Ukrainian drones blew up a Russian ammunition depot near Khrustalnyi in occupied Luhansk Oblast overnight on 27 October, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. Drones also hit the oblast’s capital, Luhansk, for hours, and part of the city lost power. Russia’s occupation authorities have not commented.

Russia keeps pushing toward the last big Ukrainian-held cities in Donetsk Oblast. Its artillery there runs on shells kept in rear depots across occupied territory, and those depots sit within reach of Ukraine’s mid-range drones. Each depot lost behind the front pushes Russia to store and move its shells from farther back. That lengthens the supply runs Ukraine’s drones already hunt on the roads of occupied Ukraine.

Secondary detonations near Khrustalnyi lasted over an hour

The drone attack on occupied Luhansk Oblast went on for several hours, Exilenova+ said. Ukraine’s Defense Forces hit the depot near Khrustalnyi, and secondary detonations continued for more than an hour, the channel added. It posted night footage of a large fire glowing on the horizon.

Russia has occupied Khrustalnyi, formerly called Krasnyi Luch, since 2014. The city lies about 65 km southwest of Luhansk. It serves Russian troops as a rear and logistics hub.

Luhansk lost power as drones hit its former airfield

The attack on the city of Luhansk lasted more than four hours, Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said. Residents reported many explosions and fires in several districts, and the power went out. The main strike hit the city’s former airfield, he added. In October 2023, Ukraine’s ATACMS missiles destroyed Russian helicopters at air bases in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk.

On Yandex Maps, the Russian online mapping service, the struck area near Luhansk airport is blurred, Andriushchenko noted. Yandex blurs military and critical infrastructure sites this way, he wrote.

Exilenova+ also reported a series of explosions in Luhansk. The oblast had been under a mass drone attack for an hour, with dozens of hits in different towns, Ukrainian Telegram channel DroneBomber wrote late on 26 October.

Neither side’s military has mentioned the attack on Luhansk Oblast. Ukraine’s General Staff left it out of its morning report. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 222 drones over Russian regions, occupied Crimea, and the Black Sea, without listing Luhansk Oblast.

Pro-Russian local channels confirmed the attack from their side. A channel covering occupied Luhansk Oblast wrote that eyewitnesses saw a large fire and secondary detonations in Khrustalnyi. LIC, the news agency of Russia’s occupation administration in Luhansk Oblast, reported a series of powerful explosions over Luhansk and a visible glow.

The third drone night over occupied Luhansk Oblast in a week

Drones have now hit occupied Luhansk Oblast on three nights in seven days. On 21 October, they struck the seized telecom building in the city of Luhansk that houses the occupation’s mobile operator. Two nights later, strikes cut communications and power in part of the city.

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Khrustalnyi itself burned on 12 October, when strikes hit a former motor depot housing Russian troops. Ukraine also hit an ammunition depot there in June 2022. Back then, the site supplied Russia’s offensive on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Blasts in Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol, and Russian claims from Bryansk

Occupied Mariupol heard two waves of explosions overnight, and the power went out after the attack, Andriushchenko also said. In occupied Berdiansk, several blasts near the Ekvator shopping center preceded a large fire, he added.

On the evening of 26 October, strike drones attacked occupied Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Exilenova+ said. Locals also reported FPV drones hitting targets in the city.

In Russia’s city of Bryansk, Governor Yegor Kovalchuk claimed a night drone attack injured six people and damaged three apartment blocks. He said a man also died when a drone-dropped explosive went off. Yevhen Balytskyi, the Russian-installed head of occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, claimed a drone hit a Simferopol–Moscow bus near Prymorsk, killing one passenger.

As the attacks began, Russian monitoring resources tracked up to 350 Ukrainian drones in the air, DroneBomber said. Most flew over Bryansk and Oryol oblasts, with more groups near Crimea, Novorossiysk, and occupied Luhansk Oblast.

Ukraine’s drones also weigh on Russia’s road to occupied Crimea. Truck traffic on the R-280 highway from Rostov Oblast has halved to about 1,000 a day because of drone attacks. Anatolii Tsurkin, who heads a carriers’ association set up in occupied Crimea, said so.

