RussiaUkraine

Warsaw also says it has scrambled military planes in response to a Russian attack in western Ukraine, close to its border.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says that intelligence information suggests Russia plans to launch drone and missile attacks against countries supporting Ukraine.

Warsaw’s leader outlined the assessment during an address to parliament on Thursday, saying that the attacks will be meant to weaken NATO’s ability to act collectively in response.

“According to intelligence assessments, Russia’s plan … includes hybrid drone and missile strikes against countries supporting Ukraine, including Poland,” Tusk said.

European countries suspect Moscow of being behind a series of acts of sabotage in recent months to put pressure on the allies, especially Germany, helping Kyiv in its bid to resist Russia’s full-scale invasion – something the Kremlin has vigorously denied.

“These potential strikes would be quote-unquote ‘accidental’ in nature, intended to paralyse or at least weaken the resolve of NATO states to invoke the relevant NATO provisions in the event of aggression against a member country,” Tusk added.

He did not elaborate on which intelligence agencies had provided the warning.

He also said such attacks by Russia could coincide with “political changes in certain European countries granting power – or at least a powerful voice – to those who, increasingly invoking noble slogans of peace, pacifism and needless casualties, will call for peace – or rather, the total capitulation of Ukraine”.

Tusk appeared to be referring to the advance of more Russia-friendly parties such as Alternative for Germany (AfD) and National Rally in France.

Air raid near border with Poland

Earlier on Thursday, Poland said it had scrambled military planes in response to a Russian attack in western Ukraine, close to the Polish border.

Airports in Rzeszow and Lublin were temporarily closed, and residents of two eastern regions of Poland received air raid warnings. Local media reported that sirens had sounded and that pupils in some schools had sought shelter.

“Very close to the Polish border, not far from Dorohusk, a petrol station was most likely attacked again,” Tusk said.

On Sunday, a Russian drone hit a passenger train in Ukraine, just two kilometres (1.6 miles) from the Polish border.

Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said Poland was strengthening airspace protection.

“We have increased F-16 and helicopter activity, and are reinforcing our air defence and rapid response systems,” he wrote on X.

Tusk said he would visit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday to discuss cooperation within the Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition, a group of European countries developing an air defence system with Ukraine as a cheaper alternative to the US-built Patriot.

Tetiana Bubynets collapsed on the asphalt after a Russian drone exploded at a gas station in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.

Despite the violent shockwave and blast of drone shrapnel produced by the attack on July 6, the 18-year-old accounting student had no visible wounds except for a nosebleed.

She was rushed to hospital and pronounced dead shortly after, alongside two other civilians, aged 41 and 48.

One of her lecturers, Tetiana Melikhova of Zaporizhzhia National University, said Bubynets was an only child and that her mother “lost the meaning of life” after she died.

“She couldn’t speak. At the funeral, she just lay on the coffin; she couldn’t let her child go,” Melikhova told Al Jazeera.

The strike that killed Bubynets was the first recorded case of Russia’s use of a fully autonomous attack drone powered by artificial intelligence (AI), according to a New York Times analysis.

While drone strikes have hammered Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian officials who examined the wreckage found the unmanned vehicle to be unlike others.

In place of an antenna, it featured an AI-powered minicomputer sold commercially by US technology company Nvidia, which rendered it capable of directing itself to the type of target it was programmed to spot – likely propane tanks in this case – lock on to it and proceed to strike.

AI-powered drones are the tip of the iceberg as Russia and Ukraine race towards boosting tech infrastructure aimed at coordinating reconnaissance and attack, according to analysts.

“It’s not about a drone having AI in it, and then seeing something and striking,” Marina Miron, researcher at the defence studies department at King’s College London, said. “Rather, it’s the drone seeing something, communicating to a software complex which knows how to map the GPS coordinates on a live battlefield map, and notifying the closest artillery unit.”

Referred to as reconnaissance-strike architecture, these unified battlefield management systems act like a central command. They track the location of friendly forces and identify enemy positions.

AI acts as the accelerator, instantly processing massive amounts of data collected through sensors in drones or any other military products, including interceptor missiles or artillery units.

The tactical advantage on the battlefield is given by the system’s ability to compress the kill chain – meaning coordinating and distributing the intelligence to military assets on the ground to find, track and destroy targets in a matter of minutes.

In such an ecosystem, AI-powered automated drones are just pieces of a broader puzzle.

Ukraine is known to be developing its system, which it named DELTA. Following operational trials in late 2025, Russia has been rolling out its version, the Svod Tactical Situational Awareness Complex, to front-line units.

Both sides claim that once the battlefield data is processed, a decision support system (DSS) presents a military commander with options to choose from, keeping a human in the decision-making loop, said Miron.

“In how far that is true is, of course, impossible to find out,” she added.

Acknowledging full AI autonomy would provoke ethical and legal questions.

Even if humans were to retain final decision-making authority, research has shown AI systems subtly shape choices, predetermining outcomes.

“Under time and pressure, commanders often do as AI suggests,” said Miron, whose research focuses on military AI and remotely piloted and autonomous systems.

Towards full automation

Coordinated AI-powered military systems are the next frontier of modern warfare, said Serhiy Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian Ministry of Defence adviser on loitering munitions, known by his callsign Flash.

“That’s what it will all come to,” he posted on his Telegram channel on July 1. “Navigation, search for a target, and attacks will be fully autonomous.”

Drones with some autonomous capabilities are already being deployed at scale.

Heorhii Volkov, commander of Ukraine’s Yasni Ochi drone strike unit, said this is currently mostly used in the final phase of long-distance strikes, where first-person view (FPV) drones are likely to lose radio connection due to electronic warfare or the curvature of the Earth.

The use of AI in so-called last-mile operations solves this battlefield hitch. If the signal is lost, an integrated AI-enabled onboard module takes full control of the unmanned vehicle, autonomously locks on the target and carries the strike to completion.

Yaroslav Azhnyuk, founder of Ukrainian technology company The Fourth Law, which develops AI-powered autonomy software for unmanned vehicles, said Russia and Ukraine were working to deploy a wider range of autonomous systems.

“This is not simply a race to demonstrate a fully autonomous drone. It is a race to make autonomy reliable, affordable and deployable at scale,” Azhnyuk told Al Jazeera. “Electronic warfare, increasingly long engagement distances and the growing number of drones are making human-controlled systems less sufficient. Autonomy solves exactly these constraints.”

Azhnyuk believes autonomy will become a game-changer over the next six to 12 months.

“The decisive advantage will belong to the side that can deploy reliable autonomy across tens or hundreds of thousands of systems, not just demonstrate it in prototypes,” he said.

