Ukraine is remaking its air force on NATO’s model, down to the way its squadrons are organized and the aircraft they fly. The reforms are planned to be completed by 2035 and include modernizing its F-16s while pursuing the Swedish Gripen jets, Air Force Spokesperson Yurii Ihnat says, per Tse Baza.

Ukraine’s fighters are working hard against Russia’s air war, and in the previous month alone the Air Force faced around 3,500 jet-powered targets, with F-16s heavily used to intercept Russian drones. The new reform is meant to build an air force that can be sustained over the long term and can contest Russian jets and glide bombs, not only survive the next wave.

Wings and universal air bases

The central change, Ihnat said, is a move to the “wing” units that NATO air forces use. The first steps have already been taken: Ukraine has set up the 107th F-16 wing, which now has its own Facebook page and may publish material about its work.

Ukraine also plans to build universal air bases on the operational airfields it has used through the full-scale war. In the future, Ihnat says, those bases should be able to receive and service different models of combat aircraft, as NATO does.

A worn fleet, and the jets Ukraine wants next

Currently, the F-16s Ukraine flies are older Block 15 jets, used by other countries before they arrived, and intensive combat has left them in need of repairs, service life restoration, and upgrades.

Ukrainian officials discussed modernization with the American manufacturer Lockheed Martin, while Kyiv would prefer the newer Block 70/72 version, which Ihnat says would let its pilots stand up more confidently to Russia’s Su-35 fighters.

Keeping the current fleet flying has been hard: fewer than half of Ukraine’s F-16s may be operational, held back by slow maintenance abroad.

At the same time, Lockheed Martin and Kyiv are discussing a special F-16 variant for Ukraine, with a modern AESA radar, longer range, and a wider choice of weapons, though no firm deal exists yet.

Ukraine is also counting on Swedish Gripen fighters. Ihnat says Ukrainian pilots are drawn to them for their lower operating costs and simpler maintenance, with the country likely to receive older C/D models first, before the newer Gripen E that Saab is developing.

Ukrainian pilots have already begun their training on the Gripen, a jet seen as a counter to the Russian aircraft dropping guided glide bombs on the front, though delivery timing depends on further agreements.

Ukraine has held its first international course in military surgery and resuscitation, under instructors from the American College of Surgeons and other Western trauma bodies, the Defense Ministry says. “Tryzub”, or Trident, has been conducted for front-line surgeons and anesthesiologists.

The week-long drills put 16 doctors, eight surgeons, and eight anesthesiologists through three standard Western trauma programs: Advanced Trauma Life Support, Definitive Surgical Trauma Care, and Advanced Surgical Skills for Exposure in Trauma. All of them work at stabilization points close to the fighting.

The course has been run with the International Association for Trauma Surgery and Intensive Care and the Global Medical Knowledge Alliance, a non-profit that helps rebuild Ukraine’s healthcare, with support from Razom4Ukraine and Expertise France.

The wounds have changed

The course answers a battlefield that has grown deadlier. Ukrainian combat medics say modern combat trauma has fundamentally changed: drones and shrapnel now cause most of the complex wounds, often tearing through several parts of the body at once.

Bleeding has become the main cause of death on the battlefield, and the window to stop it is measured in minutes. That is the gap a well-drilled surgical team near the line is meant to close.

“People who will do everything to save his life”

Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara has framed the course as a promise to troops at the front.

“When a soldier goes into battle, he must know that if he is wounded, there will be people beside him who will do everything they can to save his life,” Khmara says.

Experience, he added, is a kind of trust that matters enormously at the front.

“That is why we want our medics to have the best knowledge and skills, and to be able to act as one team," he states.

Ukrainian front-line medicine already draws international notice: one Azov brigade medic was named Europe’s best military medic of the year, and off-duty Ukrainian medics recently saved a man’s life at a London crash scene.

Russia attacked Ukraine with 140 drones, including Shahed and Gerbera attack drones and Parodiya decoys, and four missiles overnight on 26 October, the Ukrainian Air Force reported. The missiles were one Kh-31P anti-radiation missile and three Kh-59/69 air-launched guided missiles, launched from occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts.

Jet-powered Shaheds are becoming a larger part of Russia’s aerial campaign, challenging Ukraine’s air defenses and prompting efforts to develop faster interceptors. Alongside guided bomb attacks and strikes on energy infrastructure, these attacks add to the pressure on Ukraine’s defenses as winter approaches, and Ukraine says Russia has a plan for it.

Air defenses downed or suppressed 112 drones, including 56 of the 70 jet-powered Shaheds, and three Kh-59/69 missiles, according to preliminary Air Force figures. Hits were recorded at 15 locations, and debris fell at four more.

Four wounded in Zaporizhzhia

Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia overnight wounded two women aged 22 and 30, and two men aged 40 and 61, the State Emergency Service (DSNS) said. The strikes damaged the windows of a hotel and two buses, a private house, and four outbuildings, and three cars caught fire. The oblast administration had first reported one wounded.

Russian strikes injured 8 people in Ukraine overnight on 26 October

Russia injured 2 women, aged 22 and 30, and 2 men, aged 40 and 61, in Zaporizhzhia overnight, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. Russia also shattered windows in a hotel and 2 buses and damaged a house, and… pic.twitter.com/42bvnHt0qk

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 26, 2026

Later in the morning, Russian forces hit a shopping center building that had already closed, the administration said. The building caught fire. According to preliminary information, no one was hurt.

Guided bombs hit two districts of Izium

At about 02:40 on 26 October, Russian forces struck two districts of Izium in Kharkiv Oblast with guided aerial bombs, and three people needed medical help, the city military administration said, as Suspilne Kharkiv reported. More than 10 private houses and a youth sports school were damaged, and several streets lost power and internet.

Russia struck a burning Odesa Oblast plant twice more as firefighters worked

Overnight, a Russian attack destroyed an industrial enterprise in Odesa Oblast and set it on fire, the DSNS reported. As firefighters put out the blaze, Russian forces struck the site twice more. The rescuers were in shelter and were not hurt, but fire equipment was damaged. At another address, four garages were damaged and a car was destroyed. The oblast administration said there were no casualties.

Energy facility hit in Khmelnytskyi Oblast

On the evening of 25 October, a Russian attack damaged an energy facility in Kamianets-Podilskyi district of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, causing emergency power outages, the oblast administration said. Windows were also damaged in two residential buildings. No casualties were reported.

Meanwhile, Russian drones attacked the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast more than 10 times overnight, damaging a high-rise and an administrative building, the oblast administration reported. No one was hurt. Mykolaiv Oblast also came under Shahed attack overnight, with no casualties, according to its administration.

The attack continued into the day. On the morning of 26 October, a Russian strike hit a civilian infrastructure site in Vinnytsia, the oblast administration said. Preliminary reports showed no casualties.

Strikes on 26 October kill three in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts

On 26 October, Russian aircraft dropped four guided bombs on homes and shops in the center of Yasnohirka near Kramatorsk, killing one person and wounding 10, the DSNS said. Among the wounded is a 13-year-old girl, Donetsk oblast head Vadym Filashkin said. In Sloviansk, a Russian airstrike destroyed a private house, and rescuers recovered the body of its owner, the DSNS said.

A Russian drone strike on Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast killed one person and injured seven, including two children, the DSNS said. The injured include two 10-year-old girls, the oblast administration said.

Six hurt in Kharkiv Oblast over the past day

Over the past 24 hours, Russian attacks hurt six people in Kharkiv Oblast, oblast head Oleh Syniehubov said. In Kharkiv, a 60-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy suffered acute stress reactions. Two women aged 51 and 71 were wounded in Krasnopavlivka. His count lists two wounded men in Izium, aged 72 and 52, while the city administration says three people there needed medical help. Russian attacks also set fire to a house in Kotliary, a production building in Vilshany, a building in Derhachi, a house in Mykolaivka, and a site in Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district, the DSNS reported.

In Sumy Oblast, Russian attacks over the past day injured five people, the National Police said, including two women aged 76 and 56 hit by a drone in Sumy community.

On 25 October: two killed in Kherson and Donetsk oblasts

In Chernihiv Oblast, Russian attacks on 25 October injured a man at a hangar in Pryluky district and a woman at a grain store in the Novhorod-Siverskyi area, the oblast administration said. Drones also damaged a school in a village of Koriukivka community, and a strike destroyed 700 metric tons of potatoes at an enterprise in Mena community, the administration said. A large warehouse fire broke out in Koriukivka district, the DSNS said.

In Kherson Oblast, Russian attacks killed one person and wounded eight in the 24 hours to 06:00 on 26 October, the oblast administration reported. On 25 October, a Russian drone strike on a minibus in Kherson’s Central district killed one person and wounded six, the administration said after one more man sought medical help. Police said the minibus was hit by an FPV drone.

In Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces killed one person in Kramatorsk and wounded 10 across the oblast on 25 October, Filashkin said. Russia hit Kramatorsk with drones and six KAB-250 guided bombs, and 18 hits on Sloviansk wounded four, police said.

On 25 October, a Russian attack on Synelnykove district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast sent a 30-year-old man to hospital, the oblast administration said. In Vinnytsia, the number of people injured in the Russian attack on the morning of 25 October rose to seven, two of them hospitalized, the DSNS said. In Uman, an 86-year-old woman burned in the Russian attack on 21 October died in hospital, the Cherkasy oblast administration said.

Ukraine has waited almost a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on missiles for its Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 26 October. He ordered his team to raise it with Washington again. Two other US holds on Ukraine, on Starlink speeds and intelligence sharing, have been lifted, leaving the interceptors as the last one.

Russia keeps firing ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities and the power grid before winter, and Patriots are the only systems in Ukraine that reliably stop Iskander-M, Kinzhal, and Zircon missiles. Zelenskyy has told EU leaders Ukraine needs 300 interceptors to get through winter, diplomatic sources told Radio Svoboda. The holds came as Washington pressed Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries, which Trump blames for high US fuel prices before the midterms.

Zelenskyy: almost a month waiting for Hegseth’s signature

Zelenskyy held a meeting on weapons supplies with Ukraine’s defense minister, foreign minister, and commander-in-chief. They reported on interceptors for air defense, above all for Patriot systems. Afterward, Zelenskyy wrote:

“We are working in several directions: with the United States, Europe, and other partners that have stocks of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles. In particular, for almost a month we have been waiting for Mr. Hegseth’s signature on missiles for Patriots and NASAMS. I have instructed the team to discuss this with the American side once again.”