Kyiv set aside $113 million for the first phase of a program of middle-strike drones aimed at Russia’s rear. That makes nights like this one likely to keep coming for depots, airfields, and roads across occupied Ukraine.

Captured Russian soldiers have a rule for one stretch of the Kupiansk front: go anywhere, but not there.

That stretch is the “safety corridor” the “Orion” unit of Ukraine’s Offensive Guard brigade “Pomsta” says it has built for its ground robots. The zone is so lethal that, by the unit’s count, 88% of attacking Russians are killed before they reach their positions, and Russian armor cannot get within 25 kilometers, the military outlet ArmyInform reports.

Behind that shield, the unit says its ground robots have run dozens of fully autonomous missions through the most dangerous ground on the axis, with a success rate of 99.57%. The results made Orion the top-ranked unit for effectiveness on the South-Kupiansk axis in September within Ukraine’s battlefield management system, DELTA.

“You can go anywhere, just not into the Orion zone”

The claim that the Russians now avoid the sector, the unit says, comes from them themselves.

“Prisoners admit in interviews: 'You can go anywhere, just not into the Orion zone.' Eighty-eight percent of the enemy is destroyed before reaching their positions, and Russian equipment cannot approach closer than 25 kilometers,” the unit says.

That is what opens the corridor. Where a human supply run would be a death sentence, a robot can cross, and cross again.

The quiet blood of the front

The point, the unit says, is to take the soldier out of the deadliest job on the front: carrying ammunition and the wounded across open fire.

“We broke the stereotype that supplying the army takes truck convoys and hundreds of soldiers under targeted fire. Our robotic systems are the ‘quiet blood’ of the front,” Vladyslav Zolotarov, an officer in the unit’s staff control group, says.

When Russia thinks our positions are depleted, a tracked platform quietly comes in at night and brings in a ton of ammunition.

In September alone, the unit says, its wheeled and tracked robots ran 85 of the hardest combat missions and hauled more than 30,000 kilograms of cargo. Its evacuation record is the line it is proudest of: four missions pulling wounded soldiers out by robot, all four successful, not one man lost.

Ukraine has bet heavily on this kind of machine, aiming to field 50,000 ground robots to keep its troops out of the drone-ruled kill zone.

Ukrainian company Nodrics has developed MAT1LDA, an eight-wheeled amphibious ground robot that can carry supplies across water, swamps, and rough terrain, robot-maker Tencore said, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported on 17 October. The machine joins Tencore’s new family of ground robots, which the company has also shown in the US.

Ukraine’s ground robots now haul supplies and evacuate wounded soldiers through zones where drones make every move deadly, and the Defense Ministry has launched its first competitive tender for them.

500 kg on land, 400 kg afloat

A petrol engine drives MAT1LDA’s eight wheels, and side pontoons keep it afloat, so it can cross water, marshland, and rough ground without preparation, Militarnyi said. Its makers claim it carries up to 500 kg on land and 400 kg on water, with a range of up to 160 km on land and 50 km on water.

Its open frame lets crews swap equipment quickly to suit the task, fitting cargo containers or evacuation stretchers.

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Four robots, one system

MAT1LDA is part of the Tencore Ecosystem, which brings together four classes of ground robots for military and civilian work, Militarnyi reported earlier. Besides the amphibious eight-wheeler, it includes the tracked TerMIT, the wheeled TOR 4×4, and the TRAX Utility firefighting and rescue robot. The company says it has delivered more than 4,000 robots to Ukraine’s armed forces since the full-scale invasion, used across more than 50 brigades.

Tencore calls it Ukraine’s first integrated ecosystem of its kind. Putting the platforms into one system is meant to make them easier to use, maintain, and fit with extra equipment. One of the first shared add-ons is AI KIT, a hardware and software module that lets a robot keep to its route or drive back on its own after losing contact with its operator.

On show in Washington

Tencore displayed MAT1LDA carrying a TerMIT robot at the Association of the US Army’s annual trade show in Washington this month, Breaking Defense reported.

Other Ukrainian makers have built swimming ground robots too: one switches from land to water in seconds, and another can tow 10 tons, its maker says. In April, Tencore formed a joint venture with France’s Shark Robotics.

