Russia

Oct. 18 (UPI) — On this day in history:

In 1776, the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania was established. Dubbed the “Mason-Dixon” line, it became the unofficial boundary between North and South.

In 1851, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville was published. A small band of Herman Melville devotees orated their way through the 135-chapter opus, which took 22 hours and 38 minutes to complete.

In 1867, the United States completed its purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million, taking possession of the territory from Russia. It would be 92 years before Alaska was admitted to the Union.

In 1898, the United States took control of Puerto Rico one year after Spain had granted self-rule to the Caribbean nation.

File Photo by Monika Graff/UPI

In 1922, the British Broadcasting Corp. was established.

In 1931, Thomas Alva Edison, one of the most prolific inventors in history, died in West Orange, N.J., at the age of 84.

In 1959, the Soviet Union announced that Luna 3, an unmanned space vehicle, had taken the first pictures of the far side of the moon. In 1987, a former Mexican spy claimed his intelligence unit stole the Soviet satellite while it was on tour in Mexico in 1959, providing the United States with valuable intelligence.

In 1974, the jury in the Watergate cover-up trial heard a tape recording in which U.S. President Richard Nixon told aide John Dean to try to stop the Watergate burglary investigation before it implicated White House personnel.

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

In 1991, Israel and the Soviet Union agreed to renew full diplomatic relations for the first time since 1967.

In 2002, North Korea revealed it was working on a secret nuclear weapons program. U.S. intelligence officials concluded critical equipment for it came from Pakistan.

In 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned home after eight years in exile to triumphant fanfare that gave way to panic when a suicide bomber killed more than 140 people in her convoy. She wasn’t hurt in that attack but was assassinated on Dec. 27 of that year in Rawalpindi.

In 2011, Gilad Shalit, a 25-year-old Israeli soldier kidnapped by the militant Palestinian group Hamas in a high-profile incident, was freed after being held for more than five years. His release came in exchange for 1,000 Palestinians who had spent years in Israeli jails.

In 2024, the electric grid on the island of Cuba went entirely offline after the failure of a major power plant east of Havana. Power returned four days later. The outage was one of several blackouts from 2024 to 2025 amid an economic crisis.

Here are the key events from day 1,332 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, October 18, 2025:

Fighting

• Ukrainian shelling killed two adults and a 10-year-old child in Russian-occupied Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region, wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region killed a 38-year-old man and injured four others, the regional administration wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russian attacks also injured at least eight people in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, according to local officials.
• Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed a Ukrainian drone attack destroyed an oil depot and a gas treatment plant in Russian-occupied Crimea on Friday night.
• The Russian-installed governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged several electrical substations in the Russian-occupied region, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
• Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s Chernihiv region 68 times in a 24-hour period, causing fires at a logging company and damaging residential areas, Regional Governor Vyacheslav Chaus said.
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called for relevant United Nations bodies to condemn the Ukrainian attack that killed Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev and seriously wounded his colleague in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region on Thursday.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, telling reporters he was optimistic about ending the war. “I think we have a chance of ending the war quickly if flexibility is shown,” Trump told reporters.
• Zelenskyy congratulated Trump on his “successful ceasefire” in the Middle East, saying that while “Putin is not ready”, he is confident that with Trump’s “help, we can stop this war, and we really need it”.
• Trump did not commit to Zelenskyy’s request for Tomahawk missiles, which are precise, long-range projectiles that Kyiv is seeking in order to strike deep into Russia, saying doing so “could mean big escalation”.
• Trump also told reporters that Zelenskyy will “be in touch” during upcoming negotiations in Hungary, where the US president will meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
• Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would allow Putin to attend the planned summit with Trump in Budapest, despite the Russian leader facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Hungary is in the process of leaving.
• Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy, proposed building a “US-Russia link via the Bering Strait” in a post on X, also suggesting that the undersea tunnel connecting Russia and the US could be built together with billionaire Elon Musk’s The Boring Company.
• Asked about the tunnel proposal on Friday, Trump said it was “interesting”, while Zelenskyy said: “I’m not happy with this idea.”
• United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a call with Zelenskyy after his White House meeting, where he “reiterated their unwavering commitment to Ukraine in the face of ongoing Russian aggression”, according to a summary of the call published by Downing Street.

Regional Security

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Hungary in the very near future, where he will meet United States counterpart Donald Trump for a second summit on ending the war in Ukraine. The first – in Alaska in August – failed to result in any agreement.

But, with an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in 2023 for Putin’s arrest over the alleged illegal deportation of Ukrainian children during Russia’s war with Ukraine, how will the fugitive from justice make it to the negotiating table?

Signatories of the 1998 Rome Statute, which established the Hague-based court in 2002, are required to arrest those subject to warrants as soon as they enter their territory – which theoretically includes airspace, which is also considered sovereign territory under international law.

Hungary, which recently stated its intention to withdraw from the agreement – making it a safe space for Putin – is surrounded by countries which would be bound by this.

However, the ICC, which has 125 member states, has no police force and hence no means of enforcing arrests.

So what awaits Putin on his upcoming jaunt?

Isn’t Hungary technically an ICC member, too?

On paper, yes. But it’s on the way out.

In April, right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced the country would be ditching the ICC’s founding document when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit. Netanyahu is also on the ICC’s most-wanted list for Gaza war crimes – his arrest warrant was issued earlier this year.

The Hungarian parliament approved a bill back in May to trigger the withdrawal process, which becomes official one year after the United Nations Secretary-General receives a written notification of the decision.

Given Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s comments on Friday on the “sovereign” country’s intent to host the president with “respect”, ensuring he has “successful negotiations, and then returns home”, Putin seems safe from any arrest on Hungarian soil.

What about airspace? Could he be intercepted mid-air?

As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, “many questions” need to be resolved before Putin sets off on his journey. One of those questions is likely to regard the president’s flight path.

Putin will probably want to avoid the Baltic states after recent violations of Estonia’s airspace by Russian jets, which have put the region on high alert for a potential overspill from the Ukraine war. The Baltics could well force a hard landing.

Friendly Belarus might provide a convenient corridor between the Baltics and Ukraine further south, but this would set the president on course for Poland, which has historically strained relations with the Kremlin and recently warned Europe to prepare for a “deep” Russian strike on its territory. Russian drones have also recently breached Polish airspace.

Slovakia, which is led by Moscow-leaning populist Robert Fico, is still guzzling Russian energy in defiance of Trump’s orders to European countries to stop oil and gas imports, and may be more accommodating. Indeed, Fico is on a collision course with fellow EU members over sanctions against Moscow. But Putin would still need to cross Poland before reaching Slovakia.

Putin’s direct route to Budapest, therefore, appears littered with obstacles.

What about a more circuitous route?

