An explosion hit the 75th Arsenal, a Russian army plant in Serpukhov south of Moscow, overnight on 22 October, Russian Telegram channel Astra reported. Russian officials also claimed drone attacks on the Moscow region, Tula, and Lipetsk that night.

As Russia presses its full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s long-range drones and missiles keep hitting military plants and refineries deep inside Russia. Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi says this plant specializes in repairing Buk and S-300 air defense systems. Astra describes it more broadly, as making weapons and ammunition and repairing military equipment. If Militarnyi is right, the blast hit a site that fixes Russian air defenses. It came the night Moscow’s mayor credited air defenses with stopping hundreds of drones.

Blast at the arsenal

An Astra OSINT analyst placed the explosion inside the site from a video, the channel said. Residents claimed in local chats that blasts followed passing drones, then at least three missiles. Astra did not confirm the missile count. Serpukhov lies about 99 km south of Moscow. Ukraine has sanctioned the plant, and the US Treasury has listed it too. As of the morning of 22 October, no Russian official had confirmed the blast.

More footage of the attack on the arsenal in Serpukhov. We are awaiting satellite images. pic.twitter.com/tTsgc18W3L

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 22, 2026

630 drones, by Moscow’s count

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed that 630 drones flew toward the Moscow region from 20:30 on 21 October to 04:00 on 22 October. He claimed most were destroyed far out and 163 were neutralized on approach to Moscow. Two people were injured in Voronovo, in New Moscow, he stated.

Tula Oblast Governor Dmitry Milyaev claimed air defenses downed 70 Ukrainian drones over his region. Private homes were damaged in Tula and the Zaoksky district, he stated.

Lipetsk governor claims homes and a clinic damaged

Earlier in the night, Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ posted footage of commotion in Lipetsk after explosions. Lipetsk Oblast Governor Igor Artamonov claimed a drone strike damaged homes, apartment blocks, and a closed polyclinic. A man born in 2001 was injured and hospitalized, Artamonov claimed.

Lipetsk, moment of the explosion. https://t.co/wCX6GVThQr pic.twitter.com/bGwGLbUm2d

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 21, 2026

In May, Ukrainian intelligence said Russia was deploying more regiments against strike drones. In September, Ukrainian units hit more Russian air defense systems and radars than in any month since 2024, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said. Analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko counted 76 destroyed in September with days of the month still to go and argued Russia cannot replace such losses. If Militarnyi’s description holds, losing repair capacity would deepen that gap.

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) published a 3D model and parts list of Russia’s new Filin cruise missile on 22 October. The breakdown names the Russian companies behind the missile and the foreign makers of its electronics.

HUR runs its War&Sanctions portal to trace such parts back to their makers. Its stated aim is to “deprive the aggressors of the ability to produce weapons for terror,” the portal says. Meanwhile, Russia is betting on cheap, fast cruise missiles, Serhii Beskrestnov, a freelance adviser to the president on technology, told Radio NV in mid-September. Naming the Banderol, Dan-T, Dan-M, and Gerbera-5, he warned they would soon outrun Ukraine’s jet-powered interceptors, so Ukraine needed its own cheap missiles to shoot them down.

Composite body, ground launch

JSC NPO Molniya, part of Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation, builds the Filin, HUR said. The agency called it part of a Russian defense-industry trend toward cheap jet-powered, ground-launched air-attack weapons. Russia began firing it at Ukraine in late summer 2026.

HUR’s data puts the carbon and fiberglass fuselage at 3.5 m, with a 3 m wingspan. Some parts are 3D-printed. Russia claims a top speed of 800 km/h. The range is 600–1,200 km, and the missile flies at ultra-low altitude or up to 6 km. Versions carry 50-kg or 100-kg warheads. A solid-fuel booster fires it from a ground launcher.

A firm tied to a Shahed-type drone

PLAZ LLC makes the onboard equipment, HUR said. The firm also helps produce the Garpiya, a version of Russia’s Shahed-type Geran-2 drone. Filin and Garpiya units share a similar layout and markings. Guidance combines a Chinese-made inertial navigation system with a 16-channel Kometa anti-jamming module from Russia’s VNIIR-Progress.

The electronics resemble those in other Russian missiles and drones but carry a larger share of Chinese parts. Of 81 components, 35 are American and 22 Chinese. The engine, however, is Russian: an R500 turbojet from Reynolds LLC. A similar engine earlier turned up in the S-71K Kover aviation cruise missile and S-71M Monokhrom, HUR said.

For comparison, Ukraine found more than 20 foreign components in a different cheap missile, the Banderol, in May 2025. They included 10 US microchips, and the Banderol flies on a Chinese jet engine.

Russian missiles and drones killed one person and injured 24 in Kyiv overnight on 22 October, the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office said. Damage spread across six of the city’s districts, the city military administration reported.

The strike came hours after Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin had told Witkoff that Russia was “in principle” ready to resume three-way talks with the US and Ukraine in mid-November. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy read the overnight attack as a sign that Russia’s attitude has not changed. A day earlier, Russian drones killed two people in a 24-story Kyiv apartment block.

21 ballistic missiles in three waves

Russia fired 21 ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight, Zelenskyy said. The barrage came in three waves, around 22:00, at about 02:00, and around 03:30.

