Ukrainian drone manufacturer Wild Hornets says its new STING-family interceptor drone has destroyed about ten Russian Geran-4 jet drones and several Geran-5s—technically also drones but ones whose jet engines make them functionally small cruise missiles—in limited deployment over recent days, according to an interview with a company representative published by NV on 22 September. The company says it plans to begin mass production within about a month after completing combat tests.

Russia has sharply increased its use of jet-powered Shahed-type drones this year. At least twenty firms were already racing to field interceptors by early September. Their higher speeds can cut the reaction time for Ukrainian mobile fire groups from about a minute to as little as six seconds. Two companies have completed combat tests, and 67 companies are working on interceptors, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

A new product, not an upgrade

Wild Hornets told NV it began work on jet interception in early 2026 and described the new interceptor as an entirely new product rather than an upgrade of the existing STING design. To handle the faster targets, the company developed a remote-control system called Hornet Vision Ctrl that lets experienced pilots operate interceptors across multiple sectors at once—the same system now used against jet-powered Gerans.

"We are working on that, but right now we are focused above all on creating a cheap, mass-producible, and simple-to-use means of countering jet Shaheds," the company told NV, answering a question about expectations that Russia could field mass jet missiles at 700–800 km/h by winter.

The company said it knows of no fully automatic interception system proven in combat and that its own AI integration is aimed at assisting the operator.

The jet-powered threat

Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said in August that the use of jet-powered drones had increased roughly fivefold in July compared with June. The Geran-5 can reach speeds of up to 600 km/h and carry a warhead of roughly 90 kg, according to specifications published on HUR's War & Sanctions website. The new jet Shaheds run on turbojets from a single Chinese company. Iran, which originally armed Russia with Shaheds, now wants the jet-powered Geran-5 remake back.

Earlier this month, a new interceptor successfully hit a jet-powered Shahed during testing, but "some aspects of controlling the interceptor still need to be refined," Zelenskyy said. Days later, he showed footage of a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) interceptor destroying a jet-powered Shahed during a military counterintelligence operation. The SBU said it was the first footage showing the destruction of a jet-powered Shahed.

Separately, footage published by Wild Hornets showed its STING interceptor striking a Geran-5—a jet-powered drone that functions as a small cruise missile—in flight:

Ukrainian troops gathered for an assault on two Russian-held villages, and the Russians never saw them coming. A captain of the 60th Mechanized Brigade, with the callsign Akhmet, says the concealed buildup near Derylove and Drobysheve was what allowed his units to take the villages once Operation Vivaldi began, Suspilne reports.

The account fills in how Vivaldi actually takes ground: not by overwhelming force but by concealment, timing, and technology. Only the first phase of the "Operation Vivaldi" counteroffensive, which the Third Army Corps is running near Lyman in northern Donetsk Oblast, has cleared 75 square kilometers of Russian infiltrators and liberated another 10 square kilometers of territory.

Concealment set up the assault

The brigade's task was to free Derylove and take control of Drobysheve. The key, Akhmet says, was accumulating forces as covertly as possible in Drobysheve and on the outskirts of Derylove, so the units could begin exactly on schedule.

The Russians, he believes, failed to spot the buildup because Ukraine had done its reconnaissance well during the planning and preparation. Constant coordination with neighboring units, sharing information, and lending help mattered too. The point was to keep the movement and massing hidden until the appointed hour, so nothing tipped the Russians off before the assault opened.

The captain coordinates the fight

As a battle captain, Akhmet oversaw the tasks set by brigade command and the work of several strands at once: reconnaissance, drones, electronic warfare, and air defense.

"We determine where the enemy sits, we inflict fire damage on Russian soldiers, and we cover our groups on the ground," he said.

The job was to find the Russians, strike them, and shield the assault teams as they moved up.

Timing cleared the infantry's path

The brigade also located where Russian drones were taking off and hit those launch points at set times, to keep enemy operators from scouting and firing on the Ukrainian troops working below. Getting the timing right was the whole point, Akhmet explains, so the infantry could move to its positions and reach cover without being caught in the open.

The two villages were a piece of a larger aim: the Institute for the Study of War has assessed that Vivaldi disrupted Russia's plan to encircle the fortified belt of Donetsk cities.

Ukraine's forces have shot down more than 350,000 Russian drones since the start of the year. The count, some 220,000 fixed-wing drones, 100,000 quadcopters, and 31,000 long-range Gerans, was filmed hit by hit in the DELTA combat system and verified by the Brave1 defense-innovation cluster, the Defense Ministry said.

Meanwhile, Russia is now threatening NATO countries directly, its drones probing Polish and Baltic skies, and those countries manage to down only a small fraction of what crosses their borders. In one incursion, Poland shot down just four of about 19 Russian drones.

Ukraine's 350,000 is the record of a force that has had to master drone defense at an industrial scale, night after night.

The tally runs to hundreds of thousands

Most of the kills belong to the Defense Forces' unmanned-systems units, which downed more than 320,000 Russian fixed-wing and copter drones. Those units, together with mobile fire groups and army aviation, also brought down faster Geran-type attack drones.

The pace has been relentless: in August alone, Ukraine destroyed some 35,000 fixed-wing drones and nearly 24,000 copters, the ministry said.

DELTA verifies every hit

Every downing is logged and confirmed in DELTA, the digital system Ukraine uses to run the battlefield, and which the ministry calls a key to its edge over Russia. Filming and verifying each kill lets commanders study how it was done and scale up whatever works.

The purpose is concrete: knocking down fixed-wing drones blinds Russian reconnaissance, and blunts strikes on cities and critical infrastructure, while downing copters keeps Russia from finding and hitting front-line positions. Each drone stopped, the ministry says, is potentially the life of a Ukrainian soldier or civilian saved.

The same threat now shadows NATO

That threat is spreading. Prime Minister Donald Tusk told Poland's parliament that intelligence points to Russian plans for drone and missile strikes on countries backing Ukraine.

The allies being warned are the ones that have struggled to stop even a handful of drones, while Ukraine, out of necessity, has learned to bring them down by the hundred thousand.

Germany's far-right AfD has confirmed it is in talks with Gazprom to bring Russian gas back to Germany. Its foreign-policy speaker met the Russian gas giant's chief in Moscow to discuss resuming supplies, a step that would reverse the break with Russian energy Germany made after the 2022 invasion, the party told DW.

The AfD is openly working to undo one of the West's central responses to the war. Before 2022, Russia supplied about 55 percent of Germany's gas, a dependence federal officials later blamed for Berlin's slow initial reaction to the invasion.

Cutting it cost Moscow its biggest European market. Restoring it would hand back one of its largest revenue streams at a time when energy sales fund the war.

The Kremlin has already publicly welcomed the AfD’s efforts to engage in dialogue with Moscow. Dmitriy Peskov, press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, has also reacted positively to the party’s growing popularity.

The AfD confirms the Moscow talks

The confirmation came from Beatrix von Storch, deputy leader of the AfD's Bundestag faction.

The party's foreign-policy speaker, Markus Frohnmaier, was in Moscow and personally spoke with Mr. Miller of Gazprom, she said, referring to Alexei Miller, the company's chairman.

