Exclusives

Military

Zelenskyy’s warning that Russian airspace is becoming dangerous is proving true: Russia temporarily restricted operations at 27 airports amid a massive drone attack. Russia later lifted the restrictions, but Russian airports continued to experience flight disruptions as they resumed arrivals and departures.

Ukraine makes its anti-drone road nets a national standard in a new strategy for defensive lines through 2028. It has already strung over more than 1,000 kilometers of road. FPV drones hunt anything moving near the front, so Kyiv is codifying the protection solutions.

Ukraine’s military now orders supplies based on real front-line data, not guesswork, lawmaker says. Shift comes under new commander-in-chief. Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Drapatyi, is centering the army on soldiers’ lives and real front-line needs, a lawmaker believes.

Ukraine’s shell factories outpace state orders, arms company chief says: Kyiv spent five months buying from them this year, leaving six to produce. Private plants were built under Russian fire with no state investment, says the head of Ukrainian defense maker Ukrainian Armor.

“Operation to strike Russian targets deep in swamps continues”: Ukrainian Commander Madiar says his unit hits 7,306 Russian troops in first half of October, up 59% on August. The pace held through weather that usually grounds drones, says Robert “Madiar” Brovdi, who calls the trend the opposite of de-escalation.

Intelligence and technology

Musk pushed Trump to slow Starlink in Ukraine, weakening air defenses as Russian drones attacked cities – The Telegraph. The restrictions reportedly forced some Ukrainian drone missions to be called off and made it harder to intercept Russian jet-powered drones attacking cities.

White House ordered limits on Ukraine’s military satellite service — Reuters. Who made the decision remains unclear. Germany has questions for Washington, while the UK reports that Starlink access has been restored following assurances to its defense secretary.

Posting strike videos online may help Russia tune its drones’ optical targeting. Moscow now pays people to film hits, Ukrainian adviser warns. Russia is collecting footage of its Geran attack drones hitting Ukraine, probably to test the optical target-recognition systems that guide them in their final seconds.

Ukraine’s hobbit-named robot fired on targets up to 1.3 km away in a demo for border guards. First reported carrying a wounded soldier, Ukraine’s Frodo robot has now fired for a border guard brigade—built, its maker says, to hit and run.

Musk pointed at the US military over Ukraine’s satellite limits. Now a US official says the administration had nothing to do with them. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says it is in talks with partners and SpaceX to maintain stable service and prevent sudden restrictions on satellite services used by its military.

International

Belgium triples planned F-16 deliveries to Ukraine, pledges 10 jets by year-end. Prime Minister Bart De Wever announced the expanded commitment during talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Brussels, as Ukraine seeks more aircraft and ammunition to counter Russian attacks.

Poland provided secret military aid to Ukraine, Zelenskyy hints amid air defense shortages. Ukraine’s president thanked Warsaw for undisclosed assistance and 20 mm ammunition as Russian drone and missile attacks strain Ukrainian air defenses and Europe faces greater pressure to fill gaps in US support.

22 House lawmakers press Trump to implement Russia sanctions law. Diesel deal draws bipartisan backlash. The lawmakers argue that using the law’s sanctions and tariff powers would force Russian President Vladimir Putin to take peace talks seriously.

Romania finally holds Russia responsible for the drone attacks on ships off its coast, and wants a joint NATO command for the Black Sea. The NATO states on the sea would take turns leading it, with Romania ready to host it from 2028.

EU fast-tracks merger of three European firms into one SpaceX rival. It wants to end reliance on US satellites that failed Ukraine this week. The EU plans to fast-track antitrust approval for Project Bromo, a satellite venture.

Trump calls Ukraine’s renewed refinery strikes “a disgrace” after Russia’s 39-missile strike on its energy sites. The president called Zelenskyy “P.T. Barnum” and said Biden armed Ukraine for free.

Ukraine and Japan plan prefabricated backup crossings for Kyiv’s bridges: 720 meters of structures already delivered. The fifth phase of the Emergency Recovery Program, recently signed by the two countries, allocates $15 million for Ukraine’s infrastructure needs.

Two tankers burn off Romania’s Sulina as Bulgaria says it lacks proof Russia is behind the Black Sea ship attacks. Seven crew members of a San Marino-flagged chemical tanker were still missing hours after it caught fire at anchor off the mouth of the Danube.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia pushes its drone war into Volyn Oblast on NATO border, cutting power to 370,000 as strikes creep toward EU. Moscow struck a region bordering Poland the same week it hit the central Kirovohrad Oblast hardest ever, exploiting a Starlink cap on Ukraine’s defenses.

One Ukraine out-produced third of EU’s steel. Russian strikes have now cut its output to zero. The 150-year-old industry made nothing last month after missiles wrecked almost every working blast furnace since August.

Russian drone cuts down unique energy line tower over Dnipro River in Kyiv. It can’t be rebuilt, and world is queuing for more power equipment. Ukraine’s grid operator Ukrenergo is already starting work on workarounds, but calls drones that cut down towers a new challenge.

Russia’s largest drone attack on Kirovohrad Oblast since the full-scale invasion kills three in Kropyvnytskyi. Drones struck critical infrastructure, transport companies, logistics sites, and homes across the central Ukrainian oblast, with its capital taking most of the damage.

On Monday she sat in her cousin’s Kyiv apartment, and by Wednesday a Russian strike had left a hole where the window was. Her cousin, his girlfriend, and an aunt survived inside, and rescuers lifted them out 15 minutes after the blast.

A Russian drone damaged Cosmogony, Ukraine’s largest painting, in the section depicting the future. Its artist spent nearly two years creating it. The museum is weighing whether to restore the burned section or keep the fire’s traces as a reminder of the war.

Political and legal developments

Hungary held $82 million in cash and gold from Ukraine for months. Now, it faces torture complaints in Europe’s top court. Hungarian forces stopped two Oschadbank vehicles in March, carrying cash and gold from Austria to Ukraine.

Ukraine detains a gas station worker and a Telegram commenter suspected of scouting targets for Russian strikes. One was allegedly reached through a former classmate in Russia, and the other allegedly took orders from a female handler there.

After Trump, Musk tells Ukraine’s president to go. Zelenskyy says he won’t resign and will never accept Ukrainian land as Russian. The Ukrainian leader told British broadcaster Piers Morgan that this refusal is why some “big guys” want him replaced.

Read our previous daily review here.

Jeffrey Miller’s newest novel, The Tree at Panmunjom, begins in the summer of 1976, as a soldier fresh out of basic training named Bill Davis arrives in South Korea and finds himself assigned to Camp Kitty Hawk just before serving a tense 24-hour shift at the nearby Demilitarized Zone’s Joint Security Area.  On arrival at […]

The post The Tree at Panmunjom vividly revisits 1976 tensions appeared first on Asia Times.

Colloidal Silver — First Edition, 2026, Paperback

Lies are Unbekoming | October 16, 2026

Silver was medicine. Not alternative medicine. Not folk medicine. Medicine. In surgery. In obstetrics. In the burn ward. In water treatment. In the household medicine chest. Every physician before 1938 knew this.

By the 1870s, silver nitrate was standard in surgical wound care across the leading hospitals of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Colloidal silver preparations — Collargol, Argyrol, Protargol — entered European and American practice through the 1890s and early 1900s and became standard antiseptics in military field medicine. By the time Fleming grew his first penicillin mould in 1928, silver was the first-line antimicrobial of the Western pharmacopoeia. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal carried the clinical reports in volume. The practice ran continuously through the Victorian era, the Edwardian era, the First World War, the interwar period. By 1980, almost all of it was gone.

