Ukrainian MP Mariana Bezuhla blocked the final vote on a bill to establish Space Forces, she said on social media on 9 November. This happened on the same day that lawmakers passed the bill in its first reading with 252 votes, according to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The Space Forces are intended, if the necessary capabilities are in place, to give Ukraine the ability to independently and promptly warn of missile attacks, including those launched by Russia, as well as strike deep behind enemy lines, MP Fedir Venislavskyi, one of the bill’s initiators, said in a press release on 10 November. Bezuhla has now blocked the bill, despite having signed it last year. Venislavskyi suggested her move was linked to a personal conflict, Hromadske reported on 9 November.

Venislavskyi calls the move an act of revenge

Bezuhla criticized the new bill in a social media post.

“Space Forces. So they can create a couple more general-level positions. That’s it,” the MP wrote.

Bezuhla also criticized the work of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence.

Meanwhile, in a comment to hromadske, Venislavskyi stressed that blocking bills aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s defense capabilities runs counter to the country’s national interests.

“Let’s put it this way, she [Bezuhla] has chosen this path of revenge, which harms our country’s national security,” Venislavskyi told Hromadske.

Venislavskyi had previously filed a statement concerning possible criminal offences by Bezuhla, he said.

The MP added that he would seek ways to secure the bill’s adoption in the second reading. He expressed confidence that Ukraine would eventually establish its Space Forces, which would primarily serve as a deterrent against any aggressor.

Mariana Bezuhla is an MP who was elected in 2019 on the ticket of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party. She is known for frequently criticizing Ukraine’s military leadership.

Space Forces proposed as a new branch of Ukraine’s Armed Forces

On 2 May 2025, 33 MPs registered draft law No. 13255 on the establishment of Space Forces. The authors proposed adding them as a new branch of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, alongside the Ground Forces, Air Force and Navy.

Ukraine plans to establish its own Space Forces, in particular to counter Russia’s Oreshnik missiles, MP Fedir Venislavskyi explained in an interview with RBC-Ukraine, the outlet reported on 13 April.

Ukraine’s Space Forces are intended to focus on destroying Russian satellites and countering the Rassvet system, launching Ukraine’s own satellites with support from partner countries, and integrating space intelligence into combat operations, 24 Channel reported in an article published on 9 November.

Recent Ukrainian drone attacks have reduced Russia’s oil refining capacity by about 30%, disrupting operations at nine major refineries and adding pressure on Moscow as it struggles with domestic fuel shortages, Reuters reported on 10 November, citing two industry sources.

Ukraine's campaign against Russian oil infrastructure aims to weaken one of the Kremlin's main sources of revenue while disrupting fuel supplies for its domestic market and military. The latest strikes come as Moscow continues exporting diesel under an agreement with US President Donald Trump, despite domestic fuel shortages. 

Attacks since late October have disrupted refineries across Russia, including major facilities in central Russia and the Volga region.

Ukrainian strikes hit nearly a third of Russia's refining capacity

According to the sources cited by Reuters, the combined daily capacity of refineries affected by Ukrainian attacks since late October is around 300,000 metric tons, or 2.2 million barrels. This represents roughly 30% of Russia’s total primary refining capacity of about 930,000 tons per day.

However, the actual reduction in crude oil processing is estimated at up to 200,000 tons per day. Russian refineries were processing about 700,000 tons, or 5 million barrels, of crude daily at the end of October, the sources said.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on 4 October that Ukrainian strikes had put more than 51% of Russia's oil refining capacity out of action, according to its own assessment.

Strikes disrupt nine major refineries

Ukrainian attacks disrupted operations or caused emergency situations at nine of Russia’s 35 major refineries over the past week, according to industry sources and officials cited by Reuters.

Affected facilities include refineries in Ryazan, Yaroslavl, and the Volga region.

On 9 November, a Ukrainian drone struck the Kirishi refinery in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, the country's second-largest oil processing plant. The overnight attack sparked a fire at the facility.

Ukraine continues strikes in response to Russian attacks

Ukraine's renewed strikes followed the collapse of a proposed pause in attacks on energy infrastructure. Kyiv had suspended strikes under the arrangement announced by US President Donald Trump, but Russia continued attacking Ukraine's energy system, prompting Ukraine to resume targeting Russian oil facilities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Kyiv would continue striking targets linked to Russia's oil sector in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Russian forces have continued hitting Ukrainian power plants, energy networks, heating systems, and water supplies, with Zelenskyy saying that Moscow had rejected the de-escalation steps proposed by Ukraine's partners.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of ignoring Trump's calls to stop attacks on Russian energy targets in an article published by Kommersant on 10 November. His remarks did not address Russia's continued attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure during the proposed pause.

A drone killed an employee of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and a separate drone killed a worker at the nearby Zaporizhzhia Thermal Power Plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on X on 9 November. The agency said this came a few days after another plant employee was reportedly killed by a drone.

The deaths come at a plant in Zaporizhzhia Oblast that Russia has held since March 2022 and, according to Ukraine's Defense Intelligence, has turned into a military base. Its six reactors are shut down but still need outside power for cooling. On 8 November the plant lost Ferosplavna-1, its last external line, in the war's 27th total loss of off-site power, the IAEA said, adding that the cause and location were not yet known. Power returned later that day, Energoatom reported.

Russian-installed officials blame Ukraine

The plant’s management said the drone hit the electrician’s car in Enerhodar on the morning of 9 November as he drove to work, and blamed Ukraine’s armed forces, Interfax reported. That evening, Rosatom head Alexei Likhachev told journalists it was the fourth plant employee killed in two weeks. None of these claims could be independently verified.

The IAEA’s own record lists three cases. In its latest update, the agency said the plant reported a staff member killed in a drone attack on his vehicle on 29 October. The victim was reportedly a welder, the IAEA said in an X post that day. The update added that on 4 November the plant and Russia’s Foreign Ministry alleged a drone strike near a market in Enerhodar killed two people, including an employee of the plant’s cleaning company.

Neither Energoatom nor Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry had commented on the deaths by publication. In July, after Rosatom blamed Ukraine for killing Alexander Yakovlev, whom Russia had installed as the plant’s chief engineer, and his driver, the Foreign Ministry rejected the charge as unproven, saying information from Russia’s occupation bodies could not be considered reliable and pointing to Russian attacks on the plant’s workers.

IAEA chief says attacks on staff must stop

At the same time, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi condemned the strikes as unacceptable attacks that violate indispensable nuclear safety pillars. He said all such attacks on nuclear plant workers must stop immediately. Plant staff must be able to work "without undue stress or fear," he added.

Russian forces and the Federal Security Service (FSB) pressured residents of occupied Oleshky in Kherson Oblast to leave for Russia ahead of the recent evacuation, while Moscow rejected Ukrainian proposals to transport civilians directly across the Dnipro River, Kherson Oblast Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said in interview with Ukrainska Pravda.

Despite the pressure, most residents evacuated during the humanitarian operation chose to travel to Ukrainian-controlled territory, according to reporting on the mission. The evacuation took place under a temporary ceasefire from 27 October to 1 November, following negotiations involving Ukrainian and Russian human rights commissioners and US First Lady Melania Trump.

Russia pressured residents to leave for its territory

Prokudin said Russian military personnel and FSB officers approached Oleshky residents before the humanitarian mission, offering some people the chance to leave for Russia and forcing others to do so.

“They offered it to some, and forced others,” Prokudin said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, as reported by local outlet MOST on 10 November.

During negotiations, Ukraine proposed evacuating residents directly to Ukrainian-held Kherson by boat across the Dnipro River or by air from the occupied left bank to the right bank. Russia rejected both options, Prokudin said.

A boat evacuation would have been dangerous because the river was mined on both banks, including with Russian floating mines. Instead, residents who chose Ukraine had to travel through occupied Crimea, Russia, and Belarus before reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory.

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Most evacuees chose Ukraine

Although neither Kyiv nor Moscow has published an official breakdown of the evacuation destinations, available reporting indicates that most residents chose Ukrainian-controlled territory.

According to Kyiv Post, Russia acknowledged that around 80% of those evacuated had opted to go to Ukraine. Prokudin said residents continued to want to live in Ukrainian-controlled territory despite four years of occupation. 

Evacuees included people ranging from a child barely over one year old to a 94-year-old resident. They reached Ukraine on 31 October after traveling through Russia and Belarus. 

Hundreds may still remain in Oleshky

The humanitarian mission took place under a temporary ceasefire from 27 October to 1 November, coordinated with the involvement of US First Lady Melania Trump. Nearly 800 people were evacuated, according to Melania Trump, while humanitarian supplies were also delivered to the occupied town.

Before the evacuation, residents of Russian-occupied Oleshky had been trapped amid worsening humanitarian conditions, with shortages of food, medicine, and other essentials, repeated Russian attacks, and limited access to medical care.