Across Ukraine, air defenses downed or suppressed 181 of 210 Russian drones, the Air Force said. Its report did not mention any ballistic missiles shot down.

One killed in the Dniprovskyi district

The only death in Kyiv came in the Dniprovskyi district, on the city’s left bank. There, Russian strikes destroyed 13 detached houses on several streets, prosecutors said. Police said the man killed was 48 and that six people were injured in the district, four of them children, the youngest aged five.

Of the injured, five are minors and two are young children, and prosecutors reported acute stress reactions among them. A 16-year-old boy is in hospital with a closed head injury, prosecutors said. Sixteen of the injured were hospitalized, the city military administration said. The final number of injured is still being established.

Ambulance station and monastery damaged

In the Holosiivskyi, Obolonskyi, Pecherskyi, and Sviatoshynskyi districts, the attack damaged eight apartment buildings, prosecutors said. It also damaged a building-supply hypermarket, a restaurant, a monastery building, a post office, and office premises.

In Pecherskyi, Russia damaged an ambulance station and six ambulances, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote. The State Emergency Service said eight people were injured in that district, three of them children, and reported damaged transport infrastructure in the Darnytskyi district.

Bridge closed, metro line split

The strikes damaged metro infrastructure on the Pivdennyi (Southern) Bridge, Kyiv Metro said. As of the morning, green-line trains ran in two sections, Syrets–Vydubychi and Osokorky–Chervonyi Khutir. Inspections and repairs would continue after the all-clear, the metro said.

Oleksii Biloshytskyi, head of Ukraine’s Patrol Police Department, announced that traffic across the bridge toward the left bank was temporarily closed. The city is adding buses on routes 22 and 91, the city administration said. Russian drones had already hit the bridge repeatedly in early October.

Denmark will guarantee a loan to the Danish subsidiary of Fire Point, the Ukrainian maker of Flamingo cruise missiles, the Danish Business Ministry announced on 21 October. The financing will run through EIFO, Denmark’s state export and investment fund.

Ukraine uses its Flamingo missiles to strike defense plants deep inside Russia as Moscow continues its full-scale invasion. Fire Point broke ground in December 2025 on a plant in Vojens, southern Denmark, to make solid fuel for the missiles. The project has since grown far more expensive. In August, CEO Iryna Terekh said its estimated cost had risen from €50 million to above €150 million, calling the figure “very rough.” The war, meanwhile, stands in the way of Fire Point borrowing on ordinary terms in Denmark, the ministry said. That is why the Danish state is guaranteeing the loan.

What Denmark is putting up

The guarantee covers 750 million Danish kroner, or about $112.6 million, Reuters reported. Terekh said in August that the plant’s launch had slipped to late 2027. The ministry called the deal another big step toward starting production. However, Ukrainian outlet Defender Media noted that the statement does not say directly that the loan will fund the plant.

EIFO chief Peder Lundquist said the fund is involved in nearly 40 projects linked to Ukraine. Business Minister Martin Lidegaard said hosting a Ukrainian defense company brings Denmark knowledge, production, and partnerships. Europe’s security and freedom, he added, start in Ukraine.

Better shielded from Russian strikes

Defense Minister Jeppe Bruus said Denmark was the first country to decide to let a Ukrainian defense company set up on its soil. Production outside Ukraine, he argued, is better protected from Russian attacks. He added that Fire Point’s presence opens cooperation that could give Denmark access to technologies developed in wartime.

Denmark first said in September 2025 that Fire Point would make long-range missile fuel on Danish soil. Since then, the company has signed deals with more than a dozen European firms for FREYJA, an anti-ballistic project. It could reduce Europe’s long-term reliance on scarce US-made Patriot interceptors. Fire Point aims for a first ballistic missile intercept with it by mid-2027.

Poland has paused the delivery of a large military aid package to Ukraine after a Lviv regional council honored the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a WWII nationalist force, a source in the Ukrainian government told European Pravda on 21 October. A Polish Defense Ministry spokesperson told Fakt the report was untrue, though he told WP he knew nothing about a possible delay in shipment.

If confirmed, the freeze would carry a history dispute into Poland’s military aid. The row flared in May, when Kyiv named a special forces unit after the UPA, and in June Poland’s president stripped Zelenskyy of Poland’s highest honor. Even so, Ukraine’s ambassador said in August that Polish military aid was still flowing.

A vote and a disputed freeze

The Lviv Oblast Council voted on 20 October to name 2027 the year of the UPA, its commander Roman Shukhevych, and nationalist activist Oleh Olzhych. The UPA fought Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, but Poland holds it responsible for mass killings of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–1944. The resolution disappeared from the council’s website late that evening, RMF24 reported.

The source blamed what it called the councilors’ irresponsible actions, saying the vote came as Poland prepared the shipment and that work through closed channels is underway. The ministry spokesperson, Janusz Sejmej, called the report untrue. Asked whether it could reflect a delay in shipment, he said he knew nothing about that.

Polish officials push back

On 20 October, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote that Ukraine’s authorities must distance themselves from the council’s position.