What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a four-thousand-year clinical record disappeared from mainstream medicine within four decades of the Flexner Report — and what the honest account of silver looks like once that record is reassembled.

Colloidal Silver reconstructs the pre-1938 record from The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the primary literature of the era; recovers Robert Becker’s bioelectric framework from the regeneration research the pharmaceutical model buried; and places silver inside a practical terrain-paradigm guide to its current place — in water, on the body, inside the body, and in the chronic conditions where antibiotics have failed.

Honest about argyria. Honest about what silver cannot do. Honest about the dependency trap.

That is why the book has ten appendices. 295 pages, thirteen chapters, ten appendices. The practical use chapters are grounded in a reference apparatus — a Pre-1938 Condition Index with two hundred and forty entries, an Argyria File, resources, commercial products, modern case accounts, cleansing responses, children and vulnerable populations. The whole picture, in one place.

The seed idea, and the person who planted it

The frame that lets this book say what silver is actually doing came from Robert Becker. Becker was the orthopaedic surgeon at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and the Syracuse VA whose electrical regeneration research in the 1960s and 70s named something no one else was willing to name at the time: silver is not just an antimicrobial. It is a bioelectric agent. His silver-electrode experiments regrew tissue in animals that mainstream medicine said was non-regenerable. His book The Body Electric (1985) is the full account.

Becker is the frame that lets Colloidal Silver explain what silver is actually doing — not just “killing bacteria,” but acting on the bioelectric field the pharmaceutical model has no vocabulary for. His regeneration research was systematically defunded through the 1980s because an element on the periodic table has no business plan. Chapter 6 of this book rebuilds the Becker framework from the primary research he published before the funding stopped.

The debt is foundational, and belongs at the top of the post.

What the book shows

Part One: The Disappearance. What silver did in Western medicine for a century before 1938, and how it vanished. The surgical wound-care tradition and the pre-antibiotic clinical record. The Lancet and BMJ as the primary archive. The Flexner Report of 1910, funded by Carnegie and Rockefeller, which restructured American medical education around the pharmaceutical model and killed silver’s institutional base inside a generation. The Streetlight Effect — why the questions silver could answer stopped being asked once the funding model changed. The first section is the recovered history, put together in one place for the first time.

Part Two: What Silver Is and What It Isn’t. Why the germ theory story fails as a complete account of infection. The terrain paradigm as the actual working frame of pre-1938 medicine, before Pasteur-only orthodoxy was institutionalised. What silver actually does at the cellular level — Becker’s bioelectric framework in full — and what the pharmaceutical model has to keep denying for the current therapeutic approach to continue to work.

Part Three: Practical Use. Three parallel chapters: silver and water, silver on the body, silver inside the body. Preparation. Dosing. What distinguishes clinically useful colloidal silver from the commercial product that gets sold as a tonic. What forms work for what conditions. The practical heart of the book.

Part Four: The Honest Account. Argyria and the historical silver compounds — the condition that gets used to end every conversation about silver, correctly identified so it stops ending the conversation. When antibiotics have failed and silver is the one tool still working. What silver cannot do. The place of silver in a terrain approach — not as a replacement for anything, not as a cure-all, as one tool returned to the shelf, with its evidence intact.

What is at the back

Ten appendices. Home Production of Colloidal Silver — equipment, concentration, safety. Dosing and Administration. The Pre-1938 Condition Index, two hundred and forty entries from the primary literature, condition by condition, source by source. The Argyria File — every documented case the research could identify and the circumstances that produced it. Resources and Further Reading. Commercial Products. Modern Case Accounts. Silver in the Broader Landscape of Recovered Remedies. Understanding Cleansing Responses. Children, Pregnancy, and Vulnerable Populations.

Full back-of-book index. Everything cross-referenced.

Who this book is for

If you have been reading me on Substack for a while and you have been waiting for the one book on silver that holds the pre-1938 record, the Becker framework, and the practical use together, this is that book.

If you are new, start here. You do not need to have read anything else to follow it.

If someone you love is still working through chronic infection, long-course antibiotic damage, or the dependency trap of pharmaceutical-only medicine, this is the one volume I would send.

Colloidal Silver: The Silver That Medicine Dropped

The companion piece: No Autoimmunity

If Colloidal Silver traces how one of the pre-1938 tools was dropped, No Autoimmunity takes apart the diagnostic category that was invented to explain what medicine has done to the body in the years since.

The current chronic-illness landscape — type 1 diabetes, juvenile arthritis, pediatric multiple sclerosis, thyroid disease, atopic dermatitis, food anaphylaxis — is routinely labelled “autoimmune.” The word places the fault inside the patient. The body is said to have malfunctioned, failed to tell self from non-self, started attacking itself.

The body did not do any of that. The body responded to what has been injected past every barrier it has to filter foreign material. The mechanism was named more than a hundred years ago, confirmed experimentally through the twentieth century, and relabelled only when the original vocabulary stopped suiting the business model. No Autoimmunity is the full account.

Readers who want the pre-1938 pharmacopoeia restored, tool by tool, should read Colloidal Silver. Readers who want the “autoimmune” label dismantled should read No Autoimmunity. The two sit together on the shelf, and the pair reinforces.

No Autoimmunity

The Surface Laptop Ultra is a true MacBook Pro competitor for Windows, and Microsoft has never been so close to dethroning Apple—if only it weren't for the lack of battery life.

• I flew on a "boutique" Taiwanese airline called Starlux, and it blew me away.
• The seat was like a private pod, and the food was some of the best I've ever had.
• The crew seemed rushed during boarding, but were impeccable inflight.

I'm a regular business-class traveler, having flown on dozens of airlines and hundreds of thousands of miles over the years.

I often get asked the same question: What's the best business-class seat you've ever flown in?

It's not the usual fan favorites of Singapore Airlines or Emirates. It's Starlux Airlines, a Taiwanese carrier many Americans have never heard of.

Starlux first flew in January 2020 and bills itself as a "boutique" international airline that operates nonstop flights from Taipei to several US cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.

My flight was on an Airbus A350-900 from Taipei to San Francisco, a nearly 12-hour overnight flight. It was the second leg of a trip that started in Kuala Lumpur, and the entire itinerary cost 85,000 Alaska Airlines miles.

The cash fare on this route ranges from $2,600 to over $5,000, depending on the season, so the points redemption — Alaska is a Starlux partner — was a very good deal. And the experience blew me away.

The whole idea from the beginning was to build a luxury airline from nothing with meticulous attention to detail and an emphasis on the small stuff.

After flying Starlux, those minor details made all the difference. Here's what my flight was like and why I'd easily book again.

The seat felt like a private suite

Every seat in Starlux's business class opens straight into the aisle, and every one has a sliding door. The cabin is decorated with faux marble finishes and shiny black panels. It honestly looks more like a boutique hotel lobby than the inside a plane.

This extreme attention to detail is what sold me most.

My favorite example: there's a little gap under the storage cabinet door, so you can leave a charging cable running out of it with the door closed. Exploring the seat illuminated several thoughtful design choices. The pod felt deliberate in a way some brand-new airline seats just aren't.

Some people call business class doors a gimmick, mostly because they don't go all the way up. I loved mine anyway. Once the seat was flat and the door was shut, it felt like my own little room, further emphasized by the warm mood lighting, pristine leather accents, and large seat walls.

A flight attendant handed me pajamas before we'd even pushed back, so I changed right away.