Kateryna Bondar, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), noted the dangers of AI’s reliance on algorithms.

“The system doesn’t understand what it’s doing; it’s just following the algorithm and the rules which people created,” said Bondar, who works at the CSIS’s Wadhwani AI Center. “AI has to be trained to recognise targets and engage these targets,” but writing code that distinguishes between a bus and a tank is easier than between a Russian and a Ukrainian soldier.

Additionally, cost-effective FPV drones have low-quality cameras and their resolution can be lowered further by adverse atmospheric conditions.

Military units using autonomous systems therefore “delegate the decision to a very imperfect technology that cannot distinguish between a civilian and a military person, combatant or non-combatant”, Bondar said.

“This is why there is a conversation around who makes a decision and who has responsibility for mistakes and errors.”

Second day of strikes on fuel stations suggest a new campaign focused on civilian areas in the Ukrainian capital.

Russian drone attacks on two fuel stations in Kyiv have killed two people and injured others, as Moscow continues to target civilian areas.

They were struck early on Friday within ten minutes of each other in the capital’s Obolonskyi and Dniprovskyi districts, shortly after emergency sirens rang out, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a statement.

Russia also targeted fuel stations in Kyiv on Thursday, suggesting a new campaign focused on civilian areas in the capital. Ukrainian authorities have warned people to avoid filling up when air raid sirens sound.

One person died at the scene of one of the attacks, Klitschko said, while the other died in hospital. Six people required hospital treatment.

While fuel stations near the eastern and southern battle lines have been hit regularly for months, authorities have long warned that the attacks could extend to the capital as an intimidation strategy.

Russia and Ukraine both deny targeting civilians as the conflict – started with Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 – has developed into a series of daily attacks with missiles and drones.

Other Russian drone strikes overnight hit near a shopping mall in Pavlohrad, leaving five dead and 67 injured, while a mother and son were injured in Zaporizhzhia when a drone hit an apartment building and a mall.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, declared Friday a day of mourning.

On Thursday, he condemned Russia for attacking civilian areas in a bid to sow fear.

“Russia is systematically attacking places where it knows people will be spending their time going about their daily lives, seeking to maximise casualties, spread fear and put pressure on Ukrainian society,” he stated.

Ukraine unleashed its own large-scale drone attack through the night, with Russia’s Ministry of Defence reporting that its forces shot down 777 drones in 16 regions.

Two people were killed and three injured in Tula, to the south of Moscow, local authorities reported.

Ukraine launches one of its deepest strikes to date, targeting gas plants in Russia’s Arctic region.

Russian forces have launched attacks across Ukraine, killing at least seven people, according to Ukrainian officials, as Kyiv claimed responsibility for a drone attack that set off a fire at a natural gas plant deep in Russia’s Arctic region.

Four people were killed in a Russian attack in Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine overnight on Thursday, while three were killed in a drone attack on a shopping centre in the northeastern city of Sumy, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Heorhii ⁠Reshetilov, the acting governor of the Mykolaiv region, said the Russian strikes there hit both civilian and industrial infrastructure, killing two men and two women. At least 19 others were wounded, he said on Telegram.

The attack in Sumy left at least 14 people wounded, according to Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration. Three of the victims were children, he said on Telegram.

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed the attack in Mykolaiv, but said it targeted a drone warehouse. The ministry said it also hit the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk and two vessels near Odesa on the Black Sea.

The targets of the strikes were being used for military purposes, the ministry claimed.

The attacks came after Russian authorities said Ukrainian forces had launched a drone attack on the country’s Yamal-Nenets region, which is located some 2,800 kilometres (1,700 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Dmitry Artyukhov, the region’s governor, said the attack targeted an industrial facility in Novy Urengoy. The attack was repelled, but falling debris from the drone caused a fire, he said on Telegram.

“The main thing is that there were no deaths or injuries. The extent and nature of the damage are being determined,” he added.

Artem Zhoga, the Kremlin’s envoy to the Urals, said Wednesday’s strike was the first ever to hit the Arctic part of the region.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) confirmed the attack in a series of posts on X.

“For the first time! Deepest strike of the war: Ukrainian SOF hit critical russian plants more than 3,000 km away,” it said. “Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces carried out the deepest strike inside russia since the beginning of the full-scale war.”

In the posts, the Ukrainian force claimed it “successfully struck” two gas plants, Novy Urengoy and Purovsky.

“Until today, the area was considered a safe rear zone for the aggressor,” it added.

The Ukrainian force said the facilities play a key role in Russia’s gas industry, processing large volumes of condensate from gas fields across the Yamal region, processing millions of tonnes of condensate per year.

Gazprom used ⁠to export gas from Yamal as far as Western Europe ⁠until relations broke ⁠down following the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022.

It estimated the region’s gas resources at ‌26.5 trillion cubic metres as of 2020, enough to cover global demand for more than ‌six ‌years.

Ukraine has escalated its long-range strikes on Russia in recent months, in retaliation for daily Russian bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s drones would make Russian airspace “completely unsafe” for the duration of the war.

Strikes resume in Russia and Ukraine after a three-day pause during US envoys’ visits to the countries’ capitals.

Russia has struck Kyiv after a three-day pause in attacks on the Ukrainian and Russian capitals expired, following a visit by two US envoys that yielded no tangible progress towards peace.

Two residential buildings were damaged by Russian air raids early on Tuesday, city officials in Kyiv said. Drones hit buildings in the capital city as well as in the Boryspil and Fastiv districts on the outskirts of Kyiv, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

An air raid alert, published by the Kyiv city military administration, urged residents to take shelter due to the threat of an “enemy” drone attack.

Following the reported attacks in Ukraine, Russian regional Governor Roman Busargin said a Ukrainian drone attack injured several people after hitting civilian infrastructure in Saratov, nearly 1000km from Moscow. The number of casualties from both incidents remains unconfirmed (621 miles).

Russia and Ukraine pledged to halt strikes on each other’s capitals for three days as Washington dispatched envoys to Moscow and Kyiv. However, fighting continued elsewhere.

Attacks paused after leaders Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine announced the ceasefire during the visits by US President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend.

Russia’s state news agency TASS confirmed that the three-day suspension Putin had ordered for his forces expired on Monday evening local time.

Witkoff and Kushner held talks with officials in Moscow and Kyiv regarding ending the conflict. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov called the more than three-hour meeting in Moscow on Saturday “highly useful”.

After talks with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, Witkoff said: “We’ve had a very meaningful discussion, substantive, important, and we are very encouraged, and we look forward to continuing this as long as it takes.”