Ukraine’s government has approved a Strategy for the Engineering Equipment of Defensive Lines through 2028. It makes strengthening anti-drone protection of logistics routes one of its priorities, the Defense Ministry says.

Russian FPV drones hunt almost anything that moves within 15 to 30 kilometers of the front, which has forced Ukraine to drape its logistics roads in overhead netting, wire-mesh canopies and reinforced barriers that catch an attacking drone before it reaches a vehicle. Ukraine had already built more than 1,066 kilometers of such protection by mid-July and aims for 4,000 kilometers by the end of 2026.

The new strategy turns that scramble into a single national standard, setting deadlines, assigning responsibility, and building control mechanisms, the ministry explained.

“Solutions that have proven effective we will scale. But we will also account for new challenges, threats and changes in Russian tactics. The main goal is the protection of our service members and civilians,” the Defense Ministry says.

One digital map for every trench and net

The plan puts the entire defensive network onto a screen. To track and monitor the state of defensive lines, Ukraine will introduce a single digital geographic information platform, built on and expanding existing systems, including the DELTA situational-awareness system.

The database will hold object passports, photographs, and data on each structure’s location and condition, helping officials verify that work is done, identify repair needs, and distribute resources on evidence rather than guesswork.

From trenches to supply roads, one cycle

The strategy covers the full span of military engineering. Its main lines of work are building and maintaining fortifications, laying engineering obstacles, strengthening anti-drone protection of logistics routes, using modern designs, materials and camouflage, creating a reserve of construction materials, and maintaining digital records of the work.

Developed on the Defense Ministry’s initiative based on combat experience, the document spans the entire cycle from planning and construction to accounting, upkeep, and restoration, the ministry noted. Financing will come from the state and local budgets for the relevant year and from other sources not prohibited by law.

Russian forces attacked Epicentr’s hub in Khmelnytskyi, a city in western Ukraine, 10 times on 13 October, starting five large fires that destroyed about 85% of the goods stored inside, the company said.

Epicentr is a Ukrainian chain of home-improvement and household-goods stores. The attack adds pressure to Ukraine’s logistics network, already damaged by Russian strikes. On 10 September, Ukrainian entrepreneur Ruslan Shostak, co-owner of the popular retail chains Eva and Varus, said that 2.1 million square meters of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space had been destroyed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. He put the country’s total modern warehouse space at approximately 5 million square meters. The strike on the hub came the same day Russia opened a barrage of 39 ballistic missiles on Ukraine’s power grid.

About 30 drones in the sky kept the fire from being put out, and the hub burned down completely overnight, Epicentr said. None of its people were hurt, the company said.

“The most important thing is that all our people are alive,” Epicentr wrote.

Russia had earlier completely destroyed Epicentr’s two largest logistics complexes, in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, the company said. The Khmelnytskyi hub had remained effectively its only surviving large warehouse complex. Goods were sent from there to the company’s shopping centers, and people worked there every day “so that millions of Ukrainians could buy what they need,” it wrote. Epicentr described every such attack as a blow to Ukrainian businesses’ ability to operate, pay wages, preserve jobs, and support the country’s economy.

Epicentr’s earlier losses

Epicentr said in August that 10 of its shopping centers had been completely destroyed since February 2022. Another 13 retail sites had been damaged, and one in Melitopol remained under Russian occupation, it said. At the time, the company operated 70 shopping centers, down from 80 at the end of 2021.

Earlier, during a Russian missile attack overnight on 5 August, Epicentr’s logistics center in Kyiv burned down completely, Epicentr’s Yulia Chudnovets said. The company’s ceramic tile plant in Kalynivka, one of the largest in Ukraine, was effectively lost, she said. One employee was killed and three were injured, she added.

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On 25 May 2024, Russian airstrikes on an Epicentr hypermarket in Kharkiv killed 19 people, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Attacks across Khmelnytskyi Oblast

Fires broke out at enterprises in Khmelnytskyi and Shepetivka districts on 13 October, Serhii Tiurin, head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Military Administration, reported. He did not name the enterprises. On 14 October, Tiurin said one of the fires had been put out, and crews were still fighting the other. Khmelnytskyi Mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn said six people were injured in Khmelnytskyi district that day, where Russian strikes damaged private enterprises, a gas station, and a medical facility.