Talks with other countries continue, he added. The meeting also covered preparations for November’s Ramstein meeting of Ukraine’s allies, where Zelenskyy wants decisions already on the table carried out faster.

Allies’ missiles need US approval

Some of the transfers come from friendly countries and need Hegseth’s approval, because the US must sign off on any re-transfer of its missiles, a US official and three people familiar with the matter said on 19 October. Hegseth has neither refused nor approved them.

A Ukrainian official said in mid-October that only “a couple” of interceptors were left. Hegseth has said the US wants “our guys” to have “the most possible” interceptors, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted nothing was “being deliberately denied to Ukraine.”

Two of three US holds lifted

In an interview aired on 25 October, Zelenskyy listed three problems from his Oslo talks with the Americans: air defense, Starlink limits, and limits on US intelligence sharing. Full Starlink speeds returned on 24 October, and missile warnings resumed after his 20 October call with Rubio. Progress on Patriot missiles is “very slow,” he said, “slower than the flight of Russian missiles.”

Kyiv has also tried to trade for the missiles. Zelenskyy told US senators he had offered US envoys a 30-day pause in strikes on Russian refineries in return for Patriot interceptors. The envoys showed no openness to the idea.

Trump has called those refinery strikes a disgrace that only pushes oil prices higher. He said it days after striking a deal with Putin to bring Russian diesel back to the US ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November.

Trump treats Ukraine as the weak link to squeeze and wants a visible win partly with US domestic politics in mind, Ukrainian diplomat Oleksandr Khara has argued.

A 6.5-kilometer stretch of the Kharkiv Highway has been covered with anti-drone nets.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk says that if Ukraine fires through Starlink, Russia would be entitled to shoot the network down. That is why Starlink must remain a civilian operation and cannot be used for outright offensive strikes that would put its very existence at risk.

The warning lands in the middle of a fight over Musk’s own hand on that network. Weeks ago, his company unexpectedly throttled the service Ukraine’s drones depend on amid US President Donald Trump diesel deal with Russia, which led to the disruption of a few operations on the front.

The US Treasury authorized the sale, delivery, offloading, and import of Russian-origin diesel fuel, effectively suspending sanctions on that trade until 7 April 2027, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on its website on 9 October.

The diesel deal combining intelligence halt and military Starlink, with pressure on Ukraine to make a quick peace deal, has angered both Democrats and Republicans ahead of the US elections on 3 November, where Democrats could win.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian official interprets Musk's talk of strikes as an attempt to build an alibi before a possible investigation into that decision.

A civilian network, or a target

Musk was responding to a post warning that if Starlink shifted from a civilian network into a military system, Russia could treat it as a target for retaliation, and that destroying satellites in orbit could scatter enough debris to make space unusable for years or centuries.

“An adversary blowing up Starlink satellites would create a domino effect of destruction that would generate a vast field of debris, making space unusable," he writes.

When the shield and the warnings failed together

Overnight into 14 October, SpaceX quietly capped the speed of Starshield, the military version Ukraine’s drones run on, without telling Kyiv. Ukrainian units said the limit broke a series of missions, with connections dropping mid-flight and leaving drones hard to control.

At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine relies on the network for air defense, not attack, to intercept the Russian drones Moscow sends to its cities, and that once the speed was cut, his forces could no longer stop some of them as effectively as before.

Simultaneously, Ukraine's other American lifeline also went dark: for about three days, the US stopped passing the intelligence that warns of Russian ballistic launches. On 12 October, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before the air-raid alert reached people, with no advance data from partners. In a strike during that window, three people were killed in the capital, the sirens sounding only after the blasts.

A Ukrainian official sees alibi-building

Meanwhile, Andrii Kovalenko, the ex-head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, read Musk’s statement as self-protection rather than physics

“Musk, having taken responsibility for the restrictions on Starlink and Starshield for Ukraine, is now trying to build himself an alibi before a possible investigation into that decision,” he wrote.

He said that regardless of who was behind the idea of restricting Starlink and Starshield access for Ukraine, it represents a strategic setback for the US in the long run, as it risks portraying the country as an unreliable partner that may fail to honor its commitments.

"Europe purchases around 60% of its imported weapons from the US. Trust in the US as a security guarantor directly supports sales for American defense companies. Moves like this only undermine that trust and encourage European countries to develop their own systems," he said.

The US has sent a message that its guarantees may not be reliable and that even paid-for services can be subject to political decisions, Kovalenko stressed.

Ukraine showcased innovative solutions and technologies at the Future Forces defense exhibition, held in Prague on October 21–23. Among them was the TerMIT 2.0 unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), developed by Tencore and presented at the stand of its Czech partner, Cyber Drone Solutions.

Ukraine's Cabinet has opened the construction of underground arms production space to private investors, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi announced on 22 October, saying the rule applies from that day. A second decision eases imports for partner-funded weapons production.

Koretskyi said the change would add more of the space arms makers need, especially as Russian strikes intensify. On 9 December 2025, the Defense Ministry reported that more than UAH 1.5 billion (about $36 million) in budget support had let war-damaged defense firms restore operations. At the time, the ministry planned to relocate or duplicate the most critical plants, and underground complexes were under construction. The new model puts no additional burden on the state budget, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Hvozdiar said. The bill still lands somewhere, though. Defense firms will buy, lease, or take the space for use, and companies working on state contracts are among those eligible. If they pay developers out of state-contract revenue, part of the cost could come back to the budget.

Developers build, arms makers move in

The changes to Cabinet resolution No. 1494 give private investors a simplified route to construction and permits, the ministry said. Developers can build protected facilities with their own or raised funds. Deadlines, terms of use, and the handover are set in a contract between investor and defense firm. The mechanism covers new sites as well as moving or expanding existing production. If a firm gets only part of a facility, that part must be at least 25% of the facility's total area and fit for production.

Developers must sign deals with, among others, residents of Defence City, Ukraine's special legal regime for arms makers, holders of state defense contracts, and firms the ministry designates as critical.

Tax break for partner-funded arms production

Components for weapons production that international partners pay for will enter Ukraine free of import duty and VAT, Koretskyi said. He added that customs inspection and clearance would be simplified and sharply shortened through a "single window."

A critical security flaw in the programming language underpinning much of the web has prompted a global rush to patch vulnerable systems.

© Vincent West/Reuters

The UN met this week to discuss, among other things, the threat of autonomous weapons.

“The technology is developing at a pace that is very concerning,” Laurent Gisel, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) legal warfare team, told 404 Media. Gisel was in NYC this week to address the UN about all the things that are driving conflict across the planet. His prepared remarks include a statement on the illegal arms trade, nuclear weapons, mines, and – of course – AI.

Autonomous weapons have been a hot topic at the UN this year. In September, the UN attempted to pass a treaty that would govern the use of killer AI weapons. Diplomats from Russia and the US stripped it of its power. 

But the UN has pressed forward. On Tuesday, the international governing body announced a new initiative that would grapple with the issue. But, as Gisel said: “multilateral processes take quite some time” and  “we already see the effects on the battlefield.” 

AI is already picking targets and killing people. Gisel said the technology is “amplifying the destruction, amplifying the violation of the law, amplifying the humanitarian harm caused by conflicts.”

Israel used an AI powered by Microsoft to pick targets in Gaza. In Ukraine, AI-powered Russian drones are deciding which humans to kill. The United States military is pitching itself as an “AI-first” fighting force. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently announced Project Meridian, an initiative to guide the AI-powered autonomous weapons of the future. Three of Meridian's leads are Elon Musk, defense contractor Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich.

For Gisel, one of the biggest dangers of AI is how fast it is. A core selling point for the tech is that it can help commanders make decisions faster. But that also accelerates the pace of mistakes. “Targets are created at higher speed and higher frequency, and are actually then prosecuted quicker, and with that give us great concerns in terms of the level of human control that is retained,” he said. “The human is supposed to remain in the loop.”

The human does not always remain in the loop. The Israel Defense Forces told journalists it did not thoroughly vet the kill lists generated by Lavender, the AI system it used to pick targets in Gaza. “It's known in the [civilian world] [...] that humans tend to trust the systems,” Gisel said. “That it's more the case when the humans are tired, when the humans are under stress, when the humans have to deliver quickly, and that's of course exactly the situation in which soldiers are in. So all of that gives us a lot of concerns in terms of retaining control on the use of force in armed conflict.”

AI boosters often pitch AI as an “easy button,” a way for people to brute force a complicated task and get it over with. But the consequences are much different when someone in Silicon  Valley is parsing spreadsheets or reverse engineering code  than when they’re prosecuting a war in the Middle East.

“That's something that the developers of those systems don't necessarily realize either, because some of those systems are developed by technological companies very far away from the battlefield, and they are not naturally all developed for battlefield use,” Gisel said.

International humanitarian law is an ever-evolving legal negotiation between world powers meant to limit the devastating effects of war. It’s imperfect and countries with vast armies like the US and Russia often do not abide by it. The ICRC, which Gisel represents, exists explicitly to shape these rules and laws. Some of the laws are old, far older than AI, but according to Gisel humanitarian law applies to “all weapons, means, and methods of warfare. Those of yesterday, those of today, and those of tomorrow.”

Beyond the opportunity to code humanitarian law into AI, Gisel said there should be new rules and regulations for the new technology. “Not to prohibit them all, but to prohibit specific categories of autonomous weapon systems and put specific restrictions on others,” he said.

"...Once the genie is out of the bottle, it's very, very much difficult to put it back in the bottle"

But he does have redlines. The first is any AI support system that removes a human being from the kill chain. “That requires specific limits and guardrails and restrictions from our perspective,” he said.

“The other type of autonomous weapon system that we recommend prohibiting is those that would target human beings directly, where the target profile is the human being, as opposed to a tank, weapon systems, or another typical military objective, and the reason why is based on ethical concerns, humanitarian concerns, and a moral line,” he added.

Autonomous weapons have existed for a long time. Some US warships have gatling guns that track and destroy incoming targets automatically. The difference is that those weapons track ships and missiles, not human beings.

According to Gisel, one problem with autonomous weapons that target humans or AI support systems that pick targets is that they’re unpredictable. He said banning unpredictable weapons should be a non-brainer. “Military discipline is about your forces [...] delivering the commander's intent,” he said. “If you have a weapon that is unpredictable in its effect, how can you deliver the commander's intent?”