Witkoff also raised the prospects of reviving three-way negotiations to end the war.

A White House official told the Reuters news agency that the next steps regarding the war, which Russia began with a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, would be announced in the coming weeks.

Saturday’s talks in Moscow lasted three hours and were held behind closed doors in Putin’s official residence in the heart of the Russian capital, according to Russian state media.

Details are still emerging, but both sides have given broadly positive remarks without going into specifics.

Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov described the talks as “constructive, extremely frank”.

“The talks were not limited to an exchange of views on resolving the Ukrainian crisis – economic issues and potential major, mutually beneficial Russian-American projects were discussed in considerable detail,” he said.

Ushakov also said “note was made of the Russian army’s tangible advances in the combat zone” and that there was acknowledgement that talks needed to address “the root causes of the conflict”.

Despite an escalation of Russian missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities including Kyiv, Russian ground forces have made very slow advances for most of the conflict, incurring enormous casualties. Russia still controls about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory – areas that it seized back in 2022.

Kushner and Witkoff have visited Russia several times but given Ukraine’s airspace has been closed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, it is not clear how they will be travelling to Kyiv from Moscow.

The talks come after Russia and Ukraine have intensified aerial attacks in recent months.

Ukraine says it has struggled to repel ballistic missile attacks due to a lack of interceptor missiles, while Kyiv has focused its strikes on Russian economic infrastructure targets, notably oil installations.

Both Russia and Ukraine vow not to strike each other’s capitals for three days during talks in Moscow and Kyiv.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun talks with United States envoys on ending more than four years of war in Ukraine, ahead of their first visit to Kyiv expected on Sunday.

Putin met Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – respectively President Donald Trump’s special envoy and business ally, and his son-in-law – at the Kremlin on Saturday.

“Dear colleagues, I warmly welcome you to Moscow. The situation is, of course, not simple,” Putin told the envoys in a grand Kremlin hall in footage aired by Russian TV.

Both Russia and Ukraine vowed not to strike each other’s capitals for three days during the negotiations, as Washington tries to revive US-led talks to end Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

Trump earlier said Kushner and Witkoff were bringing “a proposal to end the war”.

In Putin’s address to the two men, he said: “I would like to ask everyone to convey their best wishes and words of gratitude to US President Mr Trump”.

Witkoff said Trump had sent his best wishes to Putin and ⁠thanked him for ⁠the limited ceasefire during the delegation’s visit. Putin said ⁠Russia would do its ⁠utmost to ensure ⁠the safety of the mediators.

‘Refrain from strikes’

The talks come as the grinding war – which began with a Russian invasion in 2022 – has seen increasing civilian deaths and attacks this summer.

Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine.

Russian strikes on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least seven people, including in the Kyiv suburbs, Ukrainian officials said.

The Kremlin said it would not strike Kyiv from midnight on Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would halt strikes on Moscow “from now” until Monday.

“The Russian president, the commander-in-chief, has given the order from midnight tonight not to strike Kyiv for three days,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Zelensky – who had offered a truce during the US visits – later said he had spoken to the US envoys and also promised Kyiv would not strike Moscow.

“From now through the end of Saturday, as well as on Sunday and Monday, Ukraine is ready to refrain from strikes on Moscow,” Zelensky said on social media.

The Ukrainian leader said he had spoken to the US officials and that he expected them in Kyiv on Sunday.

It will be the first time that Witkoff and Kushner visit Kyiv since Trump returned to office last year with a pledge to resolve the conflict.

As the war drags on in Ukraine, its civilians are again suffering.

Thirty-eight people were killed in the village of Myla on August 29, when a Russian drone attack struck an ammunition depot. Another 12 were killed in attacks across the country on September 1.

Civilian deaths have sharply increased this summer as Russia is using jet-powered drones, which fly at about half the speed of a passenger jet and are more difficult to intercept than propeller-powered drones.

Jet-powered drones numbered about 2,800 in August, said Ukraine Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat, compared with about 1,500 in July, several times the number launched in June. Ukraine has an interception rate of more than 90 percent against propeller-powered drones, but only 60 percent against the jet-powered variant, Ihnat said.

Ukraine said Russian forces suffered 42,020 casualties last month, as Moscow’s territorial gains dropped to a fraction of last year’s rate of advance.

Ukrainian armed forces figures showed Russia’s monthly casualties were only slightly below July’s 42,860 and well above the 39,290 in June.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify casualty estimates by either side, but if accurate, those summer figures – 25.8 percent higher than the casualties Ukraine inflicted in the spring – suggest the high Russian casualty rate is not a passing event.

Russian recruitment rates are thought to be well below those totals, estimated by Ukraine at about 32,500 a month this year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has publicly shared intelligence suggesting that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will conscript 300,000 or more troops next month.

Zelenskyy has said that up to 80 percent of Russian casualties were inflicted in Kostiantynivka, the southernmost of Ukraine’s “fortress belt” of cities in the eastern Donetsk region, whose capture Putin has repeatedly prioritised.

Russian forces are thought to control only a portion of the city, but have infiltrated more than 70 percent of it with scattered individual troops sent to drop supplies and await reinforcements. Ukrainian drone operators have been targeting the troops as Russia replenishes them.

This week it was revealed that Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi, reinforced the Donetsk front around Sloviansk and Dobropillia, north and south of Kostiantynivka, respectively, but kept the Kostiantynivka front largely unchanged. That suggests Ukraine may be adopting the tactic of fighting a prolonged rearguard in the urban landscape to inflict attritional losses, as it did in the battles of Bakhmut, Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar.

The fight for Kostiantynivka has sapped troop strength elsewhere on the front line, where Ukraine liberated 130sq km (50 square miles) of its land in August, limiting Russia’s overall advance.

Russia seized just over 90sq km (35 square miles) in August, estimated the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that assesses territorial gains using open-source geolocated sources.

While still a net gain, that is less than a fifth of the land Russia seized in August last year.

During June, July and August this year, the ISW assessed that Russia gained firm control of 160sq km (60 square miles), compared with 1,440sq km in the summer months of 2025 (560 square miles) – a 90 percent decrease.

Ukraine’s response

Ukraine has turned its focus from Russian refineries to strikes against Russian air defences, radar systems and drone launch sites.

Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS) destroyed 33 air defence elements in August, increasing the annual total to 263.

Ukraine also kept up some strikes on refineries, hitting 12 in August, along with two gas-processing plants and three oil transshipment terminals, according to its defence ministry.