Ukraine’s amphibious ground robot UNEX UGV can tow artillery guns, its project lead said in a video interview, Militarnyi reported on 13 October. The electric platform from ABRIS Design Group (ABRIS DG) also swims, climbs, and hauls cargo on its own deck.

The Defense Ministry’s robot tally, kept in its DELTA system, counts supply and evacuation runs. It logged 25,143 of them in August, a monthly figure that has climbed all year. In April, then-Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the goal was for robots to handle all frontline logistics. A robot that brings a gun and its shells to a position adds artillery moves to that workload.

A gun behind, shells aboard

The robot can pull a gun or another wheeled vehicle of up to 10 metric tons (about 22,000 lb), the project lead said. Ammunition can ride aboard, so the gun and its rounds reach the position together. No crew has to go with them, he said, and the team has already demonstrated the setup. On its own deck, ABRIS DG says, the robot carries up to 1.7 tons (3,750 lb) on land and 1.25 tons (2,760 lb) on water.

ABRIS DG said US Army testers ran UNEX through scenarios that included towing Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTVs), which are armored US military trucks. The trials took place at the Army’s XTech competition in Vilseck, Germany, in March 2026. UNEX was picked as one of five winners, the company said.

Swims, climbs, backtracks

The robot can float for more than an hour. The team has already crossed the Desna River and narrow stretches of the Dnipro with it, the project lead said. Ultra-low-pressure tires spread its weight over soft ground and swamps. ABRIS DG says it climbs obstacles up to one meter (3.3 ft) high and drives out of water onto ice.

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Operators steer it via Starlink or radio. An escort drone can add an overhead view to the robot’s own cameras. If the link drops, the robot retraces its route to where the signal last held.

It runs on a Ukrainian-made 78 kWh battery. The project lead puts its work time at up to six hours and its range at up to 120 km (75 miles), with a top speed of 20 km/h (12 mph). Load and terrain cut into those figures, he added. With a generator now in development, a mission should stretch to about 12–14 hours, he said.

The robot is not built for the zero line, the project lead said. It works 20–30 km behind the front, at night, where armor would add little. Developers also plan demining and air defense versions. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry codified the robot and cleared it for use in its forces in April 2025.

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.

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.

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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.

Ukraine's campaign of so-called "middle strikes" targeting Russian supply lines isn't generating the same headlines it did back in the spring, when the campaign was intensifying.

But that doesn't mean Ukrainian units aren't launching thousands of drones a month and blowing up a lot of Russian trucks. Indeed, the pace of Ukrainian strikes, concentrated along the main supply routes threading through occupied southern Ukraine into occupied Crimea, has leveled off without ever really decreasing since an early summer surge.

It's evident Ukraine's middle-strike campaign "didn't stop and wasn't slowed down," noted French mapper Clément Molin, one of the most important observers of the counterlogistics campaign.

For September, Molin tallied 770 confirmed drone strikes on Russian trucks in the logistical zone 10 km beyond the line of contact. That's up from 630 strikes in August, 656 in July, and 586 in June, the month the campaign really got underway. There were just 214 strikes in May and at most a few dozen in each of the previous three months.

Whether Ukrainian troops can take advantage of the Russians' weakening logistics anytime soon is less evident.

Since June, the Ukrainians have hit around 700 Russian trucks a month that analysts can confirm with video and photographic evidence. There are undoubtedly many more damaged and destroyed trucks that left no digital evidence.

There are thousands of Russian trucks on the road in Ukraine every day, so hitting 700 of them in a month won't immediately strangle Russian logistics. But that accumulating destruction does strain Russian logistics—and terrify the truck drivers who are in the drone crosshairs. "Russian drivers post videos on a daily basis, showing how dangerous a ride in southern Ukraine is getting," Molin wrote.

What's remarkable is that the counterlogistics campaign hasn't faltered even as the Russians have adapted. Early on, Russian trucks mostly traveled alone and without protection, making them fairly easy picking for a bevy of Ukrainian middle-strike drone types including the Hornet, the B-2, the RAM 2X, the Chaklun, and various high-endurance first-person-view quadcopters.

The drones ride along Ukraine's overlapping command and control systems, which include Starlink satellite terminals (some dangling from balloons) as well as mesh radio networks. Many of the drones have built-in AI for autonomously detecting and homing in on trucks in the final seconds of flight.