"Of course, we are interested in resuming trade. We need affordable energy and the widest possible supply, so we consider it in our interest to get supplies from Russia too, which is why we are holding these talks," she said.

The politics run through the east

The talks land as the AfD surges at the polls, topping recent votes in eastern Germany and in Berlin, contests in which Russia's war against Ukraine figured in the party's platform. Asked what signal those results send Moscow, von Storch cast the war less as foreign policy than as a domestic worry.

"Of course, it is an important topic. People fear war and that Germany will be drawn into it, let itself be drawn in, or directly enter it," she said.

Operation MoLoChKa has now disabled 300 Russian shadow fleet ships in 11 weeks, SBS commander Robert "Madyar" Brovdi announced. The Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) campaign has frozen the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, Brovdi said.

134 in the Azov, 166 in the Black Sea

SBS drones struck 134 vessels in the Azov Sea and 166 in the Black Sea since Operation MoLoChKa began on 6 July, the SBS wrote—all, Brovdi specified, stripped of the ability to move under their own power. He called it the "300th fleet," playing on the Ukrainian army's code for a wounded man, and "a suitcase without a handle and a torment for the worm budget."

The Azov Sea "stands and will stand, together with the Kerch Strait," Brovdi said. The northern and northeastern Black Sea operates on what he called a "maybe we'll slip through" gamble.

The 300-ship count is the latest in a rapid progression. The SBS reported 201 vessels disabled by 29 July—just three weeks into the operation—when Brovdi said Crimea's supply route was "blocked indefinitely." By 11 September, the tally had reached 285, with 215 struck in July, 54 in August, and 16 in the first 11 days of September. The pace slowed as traffic in the strike zone thinned out.

The SBS figures are the unit's own and cannot be independently verified.

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Ukraine hits 201 Russian shadow fleet ships in three weeks. Commander says Crimea’s supply route is now blocked indefinitely

Commercial shipping retreating from Russian ports

In late August, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co., the world's largest container carrier, suspended new bookings for transport through the Russian port of Novorossiysk. Russia itself closed the Don-Azov shipping channel and the Kerch Strait in July after the opening wave of strikes.

By early August, Ukraine had turned Novorossiysk—Russia's main Black Sea export gateway—into a chokepoint, and in mid-August Ukrainian forces struck four Russian warships there in a single night. A 141-meter vessel disappeared near Novorossiysk the same week.

A parallel campaign against Crimea's power grid

The SBS is running a second operation alongside MoLoChKa. Operation Crimean Switch Off, also launched on 6 July, had struck 374 energy nodes across occupied Crimea and other occupied areas in eastern and southern Ukraine by 10 September. The campaign has blacked out Crimea on multiple nights. Brovdi has said the SBS could strike seven times more targets with faster funding.

A Ukrainian fund is investing in a Danish defense startup, a reversal for a country far better known for taking in foreign capital than for sending it abroad. Resist.UA is backing BlueShadow, a maritime security firm run by a former US Navy submarine commander but largely engineered in Ukraine, to build defenses for coasts and undersea cables against drones and hybrid attacks.

BlueShadow is registered in Denmark, but almost its entire engineering team works in Ukraine, and it folds gear from more than 15 Ukrainian suppliers of drones, sensors, and communications into a single system.

Resist.UA, which signed a letter of intent to join the company's €2 million pre-seed round, runs a new €50 million fund, Resist 2.0, designed to bring Ukraine's battlefield-proven technology to global markets.

Ukraine engineers the Danish startup

The company was founded in 2025 and is led by Charles Maher, a former commander of a US Navy nuclear submarine, according to Defender Media.

This summer, it registered as a Ukrainian legal entity and builds on Ukrainian components, planning to fit its maritime platforms with M-Fly's RB-220 gimbal, a day-and-night targeting sensor used until now only on flying drones.

The two sides first met in January 2026 and formalized the partnership as BlueShadow raised its round and Resist.UA launched its second fund.

The systems guard the sea

BlueShadow is building two of them. BlueDragon, still in development, is designed to shield Ukraine's coastal cities, ports, and shipping lanes from drone strikes. BlueSentry, which the company plans to launch in October, is aimed at protecting ports, offshore wind farms, undersea cables, and maritime borders from hybrid attack, the kind of sabotage that has repeatedly damaged Baltic Sea infrastructure.

"This partnership will fuel the next phase of our mission to protect people, infrastructure, commerce, and natural resources at sea," the company said.

Ukraine's defense tech turns outward

Ukrainian defense technology, tested in real combat, has drawn growing investor interest, and Ukrainian figures are now building funds to channel it: the former Defense Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, is raising what he calls the country's largest defense-tech venture fund.

An unknown drone has flown right up to the US missile-defense base in northern Poland, and how the military responded has raised questions about how well the site is protected from the air. Rather than shoot the drone down near Redzikowo, a cornerstone of NATO's missile shield, the unit followed a set of procedures that included a call to 112, Poland's civilian emergency line, Onet reported.

Meanwhile, European intelligence officials are considering the possibility that Russia could test NATO’s resolve in the near future. According to one official, a potential attack could occur “within months, not years," The Guardian reports.

Surveillance systems detected the drone about half a kilometer from the base on 15 September, where it operated for roughly five minutes.

This incident is linked to a similar one in 2025. Almost a year ago, also in September, around 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace. Poland shot down only four Russian drones with modern Polish F-16s and Dutch F-35s. Meanwhile,  Ukraine downs 87.4% of Russian long-range drones. Poland only shot down 17-21% of the drones that entered its airspace.

The base sits at the heart of NATO's shield

Redzikowo hosts the US Navy's Aegis Ashore installation, an American component of NATO's missile-defense system and one of the most sensitive military sites in Poland. It matters strategically to Poland, NATO, and the US. While American personnel guard it, Poland has taken primary responsibility for its security and assigned a dedicated unit.

Even before the base opened, there were efforts to secure anti-drone systems for it, on the logic that a site best protected from the ground can stay exposed from the air.

The ministry keeps its methods quiet

The Polish Defense Ministry says it established where the operator was flying from, notified the relevant services, including the police, and treats every case of unauthorized drone activity near a guarded site seriously. What it will not say is whether it tried to neutralize the drone, or whether the anti-drone and electronic-warfare systems at Redzikowo were used at all, citing security.

Warnings pile up across the flank

The stakes are rising along NATO's eastern edge. Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament on 17 September that, by the assessment of NATO, Ukrainian, and US intelligence, Russia's plans include drone and missile strikes on countries backing Ukraine, Poland among them, possibly staged to look "accidental" and test whether Article 5 means anything. Warsaw insists it is ready and will hit back at any attack. The Redzikowo drone, and the four-of-nineteen record behind it, are why that confidence keeps drawing questions.

US President Donald Trump announced a "massive deal" to buy Belarusian potash at prices far below what the US pays Canada, but Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka publicly contradicted him the same day, saying Belarus has no spare volumes to sell.

Washington has spent a year courting Lukashenka with sanctions relief and envoy visits in pursuit of both prisoner releases and trade openings—but the potash episode shows the limits of that courtship when the dictator's own supply chain cannot deliver what the US President has already promised his voters.

Trump promised cheaper potash for American farmers

Trump wrote on Truth Social on 21 September:

"The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus. The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers."