During the past week, Ukraine struck the Yanos refinery in Yaroslavl and the Kirishi and Ust-Luga refineries near Leningrad, all 800km (500 miles) from its border.

Those strikes have caused petrol shortages, further hurting Russia’s economy.

Ukraine’s military intelligence reported that certain Russian exports had fallen by 80 percent compared with pre-war levels. Oil has been among the hardest hit, as Ukraine has struck terminals and hundreds of tankers carrying Russian oil in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

Russian oil exports from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk fell from 800,000 barrels a day in July to 350,000 barrels per day in August, said Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

“The Russian side acknowledges that its Black Sea Fleet ships are effectively blockaded in Novorossiysk due to our drone strikes and are unable to operate at sea,” said Zelenskyy.

“Since the Russian fleet is unable to provide escorts for the commercial and shadow fleet …  one of the solutions being considered is to equip civilian ships with small arms, electronic warfare (EW) equipment and military personnel,” he said. “We will prepare appropriate countermeasures.”

The strikes on the oil industry have not only reduced exports. They have reverberated across the Russian economy, creating queues at petrol stations and raising prices for motorists.

This week, Russia extended its ban on diesel exports to the end of September to keep its army and transport industry supplied and sought to import petrol.

Occupied Crimea, where petrol distribution has been restricted to government-owned vehicles, has been hard hit.

The Russian-appointed governor of the region, Sergei Aksyonov, said on September 2: “Fuel supplies to the region are currently not fully meeting the needs of the residents. Unfortunately, some residents of Crimea will, at this stage, face limited access to gasoline”.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian Aerospace Forces (RAF) chief Aleksandr Chayko barely survived a blast that killed his son-in-law.

Chayko, who turned 55 in the last week of July, was reportedly having a belated birthday party on August 1 at a high-end Italian restaurant in central Moscow.

But the celebration was cut short, as an ‌unidentified woman carrying a homemade bomb tried to enter the restaurant. She was stopped by a security ‌guard, according to Russia. The explosive in her bag detonated, killing at least five people.

The Kremlin did not confirm the casualties, but blamed the attack on the “bloody tentacles” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government.

Kyiv has not commented on the attack.

Russia’s space programme in the firing line

Chayko helped lead Russia’s intervention in Syria and commanded Russian forces north of Kyiv in early 2022.

Ukraine has accused him of war crimes.

In May, President Vladimir Putin appointed him commander-in-chief of the RAF that controls the military component of Russia’s space programme.

The RAF’s satellites and ground-space facilities have been used for gathering intelligence, navigation, and supporting the coordination of ground troops and drone and missile attacks.

These facilities are located mostly in western Russia, and new Ukrainian long-range drones and missiles are capable of striking them.

“Key factories are few, and they all are within the reach of Ukrainian missiles,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s University of Bremen, told Al Jazeera.

“These attacks may result – and certainly will – in the problems with all of Russia’s space programme, including specifically civilian and international programmes,” he said.

‘Long-range sanctions’

In late June, Ukrainian drones hit the giant space communications centre in the leafy, tranquil town of Dubna outside Moscow that managed reconnaissance satellites and processed military data.

The strike damaged a 32-metre (105-foot) satellite antenna, hardware modular complexes, central control consoles and technical buildings.

“Our long-range sanctions against Russia for this war once again reached the Dubna space communications centre,” Zelenskyy said on June 30.

Russian authorities said an unspecified building in Dubna was damaged and a six-month-old baby died.

Ukrainian drones also struck three smaller space communication centres in western Russia and annexed Crimea.

“These centres are very expensive, very labour-consuming from the viewpoint of construction,” Anatoly Zak, a United States-based author and one of the foremost experts on the Russian space programme, told Al Jazeera. “It’s very difficult to transfer their functions to another infrastructure” because they manage geostationary satellites “tied” to a certain location.

So far, there have been no signs that the satellites lost orbit or became unmanageable, but “behind the scenes there are for sure serious communication problems”, Zak said.

Ukraine attacks ‘when there’s a fully-fuelled rocket on the launchpad’

On August 23, swarms of Ukrainian drones flew more than 1,800km (1,120 miles) to reach Russia’s northwestern Arkhangelsk region.

Some 40 drones were downed, regional authorities claimed, but at least two reached the area near Plesetsk, Russia’s military cosmodrome, or spaceport, and launchpad for intercontinental ballistic missiles and rockets carrying military satellites.

No harm was done. A day later, Roscosmos, the state-run space corporation, reported the successful launch of a rocket with unnamed “military satellites”.

The timing of the Ukrainian attack – along with two more strikes earlier this year – was calculated to strike a booster rocket that had just been fuelled and lifted for takeoff.

“There have been three attempts to air-raid Plesetsk, and not just air-raid, but air-raid at the moment when there’s a fully-fuelled rocket on the launchpad that is about to start,” Zak said.

The attempts were serious enough to be publicly reported to Putin.

“Our [Ukrainian] ‘friends’ did everything to make this launch not happen,” Dmitry Bakanov, head of the Kremlin-run Roscosmos space agency, told Putin in April.

At least a dozen drones are necessary to damage Plesetsk’s launch table or rocket assembly shop, according to Pavel Luzin, an analyst with the Jamestown Foundation, a think tank in Washington, DC.

The military satellites launched from Plesetsk are part of the Rassvet (Dawn) satellite fleet designed to rival and replace Starlink satellite modems by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, Moscow claimed.

The world’s most launched spaceship

Sputnik 1, the Earth’s first artificial satellite, was the size of a fitness ball, and had nothing but a radio transmitter and three silver-zinc batteries inside.

The “Sputnik moment” was the US’s realisation, after the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in 1957, that the USSR had taken the lead in space technology and science.

But Sputnik 1 was launched on a modified R-7 – the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, designed to carry a hydrogen bomb across continents. The same rocket technology that could deliver a nuclear warhead into the US had been repurposed to put a satellite into orbit.

The R-7 became a prototype of the Soyuz booster rockets, the world’s most launched spaceships that made Soviet and then Russian launches routine and precise, unlike US launches of space shuttles.

“Rain or shine or sleet or snow don’t matter,” Mark Bowman, deputy director of NASA’s human spaceflight programme, told this reporter in 2007 at the Baikonur spaceport, the world’s oldest in southern Kazakhstan that Russia leases.

The only place where the Soyuz rockets are produced is the Progress Rocket and Space Centre in the Volga River city of Samara – and Ukrainian missiles struck it on August 15. The attack ignited a fire and slightly damaged one of the facilities.

“So far, we see that the damage in Samara wasn’t critical,” Luzin said.