Putin may be inspired by fellow ICC fugitive Netanyahu, wanted for crimes including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinian civilians in war-ravaged Gaza, who avoided several European countries on his way to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last month.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Wing of Zion plane briefly flew over Greek and Italian territory, but then ducked south, entirely avoiding French and Spanish airspace before heading over the Atlantic, according to FlightRadar24.

Flying south could be an option for Putin as well. Georgia, whose Georgian Dream governing party suspended Tbilisi’s bid to join the European Union, is a signatory to the Rome Statute but could potentially be relied on to turn a blind eye.

And Turkiye, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, but which has long walked a tightrope between Russia and NATO and hosted previous attempts between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on ending the war, could be amenable to allowing the Russian president to pass.

From there, the main obstacle would be Greece, providing a route through the Balkan states to Orban’s respectful welcome.

Has Putin made other trips since becoming an internationally wanted war criminal?

Putin has clearly limited his travels since the ICC warrant was issued.

Last year, he hopped over the border to ICC member Mongolia, where he was treated to a lavish ceremony featuring soldiers on horseback by Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh.

Mongolia has very friendly relations with Russia, on which it depends for fuel and electricity. The country has refrained from condemning Russia’s offensive in Ukraine and has abstained during votes on the conflict at the UN, so it was little surprise to see the red carpet being rolled out.

Flying to Alaska for a bilateral with Trump last August was easy since the president could completely avoid hostile countries, flying over his country’s huge land mass over the Bering Strait to the US, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Similarly, this year’s visit to “old friend” and neighbour Xi Jinping for a huge military parade and a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation posed no problems since China is not a party to the ICC.

This month, the Russian president met Central Asian leaders with whom he is eager to bolster ties in Tajikistan, which has signed up to the Rome Statute.

Will Putin ever be arrested?

The arrest warrants mark the first step towards an eventual trial, although the capture of Russia’s president is almost inconceivable.

Only a few national leaders have ended up in The Hague.

The former Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, surrendered to The Hague earlier this year to face charges of crimes against humanity. The charges pertain to extrajudicial killings committed during his widely condemned “war on drugs”, which killed thousands of people.

The former Liberian president and warlord, Charles Taylor, was convicted in 2012 by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, which held proceedings in The Hague. He was found guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Would a future Russian leader decide to forcibly hand Putin over, as was the case with Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic, extradited to The Hague after his removal in 2000, for atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia wars?

That would necessitate a seismic shift in the Kremlin’s power dynamic, which seems unlikely for the time being.

Here are the key events from day 1,331 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, October 17, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev has been killed by a Ukrainian drone strike while on assignment on the front line of the war in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, his publication, state news agency RIA said. Zuyev’s colleague, Yuri Voitkevich, was seriously wounded in the attack.

• Russia launched a large armoured assault with more than 20 armoured vehicles near the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia, Ukraine’s Azov brigade said, adding that its forces repelled the attack.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces carried out a massive overnight strike on Ukrainian gas infrastructure which supports Kyiv’s military, in retaliation for what it said were Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched a barrage of more than 300 drones and 37 missiles in that attack. Ukraine’s state grid operator, Ukrenergo, has also introduced emergency power cuts in every region of the country.
• Ukraine struck Russia’s Saratov oil refinery overnight, the Ukrainian military general staff said in a statement on Telegram.
• Some 84,000 people are still without power in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region after Ukrainian strikes this week on energy infrastructure, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region.
• Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said a decision could be taken as early as Friday on a pause in fighting to enable repairs to power lines at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine.
• North Korean troops based in Russia are operating drones across the border into Ukraine on reconnaissance missions, the Ukrainian military said, the first time Kyiv has reported a battlefield role for North Koreans in months.

Ceasefire talks

• In a surprise move, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to another summit on the war in Ukraine after the leaders held a more than two-hour phone conversation. Trump and Putin may meet within the next two weeks in Budapest, Hungary, Trump said after the conversation, which he called productive.
• The Kremlin confirmed plans for the meeting, adding that Putin told Trump on the call that supplying US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would harm the peace process and damage ties.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will speak in the coming days to prepare the summit, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, adding that the timing would depend on how preparatory work progressed.
• The development came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was headed to the White House on Friday to push for more military support. Zelenskyy said on the eve of those talks that momentum in the Middle East peace process would help end his country’s more than three-year-old war with Russia.

Europe

• The European Commission has proposed four flagship European defence projects, including a counter-drone system and a plan to fortify the eastern border, as part of a drive to get the continent ready to defend itself by 2030.
• The proposals, in a defence policy “roadmap”, reflect fears fuelled by the war in Ukraine that Russia may attack an EU member in the coming years, and calls by President Trump for Europe to do more for its own security.

Sanctions

• Britain has targeted Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, and 44 shadow fleet tankers in what it described as a new bid to tighten energy sanctions and choke off Kremlin revenues. Lukoil and Rosneft were designated under Britain’s Russia sanctions laws for their role in supporting the Russian government. They are subject to an asset freeze, director disqualification, transport restrictions, and a ban on British trust services.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would call for the European Union to use Russian assets frozen in the West to provide a large loan to Ukraine to finance its war effort at the upcoming EU summit on October 23.
• Canada and Britain have expressed interest in working on the EU idea of a reparations loan for Ukraine based on immobilised Russian assets, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Reuters news agency on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington.
• Dombrovskis said he presented the idea of the EU loan, which could be up to 185bn euros ($216.5bn) over two years, to G7 finance ministers.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is scheduled to speak with Russia’s Vladimir Putin Thursday as he considers Ukraine’s push for long-range missiles, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment on the private call and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The call comes ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.

Zelensky has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between the Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.

With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal holding, Trump has said he’s now turning his attention to bringing Russia’s war on Ukraine to an end and is weighing providing Kyiv long-range weaponry as he looks to prod Moscow to the negotiating table.

Ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza was central to Trump’s 2024 reelection pitch, in which he persistently pilloried President Joe Biden for his handling of the conflicts. Yet, like his predecessor, Trump also has been stymied by Putin as he’s unsuccessfully pressed the Russian leader to hold direct talks with Zelensky to end the war that is nearing its fourth year.

But fresh off the Gaza ceasefire, Trump is showing new confidence that he can finally make headway on ending the Russian invasion. He’s also signaling that he’s ready to step up pressure on Putin if he doesn’t come to the table soon.

“Interestingly we made progress today, because of what’s happened in the Middle East,” Trump said of the Russia-Ukraine war on Wednesday evening as he welcomed supporters of his White House ballroom project to a glitzy dinner.

Earlier this week in Jerusalem, in a speech to the Knesset, Trump predicted the truce in Gaza would lay the groundwork for the U.S. to help Israel and many of its Middle East neighbors normalize relations. But Trump also made clear his top foreign policy priority now is ending the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

“First we have to get Russia done,” Trump said, turning to his special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has also served as his administration’s chief interlocutor with Putin. “We gotta get that one done. If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia first. All right?”

