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.

• Ukrainian forces said Monday that they pulled off a "first-ever" air evacuation using a heavy drone.
• Deploying large aerial drones for battlefield casualty evacuation is a high-risk operation.
• A Ukrainian official involved in the development of such drones called them a last-resort tool.

Several Ukrainian companies have developed heavy-lift drones that can evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield, but the risks mean they should be used only as a last resort, an official involved in these efforts told Business Insider.

Denys Lohvynenko, the drone chief at Brave1, Ukraine's state-backed innovation platform, said that heavy-lift drones provide a time-sensitive means of rescuing wounded troops in highly dangerous situations where they cannot walk on their own and other evacuation methods are unavailable.

Ukraine began developing heavy-lift drones two years ago, but the complex technical requirements took time to iron out.

On Monday, a Ukrainian military unit said that it had used a heavy drone to save a wounded soldier from the front lines, carrying out what it described as a "first-ever air evacuation."

The presence of land mines and Russian drones rendered the use of ground robots — for Kyiv, an increasingly common method of casualty evacuation — too challenging.

"In these situations, heavy-lift aerial evacuation serves as a lifeline of last resort," Lohvynenko explained in remarks shared by Brave1, which has supported the development of these drones and other war technology.

Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade said Monday that soldiers used a six-rotor hexacopter made by the Ukrainian company Gurzuf Defense to carry out the mission. Other defense companies are working on similar technology; SkyFall, for instance, recently unveiled its own hexacopter for evacuations.

Ukrainian forces also use heavy-lift drones for logistics missions, as they can typically carry more cargo than smaller variants.

A challenge is that big drones are big targets. Samuel Bendett, a drone warfare expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research organization, told Business Insider on Monday that certain elite Russian military units are focused on downing such aircraft.

Lohvynenko said Ukraine understands the risk of using large drones in and around contested airspace, as is the case along most of the front lines. So they are "reserved only for high-risk, high-priority emergencies," he said.

The heavy-lift drones have also been equipped with what he described as "additional survivability systems," including electronic warfare and alternative communications. Active protection systems could be installed in the future.

"We maintain a realistic view of the technological and operational challenges associated with aerial extraction of personnel via heavy-lift drones," Lohvynenko said.

"However, establishing this technical capability is essential," he continued, arguing that a "single life saved on the battlefield justifies every engineering hour and resource invested in this program."

Combat casualty evacuation has become increasingly robotic for Ukraine as the country's officials, companies, and military units look to replace soldiers with machines in dangerous front-line missions wherever possible.

Ground robots, in particular, are seen as crucial tools for casualty evacuation and logistics. Ukraine's defense ministry said last month that the number of these kinds of missions carried out by robots has jumped more than threefold since January.

The deployment of a heavy-lift drone for an evacuation, an unusual mission, underscores Ukraine's growing efforts to use uncrewed systems in unconventional battlefield roles.

Rumania ha puesto fin a una crisis política que se prolongaba desde el pasado 5 de mayo cuando el Gobierno del liberal Ilie Bolojan cayó tras una moción de censura impulsada por el Partido Social Demócrata (PSD) y la ultraderecha de Alianza para la Unión de los Rumanos (AUR), al investir este martes a Luca Niculescu como nuevo primer ministro después de tres intentos fallidos. El diplomático logró articular una mayoría suficiente al sumar 280 votos a favor y 58 en contra en el Parlamento, gracias al respaldo de los socialdemócratas, el Partido Nacional Liberal (PNL) y la Unión Democrática de Húngaros en Rumanía (UDMR). Por el contrario, la Unión Salvar Rumanía (USR), de centro derecha, y las facciones ultranacionalistas se han opuesto.

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© Associated Press / LaPresse (APN)

Lithuania said the drone entered its airspace from the Polish side before exploding on its territory on Oct. 18. Ukraine linked the incident to Russian jamming.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 20 October that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about ballistic missile interceptors, early warning of Russian launches, and “the situation with Starlink/Starshield, which needs to be restored,” he wrote on X. He thanked Rubio for “his readiness to help and his clear position” and said they would speak again soon. A day earlier, he had told US senators how each of those supplies had stalled.