The next morning, Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the vote unwise and harmful above all to Ukraine. He said he had warned Zelenskyy earlier that such gestures hinder Ukraine’s friends, though the president was not responsible for this vote. At such moments, Tusk said, Russians always rub their hands.

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski then requested that councilor Sviatoslav Sheremeta, who proposed the resolution, be added to Poland’s list of unwanted persons. That afternoon, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said the decision had been made. Sheremeta is barred from the Schengen zone until 2031, RMF24 reported. Poland had already barred him once, in 2017, the outlet said.

Kyiv asks for restraint

Earlier on 21 October, before the ban, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the vote counterproductive in a reply to journalists and urged Warsaw to avoid abrupt steps. Zelenskyy’s closest aides had also promised the resolution would not take effect, Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki told TVN24.

Investors who buy idle sanctioned tankers and refit them could put the ships back into legal oil trade, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on 19 October, Bloomberg reported. He laid out the plan five days after a US official described it to Reuters.

That official said the aim was to cut record tanker freight rates. The Energy Department added that any relief would not help Russia move its oil. The plan comes weeks before the 3 November midterms, with voters worried about fuel costs after gasoline and diesel prices surged in the Mideast conflict. Yet the shadow fleet is also how Russia sells oil past sanctions, and those sales fund its war against Ukraine. In December 2025, Ukraine’s foreign intelligence counted more than 1,100 tankers serving Russia alone, 226 of them under US sanctions.

An approval process Wright didn’t detail

Many sanctioned tankers sit idle, Wright told Bloomberg’s Annmarie Hordern, and buyers keep approaching the administration offering to fix them up and carry only legal oil.

“We’re going to move some of the ships from what I call the ‘bad-guy fleet’ to the ‘good-guy fleet,’” he said. “They will not carry sanctioned oil anymore.”

The ships must go through an approval process, Wright said, but he gave no criteria. He insisted “there is no removing of sanctions.”

He put the global dark fleet at about 1,600 ships, a count covering vessels that hauled Venezuelan, Iranian, and Russian oil. Dozens or even hundreds could turn legitimate, he said. The ships are no longer needed for Venezuelan oil, Wright said, and no Iranian oil is moving. Russian oil exports, he added, “are certainly not growing.”

Diesel, a waiver, and the tankers

Earlier, on 9 October, the Treasury issued General License 135, allowing some deals in Russian diesel until 7 April 2027. On 16 October, US President Donald Trump waived sanctions and tariffs under the Graham Act, leaving earlier sanctions intact. That law had directed him to review and sanction shadow-fleet vessels. Trump defended the waiver as a way to keep Moscow at the negotiating table.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News host Larry Kudlow on 18 October that he had asked the White House team to “carefully consider the unintended consequences,” The Hill reported. He added that he thought “the right decision will be made” in the end.

In a direct confrontation with Russia, European NATO states would likely be even more vulnerable than Ukraine to swarms of Russia’s new jet-powered strike weapons, Fabian Hoffmann of the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (NIDS) argued in a 20 October op-ed for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He calls them low-cost cruise missiles. Just three days earlier, Romania met what it believes were two of them over the Black Sea.

Romanian F-16 fighter jets shot down two jet-powered Geran-family drones over Romania’s territorial waters on 17 October, the Defense Ministry said. Interim Defense Minister Radu Miruță said they flew at about 450 km/h and were likely Geran-4s, the first of that type Romania had downed.

Faster drones for a faster war

Russia began using the Geran-4 in May in response to effective Ukrainian interceptor drones, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said, adding that it reaches up to 500 km/h. By June, those interceptors were downing about half of slower Shahed-type drones, defense adviser Serhii Beskrestnov estimated.

Hoffmann traces the shift to the Geran-3, a model Ukraine recovered intact in 2025. In his account, a Chinese JT80 turbojet roughly doubled its speed, from 185 to 350 km/h. However, he puts newer models, including the Geran-4, at 600 km/h or more, above HUR’s figure for that model.

By his estimate, each costs $150,000–$250,000, against about $50,000 for a long-range drone. Still, from Russia’s perspective, he wrote, that buys a significantly higher chance of getting through.

Engines are the bottleneck

Hoffmann argues defenses must match the threat’s speed, for example with jet-powered interceptor drones. Ukraine already fields some. On 4 October, President Zelenskyy said its Bars interceptors had shown the highest percentage among Ukrainian interceptors, about 30% of targets, according to Militarnyi. One unit destroyed five aerial targets with five Bars interceptors, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara later told journalists. He also called aviation one of the most effective tools against jet drones.

Hoffmann’s concern is scale. Jet engines are in short supply, he wrote, because too few European and US suppliers can meet demand. Ukraine’s Defense Industry Council flagged a shortage of such engines for its drones in April. In his view, gun systems and higher-end missile defenses are too scarce or too costly to fill the gap.

Norway has put into force a new round of sanctions against Russia that hits banks, listed oil refineries, ports, airports, and suppliers of Russia’s military industry, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry announced. The rules mirror the EU’s 21st sanctions package, which Brussels adopted in July.

The EU’s 22nd package, adopted on 12 October, is principally a list of names, while the 21st brought significant new measures, lawyers noted. Among them are new tools against the shadow fleet, the tankers with murky ownership that Russia uses to move oil around sanctions. That fleet also sails along Norway’s coast, and a new Norwegian Coastal Administration report found that it poses a growing threat to security and the environment there.