However, the operation did not reach everyone who wanted to leave. Some residents had been sheltering in basements without communications, while others feared Russian filtration or could not reach evacuation points, according to Oleshky's Ukrainian administration. 

Ukraine and Russia's human rights commissioners have agreed to continue working on humanitarian missions, but Moscow has not announced plans for another operation.

South African police arrested nine foreign nationals suspected of attempting to leave the country to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, police said on 9 November. The arrests come amid growing concern over the large-scale recruitment of Africans, Asians, and South Americans to fight for Russia against Ukraine, Al Jazeera noted.

To recruit citizens of African countries, Russia uses various methods, including luring them with financial offers, misleading them about contract terms, or coercing them into signing under pressure, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on social media in November 2025. He added that signing a contract effectively amounted to signing a death sentence.

The men were preparing to board flights to Russia when they were detained

The men were detained following an investigation involving Interpol and local law enforcement agencies. The suspects were preparing to board flights to Russia when officers intervened, Al Jazeera reported, citing police. Police also said the arrests took place late on Sunday evening at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and at a hotel in nearby Bruma. South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) identified all nine as Zimbabwean nationals. Police said the men were aged 20 to 26, but the ages the NPA listed range from 23 to 46. Their plans after arriving in Russia have not been disclosed.

South Africa’s Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act prohibits mercenary activities and regulates the provision of military assistance to parties involved in foreign conflicts, including the recruitment and training of fighters, Al Jazeera reported. The law also applies to foreign nationals present in South Africa. The nine appeared in two Gauteng courts on 9 November, charged with contravening the act. Their cases were postponed to 10 and 12 November so they can secure lawyers, and all nine remain in custody, the NPA said.

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Most foreign mercenaries recruited by Russia do not survive more than a month, minister said

A 29 April report by Truth Hounds, citing Ukrainian authorities, says that Russia has recruited at least 27,000 foreign nationals from more than 130 countries since February 2022. The number of foreign fighters increased by more than 30% between September 2025 and February 2026, while Ukrainian intelligence has identified Russian plans to recruit an additional 18,500 foreign nationals by the end of 2026, according to the report.

“Foreign citizens in the Russian army have a sad fate. Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called ‘meat assaults,’ where they are quickly killed,” Sybiha said.

He also noted that the Russian command understands that there is no accountability for the deaths of foreign fighters. As a result, they are treated as “second-rate, expendable human material,” the minister said, adding that most such mercenaries do not survive for more than a month.

According to Ukrainian military intelligence, Russian troops from the 39th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade are using recruited African nationals as human shields while moving through the kill zone. Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence reported this on 10 November and released an intercepted audio recording.

In the recording, one Russian soldier can be heard telling another to send an African man about 20 meters ahead of him.

Russia is preparing attacks on food industry facilities across Ukraine, including foreign-owned businesses, a source in Ukraine's Defense Intelligence (HUR) told Ukrinform on 10 November.

The planned strikes could target grain storage facilities, vegetable oil producers, dairy factories, meat-processing plants, and poultry farms. The reported plans point to a potential expansion of Russia's campaign against Ukraine's civilian economy, threatening domestic food supplies, agricultural exports, and foreign currency revenues while potentially benefiting Russian competitors.

The warning comes as Russia has stepped up attacks on food storage facilities across Ukraine since the summer, repeatedly striking warehouses used to store and distribute food. These attacks have damaged supply chains and added pressure on Ukraine's already weakened storage capacity.

Russia plans to target food production and storage

According to the HUR source cited by Ukrinform, Russian forces are preparing to attack facilities used to store and process agricultural products, including grain elevators and warehouses.

Other potential targets include factories producing sunflower and other vegetable oils, dairy and butter plants, meat-processing facilities, poultry farms, and other food industry enterprises.

The warning covers both Ukrainian-owned and foreign-owned businesses operating in Ukraine.

The source said Moscow aims to destabilize Ukraine by undermining its food security and then using an information campaign to demoralize the population. Russia also seeks to inflict substantial economic damage and reduce foreign currency revenues flowing into Ukraine's state budget.

Another reported objective is to weaken Ukrainian agricultural exports and increase Russia's share of international markets, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Russia has already struck food producers and warehouses

The warning follows a series of Russian attacks on Ukraine's agricultural processing and food storage industries, including foreign-owned facilities.

On 5 January, Russian drones struck US-owned Bunge's oil extraction plant in Dnipro, spilling around 300 tons of vegetable oil onto city streets. The plant processes sunflower seeds and produces oil under the Oleina brand. Bunge also operates a processing plant in Mykolaiv and an export terminal.

In late 2025, Russia also struck the Allseeds terminal at Pivdennyi port and Kernel's Illichivsk Oil and Fat Combine in Chornomorsk. 

Ukroliyaprom director general Stepan Kapshuk told Latifundist the attacks were part of a systematic effort to destroy Ukraine's vegetable oil export industry. Vegetable oil and sunflower meal account for more than 15% of Ukraine's foreign currency earnings and nearly 20% of commodity exports, according to industry data.

Russia has also increasingly targeted food storage since summer. By September, around 90% of Ukraine's modern storage capacity had reportedly been destroyed, including 80% of refrigerated warehouses around Kyiv.

Retailers have shifted stocks to smaller facilities, but these too have come under attack, threatening food distribution, availability, and prices.

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Russia intensifies attacks on civilian infrastructure

Ukrinform reported that Russia had carried out more than 167,000 attacks on civilian facilities in Ukraine since the start of its full-scale invasion, according to figures available as of July.

The agency also cited HUR reporting that Russian military units had received orders to intensify drone attacks against civilian infrastructure and vehicles in frontline and border areas.

The latest intelligence warning suggests that food production and agricultural infrastructure could become another focus of Russia's campaign against Ukraine's civilian economy.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged €10 million for search and rescue in Bulgaria on 10 November, bringing her Black Sea tour pledges to €70 million. A day earlier in Bucharest, she said the EU would back the Black Sea Maritime Security Hub, which Romania and Bulgaria are building, with €50 million.

In Varna, von der Leyen said drone strikes on ships have disrupted navigation and sent insurance costs “skyrocketing,” and blamed Russia, which she said “wants to spread fear and uncertainty in Europe.” She called free Black Sea navigation vital for Ukraine’s economy and global food security. Meanwhile, US-brokered Ukraine-Russia talks opened in Abu Dhabi the same day, with unblocking the Black Sea among Kyiv’s priorities.

From Bucharest to Varna

In Bucharest, von der Leyen said the EU had agreed with both governments to fast-track the hub and set a clear timeline. She pledged another €10 million to Romanian search and rescue.

In Varna, she welcomed Bulgaria’s request to use some funds from SAFE, the EU’s defense industry program, “to better protect Bulgaria and the Black Sea.” She did not say what Bulgaria wants to buy.

Nine ships, 34 people

Since early October, drones have hit at least nine merchant ships off the two countries, leaving 34 people dead or missing, AFP reported on 7 November. It followed the discovery of remains, most likely of six sailors, aboard the tanker Wine Trader during repairs in Varna.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on 18 October that its drones had struck a large cargo ship. The Wine Trader’s Italy-based manager told Maritime.bg the footage shows his tanker.

After a call with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, von der Leyen said that “freedom of navigation in the Black Sea must be restored and preserved” and that the EU would attend the talks.

On 3 November, Zelenskyy listed Kyiv’s priorities: first, a ceasefire on energy and critical infrastructure, and second, unblocking the Black Sea. After his 9 November call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his office said India is ready to mediate in setting up food corridors. In his evening address, though, Zelenskyy said Russia had not supported India’s food security proposals.

US defense company B&M Defense has tested its AA Lancer 7 high-speed interceptor drone in Ukraine and handed some of the drones to Ukrainian Defense Forces units for testing in combat conditions, Defense Express reported, citing company representatives. The drone is designed to combat aerial targets and, according to the company, can reach up to 400 km/h. Defense Express says that speed makes it a possible means of countering Russian strike drones, including Shahed-type ones. The report does not say when or where in Ukraine the tests took place, or how many drones went to the units.

The test comes as Russia shifts to faster drones. In August, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) told Militarnyi that Russia was producing about 3,000 jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones a month. According to Militarnyi, the Geran-4 cruises at 350–500 km/h. That means a Geran-4 at the upper end of its cruise range would fly faster than the Lancer 7’s claimed maximum speed. B&M Defense also said it is working on interceptor drones capable of countering jet-powered aerial targets.

What the company has disclosed

According to the company, the AA Lancer 7 cruises at 180 km/h, flies for up to 17 minutes, and carries a 500-gram payload. Its range is up to 30 km, and it can operate at altitudes of up to 4 km.

B&M Defense has not disclosed detailed test results or whether the drone has intercepted any targets so far. Defense Express posted video of the drone on its Facebook page but did not say who filmed it.