Convoy operations

Reeling from the truck strikes, the Russians adapted this spring. Commanders began requiring all trucks to travel in convoys including mobile fire support groups, analysis group Tochnyi reported in May, citing Dmytro Putiata, a retired command post battle captain from the Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces 20th Brigade "K2."

Today the Russian convoys have a standard structure, according to Molin. "Convoys usually gather three to five trucks and two to three air-defense trucks." Combined with radio jamming gear that's increasingly common on both the supply trucks and the gun trucks, that's seemingly a lot of protection.

But the drones target the gun trucks, too, peeling back the protection in order to expose the supply trucks to follow-on attacks. In that way, the Ukrainians have sustained their attacks on the supply trucks despite the increase in mobile air defense activity along the most important supply routes.

And it's going to get worse for the Russians as fall wears into winter. "Supplying Crimea is turning into a nightmare and the arrival of winter and more difficult conditions will not help," Molin wrote.

There will be less foliage on the trees lining the roads, and thus less cover from Ukrainian surveillance. Moreover, Molin pointed out, "it will be more difficult to go off-road" and avoid the big paved roads that are the main drone kill zones.

Russian logistics are under pressure, and that pressure is only increasing. Ultimately, the Ukrainians aim to starve Russian forces in Crimea. Strikes on cargo ships plying the Black Sea prevent the Russians from simply shifting the logistics off the coast. Meanwhile, strikes on overland logistics "may lead to substantial softening of front-line positions," Tochnyi noted in May.

Softening those front-line positions to the point of melting away could facilitate what Tochnyi described as "eventual breakthrough operations" in occupied southern Ukraine.

It's not inconceivable. Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps recently proved, by way of its successful Operation Vivaldi, that local Ukrainian counteroffensives are possible.

But that doesn't mean they're easy. To win, the 3rd Army Corps had to carefully husband its forces and meticulously prepare the battlefield under conditions of strict secrecy before attacking. That same kind of preparation is underway along the supply lines into Crimea, but it's unclear whether local Ukrainian forces have enough combat power in reserve to shift from defense to offense and exploit Russia's deepening supply woes.

At least not yet.

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Ukraine has turned ground robots into a frontline workhorse, and the state is now trying to buy them at scale through its first competitive, ministry-spec tender. Viktor Pavlov, an officer of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade's UGV battalion, laid out the risks of that model to Army Inform, the Defense Ministry's outlet, in an interview. Once a robot clears the military's technical requirements, price becomes the main criterion, Pavlov says. The order is split into lots, and no maker can take more than half a class. He warns the model may not tell a cheap, makeshift machine from one that actually survives at the front.

Robots now handle the war's deadliest chores—driving supplies through kill zones and reaching the wounded where people can't—and Ukraine has already contracted more than 22,000 for 2026. How the military buys them now shapes whether the push yields machines troops trust or a stockpile of cheap ones they don't.

From disposable drones to the next mass weapon

Aerial drones became disposable, mass-produced weapons years ago. Ground robots—the tracked and wheeled machines that haul supplies, pull out the wounded, and attack Russian positions—are only now reaching serial state supply. In August, the Defense Procurement Agency (DOT), the body that buys Ukraine's arms, opened its first competitive tenders for logistics and strike robots built to specs set by the Defense Ministry. Pavlov, founder of Ukraine's UGV School, calls it an experimental format that can work where market prices are inflated. Splitting the order into lots also gives smaller engineering teams a real chance, he said, because many large producers are already busy with state contracts.

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Why the lowest bid may beat the best robot

A tender rewards the cheapest product that formally meets the requirements, not the best one, Pavlov said. A thermal camera, for example, can be listed as desirable rather than mandatory, so a maker chasing the lowest price will most likely leave it off. On any given feature the machines diverge—suspension, cameras, comms channels, a winch—one has it, another doesn't, yet both can land in the same class.

The machines themselves are very different. One carries 250 kilograms, another up to 349, but both fall into the "200-plus" category. Unlike FPV drones, which share standard sizes and parts, ground robots have no common frame—Ukraine fields many local variants. Pavlov compared the choice to picking an iPhone over a cheaper Android: on paper the features match, but soldiers know which machine they can run and repair.