Banks, refineries, and Sheremetyevo

Norway is not an EU member, but it has joined every EU sanctions package against Russia, with a few exceptions and national adjustments. Oslo backed this one politically on 11 August, and the rules took effect on 21 October. Part of the package was already in force. It placed travel restrictions and asset freezes on 48 people and asset freezes on 168 entities, and it listed 41 shadow fleet vessels on 14 August.

Norway’s transaction ban now covers 33 more Russian credit and financial institutions. A separate ban covers 22 more abroad, including in India, Mongolia, Nigeria, and the UAE.

Another transaction ban reaches listed refineries in Russia and third countries that process Russian oil or help dodge sanctions. A Georgian refinery joins that list on 25 January 2027. The same ban adds two Russian ports and four Russian airports, including Moscow’s Sheremetyevo.

Drone gear and the shadow fleet

Export curbs on dual-use goods now cover 51 new entities that back Russia’s military industry. Some are in China, including Hong Kong, and others are in India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye, and the UAE. The banned-exports list adds nickel and beryllium powder, along with drone gear such as jamming and interception systems, launchers, and servo motors.

Oslo can now also list ships that service sanctioned shadow fleet tankers or swap cargo with them at sea. Elsewhere in Europe, France’s navy and UK forces have boarded sanctioned shadow fleet tankers this year.

Ukrainian drone maker Wild Hornets is rethinking projects it is currently working on, including launching interceptors from aerial platforms, because of limits on SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet. Spokesman Mike Orliuk told The War Zone (TWZ) this on 20 October. The company builds Sting interceptors, which it says destroyed over 15,000 Shaheds and Gerberas, a cheaper Shahed lookalike, in a year. Orliuk said Sting’s current operations are unaffected.

The stakes rise as Russia shifts to faster drones. Ukrainian defense technology adviser Serhii Beskrestnov counted more than 2,500 jet-powered Gerans, Russia’s version of the Shahed, in August. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 16 October that these drones fly faster than 400 km/h. He added that some Ukrainian interceptors chasing them work through Starlink. When the link was slowed, Ukraine could not intercept some of them, he said.

How Sting stays connected

“Our own communications system provides the basic connection to our interceptors,” Orliuk said. The company’s remote-control technology can draw on various internet sources, he added, though the military often uses Starlink. Even then, the terminal does not need to move at high speed. It only links the command center to a ground station, which Orliuk compared to a cell tower.

“For these needs, everything is operating normally with Starlink at the moment,” he said.

An air-launch project under review

“Some drones carry a terminal on board and need to fly at high speed with it,” Orliuk said. “In such cases, Starlink’s limitations make their operation impossible.”

That is why the company is rethinking the air-launch project. Wild Hornets has made no clear decision yet but will test alternatives, Orliuk said. He declined to describe them.

“I believe, in any case, depending on a single solution is very risky,” he said.

Other firms share the concern

Orliuk said he has spoken with other companies that rely far more on Starlink and have expressed concerns. He pointed to growing interest in Europe’s Eutelsat network, though “creating something like Starlink won’t be easy.”

Who ordered the slowdown remains unclear. The order to slow Ukraine’s Starshield service came from inside the White House, two US officials and a Western official said. A US official told TWZ the president never made such a request. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on 17 October that the slowdown had “nothing to do with the White House” and called “a report on that” “categorically false,” without saying which report he meant.

South Korea will withdraw more staff from its embassy in Kyiv, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon said on 20 October. Seoul says Kyiv broke an understanding to keep the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war confidential, which was meant to protect the soldiers and their families in the North. Seoul had conveyed its position through several channels but received no sufficient response from Kyiv, Park added.

The Korea Herald noted, the move comes amid a dispute with the host government itself. That matters beyond the two countries. Good ties with Kyiv serve South Korea’s interests, AP reported earlier this month, citing experts, because Ukraine could share intelligence on North Korea’s expanding cooperation with Russia and its battlefield experience.

Seoul shrinks its Kyiv mission

Officials put the planned withdrawal at about half the embassy’s staff. The Korea Herald added that the timing has yet to be set. A chargé d’affaires and all consular staff will stay in Kyiv to keep diplomatic contacts and protect South Korean citizens.

Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly in September that Ukraine had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea. Ukrainian forces had captured both men in Russia’s Kursk Oblast in January 2025, where Pyongyang had sent troops to fight for Moscow.

On 6 October, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Sybiha’s messages included words of apology but fell short of what Seoul expected. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi replied that Sybiha had written he regretted the situation reaching an exchange of critical comments.

In an interview published on 12 October, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told the dispute stemmed from differing readings of confidentiality at various stages of the transfer. He considers the matter closed. “Ukraine fulfilled all its obligations.”

Ukrainians can now check a free live map of where Russian attack targets are flying, a Ukrainian air-threat monitoring project called monitor announced on X on 13 October. The beta pulls public reports of drones in flight into a single view and lays them over official air raid alerts.