Ukraine’s interceptors and Russia’s growing drone output

Ukraine, meanwhile, has scaled up interceptor deliveries to its troops. On 7 January, then-Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal said that in December–January, deliveries to the military reached an average of more than 1,500 anti-Shahed drones a day. Russia, for its part, plans further growth.

In May, Defense Express calculated from HUR’s annual production plan that Russia could make about 450 long-range drones a day by the end of 2026, decoys included. Roughly 55% of them would be strike drones.

The Council of the EU extended the EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine) on 9 November for two more years, until 15 November 2028. It also decided to establish a mission presence in Ukraine.

Russia rejects any Western troops on Ukrainian soil, and Europe’s planned force for Ukraine would go in only after the fighting stops. Since 2022, EUMAM has trained Ukrainian troops within EU territory. The new presence changes where the mission works, but only partly: the Council’s release still describes the training itself as delivered in EU member states.

What the presence in Ukraine is for

According to the Council, the presence is meant to ensure “direct and effective coordination” with Ukraine’s military and international partners, so EU training keeps pace with the army’s needs. The renewed mandate will also focus on battlefield lessons, the Council said.

The Council set a budget allocation of nearly €300 million for the new mandate, below the nearly €409 million it set for 2024–2026. The release does not explain the difference.

It is not the mission’s only EU money, though. On 26 October, the Council approved €230 million in additional financing for EUMAM Ukraine from the European Peace Facility. The €230 million is part of a €6.6 billion package member states agreed on 25 September, which also foresaw reinforcing the mission in 2027, the Council said.

How the mission got here

The EU set up EUMAM on 17 October 2022 at Ukraine’s request. The Council says it has trained more than 100,000 soldiers since then.

The Kyiv idea is not new. In August 2024, then EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said member states had agreed to a small liaison coordination center in Kyiv, Euromaidan Press reported. The Council’s 2026 texts do not say whether that center was ever set up.

Then, on 28 September, EU defense ministers agreed on the first step of the mission’s strategic review: the two-year extension. The mission would also establish a coordination cell in Kyiv, the Council said. Monday’s decision, six days before the old mandate runs out, formalized the extension. The 9 November release names no city.

Pluton, a Ukrainian drone-detection system, now monitors mesh modems on the two main known frequencies, 1.5 GHz and 3.4 GHz, its developer Infozahyst told Militarnyi, which reported it on 10 November.

Russia sends Shahed-type drones at Ukraine’s cities almost every night. On the Russian drones Pluton now covers—Geran (Shahed), Gerbera, and Molniya—each drone both receives and relays the signal, so if one node drops out, the network finds another route, Militarnyi explains. That makes the links hard to jam and lets operators correct a drone’s flight almost until it hits the target. A link that resists jamming can still be heard, though, and a drone that can be steered to the last moment is one air defense needs to see early. The developer says the upgrade widens the system’s ability to detect such threats in time.

What the upgrade adds

Infozahyst says that improvement applies at distances of up to 70 km. Up to 70 km is also the detection range the company already lists for Pluton on its website, and Militarnyi does not say whether mesh modems specifically can be picked up that far.

The company also says the new version allows remote monitoring and partial control of any number of Pluton systems over a dedicated VPN.

The mesh modem pulled from downed Russian drones is a Chinese part sold openly, OSINT group Frontelligence Insight found, as Euromaidan Press reported in August. In December 2025, HUR, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, described one Geran-2 variant sending video and control commands through such a Chinese modem, the Xingkay Tech XK-F358.

What else Pluton does

According to Militarnyi, Pluton scans the 500–6,000 MHz band and can be expanded to 24 GHz, though the Infozahyst product page lists only the 500–6,000 MHz band. The outlet reports that it detects FPV drones as well as Supercam, Zala, Lancet, and Orlan drones, and estimates a drone’s distance and its time to reach a protected site.

The developers have already designed Pluton to work with the Plastun-RP-3000M direction finder, an integration Militarnyi says automates locating and classifying drones. Meanwhile, company specialists are working on detecting digital FPV video and controlling counter-drone assets. Both are expected in the next update.

Starlink’s service in Ukraine is a matter of contractual obligations, not just goodwill, EU Defense and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told Radio Svoboda in Brussels on 9 November. If SpaceX’s network fails to honor contracts some European countries pay for, he warned, it could lose trust, which could badly hurt its ability to serve European countries and citizens.

Ukraine holds off Russia with American tools it doesn’t control, and its drones depend on SpaceX’s satellite links. The warning follows a ten-day cap in October that cut the link to Ukrainian drones moving above about 160 km/h. Should it recur, Europe has little to offer instead: the EU’s own constellation, IRIS², starts delivering only in 2029.

Ten days of a capped link

On 14 October, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry told Radio Svoboda it had detected overnight limits on Starlink (Starshield) above 160 km/h. A ministry source said this significantly complicated logistics and drone work.

Three days later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said interceptor drones, used against jet-powered Shaheds, were not working because of the limit. On 24 October, the ministry said the Starlink/Starshield link was stable again on terminals moving above 400 km/h.

Who imposed the cap is disputed. On 15 October, Reuters reported, citing US and Western officials, that the order came from inside the White House. Two days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said no one at the White House had ordered it, calling the report “categorically false.” The Wall Street Journal reported on 20 October that Musk ordered the slowdown.

Musk had written on 14 October that Starshield limits are decided by the US military and ultimately the president. On 25 October, however, he wrote: “We simply enforced our terms of service when they were bypassed.”

What Europe can offer instead

Kubilius said that, as he understands it, Ukraine will gain access to GOVSATCOM, the EU’s pooled government satellite network, from 2027. He said it is lower in quality and capabilities than IRIS² but still useful.

Earlier, at a 14 October briefing, Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the EU was in talks to fully associate Ukraine with GOVSATCOM. Military services could potentially come through commercial operators, which it is looking to add in early 2027, he said. The Commission declined to compare this with Starlink.

Day one of the US-brokered Ukraine–Russia talks in Abu Dhabi on 10 November produced an agreement on a large-scale prisoner exchange, a source close to Ukraine's delegation told Ukrainska Pravda. American officials still promoted the round as a chance for peace and brought offers for Moscow. Russia ruled out a simple ceasefire and pushed to make Europe's security order the main topic, while Kyiv insisted the war must stop first.

Russia's war on Ukraine grinds on at the front and in nightly strikes on Ukrainian cities, with Russian losses running at a regiment a day by Ukraine's count. Every round of diplomacy since the winter has left that war machine running and brought no peace any closer, not even a general ceasefire. A settlement written mainly between the mediator and the aggressor would leave Ukraine and Europe to carry out terms they did not set. What gets traded at the table, and who is kept away from it, will shape Ukraine's security for years.

Guarantees discussed, a swap agreed

The sides focused mainly on security guarantees for Ukraine and Europe, a source close to Ukraine's delegation told Ukrainska Pravda. They discussed Russia's demands for guarantees of its own separately, along with Ukraine's postwar reconstruction.

The Ukrainian side's "key position is that the war must first be brought to an end," the source said, adding that only then could work begin on a new security architecture in Europe.

The session ran for more than three hours, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Zelenskyy called the trilateral session constructive after his team's report and said freeing prisoners is a priority. The talks resume on 11 November.

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Washington sees a chance, Moscow refuses a ceasefire

US officials told reporters they saw a "real shot" at serious progress, but they expect no final deal this week, RFE/RL reported. Moscow still rejects an unconditional ceasefire and wants Ukraine to hand over the rest of Donetsk Oblast, the broadcaster noted, though the officials said both sides had shown some flexibility in private.

Russia would not simply agree to a ceasefire, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, claiming that Europeans were trying to buy Kyiv time. He also said the European envoys who flew to Abu Dhabi could "sit in the hotel," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying. A source in Russia's delegation told Reuters that the war in Ukraine is only one aspect of a new security architecture for the whole continent, Meduza reported.

Moscow's team

Denmark will send Ukraine a 32nd military aid package worth DKK 4.8 billion (about $719 million), Danish broadcaster DR reported on 10 November. Most of it will go to air defense, and Copenhagen is adding money for Ukraine's energy sector as Russian strikes leave Ukrainians in the cold. The announcement came on the day President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Denmark.

Russia is going into another winter of strikes on Ukraine's power plants and grid, with one recent barrage of 59 cruise missiles in a single night this month. Ukraine's main shield against them, the Patriot, is in short supply, and new interceptors bought today may arrive only in years. European governments are still arguing over who pays to close Ukraine's funding gap. Meanwhile, Kyiv depends on individual allies' own packages to keep its air defenses and power grid running.

Most of the money goes to air defense

Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen spoke after consulting the Danish parliament's Foreign Policy Committee. "Today we consulted the committee on the 32nd donation package to Ukraine of DKK 4.8 billion in military support," he said.

