew sharp criticism in Poland because UPA fighters took part in the Volhynia massacres of 1943–1944, in which an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Poles and 20,000 to 30,000 Ukrainians were killed. After Poland condemned the decision, Zelensky promised to open the archives on the Volhynia massacres.

Poland and Ukraine’s UPA dispute

• Poland strips Zelensky of highest honor after Ukrainian army unit is named for controversial WWII fighters; Ukrainian officials return their awards

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Oleg Mikhailov was detained in Moscow on suspicion of “justifying terrorism,” the Telegram channel Novaya Respublika and the BNK news agency reported.

The regional branch of Russia’s Communist Party confirmed his detention to BNK. Novaya Respublika reported that Mikhailov was charged with “justifying terrorism” over a 2024 post about sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, who was sentenced that year to five years in a penal colony, also for “justifying terrorism.”

Mikhailov is being held in a temporary detention facility. A court will decide on October 22 whether to keep him in custody or impose other restrictions pending trial. The provision he is accused of violating, Part 2 of Article 205.2 of Russia’s Criminal Code, carries a fine or five to seven years in prison, according to Novaya Respublika.

Oleg Mikhailov heads the Communist Party’s regional branch in Komi and is a former member of the republic’s State Council. In September 2021, he won a State Duma seat in a single-member district. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the European Union, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and Ukraine imposed sanctions on him. The United States sanctioned him over the passage of a law against “fake news” about the military, even though he had not voted for it.

In the 2026 State Duma election, Mikhailov finished second in the Syktyvkar single-member district, losing to a candidate who had fought in the war. During the campaign, Mikhailov was the only candidate from Komi to call for peace. A month and a half before the vote, there was an attempt to remove him from the ballot.

From Meduza’s archives

• ‘You can always find a crime to charge someone with’ Russian leftist thinker Boris Kagarlitsky faces seven years in prison for ‘justifying terrorism.’ Meduza spoke with his daughter about his arrest.
• Gerrymandering à la russe: To preserve United Russia’s supermajority, the Kremlin is pressuring Communists to sideline their strongest candidates in September’s elections
• The ‘certain nuances’ of prosecuting journalists The Kremlin’s spokesman explains why policing ‘justifications of terrorism’ isn’t an assault on free speech

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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