Russia now flies jet-powered drones, and some switch off their engines before an attack and glide in. Over a hundred drones can arrive in one night. Yet since September, drone-only yellow alerts in some Oblasts no longer shut everything down. So during drone alerts, some Ukrainians now stay at their desks rather than in shelters. The new maps offers them a quick look at the sky from a phone, even on a weak signal.

What the map shows

The launch post described the service as one that tries to show where each target is, using open sources and algorithmic processing. It said the beta focuses on drones, with other targets to follow.

The drone data does not come from radar. The service draws on regional Telegram channels that post where drones and missiles are flying over their own oblasts. It cross-checks those posts to estimate what each target is, roughly where it is, and where it is heading, the project explains. The same page already lists cruise and ballistic missiles among the targets. It also says the map is free, ad-free, and needs no registration, and that it runs in a browser or on Telegram, designed to work on a phone with a weak signal.

A target log lists each drone’s district and course. Alert data comes from alerts.in.ua, and areas under alert turn red or yellow. The map refreshes about every 20 seconds while targets are airborne.

However, the developers warn that the dots are only estimates and show up late. Some targets slip through untracked. That is why “an empty map does not mean you are safe,” they wrote. When sirens sound, they urge people to rely on official signals and take shelter.

On 17 October, the Defense Ministry said that Ukraine’s Air Alert app now maps the approximate position and heading of some targets. These include cruise missiles, Banderol drone-launched missiles, and Shahed-type drones. The data comes straight from the Air Force over secure channels.

For security reasons, it carries no exact coordinates or real-time tracking and may lag. Ballistic missiles and anything faster than 2,000 km/h don’t appear at all. The ministry’s advice matches monitor’s: get to a shelter first, then check the map from there.

Ukraine is counting on buying part of Lockheed Martin’s growing output of ballistic missile interceptors, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He met the US company’s team in Kyiv on 19 October and also raised servicing and repairing F-16 fighter jets inside Ukraine.

Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s power grid with ballistic missiles, and interceptor supplies fall short of that threat. Kyiv is working every route to more Patriot missiles, from US deliveries to allies’ stocks, and some have stalled. Greece, for one, has not confirmed it will hand any over, citing its own defense needs. A purchase from the missiles’ maker would add one more route.

Growing output, F-16 repairs in Ukraine

Lockheed Martin builds the PAC-3 MSE interceptors fired by Patriot air defense systems, as well as the F-16. Zelenskyy said both matter against Russian ballistic missiles and jet-powered Shahed drones. Neither area is easy right now, he added.

“We count on the opportunity to purchase some of them to protect more lives,” he wrote.

On 28 July, Zelenskyy met the company in Washington to discuss joint production. That came weeks after US President Donald Trump pledged Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriots.

A batch reportedly stuck in Washington

Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not signed off on a “significant” batch of Patriot missiles, Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent. One official said allies had already paid for them. A US government official called the claims untrue, and the Pentagon did not respond. A NATO official said allied-funded deliveries, including air defense, continue. A second NATO official said some shipments could be delayed, but likely not for political reasons.

Zelenskyy told Bloomberg on 18 October that the US delivers only 12 Patriot interceptors a month. On 20 October, interceptors topped his list in a call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

No purchase was announced, so new interceptors from this route remain a prospect. Meanwhile, partners’ early warnings of Russian ballistic launches have gone missing three times recently, Zelenskyy wrote. Those warnings give air defenses extra minutes to prepare.

Defence City, Ukraine’s special support regime for arms makers, now has 63 member companies, the Defense Ministry said in a 19 October release. That is more than double the late-May count, and Euromaidan Press calculations show the newcomers are, on average, much smaller firms.

Ukraine already buys most of its weapons at home. More than 75% of its 2025 weapons procurement budget went to domestic manufacturers. Most new weapons models cleared for military use are Ukrainian too: 892 of the 1,000 authorized from the start of 2026 to mid-June. Defence City is meant to turn that demand into more production capacity, and our calculations suggest it is now reaching smaller producers too.

Who is joining

Each resident’s figure in the ministry’s count is its qualified income, meaning revenue from selling weapons and military equipment. Applicants file details of their defense contracts for the previous calendar year with their application, the ministry’s guide shows. So the combined total changes as members join. It does not track month-to-month sales.

The 63 current residents have a combined qualified income of nearly $2.47 billion. At the end of May, 31 residents had $2 billion, the ministry reported. By July, 45 residents had over $2.07 billion, it added.

By Euromaidan Press calculations, the 32 companies added since May bring about $15 million each on average. The first 31 averaged about $64 million each. The math assumes all 31 early members remain, with unchanged figures. If they do, the newcomers are smaller producers on average, because each figure reflects a firm’s own prior-year weapons sales.

What residents get

The profit-tax break comes with a condition. Residents choose where their untaxed profit goes, but it must go to purposes the tax code allows, the ministry explained. If the money goes elsewhere, the break does not apply.

Residents also get customs incentives and state support to relocate plants and better protect production sites. They can rent state property without an auction. They can also ask to restrict access to sensitive information about them in public registries. Some defense export procedures are simplified too.

Resident status also makes a company eligible to be designated critically important to the defense industry. That lets it defer up to 100% of its staff liable for military service from the draft, the ministry noted.