Defense Minister Jeppe Bruus said the bulk of the package will pay for air defense. The money comes from Denmark's own defense budget of around DKK 100 billion, he explained. Some budget lines were underspent, and that money will now go to Ukraine instead of construction projects.

Denmark is also giving an extra DKK 150 million (about $22 million) to Ukraine's energy sector. Rasmussen tied it to the winter Russia is forcing on Ukrainians.

"People are already freezing in Ukraine. There are power outages on a level we have not seen since the war started," Rasmussen said.

Neither minister listed the specific weapons in the package.

Zelenskyy's visit and a "strong defense package"

The timing was deliberate. Denmark wanted to use the day of the visit to show that Ukraine "can count on Denmark's action," Rasmussen said. He also called Denmark the country that has given Ukraine the most relative to its size.

Zelenskyy said he came to Denmark to meet Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, lawmakers, and defense companies. He is also due to meet King Frederik X and the prime ministers of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland. He thanked Denmark for "a strong defense package" and said the talks would focus on strengthening Ukraine's defenses.

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The visit coincided with the first three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the US since February, which opened in Abu Dhabi the same day.

A steady stream from Copenhagen

Denmark's 30th package, announced in June, was worth $670 million, and part of it went straight to Ukrainian arms makers under the "Danish model." Last month, Ukraine received more than 50,000 Danish rounds for the cannons of its F-16s, which pilots use against Russian jet drones. Copenhagen also backed a loan for the Danish arm of Fire Point, the maker of Ukraine's Flamingo cruise missiles.

Ukrainian forces likely attacked Russia's 123rd Aircraft Repair Plant in Staraya Russa overnight, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. The plant services the Il-76 transports and Il-78 refueling tankers of Russia's air force, and drones already hit it in March. Before dawn, blasts also shook occupied Sevastopol, while a railway bridge collapsed under a freight train in Russia's north.

Ukraine's long-range drones no longer go only after Russian oil. Over the past year, they have also hit factories that make parts for Russian warplanes and plants that overhaul its transport and radar aircraft. Russia flies a largely Soviet-era fleet that is hard to replace, and much of it already waits for repairs. Leaked Russian documents showed that 143 of its 368 military Antonovs needed repair. Every hit on a repair line works against the planes Moscow uses to move troops and cargo, refuel bombers, and watch the sky.

Novgorod's governor admits an industrial site was damaged

A series of explosions rang out in Novgorod Oblast. Ukrainian Telegram channel Krymsky Veter said drones hit the plant and started a fire, though the consequences were still unknown. Monitoring channel Supernova+ posted video and reports of fire trucks heading toward the plant.

Novgorod Oblast Governor Aleksandr Dronov claimed air defenses had repelled a "massive" drone attack. He admitted that an "industrial facility" was damaged but did not name it. Drone debris damaged two dacha houses, and no one was hurt, he added.

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Ukraine hit a second Russian aviation plant in two days — after Aviastar in Ulianovsk, now the 123rd plant in Novgorod Oblast

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it downed 155 drones overnight over eight Russian regions, Novgorod Oblast among them, and occupied Crimea. In its daily summary, the ministry also claimed four Rusty Dagger cruise missiles were shot down, without saying where, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported. The ministry later deleted that post from its official channel, Exilenova+ said. Ukraine's General Staff has not commented on the Staraya Russa attack.

A repeat target 640 km from Ukraine's border

Staraya Russa lies about 640 km from the Ukrainian border. Its plant repairs and maintains Il-76 military transports, Il-78 aerial refueling tankers, L-410 light transports, and aircraft engines.

Drones already went after it on 17 March. They hit hangars for Il-76 aircraft, and Ukraine's General Staff said an A-50 early warning plane suffered confirmed damage. Atesh partisans said they had burned three electronic warfare towers on the drones' route beforehand.

Blasts in occupied Sevastopol and a collapsed bridge in Russia's north

In occupied Sevastopol, locals heard heavy gunfire and explosions near Kamyshova and Kazachya bays and Cape Fiolent before dawn, Krymsky Veter reported. The channel said there was an impact near Kazachya bay. Cape Fiolent hosts two battalions of an anti-aircraft missile regiment, a radar company, and a Black Sea Fleet electronic warfare center, it noted. Russian occupation head Mikhail Razvozhaev claimed eight drones were downed and no city infrastructure was damaged.

In Arkhangelsk Oblast, a span of a railway bridge over the Viled River collapsed at 05:10 local time and derailed cars of a freight train. Governor Aleksandr Tsybulsky called it an "incident" and said no one was hurt, while passenger trains were held up. The train's tank cars were empty, Dmitry Rozhin, first deputy head of the Arkhangelsk Oblast government, said. Neither official named a cause.

Exilenova+ wrote that sabotage was being considered, which remains unconfirmed. Ukrainian Telegram channel DroneBomber passed on reports that partisans had blown up the bridge.

On the evening of 9 November, a likely missile strike hit a former asphalt-concrete plant in occupied Donetsk, DroneBomber reported. Russian forces probably used it as a base for vehicles and troops, the channel said. Exilenova+ shared video of what it suggested was the moment of the strike.

Later, the channel posted a photo of a fire at the likely impact site.

A station Russian troops used to try to disrupt Ukrainian troops’ satellite communications was among the targets Ukrainian forces struck on 8 November and overnight into 9 November, Ukraine’s General Staff reported on 9 November. The Starlink jamming station stood near Sartana in occupied Donetsk Oblast. The statement did not name the system or describe the damage.

Ukrainian troops rely on Starlink terminals to stay in touch and to control many of their drones and ground robots, so Russia keeps building systems to jam them. The strike came a week after a presidential adviser described how Russia is spreading and disguising such systems. According to the General Staff, fewer of these facilities mean more stable communications for Ukrainian units and more accurate work by Ukrainian drones.

Russia is fielding more Starlink jammers, Ukrainian adviser says

On 2 November, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a freelance adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote that Russia keeps increasing the number of satellite electronic warfare systems that interfere with Starlink. According to him, Russia has covered almost all important sites in Crimea with this type of system and increasingly uses it along the front line. By his estimate, each system shields a single site, covering about 25 km².

Ukraine has hunted them since they returned

In June, Beskrestnov, then an adviser to the defense minister, wrote that the first case of Russia suppressing Starlink was recorded on the Kharkiv axis in 2024. He said Ukrainian troops quickly found and destroyed that system, and no mass attempts to repeat it were recorded until 2026.

Since then, Ukrainian units have tracked such systems down. In June, the 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment and the Security Service’s Alpha special operations center destroyed one in a joint operation, the regiment’s commander, Mykola Kolesnyk, showed in a video. In August, satellite images from the Dnipro Osint community showed that a complex in Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai, was gone. The group called it the third such loss recorded in open sources.

Trailers, trucks, and greenhouses

Meanwhile, Russia is adapting. Beskrestnov wrote on 2 November that the complexes no longer stand as six trailers side by side on one site. He named truck parks as the ideal place to hide one: among dozens of trucks, three to six may carry the system. He added that Russia had devised a variant with a single antenna in each of several small car trailers spread across the terrain. The system can also work from under polycarbonate or plastic film, so opaque greenhouses deserve attention, he wrote.

However, he noted that the antennas need an unobstructed view straight overhead, which limits how well they can be disguised.

Lithuania will hold Russian and Belarusian grain at its main port, Klaipeda, until lab tests show it was not grown on Ukrainian land that Russia occupies, an official of Lithuania's Agriculture Ministry told Reuters on 9 November. EU rules still let Russian grain pass through the bloc, so Lithuania cannot ban it, but it can make the trip slow and expensive for Russian sellers.

Russia has taken about 15 million tons of grain from occupied Ukrainian land between 2022 and August 2025 and sells it abroad as its own, and the money helps pay for its war. Ukraine has opened its first war-crime case against a captain who carried such grain. The EU bans buying Russian grain but still lets it travel through European ports.

No proof it isn't stolen, no shipping

From 16 November, Lithuania will check every load of Russian and Belarusian wheat, barley, corn, and sunflower seeds that passes through its territory and send a sample from each to a lab, the minister's adviser Justas Jaskonis told the Lithuanian news agency BNS, according to the public broadcaster LRT. Customs will let a cargo go only after Lithuania's food safety service signs off on it.

Lithuania has no lab that can run these tests, so the samples go abroad, and the grain waits in port. "The tests can take two months or more," the ministry official told Reuters. "If the declared origin is found to be fraudulent, the shipment will have to be returned or destroyed." The exporters, not Lithuania, will pay for the storage, the tests, and any return or destruction.

Until now, ships could leave before the results came in

Lithuania started testing Russian and Belarusian grain in September, suspecting some of it came from occupied Ukraine. Until now, the state paid for the tests, and the ships could sail before results arrived. Since September, inspectors have taken five samples from two loads of unclear origin, and the results are still not in, the food safety service told BNS.