If it becomes critical, Russia would be unable to manufacture the Soyuz rockets, but the existing stash of rockets would still last a year, he said.

Communist Moscow never advertised the military component of its space programme, emphasising its “peaceful exploration of space”.

The USSR was first to send a dog, a man and a woman into space, and to launch the world’s first space station. In 1988, its Buran space shuttle became the first to complete an unmanned orbital flight and land automatically.

Its unmanned probes soft-landed on Venus and Mars and took the first photos of the moon’s dark side.

Some key figures of the Soviet space programmes were born in what is now Ukraine, and a string of crucial design bureaus and manufacturing facilities kept working there after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent breakdown in Russian-Ukrainian relations, Ukrainian aerospace facilities severed their longstanding ties with Moscow, disrupting decades-old supplies of booster rockets, guidance systems, electronics and other components.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also deepened the international isolation of its civilian space programme, with Western governments and space agencies suspending or abandoning several planned missions and partnerships.

After the war began in 2022, the European Space Agency terminated its cooperation with Roscosmos on ExoMars, removing the Russian-built Kazachok landing platform from the mission designed to search for signs of past life on Mars.

The same year, Berlin switched off its X-ray telescope on Spektr-RG, a Russia-German space observatory that maps clusters of galaxies and surveys the universe for black holes.

For the sake of seizing insignificant areas in eastern Ukraine, “Putin will waste the Russian space programme the way he wasted the rest of the Soviet legacy”, analyst Mitrokhin believes.

Yet Russia has not been completely cut off from international space cooperation.

Despite the collapse of some partnerships, NASA and Roscosmos have continued to work together on board the International Space Station, while Moscow has turned to China and other non-Western partners for new projects.

Moscow challenges Norway’s seizure of vessel, the Professor Molchanov, calling it an act of piracy.

Norway has seized a Russian ship in ⁠the Arctic to ⁠enforce a compensation claim by Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, linked to Russian asset seizures in Crimea.

Norway seized the ship on Wednesday, after Moscow failed to pay Naftogaz $4.22bn plus interest and legal costs to compensate for ⁠assets it seized in ⁠Crimea after a tribunal ruling at The Hague in 2023.

In a post on X, Naftogaz said the seizure made up “part of global efforts to enforce the arbitral award obtained by Naftogaz against the Russian Federation in connection with the unlawful expropriation of their assets in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014”.

The vessel, the Professor Molchanov, was taken off the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard after a 24-hour standoff with the Norwegian Coast Guard, according ⁠to Covington, the US law firm representing Naftogaz.⁠

Russian state news agency TASS quoted a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson as calling the Norwegian action “piracy”.

Alexei Chekunkov, Russia’s ⁠minister for the development of the Russian ⁠Far East and Arctic, ⁠said Moscow would challenge the ruling.

Chekunkov called Norway’s seizure of the Professor Molchanov “another ‌example of Western countries’ legal nihilism and lawlessness,” according to the ‌Interfax ‌news agency.

Naftogaz has been pursuing legal action against Russia since 2016 to seek compensation for the expropriation of its property in Crimea.

“Russia cannot evade responsibility simply by refusing to comply with an international arbitral award,” said Naftogaz Acting CEO Sergii Fedorenko.

“We will continue to pursue Russian assets around the world until the compensation ‌awarded ‌to Naftogaz and other Naftogaz Group companies is paid,” the Ukrainian company said.

Covington, the law firm, said it had been tracking the Professor Molchanov, a Russian-owned vessel that is used for commercial cruises, for months.

The ship was being used for commercial expedition cruises, including to Svalbard, according to the company.

Naftogaz said the passengers on board are being handled by Norwegian authorities.

Russian drone attacks across Ukraine have killed at least one person and wounded more than a dozen others, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin threatened to escalate the conflict.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities reported attacks in the capital, Kyiv, in the southern city of Odesa and in eastern Dnipro, where the body of a man was retrieved from under rubble.

The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as the conflict stretches into its fifth year following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour. The front line in eastern and southern Ukraine remains largely deadlocked, and US efforts to negotiate a peace settlement have yet to produce a path to peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy exchanged threats late on Tuesday over what their next steps might be.

Zelenskyy warned foreign airlines that the skies over Russia are not safe for flights due to Ukrainian long-range drone attacks, saying that “Russian airspace will effectively be closing”. He said Ukrainian military pressure aims to compel Russia to accept peace negotiations.

Putin accused Zelenskyy of “state terrorism” and said: “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

At a late-night news conference on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan, Putin also addressed reports that the Ukrainian military had used British-made drones to strike targets inside Russia.

Asked whether Russia would strike British military facilities if the UK government continues to provide Ukraine with weaponry, Putin declined to rule it out. With a small smile, he told reporters it was “a military secret”.

China and North Korea, meanwhile, have provided military support for Russia, as has Iran in previous years.

The Russian and Ukrainian leaders’ comments came as European officials weigh their response to the latest in what they say is Moscow’s campaign of continental sabotage and disruption aimed at weakening European support for Ukraine. Germany on Tuesday blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle airport last month using a drone laden with explosives.

Odesa power outage

Russia fired 174 attack drones, about half of them jet-powered drones that are hard to stop and are increasingly being deployed by Moscow, as well as two ballistic missiles and two plane-launched missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

Officials in the southern Ukraine region of Odesa reported that the attack damaged a 24-storey residential building, destroying apartments on several floors and wounding eight people, including a child.

Odesa office buildings and two educational facilities were also damaged, Serhiy Lysak, head of the Odesa city military administration, said. The barrage also caused a power outage that halted electric-powered public transport, the city council said.

A man and a woman were wounded by shrapnel in morning attacks on the Kyiv region, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.

It was the seventh straight day Kyiv came under attack, although the latest barrage wasn’t as heavy as in previous days. The assault started a fire at a warehouse, officials said. Russian forces have targeted civilian facilities in what Ukrainian officials say is an effort to disrupt daily life and sap public morale.

A fire broke out at an educational facility and a medical practice was also damaged, the Kyiv city military administration said.

Meanwhile in Russia, air defences destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday. The drones were shot down over 11 Russian regions, as well as the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the Black Sea, it said.

Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people in Russia’s Belgorod border region and wounded 16 more, acting governor Aleksand Shuvaev said. Ukrainian forces hit the region 140 times over the course of 24 hours, he said.

Ukraine’s domestically developed long-range drones have repeatedly targeted Russia’s oil sector, hoping to dent the economy and the warehouses of online retailers to make the Russian public feel the effects of war.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has made a surprise appearance at United States-hosted G20 finance talks in North Carolina, sparking frustration and dismay among European ministers and officials.