To join, a company must confirm it meets the legal requirements and file an application with supporting documents. By law, the ministry has 10 working days to decide. If approved, a ministerial order grants the status, and the company enters the Defence City register.

Patrol density along Lithuania’s border with Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave has practically doubled since soldiers joined the border guards there in early October. Lithuanian Armed Forces Commander Raimundas Vaikšnoras told LRT this in an interview. He linked the deployment to provocations and to what he described as Russian preparations for a large-scale mobilization.

Kaliningrad is a piece of Russia wedged between Lithuania and Poland on the Baltic Sea. Lithuanian Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said people would naturally flee a Russian mobilization. Earlier, on 11 August, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia planned to mobilize several hundred thousand people by the end of 2026, after its parliamentary vote.

Commander: Russia lacks troops for a breakthrough

Vaikšnoras said Russia is struggling in Ukraine and needs to fill gaps in its capabilities. Moscow would probably like a breakthrough but lacks people, he added. In July, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service estimated that Russia had signed about as many new military contracts this year as it had lost troops.

He also cited provocations. In Latvia, armed men recently tried to push migrants across the border, he noted, leaving open whether they were bandits or criminals. Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka denies everything, he added. On 6 October, Latvian Interior Minister Jānis Dombrava wrote that the escorts stood on the Belarusian side, were armed, and threatened Latvian soldiers.

Mission extended to mid-November

Lithuania decided to send troops after that Latvian incident. On 7 October, Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas asked Defense Minister Kaunas for troops to help the State Border Guard Service. Kaunas then approved up to 100 soldiers until 16 October, LRT reported.

On 16 October, Kaunas extended the mission to mid-November at Katelynas’s request. The Defense Ministry cited possible flows of people fleeing Kaliningrad and related illegal border crossings. It also said military intelligence sees no significant changes in military activity in Kaliningrad. Katelynas had earlier called the step preventive, BNS noted. He cited public, non-intelligence reports of a call-up planned after Russia’s parliamentary elections and said the threat level at the border had not risen.

Commander doubts Moscow’s intentions

Vaikšnoras said Russia and Belarus may not want open incidents that leave their traces right now. He added that he does not believe in their good intentions. He noted it has been said publicly that Russia’s capability in Kaliningrad is sharply reduced, because most of its forces are committed to Ukraine. Back in June 2025, Poland’s foreign minister said that, from what he knew, Russia had withdrawn a large part of its troops from the exclave.

Instead, hybrid attacks and sabotage that cannot be traced at once will probably continue, Vaikšnoras said. LRT noted the interview took place before a Ukrainian drone crashed in Pasvalys district on Sunday and before an attempted arson at premises used by SpaceX in Vilnius.

Ukraine holds personal data on each of the nearly 46,000 foreigners it has identified as signing with Russia’s army since 2022, Dmytro Usov, secretary of its prisoner-of-war coordination headquarters, said on 19 October. If the current pace holds, he expects this year’s contracts to reach Moscow’s plan. Meanwhile, a survey of captured foreigners gave a split answer on how many knew they were heading to war.

Usov said 41% of surveyed foreign POWs signed at enlistment offices and recruitment points, which the headquarters reads as a sign of a systematic campaign. He also said the hiring is meant to ease the social and budget burden of Russia’s own losses. Russia has long turned to foreigners to offset shortages in its regular forces. In April, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said enlistment offices had reportedly been assigned regional quotas.

A count built name by name

Usov, a brigadier general and secretary of Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, spoke at the international conference Crimea Global. He said Russia’s Defense Ministry has signed 45,959 foreigners from 151 countries. Ukraine’s records include each one’s rank, dog tag, and contract date.

The figure counts everyone who signed, not only those serving now. In April, Usov said his count left out North Korea’s regular troops, that 25–30% more recruits were likely still unidentified, and that at least 5,149 foreign recruits had died, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

This year’s contracts near the plan

Contracts have grown every year: 94 in 2022, 4,067 in 2023, 8,877 in 2024, and 16,085 in 2025. Some names surface late. At the same April event, Interfax-Ukraine reported, Usov had put 2025 at 13,997 and said the headquarters adds newly identified foreigners every month.

For 2026, Russia’s Defense Ministry planned 18,500 foreign contracts. Ukraine knows of 16,168 so far, roughly level with all of 2025. Another 668 contracts still have no year assigned. If the same dynamic holds, Usov said, the ministry will fully meet its plan and may even exceed it.

He named Indonesia, Peru, Chad, and Zimbabwe among the ten countries that drove the growth in recruits, Ukrinform reported. At the same time, he said, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and POW agencies have cut recruitment in some countries and stopped it in others.

What captured foreigners told Ukraine

Ukrainian forces have captured citizens of 59 countries since the full-scale invasion began. Uzbeks, Tajiks, Belarusians, and Colombians are among the largest groups.

In the headquarters’ survey of foreign POWs, nearly half said they knew they would fight Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. Another 28% said they didn’t know, 14.8% weren’t sure, and 13.8% said they were deceived. The headquarters ran the survey, and neither report gave a sample size or explained how the shares fit together. Usov said the results showed most knew where they were going. Almost 47% said they signed up for Russian citizenship.