Trump weighs Tomahawks for Ukraine

Trump is set to host Zelensky for talks Friday, their fourth face-to-face meeting this year.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump has said he’s weighing selling Kyiv long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory — if Putin doesn’t settle the war soon. Zelensky, who has long sought the weapons system, said it would help Ukraine put the sort of pressure on Russia needed to get Putin to engage in peace talks.

Putin has made clear that providing Ukraine with Tomahawks would cross a red line and further damage relations between Moscow and Washington.

But Trump has been undeterred.

“He’d like to have Tomahawks,” Trump said of Zelensky on Tuesday. “We have a lot of Tomahawks.”

Agreeing to sell Ukraine Tomahawks would be a splashy move, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. But it could take years to supply and train Kyiv on the Tomahawk system.

Montgomery said Ukraine could be better served in the near term with a surge of Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles and Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS. The U.S. already approved the sale of up to 3,350 ERAMs to Kyiv earlier this year.

The Tomahawk, with a range of about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers), would allow Ukraine to strike far deeper in Russian territory than either the ERAM (about 285 miles, or 460 km) or ATACMS (about 186 miles, or 300 kilometers).

“To provide Tomahawks is as much a political decision as it is a military decision,” Montgomery said. “The ERAM is shorter range, but this can help them put pressure on Russia operationally, on their logistics, the command and control, and its force disbursement within several hundred kilometers of the front line. It can be very effective.”

Signs of White House interest in new Russia sanctions

Zelensky is expected to reiterate his plea to Trump to hit Russia’s economy with further sanctions, something the Republican, to date, has appeared reluctant to do.

Congress has weighed legislation that would lead to tougher sanctions on Moscow, but Trump has largely focused his attention on pressuring NATO members and other allies to cut off their purchases of Russian oil, the engine fueling Moscow’s war machine. To that end, Trump said Wednesday that India, which became one of Russia’s biggest crude buyers after the Ukraine invasion, had agreed to stop buying oil from Moscow.

Waiting for Trump’s blessing is legislation in the Senate that would impose steep tariffs on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports in an attempt to cripple Moscow economically.

Though the president hasn’t formally endorsed it — and Republican leaders do not plan to move forward without his support — the White House has shown, behind the scenes, more interest in the bill in recent weeks.

Administration officials have gone through the legislation in depth, offering line edits and requesting technical changes, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions between the White House and the Senate. That has been interpreted on Capitol Hill as a sign that Trump is getting more serious about the legislation, sponsored by close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

A White House official said the administration is working with lawmakers to make sure that “introduced bills advance the president’s foreign policy objectives and authorities.” The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said any sanctions package needs to give the president “complete flexibility.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the administration is waiting for greater buy-in from Europe, which he noted faces a bigger threat from Russian aggression than the U.S. does.

“So all I hear from the Europeans is that Putin is coming to Warsaw,” Bessent said. “There are very few things in life I’m sure about. I’m sure he’s not coming to Boston. So, we will respond … if our European partners will join us.”

Madhani and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writers Fatima Hussein, Chris Megerian and Didi Tang contributed to this report.

The proposal, which forms part of the ‘European Drone Defence Initiative’, is one of several flagship EU projects to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Moscow.

The European Commission is in discussions to adopt a new counter-drone initiative to protect European Union airspace from Russian violations, as it seeks to strengthen border security with its own advanced drone technology after a string of drone incursions were reported in a host of EU and NATO member countries over the past month.

The proposal, which was included in a defence policy “roadmap” presented on Thursday, will aim for the new anti-drone capabilities to reach initial capacity by the end of next year and become fully operational by the end of 2027, according to a draft of the document.

It will then be presented to EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, European Commission Executive Vice President for Security Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that it was time for Europe to build a “drone wall” to protect its eastern flank, hours after some 20 Russian drones reportedly entered the airspace of EU and NATO member Poland.

The concept has since morphed into a broader “European Drone Defence Initiative” including a continent-wide web of anti-drone systems in an effort to win support from EU capitals.

The drone initiative is one of several flagship EU projects aiming to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Russia as its more than three-year-long war in Ukraine grinds on.

In the meantime, as a counterpoint, Russia’s federal security chief said on Thursday that Moscow has no doubt about NATO’s security services’ involvement in incidents with alleged Russian drones over EU territory, Russian news agency RIA Novosti cited him as saying.

Following the drone incursion into Poland, other incidents were reported at airports and military installations in several other countries further west, including Denmark, Estonia and Germany, although there has not been confirmation that the drones were sent by the Kremlin.

For its part, NATO has launched a new mission and beefed up forces on its eastern border, but it is playing catch-up as it tries to tap Ukraine’s experience and get to grips with the drone threat from Moscow.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that NATO was now “testing integrated systems that will help us detect, track and neutralise aerial threats” for use on the bloc’s eastern flank.

Ukrainian officials say Russia’s incursions into other countries’ airspace are deliberate.

“Putin just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said last month after the drones were spotted in Poland.

Other NATO allies have also claimed the incursions were deliberate.

However, experts in drone warfare say it is still possible that the incursions were not deliberate.

Russia has denied deliberately attacking any of the European countries, instead accusing them of making false allegations to cause tensions.

While Brussels wants to have the drone project fully up and running by the end of 2027, there is scepticism from some EU countries and fears that the bloc is treading on NATO’s toes.

“We are not doubling the work that NATO is doing; actually, we are complementing each other,” said Kallas.

Ukraine says it will need $120bn in defence funding in 2026 to stave off Russia’s more than three-year war.

Germany has pledged more than $2bn in military aid for Ukraine, as the government in Kyiv signalled that it would need $120bn in 2026 to stave off Russia’s nearly four-year all-out war.

Speaking on Wednesday at a Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Brussels, German Foreign Minister Boris Pistorius said that Western allies must maintain their resolve and provide more weapons to Ukraine.

“You can count on Germany. We will continue and expand our support for Ukraine. With new contracts, Germany will provide additional support amounting to over 2 billion euros [$2.3bn],” Pistorius told the meeting in Brussels, which was also attended by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Ukrainian Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal.

“The package addresses a number of urgent requirements of Ukraine. It provides air defence systems, Patriot interceptors, radar systems and precision guided artillery, rockets and ammunition,” Pistorius said, adding that Germany will also deliver two additional IRIS-T air defence systems to Ukraine, including a large number of guided missiles and shoulder-fired air defence missiles.

In recent months, the transatlantic alliance started to coordinate regular deliveries of large weapons packages to Ukraine to help fend off Russia’s war.

Spare weapons stocks in European arsenals have all but dried up, and only the United States has a sufficient store of ready weapons that Ukraine most needs.

Under the financial arrangement – known as the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) – European allies and Canada are buying US weapons to help Kyiv keep Russian forces at bay. About $2bn worth had previously been allocated since August.