Data Centers Are War Targets Now

"Why have we gotten to the point where we have permitted militaries of various states to use civilian commercial data centers for their military purposes?"

But it’s been a sticking point in negotiations. “We would have thought, military considerations, would align. But actually, that has also faced quite some pushback. Strangely enough,” he said. He spoke about the negotiations in August and September from earlier in the year. “There were references in the last proposal by the chair of the group on precisely all those questions: that the autonomous weapon systems need to be reliable, explainable, understandable, and predictable. And all of that was taken out by some states.”

Gisel also opposes AI in nuclear command and control. In 1983, the Soviet Union’s early warning systems reported that the US had launched a nuclear weapon at the country. Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov decided the computer had made a mistake and decided not to report the attacks up the chain. He was right.

“States will continue to use satellite systems and therefore algorithms that go with those satellites,” he said. “But it's so important to ensure that it remains entirely under human control and a really meaningful human control.”

While the UN deliberates and the ICRC wrangles with how to regulate all this, the wars continue and military forces continue to embrace AI. “That's why it's urgent to have decisions being made by the international community on what to prohibit and what to restrict [...] once the genie is out of the bottle, it's very, very much difficult to put it back in the bottle,” he said.

Gisel said the world needs to act now. “Otherwise, it's the technology that will decide what is acceptable, and that's not the world we want to live in, right?”

Governments and businesses around the world scrambled to prevent hackers from exploiting a vulnerability in PHP, a popular programming language.

© Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Associated Press

As of October, Russia has up to 700 ballistic and several thousand cruise missiles in reserve, and its 2026 state order for Geran-type drones and decoys such as the Gerbera exceeded 100,000 units, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) told NV in figures the outlet published on 20 October. The missile stocks are roughly the same as HUR reported to NV in July, the outlet found.

Ukraine enters the heating season facing what it says is a Russian plan to hit 60 infrastructure sites this winter. HUR’s figures suggest Russia has the weapons for it, even after its fall mass strikes. In June, HUR said Russia could fire up to 100 ballistic missiles a month while keeping its stocks steady. Its drone output, meanwhile, is shifting to jets that are harder to shoot down.

Russia produces 110 ballistic missiles a month

Russia can make more than 200 missiles a month, 110 of them ballistic, HUR said. About 115 of its ballistic missiles are Iskander-Ms, with production of up to 65 a month. A modernized Iskander with a projected range of 550 to 700 km is in development.

At the same time, Russia holds up to 400 S-300PM and S-400 air defense missiles adapted to strike ground targets, and makes about 40 a month. Meanwhile, Kinzhal production has been temporarily paused over poor accuracy, and the capacity has gone to conventional ballistic missiles.

Most new Kalibrs go into reserve

Russia plans to make more than 80 Kh-101 cruise missiles a month and is exceeding that, though defects in releasing them from aircraft have sent some batches back to the factories.

Russia has more than 450 Kalibrs and makes about 29 a month. Because Ukrainian air defense downs them effectively, Russia sends most new ones to its strategic reserve and to equip its fleets, HUR said. It also holds more than 600 Oniks anti-ship missiles, upgraded for ground strikes, and more than 120 Zircons.

Russia now assembles 4,000 jet drones a month

Russia holds a reserve of about 6,200 Gerans and makes about 10,000 drones a month. Its main production hub is the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan.

Since summer, Russia has shifted toward turbojet drones. “The reason is the saturation of Ukraine’s Air Force with mobile fire groups that shoot down low-speed targets en masse,” HUR said. Russia now assembles about 4,000 jet drones a month, mostly Geran-4s and Geran-5s, which fly at 400 to 500 km/h. It also makes about 2,000 cheaper propeller-driven Geran-2s, which HUR said are used to wear down air defense and locate air defense positions.

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

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

Faster drones for a faster war

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

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

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

Engines are the bottleneck

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

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

In the Kherson region, as part of a pilot initiative, 227 mobile shelters will be installed along school routes; the first ten mobile shelters have been set up in the Kherson district.

As Washington leans on Ukraine to make a deal with Russia amid its diesel agreement ahead of the US elections, its European partners are meeting to keep it armed against deadly weapons.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he met Kongsberg CEO Eirik Lie and Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik in Oslo on 21 October to discuss more NASAMS air defenses, a day after meeting US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff in the same city.

Washington has spent the past two weeks easing pressure on Russia and leaning on Kyiv, with a diesel deal, throttled Starlink, and talk of cutting intelligence, while Ukraine’s European partners move in the other direction. Russia pounds Ukrainian cities almost nightly, and the Norwegian-made NASAMS is one of the systems holding that barrage off critical infrastructure.

Kongsberg opened an office in Ukraine in 2025. Its NASAMS uses the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile built by the US defense giant RTX, the same firm behind the Patriot launchers that are Ukraine’s only means of downing Russian ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The same missile is also used in F-16s.

“They effectively protect our people and critical infrastructure from Russian missile and drone attacks virtually every day,” Zelenskyy said.

He added that Ukraine is counting on additional defense support packages next month.

A European shield Ukraine wants tested this year

The visit also advanced a joint missile-defense project. Norway is actively involved in FREYJA, a European anti-ballistic missile program that Ukraine is helping to build.

“There are already first results in creating individual elements of the system. Today we determined where we can and must speed up to reach testing by the end of this year,” Zelenskyy said.

FREYJA now draws in 10 countries and is built around an interceptor missile designed to stop ballistic threats, a capability Europe largely lacks against Russia’s fastest weapons.

A push for satellites as Starlink falters

Zelenskyy also raised satellite communications amid the scandal over speed limitations on Elon Musk’s military Starlink service that disrupted a series of front-line missions.

“We discussed in detail the start of work on new satellite-communication capabilities for our soldiers,” the president said, adding that Kyiv would bring in partners able to support them.

The push comes after SpaceX throttled the StarShield military package Ukrainian drones use. Ukraine’s 7th Air Assault Corps said the connection began dropping as drones moved at speed, negatively affecting their missions.

Intercepting a jet-powered Geran can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $4 million depending on the weapon used. Cheap interceptor drones are the only option that keeps air defense affordable, the foundation of Ukrainian top war volunteer Serhii Sternenko said on Telegram.

Russia’s jet Gerans now carry every characteristic of a small cruise missile, and Russians keep raising their speed in answer to each Ukrainian countermeasure. Former commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi has framed the shift bluntly: an expensive Cold War missile has become a cheap weapon fired in bulk, and the drone is now “a missile in all but name,” affordable to any side, not only wealthy countries.

Sternenko heads a charitable foundation that has purchased 291,502 FPV drones, which have helped Ukraine’s military down more than 12,954 aerial targets. Also, has advised the team of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Three ways to kill a jet Geran, and what each costs

The foundation laid out the price of each method:

• Aircraft (F-16, MiG-29, Su-27, Mirage 2000): $25,000 to $1.2 million per kill. Effective, but the stock of missiles is critically low, and some air-to-air types are no longer being replenished.
• Surface-to-air and shoulder-fired systems (IRIS-T, NASAMS, Vampire, Avenger): about $30,000 to $4 million. Good for shielding key sites, but a missile capable of reaching a jet Geran at 6 to 7 kilometers costs $0.5 million to $4 million.
• Interceptor drones (makers undisclosed): from $2,000. Cheap, with trained operators ready, but not yet scalable.

Why the cheapest option is the one that matters

No single tool is enough, the foundation stresses. Downing jet Gerans still needs aircraft, small aviation and missile systems together, but it is the interceptors that make the defense affordable, taking out the cheaper Shaheds and saving costly missiles for targets nothing else can reach.

The foundation says it has found a way to counter drones that already match small cruise missiles, working with Ukrainian manufacturers, without disclosing details. The method is far cheaper than other ways of downing jet Gerans and significantly strengthens air defense, it says, as part of a wider Ukrainian push to field interceptor drones fast enough to catch Russia’s fastest weapons.

The commander of an interceptor battalion in Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps said his unit destroyed several thousand Russian aerial targets during Operation Vivaldi, ArmyInform, the Defense Ministry’s news agency, reported on 21 October.

Operation Vivaldi is a Ukrainian counteroffensive north of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast, where the 3rd Army Corps has reported liberating settlements. In its third phase, Ukrainian forces reclaimed five settlements and expanded their gains to 176 square kilometers. Strikes on Russian logistics and electronic warfare likely neutralized Russia’s drone defenses before Ukraine sent in armor, the Institute for the Study of War assessed.

The commander, who uses the callsign “Betsyk,” leads the interceptor battalion of the 1030th Anti-Aircraft Missile-Artillery Regiment “Aquila,” part of the 3rd Army Corps. He said Russian forces deployed large numbers of reconnaissance drones to locate Ukrainian positions after the corps began advancing.

Betsyk named Zala, Orlan, Supercam, Merlin, and Knyaz Veshchiy Oleg among the reconnaissance drones used by Russian forces.

Russia also brought in reinforcements and units operating strike drones, including first-person-view (FPV) quadcopters, Molniya fixed-wing FPV drones, and Lancet crews, he said. At one stage, Russian forces deployed crews from their Rubicon drone unit to disrupt the advance, but the move did not change the situation.

Betsyk said his battalion’s work deprived Russian forces of the ability to strike Ukrainian troops and track their movements.

Jet-powered Shaheds: speed is the main challenge

The regiment also works against Russian strike drones heading for targets behind the front line. Betsyk said interceptor crews had destroyed some jet-powered drones, but not in significant numbers.

The main difficulty is speed, he said. Interceptor drones need to reach 500–600 km/h to intercept Russian jet-powered attack drones, according to Betsyk.

For now, the regiment mainly uses conventional air-defense systems against these targets: self-propelled anti-aircraft systems, surface-to-air missile systems, and portable surface-to-air missile systems. Betsyk said these systems were historically designed to engage jet-powered targets.

He compared the current challenge with the early use of piston-powered Shaheds. Those drones initially posed a serious threat but later became easier for Ukrainian air defenses to counter. Russia has largely stopped using piston-powered Shaheds on most fronts since summer, he said, but continues to use piston-powered Gerbera drones, which are relatively cheap and can partly exhaust Ukrainian air defenses. The main drones Russian forces use now are jet-powered Shaheds, he said.