Potash is a key ingredient in fertilizer. Canada is the world's largest supplier—the US takes 53% of Canadian potash exports, and 80% of the potash American farms use comes from Canada. Canadian potash remains exempt from US tariffs despite the ongoing trade war between the two countries.

The announcement came as Trump's trade dispute with Ottawa deepened—he recently called Canada a "terrible trade partner," and on 16 September European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered Canada associate EU membership, which Trump said could be a "hostile act."

Lukashenka said all output is contracted

The same day, Lukashenka told officials Belarus cannot deliver. "Even if we wanted to supply potash to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes—everything is contracted," he said during a meeting with the head of Belarus's State Customs Committee, Uladzimir Arlouski.

Arlouski reported that 85% of all Belarusian exports and imports now move eastward—primarily to China, other Asian countries, and Russia. Budget revenues grew almost 3.5% over eight months, and 5.2% so far this month.

2026

Trump’s State Department refused to recognize Lukashenka in 2020. Today he’s a “friend.”

A deal built on sanctions relief and prisoner swaps

The potash announcement followed a year-long US effort to engage Lukashenka. Washington lifted sanctions on Belarus's potash industry in exchange for the release of hundreds of political prisoners. US special envoy John Cole has played the central role, meeting Lukashenka last week and securing the release of 25 prisoners—far fewer than the 200 he had previously promised.

Over the course of Cole's effort, at least several hundred people have been freed, among them Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and Siarhei Tsikhanouski, husband of the internationally recognized winner of Belarus's 2020 presidential election. But human rights groups and freed prisoners say Lukashenka runs a "carousel"—arresting new political opponents to replace the ones he releases. Lukashenka denied this. "There are no political prisoners in Belarus," he claimed during last week's meeting with Cole.

With US midterms six weeks away on 3 November and the Republican Party struggling in the polls, Trump has been scrambling for wins on fuel and food prices. The same week, he urged Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian refineries, blaming Ukraine rather than his own war with Iran for record US diesel prices—a move a senior European official told Politico was a search for "scapegoats."

More than two-thirds of the Russian soldiers holding the Zaporizhzhia front carry criminal records. Ukraine's "South" grouping says a third of them enlisted to escape prosecution, most are over 30, and no fresh reinforcements are arriving, spokesperson Anastasia Shevchenko told Ukrinform.

The reasons they signed up track with that: 31 percent enlisted to dodge criminal liability, 24 percent for money, 26 percent on ordinary contracts, and 13 percent through mobilization. It is Russia's prison pipeline in a single snapshot, a model that has pulled well over 100,000 inmates into the war with pardons and suspended sentences and thrown many of them at Ukrainian lines in disposable assault waves.

"It is worth noting that 69 percent of the Russian personnel have a criminal record," Shevchenko said.

The model dates to Wagner's prison recruiting in 2022 and has run under the Defense Ministry since.

A middle-aged force holds the line

The men are not young. More than a third, 36 percent, are between 31 and 40; another 24 percent are 41 to 50; 31 percent are 21 to 30; and just 9 percent are 20 or under.

This is a force of grown men with records, not fresh conscripts, and it points to who Russia can still find willing to fight in the south: people with little to lose and a sentence to escape among Ukrainian civilians, women and children.

The prison pipeline runs dry

What Shevchenko did not report is any sign of that force being rebuilt. Russia has enough men and equipment to keep fighting on the Zaporizhzhia front, she says, but no substantial replenishment is coming.

That fits a wider problem for Russia: its supply of convict recruits is thinning as word of the front's lethality spreads through the prisons, with some inmates now signing military contracts only to bolt on the way to the front, in one case killing their escort to get away.

Russia's practice of replenishing its ranks from prisons is breaking down, and officials are resorting to ever more coercive measures to keep the flow going.

Egypt is increasing wheat purchases from France as it diversifies away from Russia and Ukraine, Reuters reported on 20 September, citing remarks made that Sunday by the country's Supply Minister Sherif Farouk, as quoted by television host Ahmed Moussa and confirmed afterwards by a ministry spokesperson.

Russian and Ukrainian strikes on each other's shipping are disrupting Black Sea trade routes used by both major wheat exporters, pushing up shipping costs and forcing grain buyers to navigate longer and more expensive alternatives. For Ukraine, a disrupted sea route means fewer or more expensive grain exports, putting pressure on farmers' incomes and the country's export earnings.

Egypt is one of the world's biggest wheat importers, and the grain feeds a subsidized bread program that tens of millions of Egyptians rely on. The supply minister also said Cairo had a 50,000-metric-ton wheat shipment en route from France, with further shipments from the country continuing, and that Egypt has stepped up its engagement with Bulgaria and Romania. Its wheat reserves cover more than six months of strategic consumption, he said.

War-risk costs climb as the high-risk zone widens

Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on each other's commercial shipping, and London's marine insurers widened the area they treat as high risk to the whole Black Sea. The Joint War Committee, which sets that listing for the Lloyd's market, extended its reporting requirements to the entire sea, and its guidance shapes what underwriters charge. War-risk premiums have surged as dozens of ships have been attacked in the Black Sea, and are adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of every seven-day voyage.

Russia was continuing attempts to destroy Ukraine's transport infrastructure and block its exports through the Black Sea, Ukrzaliznytsia said on 30 July. More than 90% of Ukraine's agricultural exports were shipped from ports in Odesa Oblast through a maritime corridor.

Ukraine's export capacity falls after July strikes

Following Russian strikes on Ukrainian ports on 10–12 July, the deepwater terminals' monthly handling capacity fell by about 2.5 million tons, from up to seven million to four or five, Barva Invest's Bohdan Kostetskyi said at the time. Industry sources told Reuters that four of 13 major terminals had stopped buying grain.

By mid-August, Ukrainian attacks and the suspension of navigation in the Sea of Azov since July had taken more than 90% of Russia's grain export capacity in the Azov–Black Sea basin offline, agricultural consultancy SovEcon said. Three Novorossiysk terminals were suspended, while the Taman terminal had halted operations in late July.

The Danube detour takes longer and costs more

Two vessels sailing from Izmail to Egypt took 26 days and an estimated 32 to 33 days, and a third bound for Izmir 28 to 29 days, against about 12 days for the Egypt run before the delays, Avalon Shipping operations manager Kateryna Kononenko told Ukrainian Shipping Magazine.

Ukrainian drones struck Rosneft's Kuibyshev refinery in Samara overnight on 22 September, hitting two primary crude-processing units and triggering a large fire, Ukrainian drone and missile maker Fire Point confirmed. The strike is part of Ukraine's ongoing campaign against the fuel infrastructure that sustains Russia's war—the same plant had to halt crude processing after a drone attack in June. The attack came one day after US President Donald Trump for the second time in a week urged Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to stop the refinery campaign.

FP-1 drones hit both primary processing units

Fire Point said its FP-1 drones struck the Kuibyshev refinery, hitting the AVT-4 and AVT-5 atmospheric-vacuum distillation units—the plant's primary crude-processing installations. A large fire broke out on the refinery grounds. The Kuibyshev refinery is part of Rosneft and has a designed processing capacity of about 7 million tons of crude oil per year. It is located more than 900 km from the war zone in Ukraine.

Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ began reporting explosions and air defense activity in Samara Oblast at 3:50 a.m. By 4:24 a.m., the channel posted videos showing a night fire at the refinery. OSINT channel World Militaries identified the AVT-5 unit as the initial fire site.

Russian news Telegram channel Astra separately confirmed the fire at the Kuibyshev refinery.

By morning, the fire was still burning. The smoke plume stretched about 100 km across Samara Oblast, Exilenova+ reported.

The Kuibyshev refinery stopped processing crude in June 2026 after Ukrainian drones hit its AVT-4 and AVT-5 units—the same pair now struck again. Each unit processes about 10,000 tons of crude per day, or roughly 73,000 barrels. The refinery had also suspended operations after a drone attack in August 2025.

Other targets in the overnight wave

Exilenova+ also reported that Ukrainian forces struck a military base in the city of Pochep in Bryansk Oblast overnight, with fire observed at the site. Residents of Tolyatti in Samara Oblast reported explosions, and witnesses suggested the Tolyattikauchuk synthetic rubber plant had been hit, Suspilne reported.

Samara Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev confirmed the attack, claiming Russian air defenses intercepted "dozens of drones." He said drones "targeted industrial enterprises" but did not name which ones. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed 297 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over 14 oblasts and occupied Crimea.

Part of an ongoing campaign against Russian fuel infrastructure

Ukraine's General Staff confirmed strikes on both the Bashneft-UNPZ refinery in Ufa and the Kuibyshev refinery in Samara, with fire observed at both sites. Ukraine has been striking Russian refineries continuously for months—hitting targets in Saratov and Volgograd on 11 September, Slavyansk-na-Kubani on 14 September, Syzran on 15 September, Yaroslavl on 17 September, and Ufa on 21 September, the night before the Kuibyshev strike. Earlier, the General Staff said the campaign has disabled 45% of Russia's oil-refining capacity. The strikes have also pushed Russia's fuel crisis into Central Asia, where shortages forced Kazakhstan to seek emergency supplies.

Trump urged Zelenskyy to stop the campaign for the second time in a week during their 21 September call, telling him "don't hit diesel fuel" and blaming Ukrainian strikes—not the Iran conflict—for rising US diesel prices.

A Kremlin-backed program aimed at primary-school children claims 10,154 participants in occupied Zaporizhzhia, nearly 30 times Yunarmia's 355 members—Russia's uniformed military youth organization—Petro Andryushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said. Cadet classes in the same region account for another 387, according to Andryushchenko.

Yunarmia may represent only a fraction of Moscow’s system for militarizing Ukrainian children under occupation. Movement of the First, a Kremlin-backed mass youth group covering ages 6 to 18, claims about 65 times Yunarmia's membership in occupied Zaporizhzhia—over 23,000 by the end of 2025, up from about 14,000 a year earlier, according to Andryushchenko's breakdown of the series. A separate infographic in the same series puts the figure at over 19,000. Moscow has sustained the broader campaign throughout the full-scale invasion, combining classroom indoctrination, Kremlin youth movements, military games, and weapons training.

Andryushchenko explains why: Movement of the First is not a military organization, and that is precisely its function—a mass base that enrolls children without their joining any military-patriotic structure, then moves some into specialized programs. Through it, Zarnitsa stopped being a school game and became part of Russia's military-patriotic system. The movement functions as a gateway, not an endpoint.

In Kherson Oblast, the pattern repeated: over 2,700 children and young people passed through Movement of the First events in 2024, and by spring 2025, the registered count had reached 6,200, with primary cells growing from about 70 to 114–115.

From Eaglets to Zarnitsa: programs across occupied Zaporizhzhia

Andryushchenko said Eaglets of Russia, a program aimed at primary-school children aged 6 to 10, claims 10,154 participants across 97 schools and 626 class-teams in occupied Zaporizhzhia, while more than 2,000 children aged 11 to 17 have passed through the Zarnitsa 2.0 military game. In May 2026, children from all four occupied oblasts appeared at a federal Eaglets session alongside children from Russian regions—a sign the occupied territories are already integrated into the system.

He said military-applied instruction now fills about half of the OBZR course, Russia’s “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” subject, in occupation schools. He described a broader system stretching from kindergarten and mass children's organizations through military games and cadet structures to practical training in drones, tactics, weapons, and military medicine.

Military training center claims thousands across four occupied territories

Beyond Zaporizhzhia, Andryushchenko said the Russian military-sports training center VOIN claims 14,450 trained cadets across four occupied Ukrainian territories in his overview post. A later infographic in the series gives 10,381 for the same four territories, suggesting the figures may count differently.

That cannot be read as a count of children because VOIN programs accept participants aged 14 to 35, according to the Center's own website, and no age breakdown was provided. VOIN says it has trained more than 100,000 cadets across 21 Russian regions overall.

Andryushchenko's post opened a six-part series tracing the system "from first grade to cadet"—though the series itself showed the pipeline actually begins in kindergarten, with "Conversations about Important Things" starting at age 5. Part two, published on 22 September, broke down Movement of the First's role as a gateway, with Zarnitsa 2.0 next. The participation totals cited in his post are claims by Russian-run organizations relayed by the Center. They may overlap, have not been independently verified, and do not show how many individual children participated or whether children move from one program to another.

Militarization has continued throughout the full-scale invasion

These latest participation claims are the newest snapshot of a campaign that has expanded steadily throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion. In 2023, occupation schools were already teaching children to use assault rifles and provide battlefield first aid.

By late 2024, Putin had ordered the expansion of military-sports camps and youth indoctrination programs.

Reports published in 2025 and 2026 described mandatory “patriotism” lessons from first grade and documented Ukrainian orphans who entered cadet schools and later appeared in Russian military uniforms.

Russian drones have entered Moldovan airspace 39 times since the start of 2026, against 17 in all of last year, President Maia Sandu said after a meeting of the country's National Security Council, Liga reported. Moldova's military can defend individual sites and little more, and Sandu said the country has to speed up building air defenses it spent three decades without. The council also ordered better protection for the energy facilities the country runs on, drones included.

What Moldova has to shoot with

Moldovan forces hold portable anti-aircraft missiles, anti-aircraft machine guns, and electronic warfare equipment, Sandu said. Their capabilities are mostly limited to protecting individual pieces of critical infrastructure. Three decades of ignoring air defense will not be paid off in five, she said, and Moldova is working with partners to speed the process up.

The military is now working to extend the range its air defenses cover. Moldova received €120 million from the EU to buy a medium-range system, and it is looking with international partners for more modern and cheaper ways to bring drones down.

Chișinău is also deepening cooperation with countries in the region to receive and pass on threat data faster. Interception is the part Moldova cannot yet do: Romania has shot down drones that reached it after crossing Moldovan territory, while Moldova mostly records them.

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Moldova is investing in air defense against the Russian drones crossing from Ukraine—Romania shoots down the ones that reach it

A month of incidents

The pace has picked up this month. A drone tracked over Moldova on 8 September held up seven flights, among them Volodymyr Zelenskyy's plane as it took off for King Harald V's funeral in Norway.

Three days later, Moldova temporarily withdrew its staff from three border crossings on Ukrainian territory because of the threat of Russian strikes, after Russia hit at least five of Ukraine's western crossings since late August.