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He also fears the model punishes innovation. A company can spend 18 months and a 20-person team building a robot, then watch a rival copy it, skip the research costs, and undercut it. A design troops already know how to run and repair—like the Ratel—is a known quantity. An untested bargain can break down mid-mission with no spare parts.

A mixed system, not tenders alone

Price competition should be one tool, not the only one, Pavlov argued. New robots should first reach units through pilot buys, letting soldiers test them and say what works. Proven systems can then be contracted in bulk, with tenders saved for classes where the offers are truly comparable. Ukraine's robots are too varied, he said, and what units need can't always be squeezed onto a spec sheet.

A Ukrainian ground robot drove toward the front, reached the water in its path, and kept going, swimming across with ammunition and food aboard and no soldier at risk. It ran the first logistics mission with an amphibious ground robot, covering more than 40 kilometers over land and water to resupply positions, the Defense Ministry said.

Water is one of the front's quiet chokepoints: rivers, canals, and marshes that stop ground robots and force risky detours, and that air resupply cannot always solve. The amphibious robot drives like a normal ground vehicle, then switches to swimming in seconds, letting one machine cross terrain that halts the rest.

It is the latest of Ukraine's battlefield-robot firsts, which this year have included air-dropping robots behind Russian lines.

Water stops the others

The robot was developed through Brave1, Ukraine's state-backed defense-innovation cluster, which links developers with the military and government.

The one such robot gains additional capabilities to carry out missions across different terrains.

For this operation, the system was refined over several months in close cooperation with the military, taking into account real tasks, operational experience, and the specifics of frontline terrain. The Brave1 defense innovation cluster provided grant support for the system, helping bring the solution to practical use.

The ministry says it is "expanding the capabilities of robotic systems" so soldiers have more tools for the fight.

Robots with grenade launchers

Earlier, Ukraine employed a new tactic during its major Operation Vivaldi in Donetsk Oblast. During the 3rd Army Corps' offensive, fighters from the world's first experimental unit of unmanned ground-strike vehicles, "NC13", upgraded their kamikaze ground drones with grenade launchers.

During the operation, UGVs equipped with two Bullspike grenade launchers attacked Russian positions, then detonated directly inside their shelters. The occupiers believed they were being attacked by an entire assault group. In reality, they were being torn apart by robots from the 3rd Assault Corps.

Editor's note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

Ukrainian forces reportedly struck a Russian logistics hub and an oil depot in Russian-occupied Luhansk and a military base in occupied Donetsk on June 30 and July 1, with fires breaking out in the two cities.

"Russian logistics in temporarily occupied Luhansk are burning," head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation Andrii Kovalenko said.

The drone attack was reported by the local media, publishing what appear to be videos of the burning logistics hub and the sound of drones.

Leonid Pasechnik, head of the Russian occupation authorities in Luhansk Oblast, reported that air defenses shot down 35 of the 40 drones over Luhansk Oblast. Drone wreckage fell on the premises of an oil depot, and a woman was injured, Pasechnik claimed.

Overnight Ukrainian attacks were also reported in occupied Donetsk, with Telegram news channels sharing apparent footage of damaged buildings and fires in the city.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the Russian occupation authorities in Donetsk Oblast, claimed that one person was killed and three were injured in the attack. Ukrainian news channel Supernova+ reported that the attack targeted the headquarters of Russia’s 8th Combined Arms Army.

The Ukrainian military has not commented on the claims, which could not be independently verified.

Ukraine's military regularly strikes military targets in Russian-occupied territories and deep within Russia in an attempt to diminish Moscow's fighting power as it continues its war against Ukraine.

Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) destroyed three Russian air defense systems using drones in the occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast on June 14.

"Strike drone masters of the Department of Active Operations of the HUR of the Ukrainian defense ministry discovered and destroyed expensive air defense systems of the Russian invaders in the temporarily occupied territory of the Zaporizhzhia region," HUR reported in a post to Telegram.

A Russian Buk-M3, a Pantsyr S1, and a 9S19 Imbir radar from the S-300V air defense system were destroyed in the Ukrainian drone attack.

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The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk