Military

Ukraine destroys record 76 Russian air-defense systems this month, losses analyst says Russia "will never be able to restore". The 76 systems destroyed this month beat a record from July 2023.

Russia's air defenses can't protect all its strategic sites once Ukraine's ballistic missiles are ready, expert says. Russia's best interceptors cluster around the capital.

Intelligence and technology

Combat shows speed alone can't catch Russia's jet-powered drones, despite eight Ukrainian makers' assurances. So why can't they stop them?. Eight makers said their interceptors were ready last winter. They weren't.

Pentagon brings in Ukrainian jamming maker to do to its candidate drones what Russia does to Ukraine's, and see which survives. Unwave brought four electronic-warfare systems to a US base to jam the drones the Pentagon is choosing to buy.

War's next tech leap: Former Ukraine's defense minister behind "Army of Drones" is now creating new "Army of Robots". The architect of Ukraine's "Army of Drones" wants robots to do the deadliest work.

International

Asked if Ukraine would send troops to defend NATO, Zelenskyy offered something else: know-how to stop drones now reaching its neighbors. Zelenskyy says Ukraine will share its drone-defense experience with partners facing Russian attacks, NATO or not, through the Drone Deal pacts.

Built by Ukrainian officers from real combat, DWAC course is now "NATO Selected". It has trained officers from over 10 countries.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Military

They say Dobropillia is encircled, but they are actually 10+ km away: ISW publishes map disproving Russia's claim. Russia is using this to divert attention from its setbacks north of Lyman, the think tank says.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's soldiers cracked problem US chased for 30 years. It went from idea to combat in 10 days.

A report says US intelligence warned France of Russian ship-launched drones. France denies it. The Spanish outlet El Mundo described explosive drones hidden on merchant ships. Italy called the alert unconfirmed. Spain and the CIA have not responded.

Seventeen makers head to Michigan to test bomber drones for the Pentagon, and Ukrainian firms are back in field, some under US partners. Seventeen companies, including Ukrainian firms and partners fielding their drones, will test bomber drones at Camp Grayling in October.

Ukraine's new military AI does more than watch the battlefield—it helps commanders plan what comes next. The Defense Ministry's AI center says its SPECTR system is already being tested by several combat units.

Ukraine is opening access to 5 million frames of real combat to 12 British weapons makers to train AI. Up to 12 British defense companies can train AI models on real battlefield data through Avengers Labs.

"Killing Ukraine's internet would take nuclear or chemical weapons"—MiroHost founder whose data center Russia just destroyed. Most critical Ukrainian data and systems are already in the cloud and abroad—destroying data centers in Kyiv cannot bring the country offline.

A bottle of flammable liquid in Poland, a nuclear option on a Russian wish-list—the hunt for Starlink widens. Strip Starlink from Ukraine and its army goes blind—the calculation driving a Russian proposal to knock the satellite network out by any means available.

Ukraine's Mirage had killed a cruise missile on its first combat sortie. France just sent more of the missiles that reach 80 km. France arms Ukraine's Mirages with MICA missiles and cannon ammo, tripling to quadrupling the jets' cruise missile engagement range.

Zelenskyy says Ukraine has agreed on a new Patriot interceptor package—won't say with whom. The president told the Ukrainian community in the US that a package of interceptor missiles for Patriot systems had been agreed, keeping the partner secret while calling it "an important decision."

International

ISW connects drone crashes in Moldova and Romania, a Starlink fire in Poland, and a Berlin airport shutdown into one Russian pattern. The institute connects drone crashes in Moldova and Romania, arson at a Polish Starlink station, and a Berlin airport shutdown into a single pattern of Russian pressure on European defense infrastructure.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia strikes second civilian ship in Black Sea in six days, killing both captains to choke route that carries 90 percent of Ukraine's farm exports. The attack set the vessel on fire and triggered a rescue operation for its surviving crew.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Two plants make 70% of Ukraine’s steel. Russia hit both. Then ports closed, rail costs rose 30%, and the EU’s carbon tax kicked in. The head of Ukraine's largest steel plant says the government needs a single rescue document with deadlines and assigned agencies, because each problem stalls when handled alone.

Military

For the 17th or 18th time, Putin promised to take Donetsk "in a few months" – Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy says Russia has spent nearly five years trying to seize Donetsk, suffering nearly 249,000 troops killed or severely wounded this year for only slightly more than 1,000 square kilometers of territorial gains.

He started as a driver. Now he pilots Ukraine's heavy strike drones. He started on the Vampire, then taught himself three more airframes, so when Russian jamming grounds one, he keeps flying on the next.

Russia strikes Kyiv with ballistic and hypersonic missiles, damaging maternity hospital amid US-led push for energy truce. US-led efforts to secure a halt to attacks on energy infrastructure are underway.

He swore to defend Ukraine, then switched to Russia when it seized Crimea. Twelve years later, Ukrainian FPV drone found him commanding Russian regiment. Colonel Oleksandr Isaiev, a Mykolaiv native who switched to Russia during the seizure of Crimea, died in an FPV drone strike.

Ukraine's Vivaldi counteroffensive near Lyman just got help from behind Russian lines: partisans say they cut rail supply to three Russian regiments, no explosion needed. ATESH says it disabled four relay cabinets in Voronezh Oblast, which helped a Russian operation in Donetsk Oblast.

Vivaldi erased Russia's Lyman pincer. Now Moscow is pushing toward Sloviansk instead. DeepState says Ukraine stopped one Russian approach to its fortified Donetsk cities. Moscow is pressing another.

Intelligence and technology

Russia spreads false encirclement claims from Dobropillia to Kharkiv — ISW. Russian bloggers claimed they could target Dobropillia's supply roads. Ukraine said its troops have kept the routes open.

Russian-linked software sold to US government as CEO allegedly hid Russian control – two now arrested. US prosecutors accuse Oxygen Forensics' CEO and a Russian national of concealing Russian ownership and software development while selling digital forensics tools to federal agencies.

Ukraine put robots where its soldiers used to die clearing mines—and lost none. Sent into kill zones too deadly for people, the machines clear paths, mine enemy routes, and evacuate the wounded.

OpenAI hands Ukraine a free AI system to guard its hospitals and power plants from hackers. It runs on its own, spotting flaws in Kyiv's networks and sealing them before intruders slip in, and arrives as Russia keeps striking the same targets by air.

Russia's sanctioned propaganda network Rybar freely roamed Schengen zone to shoot manipulative content. Czech journalists caught Rybar operatives posing as documentary filmmakers in Prague, who fled when confronted by reporters from Seznam Zprávy.

Russia fabricates Dobropillia encirclement to strengthen its case for Kyiv's capitulation at UN – ISW. Ukrainian officers describe active fighting around the Donetsk Oblast transport hub.

Year ago, only 12 Ukrainian brigades could order weapons online. Now, 500 units participate in revolutionary program that has delivered 1.3 million drones to front. DOT-Chain Defense lets frontline units order their own drones and gear.

Russia is mapping everyday targets across Kyiv, from trolleybus depots to Zhuliany airport, top monitoring channel says, ahead of ballistic strike. Meanwhile, Ukraine is racing to defend Kyiv against jet drones before winter.

Ukraine's new drone ferries FPV drones deep behind Russian lines and releases them there. It costs about $9,900 and does three other jobs too. The KARA can drop bombs, relay signals, ferry FPV drones to the front, or strike, and it is on sale on Ukraine's state marketplace.

A former US nuclear-sub commander, a Ukrainian fund, and a plan to shield Odesa with drone swarms. Ukraine can't fully export its weapons yet, but its battle-tested tech is so in demand that two Ukrainian players just went to Denmark.

Old American armor, new Ukrainian brain: Skelya regiment nears completion of M1117 unmanned conversion. The regiment's Innovation Center is finishing a project to remotely control an armored vehicle based on a chassis originally designed during the Vietnam War era.

International

EU approves nearly €3 billion for Ukraine as Kyiv meets more reform targets. The latest payment brings EU support under the Ukraine Facility to more than €32 billion, while Norway adds €92 million in non-repayable funding.

Russian attack puts three countries on alert as drones enter Moldova and Romania. Moldovan police preliminarily identified the drone that exploded beside a farm as a camera-equipped Gerbera, the first of its type found in the country.

Russia could launch limited attacks on NATO in coming months, escalating hybrid warfare without being ready for full-scale conflict, Denmark warns. Russia could launch limited attacks on NATO to divert European resources away from Ukraine and exploit divisions within the alliance, Denmark's defense intelligence service warns.

Russians guard Madagascar's parliament speaker as Moscow builds Indian Ocean foothold – RFE/RL. Russia also trains Madagascar's troops and may recruit workers for drones used against Ukraine.

Zelenskyy asks Japan for air-defense technology and offers Ukraine's drones in return, while courting Chile to expand Ukraine's reach in Latin America. Once dependent on donated weapons, Ukraine now trades its battle-tested drone expertise for the protection and partners it still can't supply itself.

Russia may target southern Europe with drones launched from merchant ships—El Mundo. The drones' small explosive payloads could temporarily close airports or ports without causing widespread destruction, the outlet says.

A fresh $42 million, new sanctions, and a seat in the coalition rebuilding Ukraine's Navy. Australia just signed its long-term security pact with Ukraine. The pact bundles weapons, energy, and humanitarian aid, widens sanctions to nearly 1,900 measures, and brings Canberra's total support to nearly $1.3 billion.

“Food must never be used as a weapon”: EU calls for Black Sea attack moratorium. The push comes as attacks have made the route increasingly dangerous and costly for commercial shipping, threatening a key trade lifeline for Ukraine and a major source of food for global markets.

Humanitarian and social impact

Eight months of 2026 brought more Ukrainian civilian casualties than all of last year, UN says. A senior UN official told the Security Council the toll is worsening as strikes reach cities far from the front, with a dark winter ahead.

Political and legal developments

Croatia approves Ukrainian Nord Stream suspect's extradition to Germany despite Polish refusal. The diver's lawyers plan to appeal in Croatia and international courts, while Zhuravliov plans to announce an indefinite hunger strike.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusive

Two plants make 70% of Ukraine's steel. Russia hit both. Then ports closed, rail costs rose 30%, and the EU's carbon tax kicked in. The head of Ukraine's largest steel plant says the government needs a single rescue document with deadlines and assigned agencies, because each problem stalls when handled alone.

Vivaldi's secret weapon was the targeting, not the robots: Third Corps reconnaissance mapped Russian command nodes, then hit them to cause panic. The officer said disrupting command and communications was one of the tasks set directly by the corps commander, with brigade and corps intelligence identifying the areas to strike.

Ukraine's chief prosecutor fled. Politicians still choose the man who can prosecute them.. He is only the latest prosecutor general to leave the office in disgrace, and the office is the reason.

Military

Russia fabricates Dobropillia encirclement to strengthen its case for Kyiv's capitulation at UN – ISW. Ukrainian officers describe active fighting around the Donetsk Oblast transport hub.

Russia is mapping everyday targets across Kyiv, from trolleybus depots to Zhuliany airport, top monitoring channel says, ahead of next ballistic strike. Meanwhile, Ukraine is racing to defend Kyiv against jet drones before winter.

He swore to defend Ukraine, then switched to Russia when it seized Crimea. Twelve years later, Ukrainian FPV drone found him commanding Russian regiment. Colonel Oleksandr Isaiev, a Mykolaiv native who switched to Russia during the seizure of Crimea, died in an FPV drone strike.

Ukraine's Vivaldi counteroffensive near Lyman just got help from behind Russian lines: partisans say they cut rail supply to three Russian regiments, no explosion needed. ATESH says it disabled four relay cabinets in Voronezh Oblast, which helped a Russian operation in Donetsk Oblast.

Vivaldi erased Russia's Lyman pincer. Now Moscow is pushing toward Sloviansk instead. DeepState says Ukraine stopped one Russian approach to its fortified Donetsk cities. Moscow is pressing another.

Foreign volunteers retrain as drone operators as Ukraine's battlefield changes. Some of the Western volunteers who came to Ukraine to fight on the ground are now learning to operate FPV drones as unmanned systems take on a growing role in combat.

Intelligence and technology

Year ago, only 12 Ukrainian brigades could order weapons online. Now, 500 units participate in revolutionary program that has delivered 1.3 million drones to front. DOT-Chain Defense lets frontline units order their own drones and gear.

Ukraine's new drone ferries FPV drones deep behind Russian lines and releases them there. It costs about $9,900 and does three other jobs too. The KARA can drop bombs, relay signals, ferry FPV drones to the front, or strike, and it is on sale on Ukraine's state marketplace.

A former US nuclear-sub commander, a Ukrainian fund, and a plan to shield Odesa with drone swarms. Ukraine can't fully export its weapons yet — but its battle-tested tech is so in demand that two Ukrainian players just went to Denmark.

Old American armor, new Ukrainian brain: Skelya regiment nears completion of M1117 unmanned conversion. The regiment's Innovation Center is finishing a project to remotely control an armored vehicle based on a chassis originally designed during the Vietnam War era.

Strike copters lead Ukraine's 650 new military drone approvals—jam-proof and interceptor models close behind. By July, Ukraine's drone approval tally was running more than 30% ahead of last year, with the count reaching 650 by September.

International

Europe is overreacting to Russian threats, Finland's president says—his intelligence sees no imminent danger. Stubb says the main goal of Russian sabotage abroad is to spread panic so that partners provide less support to Ukraine.

Humanitarian and social impact

"Food must never be used as a weapon": EU calls for Black Sea attack moratorium. The push comes as attacks have made the route increasingly dangerous and costly for commercial shipping, threatening a key trade lifeline for Ukraine and a major source of food for global markets.

Russia is spending jet-powered drones on Ukraine's toilet-paper factory. It's same campaign that has destroyed 2.1 million square meters of Ukraine's warehouses. Snow Panda, a maker of toilet paper and wipes, lost its warehouse to a second Russian strike, months after a missile hit its main hub and injured workers.

Political and legal developments

$16 bn or lives of Ukrainians: Kyiv is furious after EU took two of Russia's richest men off its sanctions list. Usmanov and Fridman were dropped over a prisoner deal and a $16bn lawsuit.

New developments

Russia's sanctioned propaganda network Rybar freely roamed Schengen zone to shoot manipulative content. Czech journalists caught Rybar operatives posing as documentary filmmakers in Prague—they fled when confronted by reporters from Seznam Zprávy.

Explosives found meters from the drone that crashed near a Bundeswehr air base—investigators say it matches the GRU's Leipzig attack devices. The federal prosecutor and Germany's criminal police have taken over the case, and the drone may have been near the A400M transport fleet hub for up to two years.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine's chief prosecutor fled. Politicians still choose the man who can prosecute them.. He is only the latest prosecutor general to leave the office in disgrace, and the office is the reason.

Military

Ukraine's Donetsk counteroffensive wins not by force but by stealth: it gathers troops under Russian nose and seizes two villages before they react. A 60th Brigade captain says a concealed buildup near Derylove and Drobysheve, and precisely timed strikes, let his units move in before Russia responded.

Ukraine shoots down Russian drones by hundred thousand: 350,000 this year, filmed and verified hit by hit in DELTA. The tally dwarfs what NATO manages against a handful of Russian drones.

300 Russian shadow fleet ships disabled in 11 weeks—the Azov Sea is at a standstill, Ukrainian drone force commander says. The milestone marks a jump from the 201 reported in late July, though the pace has slowed as shipping traffic in the strike zone thinned out.

Russia is holding Ukraine's south with convicts: 69 percent have records. And they're fighting where civilians live. A third enlisted to escape prosecution, most are over 30, Ukraine's South grouping says.

Ukraine shut down this Samara refinery in June—now its drones are back, and both distillation units are burning again. The Kuibyshev plant had barely restarted when FP-1 drones struck its AVT-4 and AVT-5 installations overnight, and by morning smoke covered the oblast.

Intelligence and technology

Arms makers in Ukraine sign first 26 deals in program that lets them lease equipment for 5% of cost, with state paying other 95%. The state covers all but 5% of the cost, and the first 26 deals have been signed to help producers buy equipment and expand quickly.

Ukraine's new interceptor drone moves toward mass production after first kills against jet-powered Russian drones that fly like cruise missiles. The push comes as faster Russian drones can cut Ukrainian mobile fire groups' reaction time from about a minute to as little as six seconds.