Siluanov’s appearance at the talks in Asheville on Monday marks the first time the minister, who was appointed in 2011, has attended a G20 meeting in person since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

He held a bilateral meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with Russia’s Ministry of Finance saying the two men discussed financial cooperation within the G20 framework.

A US official said the meeting focused on US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.

Asked about the invitation to Siluanov, Trump told reporters: “We like getting along with everybody. One of the reasons I’m so successful, I get along with everybody.”

European officials, however, criticised the move.

Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said he was unhappy to see Moscow represented, although he recognised the right of G20 hosts to invite guests.

“We do not trust Russia. They lie constantly, and you need to be really, really cautious while discussing with them,” ⁠he told the Reuters news agency, stressing that Russia was the aggressor in its conflict with Ukraine.

“So for me, it would be very difficult to have any kind of conversation with Russia.”

‘Troubling’ signal

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said the US’s decision to welcome Siluanov sent a “signal I find troubling”.

He said he told Siluanov during a plenary session that Moscow had to end the war and “that we clearly support Ukraine”.

He also said Europe was preparing a further package of sanctions against Russia and hoped for close cooperation with Washington on the measures.

European ministers and central bankers also opposed appearing with Siluanov in the traditional G20 “family photo”, European officials said. The photograph was ultimately taken without the Russian minister.

Klingbeil said European officials, including European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, had discussed Russia’s involvement on Sunday and agreed that maintaining an avenue for dialogue could allow them to deliver a frank message to Moscow.

“However, the mere fact that the Russian finance minister is back – after, I believe, four G20 meetings without Russian participation – indicates an attempt at normalisation, and that makes it all the more important for us to push back,” he said.

Siluanov’s appearance marked a sharp contrast with the G20 meeting in Washington, DC, in April 2022, when his virtual participation prompted officials from Canada, the United Kingdom, the US, and the European Central Bank to walk out.

White House defends talks with Russia

Asked about Siluanov’s attendance, White House spokesman Kush Desai told the AFP news agency that the Trump administration had been working with Russia to push for a deal that “would stop the endless bloodshed that the president has really condemned”.

“The president and the administration will never shy away from talking with the folks we need to talk to, to further that,” he said. “That’s what we’re working on here at the G20.”

Separately, Reuters and AFP, citing sources familiar with the Washington-Moscow talks, said Bessent had made clear that the US would not provide Russia with economic relief until war in Ukraine was over.

Trump has pushed Moscow and Kyiv to reach a deal to halt the fighting, but an initial 28-point plan that largely adhered to Russia’s demands was criticised by Ukraine and European governments.

The US, which currently holds the rotating G20 presidency, did not invite South Africa, last year’s G20 host, to the gathering. Poland, which is not a permanent G20 member, was invited.

Certain reporters from major US newsrooms, including The New York Times and Bloomberg News, were not granted credentials to cover the gathering.

The decision was condemned by the National Press Club, which said that “no administration should be allowed to handpick the press corps that scrutinizes it”.

The two-day meeting comes as global debt levels have reached a record of nearly $353 trillion and the global economy faces an energy shock triggered by the US-Israel war on Iran. The talks also come amid rising tensions over China’s large trade surplus and uncertainty over the effects of a surge in artificial intelligence investment.

Kyiv, Ukraine – The 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, whose construction cost $19bn, epitomised the failure of “change through trade”, Berlin’s policy of softening Moscow’s hardline leadership through mercantile ties, according to some analysts.

Pressurised gas was pumped from Yamal, Russia’s Arctic peninsula of deer herders and treeless tundra, to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany’s Baltic region of chalk cliffs and medieval castles.

But on September 26, 2022, several underwater blasts created a kilometre-wide (0.6-mile) bubbling geyser of natural gas that became history’s worst release of methane and screeched the pipeline flows to a halt.

Dubbed an act of sabotage, the apparent operation has drawn the attention of Hollywood director Doug Liman, known for blockbusters such as The Bourne Identity and Mr & Mrs Smith.

Oscar-winning actors Sean Penn and Adrien Brody star in Liman’s upcoming drama, titled Snake Island, about Ukrainian divers who plunge into the Baltic’s blue waters from a sleek rented yacht to blow up the world’s longest undersea pipelines.

Back in the real world, one of the suspected divers, Volodymyr Zhuravlev, a 46-year-old father of three with more than two decades of free-diving experience, was a consultant on Liman’s film set in Croatia. He was arrested in the Croatian city of Pula on August 19 and is to be extradited to Germany.

Last year, another accused member of the sabotage team, Serhii Kuznetsov, was arrested in Italy and extradited to Germany.

The 49-year-old reportedly worked for Ukrainian intelligence and complained that he had been “abandoned by his country and president”.

Their arrests and upcoming trials have highlighted how the sabotage shocked Germany’s economy, overhauled its energy exports and consumption – and still affects ties between Berlin and Kyiv.

“The Nord Stream sabotage reinforced a key lesson from the 2022 energy crisis – Germany had become far too dependent on Russian fossil gas,” Claudia Kemfert, a professor with the Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, told Al Jazeera.

The pipelines were designed to deliver 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic ft) of natural gas a year and made Germany “captive to Russia”, United States President Donald Trump said in 2022.

Nord Stream 2 never became operational but did contain pressurised gas at the time of the explosions. Nord Stream 1 along with other Russian pipelines provided 55 percent of Germany’s natural gas.

It heated homes, generated energy and fuelled the economic pillars of Europe’s largest, export-oriented economy, the chemical and steelmaking industries.

The alleged sabotage “changed the debate on energy security fundamentally”, Kemfert said. “Today, security means reducing fossil import dependence through diversification, renewables, efficiency, grids and storage.”

The crisis also prompted a major, rapid expansion of infrastructure for liquefied natural gas. The latter proved to be a silver lining.

“The central lesson is clear: The less Germany depends on imported fossil fuels, the more resilient its economy and energy system become,” Kemfert said.

‘Politically sensitive’ questions

Meanwhile, the unresolved questions surrounding Nord Stream “remain politically sensitive” in Berlin-Kyiv ties, she said.

After Trump removed Washington from the political chessboard of the Russia-Ukraine war, Berlin became Kyiv’s largest and staunchest Western backer.

But Germany seems adamant about prosecuting the sabotage team.

“It’s a matter of principle for the German government, but it’s also a matter of the rule of law,” Cristian Vlas, an expert with ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), an international think tank, told Al Jazeera.