After dinner, the crew made up my bed with a thick mattress pad and one of the softest blankets I've ever been given on a plane.

The footwell angles inward slightly, which makes it feel a bit tight when you're lying flat, but I slept well regardless. On an overnight flight this long, that's what matters most.

The food was some of the best I've had in the air

Dinner is where Starlux left every other business-class flight behind.

It started with warm, fluffy garlic bread, which felt out of place alongside the Asian meal, but I was thrilled to see it. When the flight attendant came to clear my appetizer, she asked if I'd like more bread, to which I obviously said yes.

Then a creamy miso mushroom soup showed up, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of the best things I've eaten on a plane. It was rich and savory, the kind of thing I can still taste if I think about it today.

The main was beef with fried rice, which was flavorful and cooked to perfection.

Dessert was Italian gelato that was actually soft enough to eat straight away, which basically never happens with ice cream at 38,000 feet.

Breakfast before landing: waffles with figs were also notable. One of the few airline breakfasts I'd happily order again.

All of the food served looked as good as it tasted. Every course was properly plated, the flight attendant talked me through each dish, and she reset my table between courses without me noticing.

The crew truly elevated the experience

Starlux isn't perfect, and the first 20 minutes of my flight proved it. Pre-flight service felt as if the crew was simply going through the motions rather than trying to create a good experience.

But when the meal service started, it was like a switch flipped.

One flight attendant greeted me by name and knelt down next to my seat to take my order. At one point, my seatbelt locked up while I was reaching for my amenity kit; she saw it happen and handed me the kit before I'd said a word.

My main course came out a few minutes late, and she apologized profusely for it, which she really didn't need to do, but it tells you what standard this crew holds itself to.

By the time dinner was over, even the crew members who'd seemed checked out at first were warm and attentive. When I woke up and asked for tea, it was there almost immediately, with lemon and sugar on the side.

I love how fun Starlux is

The other thing I love about Starlux is that it doesn't take itself too seriously.

There's a space theme running through the whole airline, from the Galactic Lounge in Taipei to the COSMILE loyalty program. Since 2024, it's been working with Peanuts, so Snoopy turns up on themed flights and merch.

On my flight, the entertainment screen displayed a Snoopy welcome for me, and I still carry my things in a Starlux Snoopy tote bag.

Even the toilet paper is custom printed with a runway design. All of these things make the airline feel like it's enjoying itself.

Starlux got the three things that actually matter right: the seat, the food, and the crew. And it did it with a sense of fun that a lot of the big-name carriers have somehow lost along the way.

I've flown business class on dozens of airlines, including some of the world's most famous seats. If you're flying between the West Coast and Asia, I'd book Starlux.

Starlux did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Exclusives

Russia is back at Dobropillia a year after it failed there. Now it’s the southern jaw of a pincer on Donbas’s last big free cities. This time Russia brought another army, and Dobropillia’s defenders have until the leaves fall to stop it.

Military

Ukraine’s military now orders supplies based on real front-line data, not guesswork, lawmaker says. Shift comes under new commander-in-chief. Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Drapatyi, is centering the army on soldiers’ lives and real front-line needs, a lawmaker believes.

“Operation to strike Russian targets deep in swamps continues”: Ukrainian Commander Madiar says his unit hits 7,306 Russian troops in first half of October, up 59% on August. The pace held through weather that usually grounds drones, says Robert “Madiar” Brovdi, who calls the trend the opposite of de-escalation.

Ukraine’s Navy says it hit six Su-34 bombers at a Russian airbase with Neptune missiles—the jets that drop glide bombs on Ukrainian towns (updated). Footage from Borisoglebsk showed a large fire at the base after Russian officials declared a missile alert, though the damage has not been independently confirmed.

Ukraine is going back to hitting Russian oil after its Trump-pressured pause, during which Kyiv got no US warnings of incoming ballistic missiles. The pause was meant to seal a US-announced energy truce, but Russia kept hitting power plants while Ukraine lost early warnings and drone connectivity.

To scale up air defense without straining the front, Ukraine enlists business. In under year nearly 100 companies have joined, their crews downing 60-plus targets. The crews fight under Air Force commands, using interceptor drones and automated turrets.

Intelligence and technology

Posting strike videos online may help Russia tune its drones’ optical targeting. Moscow now pays people to film hits, Ukrainian adviser warns. Russia is collecting footage of its Geran attack drones hitting Ukraine, probably to test the optical target-recognition systems that guide them in their final seconds.

Ukraine’s shell factories outpace state orders, arms company chief says: Kyiv spent five months buying from them this year, leaving six to produce. Private plants were built under Russian fire with no state investment, says the head of Ukrainian defense maker Ukrainian Armor

Ukraine’s hobbit-named robot fired on targets up to 1.3 km away in a demo for border guards. First reported carrying a wounded soldier, Ukraine’s Frodo robot has now fired for a border guard brigade—built, its maker says, to hit and run.

Musk pointed at the US military over Ukraine’s satellite limits. Now a US official says the administration had nothing to do with them. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry says it is in talks with partners and SpaceX to maintain stable service and prevent sudden restrictions on satellite services used by its military.

International

Ukraine and Japan plan prefabricated backup crossings for Kyiv’s bridges: 720 meters of structures already delivered. The fifth phase of the Emergency Recovery Program, recently signed by the two countries, allocates $15 million for Ukraine’s infrastructure needs.

After Trump, Musk tells Ukraine’s president to go. Zelenskyy says he won’t resign and will never accept Ukrainian land as Russian. The Ukrainian leader told British broadcaster Piers Morgan that this refusal is why some “big guys” want him replaced.

US weighs relief for sanctioned shadow fleet tankers, days after freeing Russian diesel. Officials say only unsanctioned oil would sail, but Reuters says Trump’s diesel push could pressure them to let Russian fuel aboard.

Ukraine’s war budget has $52 billion hole, and army needs $45 billion more on top. The West won’t send Ukraine the billions it needs until Kyiv delivers the reforms it promised.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian drone cuts down unique energy line tower over Dnipro River in Kyiv. It can’t be rebuilt, and world is queuing for more power equipment. Ukraine’s grid operator Ukrenergo is already starting work on workarounds, but calls drones that cut down towers a new challenge.

Two tankers burn off Romania’s Sulina as Bulgaria says it lacks proof Russia is behind the Black Sea ship attacks. Seven crew members of a San Marino-flagged chemical tanker were still missing hours after it caught fire at anchor off the mouth of the Danube.

Russia’s largest drone attack on Kirovohrad Oblast since the full-scale invasion kills three in Kropyvnytskyi. Drones struck critical infrastructure, transport companies, logistics sites, and homes across the central Ukrainian oblast, with its capital taking most of the damage.

On Monday she sat in her cousin’s Kyiv apartment, and by Wednesday a Russian strike had left a hole where the window was. Her cousin, his girlfriend, and an aunt survived inside, and rescuers lifted them out 15 minutes after the blast.

A Russian drone damaged Cosmogony, Ukraine’s largest painting, in the section depicting the future. Its artist spent nearly two years creating it. The museum is weighing whether to restore the burned section or keep the fire’s traces as a reminder of the war.

Political and legal developments

Hungary held $82 million in cash and gold from Ukraine for months. Now, it faces torture complaints in Europe’s top court. Hungarian forces stopped two Oschadbank vehicles in March, carrying cash and gold from Austria to Ukraine.

Ukraine detains a gas station worker and a Telegram commenter suspected of scouting targets for Russian strikes. One was allegedly reached through a former classmate in Russia, and the other allegedly took orders from a female handler there.

Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies, whose independence EU made condition for membership, have clawed back $5.1 million for state budget. Detectives found that a regional branch’s inaction had put millions at risk.

Read our earlier daily review here.

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, October 15: First, reported Starlink disruptions in Ukraine make the European front pages. Next, US papers go into more detail about the situation. Also, an unusual alliance forms in Germany between far-right and far-left parties. Meanwhile, the winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards have been announced. Finally, Finland flaunts its smelly islands.

Exclusives

Military

Ukraine blocks Russia from outflanking its fortress cities in Donbas, retaking 277 square kilometers and hitting 8,000 Russian troops. “Four seasons of ‘Vivaldi’ are complete. But the music continues. Until we meet again!” the Third Army Corps noted.

Intelligence and technology

“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government”: Musk says Trump, not SpaceX, is behind cut hitting Ukraine. The ordinary Starlink on drones is capped at about 160 km/h, too slow for some missions, so faster flight needs the military StarShield version.

“Trump and Musk must be held accountable”: US senator warns Starlink network failing over Ukraine could cripple its shield against Russian missiles and drones. Ukraine’s air defense leans on Musk’s Starlink.

“Trump was looking for any opportunity to undermine our defense capabilities,” top Ukrainian volunteer, who supplied 291,502 FPV drones to front, says of sudden Starlink limit. Ukraine had stopped hitting Russian oil refineries as Trump asked, yet the Starlink limit still landed.

NATO country that pays for Kyiv’s Starlink warns Musk as his cap breaks Ukraine’s drone missions: “As your European customers, we are watching you”. “Are you playing politics with your products again?”, Poland’s foreign minister challenges Musk

Planned capacity of 12,000 interceptors a year, under 100 seconds to target: US firm pitches a low-cost drone killer. The fastest model cruises at 540 km/h, which may be enough to catch Russia’s jet Gerans, a defense news outlet suggests..

Ukraine-NATO AI built to forecast Russia’s front-line drone attacks from past data and weather is ready to plug into the army. Drone types, areas, time windows: the model was tested on real data. A second tool ranks artillery plans and is now in trials.

New Starlink restrictions disrupt Ukrainian drone missions. Kyiv adviser says move is tied to “political situation”. SpaceX may have imposed the restrictions at the Trump administration’s request, activist Serhii Sternenko suggested.

Ukrainian OSINT channel: Russia turned a bare field into a Geran-5 launch site in a month—and drones are already arriving. Eight launcher spots, 32 drone-prep pads, and a layout the channel likens to Tsymbulova, a Russian drone base Ukraine keeps striking.

Ukraine sent a spiked tank and a Bradley into Russian drone fire. The spikes held, and Ukraine’s own drones got them home. Armored vehicles aren't dead on arrival anymore on the drone-patrolled battlefield. Friendly drones can escort them to the fight.

International

“He thinks Ukraine is a weak link and that it needs to be squeezed into giving in”: diplomat on why Trump pressures Kyiv, not Moscow. Trump is using aid and intelligence as levers over Kyiv.

“It finances an economy geared toward total war”—Ukraine’s third president on the Russian diesel Washington just cleared. Viktor Yushchenko invokes the Budapest Memorandum and Pearl Harbor days after the US waived sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia attacked Ukrainian retailer Epicentr’s warehouse 10 times in one day, destroying about 85% of goods, company says. The Khmelnytskyi hub had been effectively Epicentr’s only surviving large warehouse complex, after Russia destroyed its two largest logistics complexes in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast.

1,125 Kyiv residents injured in Russian attacks since the start of 2026, more than a third of them in five weeks from late August, Kyiv health chief says. Kyiv emergency medical teams have responded to 1,920 calls related to Russian attacks since the start of the year, according to the city’s health department head.

Ukraine warns of “a new type of humanitarian crisis” as Russia aims at its biggest cities. Even border and frontline oblasts are further along on resilience plans than the capital, Zelenskyy says.

Russia bombs Sloviansk’s warming center as the day’s attacks wound four Red Cross workers. The 250-kg bomb injured eight people and damaged five apartment blocks, and the wounded workers belonged to a Red Cross branch that had relocated from Lyman for safety

Three days after Washington announced an energy ceasefire, Russia fires 39 ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s grid. Zelenskyy says Russia has never shown America such disrespect. At least 600,000 people lost power, and four died in Kyiv.

New developments

Russia-linked bot networks kept their weekly rhythm after drone strikes on three Yandex data centers—disinformation monitor LetsData. One network that spread fake Die Welt sites now pushes a fake Ukrinform site about mobilization in Ukraine, its analysts found.

Read our earlier daily review here.

The Breville Eye Q uses optical sensors to measure the darkness of your toast. Cool tech, but the toasting quality needs improvement.

Exclusives

Military

Ukrainian scouts used a captured Russian soldier’s radio to gather intelligence for four days. Recon soldiers shared stories about their daily lives with ArmyInform.

No contact with command, a comrade maimed by a mine. A former TV director fought—and halted the Russians. He saved three soldiers in six months, ArmyInform says. One wounded comrade he could only hear on the radio.

Ukraine says it hit 12 Russian refineries in September. No refinery strikes reported since Trump’s “energy ceasefire”. Zelenskyy said Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities continued after Trump’s announcement, while Moscow had yet to confirm a ceasefire.

The night Trump announced a diesel deal with Putin, drones knocked out more than half the tanks at a Russian fuel-export terminal. The Rostov-on-Don site, which loads oil products onto river and sea tankers, burned for two days and was still smoking on the third.

“We don’t need to hit the entire plant”—Ukraine’s drones go for refinery parts sanctions make hard to repair. Of 54 strikes The Washington Post examined, more than half appear to have damaged the units that start turning crude into fuel.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine’s swimming robot can tow 10 tons, its maker says. Hook up a gun, and the shells ride aboard. It has already swum across the Desna River, its team says, and Ukraine’s Defense Ministry cleared it for use in 2025.

Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before sirens, gap that lands hard amid fears that Washington could cut data that warns of launches. The alert came late because Ukrainian radar detected the missiles only during the attack, with no advance data on launches, the Air Force says.

Kinzhal is 90% identical to Iskander-M: Ukraine’s intelligence identifies 58 companies in production chain. Russia is developing a modified version of the Kinzhal missile, equipped with a warhead that strikes targets with fragments and a blast wave.

Built by Ukraine’s ex-defense minister and unit that wrecked $12 billion of Russian gear, new interceptor downs two jet drones over Kyiv. Mykhailo Fedorov and Lasar’s Group commander Pavlo Yelizarov developed the drone in a month, Fedorov says.

Russia is building satellite network that could put all of Europe in reach, defense executive warns. Oleksandr Danyliuk, head of the European defense-tech firm Destinus, called Russia’s Rassvet system an extraordinary threat, first to Ukraine and then to Europe.

International

Ukraine wins seat on UN Human Rights Council, vows to seek accountability for Russian abuses. Elected with 162 votes, Ukraine says it will focus on documenting violations, protecting prisoners of war and unlawfully detained civilians, and returning children taken by Russia.

Finland calls for EU tourist visa ban on Russians until Moscow ends war against Ukraine as bloc weighs tougher restrictions. As suspected Russian sabotage and other hybrid operations spread across Europe, EU officials are weighing tighter restrictions on Russian travel, diplomats, and former combatants to reduce security risks.

Germany works to organize a Coalition of the Willing meeting as Russia strikes Ukraine’s energy sector. Ukraine and Germany have also agreed to hold a meeting of national security advisers in the E3 format.