Danish defense startup guarding undersea cables runs on 15 Ukrainian suppliers. Ukrainian fund is putting in €2 million in it. BlueShadow, run by a former US Navy sub commander but engineered in Ukraine, is building drone defenses for coasts and undersea cables.

International

Ukraine offers Russia deal: stop hitting our power, and we stop hitting yours. US will pass it to Moscow. The US will pass Ukraine's mutual energy-truce offer to Russia and has made no unilateral demands of Kyiv to stop striking Russia.

NATO's top generals meet in Copenhagen with Ukraine at top of agenda, as warnings grow that Russia may strike Alliance next. The Alliance's Military Committee reaffirmed support for Kyiv and named Germany's Carsten Breuer its next chair, as its chief warned of Russia's "reckless behaviour."

Germany cut Russian gas after 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now, its far-right AfD party is in talks with Gazprom to bring it back, and Kremlin welcomes decision. Its foreign-policy speaker met Gazprom's chief in Moscow to discuss resuming supplies.

Last September, Poland downed four of 19 Russian drones. This September, drone reached NATO's missile shield in Redzikowo, and troops guarding it called 112. The military did not shoot it down near Redzikowo, and the ministry won't say whether it tried, reviving doubts about Poland's drone defenses.

Trump announced a "massive" potash deal with Belarus—Lukashenka said the same day there is no spare potash to sell. The US President touted cheaper Belarusian fertilizer as a win for American farmers, but Minsk said every ton is already spoken for.

Moldova counted 39 Russian drone incursions in eight months, against 17 in all of 2025. Its president says three decades without air defense cannot be undone in five years.

Trump demanded Zelenskyy stop hitting Russian refineries—for the second time in a week. Two months ago Trump called the same strikes an escalation that could end the war—now he wants them stopped because of diesel prices.

Humanitarian and social impact

Egypt shifts wheat purchases away from Russia and Ukraine as Black Sea trade costs rise. Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on each other's commercial shipping since July, raising war-risk costs and disrupting key grain routes across the Black Sea.

Russia militarizes children from kindergarten to drone training in occupied Ukraine, monitor says. The pipeline starts in kindergarten and runs through military games, cadet classes, and drone training—and the numbers dwarf what Yunarmia alone shows, a new monitor series reveals.

Born in the USSR, claimed stateless in Finland, fighting for Ukraine—now jailed in Russia. Burkina Faso's Russia-backed junta seized him in Ouagadougou and handed him secretly to Russia, where Moscow's Basmanny Court—the tribunal used for politically sensitive cases—sealed his verdict.

New developments

Russia's mercenaries brought a Ukraine-war drone to Mali. It came down near al-Qaeda's fighters. Cornered for over a week near Dioura, the Africa Corps fired the Russian drone at al-Qaeda-linked fighters as it broke out—then the fighters downed it, a monitoring account says.

Read our earlier daily review here.

At 2:30 in the morning of 14 September, one week after he first claimed his innocence and then resigned, Ukraine's prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko crossed the border and left the country. Hours before he went, he used his office to sign a criminal suspicion against the chief of the anti-corruption bureau investigating him. His wife had crossed a day earlier.

Such was the unglorious fate of President Zelenskyy's man, the prosecutor general who in July 2025 nearly leashed Ukraine's independent anti-corruption agencies. Saved by mass street protests, the anti-graft institutions built after the Euromaidan revolution rebounded, and went first after President Zelenskyy's friend Tymur Mindich, then after his right hand Andriy Yermak.

And now they had reached the prosecutor general himself: in Ukraine, the one official who can veto any anti-corruption case against a member of parliament.

"For the first time in Ukraine, after a suspicion was announced, it was the prosecutor who fled abroad, not the suspect," anti-corruption campaigner Daria Kaleniuk wrote as it happened.

Things are, of course, far better than in 2014, when then Prosecutor General Pshonka criminalized the Euromaidan revolution and pursued the political rivals of then President Yanukovych, before both fled to Russia. Papers later found in Pshonka's abandoned mansion, published by Ukrainska Pravda, showed his office drawing up plans to arrest MPs and open thousands of criminal cases against Maidan activists, using prosecution, in the office's own notes, as a political instrument.

But things are still not as good as in 2019, the one time the office worked the other way. That year Ukraine's new chief prosecutor, Ruslan Riaboshapka, named fresh suspects in the PrivatBank case, which ran into Ihor Kolomoisky, the oligarch whose television channel had helped put Zelenskyy in office. He also refused to sign charges against Zelenskyy's political opponent Petro Poroshenko, calling them groundless.

Signature-gathering for Riaboshapka's dismissal began the next day. Parliament removed him in March 2020, and his successor rolled back the reforms he had tried to launch. David Arakhamia, the head of Zelenskyy's parliamentary faction, later named the refusal to charge Poroshenko as the last drop.

Of the prosecutors general who followed Riaboshapka, two left under a cloud.

Andriy Kostin resigned in 2024 after investigators exposed a nationwide market in fake disability certificates used to dodge mobilization, a scheme that reached prosecutors inside his own service. And now Kravchenko, whom Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies had begun investigating over the alleged protection of an international network of fraudulent call centers.

It keeps repeating. The official whose job is to hold the powerful to account ends up serving them instead. The problem is structural, and so is the fix: the same mechanism behind Ukraine's working post-Euromaidan reforms. A bill to have independent experts vet candidates for the Prosecutor General exists; it has sat in parliament since June, untouched.

Whether Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, which holds the Rada majority, will let it move is unclear. What hangs on the answer is whether Ukraine finishes becoming a state of law, or stays a state of protection.

Unlimited power, total political control

For the office meant to guarantee that everyone, including those in power, is equal before the law, real powers are necessary. The problem in Ukraine, said Iryna Korzhenkova, a parliamentary analyst at the Chesno movement for political transparency, is that those powers come bundled with total political control.

The president appoints the prosecutor general with the Rada's consent, under a procedure that provides neither transparent selection nor any assessment of competence. He can be dismissed by a simple 226-vote majority. No prosecutor general has served a full term, and the average tenure is under two years.

"The position that is supposed to keep politicians in check works as their insurance policy instead," Korzhenkova told Euromaidan Press.

Capturing the office is a tempting political prize. Under Article 482-2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, only the prosecutor general can register a criminal case against a sitting MP, and only he can approve a search, a wiretap, or a detention against one.

Since MPs lost their formal immunity in 2020, in the same reform that handed the prosecutor general sole power to open cases against them, this has become a kind of modified immunity: one politically appointed person can decline to open a case, and no court can challenge the refusal. This was the case in 2020, when then Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova rejected a draft suspicion against an MP handed to her by NABU, reversing only under public pressure.

So valuable is the office that in 2016 parliament stripped out the need for a law degree altogether, to fit the president's man, Poroshenko ally Yuriy Lutsenko; the press called it "the personal law of Lutsenko."

His appointment came as the old guard crushed a reform born on the wings of Euromaidan: a team of reformist prosecutors who had just exposed the "diamond prosecutors," senior officials caught with bags of cash and gems linked to the sitting prosecutor general, was purged, and the case died.

Explore further

How Ukraine’s old guard killed the prosecution reform

A demand the EU has made since 2014

Depoliticizing this chair has been an EU condition for Ukraine's membership path since 2014, and a live one since negotiations on the Fundamentals cluster, the first stage of accession talks and the one covering rule of law, opened in June.

This is why the day that Kravchenko fled, the EU issued a reminder that Ukraine promised to reform the Prosecutor General's Office and introduce a contest for the chair.

"The prosecutor general is the gateway to the criminal justice system for everyone in power," Korzhenkova explained.

Today, that gateway is held by the political majority: appointed by Zelenskyy, dismissable by his Servant of the People party, which controls parliament. Any case against that majority has to pass a filter the majority appoints.

The EU's interest in prying the office loose is twofold, she said.

1. Brussels sends Ukraine money and must be sure that money stolen gets prosecuted;
2. and it has watched the reform reverse in Poland and Bulgaria, which is why it now wants the guarantees written in before the fact.

The internal price is steeper still: war raises the cost of a dependent prosecution, with defense procurement, mobilization, and aid flows all resting on it.

Europe's own standard, set out by the Council of Europe in its 2014 charter on prosecutors, prescribes no single model. Governments may have a hand in choosing the prosecutor general, so long as the method earns public confidence and the term is stable enough to make the office "independent of political changes."

On dismissal it is blunter: protection from "arbitrary or politically motivated dismissal" is "particularly relevant" for prosecutors general, and the law "should clearly define the conditions of their pre-term dismissal."

Ukraine fails at both ends, and, as Korzhenkova puts it, no version that leaves the president's discretion untouched can meet that standard.

The international expert lifehack

But how do you clean an office when cronyism runs through the class that appoints it? Ukraine has a partial answer, from the part of its post-Euromaidan reforms that worked.

The directors of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), and the National Agency on Corruption Prevention are chosen through open competitions in which a panel of independent experts, foreign ones among them with a decisive vote, can veto compromised candidates.

The success of those agencies, now breaking up the very rings of cronyism they were built to reach, is why the Venice Commission and Ukraine's Western partners have consistently defended the model.

In a 2021 joint statement, the EU, US, and partner embassies called the international experts' role "temporary but crucial," aimed at resisting "the influence of vested interests." When Zelenskyy's team moved to strip NABU and SAPO of their independence in July 2025, the G7 ambassadors publicly welcomed the reversal that restored it.

Those independently selected agencies produced Operation Midas, the case that reached Mindich and forced out Yermak, and, weeks later, Operation Forrest Gump.

The High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC), created in 2018 through the same kind of expert council, reaches officials the courts never could: it convicted the highest-ranking judge in the country, Vsevolod Kniaziev, over part of a $2.7 million bribe. Before it existed, all of Ukraine's general courts together had delivered roughly 40 verdicts in NABU and SAPO cases; in seven years the specialized court has delivered 431, against 601 people, and for the first time a sitting MP drew a real prison term.

Explore further

Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Court is breaking the cycle of impunity

The foreign vote is not a hypothetical safeguard. At an August hearing for Olha Stefanishyna, the former deputy prime minister for European integration, a SAPO prosecutor read out messages in which, they say, she steered the very commissions that select Ukraine's watchdog agencies. To the head of the 2022 panel choosing the NABU director: "Do what you want, I need numbers 60 and 62 from the list. Postpone the sessions, I shouldn't have to think for you." Her influence reached three commissions at once.

She calls the case a storm in a teacup, and the charges are unproven. But it is the reformers' own argument: the Ukrainian half of a commission can be captured. The foreigners with a decisive vote are the part no Ukrainian official can phone up and instruct.

The model is no panacea, Korzhenkova warns:

"The international experts are not the motor of reform. They are a circuit breaker. They can keep out the worse candidate. They cannot make those in power want to do better."

The anti-corruption court convicts, but whether the guilty serve time is another matter. Of its 398 convictions in seven years, more than half were settled by plea bargain, others ended in fines or suspended sentences, and a stack of cases had simply run out the clock before any verdict. As of the last public tally, in spring 2026, only about 80 of the convicted had actually drawn real jail time.

For years, the court sat short of judges, which Ekonomichna Pravda read as quietly convenient for those in power: an understaffed court slows cases and lets them lapse without the visible fight of dismantling it. Most of the vacancies were only filled in August 2026, when the EU tied the appointments to money Ukraine needed.

What the bill would do, and the perennial objection

Full depoliticization would mean amending the constitution, which martial law rules out, and the EU mandates no specific route. So the reformers' instrument is an ordinary law, bill 15343.

It adds a filter to the current system: the president would pick not freely, as now, but from candidates pre-selected by an open competition run by a six-member commission, three of them vetted by Ukraine's international partners. Four votes choose a candidate, two of them the internationals'.

And it moves the power to discipline and dismiss a sitting prosecutor general to the High Council of Justice, the body that governs Ukraine's judges, itself reformed in 2021 through the same international-expert vetting, and the one disciplinary body not under the prosecutor general's own control.

If the mechanism works, and Ukraine has used it for its anti-corruption prosecution, bureau, and court, the obvious question is why the prosecutor general was left out.

The answer is not constitutional, though a constitutional objection has been raised. A legal analysis on the site Sud.ua argued the model has no analog in most of the EU and breaks the constitution: the president is reduced to a technical executor of the commission's choice, and the judges' council is handed power over the head of the prosecution, which is not the judiciary. Foreign experts with a veto over a constitutional office, one commentator wrote, are a gift to any populist and to Moscow.

But this is the argument Ukraine's powerful always reach for when the anti-corruption bodies get close.

In 2020, when NABU accused the judge Pavlo Vovk of running a scheme to seize control of the courts, the same sovereignty-and-separation-of-powers reasoning was deployed to shield him, and EP reported at the time that the prosecutor general's own office was accused of moving to disrupt the case against him. The office meant to prosecute the powerful was protecting them instead, which is the whole reason reformers want it taken out of political hands.

There is no legal reason the reform cannot be done, Korzhenkova says. The same constitutional objections applied to the Constitutional Court and the High Council of Justice, both reformed through international vetting; the filter was added anyway.

"The constitutional argument suddenly appeared only for the prosecutor general," she said.

The real reason for the stall is political: the prosecutor general is the last great lever that decides who gets prosecuted, and the majority that would have to give up control of it is the same majority those prosecutions would reach.

The Rada's own tempo shows it. To save the system from a scandal, it found 317 votes to dismiss Kravchenko in a single day and installed an acting prosecutor general by decree. To limit the system, it has left the bill untouched for three months; in early September the relevant committee declined even to put it on the agenda, and moved only after individual MPs pushed.

At least 50 members of the current parliament, Chesno documents, are themselves under criminal suspicion.

What happens now

The interim answer is Anton Kovalskyi, the Khmelnytskyi Oblast chief prosecutor, appointed acting prosecutor general by decree on 17 September, chosen the old way: hand-picked, from at least four candidates, with no public account of why him.

The Anti-Corruption Action Center laid out the rest in a dossier: property registered to relatives, a wife from Russia whose year-old sole proprietorship reported earnings of over UAH 500,000 ($11k) a month, a deputy whose father-in-law fled to Russia and was convicted in absentia of collaboration.

Asked whether the reform bill would have produced a different result, Korzhenkova declined to guess, and said the guessing is the problem. "I don't know, and neither does anyone else, and that is exactly it."

Under an open competition, his selection would have been vetted by international experts; everyone could have submitted data on the candidates.

The bill would not have guaranteed a good prosecutor general, but it would at least have made the appointed one checkable. This is what the Rada majority is, for now, declining to allow.

The case that finally reached Kravchenko had a name. NABU and SAPO called it Carthage: a scheme, run out of the Prosecutor General's Office itself, to shield a network of fraudulent call centers, with five officials handed suspicions.

Carthage put investigators inside his building, and Carthage he was answering when, on his way out, he turned the office's power to prosecute the man using it against him and signed a suspicion against Semen Kryvonos, the NABU director.

Explore further

Ukraine’s prosecutor general resigns as the watchdogs he was appointed to leash close in

Kryvonos says it never reached him; the office itself later conceded that the suspicion was legally void.

Kravchenko's last act as prosecutor general was a business trip he wrote for himself, five days in Paris for a hearing of the PACE parliamentary network, and he left by car on 13 September. He was due back on the 18th. He did not return, and his former office says it does not know whether he has asked for asylum in the EU.

Ukraine has spent a decade building institutions that reach the powerful. The prosecutor general's office is the one it never got to. The man who ran it signed his own exit papers and was across the border by half past two in the morning.

Exclusive

Europe gave Russia years to perfect its aerial killing. Ukraine is paying the price. Europe may be next.. Russia has spent four years adapting its drones, missiles and tactics against Ukraine. As Russian attacks become harder to stop, Ukrainian civilians are paying the price – while Europe is increasingly worried about a threat it has had years to prepare for.

"A warning to companies that remain": Russia takes control of Nestlé and Auchan's assets – companies that stayed in Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The companies had been warned that remaining in Russia could expose their investments to seizure as the Kremlin increasingly uses foreign-owned businesses as leverage. B4Ukraine says companies should leave while they still can.

Military

Russia has warned its cities about every strike for years. During the heaviest raid yet, on election day, it left the sirens silent. The backlash came even from Russia's own pro-war bloggers, as a major Moscow refinery burned on the final day of voting.