Betsyk expects Russian forces to adapt if Ukraine fields effective interceptors against jet-powered drones. They will seek ways to evade the interceptors, increase speed, improve navigation, and change their tactics, he said. However, he added that the battalion had not observed a major evolution so far and did not expect the drones’ speed to double.

What the corps says Vivaldi achieved

Separately, 3rd Army Corps commander Andrii Biletskyi said Ukrainian forces retook 277 square kilometers and 16 settlements during Operation Vivaldi, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Biletskyi also said Russian losses exceeded 8,000 personnel, according to ArmyInform. These figures are Ukrainian claims and have not been independently verified.

Ukraine got no early warning from its partners of the first wave of Russian ballistic missiles on the night of 18–19 October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told US senators on 19 October. He also said Starlink and Starshield terminals still stop working above certain speeds on parts of the front, and that Washington has explained neither problem. In the same video call, according to a transcript obtained by Axios, he said US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is not signing off on deliveries of Patriot interceptors and AIM-9X missiles for NASAMS that NATO countries have already paid for.

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. Washington supplies both the early launch warnings and the Patriot interceptors Ukraine needs against Russian ballistic missiles, and Zelenskyy says both are now failing at once, as Russia keeps firing ballistic missiles at Ukraine’s grid ahead of winter. If neither the warnings nor the interceptors come through, Ukrainian cities would face winter strikes with less notice and fewer means to stop them.

On the morning of 20 October, Zelenskyy wrote that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about interceptors against ballistic missiles, early warning of Russian ballistic attacks, and restoring Starlink and Starshield. He thanked Rubio for his readiness to help and his clear position, and said they had agreed to speak again soon. He did not say whether anything had been resolved.

Patriots paid for, not signed

“We have almost no Patriot interceptors left from the US partners,” Zelenskyy told the senators.

Hegseth “has the contracts for Patriot missiles on his desk,” a Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent, adding that allies had already paid for them. Another senior official called the batch “significant.” One of the main channels for Ukraine’s Patriot supply is NATO’s PURL mechanism, under which allies fund purchases of US weapons for Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian military official told the outlet.

On 19 October, Zelenskyy wrote that some types of vital supplies were being delayed at the US Department of War, as the Trump administration also calls the Pentagon. He added that some political agreements had not been carried out at the working level.

A NATO official told the Kyiv Independent that PURL deliveries, including air defense, were continuing. Another said some shipments could face delays, but that political reasons were unlikely to explain them. A US government official called Ukraine’s claims “not true.” The Pentagon did not respond to the outlet.

No warning for Kyiv hours after Zelenskyy said US alerts were back

On 18 October, Zelenskyy said on NBC that US warnings of ballistic launches had resumed after three days without them. That night, Russia launched two ballistic waves at Ukraine, and information from partners did not arrive before the first, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said. Zelenskyy told the senators Ukraine had not received US warnings on three occasions in the past week. “We have received no clear explanation from Washington,” he said.

“All of this suggests that some political decision has been made to slow down support for us,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy offered a 30-day pause on refinery strikes for Patriots

Zelenskyy told the senators he had offered US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner a 30-day halt on strikes against Russian refineries. In return, the US would supply Patriot interceptors to cover that period. He said the envoys had shown no openness to the idea.

On 20 October, Norway announced talks in Oslo that day between Zelenskyy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, with Witkoff attending in person and Kushner by video.

Senators back Kyiv. Trump says intelligence still flows

Senator Thom Tillis said he and his colleagues remain committed to standing with Ukraine and its European allies, while Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote that bipartisan support was “clear and unequivocal” and would be expressed “in upcoming action.”

US President Donald Trump told reporters on 19 October that Washington is still sharing intelligence with Ukraine and that he did not know who ordered the throttling of Starlink, Axios reported.

“Zelensky doesn’t know what he is talking about,” Trump said.

Defense Forces units operating in the Zaporizhzhia sector have received military equipment worth nearly 40 million hryvnias.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with a team from U.S. defense company Lockheed Martin in Kyiv to discuss expanding supplies of ballistic missile interceptors and the possibility of servicing and repairing F-16 fighter jets in Ukraine.

The fire, which did not seriously damage the network, came after similar incidents in Bulgaria and Poland involving the satellite internet provider, a key defense tool for Ukraine’s armed forces.

© Inna Varenytsia/Reuters

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.

Military personnel from Britain, France, Germany, and Poland will conduct joint exercises next month to rehearse a scenario involving the deployment of multinational forces in Ukraine following a possible ceasefire.

The health secretary is quietly taking steps that public health experts fear will reduce immunization rates further.

© Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

The health secretary is quietly taking steps that public health experts fear will reduce immunization rates further.

© Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

Ukraine has received undisclosed assistance from Poland as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian drone and missile attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hinted during a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Brussels on 15 October, Radio Svoboda reported.

Ukraine’s air defense needs are greater than at any point since 2022, as intensified Russian drone and missile attacks strain existing systems and expose shortages of interceptor missiles. With US support increasingly uncertain amid tensions between Kyiv and Washington, European military aid is becoming more critical to Ukraine’s ability to defend its cities and infrastructure.

Zelenskyy thanked Warsaw for its support, suggesting that some assistance had to remain confidential. He also specifically mentioned 20 mm ammunition, which Ukraine needs to defend its cities against Russian attacks.

“Sometimes this has to stay between the two of us,” Zelenskyy said, thanking Tusk for the aid.

European support increasingly important amid US rift

Ukraine is facing mounting pressure on its air defenses as Russia increases the scale of its aerial attacks. Ukrainian forces are also struggling with shortages of interceptor missiles, particularly Patriot missiles needed to counter Russian ballistic strikes, leaving the country vulnerable to further attacks.

The need for additional support comes amid growing uncertainty over US assistance under President Donald Trump. Washington has taken steps that have strained ties with Kyiv, including easing some restrictions on Russian fuel and pressing for an energy ceasefire that Ukraine says Russia has continued to violate. 

Recent disruptions to US-linked intelligence and satellite support have also raised concerns about Ukraine's ability to detect and counter Russian attacks.

As uncertainty over Washington's role grows, European military assistance is becoming increasingly important for Ukraine's defense.

Defense cooperation continues despite political tensions

Tusk reaffirmed Poland's commitment to supporting Ukraine, saying Kyiv could count on Poland and the European Union. He also opposed easing EU sanctions against Russia, arguing that Europe should not take steps that help Moscow finance its war.

The meeting also came amid strained relations between Kyiv and Warsaw over historical disputes. However, Poland's government has maintained that these disagreements should not undermine military support for Ukraine, whose ability to resist Russian aggression is closely tied to Poland's own security.

Temporary restrictions on aircraft arrivals and departures were imposed at 27 Russian airports, Deutsche Welle reported on 16 October, citing its own calculations based on reports from Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned airlines on 1 September that “Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe.” Overnight, most of the airspace over European Russia was closed.

By morning, more than 200 flights had been canceled or delayed at Moscow airports, Deutsche Welle reported, citing figures compiled by a Russian Telegram channel.

Тим часом у російських аеропортах – справжній апокаліпсис через нальоти дронів останніми днями.

Про це ниють росЗМІ. Було відмінено десятки рейсів, у терміналах – дуже багато людей. Пасажири скаржаться на задуху, дикі черги до туалетів та повну невідомість. pic.twitter.com/ZlXxY5c2mq

— Breaking News (@breakingUAnews) October 16, 2026

The list included airports in the capital. All four Moscow airports temporarily suspended arrivals and departures, the Russian outlet Astra reported on 16 October. Russian authorities said they had shot down dozens of drones, while flights were delayed and diverted to alternate airfields, according to the report.

Massive drone attack on Russia: 644 UAVs in one night, 94 shot down near Moscow

The temporary airport shutdowns were likely a consequence of a massive drone attack on Russia. From 8:00 p.m. on 15 October to 8:00 a.m. on 16 October, Russian air defenses allegedly intercepted and destroyed 644 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles across 26 Russian regions, occupied Crimea, and the Black Sea, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry.

According to the list of regions published by the Russian Defense Ministry, the drone attacks covered a vast area of Russia, from regions bordering Ukraine to the Moscow region, the Volga region, the country’s northwest and southern regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the Black Sea.

Russian air defenses shot down a total of 94 drones approaching Moscow over the evening of 15 October and overnight, according to calculations by the Russian outlet RBC Radio, citing statements by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

In the Kaluga region, air defenses destroyed 27 drones over the evening and night, the regional governor reported. At 9:27 a.m., he updated the figures, saying another 48 UAVs had been shot down overnight, bringing the total to 75. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or infrastructure damage.

In the Tula region, air defenses allegedly destroyed a total of 32 Ukrainian drones. There were no casualties, according to regional Governor Dmitry Milyaev in his Telegram channel.

In the Vladimir region in western Russia, authorities repelled drone attacks overnight. In the city of Vladimir, a drone attempted to attack a heating infrastructure facility, but the attack was stopped, Vladimir Region Governor Alexander Avdeyev reported. Minor damage was reported, but there was no information about casualties.

Ukraine has not yet commented on its involvement in the attacks.

The practical consequences of canceled Russian flights

Passengers on flight SU6312 from Kaliningrad to Moscow were unable to land in Moscow because of airspace closure, so the aircraft was diverted to Nizhny Novgorod, Terravia reported. After landing, passengers remained on board for about two hours before being allowed to disembark at 3:30 a.m. Instead of continuing their journey to Moscow by air, they were supposed to be transported by bus, with the trip expected to take about seven hours, the outlet reported.

Passengers were not provided with food or drinks, and one woman could not find a seat on the bus, so she purchased a ticket for an early-morning train herself.

Since the beginning of the year, all four Moscow airports have been completely shut down simultaneously at least 19 times, the Russian outlet Agentstvo reported. During the first 14 days of October, the restrictions lasted 101 hours and 38 minutes, compared with 46 hours and 33 minutes in September, according to the report.

Ukraine is handing its factories the right to shoot back at the Russian drones hunting them. Nearly 100 companies have joined Ukraine’s experimental program that allows private enterprises to operate their own air defenses, granting them authority to conduct air defense operations and form their own crews, the Defense Ministry says.

Russian drones strike Ukrainian factories, warehouses and power sites so relentlessly that the state cannot shield every one, so the Defense Ministry is enlisting the businesses being hit to defend themselves.

The program has grown quickly, from 24 companies in April to 81 by mid-September and nearly 100 now, and its crews have already destroyed a substantial number of Russian aerial targets.