This comes as the US presses Kyiv to stop its strikes on Russian oil refineries, which Trump has blamed for high fuel prices at home, and Zelenskyy counts the Starlink slowdown among the steps he says look like an effort to push Ukraine to capitulate. Ukraine’s interceptor drones depend on the service to hunt Russia’s jet-powered Shaheds, and Kyiv says they now lose the link at speeds too low to catch them. The call appears not to have settled whether that cap is gone. If it stays, Ukrainian cities could face Russia’s drone waves this winter with one fewer means to stop them, as Russia keeps striking the grid.

On 17 October, Rubio told reporters that nobody in the US ordered Starlink slowed, that the slowdown “wasn’t deliberate,” and that “my understanding is it’s been restored.” He drew a line between the two services. Ukraine’s drones, he said, ran on commercial Starlink, while Starshield, the military version, is not available to Ukraine. Kyiv has asked for it to carry out strikes deep inside Russia, and that request is under discussion, he said.

The next day, Zelenskyy told Bloomberg that Starlink in Ukraine cuts out above 161 km/h, and Kyiv says its Starshield terminals are capped as well. His post after the call still says the service needs to be restored.

Reuters’ sources point to the White House. Washington denies it

The order to slow Starshield came from inside the White House, Reuters reported, citing two US officials and a Western official. They described it as the Starshield service for the Ukrainian military, the version Rubio says Ukraine does not have. A senior Ukrainian official told Reuters that Kyiv had been told it was a White House decision. A senior US official told the agency the president never made such a request, and the White House did not answer whether other officials had. Rubio called a report that the White House ordered Starlink slowed “categorically false.”

Missile warnings and Patriots are also in dispute

Overnight on 18–19 October, Ukraine got no partner warning before the first of two Russian ballistic waves, Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on the national telethon. That came hours after Zelenskyy said US warnings had resumed. On 19 October, Rubio pushed back against suggestions of a pause in US intelligence sharing, AFP reported.

Zelenskyy also told Bloomberg the US sends only 12 Patriot interceptors a month and has authorized only part of those “we have paid for” under PURL. Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not signed the contracts. A US government official called those claims “not true.”

Reports that SpaceX temporarily restricted its satellite internet service for Ukraine’s armed forces have generated serious concern in Kyiv and among the country’s allies. SpaceX operates the civilian Starlink system and its lesser-known military-grade counterpart, called Starshield. But many news stories leave an important question unanswered: what does a Starshield “slowdown” mean on the battlefield? […]

The post Why Starshield’s slowdown really hurts Ukraine appeared first on Asia Times.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces say they have carried out the world’s first frontline evacuation of a wounded soldier by aerial drone. The soldier, from the 30th Mechanized Brigade, is said to have been recovered successfully and is undergoing treatment and rehabilitation.

“This is a historic event, at least for our unit for sure,” said “Napalm,” a squad commander and programmer with the 92nd Assault Brigade’s uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) company. The precise date and location of the operation have not been disclosed, and the claim of a global first has not been independently verified. However, a video of the event has been published by the 92nd, which you can watch below:

At this point, it should be noted that the footage has not been independently verified and could depict a staged demonstration rather than an actual combat evacuation. It should, at least, be treated with a degree of caution.

According to accompanying reports, the infantryman was wounded while holding his position. Mines and intense Russian drone activity prevented a conventional ground evacuation, prompting the 92nd’s specialists to attempt an aerial extraction. The video shows the soldier clipping himself to the underside of the drone via a harness before being flown to safety. The extemporized nature of the platform is underscored by the fact that, while in the air, the soldier dangles below its rigid landing legs.

The aircraft was a heavy hexacopter manufactured by Ukrainian company Gurzuf Defense, which provided it free of charge. A UAV operator from the 30th Mechanized Brigade piloted the drone. Throughout the recovery, the soldier remained in contact with the drone operator.

The operation involved the 92nd, 30th and 14th Mechanized Brigades, the 10th Army Corps and Gurzuf Defense.