Ukraine is saving Donetsk Oblast with world's first-of-its-kind operation: Vivaldi counteroffensive drops robots directly from heavy bombers 10 kilometers behind Russian lines. Heavy drones delivered the robots more than 10 kilometers into the Russian rear during Operation Vivaldi near Lyman.

Intelligence and technology

Russia's threat isn't better missile, it's 14,000 cheap ones. Its new deadly weapon was built in early 1990s, experts say. The cheap, air-launched Dan-T is built to be fired by the thousand, piling onto the drones and missiles already straining Ukraine's air defense.

Ukraine spent year ignoring one Russian drone-control tech, and now Geran-5 flies on it. President's adviser warns next one, from space, is worse. A Ukrainian adviser calls it a coming "small catastrophe"

Ukraine builds app to cut soldiers' paperwork. It has just saved them $40 million, mostly on fuel. The Pluses program in Army+ just added M-Tac as its 40th partner.

Russia's secret drone math: one Tatarstan plant could yield 28,000 more drone bodies a year. Leaked Rosatom documents describe a Tatarstan carbon fiber plant that could lift Russia's Shahed-type drone output 78% by 2029.

International

NATO would strike back if Russia attacks, Polish FM says he warned Moscow. The Polish foreign minister said the warning was intended to deter Russia from taking action that could trigger a wider conflict.

Warning sirens are going west: Russian jet-powered drones bring strikes closer to NATO country. Poland is expanding its warning-siren network as officials prepare for more Russian attacks near the border.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine says foreign defense suppliers owe country about $10.58 billion, including $1.7 billion already paid for goods delivered late or never at all. A $22,400 legal bill stands between Ukraine and $403 million owed by foreign arms suppliers.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Europe gave Russia years to perfect its aerial killing. Ukraine is paying the price. Europe may be next.. Russia has spent four years adapting its drones, missiles and tactics against Ukraine. As Russian attacks become harder to stop, Ukrainian civilians are paying the price – while Europe is increasingly worried about a threat it has had years to prepare for.

“A warning to companies that remain”: Russia takes control of Nestlé and Auchan’s assets – companies that stayed in Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The companies had been warned that remaining in Russia could expose their investments to seizure as the Kremlin increasingly uses foreign-owned businesses as leverage. B4Ukraine says companies should leave while they still can.

Military

Ukraine retakes ground in a region Russia has fought for years to capture. “Vivaldi” is only getting started but is already “one of the most important victories for Ukraine in 2026” Ukraine’s Third Army Corps says its counteroffensive has retaken three settlements and 50 square kilometers of occupied territory in northern Donetsk, potentially delaying Russia’s planned offensive in the northern Donbas.

Ukraine’s long-range strikes reach Moscow’s fuel supply as Russia votes in State Duma elections A Ukrainian strike damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery, a major fuel supplier for the capital and surrounding region, as Russia held the second day of its State Duma elections.

Ukraine’s Vivaldi operation cleared 85 square kilometers near Lyman. A soldier who fought it says one thing was hardest of all Well-sited Russian defenders spot an assault group crossing open ground and fight it at a distance, he says.

Ukraine’s most effective units, Azov among them, need reinforcements. So National Guard is opening recruitment center aimed only at foreigners The center will send foreign volunteers into contract service as Ukraine leans on outside recruits to fill a manpower gap.

One machine handles 52% of a Russian oil plant—Ukrainian drones just hit it Satellite images show Ukrainian FP-1 drones hit the crude unit that handles 52% of Russia’s TANECO refinery, 1,200 km from Ukraine.

Drones hit Rostov-on-Don for the second straight night—OSINT monitors say the military airbase was likely the target again The local authorities confirmed more than 50 drones downed overnight but said nothing about the airfield where Ukraine reportedly destroyed three aircraft and three helicopters the previous night.

Ukraine’s snipers didn’t vanish in the drone war—their job changed beyond recognition Up to 154 pounds on their backs, weeks at one position, a thermal scope always running—modern sniping is far more watching than shooting.

Russia was sure the terrain made this village impossible to take—Ukraine walked in anyway Days of reconnaissance, drone strikes, and artillery went into the 66th Brigade’s push on Serednie. When the village fell, Russian channels called the liberation footage an AI fake.

Intelligence and technology

North Korea has fired around 150 ballistic missiles at Ukraine, learning from each one. Same missiles threaten Japan, and Kyiv just shows its speaker what is inside them The components come from a missile Russia fired at Ukraine, and Kyiv’s spies argue the same North Korean weapons threaten Japan too.

What are “S-300 Clone” and GAM-67 in America’s new $2.68 billion package for Ukraine? Experts think they have answer Labeled “S-300 Clone,” the new US missiles would reportedly let Ukraine keep its Soviet launchers firing.

Defender Media: Ukraine’s battle-tested drone makers reach no top slot in Pentagon’s $1.1 billion Drone Dominance program, but some Ukrainian technology wins anyway American firms took every top slot, but some Ukrainian tech won quietly under Western partners.

Russia is using inaccurate missiles that can miss by hundreds of meters to attack Ukrainian cities – and plans to scale them up Russia is increasingly using RM48U missiles originally designed as air-defense training targets to attack Ukraine. Their large margin of error makes them especially dangerous when fired at Ukrainian cities, where they can strike civilian areas far from any intended targets.

International

Ukraine and Hungary have a rare moment of cooperation, agreeing to build fuel storage beyond Russia’s reach The planned storage facilities in Hungary near the Ukrainian border will help Ukraine diversify fuel supplies as Russia continues attacking energy infrastructure.

At camp Norway built in Polish forest, NATO trainers admit Ukraine’s army now moves faster than their own Ukraine’s wartime tempo outpaces NATO armies, whose slow procurement Western trainers in Poland say Ukraine’s experience is exposing.

Russia plans ”accidental” drone strikes on NATO countries, Tusk says Tusk said the tactic could be used to test whether NATO would act if an attack on one of its members could be presented as a mistake.

EU pledges €3.3 billion for Ukraine, von der Leyen says “more is coming” as Russia’s escalating air war makes life in Ukrainian cities increasingly difficult The new funding comes as Ukraine appeals for more air defense to counter increasingly complex Russian attacks, including advanced missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.

Belarus holds military drills around the Suwalki Gap, NATO’s only land link to the Baltics Minsk says troops are guarding infrastructure, manning checkpoints, and practicing against saboteurs and drones. It has not disclosed the total number of personnel involved.

“What Ukraine needs right now”: Poland to provide Ukraine with scarce F-16 missiles to shoot down jet-powered drones The aid package will also include aviation equipment, Poland’s deputy defense minister says.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia has already destroyed more than two-fifths of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space as it escalates attacks on economic infrastructure – FT 2.1 million square meters of warehouse capacity have been destroyed as Russian strikes increasingly target the infrastructure Ukraine needs to store and move goods.

Russian e-commerce will lose $4.8 billion to the drone campaign against its warehouses, analysts estimate Analysts cut a whole year’s growth forecast for Russian online retail by a fifth, and blamed the strikes alone.

Thousands are starving in occupied Oleshky. People have no food, no way out, and Russian forces bomb incoming aid More than 6,000 people, including around 200 children, may remain trapped in the Russian-occupied city, where civilians lack food, water and medicine and some are risking mined fields to escape.

Russia’s war has devastated Donetsk Oblast, with losses already exceeding $26 billion The preliminary estimate covers destroyed industry, energy infrastructure, agriculture, transport, and other sectors, while much of the damage remains impossible to assess.

Russia kills captain of Tanzanian-flagged ship in latest attack on civilian shipping in Black Sea Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian shipping around Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, putting international crews and maritime trade at risk.

Political and legal developments

Russia paid a recruit to vandalize London mosques and make it look like a homegrown hate crime A Ukrainian man has pleaded guilty to the attacks. Direct Action UK, a fake British far-right group, then circulated images of the graffiti.

Stop arming Ukraine or we shut down your defense firms, pro-Kremlin group tells Latvia, Poland, and Portugal Latvia’s security service has opened a terrorism case and jailed one suspect, with the group’s deadline set for 7 October.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

“A warning to companies that remain”: Russia takes control of Nestlé and Auchan’s assets – companies that stayed in Russia following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The companies had been warned that remaining in Russia could expose their investments to seizure as the Kremlin increasingly uses foreign-owned businesses as leverage. B4Ukraine says companies should leave while they still can.

“I can travel back to Finland and be safe. That is a luxury”: Sanna Marin on the Russian strike that stopped her train from Kyiv. The former Finnish prime minister has visited Ukraine around ten times since the full-scale invasion. This trip, she says, had more air-raid alarms than any of them, and a Russian drone hit the train travelling beside hers to the Polish border.

Military

Russia is using inaccurate missiles that can miss by hundreds of meters to attack Ukrainian cities — and plans to scale them up. Russia is increasingly using RM48U missiles originally designed as air-defense training targets to attack Ukraine. Their large margin of error makes them especially dangerous when fired at Ukrainian cities, where they can strike civilian areas far from any intended targets.

One machine handles 52% of a Russian oil plant—Ukrainian drones just hit it. Satellite images show Ukrainian FP-1 drones hit the crude unit that handles 52% of Russia's TANECO refinery, 1,200 km from Ukraine.

Drones hit Rostov-on-Don for the second straight night—OSINT monitors say the military airbase was likely the target again. The local authorities confirmed more than 50 drones downed overnight but said nothing about the airfield where Ukraine reportedly destroyed three aircraft and three helicopters the previous night.

Ukraine's snipers didn't vanish in the drone war—their job changed beyond recognition. Up to 154 pounds on their backs, weeks at one position, a thermal scope always running—modern sniping is far more watching than shooting.

Russia was sure the terrain made this village impossible to take—Ukraine walked in anyway. Days of reconnaissance, drone strikes, and artillery went into the 66th Brigade's push on Serednie. When the village fell, Russian channels called the liberation footage an AI fake.

Russian e-commerce will lose $4.8 billion to the drone campaign against its warehouses, analysts estimate. Analysts cut a whole year's growth forecast for Russian online retail by a fifth, and blamed the strikes alone.

Russia kills captain of Tanzanian-flagged ship in latest attack on civilian shipping in Black Sea. Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian shipping around Ukraine's Black Sea ports, putting international crews and maritime trade at risk.

No missiles intercepted again: Russia strikes Kyiv water infrastructure amid warnings of harsher winter attacks. Russia also struck residential areas in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia, injuring civilians and damaging homes and other civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine strikes two Russian S-400 launchers in Bryansk. The same systems were used to attack Kyiv overnight. Ukraine is increasingly targeting systems Russia uses to launch missiles at its cities as Kyiv faces shortages of high-end interceptors.

A fifth of Russian refining sits idle, and the sector's earnings still grew. The money is being made on prices and state compensation rather than on the volumes the front line actually needs.

One pincer stalled a year ago, the other has just been broken near Kostiantynivka—Russia's ring will not close, Ukrainian commander says. Frontal assaults on fortified cities cost far more men and time than closing a ring behind them would have.

Intelligence and technology

Russia paid a recruit to vandalize London mosques and make it look like a homegrown hate crime. A Ukrainian man has pleaded guilty to the attacks. Direct Action UK, a fake British far-right group, then circulated images of the graffiti.

Stop arming Ukraine or we shut down your defense firms, pro-Kremlin group tells Latvia, Poland, and Portugal. Latvia's security service has opened a terrorism case and jailed one suspect, with the group's deadline set for 7 October.

Ukraine kept this strike drone secret for two years—its maker says it has destroyed more than 350 Russian systems. Ukraine's RAM-2X had been hunting Russian air defense systems and ballistic missile launchers, and the silence ended only when wrecked drones reached Russian hands.

International

Russia plans "accidental" drone strikes on NATO countries, Tusk says. Tusk said the tactic could be used to test whether NATO would act if an attack on one of its members could be presented as a mistake.

EU pledges €3.3 billion for Ukraine, von der Leyen says "more is coming" as Russia's escalating air war makes life in Ukrainian cities increasingly difficult. The new funding comes as Ukraine appeals for more air defense to counter increasingly complex Russian attacks, including advanced missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.

Belarus holds military drills around the Suwalki Gap, NATO's only land link to the Baltics. Minsk says troops are guarding infrastructure, manning checkpoints, and practicing against saboteurs and drones. It has not disclosed the total number of personnel involved.

Poland to provide Ukraine with scarce F-16 missiles to shoot down jet-powered drones — "What Ukraine needs right now." The aid package will also include aviation equipment, Poland's deputy defense minister says.

Fire temporarily shuts part of Slovak ammunition plant amid plans to triple capacity. The company operating the factory plans to triple its annual capacity of roughly 100,000 shell bodies and holds a seven-year agreement to supply EU states.

The EU has billions in unspent defense funds. It wants to use them for projects with Ukraine. The plan could bring more Ukrainian defense companies into Europe's growing defense industry.

Humanitarian and social impact

Thousands are starving in occupied Oleshky. People have no food, no way out, and Russian forces bomb incoming aid. More than 6,000 people, including around 200 children, may remain trapped in the Russian-occupied city, where civilians lack food, water and medicine and some are risking mined fields to escape.

Russia's war has devastated Donetsk Oblast, with losses already exceeding $26 billion. The preliminary estimate covers destroyed industry, energy infrastructure, agriculture, transport, and other sectors, while much of the damage remains impossible to assess.

Ukraine receives 252 bodies as repatriation remains one of the few functioning channels with Russia. The repatriation of bodies gives families of missing Ukrainians a chance to identify their loved ones and finally bury them.

From the frontline to a rehab center: a rescued dog from Pokrovsk now helps wounded Ukrainians on the other side of the country. A rescued puppy from Pokrovsk now has an unusual volunteer role: visiting wounded Ukrainians at a rehabilitation center in Lviv.

Political and legal developments

Kyiv's arms industry wants to kill the export fee. Parliament just refused to route that money to the army. Ukraine's arms makers want the 20-30% export fee scrapped as Europe's defense market opens—while parliament won't route the cash to the army.

The US House just passed the first major Russia oil sanctions in two years—one signature stands between them and law. Named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, it clears the way for tariffs of up to 100% on China, India, and the other top buyers of Russian energy.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

“I can travel back to Finland and be safe. That is a luxury”: Sanna Marin on the Russian strike that stopped her train from Kyiv. The former Finnish prime minister has visited Ukraine around ten times since the full-scale invasion. This trip, she says, had more air-raid alarms than any of them, and a Russian drone hit the train travelling beside hers to the Polish border.

Military

No missiles intercepted again: Russia strikes Kyiv water infrastructure amid warnings of harsher winter attacks. Russia also struck residential areas in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia, injuring civilians and damaging homes and other civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine strikes two Russian S-400 launchers in Bryansk. The same systems were used to attack Kyiv overnight.. Ukraine is increasingly targeting systems Russia uses to launch missiles at its cities as Kyiv faces shortages of high-end interceptors.

One pincer stalled a year ago, the other has just been broken near Kostiantynivka—Russia’s ring will not close, Ukrainian commander says. Frontal assaults on fortified cities cost far more men and time than closing a ring behind them would have.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine kept this strike drone secret for two years—its maker says it has destroyed more than 350 Russian systems. Ukraine's RAM-2X had been hunting Russian air defense systems and ballistic missile launchers, and the silence ended only when wrecked drones reached Russian hands.

Ukraine put an Italian-Swiss Skyguard into combat duty. The missile inside is a Cold War design derived from the American Sparrow. Spain and Italy delivered Skyguard/Aspide starting in 2022. The 38th Regiment just showed it on combat duty for the first time.

Ukrainian border unit’s HIMERA B1 relay took 10 strikes from Russia’s FPV drones and guided bombs. Last one leveled building and tower, and relay kept working. Border guards dug the HIMERA B1 out of the rubble because it was still transmitting.

US charges five as alleged Kremlin assassination network reaches American soil. Prosecutors say the network expanded from targeting Russian dissidents and defectors to arranging attacks against European countries supporting Ukraine.

In April, 24 Ukrainian companies ran their own air defense. By mid-September, 81 do — about one new firm per day. They've already downed 20-plus Russian drones.