On the morning of 18 September, a loud explosion went off near Chișinău and police found drone wreckage at the site. In August, a blast near the village of Talmaza marked the country's third airspace breach in nine days.

Warning the public is the other gap

Moldova is still building the system that would tell people a drone is overhead. MD-Alert needs more time to implement and is costed at €5 million, Sandu said, and until it works the government will use whatever notification mechanisms it already has.

The council that produced the drone count was convened on energy, and its decisions ran from gas reserves and fuel stocks to cyber vulnerabilities. Among them, Sandu wrote, were measures to better protect the facilities the country's energy supply depends on from hostile action, including the danger of drones.

US President Donald Trump repeatedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop attacks on Russian oil refineries during a phone call on 20 September, Axios reported, citing a person familiar with the conversation. The two leaders are due to meet in New York today, 22 September, during the UN General Assembly.

For Ukraine, the strikes are a way to disrupt the fuel supply supporting Russia's military. Trump is now linking the attacks to global diesel prices. The International Energy Agency (IEA) said disruptions to Russia's refining system following intensified Ukrainian attacks have compounded diesel supply losses.

Trump backed the strikes two months ago

At a NATO summit on 8 July, speaking alongside Zelenskyy, Trump said Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries could help end the war. "It's an escalation, but it's also an escalation that can help lead to an end," he said. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukraine's ability to strike deep into Russian territory was one of the changes in the war in recent months and said the escalation could create space for negotiations.

On 13 September, Trump called on Zelenskyy to stop the attacks.

"Mr. Zelenskyy has to do one thing: he has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia," Trump said. "There are plenty of other targets. Don't hit diesel fuel. That's hurting the world."

Trump added that the rise in prices was not caused by the Iran conflict. "This isn't done by the Middle East, this is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine," he said.

On 20 September, Trump raised the demand again in his call with Zelenskyy. "The word diesel came up many times" during the conversation, a person familiar with the call told Axios.

What is driving diesel prices

US diesel prices had reached $6.06 per gallon by 13 September, up from $3.71 a year earlier. The IEA said in June that global energy markets were contending with their largest supply disruption in history because of the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, though it also noted that a US-Iran agreement to reopen the strait had begun easing prices from their April peak. A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis attributed the diesel surge to the Iran conflict and did not address Ukrainian strikes.

Ukraine's refinery campaign has also disrupted Russian fuel production. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on 4 July that attacks had disabled 42.7% of Russia's oil-refining capacity. Russia's gasoline production fell an estimated 25% year-on-year in the week of 15–21 June, while Moscow has extended its ban on diesel exports through at least September.

Zelenskyy confirms Tuesday meeting

After the call, Zelenskyy said it had been "an important conversation" and that today's meeting "could change a lot." He said there was "diplomatic momentum" and that Ukraine was ready "to take really serious steps." He also said the call covered ideas for de-escalation and fundamental security issues including energy and food security.

Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service and Kyiv's chief negotiator, told Axios that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had helped with the peace talks, where the number of stumbling blocks had fallen from "dozens to essentially one or two key issues." Umerov was rebutting a Kyiv Independent report that Kyiv was frustrated with Witkoff, which he called false.

Russia's Africa Corps deployed a Russian-made kamikaze drone against al-Qaeda-linked insurgents in central Mali before losing the aircraft, Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi reported. A local monitoring account says fighters brought it down as the mercenaries pulled back from the Dioura area after more than a week under siege.

Moscow's mercenary arm in Africa answers to the same Defense Ministry that runs its war on Ukraine, and its military supply line into Africa keeps expanding. This lands now because Ukrainian drone crews are helping the forces fighting Russia there, so tactics both sides honed in Ukraine are now surfacing in the Sahel.

A Russian war drone over the Sahel

The monitoring account Alerte Sahel reported that Africa Corps troops, encircled in their camp for over a week, fired the drone at positions of JNIM—the al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims—before breaking out and fleeing. The published video shows a damaged fixed-wing drone with an elongated fuselage and a straight wing. Alerte Sahel first called it an Orlan-10. Militarnyi identified it by its shape as a Molniya. The footage shows the aircraft only after it fell and does not reveal how it went down, so the shootdown claim rests on Alerte Sahel's account—which adds that the jihadists are "increasingly developing skills in mastering attack drones."

The Molniya is a cheap, simple fixed-wing kamikaze drone with a range of about 30-40 km. It carries a warhead of up to 7 kg and also flies reconnaissance and artillery-spotting runs.

Fighting around Dioura

Combat near Dioura, in Mali's Mopti region, has run since 10 September 2026, when JNIM struck Malian army positions. Mali's General Staff said it launched air-ground operations in response. It later reported on 17 September that its units, backed by partners, kept up their operations around the town. On 8 September, JNIM had ambushed an Africa Corps and Malian convoy near the village of Kaka in the same region, killing 13 Russian and Malian troops between them.

A man who volunteered to fight for Ukraine has landed in a Russian prison—seized not on the battlefield but on another continent, according to an investigation by Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat (HS). He had gone to West Africa for civilian work when a Russia-aligned junta grabbed him and handed him to Moscow.

Russia has turned the Sahel's coup governments into clients, trading security for mining access. Its grip now reaches far enough that in what Yle calls the first such case, a man who once fought against Moscow was picked up on another continent and delivered to its courts—the war's reach no longer stops at Ukraine's borders.

From Ukraine's army to an African gold mine

The 50-year-old, identified in the reporting only as Mikael, joined a Ukrainian army unit soon after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Fluent in Finnish and Russian, he later worked as a liaison between foreign fighters and Ukrainian troops. His return to Finland at the end of winter 2025 was abrupt: Ukrainian authorities had opened an investigation into his handling of funds and imported cars.

HS's investigation also found he had given false information about himself to both his family and Finnish authorities, and that his Finnish criminal record includes embezzlement and fraud. By spring, he joined about ten men bound for Sierra Leone to guard a gold mine, HS reported, as Yle relayed. They wanted work that wasn't the war.

Handcuffed hours after arrival

When most of the group moved on, Mikael and an Italian named Paolo—another Ukraine volunteer—continued to Burkina Faso for the same mining firm. Within hours of reaching their hotel in Ouagadougou in June 2025, men blindfolded and handcuffed the two and drove them off, according to the same HS investigation, carried by NV. Burkina Faso's Russia-backed junta found Mikael's Ukrainian military passport and identified both as men who had fought in Ukraine. Italy's embassy freed Paolo after three months. Mikael stayed behind.

Stateless on paper—but maybe not

In autumn 2025, Burkina Faso secretely handed Mikael to Russia, which charged him with "mercenarism"—the statute carrying seven to 15 years that Moscow uses against foreigners who fought for Ukraine. His trial lasted about two months. Moscow's Basmanny District Court, which handles cases the state treats as sensitive, ruled in November 2025 and classified its decision. The sentence and its finality stay unknown, and he now sits in a prison in Samara. Mikael holds no Finnish passport: born in the Soviet Union, he lived in Finland on a residence permit and traveled on documents marking him "stateless"—a status HS's investigation calls into question.

HS's investigation, though, found he likely holds a Russian passport—a status Russia has not confirmed, and one that may explain why Helsinki never treated him as its own to rescue. His relatives pressed Finland's Foreign Ministry to help while he was still in Burkina Faso, but it never demanded his return. Russia tried him, it seems, as a foreigner—a citizen would have faced treason charges. Finnish police, the security service, and the Foreign Ministry are now investigating, with National Bureau of Investigation commissioner Sami Liimatainen saying they aim to locate a missing man and suspect no crime.

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.

Russia wants to build 14,000 of a new cruise missile next year, enough to fire them at Ukrainian cities by the thousand. The weapon, the Dan-T, is a cheap air-launched jet missile that flies hundreds of kilometers on its own, RBC-Ukraine reported.

The danger is volume, not finesse. Russia aims to produce up to 2,000 Dan-T missiles by the end of this year and scale it drastically, RBC-Ukraine's sources say. Fired in large numbers, it would add a fresh layer to the Gerans and the cruise and ballistic missiles that already saturate Ukraine's skies on the worst nights.

Numbers make the threat

The experts are less worried about any single Dan-T than about the swarm. High speed, long range, and the ability to launch the missiles by the thousand would stretch Ukraine's air defense further with every strike, forcing crews to spend scarce interceptors on yet another cheap target.

The missile flies to its objective autonomously, and Russia claims a special flight profile designed to make it harder for air defense to spot and shoot down.

A target drone becomes a weapon

The Dan-T has an unusual pedigree. It began as the Dan-M, a jet-powered target drone Russia's Sokol bureau built in the early 1990s and imitated US Tomahawk cruise missiles for air-defense practice, now planned to be stripped of its recovery parachute, fitted with a warhead, and fired at Ukrainian cities. Like Russia's other new cruise weapons, it carries no operator link, steering itself by satellite and inertial navigation.

The Banderol joins the list

The Dan-T is not the only new weapon unsettling Ukraine's military. The experts named it alongside the S8000 Banderol, a separate cheap cruise missile that Russia already builds at up to 80 a month and has used in some of its heaviest strikes on Kyiv. The Dan-T closely resembles the Banderol and, being cheaper, may end up replacing it.

Foreign defense suppliers owe Ukraine approximately $10.58 billion, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance. Of this amount, approximately $1.70 billion represents overdue receivables or funds that the Ministry of Defense has already paid to suppliers but for which the corresponding goods or services were either delivered late or not delivered at all.

Ukraine is seeking to recover these funds through the courts. However, in several cases, the statute of limitations is approaching or has already expired, potentially preventing the state from recovering the money.

A $22,400 legal bill could put $403 million in recoverable funds at risk

The government needs approximately $22,400 in legal fees to continue these proceedings. Without this funding, Ukraine could lose more than $403 million, roughly 18,000 times the amount required for legal services.

“The lack of funding for international disputes deprives Ukraine of the ability to forcibly recover these assets,” the Ministry of Finance said.

Funding shortfall could jeopardize legal cases and future financing

The ministry warned that a lack of funding could deprive the state budget of significant revenues, potentially force Ukraine to terminate contracts with foreign legal advisers already representing it, and delay the appointment of new advisers. It could also negatively affect Ukraine’s standing and make it more difficult to secure financing in the future, Ekonomichna Pravda reports.

Supplier debts to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry rise amid growing funding needs

The Ministry of Defense’s overdue receivables have been growing year after year. As of 1 January 2024, they amounted to approximately $886 million, rising to approximately $1.01 billion as of 1 January 2025.

In this context, receivables are amounts owed to the Ministry of Defense by suppliers for goods not delivered or services not provided on time, even though the ministry has already paid for them.

The Ministry of Finance raised these issues amid a funding shortfall for Ukraine’s Defense Forces in 2026, which the president has put at approximately $27 billion.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski says he has personally warned Russian officials that Polish response to a possible attack from Moscow would include both offensive and defensive actions, according to an episode of the program Front Sikorskiego.

Sikorski's disclosure comes as European governments step up preparations for possible Russian attacks and provocations. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on 17 September that intelligence assessments indicated Russia could stage drone or missile attacks against countries supporting Ukraine in the coming months, while Lithuania said it had access to the same intelligence.

Sikorski says he has told Russian officials to "be careful, because we have more combat aircraft than you do."

"So if you do something that no one wants, we won't just sit back and do nothing. We will respond both defensively and offensively," Sikorski stresses.

He frames the warning as deterrence and points to Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refining infrastructure as an example of what air power can achieve. Ukraine has destroyed what Sikorski described as 30–40% of Russia's oil refining capacity, he says, arguing that European air forces could accomplish far more.

European governments prepare for Russian provocations

Tusk said Russia could try to present such attacks as accidents in an effort to weaken NATO's willingness to respond. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys confirmed the following day that his country had the same intelligence and said officials had discussed the possibility of a Russian false-flag operation, according to Delfi.

France has also moved to prepare for possible Russian hybrid attacks. President Emmanuel Macron ordered a plan to protect critical infrastructure and sensitive defense-industry sites from drone and cyberattacks, the Kyiv Independent reported, after saying the Russian hybrid threat had intensified. "The day we are attacked physically, we will not be warned," Macron said.

Sikorski did not say when he delivered the warning or which Russian officials received it.

Russia's newest military satellites keep stalling short of orbit, and Ukraine's top technology adviser says that is exactly why no one should relax. Serhii Beskrestnov, the presidential adviser on defense technology known as Flash, warns that once Russia completes its "Rassvet" satellite network, Moscow could steer its Gerans and missiles from space, and that Ukraine has to build the jamming to stop it before that day comes.

A working Rassvet would hand Russia a permanent link to its long-range weapons, letting it control drones and missiles online through satellites, what Flash calls "a small catastrophe."

Russia is nowhere near that yet: it has launched around 32 satellites but needs 200 to 250 for stable, round-the-clock coverage, and its most recent batch stalled in low orbit. Flash's point is that the reprieve is temporary.

"Russia is a space power," he wrote, and one heavy Angara rocket could loft much of the constellation in a single launch once its engines are fixed.

Ukraine has tried to choke the program at its source, striking a Russian space-rocket plant in mid-August and reaching for the Plesetsk cosmodrome days later, though the effort has only slowed it.

The MESH failure sets the warning

His alarm rests on a mistake, he says, Ukraine already made. For a year, he wrote, no one in the armed forces systematically worked on countering the MESH radio networks Russia uses to fly its jet Gerans, and no one shielded the capital with electronic warfare, even as the enemy openly built out the technology.

Breaking what he called a lifelong rule against criticizing colleagues, he "thanked" the former commander-in-chief and his electronic-warfare chief for the lapse, he wrote a bit earlier.

The result, he said, is that Russian Geran-5 are now striking under MESH control while Ukrainian specialists scramble to catch up.

The jamming must come first

With Rassvet, Flash argues, Ukraine cannot afford the same delay. The counter-system must not only be designed but actually fielded before the constellation is up, with the country's key infrastructure shielded by the time Russia's satellites reach orbit.

"This electronic warfare must ALREADY have closed all key infrastructure sites," he wrote.

Building it, he cautioned, will be neither fast nor cheap.

Ukrainian soldiers have saved about $40 million through discounts built into their army app. The "Pluses" program in Army+ just signed its 40th partner, Ukraine's tactical-gear maker M-Tac, and it lets soldiers claim the deals without showing a military ID, Mstyslav Banik, a deputy defense minister, says.

Banik is the man who helps Ukraine's digital transformation. He was a part of Army+ and its companion Reserve+ development team, ran former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's procurement reform, and kept his post after Fedorov was pushed out this summer. The new defense minister, Yevhenii Khmara, kept Banik and his team to preserve the reform's momentum.

Fuel leads the discounts

The discounts soldiers most often use, Banik says, are on fuel, pharmacy purchases, and postal services. The newest partner, M-Tac, a Ukrainian maker of military and tactical clothing and gear, becomes the ninth company in the program's "equipment" category, alongside Ukrarmor, UTactic, and Balistika.

To claim its discount, a soldier generates a code in the app and shows it at the Militarist store or enters it on M-Tac's website.

Soldiers skip the ID check

The design spares soldiers the need to prove their identity. Because only service members can access Army+ to begin with, the discounts require no military documents or status checks and therefore do not require handing over personal data, the Defense Ministry said. The ministry has also allowed soldiers to pass along offers to their families, a feature they have used more than 110,000 times.

The app started as a paperwork fix

Army+ is more than a coupon book. It was launched in 2024 to strip bureaucracy out of soldiers' lives, letting them file reports in a few clicks instead of days. Within a day of its launch, 20,000 soldiers had signed in. It has since grown to handle transfers, mobilization, the return of soldiers who were on AWOL, and services from training courses to secure chat.

Russian authorities left residents in and around Moscow without air raid sirens or phone alerts during Ukraine's largest combined strike on Moscow Oblast, apparently to guard turnout at Russia's parliamentary elections, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said. The silence angered residents and even pro-war commentators as a major oil refinery burned.

For most of this war, Russia has handled strikes on its cities as a routine to be announced, warned about, and waited out. Withholding warnings during the heaviest raid yet, in the middle of a national vote, suggests authorities will trade residents' safety for the look of a calm election when a political milestone is on the line.

Sirens stayed off during the biggest raid

Ukraine hit strategic sites across the Moscow area overnight on 19-20 September, the last day of Russia's State Duma vote. Moscow Oblast officials did not switch on air alert sirens or send the SMS warnings they had used during far smaller attacks. They quietly restricted mobile service without major public notice. Ukraine struck oil and logistics targets, not polling stations, according to the experts, and authorities appeared to place high turnout above protecting civilians.

Moscow Oblast residents complained that no alert reached them, some posting on the Telegram channel of regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov before it closed comments. A prominent Kremlin-linked military blogger attacked the official response, saying it erodes public trust and that cutting mobile service does "not really help."

What the drones hit

Ukraine's General Staff reported striking the Gazpromneft-Moscow Oil Refinery in the city's Kapotnya district, one of Russia's largest plants, causing a large fire. Ukrainian manufacturer Fire Point said its FP-1 drones completely shut down the refinery, with all primary processing units damaged.

Governor Andrei Vorobyov claimed air defenses countered 249 drones across 17 municipal districts. The strike was part of Ukraine's widening campaign against the fuel sector funding Russia's war, with about a fifth of Russian refining capacity offline.

Poland will have more than 1,000 automated warning sirens in Lublin Voivodeship by the end of 2026, Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said on 19 September, up from nearly 350 now. The region had about 30 remotely activated sirens at the beginning of 2024.

The expansion comes as Russian attacks on the west of Ukraine are reaching closer to Poland. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia is expected to intensify attacks on Ukraine's critical infrastructure and warned of possible "accidental" drone or missile strikes on NATO countries, including Poland. He also said Russia is introducing jet-powered drones that move much faster and at higher altitudes.

Sirens sound as drones approach the border

A Russian air attack on western Ukraine triggered air-raid warnings in Poland's Lublin and Podkarpackie regions on 17 September. Sirens sounded in Lublin and Rzeszów, while residents received an SMS warning: "ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION! Threat of an air attack. Find a safe place. Follow the instructions of the emergency services. Await further announcements."

The Polish military said its aircraft were activated in response to Russian strikes involving jet-powered drones against western Ukraine. A Russian drone flying toward Poland fell on Ukrainian territory about four kilometers from the Polish border, according to Polish authorities. Polish airspace was not violated.

Airports in Lublin and Rzeszów temporarily suspended operations to give military aircraft freedom of movement. Polish authorities said the measures were preventive and intended to protect Polish airspace.

More strikes on the border zone

On 13 September, Russian strikes near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing damaged a gas station and hit the locomotive of a Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train about two kilometers from the Polish border. No deaths were reported, and the border crossing temporarily halted operations.

On 19 September, Poland again activated ground-based air-defense systems and increased radar reconnaissance in response to another wave of Russian strikes on Ukraine. The operation ended the same day with no violation of Polish airspace recorded.

Shelters, sirens, and a 1939 echo

Beyond sirens, authorities have marked nearly 3,500 official shelter locations in Lublin Voivodeship. More than 500 State Fire Service stations and volunteer fire units took part in special exercises on 19 September to practice responses to warning signals and emergency alerts.

"We are building a civil-protection system virtually from scratch," Kierwiński said at a briefing in Lublin. "We have very, very little time."

The 17 September strikes fell on the anniversary of the Soviet Union's 1939 invasion of Poland. Prime Minister Donald Tusk described the Russian attack as "massive, extremely brutal."

The 13 September strikes near the border also drew a response from Kyiv. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described them as Putin's terror "knocking" directly on the doors of the EU and NATO and called for a "full trade embargo, a total entry ban, and complete sanctions against Russia's military-industrial complex."

For the first time, Ukraine has dropped ground robots behind Russian lines from the air. The 3rd Army Corps, behind the mission, says its heavy drones delivered kamikaze unmanned ground vehicles more than 10 kilometers into the Russian rear during the "second season" of Operation Vivaldi, letting Ukrainian troops flank them and clear another 40 square kilometers.

Vivaldi is the counteroffensive the corps is running near Lyman in northern Donetsk. Over its first two "seasons," the 3rd Army Corps and attached units have retaken more than 125 square kilometers, half of it de-occupied outright, and inflicted more than 3,000 casualties on Russian forces.

The operation, run under an information blackout for months, has also disrupted Russia's push and, the Institute for the Study of War found, its plan to encircle the fortified belt of Donetsk cities.

Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi, corps commander, has said the operation, which he named after Vivaldi's Four Seasons, will run through four phases, and only two have been completed. The air-dropped robot is the newest report on how the corps fights.

Machines go first, infantry follows

The corps casts the tactic as a means of expending robots rather than people.

"In assault operations, drones and ground robots always go ahead of the infantry," Biletskyi says.

The 3rd Army Corps was the first in the world to begin air-dropping ground robotic systems. Our heavy bombers deliver kamikaze robots more than 10 kilometers into the Russian rear.

Wars are won by infantry, one of the corps' soldiers added, "but we protect ours, so the robots go to the enemy first."

A dome hides the assault

As the assault groups advanced amid the operation, Ukrainian air defense and electronic warfare threw a protective dome over the battle area, blinding Russian drones so they could not read the operation's design.