Ukraine increasingly uses uncrewed ground vehicles to deliver supplies and evacuate casualties from exposed positions. According to Euromaidan Press, Ukrainian UGVs conducted approximately 112,000 logistics and evacuation missions between January and August 2026.

However, ground robots can struggle with mines, mud, and cratered terrain, while remaining vulnerable to drones and artillery. These obstacles make it especially difficult to conduct UGV operations in the battlefield’s “kill zone,” which can extend six to nine miles or more from the front line. You can read an in-depth account of Ukrainian UGV efforts in this previous story.

A video showing a Ukrainian UGV in action in the Donetsk region:

Aerial platforms are able to reach casualties in places where ground vehicles cannot safely travel, and can get there far quicker, without having to stick to specific routes.

The 92nd has not disclosed the evacuation distance or flight duration of the mission. If, as reported, the drone used was an Audag-6 model, this is stated to be capable of carrying a 200-pound payload over a distance of up to 15 miles.

Meanwhile, the recovery points to a growing trend in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Only days before the story of the evacuation broke, it emerged that Ukraine is also now testing the StarGate, a purpose-built aerial medical evacuation drone — also of the heavy hexacopter type — developed by the SkyFall company. This is a rather more tailored solution to the problem, with a covered, medical-grade stretcher slung below the drone. It has a reported payload capacity of around 330 pounds, uses AI-assisted navigation, and can also deploy nets against hostile drones attempting to intercept it.

The 92nd’s operation used a heavy-lift hexacopter adapted for an ad hoc casualty transport, rather than a more bespoke design. This means the soldier had to be adequately trained on how to strap in, and also had to be in a condition that they could actually perform this procedure. This would also be the case even if other soldiers were able to assist them in strapping in.

While these kinds of solutions may be new to the battlefield in Ukraine, using uncrewed aerial systems for personnel recovery and medical evacuation is far from new.

Back in 2016, the Army completed a demonstration of the Lockheed Martin K-Max helicopter in a casualty evacuation role. The K-Max can operate with and without a pilot and was used as a drone by the Marine Corps to deliver cargo in Afghanistan.

“Unmanned and autonomous platforms have the potential to completely rewrite the medical doctrine,” Army Col. Daniel Kral, head of the Army’s Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), explained during a conference at Fort Detrick in Maryland in 2017.

In 2019, TWZ reported on U.S. Army efforts to explore how uncrewed craft might speed up the casualty evacuation process. This work included evaluation of the Dragonfly Pictures, Inc. (DPI) DP-14 Hawk, a small, tandem-rotor drone with a 400-pound cargo capacity.

The emergence of autonomous air vehicles, or uncrewed ‘flying taxis,’ with short or vertical take-off and landing capabilities in the urban air mobility sector has also generated military interest. The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, for example, has conducted studies into how craft such as these could be adapted for combat search and rescue, with the idea that they would be airdropped to recover a fighter pilot shot down while operating over hostile territory.

Closer to the Ukrainian hexacopter concept is the Flowcopter FC-100, a heavy-lift quadcopter drone that the U.S. Army tested in a medical evacuation capacity in Poland during the large-scale Saber Strike exercise earlier this year. Carrying a 220-pound payload, the drone has a range of more than 60 miles.

All of these concepts aim to address the inherent vulnerability of larger personnel recovery platforms in more contested environments.

In their favor, they offer the potential to rescue troops from more precarious situations, with the smaller drones touching down in relatively tight areas in mountainous, forested, or jungle environments. Autonomous navigation systems can guide the drones through smoke, dust, or bad weather, too.

On the other hand, these small craft have no space for a medic, pararescuemen, or other additional personnel. Bearing in mind their limited range and lower speeds, they also need to be in the right location to respond to emergencies as and when they occur.

For the Ukrainian Armed Forces, aerial medical evacuation drones are being rapidly developed and now fielded to help address another problem: the vulnerability of UGVs in areas of the battlefield that have long become far too hazardous for crewed medevac platforms to operate.