Ukrainian partisans claim sabotage at Russian plant supplying missiles Moscow uses to bomb Ukrainian cities. ATESH says its agent disabled the power supply at the Voronezh facility, disrupting production of components used in Russian weapons.

International

EU pledges €3.3 billion for Ukraine, von der Leyen says “more is coming” as Russia’s escalating air war makes life in Ukrainian cities increasingly difficult. The new funding comes as Ukraine appeals for more air defense to counter increasingly complex Russian attacks, including advanced missile and drone strikes on Kyiv.

Belarus holds military drills around the Suwalki Gap, NATO’s only land link to the Baltics. Minsk says troops are guarding infrastructure, manning checkpoints, and practicing against saboteurs and drones. It has not disclosed the total number of personnel involved.

Russia kills captain of Tanzanian-flagged ship in latest attack on civilian shipping in Black Sea. Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian shipping around Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, putting international crews and maritime trade at risk.

“What Ukraine needs right now”: Poland to provide Ukraine with scarce F-16 missiles to shoot down jet-powered drones. The aid package will also include aviation equipment, Poland’s deputy defense minister says.

Fire temporarily shuts part of Slovak ammunition plant amid plans to triple capacity. The company operating the factory plans to triple its annual capacity of roughly 100,000 shell bodies and holds a seven-year agreement to supply EU states.

A fifth of Russian refining sits idle, and the sector’s earnings still grew. The money is being made on prices and state compensation rather than on the volumes the front line actually needs.

The EU has billions in unspent defense funds. It wants to use them for projects with Ukraine. The plan could bring more Ukrainian defense companies into Europe's growing defense industry.

Russia ships armor to Libya despite mounting vehicle losses in Ukraine. Two sanctioned cargo vessels crossed the Mediterranean without broadcasting location data. Russian and Libyan authorities have not disclosed who was to receive their cargo.

A drone came down beside a Bundeswehr air base, weeks after Berlin blamed Moscow for the Leipzig airport attack. The drone's owner and origin are still unknown, and investigators are collecting further parts before saying anything about how it came down.

For first time, foreign government is funding Ukrainian drone school: Canada picks foundation that has already bought Ukraine nearly $50M in drones. Canada, once behind on drones, gets Ukraine's combat experience in return.

Humanitarian and social impact

Thousands are starving in occupied Oleshky. People have no food, no way out, and Russian forces bomb incoming aid. More than 6,000 people, including around 200 children, may remain trapped in the Russian-occupied city, where civilians lack food, water and medicine and some are risking mined fields to escape.

Russia’s war has devastated Donetsk Oblast, with losses already exceeding $26 billion. The preliminary estimate covers destroyed industry, energy infrastructure, agriculture, transport, and other sectors, while much of the damage remains impossible to assess.

Ukraine receives 252 bodies as repatriation remains one of the few functioning channels with Russia. The repatriation of bodies gives families of missing Ukrainians a chance to identify their loved ones and finally bury them.

From the frontline to a rehab center: a rescued dog from Pokrovsk now helps wounded Ukrainians on the other side of the country. A rescued puppy from Pokrovsk now has an unusual volunteer role: visiting wounded Ukrainians at a rehabilitation center in Lviv.

Political and legal developments

Kyiv’s arms industry wants to kill the export fee. Parliament just refused to route that money to the army. Ukraine's arms makers want the 20-30% export fee scrapped as Europe's defense market opens—while parliament won't route the cash to the army.

The US House just passed the first major Russia oil sanctions in two years—one signature stands between them and law. Named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, it clears the way for tariffs of up to 100% on China, India, and the other top buyers of Russian energy.

Ukraine’s Build with Ukraine has 200-plus foreign cooperation bids pending decision. Its arms industry, representing 400-plus firms, wants to help fix mechanism. The Council of Defence Industry wants a costly new export-permit fee scrapped.

He thought Ukrainian army uniform would hide what he did under occupation. It didn’t. Man who guarded Kherson’s Russian-run prison drew eight years. He guarded cells holding captured Ukrainian resistance members, then hid inside the army before the SBU caught him at a training center.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

The West has tried everything except ending the war. Diplomacy, sanctions, 200 rounds of talks—Russia used all of it to buy time. Diesel prices in America are just the tsunami's latest wave.

Military

Ukrainian partisans claim sabotage at Russian plant supplying missiles Moscow uses to bomb Ukrainian cities. ATESH says its agent disabled the power supply at the Voronezh facility, disrupting production of components used in Russian weapons.

Ukraine's Vivaldi counteroffensive disrupts Russia's plan to encircle Donetsk Fortress Belt – ISW. Ukrainian forces have likely advanced beyond the territory publicly disclosed by Kyiv, while Russian sources increasingly acknowledge setbacks around Lyman.

Russian general killed in Ukraine weeks after telling Putin Kostiantynivka was captured. Major General Anton Grunis was killed in occupied Donetsk Oblast after leading Russian forces on the Kostiantynivka front.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine put an Italian-Swiss Skyguard into combat duty. The missile inside is a Cold War design derived from the American Sparrow. Spain and Italy delivered Skyguard/Aspide starting in 2022. The 38th Regiment just showed it on combat duty for the first time.

Ukrainian border unit's HIMERA B1 relay took 10 strikes from Russia's FPV drones and guided bombs. Last one leveled building and tower, and relay kept working. Border guards dug the HIMERA B1 out of the rubble because it was still transmitting.

Russia ships armor to Libya despite mounting vehicle losses in Ukraine. Two sanctioned cargo vessels crossed the Mediterranean without broadcasting location data. Russian and Libyan authorities have not disclosed who was to receive their cargo.

Ukraine's Build with Ukraine has 200-plus foreign cooperation bids pending decision. Its arms industry, representing 400-plus firms, wants to help fix mechanism. The Council of Defence Industry wants a costly new export-permit fee scrapped.

In April, 24 Ukrainian companies ran their own air defense. By mid-September, 81 do — about one new firm per day. They've already downed 20-plus Russian drones.

International

A drone came down beside a Bundeswehr air base, weeks after Berlin blamed Moscow for the Leipzig airport attack. The drone's owner and origin are still unknown, and investigators are collecting further parts before saying anything about how it came down.

For first time, foreign government is funding Ukrainian drone school: Canada picks foundation that has already bought Ukraine nearly $50M in drones. Canada, once behind on drones, gets Ukraine's combat experience in return.

Humanitarian and social impact

Strikes on UN warehouses push aid money from delivery to protection. The UN is weighing underground storage for Ukraine aid supplies after Russia hit 10 of its facilities this year.

Russian drone killed five people on a scheduled minibus in southeastern Ukraine. The vehicle was running an intercity route through a district that sits across the river from Russian-held ground when the strike caught it.

Political and legal developments

US charges five as alleged Kremlin assassination network reaches American soil. Prosecutors say the network expanded from targeting Russian dissidents and defectors to arranging attacks against European countries supporting Ukraine.

He thought Ukrainian army uniform would hide what he did under occupation. It didn't. Man who guarded Kherson's Russian-run prison drew eight years. He guarded cells holding captured Ukrainian resistance members, then hid inside the army before the SBU caught him at a training center.

Kushner's "win-win" peace deal is impossible when Putin wants all of Ukraine — Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian president said he knew Putin would never change his goal, and that the deal formula was built on a misreading of what Russia wanted.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Russian spies ran a campaign against Kyiv on Anthropic’s Claude, and the AI chatbot’s maker caught them at it. The operators automated phishing, intrusion, and data theft, leaving the human to refine the workflows.

Military

"Only the first season" – Ukraine unveils secret counteroffensive in a region Russia has been trying to seize for 12 years. Ukraine says its forces have cleared Russian infiltrators and retaken territory in northern Donetsk, while the broader scope of "Operation Vivaldi" remains undisclosed.

"Huge increase" in Russian assault groups trying to break through to Dobropillia, but they are using familiar tactics, staff sergeant says. But the Ukrainian military has already mined the main routes Russian forces could use to reach the city, according to the soldier.

Ukraine's drone campaign is changing where Putin goes – now his flagship forum is being moved out of Sochi. Ukraine has sharply intensified its deep-strike drone campaign since Putin last visited Sochi, and now his security service is moving his flagship forum out of the resort.

Ukraine keeps hitting the fuel that Russia's war runs on. Its latest target is the Slavyansk-EKO refinery, with an annual processing capacity of at least 3 million tonnes. The Ukrainian military struck it as part of a deep-strike operation, according to military intelligence.

Ukraine hit the radar that guards Sochi, the Russian resort city it struck ten days ago. Drones burned two fuel depots there ten days ago, and the Ukrainian military says the system meant to stop them is now the target.

No NATO army has fought modern war: Ukrainian officers set their battlefield practice against NATO doctrine and exposed where its assumptions no longer fit. Ukrainian and NATO officers spent three weeks together in Poland.

He had survived Mariupol, Russian captivity and took over Ukraine's Azov grouping in Donetsk. Now Brigadier General Prokopenko warns Russia may mobilize up to 600,000 for its next offensive. Prokopenko, the Mariupol-defense commander now leading the Azov grouping in Donetsk, says the aim is to seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Intelligence and technology

Chinese drones over German bases, paid saboteurs lighting fires for Russia—Germany's military spells out the new normal. First mandated annual report from Germany's MAD puts a Kremlin sabotage pattern on the statutory record—plus Chinese drones over Bundeswehr bases.

Poland can't arrest its way out of Russia's spy pipeline—107 espionage cases in 20 months, and the tempo is holding. 67 cases in 2025, at least 40 more in the first eight months of 2026—and those are only the top-tier investigations Poland's national prosecutors handle.

Ukraine successfully tests interceptor against faster Gerans as Russia floods its skies with drones. Russia is increasingly deploying upgraded drones capable of striking deeper and faster, intensifying attacks that cause mass destruction and civilian casualties across Ukraine.

For first time, Ukraine's drone makers and Europe's arms firms have joined one body: EU-Ukraine Drone Alliance. Eighteen companies aim to build drones and counter-drone systems together, folding Ukraine's combat-tested industry into Europe's.

Modern war that the US is not ready for: For the price of one American cruise missile, Russia builds 20 "poor-man" drones and missiles. Russia is fielding cheap jet drones and missiles built with Chinese parts—slipping past defenses Ukraine and the West spent years building.

International

Russian warship fires flares at Danish military helicopter as Moscow's provocations escalate. One flare passed close to the aircraft during a routine mission off Denmark, as NATO called the incident another "irresponsible Russian action" intended to intimidate allies.

Finland approves second-largest defense package for Ukraine as Russia's next brutal winter campaign looms. The €290 million package contains military equipment urgently requested by Ukraine as Kyiv braces for another winter of Russian attacks on cities and critical infrastructure.

19 Russian defense companies remain outside international sanctions, helping sustain Russia's war machine. The companies are part of KRET, a major Russian defense holding, and produce navigation systems, gyroscopes, and motors used in missiles and drones.

A century ago, bright red trousers made soldiers easy targets. Ukraine's ex-army chief says the West is wearing them again. Ukraine's ex-army chief Zaluzhnyi: the war has surrendered itself to marketers and wheeler-dealers chasing quick profit, and the West's old security guarantees are the red trousers all over again.

Italian jets destroyed a drone over Lithuania in the first such shootdown in the country. Lithuania says there is a high probability it carried explosives, and its origin has not been established.

Lithuania launches military exercises across 12 municipalities as Russia keeps probing NATO's eastern border. A larger multinational exercise is running at the same time on the Belarusian border, with about 2,500 troops from eight countries.

Belarus trains troops to fight saboteurs as Minsk puts its military on a war footing. Warnings that Russia could use Belarusian territory against Ukraine or a NATO state give the drills their edge.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia brings children from Moldova's Transnistria to occupied Crimea for "patriotic education". Schools in the Russia-backed enclave now begin each week with separatist flag ceremonies. Rights activists say children as young as 11 train with weapons and drones.

Russia has damaged 500+ Ukrainian locomotives as attacks on railways reach Polish border. Ukraine is urgently asking partners for replacement locomotives as more than half of the fleet's wartime losses have occurred this year.

Russia keeps hitting Kyiv's gas stations. Now they get military air-threat tracking. Authorities are giving fuel-station workers real-time information on aerial threats after a series of strikes on stations across the capital.

Russian drones started 17 fires in Chernihiv Oblast, adding forest to the list of things the war destroys without aiming. Falling wreckage sparked blazes across nine oblasts in a single week, with nearly three-quarters of all forest fires linked to military activity.

Russian drones killed a man and injured eight in Kyiv, hitting two gas stations. The overnight wave sent 200 drones at Ukraine, and the capital's filling stations have become a recurring target this month.

Russian strikes will cost Ukraine's economy up to $10 billion this year, ministry says. Kyiv is answering with compensation and cheap credit, aimed at the companies losing warehouses fastest.

Political and legal developments

"We expect specifics from our partners": Zelenskyy says Ukraine will accept energy truce with Russia only if West guarantees Moscow won't break it after its elections. Zelenskyy says any potential truce needs Western guarantees.

Zelenskyy suspends prosecutor general who charged the bureau probing his own office. The agencies he accused are the ones whose independence Brussels treats as a condition of Ukraine's EU accession.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusive

Russian spies ran a campaign against Kyiv on Anthropic's Claude, and the AI chatbot's maker caught them at it. The operators automated phishing, intrusion, and data theft, leaving the human to refine the workflows.

Military

Ukraine keeps hitting the fuel that Russia's war runs on. Its latest target is the Slavyansk-EKO refinery, with an annual processing capacity of at least 3 million tonnes. The Ukrainian military struck it as part of a deep-strike operation, according to military intelligence.

Ukraine hit the radar that guards Sochi, the Russian resort city it struck ten days ago. Drones burned two fuel depots there ten days ago, and the Ukrainian military says the system meant to stop them is now the target.

He had survived Mariupol, Russian captivity and took over Ukraine's Azov grouping in Donetsk. Now Brigadier General Prokopenko warns Russia may mobilize up to 600,000 for its next offensive. Prokopenko, the Mariupol-defense commander now leading the Azov grouping in Donetsk, says the aim is to seize all of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Intelligence and technology

Modern war that the US is not ready for: For the price of one American cruise missile, Russia builds 20 "poor-man" drones and missiles. Russia is fielding cheap jet drones and missiles built with Chinese parts—slipping past defenses Ukraine and the West spent years building.

Iran armed Russia with Shaheds. Now it wants the jet-powered Geran-5 remake back to fight Israel and the US. Russia turned Iran's imported Shahed into a jet that flies at up to 600 km/h, with a new airframe closer to a cruise missile than to the propeller drone Tehran sent it.

Ukraine's FLYCAT strike drone is built to fly without satellite signals. Its bigger new sibling is designed to reach 200 km behind the front. Everything on the combat-proven FLYCAT but the engines is made in Ukraine, and Octava Defence says the new long-range version can stay airborne for more than two and a half hours.

Russia built five more halls for the drones it assembles using Chinese parts to hit Ukrainian cities. The nightly waves that reach Kyiv and the western border regions mostly begin on the assembly lines inside this zone.

International

"We expect specifics from our partners": Zelenskyy says Ukraine will accept energy truce with Russia only if West guarantees Moscow won't break it after its elections. Zelenskyy says any potential truce needs Western guarantees.

No NATO army has fought modern war: Ukrainian officers set their battlefield practice against NATO doctrine and exposed where its assumptions no longer fit. Ukrainian and NATO officers spent three weeks together in Poland.

Lithuania launches military exercises across 12 municipalities as Russia keeps probing NATO's eastern border. A larger multinational exercise is running at the same time on the Belarusian border, with about 2,500 troops from eight countries.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian strikes will cost Ukraine's economy up to $10 billion this year, ministry says. Kyiv is answering with compensation and cheap credit, aimed at the companies losing warehouses fastest.

A fourth Ukrainian pharmaceutical warehouse has burned in a Russian strike since the start of the month. Russian forces damaged the newest one in Odesa, where the buildings belong to a wholesaler supplying drugstores across Ukraine.

Political and legal developments

Zelenskyy suspends prosecutor general who charged the bureau probing his own office. The agencies he accused are the ones whose independence Brussels treats as a condition of Ukraine's EU accession.