And Ukraine’s most coveted post-war dream – integration into NATO and membership in the European Union – could be thwarted if the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party comes to power.

AfD opposes military and financial aid to Ukraine, wants to block its EU and NATO membership, lift Western sanctions slapped on Moscow for invading Ukraine and resume Russian energy imports.

“We can certainly see the rejection of Ukraine’s application as one of the key points on AfD’s agenda,” Vlas said. “It rejects delivering further military support to Ukraine with the purported pretence that it extends the war.”

EU and NATO integration could be “further in time”, Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera, but the suspected act of sabotage still succeeded in severing the “umbilical cord” of the Berlin-Moscow alliance that hurt Ukraine economically and politically.

In 2008, Berlin and Paris blocked a NATO membership invitation to Ukraine, insisting it would “provoke” Russia.

After Nord Stream 1 was launched in 2011, Kyiv lost half of its annual $3bn in transit fees for Russian gas pumped westwards through Ukrainian pipelines.

Berlin also denied arms deliveries to Kyiv after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, Berlin admitted it was wrong about the “change through trade” approach to Moscow’s belligerence.

“We failed on many points,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the ZDF broadcaster in 2022. “It’s true that we should’ve taken the warnings of our Eastern European partners more seriously, particularly regarding the time after 2014.”

After the pipeline blasts, no country or group claimed responsibility, and pundits pointed fingers at Washington, which was opposed to the pipeline’s construction, and Moscow, which some believed would benefit from higher natural gas prices and chaos in Europe’s energy markets.

In turn, Moscow accused “Anglo-Saxon powers” of masterminding the explosions.

It took German prosecutors almost two years to zero in on the sabotage team and accuse Kyiv of organising the bombing.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly denied Kyiv’s involvement.

Germany “knows very well that Ukraine wasn’t behind the implementation and the very conception to carry out this particular operation”, he recently said at a news conference.

So far, the upcoming trials of Zhuravlev and Kuznetsov are not affecting aid from Berlin.

“Germany still has a huge credit of trust towards Ukraine, which, however, won’t prevent prosecutors from doing their job and finishing the case and courts from convicting average executioners,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera.

But aside from the pipeline blasts, tensions have been seen before between the German political establishment and Ukrainian politicians.

In 2022, Andrii Melnyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin at the time, lambasted Germany’s then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz for not providing enough lethal weapons, calling him an “offended liver sausage”.

Also in 2022, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s then-foreign minister, bristled at Berlin’s slow arms deliveries, calling them “disappointing signals”.

“For Ukraine’s future, things are bad because [Ukrainian] elites are confident that that’s the way to get things done and this style, not this individual case [with the sabotage], can cost them membership in the European Union,” Mitrokhin said.

“Germany remembers everything, and after [German Chancellor Friedrich] Merz, who is kind to Ukraine, somebody else who is not that kind could come to power,” he said.

Aug. 28 (UPI) — Panama has brought home 17 citizens linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine as prosecutors investigate an alleged network accused of recruiting Panamanians for military service through false job offers.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that 11 of the citizens returned from Russia and six from Ukraine after diplomatic and consular efforts coordinated with Panamanian missions abroad. The statement did not identify the returnees or specify when they arrived.

Panamanian officials held four meetings with representatives of the Russian Embassy and two with Ukrainian Embassy officials to seek the release of citizens serving with military forces and arrange their return.

Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha also sent diplomatic communications to Russian and Ukrainian authorities to request their cooperation on humanitarian grounds.

Panama’s embassies in Russia and Poland, which handle the country’s diplomatic affairs involving Ukraine, continue working to locate and assist other Panamanians connected to the conflict, officials said.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office began to investigate the alleged recruitment operation in June. A judge on Aug. 18 ordered the pretrial detention of a third suspect charged with aggravated human trafficking.

The suspect was detained Aug. 16 at Tocumen International Airport after arriving from Colombia under an Interpol alert, the prosecutor’s office said.

Prosecutors said Panamanians were allegedly offered jobs paying more than $2,500 per month, but were placed in forced military work after reaching Eastern Europe.

Two men who returned from Ukraine told reporters Aug. 12 they knew they were traveling to the country, but had been promised they would not be required to participate in combat missions.

They said their passports and phones were taken after they arrived and that they were required to sign contracts written in Ukrainian without receiving Spanish translations.

“We were told that they would not take our passports, that we would not lose contact with our families and that they would not take our phones,” one of the men said, according to Panama’s La Prensa. “When we arrived, that was the first thing that happened.”

The men said recruiters used TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp to find candidates. They spent about six weeks in Ukraine and said they did not receive the money they had been promised.

The Foreign Ministry estimated that approximately 30 Panamanians may have been or remained connected to the conflict, including 13 associated with Russian forces and 17 with Ukrainian forces.

The ministry stressed that the figures were preliminary, and said some people enlisted voluntarily while others reported being deceived by offers of civilian work.

Panama is not the only country in the region facing cases of deceptive recruitment. Peru has reported a significantly larger recruitment operation.

In early August, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that it had official information showing 459 Peruvians had enlisted, including 11 who died, 114 who were missing and three who were captured by Ukrainian forces.

Peruvian authorities evacuated 31 citizens, including 28 who returned to Peru and three who chose to remain elsewhere in Europe. Four of those evacuated said they had escaped forced recruitment.

Prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation May 1 after families reported that Peruvians had been offered security and other jobs in Russia before allegedly being forced into combat.

Similar allegations have emerged in Bolivia and Colombia.

Bolivia’s Deputy Consular Affairs Minister Héctor Huanca said in July that approximately 16 Bolivians might be in combat zones, although he described the figure as preliminary, Unitel reported. Bolivian prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation involving false employment offers.

In Colombia, Noticias Caracol reported in early August that families had documented dozens of suspected recruits, although no nationwide official count was available. A Tolima regional official separately told Caracol Radio that authorities knew of at least six local cases involving allegedly false job offers.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Arturo Hoyos said Panamanians are still traveling to become involved in the conflict despite repeated warnings.

“We urge, recommend and almost implore Panamanians not to go,” Hoyos said to El Siglo.

Ukraine hits Russia’s Afipsky oil refinery and gas plant in latest attacks targeting energy infrastructure.

A fire broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region following a drone attack, local authorities have said.

At least two people were killed and two others were injured due to falling drone debris at the Afipsky railway station, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Tuesday.

Ukraine has been targeting Russia’s oil refineries and ⁠other infrastructure, attempting to undermine ⁠Moscow’s war efforts and reduce financial revenue.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck facilities at Afipsky.