By now, both sides in the Ukraine war are relying heavily upon small, autonomous uncrewed aircraft to perform a wide variety of resupply, surveillance, communications, and strike roles on and around the front lines. With that in mind, the adaptation of these kinds of vehicles for casualty evacuation and personnel recovery missions is the next logical step.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Aerial Drones Appear To Be Picking Up Wounded Off The Battlefield In Ukraine appeared first on TWZ.

The 49-year-old had lost both legs and was stranded near Kupiansk

O projeto tem como objetivo identificar potenciais incêndios, transmitir alertas e apoiar uma intervenção inicial. Prevê-se que os drones consigam transportar 50 quilos de líquido retardante.

© TIAGO PETINGA/LUSA

Ukraine has turned buying weapons into something closer to online shopping. One in five drones bought by Ukraine's Defense Procurement Agency now reaches troops through DOT-Chain Defence, a state digital marketplace established in 2025 that lets combat units order what they need directly, the Defense Ministry says.

Drone technology changes so fast that a weapon ordered through months of paperwork can be obsolete before it arrives, so Ukraine built a marketplace that puts the choice in the hands of the units that fight. Launched in July 2025, DOT-Chain Defence now serves more than 500 combat units.

Unlike the agency’s other channels, central competitive tenders and fixed procurement lists, the marketplace lets commanders pick from a catalog themselves. The system works like an online store, where the military spends state funds to decide exactly what the state supplies them.

From a catalog to the trenches in eight days

Speed is the point of the model. When an item is in stock, the average time from a unit’s order to shipment is eight days, rising to about a month and a half for pre-orders, the ministry notes.

“Delivery speed is especially important for unmanned systems, because technology in this field develops dynamically,” DOT-Chain Defence chief Artem Romaniukov says.

Also, he states that makers and soldiers constantly rework designs to beat new countermeasures.

The catalog spans the main types of unmanned aerial vehicles, FPV drones, bombers and fixed-wing aircraft, along with their munitions, ground robotic systems and electronic-warfare gear.

Who carries the paperwork now

The shift moves the burden off the fighters. A unit builds its own order in DOT-Chain Defence, and the agency handles the procurement side, signing contracts with manufacturers and making payments. That means that purchases are completed in a few clicks.

In the first nine months of 2026, Ukraine’s troops received more than a million drones and other equipment through this system, part of a drone-buying surge that reached about $8 billion in the first half of the year.

The operation involved Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade, 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade, and 10th Army Corps, along with Ukrainian drone manufacturer Gurzuf Defense.

• A Ukrainian military unit said on Monday that it had carried out a "first-ever air evacuation" with a drone.
• The unit used a heavy drone to save a wounded soldier from the front lines.
• The mission underscores Ukraine's growing efforts to use drones in unconventional battlefield roles.

Ukrainian forces have used a heavy drone to save a wounded soldier from the front lines, carrying out what one unit described as a "first-ever air evacuation."

The unusual mission underscores Ukraine's growing efforts to use drones and robots in unconventional roles on the battlefield, including casualty evacuation, logistics, and combat.

Ukraine's 92nd Separate Assault Brigade disclosed on Monday that it had "successfully" medically evacuated a wounded soldier who had been hurt at the front. The presence of land mines and Russian drones meant that a rescue operation using ground robots was not an option.

"Specialists from our company took on the responsibility of doing something that no one had done before: evacuating a soldier using an aerial drone," the brigade wrote in a translated statement on Telegram.

Soldiers used a heavy six-rotor hexacopter made by the Ukrainian company Gurzuf Defense for the medevac mission. The aircraft was tested in advance and modified by unit specialists to ensure it remained stable.

The 92nd said several military units participated in the rescue, including the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade, which operated the drone that evacuated the wounded soldier. The soldier is now recovering from his injuries. The unit didn't specify when or where the evacuation took place.

"This is a historic event, at least for our unit," said Napalm, the squad leader and programmer for a robotics company in the 92nd, who was identified only by his call sign.

Casualty evacuation missions have become increasingly robotic this year as Ukrainian officials, companies, and units push to replace soldiers with machines in dangerous front-line roles.