New developments

Belarus trains troops to fight saboteurs as Minsk puts its military on a war footing. Warnings that Russia could use Belarusian territory against Ukraine or a NATO state give the drills their edge.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine is working down the short list of ships that shell its cities with cruise missiles. A Neptune reached one of them tied up at its own pier. Drones went in with the missile, and the general staff counts three more vessels and the port's fuel-oil storage hit the same night.

Military

Russia strikes passenger train near Polish border as drone swarms reach deeper into western Ukraine. Russia's attacks on railways and border crossings are putting civilian travel at growing risk. Poland's Donald Tusk warned days earlier that Moscow could target Ukraine's crossings with Poland.

Watch first naval battle in history fought entirely by drones: Ukrainian uncrewed boat spots, fires on, and sinks Russian one in Black Sea. A gun-armed Sargan-3000 spotted and sank a Russian naval drone in the Black Sea.

Ukraine is closing Russia's skies without hitting single airliner: Russia shut its airports 993 times in August, worst month for civil aviation since war began. The closures are triggered by Russia's own emergency protocol every time a drone nears.

Ukraine retook 240 square km north of Lyman and nobody reported it for three months. The 3rd Army Corps attacked on 22 May and nobody outside the army reported it until late August. Whether it changes the war is the one thing the analysts do not agree on.

Future wars will be won not only by those who have the best technological systems, Ukraine's former top general says in London. Valerii Zaluzhnyi says an expensive Cold War missile has become a cheap weapon fired in bulk.

Russia has fired its Oreshnik with six warheads at Ukraine three times. State Duma defense committee member says "hour is not far" before fourth one. He cast it as revenge for a naval drone strike on Sochi.

Intelligence and technology

Fast kill but also long game: Russia is using AI-generated women and long conversations to lure Ukrainian soldiers to their deaths. The fake profiles are one of three versions of a honey-trap scheme that has killed six soldiers, the SBU says.

Russia is working to modernize its weapons on every front. This month, its drones are expected to carry 20-element anti-jam antennas to outpace Ukraine's jamming. Russia's new drones and cruise weapons navigate rather than fly, so Ukraine has to jam GPS, not the operator link.

A Russian intelligence operative and a Belarusian petty criminal: Germany names the Leipzig bomb-drone suspects. The files show one of them handled preparation and logistics, and the other left a scrap of glove on the equipment that flew the drone.

Second fire in a month hits the Bulgarian plant that ships ammunition to Ukraine, and sabotage is on the table. The country's interior minister has ordered every ammunition depot in the country inspected and says outside interference cannot be excluded.

"Its task is not cargo. Its task is people": After Russian FPV drone hit their house, K-2 brigade sent ground robot to carry casualties out.

"Credit to the Russians, they know how to scale," Ukrainian military spokesperson says. Ukraine's jet-drone interceptors show early promise, but harder job ahead. Scaling them up to match Ukraine's success against slower drones is the real test.

Money, not engineering, is what stands between Ukraine and Russia's fastest drones, Zelenskyy says. Dozens of firms are chasing the problem, but nobody has funded production at the scale the nightly waves demand.

International

Ukraine's fight against Russia reaches Africa as Ukrainian drone specialists support forces battling Moscow. Ukrainian drone specialists are supporting forces fighting Russian troops in Mali, training personnel from other Sahel countries and operating in Sudan as Kyiv expands its military activity far beyond Ukraine.

From Russian classrooms to Iran's defense industry: how Moscow trains Iranian specialists. Almost 10,000 Iranians studied at Russian universities in 2025, 42% more than two years earlier, by the Russian science ministry's count, with medicine still the most popular field.

The EU just released $7 billion for Ukraine to buy Patriot missiles and drones. The money comes from Europe's existing loan to Kyiv, and the decision finally lets Ukraine place orders for the American interceptors it cannot build itself.

A drone beside a Ukrainian cargo plane is costing Russia its last consulate in Germany. Four others closed in 2023, leaving Moscow with an embassy and, from this month, no consular presence outside it.

Ukraine shows its drones in Canada as Ottawa pledges a third of its future output. The presentation followed a declaration on defense cooperation that Kyiv calls the first step toward a drone deal still to be signed.

Humanitarian and social impact

"There is real hunger there": Oleshky, occupied town in Ukraine's Kherson Oblast, turned 942 this week. Behind Russian blockade, its people eat roadside grass. The 942-year-old Kherson city has spent months cut off, its aid convoys shelled.

Ukraine's Third Army Corps won't just hold Donetsk fortress cities. It's building mission to pull civilians out of them. A dedicated fund is opening to pay for more trips, more often.

"Sometimes I forget I don't have a leg": how two Ukrainian infantry soldiers returned to war behind screens. Two Ukrainian soldiers who lost limbs to mines have returned to Khartiia, their National Guard unit, working the drone screens, instead of walking into positions on the ground.

Political and legal developments

EU has never sanctioned Russia's nuclear sector. Activists say that gap just let Rosatom into German plant, and they're suing to close it. BUND says letting Russia's Rosatom help make fuel at the Lingen plant, amid the war and sabotage in Germany, hands Moscow critical infrastructure.

Ukraine's parliament changes how military budget is cleared, and freezes money behind one of war's cleverest supply schemes, defense-industry council says. The program lets Ukrainian units turn confirmed kills into new weapons, but a parliamentary rule change has frozen the payments.

EU sanctions rollover stalls over Russian oligarch Usmanov as Paris backs Bratislava's demand to delist him. Ambassadors broke up with no agreement on renewing the measures, and they have one sitting left before every restriction on the list runs out on its own.

Canada sanctions eight Russians over deported Ukrainian children as only about 2,500 of more than 20,000 have come home. Ottawa's listing bars anyone in Canada from handling the property of the eight, and it took effect a week before Ukraine's leader arrived for talks.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine is working down the short list of ships that shell its cities with cruise missiles. A Neptune reached one of them tied up at its own pier. Drones went in with the missile, and the general staff counts three more vessels and the port's fuel-oil storage hit the same night.

Military

Watch first naval battle in history fought entirely by drones: Ukrainian uncrewed boat spots, fires on, and sinks Russian one in Black Sea. A gun-armed Sargan-3000 spotted and sank a Russian naval drone in the Black Sea.

Ukraine is closing Russia's skies without hitting single airliner: Russia shut its airports 993 times in August, worst month for civil aviation since war began. The closures are triggered by Russia's own emergency protocol every time a drone nears.

Ukraine retook 240 square km north of Lyman and nobody reported it for three months. The 3rd Army Corps attacked on 22 May and nobody outside the army reported it until late August. Whether it changes the war is the one thing the analysts do not agree on.

Intelligence and technology

Fast kill but also long game: Russia is using AI-generated women and long conversations to lure Ukrainian soldiers to their deaths. The fake profiles are one of three versions of a honey-trap scheme that has killed six soldiers, the SBU says.

Russia is working to modernize its weapons on every front. This month, its drones are expected to carry 20-element anti-jam antennas to outpace Ukraine's jamming. Russia's new drones and cruise weapons navigate rather than fly, so Ukraine has to jam GPS, not the operator link.

Second fire in a month hits the Bulgarian plant that ships ammunition to Ukraine, and sabotage is on the table. The country's interior minister has ordered every ammunition depot in the country inspected and says outside interference cannot be excluded.

From Russian classrooms to Iran's defense industry: how Moscow trains Iranian specialists. Almost 10,000 Iranians studied at Russian universities in 2025, 42% more than two years earlier, by the Russian science ministry's count, with medicine still the most popular field.

International

EU sanctions rollover stalls over Russian oligarch Usmanov as Paris backs Bratislava's demand to delist him. Ambassadors broke up with no agreement on renewing the measures, and they have one sitting left before every restriction on the list runs out on its own.

The EU just released $7 billion for Ukraine to buy Patriot missiles and drones. The money comes from Europe's existing loan to Kyiv, and the decision finally lets Ukraine place orders for the American interceptors it cannot build itself.

Humanitarian and social impact

"There is real hunger there": Oleshky, occupied town in Ukraine's Kherson Oblast, turned 942 this week. Behind Russian blockade, its people eat roadside grass. The 942-year-old Kherson city has spent months cut off, its aid convoys shelled.

Ukraine's Third Army Corps won't just hold Donetsk fortress cities. It's building mission to pull civilians out of them. A dedicated fund is opening to pay for more trips, more often.

Political and legal developments

EU has never sanctioned Russia's nuclear sector. Activists say that gap just let Rosatom into German plant, and they're suing to close it. BUND says letting Russia's Rosatom help make fuel at the Lingen plant, amid the war and sabotage in Germany, hands Moscow critical infrastructure.

A Russian intelligence operative and a Belarusian petty criminal: Germany names the Leipzig bomb-drone suspects. The files show one of them handled preparation and logistics, and the other left a scrap of glove on the equipment that flew the drone.

Ukraine's parliament changes how military budget is cleared, and freezes money behind one of war's cleverest supply schemes, defense-industry council says. The program lets Ukrainian units turn confirmed kills into new weapons, but a parliamentary rule change has frozen the payments.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine is working down the short list of ships that shell its cities with cruise missiles. A Neptune reached one of them tied up at its own pier. Drones went in with the missile, and the general staff counts three more vessels and the port's fuel-oil storage hit the same night.

One Russian drone held up seven flights in Moldova, Zelenskyy's trip to Norway for King Harald V's funeral among them. The drone crossed Moldova twice that afternoon, and controllers shut the airspace over the center of the country for more than an hour, until after it came down in the north.

Military

Ukraine hits key Russia-Iran logistics hub in Caspian Sea, damages three Russian warships. A fire broke out at the Makhachkala port after Ukrainian forces struck its oil infrastructure, while separate attacks damaged Russian vessels in Novorossiysk.

Intelligence and technology

"Its task is not cargo. Its task is people": After Russian FPV drone hit their house, K-2 brigade sent ground robot to carry casualties out.

Future wars will be won not only by those who have the best technological systems, Ukraine's former top general says in London. Valerii Zaluzhnyi says an expensive Cold War missile has become a cheap weapon fired in bulk.

"Credit to the Russians, they know how to scale," Ukrainian military spokesperson says. Ukraine's jet-drone interceptors show early promise, but harder job ahead. Scaling them up to match Ukraine's success against slower drones is the real test.

Ukraine shows its drones in Canada as Ottawa pledges a third of its future output. The presentation followed a declaration on defense cooperation that Kyiv calls the first step toward a drone deal still to be signed.

Money, not engineering, is what stands between Ukraine and Russia's fastest drones, Zelenskyy says. Dozens of firms are chasing the problem, but nobody has funded production at the scale the nightly waves demand.

International

A drone beside a Ukrainian cargo plane is costing Russia its last consulate in Germany. Four others closed in 2023, leaving Moscow with an embassy and, from this month, no consular presence outside it.

Humanitarian and social impact

"Sometimes I forget I don't have a leg": how two Ukrainian infantry soldiers returned to war behind screens. Two Ukrainian soldiers who lost limbs to mines have returned to Khartiia, their National Guard unit, working the drone screens—instead of walking into positions on the ground.

Political and legal developments

Russia has fired its Oreshnik with six warheads at Ukraine three times. State Duma defense committee member says "hour is not far" before fourth one. He cast it as revenge for a naval drone strike on Sochi.

Canada sanctions eight Russians over deported Ukrainian children as only about 2,500 of more than 20,000 have come home. Ottawa's listing bars anyone in Canada from handling the property of the eight, and it took effect a week before Ukraine's leader arrived for talks.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

One Russian drone held up seven flights in Moldova, Zelenskyy’s trip to Norway for King Harald V’s funeral among them. The drone crossed Moldova twice that afternoon, and controllers shut the airspace over the center of the country for more than an hour, until after it came down in the north.

Military

Ukraine hits key Russia-Iran logistics hub in Caspian Sea, damages three Russian warships. A fire broke out at the Makhachkala port after Ukrainian forces struck its oil infrastructure, while separate attacks damaged Russian vessels in Novorossiysk.

Can't intercept the missiles? Hit the factories—Ukraine's other way to stop Russia's ballistic missiles. Kyiv's US Patriots are all but gone as Russia builds ~100 of its deadliest missiles a month. Ukraine's fix: a $700,000 homemade interceptor.

Ukraine says drones hit Russia's gas heartland over 3,000 km from its border—a wartime record. Manufacturer Fire Point identified the drones as FP-1s. Ukrainian analysts said one strike hit equipment used in plastics production.

Ukraine downed a record 24,000 Russian copter drones in August—one per 1.5 km of front, every day. Each of those copters that spots a target can call in a full-fledged attack—so every one downed is a spotter out of the sky before it calls anything in.

Ukrainian commander, whose unit destroyed 57,000 Russia's targets: US telling allies to brace for years of war at Ramstein means no "miraculous de-escalation" is coming. The Kremlin understands only force and the West should press harder before winter, he adds.

Far from any front line: Russia has hit at least five of Ukraine's western border crossings with Moldova and NATO member since late August. During one strike, a drone flew into Moldova toward Romania and NATO jets scrambled.

"Neither pickup nor Bradley can enter": retreating Russians have mined sector where three Ukrainian oblasts meet so heavily that only ground robots can cross. On the junction of the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, Russian forces lace their old positions and roads with mines and FPVs.

Ukraine's top commander scrapped more than 30 obsolete General Staff orders, freeing field commanders from paperwork built for different war. Many of the cancelled rules dated to the trench fighting of 2016-2020.

Intelligence and technology

Russia rehearsed how to disable Europe's undersea communications cables near Svalbard. NATO forces drove them off. British, Norwegian, and US forces tracked Russian vessels using deep-sea submersibles to simulate an operation designed to disable critical cables linking Svalbard with mainland Norway.

Ukraine's Bulava drone can now hunt in the dark—one camera handles day and night. Every new batch of the strike drone will ship with the upgrade, which also keeps it airborne longer and reaches farther than before.

Ai-Petri's maker began building EW gear after Russia took Crimea in 2014. It's now shown system, named for peninsula's highest peak, at Polish expo. It is already deployed in some 400 units along the front.

Russia is switching its cheap Molniya strike drones to digital video. When the change is complete, Ukraine's analog detectors go blind, Flash warns. Ukrainian interceptors must learn to catch the new signals now.

Romania trailed a Russian agent for seven months—then revealed what he was filming. Romania watched a man filming NATO bases and Ukraine's giant Antonov cargo planes for months.

"We found the key to the Russians": Ex-Defense Minister Fedorov returns from the US, planning Ukraine's largest venture fund for defense tech and war think tank. Fedorov credited contacts built around Palantir with helping raise it. No name, size, or date yet.

Osa air defense missile stocks are running low, but Ukraine has developed the RK-19 as a replacement. Ukraine's Osa launchers stay in the fight with a domestically built RK-19 interceptor as the Soviet 9M33 stock runs down.

Russia's new ballistic missile could reach western Ukraine—and it may be tested there within months. Russia is building more ballistic missiles as well as longer-ranged ones, part of a push to tip Ukraine into a social and economic crisis, Kyiv's military intelligence says.

20% to 70%: Ukraine's National Guard rewired its drone war around cables. Fiber-optic drones trail a cable with no signal to jam—and now account for 70% of the drones the National Guard uses, up from about a fifth.

International

Romania plans to send 20 officers to support Ukraine, but presidential administration denies claims Romania is being drawn into the war. The personnel are expected to join the Operational Command for the Multinational Force in Support of Ukraine. The command is based "thousands of kilometers from the front line."

US struck 5 Iranian tankers – 3 were also linked to Russia's shadow fleet. The vessels had carried Russian oil, called at Russian ports, or operated through networks used to evade sanctions, according to Ukraine.

Canada pledges more than $1 billion for Ukraine's critical air defense as Russia intensifies missile and drone attacks. The package includes Patriot missiles, F-16 ammunition and joint drone production, alongside Canada's commitment to join Ukraine's FREYJA anti-ballistic program.

Poland expects Russia to target border crossings as attacks on Ukraine escalate – Russia has already hit crossings with Moldova and Romania. Moscow has already struck at least five crossings with Moldova and NATO member Romania since late August, pushing its aerial campaign farther from the front line.

A drone nearly hit Zelenskyy's plane taking off from Moldova on his way to a king's funeral, Norway's PM says. Zelenskyy arrived in Oslo having spent much of the night on the phone about strikes on his own country.