Germany’s pledge came as Ukraine’s Western backers gathered to drum up more military support for their beleaguered partner.

Shmyhal put his country’s defence needs next year at $120bn. “Ukraine will cover half, $60bn, from our national resources. We are asking partners to join us in covering the other half,” he said.

Air defence systems are most in need. Shmyhal said that last month alone, Russia “launched over 5,600 strike drones and more than 180 missiles targeting our civilian infrastructure and people”.

The new pledges of support came a day after new data showed that foreign military aid to Ukraine had declined sharply recently. Despite the PURL programme, support plunged by 43 percent in July and August compared to the first half of the year, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which tracks such deliveries and funding.

Hegseth said that “all countries need to translate goals into guns, commitments into capabilities and pledges into power. That’s all that matters. Hard power. It’s the only thing belligerents actually respect.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump hasn’t donated military equipment to Ukraine. It has been weighing whether to send Tomahawk long-range missiles if Russia doesn’t wind down its war soon, but it remains unclear who will pay for those weapons, should they be approved.

Gennadiy Trukhanov is alleged to have Russian citizenship, which is prohibited in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of Ukrainian citizenship over allegations that he possesses a Russian passport.

The Ukrainian leader has instead appointed a military administration to run the country’s biggest port city on the Black Sea, with a population of about 1 million.

“The Ukrainian citizenship of the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, has been suspended,” Ukraine’s SBU security service announced on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday, citing a decree signed by Zelenskyy.

The SBU accused the mayor of “possessing a valid international passport from the aggressor country”.

Ukraine prohibits its citizens from also holding citizenship in Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the move against Trukhanov could see him deported from the country.

In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said he had held a meeting with the head of the SBU, which had reported on “countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the front-line and border regions, as well as in the south of our country”.

The SBU chief “confirmed… the fact that certain individuals hold Russian citizenship – relevant decisions regarding them have been prepared. I have signed the decree”, Zelenskyy said.

I held a meeting on the security situation in some of our regions – these are matters of principle.

Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk reported on countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the frontline and border regions, as well as in the south… pic.twitter.com/MxKyKjPYc9

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 14, 2025

“Far too many security issues in Odesa have remained unanswered for far too long,” the president also said, according to reports, without providing specific details.

A former member of parliament, Trukhanov has been the mayor of Odesa since 2014. He has consistently denied accusations of holding Russian citizenship, an allegation that has dogged him throughout his political career.

“I have never received a Russian passport. I am a Ukrainian citizen,” Trukhanov stressed in a video message posted on Telegram following the announcement of his citizenship revocation.

Trukhanov said he would “continue to perform the duties of elected mayor” as long as possible and that he would take the case to court.

Images of a Russian passport allegedly belonging to Trukhanov have been shared widely on social media in Ukraine.

SBU says: pic.twitter.com/fcRe8acOgo

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 14, 2025

Once considered a politician with pro-Russian leanings, Trukhanov pivoted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and has publicly condemned Moscow while focusing on defending Odesa and aiding the Ukrainian army.

A source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency that Zelenskyy had also removed the Ukrainian citizenships of two other people.

Local media outlet The Kyiv Independent identified the two as Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin, a vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and former Ukrainian politician and now alleged Russian collaborator Oleg Tsaryov.

Polunin, who sports a large tattoo of Putin on his chest, was born in southern Ukraine but obtained Russian citizenship in 2018. He supported Russia’s 2022 invasion and, earlier in 2014, backed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, where he lived and worked.

In July, Zelenskyy revoked the citizenship of Metropolitan Onufriy, the head of the formerly Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Here are the key events from day 1,329 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, October 15, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched powerful glide bombs and drones against Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in overnight attacks, hitting the city’s main hospital, wounding seven people, and forcing the evacuation of 50 patients, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces have taken control of the village of Balahan in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
• A convoy of United Nations vehicles carrying aid supplies came under fire from Russian forces near the town of Bilozerka in the Kherson region, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, describing the attack as “utterly unacceptable”. There were no injuries in the attack on four UN trucks, two of which were set on fire by remote-controlled drones.
• Local authorities have ordered the evacuation of families from dozens of villages near the all-but-destroyed northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, citing the “worsening security situation”.
• Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, said that a total of 409 families with 601 children were told to leave 27 localities. Another official in the affected area later told public broadcaster Suspilne that the list of localities to be evacuated by families had been expanded to 40.
• Russia will be able to deploy about 2 million military reservists to fight in Ukraine if needed under amendments to a law likely to be backed by the Russian parliament, according to reports.
• Power outages were reported in the Ukrainian capital and other regions late on Tuesday due to a network overload and the aftermath of Russian attacks, the Kyiv City State Administration said. Power was cut in three central Kyiv districts on the west bank of the Dnipro River running through the city. Ukrenergo, which operates Ukraine’s high-voltage lines, said that lingering problems from Russian attacks on the country’s energy system had triggered outages in regions across northern, central and southeastern Ukraine.
• Work is to begin this week to restore external power links to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which has been running on emergency diesel generators for three weeks. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisation based in Vienna, told the Russian state news agency RIA that it was “vital to agree on a local ceasefire in areas where the repair work is to be carried out”.

Military aid

• NATO defence ministers will meet on Wednesday to try to drum up more military support for Ukraine amid a sharp drop in deliveries of weapons and ammunition to the war-ravaged country in recent months.
• European military aid to Ukraine declined sharply this summer, despite a recent NATO initiative in which member countries bought US weapons and transferred them to Kyiv, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said.
• The United Kingdom has delivered more than 85,000 military drones to Ukraine over the last six months, Secretary of State for Defence John Healey has said, according to the Press Association.
• German Federal Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil said his country would continue to “financially secure Ukraine’s defence capabilities for the next few years”, while also working with the US to “massively increase pressure on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to end his brutal war of aggression”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of the port city of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of his Ukrainian citizenship after it was discovered he held Russian citizenship. Trukhanov could now face deportation. Trukhanov denied the claim, saying, “I am a citizen of Ukraine”, and said he would challenge the decision in Ukraine’s Supreme Court and, if necessary, the European Court of Human Rights.
• Zelenskyy said he would appoint a military administration to govern Odesa, citing unresolved security concerns. Ukraine prohibits dual citizenship with Russia, and Trukhanov has long faced allegations of holding both.
• A Kyiv government source told the AFP news agency that Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin had also been stripped of citizenship. Polunin has been a vocal supporter of the Russian president. Pro-Kremlin politician Oleg Tsaryov, who survived an assassination attempt in 2023, was also among those who had their Ukrainian citizenship revoked, according to AFP.
• United States President Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with Russian leader Putin in advance of a planned visit by Zelenskyy to Washington, DC, later this week. “I don’t know why he continues with this war,” Trump said of Putin.
• Zelenskyy is set to meet Trump in Washington, DC, on Friday, where the two will discuss Ukraine’s air defence and long-range strike capabilities.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said she was focusing on Russian attacks on her country’s energy grid in talks this week with US officials.
• Svyrydenko described the priorities of her visit to Washington, DC, as “energy, sanctions and the development of cooperation with the USA in new ways that can strengthen both our countries”.
• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had opened a criminal case against exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other prominent Kremlin critics, accusing them of plotting to violently seize power. The FSB said it was investigating all 22 members of the Russian Antiwar Committee – a group of Russian politicians, businesspeople, journalists, lawyers, artists and academics all based outside the country, who oppose Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Regional security

• Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski warned that Europe must be prepared for Russia to strike deep into the region, calling it “irresponsible” not to build defences such as a “drone wall” on its eastern flank.
• German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has accused China of undermining the international rules-based order through its increasingly aggressive policies in Asia and its support for Russia.
• Wadephul also criticised Russia, saying Moscow is testing NATO’s resolve, violating European Union and NATO airspace, spying on Germany’s critical infrastructure and seeking to influence public discourse with propaganda and disinformation.
• Trump threatened trade penalties, including tariffs, against Spain, saying he was unhappy with its refusal to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and calling the move disrespectful to NATO.
• Pro-Russian hackers brought down the German government’s public procurement portal, the Sddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper reported on Tuesday. The cyberattack rendered this important interface between the state and businesses inaccessible for almost a week, the report said.
• Sweden will set up its first emergency grain stocks in the north of the country, a region that risks being isolated in a conflict, the government said. In its 2026 budget, Stockholm plans to invest 575 million kronor ($60m) to set up the grain reserves. Sweden revived its “total defence” strategy in 2015 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and more measures were introduced after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trade

• Russia’s war in Ukraine is bad for US businesses, which have heavily invested in Europe and whose profits are affected by the uncertainty that Moscow’s aggression creates, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said. Dombrovskis said that in 2023, US-owned assets in Europe were worth an estimated $19.2 trillion, or roughly 64 percent of all US corporate foreign assets globally.

Al Jazeera’s Nils Alder has been seeing how Lithuania’s military forces are staying ready, at a time of increasing concern over Russia’s military activity.

US President Donald Trump is considering sending Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, saying it would provide “a new step of aggression” in its war with Russia.

When asked on Air Force One if he would send Tomahawks to Ukraine, Trump replied “we’ll see… I may”.

It follows a second phone call at the weekend between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who pushed for stronger military capabilities to launch counter-attacks against Russia.

Moscow has previously warned Washington against providing long-range missiles to Kyiv, saying it would cause a major escalation in the conflict and strain US-Russian relations.

Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,500 miles), which would put Moscow within reach for Ukraine.

Trump spoke to reporters as he flew to Israel. He said he would possibly speak to Russia about the Tomahawks requested by Ukraine.

“I might tell them [Russia] that if the war is not settled, that we may very well, we may not, but we may do it.”

“Do they [Russia] want Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so,” the president said.

Kyiv has made multiple requests for long-range missiles, as it weighs up striking Russian cities far from the front lines of the grinding conflict.

In their phone calls Zelensky and Trump discussed Ukraine’s bid to strengthen its military capabilities, including boosting its air defences and long-range arms.

Ukrainian cities including Kyiv have come under repeated heavy Russian bombardment with drones and missiles. Russia has particularly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power cuts.

Last month, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg suggested the US president had authorised strikes deep into Russian territory, telling Fox News “there are no such things as sanctuaries” from attacks in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, downplayed the chances of Tomahawks changing the course of the war.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said last month: “Whether it’s Tomahawks or other missiles, they won’t be able to change the dynamic.”

For decades, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) prepared for war, confident in its advantage over any adversary. Its member states invested heavily in state-of-the-art weapons. Stealth aircraft, precision weaponry, secretive submarines and city-sized aircraft carriers stood as the guardians of the West.

This power appeared unshakable until recently. On September 10, during another massive Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, more than 20 Russian drones crossed into neighbouring Poland. The NATO member had to scramble multimillion-euro military equipment – F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, military helicopters and Patriot surface-to-air missile systems – in order to shoot down potential threats. Several drones were shot down, including three Shaheds and several cheaply made foam dummies.

That interception operation was not only costly, but it also busted the myth of Western military might. Trillions of dollars in investment in the military industrial complex could not protect NATO borders from two dozen inexpensive drones.

In the following days, unidentified drones shut down airports in Norway, Denmark and Germany, costing airlines millions of euros; in Belgium, drones were also spotted near a military base.

The European media is full of stories about unidentifiable drones, air defences, and speculation over possible directions of a Russian strike. Romania? Poland? The Baltic States? Along the entire eastern border of the European Union, there is no place where the population feels truly safe.

It is hard to imagine the scale of chaos should Russian forces actually go on the offensive. How many countries would act under NATO’s Article 5, which allows for collective action against a military threat against a single member, and how swiftly? By then, where would the Russian forces be?

The central question remains: can the North Atlantic alliance and its modern military technology stop such an advance?

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated that the answer is no. Russian forces display a persistence in combat possible only under dictatorial regimes, where soldiers are indoctrinated and fear their own command more than the enemy.

Modern methods of warfare against armies modelled on World Wars I and II are not nearly as effective as generals once claimed. One just has to look at the front line in Ukraine and the constantly evolving military strategies.

Faced with a formidable military power with seemingly unlimited budget and unconstrained military reach, the Ukrainians had to adapt quickly. They began deploying drones against Russian armour, but the enemy did not remain idle against these attacks. It started constructing improvised metal cages over tank turrets to absorb explosions.

Precision strikes with Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) cluster munitions taught them to disperse ammunition in small points, avoiding concentrations of troops and equipment.

Drones on both sides monitor the front line, but it is scorched earth: no movement of tanks or infantry can be seen. Russian advances proceed covertly, mostly at night, with two- or three-man teams crossing bombardment zones, gradually assembling for surprise attacks. Troops on both sides are dug deep underground; what is visible is only the casualty count — several thousand each week.

Is Europe prepared for this type of war? Are NATO soldiers capable of surviving for weeks in foxholes and ruins, without communicating, to avoid detection and destruction?

A survey conducted by Gallup last year suggests the answer is no. In Poland, 45 percent of respondents said they would voluntarily defend their country if war threatened. In Spain, the figure was 29 percent; in Germany, only 23 percent; in Italy, a meagre 14 percent; the EU average was 32 percent.

More than three years into the war with Russia, Ukraine itself is suffering from severe shortages of personnel. Forced conscription has become increasingly unpopular, and draft evasion is widespread, according to Ukrainian media and Western observers. Even with Western weapons and funding, the shortage of soldiers limits Ukraine’s ability to hold the line or conduct meaningful offensives.