The companies range from operators of critical infrastructure to state and private firms across the economy. The project is carried out under a Cabinet resolution dated 19 November 2025, which mobilizes enterprise resources to support Ukraine’s defense against air threats.

Civilian crews that answer to the Air Force, not themselves

These teams do not fire into a shared sky on their own. About 50 air-defense groups have been formed and are operating under the relevant Air Force commands, and crews from six enterprises are already carrying out combat missions, the ministry says. The rest are training or finishing preparation before they join.

As of 14 October, the groups have downed more than 60 aerial targets, mostly Russian drones, using interceptor drones and automated turrets with heavy machine guns, according to the ministry. The Air Force command sets each group’s targets based on its weapons and tasks, and, jointly with the company, defines its sector, personnel, and equipment.

Who pays, and who pulls the trigger

The arrangement splits cost and control. Some weapons the enterprises buy with their own money, holding end-user status, while a company can also ask the Air Force to lend arms and ammunition from military stocks.

Private air defense is one layer of a multi-tiered shield, meant to protect industrial capacity, critical infrastructure and civilian staff from systematic drone attacks. The crews began combat work in 2026.

US defense-tech company CHAOS Industries introduced its Vespid interceptor family in Washington on 12 October, as the Association of the US Army (AUSA) annual meeting opened there, the company announced. CHAOS pitches the drones as low-cost defense against small and mid-size drones and one-way attack munitions. The company expects initial production capacity of 12,000 interceptors a year, expandable to 50,000 as demand grows.

The pitch lands as Russia moves its strike drones to jet power. Russia has stopped building the Geran-3, an earlier jet model, and makes about 3,000 faster Geran-4s and Geran-5s a month, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) told Militarnyi in August. In mid-September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said two Ukrainian companies had passed combat tests with interceptors against such drones, while 67 were still working on them. Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express measured the new US drones against exactly that threat.

One to carry, one to launch in batches

The Mk 1 made its first public appearance on 12 October aboard a Forterra MESA autonomous ground vehicle, Army Recognition reported. It fires from tubes on launchers such as the 10-round ISS Aerospace HAL10. It takes midcourse guidance from CHAOS radars or external command systems, then an AI-assisted infrared seeker handles the final approach, the company says. An electric ducted fan rather than a jet engine drives it, which CHAOS says cuts cost and logistics compared with turbojet interceptors.

The smaller Mk 0 is man-portable and needs no operator input once fired, its product page says. Both are rated to reach a target in under 100 seconds, with a listed range of 10+ km. Defense Express called that range a serious weakness that more launchers around a city could offset.

CHAOS lists cruise speeds of 100 m/s (360 km/h) for the Mk 0 and 150 m/s (540 km/h) for the Mk 1. Defense Express said those speeds may be enough to intercept the Geran-4 and Geran-5, which it puts at 340 km/h and 450–600 km/h.

Ukrainian makers say their interceptors already down jet Gerans

Wild Hornets’ Sting interceptors downed several of the slower jet-powered Geran-3s in November 2025. An unnamed Wild Hornets representative told NV, in an interview published on 22 September, that the company’s new interceptor had destroyed about ten Geran-4s and several Geran-5s in limited use. The company plans mass production within a month of finishing combat tests.

On 12 October, former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said he and Pavlo Yelizarov, commander of Lasar’s Group, had created a new interceptor with troops and engineers. He said it downed two Geran-5s headed for Kyiv.

Crews from Lasar’s Group, which Fedorov has called a National Guard special unit, flew those combat tests, he said. Separately, Fedorov reported in August that a Ukrainian jet interceptor with a top speed above 600 km/h had entered combat testing.

Russian attacks have injured 1,125 Kyiv residents since the start of 2026. Of these, 379 people, or nearly 34%, were injured in just five weeks, from 27 August to 7 October, Tetiana Mostepan, director of the Kyiv City State Administration’s Department of Health, said in an interview published on 13 October.

Russian air attacks on Kyiv have intensified since late August. Air attacks occur both day and night, and Russian drones target not only military facilities but also civilian buildings, including apartments. As a result, the number of casualties is also increasing. More than 40% of emergency medical responses to attacks this year occurred between late August and early October, Mostepan noted.

During this period, the capital’s emergency medical teams responded to 782 calls related to the attacks, the department director said. She also released data showing that 138 medical facilities in Kyiv have been damaged since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, including 47 this year.

“And when we talk about statistics, I always emphasize that behind every number is a human life. These are people who have been injured, as well as medical workers who respond to attack sites to save them,” Mostepan said.

Russian attacks on Kyiv have become more frequent

Russia attacked Kyiv with drones throughout the day, Suspilne Kyiv reported on 27 August. Air raid alerts were issued 12 times in the capital, drone debris was found in five districts, and at least four people were injured, the report said. Russian forces used about 140 attack drones against Ukraine throughout the day, more than 100 of them jet-powered, the Ukrainian Air Force reported at the time.

At least 38 people were killed and dozens injured in a Russian drone strike on an ammunition depot in the Bucha district near Kyiv, triggering a massive fire and hours of explosions in a residential area, CNN reported. The attack in the Bucha district came amid near-constant Russian airstrikes, which continued into Sunday, the outlet reported.

Russian forces were likely seeking to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, disrupt civilians’ daily lives, and increase the scale of destruction, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, citing CNN’s reporting.

On 8 September, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stressed the urgent need to strengthen support for Ukraine, particularly by providing air defense systems. Delays in delivering assistance cost human lives, he said.

On 1 October, a Russian drone struck a school in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district while 104 children were inside, Suspilne reported. Students and school staff took shelter, so no one was injured, the report said.

Russian attacks continue after Trump’s announcement of an energy ceasefire

Following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of an energy ceasefire, Russia continued striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including in Kyiv. On 13 October, Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv, hitting a thermal power plant in the second attack in 24 hours without advance warning from Ukraine’s allies, Zelenskyy said. The evening and morning strikes killed four people in Kyiv, three of them women in a high-rise in Desnianskyi district, Kyiv prosecutors said.

Russia attacked energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast, and Kharkiv with 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 14 October. At least 600,000 people were left without electricity, he said. Later that day, an accident on the grid cut power to part of Kyiv’s right bank, energy company DTEK said.

Critical infrastructure has been targeted in a wave of cyberattacks, which experts say are rising because of artificial intelligence.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

F.B.I. investigators worked with the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to dismantle so-called laptop farms that steal American identities to earn cash for Pyongyang.

© Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The attack targeted a Danish software system in more than 400 supermarkets, forcing some shops to throw out frozen produce. The attackers have not been identified.

© Fred Tanneau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Russia is building a satellite network that could soon put all of Europe within its reach. The “Rassvet” satellite system is an extraordinary threat, first to Ukraine and then to the rest of Europe, Oleksandr Danyliuk, the head of the private European aerospace and defense technology company Destinus, said at the Warsaw Security Forum, according to Ukrinform.

Rassvet is Russia’s answer to Starlink, a low-orbit satellite network built by Bureau 1440 to give Moscow’s forces communications that no one else can switch off. European states must invest more quickly in cheap, effective, mass-produced systems to counter it.

“They will be able to navigate to any point in Europe without problems. This needs to be stopped,” said Danyluik, a former Ukrainian finance minister, said.

Cheap systems, made at scale

Danyliuk’s prescription is already being used on Ukraine’s front. Europe should invest in inexpensive, effective systems that can be mass-produced, he argues, the same approach Ukraine uses, and that Russia also turns against it.

“This gap needs to be filled as quickly as possible,” he said.

He urged allies not to overlook threats that might look secondary today, pointing to Rassvet as exactly that kind of slow-building danger.

Appearing strong is not enough to deter Russia, Danyliuk argued, because Moscow can gauge how ready European states actually are.

Ukraine races to catch up

Both sides are now scrambling to own the satellite link rather than rent it. Ukraine is building a satellite system of its own, similar to Starlink but beyond any single company’s control, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 4 October.

He argued Kyiv should be free to turn Starlink on Russian military targets, warning that China and other states will share comparable satellite technology with Moscow within months.

By Ukrainian estimates, Russia still needs five to eight years to complete Rassvet, which so far reaches Ukraine only in brief passes. That window is the time Danyliuk says Europe must use.

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

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

Fires at a former motor depot in occupied Khrustalnyi

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

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

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

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 12, 2026

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

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

Explosions at a Crimean airfield Russia used to launch drones overnight

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

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

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

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

Ukraine keeps hitting Russian rear areas in occupied territory

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

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

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

Aviation is one of the most effective ways to counter Russia’s jet-powered drones. Its effectiveness continues to grow due to pilots’ skill and better coordination, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara says, Glavcom reports.

Russia’s jet-powered Gerans fly several times faster than the propeller Shaheds Ukraine learned to shoot down, and they remain the main challenge for its air defense. Ukraine downs more than 90% of the slow drones but only about 55% of the jet ones.

“Due to them, our aviation now uses fewer munitions per aerial target. We plan to improve this further,” Khmara states.

Air defense works as a layered system because no single type of weapon is enough, he explains. The layers run from surface-to-air and shoulder-fired missiles to turrets, electronic warfare, interceptor-drone crews, and small-scale air defense, topped by aircraft including Mirage and F-16 jets.

Scaling what works against jet drones

Ukraine already has combat results against the jet drones, Khmara notes. In one engagement, five Bars interceptors destroyed five aerial targets, a 100% hit rate in that case, and the task now is to raise the overall destruction rate and quickly scale the solutions that prove themselves.

Heavy-caliber turrets are adding to that. Their number in service already runs into the hundreds, he adds.

“This direction is being scaled, and systems with greater range are being worked on. In parallel, surface-to-air and shoulder-fired missile systems are also proving effective,” he says.

Preparing for the next generation

Ukraine is also looking past today’s threats, the minister stresses. The ministry is working to supply interceptor drones, aviation and its munitions, missile and artillery systems, turrets and electronic warfare gear, and to plan several steps ahead with enough stock in reserve.

“We also know what solutions Russia is developing, which concern jet drones with a speed of 800 kilometers per hour. We are working on finding countermeasures to the next generation of threats,” Khmara says.

Producers have been tasked with offering proposals and prototypes, he concludes.

Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency has contracted about 5.5 times as many drones of various types in recent months as in the same period of 2025. It is roughly 300% more over the year as a whole, the Defense Ministry said.