US President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries a disgrace in an interview with Newsmax and questioned President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s will to settle the war on 15 October. His statements came after he made a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to allow Russian diesel back into the US ahead of the mid-term elections in the US.

Kyiv says its long-range strikes have knocked out more than half of Russia's refining capacity, one of the few levers it controls on Moscow's war income, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry. This is part of efforts to reduce the aggressor's capabilities to launch assaults, including the latest, during which four Russian regions fired 39 Iskander-M, North Korean KN-23, hypersonic Zircon, and supersonic anti-ship cruise Oniks missiles, Zelenskyy said.

Trump criticizes Zelenskyy over oil prices while remaining silent on Russian strikes

Earlier, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine stopped refinery strikes for three days to meet US wishes after Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” on 11 October. At the same time, Russia struck a Kharkiv heat-and-power plant within hours of the announcement, he emphasized.

Meanwhile, in the interview with Newsmax, Trump said Zelenskyy is only pushing world oil prices higher.

“Well, I think that’s a disgrace,” he said.

He added that Ukraine has other options: “There are a lot of targets that you can hit.”

At the same time, Trump didn't say a word about Russian strikes on Ukraine's civilian buildings and power infrastructure ahead of the winter.

Trump compares Zelenskyy to a circus showman

The US leader said he is “not a big fan” of Zelenskyy. He claimed both sides “would like to see it end,” but that he finds Zelenskyy “more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

He also said that he believes the depletion of US ammunition stockpiles is linked to the aid provided to Ukraine under the Biden administration, rather than the war with Iran.

Ukraine has repeatedly offered to help the US counter Iranian drones during the operation. The New York Times reported that a Ukrainian team departed the day after the US made such a request.

Nevertheless, despite Kyiv’s offers and actions, Trump once again compared Zelenskyy to P. T. Barnum, the 19th-century American circus showman, saying that he received a tremendous number of Patriots and Tomahawks.

However, there is no public confirmation that Tomahawk missiles were transferred to Ukraine during the Biden administration.

Ukraine’s six-wheeled Frodo ground robot fired on targets during a demonstration in Kharkiv Oblast for the Pomsta (Revenge) Border Guard Brigade, a border guard detachment posted on Facebook. Frodo made its public debut only on 30 September.

Ukraine had contracted more than 22,000 ground robots for 2026 by July, mostly logistics carriers, with combat models the smallest group, the Defense Ministry said. Frodo’s first reported mission was an evacuation. The demo shows its armed version to a fighting brigade, the kind of robot Ukraine has ordered least.

What the armed version carries

The platform completed its tasks at a training ground in near-combat conditions, said the 3rd Border Guard Detachment named after Hero of Ukraine Colonel Yevhenii Pikus. The Buria turret mounted on Frodo can fire either a Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher or a Browning M2 heavy machine gun. It engaged targets at up to 1.3 km (0.8 mile), the detachment said.

The 47-kg (104-lb) module has a ballistic calculator, stores up to 256 targets, aims in three seconds, and has a stated autonomous run time of up to 48 hours, the post said. Frodo is rated for up to 150 km (93 miles) on paved roads and 75–80 km (47–50 miles) over rough terrain, the post added. A Frontline Robotics Zoom reconnaissance drone flew reconnaissance during the test.

The developer, Frontline Robotics, describes its core philosophy as arriving fast, doing the job, and leaving very fast—hit and run, the detachment’s post said. Familiarizing the brigade’s soldiers with such systems aims first and foremost to preserve personnel’s lives and health, the detachment said.

A robot first reported as a medevac

Frontline Robotics told Militarnyi at the unveiling that Frodo had passed Defense Ministry codification and was built for logistics, evacuation, and strike missions. The robot reaches 40 km/h (25 mph) and carries up to 200 kg (441 lb) of payload, or 400 kg (882 lb) at most, the company said. A single soldier can swap its batteries.

The 92nd Assault Brigade used an early test unit to evacuate a wounded soldier, Frontline Robotics told Militarnyi. An operator, callsign Tango, named the robot’s speed and its ability to handle complex maneuvers as its main advantages, Militarnyi reported.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) detained two men suspected of scouting targets for Russian strikes on Sloviansk and Dnipro, the agency reported on 14 October. Catching both early let it secure Ukrainian reserve command posts and the gas stations the alleged agents had been hunting, the agency added.

Sloviansk anchors the northern end of the Fortress Belt, the chain of fortified cities that has held Ukraine’s defense of Donetsk Oblast since 2014. Russia is pushing to seize them, and its aircraft bombed a residential area of Sloviansk on 11 October. Where Ukrainian convoys stop and troops gather is exactly what Russian handlers allegedly asked these suspects to supply.

A gas station worker suspected of filming convoys

The first suspect worked at a gas station complex in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast. Russian intelligence allegedly reached him through a former classmate who left for Russia after the full-scale invasion and now works for its special services, the SBU said. He then allegedly used his phone to secretly film Ukrainian army convoys at or near gas stations. He was allegedly supposed to send the photos and videos to Russia to help it prepare a targeted strike. He also allegedly drove his own car around other gas stations and bridges that the Defense Forces use for logistics.