Currently, the active personnel of NATO’s European allies number around 1.47 million; that includes the United Kingdom. That seems considerable, until it is compared with Ukraine, where an 800,000-strong army has been facing a 600,000-strong Russian force over a 1,000-kilometre (621-mile) front for more than three years, gradually retreating.

Then there is also the difficult question of how many countries would actually send troops to the eastern front, and in what numbers. Would the NATO member states on the eastern flank be left to fend for themselves, only supplied with arms by their Western allies? And would that lead to tensions within the alliance, and its possible paralysis or even breakup?

Europe has only two options to feel even partially secure: either continue to spend trillions of euros rapidly expanding its own military capabilities, or try to put an end to the Russian aggression by providing full financial and military support to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that his nation requires $60bn annually to fend off Russian aggression. It is a heavy burden for the West, especially in these challenging times. Yet it is negligible compared with the price Ukraine is paying — in money, military and civilian lives, lost territory, and destroyed infrastructure.

While Europe hesitates with calculators in hand, Ukraine fights. Every day the war continues, the risk of it spreading westward increases.

The time for swift decisions is now.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Here are the key events from day 1,326 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, October 12, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine on Saturday killed at least five people, while also cutting power to parts of the southern Odesa region, the AFP news agency reported, citing local officials.
• Two of the victims were killed in an attack on a church in Kostiantynivka in eastern Donetsk, AFP said.
• Ukraine’s private energy firm DTEK said that power has been restored to 240,000 households in Odesa after a Russian attack overnight on Saturday, which damaged some energy infrastructure.
• The Russian TASS news agency said a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Kursk region killed an 81-year-old man.
• An official from Ukraine’s SBU security service told the Reuters news agency that Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Bashneft oil refinery in Ufa, causing explosions and a fire. The unnamed official said the attack marked the third time Ukrainian forces struck the facility in Bashkortostan in southwestern Russia in the last month.

Regional security

• United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defence John Healy said that two Royal Air Force aircraft flew a 12-hour mission earlier this week alongside US and NATO forces to patrol Russia’s border. Healy described the joint operation as “substantial”, coming after a series of alleged Russian drone and aircraft incursions into NATO airspace.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that he discussed the most recent Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy system in a call with United States President Donald Trump. He described the discussion as “positive and productive”, while adding that the two also talked about how to bolster Ukrainian air defences.

• In a separate post on Facebook, Zelenskyy said that he congratulated Trump for his “outstanding” ceasefire plan in the Middle East, while urging him to broker a similar deal for Russia’s war on Ukraine. He wrote that if Trump could stop one war, “others can be stopped as well”.

• Cuba denied US claims that it had deployed soldiers to fight for Russia in its war in Ukraine. It also said that 26 Cubans had been sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 14 years for mercenary activity since September 2023, when reports circulated of Cubans being sent to the front in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s president praises Trump’s efforts to secure Gaza ceasefire, says other wars ‘can be stopped as well’.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Donald Trump to broker peace in Ukraine like in “the Middle East” during a phone call, saying if the United States president could stop one war, “others can be stopped as well.”

Saturday’s call came a day after Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy grid, knocking out power to parts of the capital, Kyiv, and nine other Ukrainian regions, which have since been restored.

Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have slowed in recent weeks, in part because global attention has shifted to brokering a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza, Kyiv said.

Trump, who announced the first phase of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday, met Russian President Vladimir Putin for talks in August but failed to secure progress on a ceasefire in the European war.

“I had a call with US President Donald Trump. A very positive and productive one,” Zelenskyy said on Facebook, congratulating Trump for his “outstanding” ceasefire plan in the Middle East.

“If a war can be stopped in one region, then surely other wars can be stopped as well, including the Russian war,” Zelenskyy added, calling for Trump to pressure the Kremlin into negotiations.

Relations between the two leaders have warmed dramatically since February when they sparred during a televised meeting at the White House.

Trump has since grown more hostile towards Moscow while expressing sympathy for Ukraine.

In September, he wrote on Truth Social that Kyiv should try to “take back” all its occupied territory with Europe’s and NATO’s help.

US first lady Melania Trump said on Friday that she had secured the release of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia after establishing an extraordinary back channel of communication with Putin.

Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least five people on Saturday and cut power to parts of southern Ukraine’s Odesa region, according to Ukrainian officials.

Two of the people died inside a church in Kostyantynivka when it was hit by a strike, according to local authorities.

Using ‘Russian assets’

Ukraine’s largest private energy company, DTEK, said “the main work to restore the power supply” was completed but some localised outages were still affecting the Ukrainian capital after Friday’s “massive” Russian attacks.

Ukrainian drone attacks, meanwhile, killed two people in Russia, according to regional officials.

In the Russian border region of Belgorod, a truck driver was killed by a Ukrainian strike, according to local officials.

Moscow has targeted Ukraine’s energy grid each winter since it launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, cutting power and heating to millions of households and disrupting water supplies in what Kyiv says is a brazen war crime.

Russia denies targeting civilians and says Ukraine uses the energy sites to power its military sector.

Both countries have accused each other in recent months of frustrating progress towards a peace deal.

Russia blames Kyiv and its European allies for the impasse, accusing them of undermining peace negotiations with Washington. Ukraine and Europe accuse Russia of playing for time so it can seize more Ukrainian territory.

Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Friday that Russia was taking advantage of the world being “almost entirely focused on the prospect of establishing peace in the Middle East” and called for strengthening Ukraine’s air defence systems and placing tighter sanctions on Russia.

“Russian assets must be fully used to strengthen our defence and ensure recovery,” he said in the video, posted to X.

This decisive decade demands unprecedented action to address humanity’s greatest challenge. With global access, this three-part series examines the real consequences of climate change for our civilisation, through the rest of the 21st century and beyond.

Irish journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes visits climate hotspots, from Greenland’s melting glaciers to sub-Saharan Africa’s weather extremes, from the flooding of agricultural land in Bangladesh to the thaw of the Siberian permafrost. He meets experts and witnesses who explain the interconnectivity of the world’s fragile ecology, as we reach tipping points from which there may be no return.

The series looks at new climate science and faces the harsh realities of a changing world – collapsing ecosystems, marine die-offs and escalating extreme weather phenomena. But it also explores a positive vision for reimagining economies, landscapes and infrastructure – and practical solutions, ways of mobilising collective resolve, and challenging humanity to become a transformative force, harnessing innovation to safeguard the future of civilisation.

Episode 1, Into the Storm, highlights the immediate and escalating effects of climate change. It opens in Ireland, where extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. In Greenland, it explores the rapid melting of the ice sheet, with potentially devastating consequences – rising sea levels and disruptions to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean. It also touches on the effects of climate change in Malawi and Siberia, a grim picture of widespread damage.