Agriculture Minister Kęstutis Mažeika said Lithuania would offer its neighbors its way of checking the grain. "Sadly, Latvia is doing nothing on this issue," he told reporters in the parliament on 10 November.

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Russia moved its grain north after Black Sea attacks

Russia started sending more grain through Baltic ports after Ukrainian attacks on ships and ports in the Black Sea, Reuters reported. Russian and Ukrainian wheat shipments through Azov and Black Sea ports have been at a virtual standstill since mid-August, the agency said, and Russian wheat exports are running at about half their usual volume, according to Matt Ammermann of the trading firm StoneX. Drones also keep hitting ships off Romania and Bulgaria.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania asked the EU in October to ban Russian grain from passing through, Reuters reported, and Estonia already banned it on its own territory. Poland, meanwhile, is courting the wheat market Ukraine depends on. In June, Egypt said it was discussing buying more Polish wheat, after Russia and Ukraine supplied 85% of its wheat imports in 2025.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sent parliament an urgent bill that would make security service officers declare their wealth again, the Verkhovna Rada's website shows. It follows a week of anti-corruption wiretaps in which investigators linked senior security and police officers to a criminal gang. The detectives behind the case now say the public has seen only a small part of it.

Russia's war has put Ukraine's security and police agencies at the heart of national defense, from catching Russian agents to keeping order far from the front. How clean those agencies are also shapes Ukraine's road into the European Union. Brussels ties membership talks to rule-of-law reforms, and its latest roadmap set no date for Kyiv to join. Ukraine and the EU have set up a joint task force to speed up the anti-corruption reforms that gate accession. Watchdogs, though, have warned that the independent anti-corruption agencies Brussels insists on are under strain.

Zelenskyy calls the news shameful and asks for a fast vote

Zelenskyy first spoke about the case in his evening video on 7 November. He called that week's news about the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) "frankly unpleasant, frankly shameful, absolutely unacceptable things." The service had already dismissed officials, and more personnel decisions would follow, he said. He added that Kyiv had raised the Khimprom drug cartel at the center of the case with the United States. He also asked lawmakers to pass the declarations bill without delay, so that officers' lifestyles and assets are open to checks.

The bill rewrites the anti-corruption law's wartime rules for servicemembers, its text shows. Troops of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the Border Guard Service, and several other forces could still file within 90 days after martial law ends or they leave the service. For servicemembers in other state bodies, the delay would apply only while they take part in combat. They would have to file within 90 days of leaving it, and a return to combat would not restart that clock.

Some posts would get no delay at all. They include draft offices, military medical boards, and defense procurement, as well as senior jobs such as heads of law enforcement agencies and their deputies. The bill also spells out whose declarations may stay hidden for security reasons and when they must become public, Liga reported, citing its explanatory note. Some servicemembers who haven't filed since 2021 would get 90 days to do so, the outlet said.

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Restoring declarations for officers who don't fight is a condition of IMF, EU, and G7 support, and Zelenskyy first promised it on 16 September.

Detectives say the darkest part is still hidden

Oleksandr Abakumov, head of a detective unit at the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), wrote on Facebook on 9 November that the published material is only the tip of the iceberg, Hromadske Radio reported.

"We showed only what we could show without harming the investigation. A significant part of the materials cannot be made public for now. And believe me, the darkest part of this corruption iceberg still remains under water," Abakumov wrote.

He said that in the case's second stage, investigators served notices of suspicion on the first five members of a new criminal organization. Investigators believe it involved at least 12 people.

On 10 November, acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalskyi ordered an internal inquiry into whether prosecutors helped return property seized from scam call centers and the U420 drug-shop network, his office said.

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Investigators say prosecutors shielded scam call centers. Their office has now fired eight people and is checking how its ex-chief left Ukraine

Lawmakers want security chiefs to explain themselves

In parliament, former president and opposition leader Petro Poroshenko backed faction leaders who demanded a hearing of the law enforcement chiefs tied to the case, his European Solidarity party said. "It is no longer corruption, it is no longer theft of money, it is state power growing together with bandits," he told lawmakers.

Fedir Venislavskyi, a member of parliament's national security committee, said the committee would question acting SBU head Oleksandr Poklad behind closed doors on 9 November, Espreso reported. He said the SBU's role in the case posed "a direct threat to Ukraine's national security."

Opposition lawmaker Mykola Kniazhytskyi told Radio NV that his European Solidarity faction would back the bill. He argued that the real trouble lies in how officials are appointed. "The problem is largely in personnel policy, in the absence of competitions," he said.

Security service staff chip in for a jailed general's bail

On 6 November, the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered SBU Major General Serhii Duka, suspected of shielding the group, held for 60 days or released on UAH 65 million ($1.4 million) bail. Two days later, Ukrainska Pravda reported that SBU officers in the regions were being told to pay toward it. Operatives were to send UAH 50,000 ($1,100), and section and department heads UAH 150,000 ($3,300), the outlet's law enforcement sources said. The outlet also noted that UAH 15 million ($330,000) in bail for another suspect, police colonel Volodymyr Tsenov, was paid on 6 November.

By early afternoon on 9 November, 800 payments totaling UAH 22 million ($484,000) had reached the court's account, Slidstvo.Info reported, citing court sources. Duka's lawyer, Yurii Sukhov, confirmed the collection but said there was no fixed sum for the "voluntary donation." By the morning of 10 November, the bail had been paid only in part, the court told Interfax-Ukraine.

Tsenov lives in a mansion with a pool and a gym outside Kyiv, bought by his father, a former senior Interior Ministry official, Hromadske found. The family owns three houses, three apartments, and four hectares of land, most of which Tsenov and his relatives attributed to years of savings.

Slidstvo.Info also found a 2018 photo of Vitalii Rybalko, known as Boxer and suspected of taking part in attacks on people, relaxing with police officer Oleksandr Demianchuk in what appears to be Alanya, Türkiye. Rybalko posted it on Russian social network VKontakte.

A 2017 photo on the same page shows him with Andrii Osipov, whom investigators consider the group's leader.

Russia launched 162 drones and an Iskander-M ballistic missile at Ukraine overnight on 10 November, Ukraine's Air Force said, injuring at least 14 people, among them residents of a care home in Kyiv Oblast and of a residential area in Kharkiv. The night followed a day in which Russian strikes killed nine civilians, and an evening address in which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of trying to split Ukraine along the Dnipro River.

Russia strikes Ukraine every day and night, aiming missiles and drones at power plants, bridges, and residential neighborhoods far from the front. This autumn, its attacks on the grid have cut power to hundreds of thousands of people at a time, and Russian missiles keep hitting bridges across the Dnipro in Kyiv. A UN inquiry has called such strikes on the grid crimes against humanity. The aim is to wear Ukrainians down until Kyiv accepts Moscow's terms, now pressed at the US-mediated Abu Dhabi talks. Russia has tried the same every winter since 2022, and it has not broken Ukraine's will to resist.

Zelenskyy: Russia targets bridges and the grid to divide the country

Zelenskyy spoke after a meeting of the Stavka, Ukraine's top military command, which discussed what he called "Russia's operation against our bridges and power grid." "Russia is trying to divide Ukraine along the Dnipro River and make life as difficult as possible for people," he said on 9 November. He urged communities and regions to carry out the measures set out in their resilience plans.

Overnight Russian attacks injure 14 from Kharkiv to Kherson

Of the 162 drones, 96 were jet-powered. Air defenses downed or jammed 135, but the Air Force recorded hits at 19 locations. Russia kept launching jet drones into the morning, including a group from the Black Sea toward Ochakiv, the Air Force's alerts show.

In Pereiaslav, Kyiv Oblast, a Russian strike partly destroyed a municipal home for people who need special social support and care, the oblast administration reported. Two residents went to hospital with injuries, and rescuers evacuated the rest. In Kharkiv's Kholodnohirskyi district, a Shahed drone set a house on fire, damaged about 10 cars, and injured six people in the evening, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

A Russian attack on Kropyvnytskyi, the capital of Kirovohrad Oblast, injured two men in the morning. Both are in serious condition, one in intensive care and the other in surgery with burn specialists, oblast head Andrii Raikovych wrote. Later that morning, a Russian strike hit a retail chain's store in the city.

In central Kherson, a Russian drone hit an apartment block and injured an 88-year-old woman. In the morning, another drone wounded a 49-year-old woman at home in Novovorontsovka in Kherson Oblast, and a 51-year-old man hurt in the same strike went to hospital later. In Poltava Oblast, debris from a Russian drone set a house on fire in the Omelnyk community, and a 60-year-old man suffered burns to his arms and was hospitalized in moderate condition.

