RussiaUkraine

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.”

Ukrainians have observed a national holiday meant to instil patriotism during the fifth year of their war against Russia.

On Ukrainian National Flag Day on Sunday, participants raised the flag, observed a minute of silence for those killed in the war, sang the Ukrainian national anthem and listened to patriotic and folk songs performed by a military orchestra.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended ceremonies in the capital, Kyiv.

Addressing military personnel, Zelenskyy said the flag “symbolises what is most precious” to the thousands of soldiers defending “our entire Ukraine”.

Ukraine’s National Flag Day was established as a national holiday on August 23, 2004, one day before its Independence Day.

Russian ballistic missile attacks have begun to cause record civilian deaths in Ukrainian cities without any Patriot interceptors to stop them, but Ukraine’s long-range strikes have destroyed Russian fuel supplies.

With the Russian economy struggling, a top expert warned that social unrest could unfold in a matter of time – and consequently lost his job.

On Tuesday, Russian missiles killed at least 10 people in Pechenihy, a town 40km (25 miles) east of Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv. On Thursday, they killed 15 people in Kyiv, three in the western city of Zhytomyr and injured 40 at a border crossing between Odesa and Moldova.

Russia said it was targeting weapons manufacturing sites in Kyiv, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck 30 residential buildings, a school and a children’s hospital.

The United Nations said Russia killed a record 437 people in July and injured 2,610, surpassing its previous record in June by 30 percent.

Civilian casualties have continued in August, because Ukraine has run out of Patriot interceptors and has been unable to stop incoming ballistic missile attacks since the beginning of the month.

As Zelenskyy pointed out, Ukraine’s interception rate of cruise missiles and drones is still in the 90-percent range. But Russia is doubling down on the use of ballistic missiles and has brought in an additional 50 North Korean weapons, according to Ukrainian military intelligence.

Ukraine strikes back

Since June 25, Ukraine has launched a campaign of mid-range strikes to disrupt Russian logistics and has harassed fuel and ammunition supplies so effectively that it has made 233sq km (90 square miles) of territorial gains this year.

By August 16, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces announced it had put 228 supply ships out of action in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, as well as destroying 243 power stations, electricity substations and gas distribution nodes in Crimea.

They have also been striking relay antennas used to guide Russian drones and radar stations that detect Ukrainian counterstrikes. On August 20, Ukraine struck drone launch sites in Donetsk City and Primorsko-Akhtarsk on the Sea of Azov, as well as a fuel terminal in the Kerch Strait used to supply Crimea.

Ukraine’s long-range strikes have served a different purpose – to undermine the Russian economy’s ability to fund its war.

On August 15, Ukraine managed to fly two of its Flamingo cruise missiles into the Progress Rocket and Space Centre, 800km (500 miles) east of Moscow, despite Russia’s use of four A-50 early warning aircraft and its reported downing of 822 Ukrainian drones that day.

Ukraine said it hit an engine assembly workshop for Soyuz rockets, causing a fire covering half a hectare.

Russia is using Soyuz to launch satellites for its Rassvet constellation to replace dependence on the US Starlink system, after Ukraine managed to cut Russian access to Starlink on February 1 . Russia needs satellites to increase the speed and precision of its counter-battery fire on Ukrainian positions. Its loss of that capacity has been partly responsible for Ukrainian gains this year.

“One Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle can put 20 satellites into orbit,” said Ukrainian electronics expert Serhiy Beskrestnov. “To create a basic satellite constellation in orbit, Russia needs to carry out 12-15 launches.”

The following day, Ukraine set ablaze a 25-hectare warehouse belonging to the Wildberries online retail chain, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, and said it had destroyed seven out of Wildberries’ ten largest logistical hubs.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on July 28 that the Kremlin was monitoring the damage to Wildberries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin implied on Thursday that he might provide government funds for Wildberries to rebuild, saying “logistics and warehousing capacity certainly needs to be restored, including with government support”.

Ukraine has also succeeded in destroying Russian oil refineries and starving its economy of petrol

It has recently struck the Ust-Luga refinery, the Taneco refinery in Tatarstan and the Perm refinery, 1,500km (930 miles) from its borders.

Similar strikes this year have so reduced petrol supply in Russia. The Izvestia newspaper reported that only 28 percent of petrol stations across the country could supply fuel this week, citing mobile app GdeBENZ, which monitors real-time fuel availability.

Izvestia said only five petrol stations in Moscow were selling high-octane AI-98 fuel. Russians posted video of Rosgvardia police units sitting outside petrol stations to avert some of the fights involving motorists in recent months.

Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Novak, said lower-grade fuel was being supplied to ease market tensions, and confirmed that Russia is now importing refined fuel for the domestic market.

“We expect a number of oil refineries to complete maintenance work soon and the situation to improve significantly,” Novak told Vesti journalist Pavel Zarubin, but that may be wishful thinking. Ukraine has struck Russia’s largest refineries not once but repeatedly. On Wednesday [August 19 ], it struck a refining unit at Ufa, which was undergoing repairs from a previous strike. It is 1,300km (810 miles) from Ukraine.