Humanitarian and social impact

Kyiv couple marries after Russian strike ruins their home. Liudmyla and Leonid Ryzhak married in Kyiv on 8 September, hours after a Russian strike hit a warehouse across the street and a blast wave left their apartment uninhabitable.

He photographed Ukraine, then enlisted and died defending it at 27. Eleven years on, Viktor Hurniak's story is still being told. A new biography in a Ukrainian publisher's "True Heroes" series gathers what his family and friends remember of him.

Mines and unexploded munitions have harmed 1,688 civilians since Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine says. Farmers were the worst-hit occupation, in a country the UN's mine action service calls the most heavily contaminated since the Second World War.

Political and legal developments

EU lawmakers renew push to seize frozen Russian assets as Ukraine faces its toughest winter yet with a €23 billion defense funding gap. A cross-party group of 122 MEPs is pressing EU leaders to revive plans to turn more than €200 billion in immobilized Russian assets into support for Kyiv.

"I will continue to work just as productively": former intelligence chief Budanov shrugs off third Russian arrest order as an acknowledgment of his effectiveness. A Moscow court accuses him of prohibited methods of warfare.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine’s prosecutor general resigns as the watchdogs he was appointed to leash close in. He is the third powerful figure they've brought down. What looks like a government in crisis is a state where impunity at the top is ending.

A US-Russia deal won’t end the war. It will start the next one. Two American processes are converging on the same point: the cost to Russia of attacking NATO. A peace on Moscow's terms lowers the political price; a US troop drawdown lowers the military one. Moscow is waiting to read both before it moves.

Team news

Vacancy: deputy editor-in-chief.

Military

Ukraine is sending its winning brigades to where the fighting is worst. The 46th just turned up outside Kramatorsk. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the last two big cities in the Donbas that Russia does not hold. The 46th Airmobile Brigade left the southeast in early July and reached them before anyone outside the army knew.

Trump’s peace envoys left, and Russia hit Kyiv with ballistics—the one thing Ukraine still struggles to stop. Only two ballistic missiles came down overnight, and the shortfall is now the centerpiece of what Kyiv is asking its allies to deliver.

Ukraine’s new top commander is pushing to unwind a Soviet-inherited command model mid-war. He wants combat-tested sergeants to have real authority. Ukraine inherited a system where officers decided everything and sergeants were senior soldiers with no ladder of their own.

Russia deploys missile brigade to Belarus as fears grow over new threat to Kyiv. The move comes as Russia steps up aerial attacks on Kyiv from the north and Belarus allows Moscow to use its territory to help guide strikes against Ukrainian targets.

Some ten robot boats. Five hundred Russian air sorties. One very lopsided hunt. Missions that once took a night now stretch to five days, and Russia keeps its fleet hidden, a naval drone unit commander says.

Intelligence and technology

Ukrainian engine for “Bars” missile-drone passes final tests. This is the last major imported component of the jet-powered drone used for deep strikes against Russia.

A Ukrainian strike drone that quietly hit 450-plus Russian targets steps out of the shadows. The drone pairs with a scout to punch through Russian jamming.

Ukraine’s new Hryfon Zakhid runs the whole drone chain on one screen. One operator assigns targets to drone crews from a tablet, in real time and without radio.

Ukrainian Armor unveils two new troop carriers at Polish arms exhibition: fast light scout and mine-resistant MRAP. Both meet NATO’s STANAG 4569 protection standards. Both cover opposite ends of the same job.

Ukraine shows a home-built missile designed to hit ballistic targets for the first time, the Koral, at Poland’s MSPO. Its guidance combines inertial navigation, radio correction, and an active radar homing head.

European NATO members may be the second target of Russia’s winter missile buildup—Ukraine’s foreign intelligence. The warning went to the national security advisors of Europe's leaders, with a call for urgent sanctions on 55 more firms keeping Russia's missile lines running.

Ukrainian AI targeting module placed third among 60-plus entries in NATO contest. NATO and Ukraine ran the challenge through their first jointly staffed body.

Ukrainian university and the Flamingo missile-maker opened an engineering course. On the first try, zero of 150 passed. Even students who scored well on the university entrance exam flunked the physics round.

Ukraine’s Brave1 says it can down Russia’s Banderol missiles with cruising speed 650 km/h for less than what they cost, and has destroyed at least four. In July, Ukrainian troops downed Banderols with Swedish Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns designed in the late 1940s.

Ukraine has 67 companies working to shoot down Russia’s jet-powered drones en masse, Zelenskyy says. Only three to five have real results. He called the whole air-defense push "Plan B" to diplomacy's "Plan A".

China calls itself neutral—but its fiber ends up in the drones that hit Ukraine. The papers, reviewed by Western governments, trace drone-grade material straight from a Chinese state firm to a sanctioned Russian plant.

International

Brussels cleared Ukraine to spend EU loan money on American Patriot missiles for the coming winter of Russian attacks. The request went in four days earlier, and the funds come from the bloc's existing credit line rather than any new pledge.

Ukrainian journalist asks Trump’s envoy to his face whether he was disgusted to sit across from “international criminal” Putin. Witkoff wouldn’t answer directly. Earlier, Russia's FSB put a $400,000 bounty on Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon.

Humanitarian and social impact

A Russian drone hit a Kyiv television newsroom in broad daylight while the channel was live on air. At least 5 people were injured, the building is partly destroyed, and firefighters put out the blaze at the site.

Russian-occupied nuclear plant ran on diesel for almost three weeks. Ukraine ended that, and the UN’s nuclear watchdog calls it a crucial step against an accident. The IAEA calls it a crucial step to prevent a nuclear accident at a site that had been facing a possible station blackout.

Russia burns occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s last-resort generators as everyday power, Ukraine says. Off-site power has been gone since 20 August, and the plant has cut its running generators to two to stretch the fuel that is left.

“Now on the 1,657th day”: Ukraine’s crews restored power to over 900,000 homes last week as Russia keeps striking grid before winter. Crews brought it back to 596 settlements, most of them in Odesa and Donetsk.

Kyiv stockpiles food and water as Russia’s new aerial tactics threaten a brutal winter. Russia has already targeted food storage around Kyiv, while Ukraine’s limited air defenses struggle to stop ballistic missiles and faster drones.

Political and legal developments

Russia’s FM says war must end so there is “no more Nazism” in Europe. Russian occupation official already said what that means: erasing Ukraine and stopping its aid. The collaborator put it plainly: "denazification is re-Russification".

Read our earlier daily review here.

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko resigned on 7 September, hours after publicly defending himself, as anti-corruption investigators closed in on an alleged criminal organization operating inside his own office.

"I do not want the position of prosecutor general to be used as an instrument of political confrontation," Kravchenko said, announcing his departure on Telegram. "My position regarding the charges remains unchanged"—a denial he has held throughout, including in a 6 September statement rejecting any role in protecting the call centers.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the resignation on the evening of 7 September. "I had a fairly long meeting with the prosecutor general; he submitted the relevant resignation letter, and the submission will be sent to the Verkhovna Rada," Zelenskyy said, adding that he had spent the day on personnel matters and had also met the heads of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO). The resignation is not final until parliament acts on it.

It reads as a scandal. It is closer to the opposite.

Kravchenko was appointed in June 2025, as the anti-corruption agencies were pressing toward figures close to the president—and his appointment came alongside the draft law, No. 12414, that would have put NABU and SAPO under his control. That law triggered the first street protests since Russia's invasion; within ten days, parliament reversed the part stripping the agencies' independence.

The provisions handing Kravchenko a personnel monopoly over the prosecution service were never repealed.

Explore further

Contents

• Ukraine’s anti-corruption cops just beat the president—but the fight’s not over
• What Operation Carthage found
  • Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies target Prosecutor General’s Office official linked to fraudulent call centers
• The searches, and the surveillance files
• Why it matters
  • First real crash test for Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions

Ukraine’s anti-corruption cops just beat the president—but the fight’s not over

Since then, those agencies have forced out Andriy Yermak, the second-most-powerful man in the country. Now they have reached the prosecutor general—whose office kept, even after the capture law was reversed, a personnel monopoly over the prosecution service.

The corruption is not new. What is new is that it is being caught, and that being caught now costs the powerful their offices. The story of the past year is not that Ukraine is coming apart, but that its watchdogs have stopped being toothless.

What Operation Carthage found

On 5 September, NABU and SAPO announced they had uncovered a criminal organization run, investigators say, by a department head inside the Prosecutor General's Office. Its members allegedly took regular bribes from fraudulent call centers—operations that defraud victims in Ukraine and abroad—in exchange for shielding them from prosecution, then laundered the money through property, assets registered to other people, and associates' bank accounts.

The group was formed in mid-2025 and recruited serving prosecutors and associates, NABU and SAPO said. Over 20 million hryvnias (about $449,000) went on property, jewelry, and other high-value assets, according to NABU.

NABU described the organization as run by the head of a department inside the Prosecutor General's Office. Sources told Ukrainska Pravda that the official is Serhii Kropyva, deputy head of the office's International Legal Cooperation Department. He was remanded in custody on 6 September with bail set at 120 million hryvnias (about $2.7 million).

In recordings released by NABU, a figure using the codename "Chancellor," reported to be Kropyva, is described as protected by a "boss." Two details identify that boss: the patronymic "Andriiovych," and a previous job leading the State Tax Service. Ruslan Andriiovych Kravchenko ran the State Tax Service from December 2024 until he became prosecutor general in June 2025. The investigation understands the "boss" to be Kravchenko, the Kyiv Independent reported.

NABU has not publicly named Kravchenko as a suspect. He denies instructing anyone to protect illegal call centers or using his office to shield them. He resigned nonetheless.

Explore further

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies target Prosecutor General’s Office official linked to fraudulent call centers

The searches, and the surveillance files

NABU searches also reached the offices of Kravchenko himself, his deputy Mariia Vdovychenko, and the head of the Odesa Regional Military Administration, Oleh Kiper. Kravchenko defended the handling of those searches at a 7 September press conference—the same day he resigned.

The investigation into the Prosecutor General's Office is the latest in a widening confrontation between Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies and the institutions around the presidency. When NABU announced the case, it described a senior official running a criminal ring from inside the office meant to prosecute exactly such crimes.

Why it matters

The Prosecutor General's Office is one of the institutions Kyiv relies on to supervise—and, critics say, to restrain—NABU's investigations into figures close to the president. That an investigation reached the prosecutor general himself is a measure of how far the anti-corruption bodies have pushed against that restraint, not a sign they have failed.

It caps a run of accountability cases since July 2025 that would have been unthinkable earlier in the war.

In June 2025, NABU charged Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Chernyshov—the only official at Zelenskyy's private birthday during lockdown—with a $24 million land scheme, the first case to reach the president's "family."

The attempt to capture the agencies came weeks later, and failed: in November, Operation Midas exposed a $100 million scheme that forced out Zelenskyy's chief of staff and two ministers, one of them later detained at the border. Other resonant cases include Operation Forest Gump, targeting officials inside the President's Office. Now Carthage has reached the prosecutor general himself.

The pattern that looks like a government in crisis is also a state where stealing at the top is no longer safe—and where the public has twice in a year come into the streets over how power is used: in July 2025 to defend NABU and SAPO, and in July 2026 for a sacked minister.

Kravchenko took office in June 2025. He is the second prosecutor general to leave under a cloud in three years, after Andriy Kostin.

Explore further

First real crash test for Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions

Exclusive

Ukraine's Swedish radar planes have flown inside Russian missile range for six months. None has been shot down.. Kyiv said nothing until this week. The planes can see 450 km, and Russia's best missile flies nearly as far.

Ukraine put its own peace proposals on the table as two US envoys reached Kyiv for the first time. Security guarantees topped the Ukrainian list, and the day's diplomacy ran in consecutive sessions that widened to include three European governments' security chiefs.

Ukraine logged impacts at 11 sites while the American peace delegation was still in Moscow. The strike package mixed jet-powered attack drones, decoys, and cruise missiles across several oblasts.

Ukraine is running short of its best missiles for hunting Russia's jet drones. Now MiG-29s are firing 1970s weapons. The R-73 was the missile for the job. Ukraine has burned through enough of them to bring back a weapon that was obsolete in 2022.

Ukraine is taking 1980s Leopards from across Europe and giving them radar-guided anti-drone guns and gunner-less turrets. Thirty-one get a Belgian turret the crew doesn't sit in. Others become radar-guided drone killers, built in Rome and paid for with frozen Russian money.

Team news

Vacancy: deputy editor-in-chief.

Military

Ukraine's new top commander is pushing to unwind a Soviet-inherited command model mid-war. He wants combat-tested sergeants to have real authority. Ukraine inherited a system where officers decided everything and sergeants were senior soldiers with no ladder of their own.

Russia deploys missile brigade to Belarus as fears grow over new threat to Kyiv. The move comes as Russia steps up aerial attacks on Kyiv from the north and Belarus allows Moscow to use its territory to help guide strikes against Ukrainian targets.

Some ten robot boats. Five hundred Russian air sorties. One very lopsided hunt. Missions that once took a night now stretch to five days, and Russia keeps its fleet hidden, a naval drone unit commander says.

Ukrainian drones took Ryazan's blending unit after knocking out two of its four crude units. Satellite imagery in August showed half the plant's primary distillation capacity already out of action.

Ukraine's drone forces say they hit 58,465 Russian targets in August, nearly 1,900 a day. Three named campaigns did the strategic damage. Most of the volume is small front-line hits.

Intelligence and technology

Ukrainian AI targeting module placed third among 60-plus entries in NATO contest. NATO and Ukraine ran the challenge through their first jointly staffed body.

Ukrainian university and the Flamingo missile-maker opened an engineering course. On the first try, zero of 150 passed. Even students who scored well on the university entrance exam flunked the physics round.

Ukraine's Brave1 says it can down Russia's Banderol missiles with cruising speed 650 km/h for less than what they cost, and has destroyed at least four. In July, Ukrainian troops downed Banderols with Swedish Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns designed in the late 1940s.

Ukraine has 67 companies working to shoot down Russia's jet-powered drones en masse, Zelenskyy says. Only three to five have real results. He called the whole air-defense push "Plan B" to diplomacy's "Plan A".

China calls itself neutral—but its fiber ends up in the drones that hit Ukraine. The papers, reviewed by Western governments, trace drone-grade material straight from a Chinese state firm to a sanctioned Russian plant.

International

Ukrainian journalist asks Trump's envoy to his face whether he was disgusted to sit across from "international criminal" Putin. Witkoff wouldn't answer directly. Earlier, Russia's FSB put a $400,000 bounty on Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia burns occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant's last-resort generators as everyday power, Ukraine says. Off-site power has been gone since 20 August, and the plant has cut its running generators to two to stretch the fuel that is left.

"Now on the 1,657th day": Ukraine's crews restored power to over 900,000 homes last week as Russia keeps striking grid before winter. Crews brought it back to 596 settlements, most of them in Odesa and Donetsk.

Kyiv stockpiles food and water as Russia's new aerial tactics threaten a brutal winter. Russia has already targeted food storage around Kyiv, while Ukraine's limited air defenses struggle to stop ballistic missiles and faster drones.

Political and legal developments

Russia's FM says war must end so there is "no more Nazism" in Europe. Russian occupation official already said what that means: erasing Ukraine and stopping its aid. The collaborator put it plainly: "denazification is re-Russification".

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine is running short of its best missiles for hunting Russia's jet drones. Now MiG-29s are firing 1970s weapons. The R-73 was the missile for the job. Ukraine has burned through enough of them to bring back a weapon that was obsolete in 2022.

Ukraine is taking 1980s Leopards from across Europe and giving them radar-guided anti-drone guns and gunner-less turrets. Thirty-one get a Belgian turret the crew doesn't sit in. Others become radar-guided drone killers, built in Rome and paid for with frozen Russian money.

Russia destroyed most of Ukraine's big warehouses. Now the country is scrambling to build small ones everywhere. Whether they can do it before winter, and at what cost to prices, is the question now hanging over the country's food supply.

Military

Ukraine's Lasar's Group says its bomber drones destroyed rare Russian Zhitel jammer 55 km behind front. The R-330Zh Zhitel jams GPS, satellite and cellular signals at once.

"Everyone is absolutely livid": Expert says Russian agent may have activated MESH relay within 5 km of attack on Security Service, enraging Ukraine and Europe. The drone was aimed directly at the acting SBU chief's office, Zelenskyy said.