Ukraine's defense ministry said in early September that the number of ground-robot casualty-evacuation and logistics missions has increased more than threefold since the start of the year, from roughly 7,500 in January to more than 25,000 in August.

The deployment of an aerial drone for casualty evacuation reflects a continued effort to use drones in new ways.

Gurzuf Defence, the maker of the drone used for the mission, called it an operation "that no one has ever performed before." The company said that Ukrainian forces used an aircraft called the Heavy Shot "AYUDAG 6" and the mission lasted roughly 75 minutes and covered a distance of nearly 40 miles.

Gurzuf Defence is not the only Ukrainian company working on this technology; SkyFall, the firm behind the P1-SUN interceptor, recently unveiled a large hexacopter for casualty evacuation.

Large drones can carry heavier payloads, but their size can also be a vulnerability on the battlefield. Samuel Bendett, a drone warfare expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, a US research organization, wrote on social media that there are "obvious dangers" with large, slow aircraft conducting casualty evacuation missions.

Bendett said that the Russian military spends "considerable resources" targeting heavy-lift drones. He told Business Insider that Moscow's elite Rubicon units are particularly focused on downing such aircraft.

As Russia's full-scale invasion grinds on, Ukrainian forces are continuing to innovate with their drones. Last month, for instance, the Third Army Corps revealed that it had become the "first in the world" to air-drop ground robots from drones in combat. Other units have deployed similar technology.

A flying object, likely a drone, entered Lithuanian airspace and exploded on Oct. 18, sending residents to shelters and damaging a civilian vehicle, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said.

How are Ukraine’s drones disrupting Russian supply lines — and can Ukraine hold on to its advantage? Flying far behind enemy lines, “middle-strike” drones hunt the fuel, ammunition, and reinforcements Russia needs to sustain its assaults. Starlink has helped make this campaign possible, but dependence on

The US has resumed sharing intelligence on Russian ballistic missile launches with Ukraine after a pause of several days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News on 18 October. The blackout fell on days when Russia was firing ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Limits on the Starlink satellite service that Ukraine’s forces rely on remain in place, he said.

Russia has leaned on ballistic missiles in this month’s strikes on Ukraine’s grid, firing 39 in a single attack, and Ukraine is short of interceptors to stop them. Washington has used its support as leverage, reportedly telling Kyiv to spare Russian refineries or lose US intelligence and arms.

Three days without warnings

The sharing had been blocked for some period of time before it was restored, Zelenskyy said on Meet the Press.

“We are very thankful for this. Now it works,” he said.

Ukraine gets other intelligence from Europeans and dozens of other partners, he explained. But only the United States has the data that tells Kyiv when Russia launches ballistic missiles.

“We didn’t get it during ballistic attacks during three days,” Zelenskyy said.

A timely warning gives Ukraine’s air defenses extra minutes to prepare and lets authorities alert civilians, Liga noted. Late on 12 October, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before the air-raid alert reached people, with no advance data on launches from Russian territory. The next day, US President Donald Trump said Washington was still sharing intelligence. Two days later, Zelenskyy said Kyiv had received no US warnings of incoming ballistic missiles while it paused its strikes on Russian refineries at Washington’s request. That pause followed the energy ceasefire Trump declared on 11 October, which Russia never confirmed.

Starlink still capped, Kyiv says

Starshield, the military version of Starlink, still cuts out above 161 km/h, Zelenskyy said, too slow for Ukraine’s interceptor drones to catch Russia’s jet-powered Shahed-type drones. NBC News, which aired the interview, separately reported that Starlink services had resumed at normal speed. He said Ukraine’s generals and government believe the order came from the US government and SpaceX carried it out, though he did not know who exactly made the call. Ukraine had instead asked SpaceX and Trump to open Starlink over Russia so it could hit ballistic missile launchers, he said.

“If [Trump] will personally decide to lift this decision, it will immediately work as it was before,” he said.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who appeared on the same show, called Zelenskyy’s charge “very reckless” and said Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had denied any administration role. Asked about the break in intelligence sharing, he said he did not know anything about it but that Zelenskyy should be “very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true.” Reuters had reported, citing three officials, that White House officials ordered the Pentagon to limit the service.