Power cuts and fires from Dnipro to Kremenchuk

Russian strikes damaged key energy equipment in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and cut power to a large part of Dnipro and Kamianske in the evening, energy company DTEK said. Another strike started a fire at an enterprise in Dnipro. Drones hit an industrial enterprise in Kremenchuk and an energy facility in Poltava district.

In Kryvyi Rih, drones hit critical infrastructure and damaged more than 10 garages and a car, Oleksandr Vilkul, who heads the city's defense council, said.

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One of largest Russian attacks yet on Ukraine’s energy system forces emergency blackouts across regions and leaves Kyiv without water

A Russian attack left 60,788 customers in Mykolaiv Oblast's Pervomaisk district without power until crews restored it. Almost 10,500 customers lost power in Kirovohrad Oblast's Holovanivsk district, where a Russian strike also set a critical infrastructure site on fire. In Cherkasy Oblast, Russia hit energy facilities in the Uman and Zvenyhorodka districts.

Russia struck the Trypillia thermal power plant near Kyiv again, its owner Centrenergo said on 9 November, calling the consequences extremely serious. Since late September, Russia has sharply stepped up its attacks on the plant and changed its tactics, the company said. Russia can now use different weapons against one target within a short time, including ballistic missiles and jet drones, Centrenergo CEO Serhii Isachenko said. The plant supplies Kyiv, Cherkasy, and Zhytomyr oblasts.

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Russia kills three at a store of kindergarten food in Odesa after setting a Kremenchuk hotel ablaze

Russian attacks kill nine civilians in a day

Russian drones killed an 82-year-old woman at home in Vyshhorod, just north of Kyiv, on 9 November, and injured three people. Kyiv Oblast counted one person killed and nine injured over the day. In Donetsk Oblast, Russia killed two people in Kramatorsk and one in Sloviansk, and a Molniya drone hit the roof of a building of the Sviatohirsk Lavra, a major Orthodox monastery.

In Sumy Oblast, Russian attacks killed one person and injured eight. On the morning of 10 November, a drone hit an empty commuter train at a station in Sumy. In Kherson Oblast, Russia killed one person and injured six over the day, the oblast administration reported. The dead woman, 87, died in artillery fire in Kherson.

In Kharkiv's Kyivskyi district, a drone struck a parking lot near a store and injured a boy aged one year and 11 months, now in intensive care. Russian attacks wounded three people in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, and an FPV drone injured three people in a car in Parutyne, Mykolaiv Oblast. On the morning of 9 November, Russia killed three people in a strike on a food warehouse in Odesa and injured at least three, the State Emergency Service said.

More injuries are surfacing only now. Seven people hurt in Izium overnight on 9 November sought medical help. In Kherson, a woman injured on 8 November and another injured on 2 November went to hospital. In Sumy Oblast, a 15-year-old girl hurt by a drone on 5 November turned to doctors.

Most Ukrainian soldiers can hold a frontline position for about a month before they start to break down. After the first month, 60% report signs of exhaustion, and by day 60 it is eight in ten, according to a study by Ukraine’s Office of the Military Ombudsperson, which found the worst stressor is not shelling but the lack of water and supplies, the office said.

Ukraine’s shortage of trained reserves has left many soldiers holding the same ground far past the point of effectiveness, some for months without relief. The office found that after 60 days a position stops being a combat mission and becomes “survival while waiting for rotation,” and it has drawn up a protocol to limit how long troops are left there.

After 60 days, the job becomes survival

The study, conducted in June and July 2026, surveyed 1,616 soldiers and 174 commanders at the company, battalion, and brigade levels. The effective time limit for a position is, for most, one month.

The office also reviewed 853 complaints about long deployments from soldiers and their families between January and September, with an average duration of 115 days.

Water, not shelling, is the worst of it

The most stressful factor was not Russian fire but the lack of water: 83% of those surveyed called its impact critical, and 76% cited the absence of resupply. Soldiers also pointed to not understanding the situation, comrades killed on or near the position, isolation, poorly built positions, being unable to leave cover, and losing contact with commanders.

The common symptoms were disrupted sleep, bursts of anger, constant anxiety, and physical effects including muscle atrophy, the office said, and one in five admitted that on position they thought they “wouldn’t get out alive.”

The longer the stint, the deeper the damage

After long deployments, 60% needed more than two weeks to recover, and one in four said they never fully did. The toll was heaviest among those left 180 days or more without rotation: in that group, 48.7% could not fully recover, 17.3% reported thoughts of self-harm, and 46.9% had thought of a wound as a way out.

The office said the findings call for an overhaul of psychological, tactical, and medical training, and that it has built a draft “Position Assessment Protocol” with commanders, now before the high command.

A covert Russian network tried to exploit last month’s riots in France to paint its government as weak and overwhelmed by immigration. The operation behind it, known as "Operation Overload", spread videos impersonating Western media to French audiences, according to an internal EU assessment seen by Reuters.

The EU says the same operation works to erode European support for Ukraine by casting it as a drain on domestic budgets. France under President Emmanuel Macron has provided extensive military, financial, and diplomatic support to Kyiv. In 2025, it sent its Mirage 2000 5Fs to Ukraine.

Fake media videos claim migrant rapes and looming attacks

Operation Overload, active since September 2023, impersonates Western media and public figures. Some of its videos on the riots falsely claimed migrants had raped protesters or that terrorist attacks were imminent, and it sought to “depict the French leadership as weak and increasingly authoritarian,” the EU analysis found.

Covering 7 to 21 October, the analysis found no evidence that Moscow had instigated or escalated the protests, calling the activity “the opportunistic exploitation of unrest.”

“Such events offer opportunities to undermine national governments, fuel fear and division, and shape public perceptions ahead of elections,” the restricted-circulation document said.

MAGA and Israeli-linked accounts drew far more views

A separate assessment by France’s Foreign Ministry, also seen by Reuters, found that accounts linked to Israel and to the US MAGA movement pushed “hostile narratives” around the riots, tying them to radical Islamism and migration.

By its count, the 10 most-viewed posts on X from “pro-Russian spheres” drew 2.8 million views from 16 to 18 October, far fewer than MAGA-linked accounts, at more than 49 million, and Israeli-linked accounts, at more than 35 million, over the same days. Reuters said it could not independently verify either report.

Elina Treyger, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, said such campaigns wage a slow-burning “narrative competition” that can reshape how Western democracies are perceived and fuel an anti-immigrant backlash, pushing European voters toward political extremes.

Russia is increasingly institutionalizing drone operation training as part of its youth policy in occupied Ukrainian territories, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on 6 November. Youth centers in the Russian-occupied part of Luhansk Oblast, which are planned for construction in 2027, will be equipped with specialized classrooms where young people can learn to operate drones, Mikhail Golubovich, the so-called Luhansk People's Republic's (LNR) minister of youth policy, said, according to the Luhansk Information Center on 30 October.

Russia began its occupation of Luhansk Oblast in 2014, and nearly the entire region is now under its temporary control. Russia is now creating more and more access for children and young people living there to learn how to pilot drones, which currently play an important role in the Russian-Ukrainian war. The Oblast secured funding to establish the youth centers through a subsidy awarded for winning the “Region for the Young” competition, according to the Luhansk Information Center (LIC) on 30 October.

The All-Russian People's Front will help set up and equip the classrooms as part of its “Flight” project, an occupation official said in the report. The institute notes that the People's Front is a political coalition backed by the Kremlin and Russia's Ministry of Defense.

The “Pilots of the Future” competition was approved personally by Putin

In recent years, Russian federal youth programs have increasingly taken on a military focus, exposing children in occupied Ukrainian territories to pro-Russian, hypermilitarized views, ISW writes in its analysis.

The LIC's 30 October report was prompted by news that the regional stage of the all-Russian “Pilots of the Future” drone piloting championship had taken place in the LNR. According to the report, children and teenagers aged between seven and 18 took part in the competition. The “Pilots of the Future” competition was personally approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, The Moscow Times reported in 2025.

Not just extracurricular competitions, but also part of school education

Back in 2024, Russia published its first handbook on unmanned aerial systems for students in grades 8–9, covering the basics of drone operation, programming, and use, Novaya Gazeta reported. The handbook was developed by the Geoscan technology company group and the Prosveshcheniye publishing house, the report said. In May 2025, the manual was officially granted textbook status, the Russian media outlet Vechernyaya Kazan reported.

Moscow is also involving high school students in education on unmanned systems. Russia has published its first UAV textbook for students in grades 10–11, teaching them how to design, program, maintain, and pilot drones. The textbook is also intended to encourage students to pursue careers in unmanned technologies, The Moscow Times reported on 27 February. The textbook will also be used in territories of Ukraine that remain temporarily outside Kyiv's control, the Center for Countering Disinformation reported that same month.

Training young people in drone programming is also intended to make military service involving unmanned aerial vehicles an acceptable career path for Ukrainian youth and prepare them for possible service in the army, ISW reports.