Drones are the weapons this war runs on, from short-range strikes to hits deep inside Russia, and Ukraine has raced to build and buy more of them while sparing its troops. The agency contracted for about $8 billion worth of drones in the first half of 2026 alone, double the amount for the same period last year.

The ministry wants to arm the force at every level, Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara stresses. Deep-strike drones hit targets far inside Russia, while middle-strike drones kill enemy drone crews and burn logistics and command posts, lowering the risk to Ukrainian soldiers.

“Technology and having enough of these systems raise combat effectiveness and at the same time reduce the risks for our soldiers,” Khmara said.

FPV drones lead the surge

The sharpest growth is in FPV drones, the cheap first-person-view quadcopters that do much of the killing on the front. Contracting for them in 2026 already exceeds the total for all of 2025 by 54%, and deliveries have risen almost 3.7 times, the ministry notes.

International support and the scaling of Ukraine’s own defense industry made the jump possible, Khmara adds. Much of the buying now runs through the DOT-Chain Defense marketplace, where units select what they need, and the agency handles contracts and logistics, cutting the average delivery time for in-stock items to 9 days.

Making supply predictable

The ministry is trying to make deliveries steadier, Khmara explains. It is aligning the front’s needs, purchase planning, and the production capacity of the Ukrainian industry, making supply more predictable.

Predictable contracting lets manufacturers build their production lines step by step, plan logistics and order components in advance, he says. The ministry frames the push as a larger order book for the domestic industry and a way to scale the solutions that work in combat.

Norwegian nonprofit Fritt Ukraina is allocating NOK 10 million (about $1 million) to strengthen air defenses around Chornomorsk, a key Ukrainian port on the Black Sea, the organization announced on 9 October.

Russian attacks on port infrastructure and civilian vessels are threatening Ukraine’s maritime trade and agricultural exports, putting pressure on a vital source of revenue for the country and disrupting shipments of food to international markets.

The funding will support Ukrainian State Border Guard Service and Armed Forces units defending the region against Russian attack drones. It is being delivered through Dronefall, a project run by the Ukrainian Come Back Alive Foundation, which equips military units with interceptor drones and the equipment needed to operate them.

Fritt Ukraina, whose name means “Free Ukraine,” is a Norwegian nonprofit organization that supports Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion. The donation is part of its Odins Ravner 2.0 fundraising campaign, which provides military assistance to Ukrainian forces.

Interceptor drones and equipment to protect port infrastructure

The support includes STING, Blyskavka and P1-SUN interceptor drones, alongside ground control stations, communications equipment, generators, charging stations, laptops, tablets and vehicles, according to the organization.

The interceptor drones are already operational, according to Fritt Ukraina. The equipment helps Ukrainian personnel detect and intercept Russian attack drones, while vehicles allow crews to move quickly and operate from different positions.

Fritt Ukraina Secretary General Natalia Golis said effective air defense requires more than interceptor drones alone. Communications systems, reliable power supplies and mobility are also essential to ensure units can use their equipment effectively.

The organization is supporting Dronefall for the third consecutive year and has become the Come Back Alive Foundation’s largest foreign partner. The latest donation was matched by a donor affiliated with the Ukrainian foundation.

Russian attacks threaten Ukraine’s maritime exports

More than 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural products, including grain and vegetable oils, are exported through three ports in southern Odesa Oblast. Russian attacks have targeted port infrastructure and civilian vessels, increasing security risks for commercial shipping and driving up freight and insurance costs.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, more than 1,000 Ukrainian port facilities and over 200 civilian vessels have been damaged or partially destroyed, Fritt Ukraina reports. The disruption threatens Ukrainian export revenue and international food supplies.

“The attacks on Ukraine’s ports do not only undermine the country’s defense capabilities. They also threaten a vital part of its economy and its ability to export food to the rest of the world,” Golis said.

Dronefall aims to expand Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian drones using dedicated interceptor aircraft and supporting equipment. According to Fritt Ukraina, participating units have destroyed more than 53,000 Russian drones, accounting for approximately one in five unmanned aerial vehicles entering Ukrainian airspace.

The NOK 10 million contribution is part of Fritt Ukraina’s broader Odins Ravner 2.0 campaign, which provides more than NOK 60 million in support to Ukrainian forces.

A Ukrainian company has played the enemy in a Pentagon drone contest, and the US liked what it saw. Phantom Defense, a Ukrainian defense-tech firm, was one of three companies whose systems built the counter-drone environment for Gauntlet II, the second stage of the US military’s Drone Dominance program, and has been invited to take part further, Defender Media reports.

Drone Dominance is the Pentagon’s four-phase effort to field cheap attack drones fast, a roughly $1 billion program to buy more than 200,000 low-cost attack drones by 2027. Phantom Defense brought a system that was already proven at home, where in one city it neutralized more than 7,000 enemy drones over an area of more than 100 square kilometers in a year, the company says.

Rather than enter a drone of its own, Phantom Defense supplied the resistance that the American drones had to fly through. Its setup paired the Specter PRO, L, X, and XL jammers with the Streamhunter video-interception tool and a command-and-control layer that detected and classified targets, coordinated the countermeasures, and confirmed the kills. The jammers suppressed drones and held up in heat and rain, it adds.

The arrangement lets American developers fly their drones under live electronic attack rather than calm conditions, recreating a battlefield where a drone’s performance swings with the jamming around it, according to the company.

One map to run the whole fight

At the center sits Phantom Defense’s C2 system, Kupol, which integrates separate tools into a single ecosystem on a shared map. It lets crews run electronic warfare remotely, without driving out to a position, and ties in sensors, interceptor drones, and turrets, the company says.

Kupol reads the terrain and a drone database to propose the best way to take down a target, then logs each mission automatically so its recommendations sharpen over time.

The high-power Specter PRO station, built to shield positions, critical infrastructure, and cities, serves as the hardware anchor.

An invitation, not yet a contract

Previously, Ukraine’s battle-tested drone makers also took part in Drone Dominance. However, they didn’t succeed in it, though some of their technology competed under Western partners. The program bars direct purchases from Ukrainian firms, which must set up a US legal entity to bid.

Russia is planning a winter strike campaign involving up to 1,000 missiles, drones, and bombs targeting, among other facilities, electrical substations, hydroelectric and thermal power plants, and boiler houses. The information is contained in a document that, according to sources cited by The New York Times, Ukraine's Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal presented as an intercepted Russian plan to destroy energy infrastructure systematically. The newspaper reported on 2 October.

Russia has been striking critical infrastructure across Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion. Such attacks have become particularly frequent ahead of and during winter. Ukraine's recent battlefield gains may have prompted Putin to reconsider his strategy and attempt to force Ukraine to surrender through winter strikes, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) suggest. Russia's reported plans to attack Ukraine's energy, water supply, and sewage systems could threaten the basic living conditions of millions of people. Such strikes could increase pressure on civilians and the Ukrainian economy while forcing the state to divert more resources to emergency infrastructure repairs instead of defense needs.

The New York Times was unable to verify the document's authenticity independently, but noted that it was written in Russian and dated August.

A representative of Ukraine's defense-industrial sector who has reviewed the document believes it is more of a calculation than a finalized Russian military operations plan, according to Schemes, an investigative journalism project by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in a report published on 8 October.

60 targets: how Russia could attack Ukraine's critical infrastructure

The document outlines how many missiles, drones, and bombs Russia would need to deprive Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa of electricity, heating, water, and sewage services, Radio Liberty reported on 9 October. The document's full list of priority cities also includes Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Poltava, Chernihiv, Kryvyi Rih, Cherkasy, Kropyvnytskyi, Lviv, Vinnytsia, and Ivano-Frankivsk.

According to the document, Russia plans to begin by attacking substations near Ukraine's western border, through which the country receives electricity from Europe. Hydroelectric power plants could be targeted next, followed by facilities intended to shut down Ukraine's three operational nuclear power plants, Radio Liberty reports. The document lists a total of 60 key targets.

According to Schemes, the document states that Russia would need up to 770 Molniya and Geran drones, Dan-T/Banderol missile-drones, 170 FAB guided aerial bombs, and 75 Kinzhal and Iskander-M ballistic missiles to carry out the attacks.

Sewage systems could become Russia's next target

The document devotes particular attention to water supply and wastewater systems. These include pumping stations, treatment facilities, and other infrastructure essential for cities to provide residents with water and dispose of wastewater.

Russia has not previously attacked such facilities on a similar scale, The New York Times notes.

Preparing for possible attacks on water supply and sewage systems is significantly more difficult than protecting energy infrastructure, Oleh Popenko, head of the Ukrainian Union of Utility Services Consumers, told Current Time, RFE/RL's Russian-language network.

“Sewage is a very complex system. There are specific challenges: where to discharge wastewater, how to organize treatment facilities, and so on. Some work is also underway in this sector, but it will be much more difficult here than with district heating utilities,” Popenko says.

Creating alternative routes in case sewage pumping stations are destroyed is an expensive and technically challenging task, he adds. Such construction could cost billions of hryvnias.

The priority is to equip water utilities with backup power sources so they can continue operating during power outages. However, if Russian strikes damage the sewage system itself, resolving the problem quickly will be much more difficult, Popenko believes. Specific solutions, including wastewater disposal and the operation of treatment facilities, will have to be determined according to the extent of the damage.

Sewage pumping stations play a particularly important role. They pump wastewater onward for disposal and treatment. If such a station is put out of operation by a strike, the city needs an alternative way to divert wastewater while the damaged facility is being repaired, Popenko says. Bypass pipes or channels could be installed for this purpose, but setting up such a system during wartime is far from easy.

Air defenses remain crucial to Ukraine's winter preparations

Preparations for winter are underway, but protection for energy infrastructure remains inadequate, Popenko believes. The main concern is large substations that transmit electricity from nuclear power plants and distribute electricity imported from Europe.

At the same time, some protective measures are already proving effective. Despite drone attacks over two days, one of Kyiv's substations withstood the strikes, and the city did not lose power, although scheduled outages were in effect, the expert says.

Popenko considers a repeat of last winter's scenario, when parts of Kyiv went without heating for weeks, entirely possible. Russian forces continue to attack energy facilities, and in his assessment, strengthening air defenses in Kyiv is the only way to protect its combined heat and power (CHP) plants from large-scale attacks.