Asked whether Ukraine could win without the United States, Zelenskyy said it would be very difficult.

“But if the United States will support Putin, I mean, it’s unbelievable, it’s tragedy. It’s historic mistake and big tragedy,” he said.

He also said his team had received word that US negotiators wanted to meet, and that he had offered to meet in Brussels or London, hoping the US team would be ready this week.

The warnings are back, but they stopped once without explanation. Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s missiles still runs through decisions made in the US.

Key developments on Oct. 17-18

• Massive Ukrainian drone attack hits oil facility, bridge, and data center in St. Petersburg
• US resumes intel sharing on Russian missile launches with Ukraine, Zelensky says
• Ukraine hits Russian drone manufacturing plant in Rostov Oblast
• 'Planned operation' — Zelensky confirms Ukraine's

Two Romanian F-16s shot down two jet-powered Russian Geran attack drones over Romania’s territorial waters near Sulina on the evening of 17 October, Romania’s Defense Ministry said. The ministry released cockpit images of the mission the next day, as NATO allies prepare to discuss Black Sea security at a special session Romania requested.

This comes as Moscow continues its air attacks on Ukraine, while the US is trying to make deals with Russia over its diesel and lift sanctions. Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s energy system and cities, while its drones and suspected saboteurs keep turning up inside NATO, from tankers hit off Romania to a foiled arson attempt at a Starlink site in Lithuania.

Down within minutes

The F-16s took off from the 86th Air Base at Borcea at 17:43 after radar detected a group of air targets about 120 km east of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, flying southwest, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported, citing the ministry. The first drone entered Romanian airspace at 17:59 and was shot down at 18:01 southeast of Sulina. The second entered at 18:01 and was downed at 18:05 east of Sulina.

Both were jet-powered attack drones of the Geran family, the ministry said. The Geran is Russia’s version of the Iranian-designed Shahed. When first detected, the drones were about 65 km from the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea and 140 km from the Ukrainian-held shore, and their southwest course may point to Russian origin, Militarnyi calculated.

The ministry posted the cockpit images on 18 October, showing a missile launch and a fireball over the sea. “Targets spotted, identified, engaged and neutralized!” it wrote.

Allies to meet on the Black Sea

A special session of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s top decision-making body, will discuss defense and deterrence in the Black Sea on 20 October at Romania’s request. Romanian President Nicușor Dan has confirmed that the two tankers that caught fire near Sulina last week were hit by drones, and a NATO military source told Reuters they were Russian.

Romanian radar has logged 54 drone intrusions into the country’s air and sea space since Russia’s full-scale invasion, 35 of them this year, and the military has shot down six such targets in 2026, Defense Ministry data show.

Searches in Poland and Lithuania

Within hours, Poland’s Operational Command said it was checking a possible airspace violation by an unknown object overnight into 18 October. Troops, police, and military police searched for a possible crash site south of Lublin after residents reported the loud sound of a flying object around 02:00, Militarnyi reported.

On the morning of 18 October, an unknown drone entered Lithuania’s airspace and triggered air raid alerts, the country’s crisis management center said. NATO jets accompanied it but could not shoot it down because of bad weather, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said. Debris preliminarily identified as drone parts was later found in the village of Juodžioniai in Pasvalys district, and the army said the drone may have entered from the direction of Poland.

Romania moved from escorting Russia’s stray drones to firing on them in July, when its F-16s downed three in 72 hours.

Someone tried to set fire overnight to a Lithuanian company that stores Starlink communication equipment, but tipped-off guards foiled the attempt, Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said. He linked the attack to Russia’s hybrid war against Europe. It is the third suspected sabotage of Starlink infrastructure in Europe in under a month.

Russia keeps attacking Ukraine at the front and from the air while running a sabotage campaign behind the lines in Europe, which ISW has linked into one pattern. Starlink keeps Ukraine’s drone units and front-line troops connected, and Poland pays for much of that service.

Fuel canisters and a control unit

The attack came just after midnight, the prime minister wrote. Security services had warned the company about possible attacks, security was stepped up, and the attempt failed.

The company provides connectivity through nine Starlink satellite antennas used by Ukraine, Sinkevičius told Lithuanian public radio LRT. At almost 2 a.m., intruders tried to burn the antennas and their control unit, leaving behind incendiary liquid in canisters of 3 to 10 liters.

“It is obvious that this is part of Russia’s hybrid war with elements of sabotage,” he said, adding that the client was likely “the Russian side.”

He said he believes the people involved, and how many there were, are known, but gave no details, citing the investigation.

Police Commissioner General Arūnas Paulauskas said no suspects had been detained, any damage was minimal, and the company kept working. A pretrial investigation is under way.

A drone the same morning

Hours later, an object that apparently entered from Poland crossed northern Lithuania, and NATO jets failed to identify it, Defense Minister Robertas Kaunas said. Possible fragments were found in the Pasvalys district near the Latvian border. Latvia’s military said the object may have blown itself up on a course toward Latvia.

Sinkevičius said the sabotage version had to be checked for the drone too. He called the National Security Commission for Monday, 19 October, to examine both incidents and consider giving services more powers to neutralize drones.

The third Starlink site

In September, a fire destroyed the distribution panel at a Starlink ground station in Wola Krobowska, Poland. Germany detained two Turkish nationals on 12 October, and Warsaw blamed Russian intelligence. In Bulgaria, masked intruders burned 11 of 17 Starlink antennas near Sofia.

The attackers attempted to set fire to satellite antennas and a control unit, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius said.

Russia has started fitting its enlarged Gerbera-2 drones with a 10-kg warhead and an extra bag of incendiary mixture, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported on 18 October. The setup is designed to start a fire where the drone hits and is probably meant for attacks on critical infrastructure and warehouses, the outlet said.

Russia’s industry makes about 3,000 jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones a month, Ukraine’s military intelligence has said, and Russian strikes have destroyed 2.1 million m² of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space since the full-scale invasion began. A cheap drone that carries fire adds one more threat for air defenses that already let nearly half of Russia’s jet-powered Shaheds through.

A fire bag behind the warhead

Ukrainian Telegram channel Polkovnyk HSh posted photos of the payload on 17 October. Gerbera-2 strike and reconnaissance drones had begun to appear with a 10-kg high-explosive fragmentation-incendiary warhead and an extra package of incendiary mixture, the channel wrote. They navigate with Kometa-M12, a 12-element antenna array designed to resist jamming, it added.

In the photos, the incendiary mixture sits in a separate soft plastic tank behind the main warhead, Militarnyi said. Gerbera-2s have been seen with warheads of 4 to 10 kg depending on range, while strike versions of the original Gerbera usually carried up to 5 kg, the outlet noted.

Half a Shahed engine

Russia has mainly fielded the Gerbera, a cheap drone shaped like a Shahed, as a decoy and reconnaissance platform flying alongside Shahed-type strike drones. It has also used bigger Gerberas to drop FPV drones.

Serhii Beskrestnov, now an adviser to Ukraine’s president, flagged a much bigger Gerbera in Ukraine’s skies on 7 August. The Gerbera-2 has a larger airframe, a reshaped wing, and a bigger tail fin, Militarnyi said. In August, the outlet reported it had a stronger piston engine: half of the one in the Shahed-type Geran-2, at about 275 cm³. Production of these engines was set up at the Izhevsk Motorcycle Plant, according to preliminary information the outlet cited.

Earlier versions ran on a Chinese DLE60 model-aircraft engine of about 61 cm³. The switch was likely possible because Geran-2 engine output partly freed up as jet-powered Geran-4s took a growing share of Russia’s drones, Militarnyi said. The Gerbera-2’s fuel tank also holds up to 63 liters, against 10 liters on the original.

One reached Poland’s Baltic coast

In September, a drone preliminarily identified as a Gerbera-2 was recovered from the Baltic Sea near Rusinowo, on Poland’s coast. It carried a high-explosive fragmentation warhead of about 4 kg, a Polish military prosecutor said.