Ukraine also struck significant military targets during the week, including the Kamenyy Kombinat plant in Rostov, which makes solid rocket fuel for missiles, and the Savasleika airfield, from where MiG fighters armed with Kh-47M2 ballistic missiles take -off.

Russian economy in trouble

Some Russian economists have begun to warn of impending social and political upheaval as a result of the slowing economy.

Andrey Klepach, chief economist at Vnesheconombank, a state bank that finances the Kremlin’s national projects, warned on August 18 that, “Losses from Ukrainian military strikes … are already becoming a significant macroeconomic barrier to Russian economic growth.

“I believe Russia won’t collapse, but I’m almost certain we’ll reach a social crisis.”

He was removed from his post after making the comments during a discussion at the Moscow Exchange’s Nikitsky Club.

Russians are withdrawing savings in increasing amounts, reported The Washington Post. While businesses are increasing “voluntary” donations to the state defence budget, in addition to having to pay for their own air defences, putting further strain on the economy.

At a meeting of the Council for Strategic Development and National Projects this week, Putin acknowledged that Ukraine’s strikes are “certainly” causing damage, adding that “overall economic performance is modest but positive”.

That damage took financial form in the $1.18bn Putin newly released to aid regional budgets, in addition to previous financial assistance. Some $52m of that was destined for Crimea.

Ukraine’s defence ministry estimated that every dollar spent on drone strikes caused five times that amount in costs to the Russian economy.

Russia’s Defence Ministry says 453 Ukrainian drones were downed overnight in various regions.

At least five people have been killed and 11 others injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine, authorities said.

A Russian drone attack on a bus in the front-line city of Kherson killed at least four people and wounded four others on Wednesday, Kherson regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

The attack took place at about 8:50am local time (05:50 GMT), and all the casualties were bus passengers.

In a post on the Telegram app, Prokudin said the wounded had been taken to hospital.

He posted blurred photos of a yellow bus with bloodied steps and shattered windows.

Russian forces regularly strike Kherson, which was under Moscow’s control from March to November 2022 – the initial months of the war – with drones, in what Ukraine says is the deliberate targeting of civilians.

Earlier this month, Ukraine accused Russia of chasing a man in a street market in Kherson with a remotely piloted FPV drone, calling it a “safari” targeting civilians.

The city had a population of about 280,000 before the war began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian forces, repelled from the city by a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the last quarter of 2022, are now positioned on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River, which flows past Kherson.

There has been an uptick in civilian deaths in the conflict throughout this year, the United Nations has reported, with 437 civilians killed in Ukraine last month alone, the highest monthly toll since May 2022.

Russian authorities reported 79 civilians killed in Ukrainian attacks in July, up from the previous month.

The four-and-a-half-year war continues to grind on, as United States-backed talks aimed at ending the conflict remain stalled.

In a separate Russian attack, one person was killed and seven others injured in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to regional Governor Ivan Fedorov.

Russian drones struck the regional capital, damaging both residential and nonresidential buildings and causing a fire.

Meanwhile, Russian forces struck a cargo vessel in the Black Sea near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing the Ministry of Defence.

The vessel was carrying military cargo, the ministry said.

It said Russia’s air defence brought down 453 Ukrainian drones overnight in various regions.

At the same time, Russian authorities were rushing to put out a small fire after a drone fell in an industrial area in the city of Ufa in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, the republic’s head Radiy Khabirov said on Telegram.

Khabirov added that a drone hit an apartment building and a few cars in Ufa, an oil refining hub, injuring one person.

Concern over the security of Europe’s largest nuclear plant has been rife since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine nearly five years ago.

A drone strike close to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in occupied southeastern Ukraine has killed one nuclear specialist and wounded 17, according to Russian reports.

Moscow asserted on Tuesday that the drone was launched by Ukraine. The security of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant has provoked significant global concern amid the full-scale war on Ukraine that Russia launched in February 2022.

Most of those injured by the strike were employees of the plant, according to a Telegram update by the Russian management of the nuclear facility. It asserted that the attack constituted one of the most serious incidents in the plant’s history.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier confirmed reports that the strike hit staff members at a bus stop.

“No nuclear safety or security damage was reported,” the IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said on social media.

However, it called “on military commanders responsible for these actions as well as all others aiming on nuclear power plants and/or their staff to put an immediate stop to these unacceptable actions”, citing the “great risks to nuclear safety”.

The Zaporizhzhia plant was seized by Russian forces a month after Moscow launched its invasion. The facility has been under Russian management since.

The safety of the plant – and the potential consequences of a hit amid the hostilities – have been a concern since the start of the war.

Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors can produce nearly six gigawatts of electricity, and the plant was crucial to supplying power to Ukraine’s national grid. All of the reactors have been shut down since Russia captured the plant, but a strike could cause damage and potentially cause serious leaks of radioactive material.

Tuesday’s strike came ahead of a scheduled visit by IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi to assess nuclear safety. It’s not clear if that visit will still take place.