Germany is threatening to block the EU’s next long-term budget unless every member state helps pay for Ukraine. In a letter to European Council President António Costa, Chancellor Friedrich Merz made his support for the 2028-2034 budget conditional on all 27 countries committing to cover Ukraine’s financing, which faces a €70 billion gap next year, the Financial Times reported.

This way, Germany, the EU’s biggest net contributor, leverages pressure over a handful of governments that have refused to pay for Ukraine’s defense, despite previous warnings from multiple intelligence agencies and NATO that Russia might have planned to expand its aggression on European countries.

The report came days before EU leaders meet in Dublin on 12-13 November, where closing Kyiv’s shortfall is already on the agenda, and as elections across Europe threaten to make unanimous support harder to hold.

The 70-billion-euro gap

Last December, EU leaders agreed a €90 billion loan for Ukraine, but Kyiv says it needs €70 billion more next year to keep fighting, a figure its allies accept.

The bloc has pledged to cover about two-thirds, roughly €45 billion, and the European Commission is weighing options including fresh joint borrowing, hoping for a deal by year’s end.

Closing the gap is “an essential prerequisite for resolving this issue and for discussing any further matters, particularly those with financial implications,” Merz wrote in the letter, tying it directly to the budget.

The holdouts

Four countries, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic, have signaled they will not contribute to further aid for Kyiv. Three of them already won an opt-out last year from the interest payments on the €90 billion loan. All four are net beneficiaries of the EU budget, while Germany is its largest net contributor, the leverage Merz is now pressing.

Berlin also wants future funding for Ukraine to require only a qualified majority rather than unanimity, to head off vetoes.

A narrowing window

Merz insists the EU “must then find a solution supported by all Member States that ensures a sound and multiannual financing perspective for Ukraine from 2028 onwards.” The politics are tightening: Marine Le Pen, leading the polls before France’s April presidential election, has said that if she wins, she would end support for Kyiv beyond some operational help and training. Votes in Italy and Poland could further erode consensus.

Picture this. A kitchen designer wraps up a layout late on Friday, fires it off to the homeowner, and heads home happy. Monday, 8:15 a.m., the phone rings. "The thing you sent is just pages of numbers." The designer sent a perfectly good DXF file, the exact one the cabinet shop will load into its CNC router later. To the person paying for the kitchen, though, it might as well be written in Klingon.

What your client actually sees

The uncomfortable bit for anyone in the trade is that neither Windows nor macOS ships with anything that displays these drawings. Ask anyone outside the trade to open DXF file attachments on their family laptop, and you'll get one of four reactions, ranked here from mildly annoying to properly expensive:

- The laptop asks which app should open it, and nothing in that list rings a bell
- They pick Notepad (why not?) and scroll through thousands of lines of numbers, with the odd word like "SECTION" thrown in
- They grab the first free viewer a search turns up, from a site you'd never vouch for
- They give up, reply "looks great!", and approve a plan they never saw

I'd worry most about the last one. That's how a fridge ends up four inches too wide for its gap, and nobody finds out until delivery day.

Why the format looks like gibberish

Blame 1982. That's the year Autodesk released the first AutoCAD, and DXF came with it. AutoCAD's own DWG files were a closed book to other programs back then, so DXF became the side door, an export that rival software could read without Autodesk's help. Most DXFs are still plain text, which explains your client's Notepad adventure.

Open the DXF format up, and it's crude in an almost charming way: a giant shopping list, two lines per item, a code number on top and the actual value underneath. "10" means an X coordinate is coming, and the line under it says 152.5. Your client's floor plan was a few thousand of those pairs, filed under headings like HEADER, BLOCKS, and ENTITIES.
Machines love it. Laser cutters, CNC routers, and even the old pen plotters chew through that list without complaint, which is how DXF became the workshop's common language. People, not so much.

Three ways a DXF breaks on someone else's screen

Say your client does find a viewer. Good news, right? Not quite. Plenty of what makes a CAD drawing look right lives on your computer, in your settings, and never makes it into the file.
Units are the classic trap, because some programs never write down whether 198 means millimeters or inches. So the viewer guesses. Guess inches, and your tidy base cabinet is suddenly 16 feet wide. Then the fonts. Plenty of CAD lettering uses SHX fonts (nobody outside the industry has them), so the viewer grabs a stand-in, and dimension labels can come out squashed beyond reading.

Last, layers. One wrong click in the layer list and every dimension on the sheet is gone.
None of that is the client's fault. They were handed the workshop file.

Send a PDF they can open anywhere

A PDF sorts out all three. The scale is locked, the text is baked in, and the sheet looks the same on someone's iPhone as on the office printer. I like doing this step with OnlyDoc, since you can convert DXF to PDF straight from a browser tab with no install, even on a shared workstation or a laptop balanced on a half-built countertop.

It takes files up to 100 MB. A few seconds after the upload, you've got a PDF with the line weights, hatching, colors, and scale intact. Layer visibility comes along as well. One habit I'd steal from people who do this a lot: glance at which layers are switched on before every DXF to PDF run, because a dimensions layer that's off in the drawing will be off in the PDF too.

What the PDF is for

Call the PDF what it is: the presentation copy. It's the version that lives on the client's phone between meetings, gets zoomed into on the bus, gets scribbled on at the kitchen table, and gets forwarded to whoever else is paying. One thing to tell them if they'll measure from a printout: print at "Actual size." "Fit to page" shrinks the sheet by a few percent, and suddenly the island looks an inch narrower than it really is.

Editing, on the other hand, isn't on the menu. A technical drawing saved as a PDF is a picture of the design, and nobody should be dragging walls around in it. Changes come back as notes, you update the drawing on your end, and a fresh PDF goes out, so there's only ever one master copy, and you're holding it.

Conclusion

Keep the DXF for the fabricator and anyone else who runs CAD. Everybody else gets a PDF, ideally in the very same email. It costs you a minute, and it beats the Monday-morning phone call (or the fridge that doesn't fit).

A Russian attack on Odesa killed two women and a man and hit a warehouse storing food for the city’s kindergartens and schools, setting it on fire, Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper said on 9 November. A woman was hospitalized in serious condition, and two men aged 41 and 46 later sought medical help, bringing the number of injured to three, he added in a later update.

The strike came a day before US-mediated talks between Ukraine and Russia open in Abu Dhabi, the first trilateral round since February. In the run-up, Russia has been returning to the same civilian supply sites in Odesa Oblast. This appears to fit what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called an effort to squeeze Ukraine before the talks.

Russia keeps returning to the same targets in Odesa Oblast

The attack on the city began in the morning, according to Odesa City Military Administration Head Serhii Lysak, who reported the three deaths. Shortly before, Ukraine’s Air Force had warned of a jet-powered drone heading for Odesa from the north. Officials have not said what weapon hit the warehouse.

The same day, a logistics company in Odesa Oblast was hit for the third time, damaging its equipment, and no one was hurt, according to preliminary information, Kiper said. He did not name the company or say where it is.

A day earlier, Russian forces struck an Odesa food warehouse they had already attacked before, starting a large fire, Kiper noted on 8 November.

Meanwhile, the attacks went on into the afternoon. A two-story house in Odesa Oblast caught fire after another strike, and rescuers saved two people, Kiper reported. Later, another attack on Odesa damaged the windows and roofs of several houses and lightly injured a man, Lysak said.

Russian drones struck Ukrainian rescuers three times as they worked the site of a school bombing that killed 55 people. The attacks on 8 November, at the site of the 2 November airstrike on a school in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, wounded two emergency workers and damaged fire-rescue vehicles, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.

Striking a site a second time once rescuers arrive has become a hallmark of Russia’s war on Ukraine, turning first responders into targets. At Komyshuvakha, the crews were recovering the dead from a strike that buried civilians sheltering in an underground school.

Three strikes on the rescuers

During the second attack, a Russian drone hit a fire-rescue vehicle and wounded its driver. About an hour later, as rescuers towed the damaged vehicle away, a third strike wounded a second driver and damaged more equipment. Both were given medical care. The crews are working under constant fire, the service said, and repeated drone attacks have damaged several vehicles.

Two of its dogs were injured as well: a Belgian shepherd, Mria, suffered a leg injury, and another, Targan, suffered an acute stress reaction that may end its search work.

“Russia continues to cynically destroy Ukrainian emergency workers as they carry out their duty,” the service said.

The strike that killed 55

On the morning of 2 November, Russia dropped multiple aerial bombs on Komyshuvakha, among them the three-ton FAB-3000, hitting a canteen and the underground school that served as a humanitarian hub and heated “Point of Invincibility” shelter, said Ivan Fedorov, co-head of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Defense Council.

The Ukrainians go to such points to charge their devices, have a hot meal, and warm up. People were inside when the bombs fell, and dozens were killed.