France seizes Russian shadow fleet tanker in Indian Ocean, vows to combat illicit oil trade “wherever it may be in the world”. The French Navy intercepted the DF Peak in the Indian Ocean over suspicions it was sailing under a false flag. Russia relies on shadow fleet tankers to keep oil revenues flowing despite Western sanctions.

Germany detains two Turkish nationals suspected of torching a Polish Starlink station that helps route internet to Ukraine. Polish radio reports that two more people who may be tied to the arson are in German custody.

Russia’s sabotage of Europe should bring Ukraine more weapons through US purchase scheme, with clear statement of where its red lines lie, NATO’s top European commander says. The PURL program lets allies fund US-made weapons for Ukraine and drew nearly $5.5 billion in pledges before May.

EU blacklists 1,569 Russian arms suppliers and their bosses in its biggest sanctions round ever, as Trump eases up on Moscow. Most of the listed firms feed the supply chain behind the ballistic missiles Russia fires at Ukrainian cities, and EU ministers vowed to keep up the pressure despite the US-Russia fuel arrangement.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia used civilians as human shields, then shelled them near Kupiansk, Ukraine’s Khartiia says. Aerial reconnaissance footage recorded casualties among a group that included two women and a child, according to Khartiia. The Ukrainian corps says Russian media could use the incident to accuse Kyiv of attacking civilians.

Russian strike collapses a Kharkiv apartment stairwell and kills three, days after the US waived sanctions on Russia’s diesel. Rescuers dug through the night to reach the people buried in the four-story building, while the White House still wants Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries.

Ukraine’s largest steelworks begins cold shutdown after extensive damage from Russian strikes, saying safe operation is impossible while war continues. The plant will spend two months shutting down safely before mothballing its industrial assets, with any restart dependent on conditions after the war.

Political and legal developments

Energy truce with strings attached: Kyiv reportedly told to spare Russian refineries or lose US intelligence and arms. EU loans ease Ukraine’s budget, yet satellite data, Patriot interceptors, and US-made weapons still hinge on Washington, giving US President Donald Trump room to squeeze Kyiv.

US continues sharing intelligence with Ukraine, Trump says amid Russia deal backlash. Questions remain over missed warning for latest attack. Ukraine received no advance warning before Russia launched five ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, raising questions about how intelligence support was functioning.

Frozen assets, embargoes, entry bans: Ukraine names the pressure it wants the EU to put on Moscow. Kyiv says it is ready for energy, food-security, and full ceasefires—and that Moscow has to be forced to agree.

“Zelenskyy is helping Democrats”: Trump’s MAGA base accuses Ukraine of trying to swing US midterms, says journalist in US. The narrative runs across all levels of the US information space, from anonymous accounts to national television.

Bipartisan US senators say Trump’s Russian diesel deal conflicts with 2022 ban, as he presses Kyiv to spare Russian refineries. The administration says the deal will lower fuel prices, but lawmakers warn it could help finance Russia’s war against Ukraine.

For years, Hungary tied Ukraine’s whole EU course to ethnic Hungarians’ language rights. Kyiv has now passed the schooling law meant to lift the block. Hungary had blocked four stages of Ukraine’s membership process over the matter.

Zelenskyy says Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agrees to 60-day ceasefire. Moscow counters with truce lasting only voting day. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says Ukraine needs the 60 days not to hold elections but to heal its wounds and keep fighting.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusive

Europe has 11 ways to choke Russia’s war. It doesn’t need Trump’s permission for any of them. Three weeks after signing new Russia sanctions into law, Washington suspended them for Russian diesel, while the levers that would hurt Moscow most sit in European hands.

Military

Ukrainian drones hit three of Russian tech giant Yandex’s data centers in four days. Ukraine’s president says the bots thinned out too. Lithuania’s prime minister wants more such strikes to protect elections. Researchers say the bot data shows Yandex’s web crawlers, not trolls.

Ukrainian marines cleared about 6 km² near Pokrovsk without losses. The Russians they faced got a can of meat a week. The deputy commander says the operation also yielded a lot of intelligence—and that more surprises await Russia.

Ten casualties to one, by a NATO official’s count: Russia’s September in Ukraine’s kill zones. Russia kept sending troops into drone-packed kill zones in September, and up to 28,000 died, a senior NATO official told Bloomberg.

Russia’s supply base in occupied Luhansk Oblast burned overnight—NASA’s fire map caught it. The fires broke out together and grew within the hour, satellite data show, and Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ reported heavy Ukrainian strikes in the area.

Short on interceptors, Ukraine goes after the launchers: eight Russian ballistic systems hit, three destroyed since September, a minister says. Ukraine's Defense Minister says the hits made Moscow rework planned barrages, as he presses partners for anti-ballistic missiles in bulk instead of one-off deliveries.

Intelligence and technology

Russia’s sabotage of Europe should bring Ukraine more weapons through US purchase scheme, with clear statement of where its red lines lie, NATO’s top European commander says. The PURL program lets allies fund US-made weapons for Ukraine and drew nearly $5.5 billion in pledges before May.

Built by Ukraine’s ex-defense minister and unit that wrecked $12 billion of Russian gear, new interceptor downs two jet drones over Kyiv. Mykhailo Fedorov and Lasar’s Group commander Pavlo Yelizarov developed the drone in a month, Fedorov says.

Russia is building satellite network that could put all of Europe in reach, defense executive warns. Oleksandr Danyliuk, head of the European defense-tech firm Destinus, called Russia’s Rassvet system an extraordinary threat, first to Ukraine and then to Europe.

Russia is hacking cameras across Europe to track arms bound for Ukraine. At home, Ukraine has secured about 40,000 that could guide strikes — WSJ. In 2024, Russian hackers seized residential webcams in Kyiv, according to Ukraine’s Security Service.

International

“Zelenskyy is helping Democrats”: Trump’s MAGA base accuses Ukraine of trying to swing US midterms, says journalist in US. The narrative runs across all levels of the US information space, from anonymous accounts to national television.

Bipartisan US senators say Trump’s Russian diesel deal conflicts with 2022 ban, as he presses Kyiv to spare Russian refineries. The administration says the deal will lower fuel prices, but lawmakers warn it could help finance Russia's war against Ukraine.

Ten years on, Britain’s prime minister says Russia meddled in the Brexit vote—and warns Germany and France. In 2020, London said it saw “no evidence of successful interference.” Now Andy Burnham says Merz told him the AfD is linked to Russia.

Political and legal developments

For years, Hungary tied Ukraine’s whole EU course to ethnic Hungarians’ language rights. Kyiv has now passed the schooling law meant to lift the block. Hungary had blocked four stages of Ukraine’s membership process over the matter.

EU blacklists 1,569 Russian arms suppliers and their bosses in its biggest sanctions round ever, as Trump eases up on Moscow. Most of the listed firms feed the supply chain behind the ballistic missiles Russia fires at Ukrainian cities, and EU ministers vowed to keep up the pressure despite the US-Russia fuel arrangement.

Zelenskyy says Ukraine could hold elections if Russia agrees to 60-day ceasefire. Moscow counters with truce lasting only voting day. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says Ukraine needs the 60 days not to hold elections but to heal its wounds and keep fighting.

New developments

Peacekeepers, riot police, and drone crews: Russia’s bloc rehearses an operation in a Belarusian oblast bordering two NATO states. Police and national guard units train alongside soldiers from five former Soviet states, under priorities Russia set as the bloc’s chair this year.