Episode 2, Against the Tide, focuses on adaptation strategies. It explores how countries and communities are responding to rising sea levels, increased flooding and more frequent droughts. The Netherlands serves as a case study in proactive adaptation, coming up with innovative solutions in the form of sea barriers and climate-resilient infrastructure. This episode also examines the challenges faced by vulnerable communities in Wales, Bangladesh and Florida.

Episode 3, Decarbonising the Global Economy, addresses the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. It opens with the world’s dependence on carbon-based energy sources and then explores ways to a cleaner, more sustainable future. It travels to Ukraine, the United States, Sweden, Finland and Florida, presenting a range of approaches to decarbonisation.

Throughout the series, experts from different fields offer insights into the latest climate science and potential solutions. The series aims to challenge viewers to confront the realities of climate change but also to inspire collective action. It emphasises the need for bold policies, innovative technologies and individual responsibility in safeguarding the future of the planet.

Here are the key events from day 1,325 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, October 11, 2025:

Fighting

• More than 450 Russian drones and 30 missiles targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure through the early hours of Friday morning in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “cynical and calculated attack” that injured at least 20 people nationwide.
• Throughout Friday, repair crews raced to restore power to more than 725,000 families in Kyiv and other cities amid widespread outages.
• In a video message discussing the attacks, Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “clearly taking advantage of the moment” as world leaders focus on implementing a ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
• Zelenskyy separately told reporters that Russia deliberately waited for bad weather before launching its assault, with inclement conditions reducing the efficiency of Ukraine’s air defences by 20 to 30 percent.
• Russian forces killed three foreign soldiers fighting on behalf of Ukraine near Otradnoye, a village in northeastern Ukraine, where Russian troops claimed to have taken control earlier this week, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.
• Ukraine’s military said it struck Russia more than 70 times last month, decreasing oil refining in the country by more than 21 percent.

Peace process

• The “E3” leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom condemned Russia’s “escalatory” attacks against Ukraine’s national infrastructure, promising to increase pressure on Russia as Putin “continues his stalling tactics and abhorrent attacks in response to peace talks”.
• The leaders added they were “ready to progress towards using, in a coordinated way, the value of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s armed forces” in order to pressure Russia to negotiate.
• During a three-day visit to Tajikistan, Russia’s Putin told reporters he remained “committed to the discussion that took place in Anchorage”, referring to his Alaska summit with United States President Donald Trump in August.
• Putin’s comments were a sharp reversal from those of Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov earlier this week, who said that “powerful momentum” for peace talks has been lost since August.
• US First Lady Melania Trump said she and Putin are discussing the repatriation of children caught up in the war, with some already returned to their families and more expected to be reunited soon.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy said he had spoken with several leaders in light of Russia’s overnight strikes – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz  – and thanked all three for their support.
• Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, visited North Korea for the 80th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. Russia and North Korea signed a mutual defence treaty last year, and Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops and vast quantities of weapons to support Moscow’s war against Kyiv.
• Putin told reporters that Trump “does a lot for peace” and praised the Gaza ceasefire deal.
• Trump quickly reposted a clip of Putin’s comments about his peace efforts to Truth Social with a note of thanks to the Russian leader.

Regional security

• Ukraine and the Netherlands signed a memorandum of understanding for the co-production of drones. Amsterdam has provided almost $9bn in support to Ukraine throughout the war, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
• European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the EU must seek a “common European vision for defence”, and that Russia must be prevented from winning its war against Ukraine.
• Putin said that Russia is developing new weapons of deterrence, and noted that it’s “not a big deal” for Moscow if the US declines to extend the warhead limits set out in a nuclear arms treaty that expires next year.

Russian drone and missile strikes have wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and caused blackouts across swaths of Ukraine, authorities have said.

In the latest mass attack targeting the energy system as winter approaches, electricity was interrupted in nine regions, and more than a million households and businesses were temporarily without power across the country on Friday.

In southeastern Ukraine, a seven-year-old was killed when his home was hit, and at least 20 people were injured. In Kyiv, an apartment block in the city centre was damaged by a projectile, while on the left bank of the Dnipro River that divides the capital, crowds waited at bus stops with the metro out of action, and people filled water bottles at distribution points.

“We didn’t sleep at all,” said Liuba, a pensioner, as she collected water. “From 2:30am, there was so much noise. By 3:30, we had no electricity, no gas, no water. Nothing.”

According to Ukraine’s energy ministry, more than 800,000 customers temporarily lost power in Kyiv.

Moscow’s attack overnight and into Friday fell on the third anniversary of Russia’s first large-scale attack on energy facilities, months after Moscow invaded in February 2022, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Russia’s latest strikes a “cynical and calculated attack”, and urged allies to respond with concrete measures.

“What’s needed is not window dressing but decisive action – from the United States, Europe, and the G7 – in delivering air defence systems and enforcing sanctions,” he said in a statement on X.

The Kremlin has escalated aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and rail systems over recent weeks, building on earlier bombing campaigns over the previous three winters that left millions without heating in frigid temperatures. Russia said its forces had hit energy sites supplying power to Ukraine’s defence industry.

The Ukrainian air force said the Russian barrage comprised 465 drones and 32 missiles, adding that 405 drones and 15 missiles were downed.

A source in Ukraine’s energy sector told the AFP news agency that the intensity of attacks was higher compared to last year, and that cloudy weather overnight had allowed drones to evade Ukrainian air defence systems.

Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Russian forces had targeted “critical infrastructure”.

“This was one of the largest concentrated strikes against energy facilities,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.

It was the fourth attack in a week against the facilities of Ukraine’s biggest private electricity provider, DTEK, its CEO Maxim Timchenko said.

Late on Friday DTEK said it had restored power to at least 678,000 households and companies in Kyiv after the massive Russian aerial attack.

“DTEK power engineers continue to intensively restore electricity to Kyiv residents,” the company said on Telegram.

Children ‘rejoined’ with families

The Russian attack came as United States First Lady Melania Trump announced that eight children displaced by the war had been reunited with their families following negotiations between her team and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s.

Trump said that Putin had responded to a letter sent via her husband, President Donald Trump, at a summit in Alaska in August.

“My representative has been working directly with President Putin’s team to ensure the safe reunification of children with their families between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, eight children have been rejoined with their families during the past 24 hours,” she said in a short, six-minute speech from the White House on Friday.

US President Trump’s own efforts to broker an end to Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine have stalled, as a series of direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations this year ended.

Trump said on Thursday that Washington and NATO allies were “stepping up the pressure” to end the war in Ukraine.

But the Kremlin said that momentum towards reaching a peace deal had largely vanished.