The only survivor of her brigade

Earlier, Raisa, a 68-year-old cook at the canteen, spent nearly two hours under a concrete slab before rescuers freed her, she told the BBC.

She had stepped out to take the trash and could not reach the shelter when the bomb struck. The slab pinned her right arm and injured her head.

“Carried out the trash, came in, and then nothing. Slabs fell on us. We were on top at the time,” she said.

Her partner, Iryna Fokina, was killed beside her, and Raisa said every one of the eight women on her brigade died.

“The girls from our brigade, eight people, and they all died,” she added.

Ukraine had barely managed to adapt to Russian jet-powered drones when the Russians ramped up the production of another type of weapon—small-sized cruise missiles. Russia has upgraded its “Geran-5” jet drone to achieve greater speed and altitude. Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, which examined a nearly intact sample, found foreign electronic components inside, it said. By its aerodynamic design and characteristics, the Geran-5 K5-K already qualifies as a small cruise missile.

Of the 93 foreign electronic components, the most come from US makers (52), with 10 each from China and Switzerland. Russia keeps trying to hide the markings of the electronic base it uses, in particular digital signal processors from Texas Instruments and inertial modules from Japan’s Murata.

From drone to cruise missile

Russia began using the new K5-K modification against Ukraine in early fall 2026. The craft is more compact than its predecessor—4 meters long against 6.5, with a 3-meter wingspan against 3.2.

Its maximum altitude rose from 5 to 6 kilometers, its cruising speed tops 450 km per hour, and in some maneuvers it accelerates to 1,000 km per hour. The range holds at 1,000 kilometers and the warhead at 90 kilograms. In the studied sample, intelligence found a thermobaric warhead, a more powerful one.

Chinese chips, a Russian engine

The K5-K carries the “Susanin” system that Ukrainian intelligence earlier found in Russia’s Geran-4 drone. It navigates using terrain imagery, matching the feed from a dual-band camera against a reference picture stored in memory to maintain its route. The image-processing block is built on a Chinese microcomputer, the Coke Pi.

The drone’s engine, a TRD-200 turbojet, is assembled in Russia’s Alabuga from Chinese parts.

Defense Intelligence has published an interactive 3D model and the component list on its War&Sanctions portal, saying the foreign parts show how much Russian weapons production leans on imports, which tighter sanctions could choke off.

A faster threat for air defense

Ukrainian air defense is still learning to counter jet drones. Its effectiveness is growing, with Ukraine now downing nearly 60% of Russia’s Geran-4 jet drones and up to 80% in some attacks, the General Staff says.

However, Ukraine and its partners must urgently prepare for the new threat to avoid repeating the mistakes made against jet drones that caught air defenses off guard in August 2026.

Ukraine is standing up a Space Forces branch of its military to fight Russia in orbit. On 9 November, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law creating the Space Forces within the Armed Forces, a branch whose core missions will be to destroy Russian satellites and strike Moscow’s new military satellite network, Taras Berezovets of the Territorial Defense Forces Command said on 24 Channel.

The force was created against the backdrop of a slowdown in the speed of Ukraine’s military Starlink terminals after the diesel deal between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was also created amid Russia’s development of its “Rassvet” system, which will coordinate its forces.

What the new branch is for

Berezovets laid out three aims for the branch:

• destroying Russian satellites and striking the “Rassvet” network
• managing Ukraine’s own satellites
• folding space reconnaissance into combat as leading armies do.

Because Ukraine cannot launch spacecraft from its own territory during the war, the satellites would be put into orbit by partners and then pass under the direct command of the Space Forces.

“There are enough ranges in the world: France, the UK, which can provide us with the appropriate capabilities,” he said.

Why a space branch now

Berezovets recalled that Ukraine became the first country in the world to create Unmanned Systems Forces in February 2024, and called a separate space branch the logical next step against Russia, whose own military-space forces have long been in action.

“The decision to create a separate branch, space forces within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, is correct, if only because within the enemy’s forces they have long operated, the VKS, Russia’s military-space forces. Let’s not forget that the war is waged, among other things, at the level of satellites that carry out reconnaissance missions,” he stressed.

The threat from Rassvet

Berezovets described “Rassvet” as a Starlink analog that Russia is building for combat, capable of feeding operators data from reconnaissance drones and redirecting strike drones like Shaheds mid-flight.

He said Russia has put 32 craft into orbit this year to pass data and correct drone routes in real time, letting its drones rely less on preset paths and slip past Ukrainian air defense and electronic warfare.

The system is still in testing and glitching. Russia lost contact with three craft in the past month, he said, but warned against underestimating a project Moscow feeds with foreign components bought around sanctions.

Russia lost 2,980 troops killed and seriously wounded on 8 November, its heaviest daily toll of the full-scale war, Ukraine's General Staff said. It is the third such record in under three weeks. Ukraine's drone pilots set a record of their own that day, and Russia's losses for 2026 have now passed 400,000.

Russia keeps sending infantry at Ukraine's lines day after day, and Ukraine increasingly answers with drones. Germany's defense minister sees no Russian progress on the ground, only enormous losses. The toll keeps climbing as US, Ukrainian, and Russian officials head into talks in Abu Dhabi. Ukraine's daily figures cannot be checked independently, but outside counts point the same way. The BBC has named 285,023 dead Russian soldiers so far.

A new daily high, a week after the last one

The previous record, 2,500, came in the General Staff's report of 2 November. The one before it, 2,250, came on 22 October, Ukrainian news site Liga counted. The General Staff compared the new toll to more than six crews of the cruiser Moskva, the Black Sea Fleet flagship Ukraine sank in 2022. That works out to one Russian soldier every 29 seconds, it said.

Russia has lost 400,410 troops since 1 January, crossing the 400,000 mark on the record day. For all of 2025, its losses came to 418,170 killed and wounded, the General Staff said in January. Its overall tally since February 2022 now stands at about 1,609,380.

The General Staff blamed Russia's commanders for the toll. “The Russian command keeps driving units into suicidal assaults,” it wrote, while Ukraine's troops stop those attacks day after day.

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Ukraine's drone pilots break their record for the third time in eight days

Pilots of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces killed or wounded 801 Russian troops on 8 November, their commander, Robert Brovdi, callsign Madyar, wrote on Telegram. The previous highs were 751 on 5 November and 708 on 1 November, he added. On the record day, his pilots took out one Russian soldier every 1.8 minutes.

From 1 to 8 November, the drone force hit 5,492 Russian troops, an average of 687 a day. Its pilots destroyed or hit 2,611 Russian targets in all on 8 November alone, Brovdi said.

Russian Iskander-M ballistic missiles can still hit bridges when satellite navigation is jammed, because onboard seekers correct their course in the final seconds, Ukrainian radio-technology expert Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov wrote on 9 November. Ukraine’s military intelligence database lists both seekers he names, though not how they perform under jamming.

Since 1 October, Russia has been striking Kyiv’s Dnipro crossings, the first such attacks since the full-scale invasion began. Jamming is one of Ukraine’s defenses against guided weapons. If it can’t throw these missiles off course, the bridges have to rely on interceptors and repairs, with backup crossings still being built.

The last seconds of the flight

Navigation is suppressed over the whole country during air-raid alerts, Beskrestnov wrote in a Telegram post. That makes it hard for an Iskander to hit within a meter of its target, and an inertial system alone won’t give that accuracy, he added. Russia, he wrote, wants its hits.

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That’s why, according to Beskrestnov, Iskanders carry optical homing heads or more expensive radar-guided ones. As the warhead falls, radar scans the terrain for a few seconds, and a correction goes into the missile’s guidance system, he explained.

What the intelligence database shows

Beskrestnov linked to War&Sanctions, a portal run by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) that catalogs components found in Russian weapons. One entry lists the 9E436 optical correlation homing head for the 9M723 Iskander-M. It names Russia’s TsNIIAG as the manufacturer and the NII Televideniya institute as an involved company. Another lists the 9B918 active radar homing head, made by the Russian company Radar MMS.

Russian drones first hit Kyiv’s Southern Bridge on 1 October, and the strikes continued the next day. Days later, a strike cratered the Northern Bridge. Then, overnight on 27 October, a ballistic attack damaged the Southern Bridge. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said traffic across it was closed and metro trains between Osokorky and Chervonyi Khutir stations were suspended. On 7 November, six ballistic missiles targeted the Northern Bridge and four hit it, Zelenskyy said. Traffic across it was closed in both directions, Klitschko reported.

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Meanwhile, Infrastructure and Recovery Minister Mykola Kalashnyk said on 30 October that Ukraine plans 21 alternative crossings over rivers, including the Dnipro, with the first in Kyiv due in early 2027. Bridges have been targets in both directions. In June, Ukraine struck the Chonhar bridge to occupied Crimea, and a Ukrainian commander told Army TV the strike left a Russian brigade waiting for fuel.