It said its forces also hit a gas processing plant in Russia’s Astrakhan region overnight.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had struck a cargo vessel carrying goods for the Ukrainian army in the port of Pivdennyi near Odesa, as well as port infrastructure facilities used for unloading military cargo.

The ministry said Russian air defences shot down 148 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukraine has ramped up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, escalating a fuel crisis in the country.

Amid the continuing attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday that would allow the state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack.

The attacks come after a meeting in Kyiv where Ukraine’s allies pledged to continue supporting the country during the ongoing war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the assembled leaders in an evening address that he wanted to “raise production” of drones and missiles to wage “more attacks” on Russia, matching its strikes on Ukraine.

The meeting was attended by 30 leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, including British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who called for negotiations with Russia, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who participated remotely and predicted that “NATO countries will be targeted and the provocations will multiply”.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb was also in attendance, urging Ukraine’s allies to help expand its ability ⁠to strike deeply inside Russia.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Burnham and Stubb belonged to the “party of war”.

Owing to his illness, 26-year-old Sasha from Orenburg, a city in Russia close to the Kazakhstan border, has a Category V military ID, which under normal circumstances makes him ineligible for service.

But not during wartime.

Just before partial mobilisation was declared in 2022, he considered leaving for Kazakhstan. But while awaiting the bus, he struck up a conversation with his soon-to-be girlfriend.

As they turned back together, they decided against making the drastic move.

Over the past year, however, they have grown increasingly anxious.

“Since mid-2025, my girlfriend and I have been experiencing a severe decline in mental health. We see psychiatrists and take antidepressants,” Sasha told Al Jazeera.

He requested to be identified only by his first name to protect his anonymity.

“I don’t go outside unless it’s urgent and try never to be alone. I carry pepper spray for protection against aggression if it happens, like in Penza.”

Since June, there have been reports of attempted press-ganging in Penza, 625km (388 miles) southeast of Moscow.

Recent footage shared on social media has shown individuals dressed in plainclothes trying to force fighting-age men into vehicles to take them to the recruitment centre, while weeping women try to intervene – echoing similar scenes in Ukraine.

Potential recruits have also been reportedly summoned to police stations under bureaucratic pretexts, then beaten or threatened – for example, by having illicit drugs planted on them – into signing a military contract.

Local authorities deny the reports, claiming only men attempting to dodge the draft, who have already been mobilised, are being approached. They have also accused residents who have shared footage of the roundups of spreading disinformation.

Although the Penza roundups have received attention lately, local authorities throughout Russia have been accused of coercive methods for some time.

“In October 2022, a friend was stopped at night by military police,” said Sasha. “They identified themselves as civilians and didn’t show identification. They demanded a passport or military ID, and that he accompany them. My friend ran away.”

According to Mikhail Liberov, from the Conscientious Objectors Movement, military recruiters select the “right targets who, for one reason or another, are vulnerable to seduction, deception, blackmail, or are simply unaware of their actions”.

He said this group includes drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally unwell people, those with large debts and migrants “who don’t speak Russian or barely know what’s actually written, and are also afraid of deportation”.

Men above 35 years of age are also approached, and some are “willing to risk their lives and the lives of others for big money and the chance to become ‘heroes’.

“Then comes the threat of prison: A man arrested for petty hooliganism might be intimidated by the idea that, say, ‘We’ll plant drugs on you and put you in prison for 12 years,’ and many agree to sign contracts.”

Oleg Ignatov, senior Russia analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the recent roundups in Penza are likely isolated instances of local authorities trying to fill their recruitment quotas, rather than a systemic, nationwide effort.

‘Mobilisation will still happen’

These renewed recruitment incidents come amid rumours of a mobilisation effort and an expected Russian offensive this winter that will likely involve ramped-up attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

“I’ve already accepted that mobilisation will still happen, unless something happens that forces (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to end the war in Ukraine,” said Liberov, who believes Russia will ready troops within a year.

“Human rights activists are already working on the assumption that mobilisation will take place this fall,” he said.

In September 2022, Putin signed a decree allowing for partial mobilisation. Fearing deployment, thousands of men fled to neighbouring countries. But that mobilisation effort effectively ended two months later.

Russia has since been able to replenish its ranks by enlisting prisoners, as well as promising generous payouts.

However, the recruitment pool is dwindling.

According to the independent Russian news site IStories, the number of people voluntarily signing military contracts halved by late 2025. Those who enlist are disproportionately from underprivileged corners of society.

“The protracted war with Ukraine, the large number of dead soldiers, and the degradation of the Russian economy demotivate people from participating in such an adventure in the name of Putin,” said Liberov.

Official casualties are not made public in Russia.

The Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies puts the number of deaths among Russian forces since the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 at nearly 450,000.

Meanwhile, the 2022 mobilisation decree remains in effect, and the Russian offensive in Ukraine is lagging. The war is now being felt at home as Ukrainian drones strike deep into Russian territory.

“I only live once. I’m not going to sacrifice it for someone else’s wishes and will fight to the bitter end,” said Sasha. “Human life is priceless, and you have to cling to it until the end.”

Vladimir from Ulan-Ude, who has previously served as a conscript and is thus eligible for mobilisation, said he has a “generally negative attitude” about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“I am preparing for a possible draft. In the event of an escalation, I will insist on the alternative civil service,” said the 35-year-old, who requested to withhold his surname over fears of reprisal. “I wouldn’t want to leave the country.”

According to the Russian constitution, alternative civilian service can be applied for when “convictions or religious beliefs contradict military service”.

Conscripts can serve either for 21 months at an organisation “subordinate to the bodies of the executive branch”, often taking jobs as nurses, cleaners or postal workers, or for 18 months at a defence manufacturing plant. According to the Ministry of Defence, about 2,000 people apply for alternative civilian service each year, with approximately half receiving approval.

Earlier this summer, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed the Kremlin was secretly preparing for a mass mobilisation – a claim backed by reports in Russian independent media.

In June, lawmaker Andrey Gurulev of the governing United Russia party wrote on Telegram that “there’s now active talk, both behind the scenes and in high places, about the need for a new large-scale mobilisation.”

But expanding the army is expensive while budgets are under strain, and a huge influx of recruits still leaves a shortage of experienced officers and trained specialists.

“I would say that Russia’s problems right now are less about the quantity, but more about the quality of contractors,” said Crisis Group’s Ignatov.

“Russians need more skilled soldiers who can operate drones, who can operate modern warfare systems. And here they have more problems than the Ukrainians.

“But if this war continues, of course, we can assume that (mobilisation) could happen.”