Intelligence and Technology

More than 400 defense firms ask Kyiv to create one state body with real authority over $6.8 billion industry. A year after the strategic-industries ministry folded into Defense, the sector's council says responsibility is scattered across half a dozen agencies.

From HQ to the zero line: Ukraine's Hrafit system answers one important question on an ordinary phone in a trench and on the road. Built by military programmers, Hrafit fuses radio-intelligence and surveillance into one picture.

International

Slovakia, led by one of EU's most Russia-friendly governments, condemns Russia's drone strike on Ukraine's Security Service building. Slovakia condemns Russia's SBU strike but urges "both sides" to de-escalate.

Ukraine orders temporary ceasefire as US envoys visit Moscow. Air raid alert sounds in Kyiv immediately as pause begins. The reported order covers 5–8 September as Washington seeks to restart peace talks after months of stalled negotiations, but Russian attacks continued as the pause was due to begin.

Germany suspects Russian intelligence behind arson attack as hybrid warfare threat grows across Europe. The Munich attack follows attempts to disrupt Germany's power grid and comes amid mounting evidence of Russian covert operations targeting European countries supporting Ukraine.

Humanitarian and Social Impact

Russia made 500 Ukrainian schoolchildren in occupied Donetsk take part in "anti-terrorism dictation". It taught them they can be jailed for a repost at 14. The test drilled Russian extremism law into pupils. In 2025 alone, occupation authorities sent 48 Ukrainian children to psychiatric hospitals.

Political and Legal Developments

"If you're gonna f*ck, f*ck a queen, if you're gonna steal, steal a million": Ukraine's anti-corruption bureau says senior official ran criminal ring inside Prosecutor General's Office. Investigators say the suspect took bribes to shield scam call centers and laundered millions.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Desperate to save Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Ukrainian forces counterattack and reinforce. A Russian pincer is slowly closing around the last two big free cities in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. Winter will be a brief reprieve.

Military

Ukraine's Khartiia soldiers clear 4 km² near Kupiansk, while Russia pushes for main rail hub (VIDEO). On the left bank, Russian supply was so broken that they delivered water by drone.

Drones hit fuel depots in Sochi and an explosives plant 1,300 km away on the same night.

Spain keeps arming Ukraine against Russia's ballistic missiles, and promises even more. Madrid is readying a fresh batch of interceptors for Kyiv, and has ordered four new Patriot systems of its own in a $1.7 billion Raytheon deal.

Ukraine's F-16s are so short of Western missiles that pilots fall back on jet's built-in M61A1 Vulcan cannon, which risks killing civilians below. The AIM missiles the jets are rationing are the same ones defending Kyiv from the ground.

Ukraine says it struck a Bastion in Crimea, the launcher Russia pairs Zircon and Oniks missiles on. One of those missiles flies at hypersonic speed, and Russia has aimed both at targets far from any coastline.

Russian drone strikes SBU headquarters in central Kyiv. Zelenskyy says "geography" of Ukraine's response is set. The midday strike injured 12 people and damaged the nearby Sofia Kyivska historic complex, as Russia continues its relentless drone campaign against the capital.

Gunman on a motorcycle shoots the Russian air force general Ukraine says ordered the strike on Kyiv's children's hospital. The officer was hit twice as he stepped outside in a settlement near Engels, and surgeons in Saratov worked through the morning to keep him alive.

For first time, Ukraine shows its British Rapid Ranger air-defense system mounted on Spanish off-road chassis. Its crews call it "close-range storm". This 500-kilogram missile system is designed to catch what radar misses.

Intelligence and technology

Russia's answer to Starlink was written off as a failure, its satellites are still climbing. Forty-six days after their 19 July launch, the new craft sit at a median 365 km, higher than Russia's already-working first batch was at the same age.

Russia straps two small attack drones to wings of its long-range Gerans and releases them deep inside Ukraine. It rarely works, Flash says. An FPV drone drop was recently recorded in Kyiv Oblast, but there is no confirmation yet that it was carried out using a Gerbera.

Russia now hunts Kyiv by daylight too, Flash explains why.

International

Germany suspects Russian intelligence behind arson attack as hybrid warfare threat grows across Europe. The Munich attack follows attempts to disrupt Germany's power grid and comes amid mounting evidence of Russian covert operations targeting European countries supporting Ukraine.

Witkoff and Kushner to visit Kyiv and Moscow to revive peace talks as Russia ramps up attacks across Ukraine. The US envoys will meet Russian and Ukrainian leaders as Washington attempts to put peace talks back on track.

Finland ran Europe's largest civil defense drill since World War II inside a shelter carved under a sports arena. More than two thousand people spent hours underground in Kuopio while rescue services tested a facility that had never once been used for its wartime purpose.

Germany will close Russia's Bonn consulate after attributing Leipzig Airport drone attack to Moscow. Germany is tightening its response to Russia after the Leipzig drone plot, with new restrictions targeting Russian institutions and citizens as investigators identify two suspects.

Estonia paid $81 million for Ukraine's shells to firm that had never made one, now its defense minister is out. Estonia may have to repay €70 million in EU funds. The ammunition failed quality standards.

Poland sent Ukraine 350 tanks, Europe just agreed to refund it half a billion dollars. Once Hungary lifted its two-year veto, Warsaw's total refund for arming Kyiv is nearing $1.4 billion, with $500 million more due in 2027.

EU foreign ministers want Russia's ex-fighters out. Nobody has written down what counts as proof. Each member state would have to judge individual cases, and the bloc set itself a June deadline for the plan that its council still cannot approve.

Russian Black Sea attacks, low Danube waters push EU to seek alternative routes for Ukrainian grain exports. Ukraine's two main wartime export outlets are under pressure at once, threatening farm revenue as global crop prices climb.

Ukraine takes Zelenskyy's Russian airspace warning to UN aviation body. Kyiv's letter asks the UN aviation body to recommend that member states stop flying over Russia.

Belgium points Ukraine to next year's European loan instead of Russia's frozen cash. Earnings from the immobilized money underwrite an earlier European loan, while the sum they come from stays behind one government's objections.

Humanitarian and social impact

Ukraine adopts two-tier air raid alert system as Russia's mass drone attacks become the new normal. The new system will distinguish drone threats from the heightened threat of missile or combined strikes, changing how businesses and cities respond to air raids.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine orders temporary ceasefire as US envoys visit Moscow. Air raid alert sounds in Kyiv immediately as pause begins. The reported order covers 5–8 September as Washington seeks to restart peace talks after months of stalled negotiations, but Russian attacks continued as the pause was due to begin.

After years of disputes, Hungary finds common ground with Ukraine, on honoring Soviet deportations from Zakarpattia. A Rada resolution honors thousands who died in a Soviet deportation campaign targeting Hungarian- and German-speaking Zakarpattia residents.

Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies target Prosecutor General's Office official linked to fraudulent call centers. The operation targets an alleged criminal organization linked to a network of fraudulent call centers and asset laundering.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Desperate to save Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Ukrainian forces counterattack and reinforce. A Russian pincer is slowly closing around the last two big free cities in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. Winter will be a brief reprieve.

NATO vows to defend every inch. Svalbard is where Russia plans to prove it won't.. The CIA chief's visit to Moscow gave rise to warnings that Russia may be preparing to strike the Baltics. However, Russia has an easier target for the goal of paralyzing NATO.

Military

Ukraine's Khartiia soldiers clear 4 km² near Kupiansk, while Russia pushes for main rail hub (VIDEO). On the left bank, Russian supply was so broken that they delivered water by drone.

Gunman on a motorcycle shoots the Russian air force general Ukraine says ordered the strike on Kyiv's children's hospital. The officer was hit twice as he stepped outside in a settlement near Engels, and surgeons in Saratov worked through the morning to keep him alive.

Russia now hunts Kyiv by daylight too, Flash explains why.

Intelligence and technology

Poland sent Ukraine 350 tanks—Europe just agreed to refund it half a billion dollars. Once Hungary lifted its two-year veto, Warsaw's total refund for arming Kyiv is nearing $1.4 billion—with $500 million more due in 2027.

Russia straps two small attack drones to wings of its long-range Gerans and releases them deep inside Ukraine. It rarely works, Flash says. An FPV drone drop was recently recorded in Kyiv Oblast, but there is no confirmation yet that it was carried out using a Gerbera.

For first time, Ukraine shows its British Rapid Ranger air-defense system mounted on Spanish off-road chassis. Its crews call it "close-range storm". This 500-kilogram missile system is designed to catch what radar misses.

Ukrainian brigade trials Serval Cube EW dome in combat-like conditions, suppresses every drone launched at it. Serval Cube jams the control, navigation, and video-transmission channels a drone depends on rather than destroying it outright.

International

Ukraine takes Zelenskyy's Russian airspace warning to UN aviation body. Kyiv's letter asks the UN aviation body to recommend that member states stop flying over Russia.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian Black Sea attacks, low Danube waters push EU to seek alternative routes for Ukrainian grain exports. Ukraine's two main wartime export outlets are under pressure at once, threatening farm revenue as global crop prices climb.

Political and legal developments

Estonia paid $81 million for Ukraine's shells to firm that had never made one—now its defense minister is out. Estonia may have to repay €70 million in EU funds. The ammunition failed quality standards.

EU foreign ministers want Russia's ex-fighters out. Nobody has written down what counts as proof. Each member state would have to judge individual cases, and the bloc set itself a June deadline for the plan that its council still cannot approve.

Belgium points Ukraine to next year's European loan instead of Russia's frozen cash. Earnings from the immobilized money underwrite an earlier European loan, while the sum they come from stays behind one government's objections.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusive

NATO vows to defend every inch. Svalbard is where Russia plans to prove it won't.. The CIA chief's visit to Moscow gave rise to warnings that Russia may be preparing to strike the Baltics. However, Russia has an easier target for the goal of paralyzing NATO.

Ukraine spent three years learning to catch Russian drones—so Russia made them fly faster. Russia's jet-powered drones don't beat Ukraine's missile defense. They threaten the cheap layer that keeps it affordable—and they are turning the war into a contest over reaction time.

Military

42,020 troops, 1,827 artillery systems, 89 tanks: Ukraine's tally of what it cost Russia to keep fighting in August. As frontline losses climb, Moscow fires ballistic missiles and jet drones Ukraine cannot catch.

Ukraine confirms strike hit Novatek fuel plant at Russia's Ust-Luga port. Kyiv says the Baltic-coast facility supports Russia's military, while the strike's effect on production remains unknown.

Putin says Russia is 12 km from Sumy—1.5 km farther than in June. Just two months ago, the Kremlin claimed Russian troops were 10.5 km from Sumy—now it says they are 12 km away.

Foot soldiers get a long spear: Ukrainian assault units strike deep behind Russian lines. Ukraine's trench units now fly strike drones 150 km into the Russian rear—a job that once belonged to specialists.

Intelligence and technology

Twenty Ukrainian firms are racing to catch Russia's jet-powered Shaheds. This one's interceptor is already flying combat missions. Firebolt Engineering joins Ukraine's jet-interceptor drone race.

Kazakh refinery deal could ease Russia's front-line fuel pressure—but it covers just 0.3% of demand. Central Asia lacks capacity to solve Moscow's shortage, while potential suppliers risk Western sanctions.

Ukraine says it bought 5,000 pickup trucks through open competitive bidding and saved more than $45 million. Six suppliers will deliver the all-wheel-drive diesels by year's end.

International

190 or 580 Patriot missiles? What Ukraine's EU-loan request could buy—and why Washington still decides. The EU is weighing Ukraine's loan request to buy Patriot missiles, von der Leyen confirmed—member states take it up on 7 September.

Russia says Armenia's EU accession law means leaving Moscow-led trade bloc. Yerevan disagrees. At their first meeting since Armenia's June election, Pashinyan rejected Putin's claim that Yerevan had begun leaving Moscow's economic bloc.

A masked figure got into a Polish drone-parts plant—Poland now suspects a foreign spy service set the fire. Poland has opened a foreign-intelligence and terrorism case. A masked figure got in over the fence, the fire followed, and no one is charged.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia's air war has cost the average Ukrainian mall 166.8 working days since 2022, about eight months of closed floors. Ukraine's malls spent a fifth of August under air-raid alerts, a new record.

Zaporizhzhia's largest mall closes as Russia's attacks seek to make Ukrainian cities unlivable. City Mall will remain closed throughout September after a Russian strike hit a nearby hypermarket, as repeated attacks disrupt businesses and everyday life across Ukraine.

Political and legal developments

Ukraine says it busted a Kyiv crypto ring that drained EU citizens' wallets. The SBU says the alleged scheme's monthly turnover from stolen funds could reach $1 million during its most lucrative periods.

Putin dismisses mobilization reports as Ukraine warns Russia could call up 600,000 to war. Russian officials gave similar assurances before the Kremlin's 2022 call-up, while the decree authorizing it was never formally revoked.

Russian Church installs Soviet military veteran to lead occupation-created diocese in Kherson Oblast. After Patriarch Kirill consecrated him in Moscow, Igor Pashentsev will oversee Russian Orthodox parishes across five occupied Kherson districts.

Ukraine's Security Service says it foiled FSB plot to assassinate Russian opposition leader in Kyiv – several wounded in street shootout. The clash followed the reported disappearance of a Russian Volunteer Corps commander and a Ukrainian investigation into an alleged Russian assassination attempt.

Putin calls Zelenskyy's airspace warning "state terrorism" as shares in Russia's national airline fall 5%. European and US airlines already avoid Russian airspace, while carriers from China, Türkiye, and Gulf states continue using it.

New developments

Estonia quarantines emails from Russian domains over cyberattack risk. Messages will undergo automated security screening rather than being blocked outright. Local governments and some state bodies remain outside the system.

Russian propagandists fake Polish newspaper claiming Ukraine faces famine. The Matryoshka disinformation network fabricated a Polish newspaper front page claiming that Russian strikes could leave 63% of Ukrainians facing famine.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine spent three years learning to catch Russian drones—so Russia made them fly faster. Russia's jet-powered drones don't beat Ukraine's missile defense. They threaten the cheap layer that keeps it affordable—and they are turning the war into a contest over reaction time.

Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s energy system. Winter resilience plans are less than half complete. Ukraine is racing to shield heat, water, and rail from Russian strikes—but new locomotives will not arrive before 2027.

Military

Second drone brigade in two months: Ukraine is forming the 446th Unmanned Systems Brigade. It is the second brigade of this level stood up in 2026, following the 445th, and recruitment is already underway, per unofficial sources.

Drone attack damages Russia's Baltic oil port as drone crosses Latvia into Estonia. Finland separately restricted air and maritime traffic in the eastern Gulf of Finland. No drones entered Finnish territory.

Russia's 6-day attack on Kyiv that started two days after CIA head's visit to Moscow, culminates with massive ballistic missile strike on eve of school year. Three children were among the injured. Civilian infrastructure was damaged in five of Kyiv's ten districts.

800 jet drones in four days: Russia is now firing type Ukraine's interceptors cannot catch. Of more than 1,500 drones launched over four days, about 800 have been jet-powered.

"In intercepts, they're screaming": Russia occupied this spit to control Ukraine's ports. Military says it has now isolated 2,500-strong grouping and destroyed all its artillery. Drone strikes and remote mining have cut supply, the Ukrainian soldiers say.

Intelligence and technology

Russia's Starlink rival falters as latest satellite batch stalls in low orbit, ISW says. None of the 16 spacecraft launched in July reached the 550-kilometer benchmark, while two may reenter the atmosphere and be lost.

Fired Ukraine defense chief Fedorov launches defense-tech company with Palantir CEO backing. After leaving government, Mykhailo Fedorov has moved deeper into defense technology, raising money in the US and pitching new ways to turn Ukraine's battlefield experience into weapons and military systems.

Russia promised a scramjet superweapon. Ukraine says Zircon runs on solid fuel. Ukraine's military intelligence puts Zircon's highest recorded speed at Mach 6.8, below Moscow's Mach 9 claim, and says both its motors are solid-fuel. Its component catalogue also names two US-manufacturer chips inside.

Ukrainian company builds single device that detects FPV drone, reads its video feed, and jams it. Brama has passed lab and combat testing and is now going through codification.