Germany stays in Russia’s sabotage crosshairs, and its industry now braces for the long haul. Companies are no random targets, the country’s main industry lobby warns, a week after the foreign intelligence chief said Germany had become a main obstacle to Russian power in Europe.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusive

Russia is funneling the Ukrainian children it abducts into military camps and conscription. Ukrainian lawyer says world can legally call this genocide—but lacks the will. Kateryna Rashevska can walk you through exactly how one Ukrainian child disappears into Russia: the occupied-territory orphanage, the foster placement with a Kremlin-connected family, the re-education camp, the military uniform, the draft notice that arrives at sixteen.

Military

Drones now cause about 96% of Russia’s battlefield losses. Ukraine’s drone force says it has hit more than 100,000 Russian troops this year alone. That is more than 150,000 since the Unmanned Systems Forces was created.

Intelligence and technology

Fears that Ukraine will lose Starlink are back after Musk backed Trump against Zelenskyy. Adviser says profit makes cutoff unlikely. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov says Musk is first of all a businessman, and Ukraine brings SpaceX significant profit, so he is sure no one will switch it off.

Russia is building jet drones that fly 800 kilometers per hour, and Ukraine says it is already working on how to stop next generation. Russia’s jet-powered Gerans fly several times faster than the propeller Shaheds and remain the main challenge for air defense.

Ukraine ordered 54% more FPV attack drones this year than in all of 2025, and deliveries jumped almost fourfold. Contracting across all drone types is up about 5.5 times in recent months compared with a year earlier.

Norwegian nonprofit commits $1 million for interceptor drones to protect Ukraine’s Black Sea ports from Russian drones. The funding will equip Ukrainian border guards and military units with interceptor drones and support equipment to protect port infrastructure vital to Ukraine’s agricultural exports.

Russia equips Geran attack drones with image-based navigation using Google map imagery, reducing reliance on satellite navigation that Ukraine can jam, defense adviser warns. Russian drones can use stored images of terrain to navigate toward targets, making them less dependent on satellite signals that Ukrainian electronic warfare systems can disrupt.

Once considered “taboo,” Russian assassination plots against European defense executives are escalating as its hybrid warfare grows bolder, intelligence agencies warn – FT. European spy agencies say Moscow is expanding covert operations against defense industry leaders, seeking to intimidate companies supplying weapons to Ukraine and weaken support for Kyiv.

Ukraine, long keeping its weapons at home, now lets 18 arms makers export, approving over 90% of more than 400 applications. Ukraine’s defense output is projected at $55 billion this year, up from about $1 billion at the start of the invasion.

International

Trump declares immediate energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Zelenskyy says it was news to him, but Ukraine’s ready. Trump wrote on Truth Social that both sides had agreed to stop striking each other’s energy facilities.

EU imports record 12.18 million tons of Russian Arctic LNG in nine months, 9.5% more than year earlier — research group. Europe spent about 7.88 billion euros on it, the German group of experts says.

Deals with dictators lead to hell: Estonia’s PM urges Europe to help Ukraine destroy Russia’s refineries after Washington eased sanctions on diesel. Kristen Michal will raise it at the European Council next week.

Australia keeps Russian fuel out even as US opens its market: “We do not want Vladimir Putin to benefit from this war in Middle East”. Australia says it has 43 days of petrol and 31 days of diesel stockpiled, enough to wait out high prices without buying from Russia.

Humanitarian and social impact

Hours after Trump declared an energy ceasefire, Russia hit Kharkiv power plant, one of 200-plus strikes on Ukraine’s grid this week, Zelenskyy says. They killed more than 150 people and wounded more than 700.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine wants to draft 15 of every 100 workers at its weapons plants. Arms makers say this could slow guns soldiers need. You can’t just replace a skilled arms worker, makers say. It takes years to build such teams.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusive

International

Trump’s Russian diesel deal, which drew fury in Ukraine, is unlikely to lower prices, experts say. Analysts say Putin pushes for sanctions relief and no new US sanctions, all without any demand to stop the war

Ukraine shares its fortification know-how with Estonia’s new defense minister, weeks after 70-million-euro shells scandal felled his predecessor. Martin Herem took the post on 16 September, after Hanno Pevkur resigned over a procurement scandal.

Memory for 100,000 killed by Nazis: Germany recognizes special responsibility to Ukraine and links it to support against Russia’s war. The Bundestag passed two resolutions ahead of the 85th anniversary of the massacre, a rare moment when the governing coalition and the opposition aligned.

Humanitarian and social impact

Five Russian bombs kill 17 in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia next day after Trump lets Russia ship first 300,000 tonnes of its diesel. Zelenskyy tied the strike to a US move easing sanctions on Russian diesel.

Political and legal developments

Washington makes it official: US Treasury license clears sale and import of Russian diesel blocked by sanctions. The US Treasury’s waiver lets Russian diesel back onto world markets.

While Washington eases up on Russia, Europe hits back harder: EU plans to pass its largest sanctions package on Russia’s war machine in two days. It is the largest set of sanctions aimed at Russia’s defense industry, covering electronics.

New developments

Russia quietly grows fleet that funds its war: one shell firm in Marshall Islands buys two gas tankers from Chinese and Greek owners. Ukraine named 20 ships that move Russian oil and gas.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Professor Roger Watson reviews The Trials of Maurice Brophy, the new novel by Marcus Bland about a Cambridge academic whose life spirals after he finds himself summarily cancelled over his research on Wagner.

The post An Ode to Cancel Culture appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Exclusives

Military

Ukraine suffered 10 times fewer casualties than Russia in Vivaldi counteroffensive, veteran says. Ukraine’s innovations in drone and ground robot tactics are changing frontline warfare. Ukrainian forces combined assaults with drones and ground robots to reclaim territory in Donetsk Oblast while limiting their exposure to Russian fire.

More than 500 drones by Moscow’s count: Kh-101 fuel plant, second Yandex data center, and a far-north refinery hit. Russian officials confirmed the fires but named none of the targets.

Ukraine reruns its Vivaldi playbook outside Kramatorsk and pushes Russia back across the Siverskyi Donets, ISW says. Even Russian milbloggers now concede Ukrainian gains east of Sloviansk, including a river crossing toward a key height.

Drone attack forces Yandex to shut down its data center on the grounds of a sanctioned Russian machine-tool plant. In Bashkortostan, Ukraine’s General Staff says its forces hit a Gazprom refinery. Salavat’s mayor says an unnamed enterprise there keeps working.

Fewer targets, more waves: jet-powered Gerans partly free Russia to concentrate missiles, ISW says. The faster drones break through Ukraine’s air defenses more reliably, and ISW expects the same strike pattern in Russia’s winter campaign against Ukraine’s energy.

Intelligence and technology

Air-raid sirens cost Kyiv’s weapons makers 61.8 working hours in month, nearly eight days, yet their contract deadlines stay fixed, two groups say. Ukraine’s gunmakers want the government to count real siren downtime against contract deadlines.

Ukrainian producer that neutralized more than 7,000 drones over 100 square kilometers in year, plays enemy in Pentagon contest, and gets invitation to continue. Ukraine’s Phantom Defense built the counter-drone environment for the Pentagon’s Gauntlet II.

Ukraine uses up Europe’s yearly supply of thermal sensors in about five months, so two Ukrainian firms will build their own plants in the West. Their new venture wants to give Western armies their own supply of the chip that lets thermal cameras see body heat in the dark.

Russia has a plan for Ukraine this winter, Ukraine says: intercepted document reportedly outlines up to 1,000 missiles, drones, and bombs targeting 60 critical infrastructure sites. Substations near Ukraine’s western border, through which the country receives electricity from Europe, could be among the first targets.

International

Trump says Russia agreed to supply millions of tons of diesel to US and global markets as he blames Ukraine for fuel price hikes driven by Iran war. The announcement comes as Trump pressures Kyiv to halt attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, which Ukraine targets to weaken Moscow’s war economy.

Head of Russian military propaganda network to be expelled from Montenegro over suspected anti-EU operation. Authorities ordered Mikhail Zvynchuk, founder of the Russian military-focused Rybar network, and four associates to leave the country after seizing drones and recording equipment.

Ukrainian journalists say Austria detained them “like terrorists”: prosecutor says suspicion unsubstantiated. Tkach says armed people smashed the car windows, forced the journalists onto the road, and put a knee on his neck during the detention.

Russia sells cheaper fuel abroad and pays to keep its own pumps running amid Ukraine’s refinery strikes, but crude money still flows. After Ukraine’s drone strikes on refineries, Russia’s diesel exports, once its biggest fuel export, fell to a decade low.

Fought against Ukraine, now claimed to be victims: Kenya’s plea for five men held by Ukraine. Kenya says the men took Russian army contracts under false job promises.

Moldova pulls its border officers off Ukrainian soil again as Russian drones keep hitting crossings. “They will work on the territory of Moldova.” Moldovan Interior Minister Daniela Misail-Nikitin, on withdrawing border personnel from Ukraine.

Lithuania puts up to 100 soldiers on Kaliningrad border as officials brace for possible Russian mobilization. The move comes as Moscow rejects reports of a new call-up while Ukrainian officials warn Russia is preparing to expand its forces.

80% of Moldovans say country is unprepared for attack as Russian drones flow into its airspace, but few back NATO membership. A new poll shows widespread concern over Moldova’s ability to withstand an attack, even as only 4% of respondents see NATO membership as the answer. Russian drones have increasingly crossed Moldovan airspace in recent weeks.

Polish SIM cards found inside Russian drones in Poland, raising new questions over 2025 incursion. More than 30 Russian drones entered Polish airspace in September 2025, and some were found carrying Polish SIM cards, RMF24 reports.

Ukraine’s FM links Russian plague scare to history of cover-ups, from anthrax to Chornobyl and COVID-19. Russia’s handling of the suspected case fits a broader pattern of concealing information about dangerous incidents, Andrii Sybiha said.

Humanitarian and social impact

Eggs cost nearly 20 times US prices in occupied Oleshky, where Ukraine’s ombudsman says people die of hunger every day. Residents of Russian-occupied Oleshky cannot leave the city and are waiting for an opportunity to evacuate through a humanitarian corridor.

Warehouses, a home-improvement store, a farm: Russia’s strikes aimed past the grid at Ukraine’s civilian economy. Three people were killed and a woman was still missing as the outages spread.

Blackouts return to Kyiv as Russia prepares to freeze civilians over the winter. Russia is once again targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches, threatening to leave civilians without power, heat, and water as Moscow ramps up its campaign to cripple the country’s critical systems.

Two 14-year-old boys killed by an explosive device in a field in Sumy Oblast. Residents are being warned that, in addition to constant Russian attacks, there is a risk of encountering explosive devices.

Russia kills 30 in strike on two passenger buses in Kramatorsk. Hours after the strike, the head of Donetsk Oblast ordered public transport in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk halted, saying Russia had made the buses a target.

A 3-year-old girl came to visit her aunt in Pryluky, Ukraine. By morning, a Russian missile had killed her grandmother and uncle. Zlatoslava is in hospital in Chernihiv. Her aunt, a police officer, was wounded in the strike.

Political and legal developments

Investigators say prosecutors shielded scam call centers. Their office has now fired eight people and is checking how its ex-chief left Ukraine. The acting chief also ordered out a deputy at the regional office he ran until September and dropped no-contest hiring of outsiders.

Read our previous daily review here.

PRESS REVIEW – Friday, October 9: US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announces that the military execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be "livestreamed". But first: we look at reactions in Italy after the country's parliament passes a controversial electoral reform that critics say serves to benefit Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Plus, ".fart" and ".trump" are among the new domain name applications, as revealed by the US non-profit organisation ICANN.

Military

Drone attack forces Yandex to shut down its data center on the grounds of a sanctioned Russian machine-tool plant. In Bashkortostan, Ukraine’s General Staff says its forces hit a Gazprom refinery. Salavat’s mayor says an unnamed enterprise there keeps working.

Fewer targets, more waves: jet-powered Gerans partly free Russia to concentrate missiles, ISW says. The faster drones break through Ukraine’s air defenses more reliably, and ISW expects the same strike pattern in Russia’s winter campaign against Ukraine’s energy.

Ukraine’s drone pilot calls it his proudest strike: cheap FPV drone detonating over two tons of explosives packed inside Russian mine-clearer.

Kalashnikov, Russia’s biggest small-arms maker, says it fills its entire 2026 arms contract on time with batch of 7.62mm Dragunov sniper rifle. Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence said in February that nearly half of Kalashnikov’s plants faced no sanctions from any coalition country.

Ukraine says it struck plant making parts for Russian military aircraft engines—a Snizhne factory Russia has used since 2014. Ukraine’s 413th Raid Regiment has released footage showing the strike on a facility that produces components for gas-turbine engines used in attack aircraft and combat helicopters.

Intelligence and technology

Sea drone vs. air drone: Ukraine’s Sargan-3000 turns anti-aircraft gunner. A radio-steered Russian Shahed met a remote-controlled machine gun at sea—operator against operator, and the gun won.

Ukraine’s Frodo robot carries wounded soldier in first reported evacuation. The mission involved one of the first Frodo versions supplied to the military for testing, according to its developer.

It was built to shield Russian crops from hail. Now it’s being pitched as a drone interceptor. In farm service, the Alazan flies about 10 km and climbs up to 8 km. Russian state TV showed a guided version at a training range Putin toured.

AI is changing Russia’s drone war on Ukrainian cities, deputy air defense commander says. Russia’s jet-powered Geran-4 drones carry machine vision that lets them recognize and track targets.

Ukraine squeezes more defense out of Soviet-era stock, pairing Kub launcher and American RIM-7 interceptors to catch Russia’s jet-powered drones. The hybrid has already downed about 20 air targets.

International

Moldova pulls its border officers off Ukrainian soil again as Russian drones keep hitting crossings. “They will work on the territory of Moldova.” Moldovan Interior Minister Daniela Misail-Nikitin, on withdrawing border personnel from Ukraine.

Lithuania puts up to 100 soldiers on Kaliningrad border as officials brace for possible Russian mobilization. The move comes as Moscow rejects reports of a new call-up while Ukrainian officials warn Russia is preparing to expand its forces.

80% of Moldovans say country is unprepared for attack as Russian drones flow into its airspace, but few back NATO membership. A new poll shows widespread concern over Moldova’s ability to withstand an attack, even as only 4% of respondents see NATO membership as the answer. Russian drones have increasingly crossed Moldovan airspace in recent weeks.

Polish SIM cards found inside Russian drones in Poland, raising new questions over 2025 incursion. More than 30 Russian drones entered Polish airspace in September 2025, and some were found carrying Polish SIM cards, RMF24 reports.

German radar already guarding Ukraine is picked to spot ballistic missiles. Its maker just signed a new deal with Kyiv. Hensoldt and Kyiv will also study jointly operating a bigger radar, the TRL-4D LR, whose naval version reaches beyond 400 km.