Meanwhile, artillery and strike drones hit command posts, communications nodes, logistics, crossings, and reserves, letting Ukrainian units dig in on the ground they had taken.

On the Lyman axis, the corps says it freed the villages of Shandryholove and Derylove and took control of Drobysheve, and that Vivaldi has kept Russia from shifting significant forces to the Kupiansk front.

Russia is quietly moving to expand the capacity of the plant behind its long-range attack drones, a step that could sharply raise how many it launches at Ukraine, according to Politico. The plan turns on a single carbon fiber factory in Russia's Tatarstan region and runs to the end of the decade.

These files add something narrower than Russia's known intent to fight on: they identify carbon fiber as a critical material capping how many drones it can build. To break that cap, the Kremlin is funding production lines that will not run until the decade's end—a bet on winning by out-building Ukraine, even as the strikes grind on.

The bottleneck Russia wants to break

Politico obtained internal documents from Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom showing its Alabuga-Volokno plant would add 500 tons of military-grade aerospace carbon fiber a year by 2029. Rosatom declined to comment. Weapons expert David Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, estimated that volume could yield airframes for about 28,000 more attack drones a year—a 78% jump.

Ukraine already estimates Russia can build more than 36,000 Shahed/Geran kamikaze drones a year. Carbon fiber is the choke point: it keeps the airframes light and strong, and Russia has no cheap substitute.

"Without the carbon fiber, they can't make the drone. Can't substitute for the carbon fiber in the drone and keep its weight down," Albright said.

Moscow is investing in the raw material, not just more assembly halls—the fiber, not floor space, is what caps output.

Ground already cleared in Tatarstan

Documents gathered by the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center describe a new factory on the site designed to produce UMT42S-3K aerospace-grade fiber. Satellite images from May to July show land cleared for construction. Albright's own August imagery shows foundations going in. He said the stated 2027 completion date "requires rapid construction." Russia has spent the past year adding new assembly halls at the same site.

The plant and its parent, Rosatom's Umatex Group, already sit under US, UK, and other Western sanctions. The US House Select Committee on China and the Ukrainian government both verified the documents, officials told Politico.

The push comes as Russia leans harder on jet-powered Shaheds, which Ukraine's Air Force says are hard to down with conventional defenses. Kyiv has fielded its first jet interceptor and tested a new one in September—but the plant is a bid to out-build those defenses faster than Ukraine can scale them.

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.

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Ukraine’s Naftogaz has signed a memorandum with Hungarian energy company MOL to build fuel storage facilities in Hungary near the Ukrainian border, creating additional reserves outside the reach of Russian strikes.

Acting Naftogaz CEO Sergiy Fedorenko said the project will diversify fuel supply routes and provide storage capacity outside areas exposed to Russian attacks. He said this could make fuel supplies more reliable for Ukrainian consumers while also expanding cross-border energy infrastructure.

The agreement was announced during the Carpathian Economic Forum, held as part of the first summit of the Carpathian Eight regional cooperation format.

Why Ukraine needs fuel storage outside the country

Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s fuel infrastructure, including oil and gas production facilities, filling stations, and other sites needed to supply fuel across the country. These attacks increase in the lead up to and during winter months, where the impacts on civilians are especially severe.

Naftogaz said Russian attacks destroyed 37 of its filling stations during the first seven months of 2026. The company said fuel availability is particularly important for emergency services, medical teams, public transport, and communities near the front line.

Russia has also attacked Ukraine’s oil and gas production facilities. In August, Naftogaz said a major Russian attack damaged seven Ukrnafta production facilities and forced some of them offline, reducing oil and gas production.

Storing fuel in Hungary would give Ukraine additional reserves beyond the reach of these attacks and another route for bringing petroleum products into the country if domestic infrastructure is damaged.

Fedorenko said the agreement could make fuel supplies to Ukrainian consumers more reliable while supporting the development of energy infrastructure connecting the two countries.

Ukraine-Hungary ties improve

The deal comes as Kyiv and Budapest have begun rebuilding relations following years of tensions under former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Péter Magyar replaced Orbán as Hungary’s prime minister in 2026, and the new government has moved toward closer cooperation with Ukraine, although major disagreements remain. 

In June, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the relationship as entering a “new page” after Kyiv and Budapest reached an agreement addressing longstanding disputes over the rights of Hungary’s ethnic minority in Ukraine. 

The two countries have since continued talks on normalizing relations. In September, the relationship was showing tentative signs of improvement, including progress on minority-rights issues and preparations for a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Magyar.

Energy cooperation has already featured in the renewed dialogue. During a Ukrainian government visit to Budapest in 2025, the two sides discussed Hungarian participation in modernizing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and agreed to continue economic cooperation.

The improvement in relations has not eliminated disagreements. Hungary continues to block progress on parts of Ukraine’s EU accession process, citing concerns over the rights of Hungary’s ethnic minority in Ukraine.

The planned fuel-storage facilities therefore mark a practical area of cooperation between the two countries at a time when Russia’s attacks are making secure fuel supplies increasingly important for Ukraine.

Russia has destroyed 2.1 million square meters of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space out of a total 5 million, wiping out more than two-fifths of the country’s storage capacity as Moscow expands its air campaign against Ukraine’s economy, according to the Financial Times.

Russia is increasingly targeting the infrastructure that keeps Ukraine’s economy running and its citizens supplied, including warehouses, distribution centers, railways, fuel stations, and other logistics facilities. By hitting these sites far from the front line, Russia is disrupting the supply of everyday goods and making it harder for Ukrainians to find what they need.

Around 900,000 square meters of warehouse space has been destroyed in recent months alone, according to Ukrainian entrepreneur Ruslan Shostak, founder of the Eva and Varus retail chains, cited by the Financial Times.

Russia is destroying Ukraine’s warehouse capacity

The loss of warehouse space is creating problems for businesses across Ukraine.

Russian strikes have hit warehouses and distribution centers belonging to major Ukrainian retailers, pharmaceutical companies, publishers, and logistics operators.

One recent strike destroyed a warehouse belonging to toy retailer Budynok Ihrashok near Kyiv, FT reported. The facility was hit by a jet-powered drone and caught fire, but firefighters were unable to intervene while Russian drone attacks were continuing.

The company now plans to distribute its inventory among smaller warehouses and its network of 67 stores rather than rely on a single large distribution center.

The destruction of large warehouses is forcing companies to rethink how they store and distribute goods, increasing costs and making supply chains more vulnerable to further attacks.

Explore further

Kyiv stockpiles food and water as Russia’s new aerial tactics threaten a brutal winter

The attacks are spreading across Ukraine’s economy

Warehouses are not the only economic infrastructure being targeted.

Russian drones have increasingly struck railway infrastructure in western Ukraine, while fuel stations are also being hit farther from the front line. These attacks can disrupt the movement of goods even when they do not directly destroy the businesses producing them.

The result is a widening pressure on Ukraine’s logistics network. Companies must find alternative storage and transport routes while operating under the continuing threat of Russian airstrikes.

The attacks are part of Russia’s broader long-range air campaign against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Moscow is increasingly using drones and missiles to hit economic targets deep inside Ukraine, putting strain on the systems that allow the country’s economy to function during the war.