Spotted through Telegram comments

The second suspect, a former Pokrovsk resident, moved to Dnipro in 2024 and settled in a dormitory. Russian intelligence noticed him through pro-Kremlin comments he posted in Telegram chats, investigators say. A female handler in Russia allegedly tasked him with guiding missile and drone attacks on places in the city where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated. He allegedly scouted on foot or took public transport to reach outlying districts.

Officers seized computers and smartphones containing evidence of the men’s alleged work for Russia. Both are suspected of treason under martial law and of unauthorized dissemination of information on Ukrainian troop movements or deployment, under Articles 111(2) and 114-2(2) of the Criminal Code. They remain in custody without bail and face up to life imprisonment with confiscation of property. The SBU’s office for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts ran the operation under the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

A porcelain fish survived the Russian strike that destroyed a room in the Kyiv apartment of Andrii Dubenko, a volunteer, dentist, and medic, his cousin Anna Danylenko wrote on Facebook and told UP Life, the lifestyle site of Ukrainska Pravda. Dubenko and two others were inside the nine-story building in Lisovyi masyv when the 13 October strike hit. It killed other residents.

The strike came during a ballistic attack aimed mainly at CHP-4, one of Kyiv’s main power plants, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, two days after Washington announced an energy ceasefire that Moscow never confirmed.

Lifted out in a rescue basket

Dubenko, his girlfriend, and a 72-year-old aunt were inside when the blast hit, Anna told UP Life. Her family was lucky, she wrote, and the rule of two walls saved their lives. The rule tells anyone who can’t reach a shelter to keep at least two walls between themselves and the street, away from windows. Fifteen minutes after the blast, State Emergency Service rescuers lifted the three out in a basket, Anna wrote. The aunt comforted the girlfriend, telling her not to live in the past but to look to the future, Anna said.

A hole where the window was

“Just on Monday I was sitting in their cozy apartment, where I grew up, and now I’m looking into a hole that just two days ago was a window,” Anna wrote.

She gathered what was left of the tea set the family used for samovar tea while her grandmother was alive. “It was my anchor, the anchor of our family,” she wrote. The porcelain fish survived. Her mother used to play with it, and Anna now calls it the “fish of unbreakability.” UP Life likened it to the ceramic rooster that survived in a wrecked kitchen in Borodianka, Kyiv Oblast, in 2022 and became a symbol of Ukrainian resilience.

The family didn’t sleep that night. Firefighters were still putting out the blaze overnight, so they could only get back inside in the morning.

“Charred ruins, lots of water in the hallway, which burned out. People are throwing broken things out the window, down by the building. The smell of burning is everywhere,” she told UP Life.

The Trump administration is weighing looser sanctions on shadow fleet tankers that have hauled oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, a US official said on 14 October, Reuters reported. An industry research group expects the change to do little for freight rates.

With Reuters calling high fuel prices a risk for Trump before the 3 November midterms, Washington has already eased sanctions on Russian oil and diesel this year and is now looking at the ships blacklisted for hauling sanctioned cargoes. In March, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a waiver on Russian oil at sea would bring Moscow no significant financial benefit, yet Russia’s seaborne oil income jumped by $890 million in the week to 15 March, Bloomberg data showed.

“Legal oil” on blacklisted ships

The talks center on letting “legal oil” sail on previously sanctioned vessels, the official said. Only crude or fuel free of US sanctions would qualify, not Russian or Iranian oil. Washington wants more crude and refined products moving out of the Gulf, the official added. Companies would need US Treasury approval to use the ships.

Research group Energy Aspects said US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in a video to the World Petroleum Congress in Riyadh, tied the easing to record freight rates. Those rates hit records after the Iran and Ukraine wars drove up inflation and left US crude too costly for Asian refiners, Reuters said. Energy Aspects itself expects the easing to do little for freight rates, since most tankers sanctioned over Russian or Venezuelan links have kept trading for the past three months.

The Energy Department said any relief would do nothing to help Russia ship its oil or refined products. Treasury referred questions to the Energy Department. Yet Reuters noted that both departments could face pressure to let these vessels carry Russian diesel, given Trump’s push to get it onto world markets fast.

Britain is pushing the other way. UK finance minister John Healey urged counterparts at International Monetary Fund meetings in Bangkok on 15 October to keep tough sanctions on Russia, “especially a tighter ban on shipping services” that keep Putin’s shadow fleet operating.

Diesel license criticism and an unconfirmed ceasefire

On 9 October, the US Treasury issued a license clearing Russian-origin diesel trade until 7 April 2027. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters it was a weak decision unworthy of Ukraine’s partners. Democratic Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Chuck Schumer, and Elizabeth Warren called it a “total betrayal of Ukraine.” Republican Senator Thom Tillis said there is “a legitimate case for saying the president’s not following the law.”

Trump then pressed Kyiv to spare Russian refineries and declared an “energy ceasefire” on 11 October. A White House official told Axios it covers only oil refineries. Neither side confirmed a similar announcement Trump made in mid-September, AAP reported.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on 13 October that contacts on the ceasefire were continuing and referred further questions to Trump, Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported. He claimed the diesel deal was “a very mutually beneficial item of Russian-American cooperation” that serves the interests of Russia, the US, and world energy markets, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.