“There are no other ways — for example, building some sarcophagi around CHPs or constructing shelters — because Russia can destroy these facilities again through massive strikes. And then the city risks being left 50–60% without heat,” Popenko believes.

Residents are also preparing for winter, but their options vary, he says. Some homeowners' associations participate in government programs to insulate apartment buildings and purchase backup power supplies for elevators and pumping stations. Owners of private houses are buying generators, among other measures. However, such equipment and preparations require substantial funds, meaning not everyone can afford them, he notes.

Ukraine has already experienced prolonged power outages during previous winters, particularly in 2022 and 2023. At the time, some regions went without electricity for 18–20 hours a day, the expert says. This experience may help people prepare for possible disruptions, but it does not eliminate the risk of further attacks and infrastructure damage.

The cybersecurity firm said the attacker was likely a Chinese speaker and financially motivated, but did not attribute the attacks to a named individual or group.

© Raphael Satter/Reuters

The death toll from Russia's 7 October missile strike on Pryluky, a city in Chernihiv Oblast in northern Ukraine, has risen to 22, including five children, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said on 8 October. Another 54 people were injured, and 15 were rescued from the rubble.

Pryluky suffered the heaviest losses in Russia's 7 October attack, which struck cities across Ukraine. The attack involved about 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, as well as Shahed drones.

Search ends with 15 rescued

Seven of the injured are children, and the rescued include a 5-year-old. The search-and-rescue operation, which involved more than 500 emergency workers, has ended, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

A five-story building hit early in the morning

Russia attacked Pryluky with cruise missiles and directly hit a five-story apartment building, Chernihiv Oblast head Viacheslav Chaus said. The strike came in the morning, when people were still asleep.

The strike hit the apartment building, a children's and youth creativity center, and a business, according to the National Police.

The death toll rose through 7 October and overnight. On the morning of 7 October, the National Police reported five dead and 26 injured. By the afternoon, the State Emergency Service put the figure at 14, including four children. By the morning of 8 October, it had reached 22, Chaus said. Four of the children died at the scene, and one died in hospital.

Russian strikes in Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia

Russia attacked Kyiv and 12 oblasts overnight on 7 October, Zelenskyy said. Two people were killed in each of Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia.

Air defense downed or suppressed five ballistic missiles, 39 cruise missiles, and 117 drones, while missiles and drones hit 18 locations, according to the Air Force.

A Ukrainian Sargan-3000 sea drone shot down a Russian Shahed flying on a mesh radio network, Ukraine's Navy reported on 7 October. Ukrainian sea drones have downed Russian aircraft before, but with missiles. This one used a machine gun.

Russia has been hitting Odesa with air attacks that come in waves with short gaps between them. Guarding the sky over water is harder than over land. Since fall 2025, Russia has also used mesh radio networks to reroute Shaheds mid-flight and dodge Ukrainian air defenses. That leaves Ukraine needing more ways to meet these drones out at sea, before they reach its ports and coast.

A Shahed steered by radio

A mesh-network drone passes its control signals along a chain of radio relays, drone to drone and on to ground antennas. That lets a Russian operator steer it in flight.

In May, Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, then a Defense Ministry adviser, said only about 5% of Shaheds had got through in a recent Russian strike, and predicted that Russia would answer with jet-powered versions and strikes near the border. By July, Ukraine was testing jamming against mesh-controlled jet Shaheds, he said.

The Sargan-3000 fired its Protector remote weapon station, Militarnyi reported. The station is a remotely operated 12.7-mm (50-caliber) machine gun with electro-optical sights. The outlet added that the Sargan-3000 is designed for combat missions far from Ukraine's coast.

Built for the open sea

Ukraine's Navy took the Sargan-3000 into service in April 2026, according to Militarnyi. The drone boat has a combat radius of up to 1,600 km. It moves at 40–55 knots and carries up to 450 kg of payload.

In September, a Sargan-3000 sank a Russian uncrewed boat with machine-gun fire. Militarnyi called it the first battle between uncrewed sea platforms in history. Analyst H.I. Sutton wrote that the boat carried a Protector made by Norway's Kongsberg. That is the same weapon station named in the October shootdown. Sutton added that Russian attack sea drones work closely with Shaheds, which can relay the boats' mesh radio signals.

Russia has shown a drone interceptor built on the Alazan, a civilian anti-hail rocket, Militarnyi reported. The sample went on display at a weapons exhibition that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin toured at the Chebarkul training range in the Urals on 2 October.

Ukraine now sends drones at Russia by the hundreds, by Moscow's own count. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses intercepted nearly 900 overnight into 6 October. Russia's missile-based air defense was built to repel aircraft raids and a few cruise missiles, not swarms of low-flying drones.

In May, Ukrainian intelligence said Russia was adding four regiments, 24 battalions, and 162 batteries to counter Ukrainian strike drones. The converted Alazan, which Militarnyi calls an anti-drone system, is one more piece of that search. Meanwhile, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, said his forces struck 300 Russian air-defense assets between January and 19 September.

From hail reagent to shrapnel

Based on the size of the sample on display, the interceptor builds on the Alazan-2M or Alazan-6 series, Militarnyi assessed. The outlet put the stated cost at up to $12,000 per unit but did not say who named the figure. In civilian service, the rocket flies about 10 km, climbs up to 8 km, and carries about 0.5 kg of reagent. For air defense, the developers plan to replace that reagent with a fragmentation warhead.

Militarnyi's analysis of the published photos describes the front end as a steering assembly: four cruciform deflector fins, probably paired with a seeker or a fuze. At the rear sit folding stabilizers and the open nozzle of a solid-fuel motor, held in a metal cradle.

One sample among 300 exhibits

The Kremlin's account of the visit lists more than 300 weapons on display, including interceptor drones, but does not mention the rocket. Propaganda channel Russia 1 aired the interceptor in its report from the visit, and the Kremlin pool of state news agency RIA posted photos.

Russian forces appear to use AI to plan air attacks and recognize targets amid raids on Ukrainian cities. This may include recent air attacks on Odesa that have come in waves with short gaps, Deputy Air Force Commander for Air Defense Colonel Yurii Cherevashenko says, Ukrinform reports.

Russia has already equipped its jet-powered Geran-4 drones with machine vision, allowing them to recognize and track targets on their own in the final seconds of flight. Recently, a single jet drone hit a locomotive in Odesa Oblast in late September and killed two railway workers.

The scale of Russia's AI use is hard to measure, Cherevashenko continues, but Ukrainian specialists already see its elements in how attacks are organized. The long, wave-by-wave strikes on Odesa would be far harder to plan and coordinate without it, he believes.

"Russian forces use AI to lay out attack routes and to recognize targets," Cherevashenko says, framing it as his own assessment rather than a confirmed fact.

The sea is harder to defend than land

Odesa Oblast is home to the biggest port in Ukraine, "Southern". Protecting it is a challenging task as guarding the airspace over water is tougher than over land, Cherevashenko says. Some air defense assets do not perform as well at sea, and in some cases, crews can intercept a target only as it approaches.

Weather adds to the problem, with storms and fog, while the open sea gives Russia more freedom to choose drone routes and launch points. To protect ports and the coast, Ukraine uses drone motherships, platforms that carry other drones aloft to extend their flight time and keep watch over set areas.

Ukraine answers AI with AI

Ukraine is also building its own AI for air defense. Automated turrets using machine vision now help counter Russian drones. According to Army Media, the Air Force says such turrets have scored their first shoot-downs, including of Geran-5 jet drones, with one soldier saying 50 rounds were enough to bring down a Geran.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry is going further. In late September, it unveiled an AI system called SPECTR, built by its A1 Artificial Intelligence Center and already in testing with several combat units, to analyze battlefield data, predict Russian moves, and suggest options to commanders.

German radar maker Hensoldt has signed a memorandum with Ukraine's Defense Ministry for more large-scale radar deliveries, the company said on 5 October. Ukrainian defense outlet Defense Express reads it as a step toward fitting Hensoldt's TRML-4D, already in Ukrainian service, into FREYJA, a planned shield against ballistic missiles.

Ballistic missiles remain the hardest threat in Russia's air war. After Russia's overnight barrage on 7 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is still searching daily for Patriot missiles. The only other system Ukraine can use against them is the Franco-Italian SAMP/T, which fires Aster 30 interceptors made in small numbers. That gap is why Fire Point is reworking its FP-7 missile into a Patriot-like interceptor. Such an interceptor still needs radars to find its target first.

A memorandum signed during Merz's visit

Hensoldt CEO Oliver Dörre signed the document on the sidelines of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's visit to Ukraine. Beyond deliveries, it covers further development of radar capabilities. The partners will also study options to deploy and jointly operate TRL-4D LR long-range radars. Hensoldt said this expands cooperation already agreed on in ballistic missile defense.

The TRL-4D LR is the land-based version of a long-range radar Hensoldt also builds for the German Navy, German outlet Sicherheit & Verteidigung reported. The outlet cited Germany's defense procurement office as giving the naval version a range of more than 400 km (250 miles) against air targets. That, it concluded, puts the range well beyond the TRML-4D's.

"The Ukrainian air defence forces urgently need our high-performance radars to help protect infrastructure such as bridges," Dörre said.

Defense Express, describing the same memorandum, tied both the mass deliveries and the joint-operation plan to the TRML-4D. Hensoldt's release names no model for the deliveries and links joint operation to the TRL-4D LR.

Eyes for FREYJA

Hensoldt and Fire Point signed a memorandum on FREYJA at the Eurosatory arms show in Paris in June, with the TRML-4D to play a key role, Hensoldt announced. Fire Point is set to act as prime contractor and hold design authority. Hensoldt is to produce, test, and deliver the radars.

Defense Express expects any study of deployment options to focus on how well the radar detects ballistic missiles and relays that data. Hensoldt has its own unit in Ukraine to work closely with operators, the outlet noted. Earlier, the company began setting up a local hub so Ukraine can service and repair the TRML-4D itself.

Already on duty

Ukraine's military uses the TRML-4D both standalone and as the built-in radar of the IRIS-T SLM medium-range air defense system, Defense Express noted. Hensoldt lists an instrumented range of 250 km (155 miles) at altitudes up to 30 km (19 miles). Defense Express, citing the manufacturer, gives track ranges of more than 120 km (75 miles) for fighter jets and more than 60 km (37 miles) for supersonic missiles.