About $150 for airframe, about $875 for finished glider: Ukraine's BlueBird is selling its drone at every stage of assembly. Units pick the control system, camera, and electronics themselves; the bare airframe starts near $150.

Fired Ukrainian minister offers to help build America's drone army— for Patriot missiles in return. Mykhailo Fedorov is courting US investors for a fund that would build defense tech companies itself, not just back them.

International

Germany blames Moscow for Leipzig drone attack, closes consulate and cultural center among sweeping diplomatic measures. One of three drones linked to the incident reportedly struck a Ukrainian Antonov without detonating. Berlin also plans tighter entry controls for Russian nationals and additional EU sanctions.

German politician wants to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine after Russian drone attack in Leipzig airport. Wolfgang Kubicki wants Berlin to warn Moscow that further sabotage in Germany could unlock long-range cruise missiles for Ukraine.

US welcomes Russia back to G20 but rules out economic relief, source says. Washington tied any economic relief for Moscow to the end of the war, while European officials resisted Russia's return to the G20.

Armenia drops Russia's 'strategic partner' label, but foreign minister says alliance remains. The comments come after Armenia's new five-year government program changed how it describes ties with Moscow.

Latvia blocks Russian and Belarusian books, clothes and toys. The national measure goes beyond EU sanctions, covers goods worth €12.5 million in 2025, and limits the entry of propaganda materials.

Indonesia is examining whether traffickers put its citizens into Russia's war on Ukraine. The country's Foreign Ministry has put its overseas missions on establishing how one of its nationals came to serve Moscow's forces.

Someone placed funeral wreaths near defense companies in Lithuania and Czechia. The head of a Lithuanian defense company called it "ordinary intimidation" by Russians.

The US built itself a Russo-Ukrainian drone-war drill—Poland is the first ally in. A Green Beret officer expects most of NATO's 32 members to want a look, as Ukraine's war experience reshapes how the alliance trains.

Russia's shadow war on Europe is widening—NATO still sees no attack coming. A Polish warning, a US spy chief's Moscow trip, and an explosive drone found beside a cargo plane at a German airport all preceded the alliance's assessment.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russian air attack interrupts lessons on first day of school in Ukraine. Around 240,000 Ukrainian children entered first grade, 10% fewer than last year. 200,000 students near the front will study entirely online.

UN counted 183 Ukrainian children killed or wounded in July, the highest since 2022. The Ukrainian military released the breakdown on the day many schools across the country stayed shut because of Russian strikes.

Russian drone struck a Ukrainian fire truck on its way to a house fire—four rescuers injured. The crew was answering a call in a village outside Zaporizhzhia, and all four men went to hospital with injuries of differing severity.

Political and legal developments

"Russian airspace will effectively be closing": Zelenskyy warns airlines Russian skies are no longer safe. Ukraine says civilian aviation is not a target, but warns airlines can no longer assume Russian skies are safe.

Former Ukrainian president has made offer to Zelenskyy amid Russia's new type of war on Kyiv. Petro Poroshenko has tabled a five-point plan for how the capital survives permanent air raid alerts.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine has five ways to stop Russia's Iskanders. Only one arrives before the strikes on the grid begin. It means finding a launcher in a forest during the twenty minutes it spends above ground.

A rare Ukrainian Bulat tank turned up in a brigade that never had them. Ukraine wanted 400 of the up-armored T-64s and built about 80. Nobody can say how the 57th Motorized Brigade got one.

Military

800 jet drones in four days: Russia is now firing type Ukraine's interceptors cannot catch. Of more than 1,500 drones launched over four days, about 800 have been jet-powered.

"In intercepts, they're screaming": Russia occupied this spit to control Ukraine's ports. Military says it has now isolated 2,500-strong grouping and destroyed all its artillery. Drone strikes and remote mining have cut supply, the Ukrainian soldiers say.

Intelligence and technology

Ukrainian company builds single device that detects FPV drone, reads its video feed, and jams it. Brama has passed lab and combat testing and is now going through codification.

About $150 for airframe, about $875 for finished glider: Ukraine's BlueBird is selling its drone at every stage of assembly. Units pick the control system, camera, and electronics themselves; the bare airframe starts near $150.

International

Fired Ukrainian minister offers to help build America's drone army— for Patriot missiles in return. Mykhailo Fedorov is courting US investors for a fund that would build defense tech companies itself, not just back them.

The US built itself a Russo-Ukrainian drone-war drill—Poland is the first ally in. A Green Beret officer expects most of NATO's 32 members to want a look, as Ukraine's war experience reshapes how the alliance trains.

Russia's shadow war on Europe is widening—NATO still sees no attack coming. A Polish warning, a US spy chief's Moscow trip, and an explosive drone found beside a cargo plane at a German airport all preceded the alliance's assessment.

New developments

Someone placed funeral wreaths near defense companies in Lithuania and Czechia. The head of a Lithuanian defense company called it "ordinary intimidation" by Russians.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine has five ways to stop Russia’s Iskanders. Only one arrives before the strikes on the grid begin. It means finding a launcher in a forest during the twenty minutes it spends above ground.

A rare Ukrainian Bulat tank turned up in a brigade that never had them. Ukraine wanted 400 of the up-armored T-64s and built about 80. Nobody can say how the 57th Motorized Brigade got one.

Russia drove most ships from Ukraine’s ports. Now its drones are hunting the trains. By late August, Ukraine had exported only a third of its normal volume of farm goods. Russia damaged more than 250 locomotives in six months.

Military

Ukraine is testing four new drone interceptors as Russia floods its skies with faster Gerans. Kyiv is racing to scale new defences after Russia used more than 2,500 jet-powered drones in August alone.

Ukraine strikes Russia's second-largest oil refinery again in major overnight attack, also hitting airfield and drone launch site. The refinery has been targeted repeatedly during the full-scale war as Ukraine strikes infrastructure supporting Russia's military and economy.

Four days of Russian attacks keep Kyiv under near-constant fire. Ukraine is struggling to defend its skies. Russia has launched nearly 2,000 attack drones, more than 1,600 guided bombs and 31 missiles against Ukraine this week, while Kyiv faces repeated strikes and a shortage of critical air defence interceptors.

Ukrainian ground-robot maker has moved into air: Ratel's first strike drone flies 30 kilometres on Starlink link. The Ratel K1 carries two kilograms, the maker says.

"We have surprises for our neighbors": Ukraine's aviation commander says new aircraft developments are essentially finished and already in testing. Ukraine has already rebuilt what it flies. Its crews turned the 1970s-era Su-24 bomber into a launcher for SCALP cruise missiles.

Russia launches third attack on Ukraine's largest Danube port this month, during peak of wheat harvest. Five trucks loaded with grain were destroyed and three more damaged in the Izmail district.

Ukraine chooses three Western fighters to build its air force around. One of them can fly again from stretch of road in 15 to 20 minutes. The Air Force settled on them after weighing cost, logistics, and repair speed.

Fix for Ukraine's interceptors is radar seeker head, and American firm is selling one for $4,000, says president's tech adviser. Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov says cloud and fog collapse interceptor hit rates, and a seeker head is the way out.

Four ground robots for one evacuation: Russia is targeting Ukraine's robotic medevac missions. Ground robots are helping evacuate wounded troops from exposed positions, but the systems themselves have come under intense Russian fire.

Ukrainian robot commander calls ground robots "Persian elephants." What army really needs are "Arabian steeds," he says. A "Khartia" robot commander says FPV drones and mines have collapsed the machines' lifespan.

Russia destroyed last of Kherson's heat and power equipment on 26 August. Ukraine's new defence minister arrived days later. Yevhenii Khmara met the regional governor days after glide bombs wrecked the city's power plant.

Ukraine has built twin-Kalashnikov turret for cheap ground robots. Security Service has already used one to destroy Russian ambushes. A Brave1 turret carries two AKs and went from idea to prototype in under six months.

Ukraine struck Tu-95 at base Russia launches its cruise missiles on Ukraine's civilians. Satellite image shows third of right wing gone. SBU Alpha struck the strategic bomber at Engels-2.

Kyiv has been under attack for 2 days nonstop. Russia is targeting the capital's civilian supply chains. Russian jet-powered drones have repeatedly struck warehouses, businesses and logistics facilities around the capital, disrupting supplies while rescuers work under threat of further attacks.

Intelligence and technology

Ukraine's intelligence: Russia is running its Nepal, Cuba, Kenya, and India recruitment scheme in Indonesia now. Ukraine's foreign intelligence says it holds documents on at least eight recruited Indonesian citizens.

Partisans say Russian recruiters in occupied Donetsk are taking drunk men from bars straight to enlistment offices. An ATESH agent inside the Dnepr grouping headquarters reports a new scheme.

Russians bought $300 million in body armor, thermal sights, and drone parts on Ozon marketplace Ukraine is bombing. Russians bought 157,700 body armour vests there.

International

After CIA head's visit to Moscow, Poland's PM warns Russia is preparing to escalate war. He puts critical window at seven or eight months. Poland's prime minister says there are signals of serious Russian preparation.

Ukraine dismissed its defence minister in July. He is now advising NATO country on defence innovation. Guido Crozetto called the dismissed Ukrainian minister the day after Kyiv let him go.

From the Gripen sale to coast guard boats: Sweden sends 10 vessels to Ukraine. Ukraine's emergency service will use the boats for waterborne rescue work, including clearing mines from river beds. Stockholm's contributions to the US-led PURL programme now total $552 million.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia has burned millions of Ukrainian books, striking at the infrastructure of Ukrainian culture. More than 60,000 books were destroyed in a single warehouse strike near Kyiv this week, adding to losses that publishers say are becoming impossible to absorb.

Russia has destroyed 90% of Ukraine's modern commercial storage capacity. Retail logistics are being reshaped. Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi says the country faces no threat of famine, but warns stores could see a narrower range of products.

Political and legal developments

What does Ukraine's new defence minister wear on his wrist? He did not mention it until reporter asked. Yevhenii Khmara's bracelet carries the names of fallen comrades, a US magazine reported.

"Territory that will allow us to export our energy resources to Europe": Russia's deputy Duma chairman calls for massed bombing of Ukrainian cities. Duma vice-speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said the aim is to demoralise civilians until they give up.

Read our previous daily review here.

Exclusives

Ukraine has five ways to stop Russia's Iskanders. Only one arrives before the strikes on the grid begin. It means finding a launcher in a forest during the twenty minutes it spends above ground.

A rare Ukrainian Bulat tank turned up in a brigade that never had them. Ukraine wanted 400 of the up-armored T-64s and built about 80. Nobody can say how the 57th Motorized Brigade got one.

Russia drove most ships from Ukraine's ports. Now its drones are hunting the trains. By late August, Ukraine had exported only a third of its normal volume of farm goods. Russia damaged more than 250 locomotives in six months.

Intelligence and technology

"We have surprises for our neighbors": Ukraine's aviation commander says new aircraft developments are essentially finished and already in testing. Ukraine has already rebuilt what it flies. Its crews turned the 1970s-era Su-24 bomber into a launcher for SCALP cruise missiles.

Ukraine chooses three Western fighters to build its air force around. One of them can fly again from stretch of road in 15 to 20 minutes. The Air Force settled on them after weighing cost, logistics, and repair speed.

Ukraine's intelligence: Russia is running its Nepal, Cuba, Kenya, and India recruitment scheme in Indonesia now. Ukraine's foreign intelligence says it holds documents on at least eight recruited Indonesian citizens.

International

After CIA head's visit to Moscow, Poland's PM warns Russia is preparing to escalate war. He puts critical window at seven or eight months. Poland's prime minister says there are signals of serious Russian preparation.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia launches third attack on Ukraine's largest Danube port this month, during peak of wheat harvest. Five trucks loaded with grain were destroyed and three more damaged in the Izmail district.

New developments

What does Ukraine's new defense minister wear on his wrist? He did not mention it until reporter asked. Yevhenii Khmara's bracelet carries the names of fallen comrades, a US magazine reported.

Read our earlier daily review here.

Exclusives

Russia drove most ships from Ukraine’s ports. Now its drones are hunting the trains. By late August, Ukraine had exported only a third of its normal volume of farm goods. Russia damaged more than 250 locomotives in six months.

Shares in Russia’s second-largest bank hit record low as Wildberries-linked offering price holds steady. VTB sought access to Wildberries’ 80 million customers. After drone strikes hit the retailer’s warehouses, Moscow considered making the bank central to a support plan.

Fifth drone-related NORSI shutdown in under five months leaves all major Lukoil refineries offline. Russia’s second-largest gasoline producer is offline as Moscow orders fuel redistribution and regional authorities tighten sales limits.

Military

Fix for Ukraine's interceptors is radar seeker head, and American firm is selling one for $4,000, says president's tech adviser. Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov says cloud and fog collapse interceptor hit rates, and a seeker head is the way out.

Four ground robots for one evacuation: Russia is targeting Ukraine's robotic medevac missions. Ground robots are helping evacuate wounded troops from exposed positions, but the systems themselves have come under intense Russian fire.

Ukrainian robot commander calls ground robots "Persian elephants." What army really needs are "Arabian steeds", he says. A "Khartia" robot commander says FPV drones and mines have collapsed the machines' lifespan.

Ukraine has built twin-Kalashnikov turret for cheap ground robots. Security Service has already used one to destroy Russian ambushes. A Brave1 turret carries two AKs and went from idea to prototype in under six months.

Ukraine struck Tu-95 at base Russia launches its cruise missiles on Ukraine's civilians. Satellite image shows third of right wing gone. SBU Alpha struck the strategic bomber at Engels-2.

Kyiv has been under attack for 2 days nonstop. Russia is targeting the capital's civilian supply chains. Russian jet-powered drones have repeatedly struck warehouses, businesses and logistics facilities around the capital, disrupting supplies while rescuers work under threat of further attacks.

Intelligence and technology

Partisans say Russian recruiters in occupied Donetsk are taking drunk men from bars straight to enlistment offices. An ATESH agent inside the Dnepr grouping headquarters reports a new scheme.

Russians bought $300 million in body armor, thermal sights, and drone parts on Ozon marketplace Ukraine is bombing. Russians bought 157,700 body armor vests there.

Russia is secretly building a mortar-launched drone-killer—and a resistance group just leaked the blueprints. Leaked documents describe a swept-wing drone built to hunt other drones at up to 300 km/h. Russian firm NIK allegedly cooperated with Boeing.

International

Ukraine dismissed its defense minister in July. He is now advising NATO country on defense innovation. Guido Crozetto called the dismissed Ukrainian minister the day after Kyiv let him go.

From the Gripen sale to coast guard boats—Sweden sends 10 vessels to Ukraine. Ukraine's emergency service will use the boats for waterborne rescue work, including clearing mines from river beds. Stockholm's contributions to the US-led PURL program now total $552 million.

Poland kept selling itself as Kyiv's gateway to Europe—Ukraine stopped needing one, Polish journalist argues. Russian disinformation moved into the gap the two governments left, hardening a rupture neither of them prepared for, he wrote.

Sofia gets seven minehunters from Belgium and the Netherlands for a sea Russia mined. Parliament signed off on two separate agreements this week, one a purchase and one a transfer, with the Dutch side restoring part of the fleet before it changes hands.

Moldova is investing in air defense against the Russian drones crossing from Ukraine—Romania shoots down the ones that reach it. Allied fighters over the neighboring NATO member have destroyed intruding drones repeatedly this year, while the neutral country in between can track them crossing but not shoot them down.

A suspected Russian scheme to obtain Finnish citizenship ran for more than 20 years before Finland noticed. Police and the Border Guard say the size of what they uncovered took them by surprise, and that several naturalizations were still moving through the system when the inquiry opened.

Humanitarian and social impact

Russia destroyed last of Kherson's heat and power equipment on 26 August. Ukraine's new defense minister arrived days later. Yevhenii Khmara met the regional governor days after glide bombs wrecked the city's power plant.

Russia has destroyed 90% of Ukraine's modern commercial storage capacity. Retail logistics are being reshaped. Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi says the country faces no threat of famine, but warns stores could see a narrower range of products.

Political and legal developments

“Territory that will allow us to export our energy resources to Europe”: Russia's deputy Duma chairman calls for massed bombing of Ukrainian cities. Duma vice-speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said the aim is to demoralize civilians until they give up.

Read our previous daily review here.