Ukrainian drugmakers sold $114 million worth of medicines to Uzbekistan in six months. Now they may lose the right to sell there. That export cash keeps medicine prices low at home. Without it, drugs could get pricier for Ukrainian patients, a former regulator official says.

First time since 2018: NATO’s top military body went to Kyiv to study the war it may one day face. Military representatives of all 32 members heard the latest battlefield assessment from Ukraine’s command.

Humanitarian and social impact

Blackouts return to Kyiv as Russia prepares to freeze civilians over the winter. Russia is once again targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches, threatening to leave civilians without power, heat, and water as Moscow ramps up its campaign to cripple the country’s critical systems.

Two 14-year-old boys killed by an explosive device in a field in Sumy Oblast. Residents are being warned that, in addition to constant Russian attacks, there is a risk of encountering explosive devices.

Russia kills 30 in strike on two passenger buses in Kramatorsk. Hours after the strike, the head of Donetsk Oblast ordered public transport in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk halted, saying Russia had made the buses a target.

A 3-year-old girl came to visit her aunt in Pryluky, Ukraine. By morning, a Russian missile had killed her grandmother and uncle. Zlatoslava is in hospital in Chernihiv. Her aunt, a police officer, was wounded in the strike.

22 killed in Russian missile strike on Pryluky, including five children. Rescuers have finished searching the rubble of the five-story apartment building a Russian missile hit yesterday morning, while residents were still asleep.

Ukraine is buying 135 mobile shelters for border crossings as Russian drones reach from the Danube to Poland. Regional recovery services have opened 10 tenders, one of them for shelters on the road to a crossing into Romania.

Oleksandr, Kyrylo and Serhii, all aged one, and eight-year-old Maksym were killed in Ukraine’s city by Russian strike on Putin’s birthday. A Russian missile flattened an apartment block in Pryluky.

Russia’s war on Ukrainian books: a second strike burns tens of thousands of a Kyiv publisher’s rebuilt titles. Knyholav lost new titles and reprints of books Russia had already burned in July.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine’s FM links Russian plague scare to history of cover-ups, from anthrax to Chornobyl and COVID-19. Russia’s handling of the suspected case fits a broader pattern of concealing information about dangerous incidents, Andrii Sybiha said.

Russia starts pouring more into war after Putin judged Alaska talks with US would bring no “acceptable” deal to end fighting — Bloomberg. Russia’s 2026 budget deficit has nearly doubled to more than $81 billion, as war spending blows past the original plan.

Russia’s war against Ukraine sends the bill to its own companies: bond defaults head for a 17-year high. The squeeze is spreading from small firms to Moscow’s own budget, which is running a record deficit to keep the war going.

PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, October 8: Maricarmen, the evicted Spanish pensioner who became the face of Spain's housing crisis, dies in hospital. Also, France braces for "Act Four" of high school student protests against dilapidated schools and poor staff presence. Finally, actress Zendaya sparks a row over etiquette at Paris Fashion Week.

Exclusives

Military

Ukraine says it struck plant making parts for Russian military aircraft engines—a Snizhne factory Russia has used since 2014. Ukraine's 413th Raid Regiment has released footage showing the strike on a facility that produces components for gas-turbine engines used in attack aircraft and combat helicopters.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine squeezes more defense out of Soviet-era stock, pairing Kub launcher and American RIM-7 interceptors to catch Russia’s jet-powered drones. The hybrid has already downed about 20 air targets.

Kalashnikov, Russia’s biggest small-arms maker, says it fills its entire 2026 arms contract on time with batch of 7.62mm Dragunov sniper rifle. Ukraine's Defense Intelligence said in February that nearly half of Kalashnikov's plants faced no sanctions from any coalition country.

German radar already guarding Ukraine is picked to spot ballistic missiles. Its maker just signed a new deal with Kyiv. Hensoldt and Kyiv will also study jointly operating a bigger radar, the TRL-4D LR, whose naval version reaches beyond 400 km.

Russia’s jet drones fly near 600 km/h now. Ukraine is building simulators for the 900 km/h ones it expects next. When a Russian jet drone and the drone chasing it move at the same speed, the pilot can barely tell the two apart—and the Russian models keep getting faster.

Ukraine finds US-made navigation sensor inside Russia’s new jet-powered drone. The PNI5GA sensor reduces gyroscope drift and improves the drone's autonomous navigation accuracy, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

International

First time since 2018: NATO’s top military body went to Kyiv to study the war it may one day face. Military representatives of all 32 members heard the latest battlefield assessment from Ukraine's command.

Latvia stops armed migrant push from Belarus, then loses border cameras to masked raiders hours later. The escorts threatened Latvian soldiers before the raiders slipped back to Belarus ahead of the border guards.

Humanitarian and social impact

Oleksandr, Kyrylo and Serhii, all aged one, and eight-year-old Maksym were killed in Ukraine’s city by Russian strike on Putin’s birthday. A Russian missile flattened an apartment block in Pryluky.

14 dead in Pryluky, two each in Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia: Russia’s night of 70 missiles. Five children were among the 26 people injured when a missile collapsed part of a five-story building.

Russia’s war on Ukrainian books: a second strike burns tens of thousands of a Kyiv publisher’s rebuilt titles. Knyholav lost new titles and reprints of books Russia had already burned in July.

Ukraine adds Kyiv trains, prepares pontoon crossings after Russian bridge attacks. Emergency pontoon crossings could take up to three months to build, Ukraine's Minister for Restoration, Infrastructure and Transport says.

Political and legal developments

Russia starts pouring more into war after Putin judged Alaska talks with US would bring no “acceptable” deal to end fighting — Bloomberg. Russia's 2026 budget deficit has nearly doubled to more than $81 billion, as war spending blows past the original plan.

Russia’s war against Ukraine sends the bill to its own companies: bond defaults head for a 17-year high. The squeeze is spreading from small firms to Moscow's own budget, which is running a record deficit to keep the war going.

New developments

Ukrainian drugmakers sold $114 million worth of medicines to Uzbekistan in six months. Now they may lose the right to sell there. That export cash keeps medicine prices low at home. Without it, drugs could get pricier for Ukrainian patients, a former regulator official says.

Taliban and North Korea rubbed shoulders at Russia’s war games—one fuels Moscow’s war, the other needs its help. Two isolated governments in Russia's orbit turned up at the same drills—though only Kabul has said they met.

25-year-old Natalia, born in Russia, served in the Israeli army, returned to Ukraine during the full-scale invasion, and join the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Ukrainian society is not yet ready for the mandatory mobilization of women into the military, she believes.

Read our earlier daily review here.

There are more than 800 surveillance towers located along U.S. borders, a number that is expected to triple in the next decade. These towers, according to a government accountability report, “detect items of interest, such as people.” But interest can be fickle. As part of “Dying on Camera,” a sprawling package of features co-published by the MIT Technology Review and Times of San Diego, Lillian Perlmutter reports on the death of Graciela Gómez Hernández, one among hundreds of migrants whose final moments seem as though they should have been witnessed. “The proximity of so many deaths to high-resolution cameras leaves two distinct possibilities,” Perlmutter writes. “Either the system didn’t detect these people in distress, or it did detect them—and officials offered no response. “

Surveillance towers have proliferated in recent years, as contractors added newer camera systems that use artificial intelligence to distinguish border-crossers from other people and animals, and track their movements, at an overall cost of more than a billion dollars. Yet as the cameras scan the terrain, migrants continue to die in plain sight.