More radars give earlier warning of ballistic strikes, but they cannot stop them. Until the FP-7.X makes its first ballistic intercept, planned for mid-2027, that job stays with Patriot and SAMP/T missiles. Partners delivered three times fewer air defense missiles in the first half of 2026 than a year earlier, Zelenskyy said on 5 August.

Russia's jet-powered attack drones could eventually reach 800–900 km/h, and intercepting them will demand new piloting skills—so Ukraine has asked the makers of its interceptor drones to build simulators to train the crews, a senior Air Force officer told a parliamentary commission on 6 October, Suspilne reported.

Russia keeps modifying its jet Shaheds faster than Ukraine can field the drones meant to catch them, and Kyiv is now preparing crews for speeds its interceptors have never faced—a sign the air war is shifting from a contest of volume to one of raw speed.

The speed Russia hasn't reached yet

Colonel Yurii Cherevashenko, deputy commander of Ukraine's Air Force, told the commission that Russia's jet drones fly at around 600 km/h today but could eventually reach 800–900 km/h—speeds he said have not been recorded so far. That range sits near the cruising speed of a commercial airliner.

Intercepting such targets will take specific piloting skills, Cherevashenko said. When an interceptor and its target move at roughly the same speed, he noted, the pilot barely perceives the difference in their speeds. To train for that, Ukrainian interceptor-drone makers have been tasked with building simulators where crews can practice against high-speed targets.

Where Ukraine stands now

Ukraine already downs 85% to 90% of Russia's slower, propeller-driven drones, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, but the jet models remain a tougher problem—Ukrainian interceptors scored their reportedly first kill of a jet-powered Shahed in November 2025. In a 28 September evening address, Zelenskyy put the jet-drone interception rate at about 57%, lower than required. Days later, he said Ukraine is testing five interceptor-drone models and could be producing about 400 of one of them by the end of October. Asked when jet-drone interceptors would arrive at the scale needed, Cherevashenko answered: "Not before the end of November."

Russia attacked Kyiv and 12 oblasts overnight on 7 October with about 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, as well as Shahed drones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. The strikes killed at least 20 people, with the deadliest hit on an apartment block in Pryluky in Chernihiv Oblast. Russia also hit Kremenchuk, Oleksandriia, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia, while Poland scrambled its jets.

Moscow has likely begun its winter strike campaign earlier than usual, aiming to make civilian life in Ukraine unbearable, and UN figures already show civilian casualties running 55% above last year's.

Update: Pryluky death toll rises to 14, including four children

The death toll from the Russian strike on Pryluky has risen to 14, including four children, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said on the afternoon of 7 October. Fifty people were injured, seven of them children, and rescuers pulled 15 people from the rubble, including a child.

Russia attacked Pryluky with cruise missiles, and one scored a direct hit on the five-story apartment building, Chernihiv Oblast head Viacheslav Chaus said. Earlier in the day, he reported that 27 of the injured had been hospitalized, three in serious condition. The search-and-rescue operation was still under way.

Morning repoting: five dead in Pryluky

A Russian missile struck a five-story apartment building in Pryluky early in the morning, while residents were still asleep, Chernihiv Oblast head Viacheslav Chaus said. The strike completely destroyed one sectkion of the building, killing five people and injuring 26, including five children, Ukraine's National Police reported. Rescuers pulled three people from the rubble, including a child, and more people may still be trapped, Chaus said.

"Today, for Putin's birthday, the Russian army 'gave' him the destruction of an apartment building in Pryluky in Chernihiv Oblast. It was an ordinary five-story building," Zelenskyy said.

Kyiv, Kremenchuk, and Oleksandriia

In Kyiv, Russian missiles hit non-residential buildings and warehouses in the Obolonskyi and Podilskyi districts, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Strikes also hit the Shevchenkivskyi district, and debris burned in the Darnytskyi district, he added. In the Darnytskyi district, a missile set fire to a garage cooperative, where firefighters rescued two people and found two men dead, Klitschko wrote. Police and rescuers worked to defuse an unexploded ballistic missile that fell among apartment blocks in the same district, the National Police said.

In Kremenchuk, Russian missiles hit a densely populated residential area, killing two people and injuring seven, Poltava Oblast head Vitalii Diakivnych said. Zelenskyy later put the number of injured at eight and said four high-rises were damaged.

In Oleksandriia in Kirovohrad Oblast, Russia hit an enterprise. One person was killed, three injured, and two were out of contact, Kirovohrad Oblast head Andrii Raikovych said. Zelenskyy later put the death toll there at two.

Drones and other targets

In Dnipro, Russian strikes damaged an industrial enterprise, apartment buildings, and a sports club, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha said. In Nikopol district, the attacks injured a 65-year-old woman and a 64-year-old man. Russia also struck Lozova in Kharkiv Oblast with a missile, and a drone hit an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia, police said.

In Zaporizhzhia, Russia attacked a transport infrastructure facility, acting oblast head Mykhailo Semikin said, a day after a strike on one of the city's bridges over the Dnipro halted traffic. In Kyiv Oblast, three production and warehouse buildings were damaged in Obukhiv district, with no casualties, the Kyiv Oblast Military Administration said.

Air defense downed five ballistic missiles, 39 cruise missiles, and 117 drones, while missiles and drones hit 18 locations, the Air Force said. Polish military aircraft took off and Poland put its ground-based air defense on alert during the attack, Poland's Operational Command said.

Russian ballistic missiles remain the biggest challenge, Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine is searching daily for Patriot missiles.

Strikes across the front over the past day

Russian attacks killed one person and injured 11 in Kherson Oblast over the past day, the Kherson Oblast Military Administration reported. Russia injured 12 people in Donetsk Oblast on 6 October, Donetsk Oblast head Vadym Filashkin said. Two people were injured in Kharkiv Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov said.

Bridges and a maternity hospital in Russia's sights

Russia has stepped up strikes on Kyiv's bridges and has now extended them to Zaporizhzhia. In September, a Russian ballistic and hypersonic missile attack on Kyiv damaged a maternity hospital.

Ukraine is canceling part of its planned military purchases and moving the money to other priorities. Ukraine's Defense Ministry has announced that it, together with the General Staff and the Logistics Forces Command, will free about $346 million by terminating some weapons contracts and dropping some planned purchases.

What the army planned to buy in 2024 and 2025 may no longer be suitable for the front, the ministry noted, because technology and tactics change quickly. The review comes four days after the Ukrainian government drew about $1.1 billion from the defense reserve to pay soldiers in October amid a looming economic crisis.

The ministry gives five reasons for the review: some weapons no longer match combat tasks, certain suppliers cannot build the planned volume, certain models have not been codified, partners already cover some needs, and cheaper means can perform specific jobs in larger numbers.

"For us, there is one criterion: does the item work for results in combat today. Every hryvnia released from irrelevant contracts must reach the troops as the weapons needed right now and in the right place," Col. Yurii Pohribnyi, commander of the Logistics Forces, says.

The procurement agency calls each producer

The General Staff set the final list of purchases for review, and the ministry forwarded the documents to the Defense Procurement Agency to implement the decision. For specific items, delivery volumes were adjusted rather than canceled, which the contracts allow when needs change.

Affected producers have been informed, and the agency is discussing each item with suppliers based on the status and payments of each contract. Artem Romaniuk, acting director of the agency, has explained that further steps on each contract will depend on the army's current needs and the contract terms. The list of weapons stays secret for security reasons.

Funds freed up by terminating contracts and canceling planned purchases will be redirected to the urgent needs of Ukraine’s Defense Forces.

Ukraine's battlefield successes appear to be forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to reevaluate his theory of victory and shift focus toward long-range strikes to compel Ukraine to surrender, rather than advances on the battlefield, the Institute for the Study of War said on 4 October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia used more than 800 jet-powered drones during the week of 27 September to 4 October. Ukraine currently intercepts only 50–60% of jet-powered drones, leaving it vulnerable to the large number of new drones Russia is deploying.

The late-September start and the campaign's aim

ISW said Russian forces began their winter 2026–27 strike campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure in late September and that the campaign is aimed at making civilian life unbearable enough to force Ukraine to capitulate.

Russian forces would step up attacks on military facilities, defense industry sites, and related infrastructure in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said on 4 October, according to Reuters. The announcement followed Zelenskyy's vow to increase attacks on Russian oil refineries.

The ministry also claimed its recent strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions were a response to alleged Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets inside Russia. Among the grievances it named were Ukraine's strikes on Leningrad Oblast during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June and alleged strikes on electoral infrastructure in Moscow during the 18–20 September State Duma elections, according to ISW.

ISW called the Russian Defense Ministry's framing of the recent strikes as retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russian civilian targets unfounded, saying many of its specific claims are "blatantly false." Russia has provided no evidence that Ukraine targeted electoral infrastructure, and Ukraine's 19–20 September strikes on Moscow targeted oil refineries and warehouses, the think tank said. The Russian strikes "are not an actual response to specific events," it concluded.

The 135 drones, the bridges struck seven times

Overnight on 3–4 October, Russia launched 135 Shahed-type and Gerbera-type drones, while also using decoy drones and Banderol or Dan-T loitering munitions. Ukrainian forces downed 123 drones and two loitering munitions, and strikes hit five locations, according to ISW, which cited the Ukrainian Air Force. Russian forces struck Kyiv's Northern and Southern bridges seven times between 1 and 4 October in an effort to disrupt Ukraine's economy and daily civilian life, ISW said.

Ukraine builds new layers of defense against jet drones

More than 12 .50-caliber machine-gun turrets are already working in Kyiv against jet-powered drones, and eight more will be installed in Kyiv Oblast, Zelenskyy said, Suspilne reported. He added that F-16s help a lot against the drones, according to Ukrinform. Ukraine is set to receive 2,000 Bars interceptor drones through joint production with Germany, RBC-Ukraine reported.

Ballistic missiles may be Russia's next wave

Zelenskyy said Ukraine estimates Russia has up to 700 ballistic missiles in reserve and produces 130–140 a month. He made the remarks at a joint media briefing with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Kyiv, Ukrinform reported. Russia is likely stockpiling ballistic and quasi-ballistic missiles for intense strikes after its jet-powered drones lose their current advantage, ISW assessed. ISW also cited an ongoing shortage of Patriot interceptors.

OHCHR has verified some 15,280 civilian casualties in Ukraine in the first eight months of 2026, 55% more than in the same period of 2025, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on 2 October.