Here are the key events from day 1,323 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, October 9, 2025:

Fighting

• Three people were killed and one injured by Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Belgorod region, the local governor said.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces had taken control of the settlement of Novohryhorivka in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.
• Russia’s air defence units destroyed 53 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing Russian Defence Ministry data.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that his country’s forces had killed thousands of Russian soldiers in the Dobropillia region of eastern Ukraine since August 21, when they launched a counteroffensive against Moscow’s occupying troops. Zelenskyy said this information was based on a report he had received from the Ukrainian army’s Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskii.
• Zelenskyy also said Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s oil facilities had degraded them to an extent that the country was experiencing energy shortages. Russia, he claimed, had been forced to turn to its diesel reserves, which it had been saving for “a rainy day”.

Regional security

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said recent drone incidents and other airspace violations show Europe is facing hybrid warfare to which it must respond with measures that go beyond traditional defences, speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
• Von der Leyen said it was clear Russia’s aim was to “sow division” and “weaken support for Ukraine”, and that Europe could “either shy away and watch Russian threats escalate, or meet them with unity, deterrence and resolve”. Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, has denied that Moscow was behind the recent drone incursions into the airspaces of multiple European nations.

Military aid

• Russia will respond harshly if the United States supplies Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Russian parliament’s defence committee, said, emphasising that “those who supply them and those who use them will have problems”.

Diplomacy

• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the impetus to find a Ukrainian peace deal, which emerged after the summit between President Putin and US President Donald Trump in August, had proven to be exhausted.
• Ryabkov urged US leadership to take a “sober and responsible approach” to a possible transfer of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying such transactions could lead to a “qualitative change” in the situation.

A forum of regional countries, including India, voiced opposition to any foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s regional neighbours, including India, have voiced a rare unified front by opposing foreign attempts to deploy “military infrastructure” in the country, as United States President Donald Trump presses to regain control of the Bagram airbase.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, members of the Moscow Format of Consultations on Afghanistan – which include US allies India and Pakistan – “reaffirmed their unwavering support for the establishment of Afghanistan as an independent, united and peaceful state”. The forum also includes Russia, China, Iran and Central Asian nations, all of whom strongly oppose any US return presence in Afghanistan.

The members “called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighbouring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability”.

Though the statement echoes last year’s forum language, it suggests broad regional opposition to Trump’s push to return to Bagram, which he handed over to Afghanistan’s Taliban five years ago as part of a deal paving the way for the US withdrawal from Kabul.

In backing the statement, India – a longtime US ally – navigates fraying ties with Washington and apparent rapprochement with the Taliban, which it long opposed but has in recent years cultivated ties with.

In the latest diplomatic outreach, India is set to welcome the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi for a historic first visit to New Delhi this week, lasting from October 9-16.

After attending the Moscow forum, Muttaqi emphasised that Afghanistan will not accept any foreign military presence. “Afghanistan is a free and independent country, and throughout history, it has never accepted the military presence of foreigners,” he said. “Our decision and policy will remain the same to keep Afghanistan free and independent.”

Last month, Trump threatened “bad things” would happen to Afghanistan if it did not give back Bagram, and cited what he called its strategic location near China. The Taliban has rejected Trump’s calls to return the base.

Bagram is about 800km (about 500 miles) from the Chinese border, and about 2,400km (about 1,500 miles) from the nearest Chinese missile factory in Xinjiang.

Trump has referred to China as a key reason for wanting to retake control of Bagram, saying last month in London that the base is “an hour away from where [China] makes its nuclear weapons”.

Current and former US officials have cast doubt on Trump’s goal, saying that reoccupying Bagram might end up looking like a reinvasion, requiring more than 10,000 troops as well as the deployment of advanced air defences.

“The sheer logistics of negotiating redeployment and handing back would be extremely challenging and lengthy, and it’s not clear that this would serve either side’s strategic interests,” said Ashley Jackson, co-director at the Geneva-headquartered Centre on Armed Groups.

Bagram, a sprawling complex, was the main base for US forces in Afghanistan during the two decades of war that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington by al-Qaeda.

Thousands of people were imprisoned at the site for years without charge or trial by US forces during its so-called “war on terror”, and many of them were abused or tortured.

The Taliban retook the facility in 2021 following the US withdrawal, which Trump first set in motion in his first term as president, and the collapse of the Afghan government with Joe Biden in the White House.

Here are the key events from day 1,322 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, October 8, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces have captured almost 5,000 square kilometres (1,930sq miles) of Ukrainian territory so far this year, and Moscow retains the strategic initiative on the battlefield.
• Russian troops have captured the Ukrainian villages of Novovasylivka in the southeastern Zaporizhia region and Fedorivka in the eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s defence ministry said.
• Russian air defence units destroyed 184 Ukrainian drones in recent attacks, the RIA Novosti state-owned news agency reports.
• Russia’s air defence units also intercepted and destroyed a drone flying towards Moscow city, said Sergei Sobyanin, mayor of the Russian capital.

• Ukraine’s Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said Russian air strikes have caused “significant” damage to Ukrainian gas production capacity due to the targeting of regional gas infrastructure and power transmission facilities in front-line regions.
• Hrynchuk said Ukraine wants to increase imports of natural gas by 30 percent after Russian attacks on its gas infrastructure, telling reporters she had discussed additional gas imports with Group of Seven (G7) member states.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of using oil tankers for intelligence gathering and sabotage operations, and he added that Ukraine was cooperating with its allies on the matter.
• Russia’s state nuclear energy company has claimed that a Ukrainian drone attempted to strike a nuclear plant in Russia’s Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, but the unmanned aerial vehicle crashed into a cooling tower and caused no damage at the site.

Military aid

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was waiting for clarity from the United States about the possible supply of Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, saying such weapons could theoretically carry nuclear warheads and reiterated that Moscow would see the provision of such weapons as a serious escalation.
• The Kremlin also said it assumed for now that US President Donald Trump still sought a peace settlement in Ukraine.

Peace talks

• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with President Putin and said diplomatic initiatives need to gain momentum to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Russia-Ukraine war, Erdogan’s office said.
• The statement cited Erdogan as saying Turkiye will continue to work for peace and said bilateral relations and regional and global issues were also discussed with Putin.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she believed Trump had come to the conclusion that Russia was not interested in a peace deal with Ukraine, and that the only way forward was to apply pressure, continue to support Ukraine, and impose sanctions on Russia.

Politics and diplomacy

• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it is not in Poland’s interest to hand over a Ukrainian man wanted by Germany for suspected involvement in explosions which damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines three years ago.
• Tusk said the problem with Nord Stream 2 was not that it was blown up but that it was built. He added that Russia built the pipelines “against the vital interests not only of our countries, but of all of Europe”.
• A Polish court ruled on Monday that the Ukrainian diver wanted by Germany over his alleged involvement in the explosions, which damaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline, must remain in custody for another 40 days, his lawyer said.
• European Union governments have agreed to impose limits on the travel of Russian diplomats within the bloc, the Financial Times reported.

Economy

• Ukraine’s foreign currency reserves totalled $46.5bn as of October 1, the National Bank of Ukraine reported on its website.