A Russian strike on a thermal power plant was reported in central Ukraine a few hours later, forcing a halt to operations, according to DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy provider and the company that operates the plant.

No casualties were reported, but DTEK stated on social media that the attack caused “significant damage to equipment”.

Russia has attacked the company’s thermal plants 230 times since the start of the war, according to DTEK’s Telegram channel, as it wages a campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The attacks injured at least three people, including a girl, and damaged a Wildberries warehouse, Russian officials say.

Russian officials have reported more than 620 overnight drones targeting Moscow, in what appears to be one of Ukraine’s largest attacks on the Russian capital in years.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian defences shot down 180 drones over the capital region between Monday evening and ‌5am (02:00 GMT) on Tuesday. He said 17 more drones were shot down en route to the capital later.

Russia’s state-run news agency TASS described the barrage as the largest drone attack on Moscow in the past two years.

The drone attack wounded three people, including a 10-year-old girl, Moscow region’s Governor Andrey Vorobyov said on Telegram. He said the “most serious consequences” were reported in the Pavlovsky Posad district, where a house burned down. Several more homes and a guesthouse were damaged in Bogorodsky district, he added.

A warehouse east of Moscow belonging to e-commerce giant Wildberries was damaged in Tuesday’s drone assault. In a statement, the company said its logistics complex sustained “minor damage” after “debris hit the wall of the building”.

Ukraine has struck multiple Wildberries warehouses in recent weeks, saying the company supplies components for Russian drones.

Five injured in Ukraine’s Kharkiv

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force reported shooting down or suppressing 111 of 147 “enemy” drone attacks overnight.

Kharkiv’s regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said five people, including a nine-year-old boy, were injured in an overnight Russian attack on the city of Izyum.

Russian drones also sparked fires and damaged buildings in Kyiv region’s Brovary city, including an office building and warehouses, said Mayor Ihor Sapozhko.

With front-line fighting at a near standstill and talks frozen, Ukraine and Russia have significantly stepped up long-distance attacks, pushing the civilian death toll to its highest levels since the war’s first months in 2022.

In July alone, 437 civilians were killed in Ukraine, the highest monthly toll since May 2022, according to a United Nations tally.

Russian authorities reported 79 civilians killed in Ukrainian attacks in July, up from the previous month.

Romania’s Defence Ministry didn’t specify the origin of the drone but has previously blamed Russia for similar incidents.

Russian strikes on Ukraine have killed at least one person and wounded seven more while a Spanish jet has shot down a drone that entered Romanian airspace.

A woman was killed and six others wounded in a missile and drone attack on Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the region’s governor said early on Sunday.

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital also said Kyiv was “under ballistic missile attack” late on Saturday, with one person wounded and fires sparked at non-residential sites in the Obolonsky and Holosiivskyi districts.

Separately, Romania’s Defence Ministry reported on Sunday that a Spanish F-18 fighter jet pilot on a NATO air policing mission to Romania had shot down a drone illegally breaching its national airspace.

It is the fourth drone shot down in Romania this year.

Romania’s Defence Ministry did not specify the origin of ‌the ‌drone.

In July, a Romanian jet shot down a suspected Russian drone, and in May a stray drone injured two people in the Romanian city of Galati when it collided with a building.

Romania shares a 634km (394-mile) border with Ukraine and has repeatedly seen Russian drones breaching its airspace as Moscow escalates its bombing campaign against Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure.

Escalating long-range strikes

Russia has maintained near-daily missile and drone strikes across Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in early 2022, with areas far from the front lines frequently coming under attack.

The war’s impact has also spread to key regional shipping lanes, with reports of mines and unmanned sea drones found floating in the Black Sea.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine hit their highest level since 2022 this July, with at least 437 killed and 2,610 injured, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission.

Meanwhile, in Russia on Sunday, authorities reported a large-scale drone incursion from the Ukrainians.

Moscow officials said they had downed more than 100 drones heading towards the capital overnight.

Emergency services were deployed to sites where debris fell, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, adding that three people were wounded.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted military, industrial and logistical facilities deep inside Russia, arguing its strikes are a response to Moscow’s ongoing bombardment of Ukrainian towns and infrastructure.

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US went to war with Iran in February.

Russian forces have struck Ukraine’s Izmail port in southern Odesa, setting off a fire, authorities said, a day after Kyiv pounded Russia’s Novorossiysk port.

In a statement on the Telegram app early on Thursday, the Izmail Regional State Administration said Russian forces struck “port infrastructure”, causing damage and a fire.

It said emergency personnel were at the scene to extinguish it.

Izmail, close to the Romanian border, is home to Ukraine’s largest Danube port, handling grain and other commodities.

The attacks came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that the country needs 5 percent of the United States’s Patriot interceptor missiles to get through the winter and 10 percent to destroy all of Russia’s ballistic projectiles.

Russia has recently been firing barrages at the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, roughly once a week, killing civilians and damaging or destroying homes.

In one attack, Ukraine failed to intercept any of the 28 ballistic missiles launched at it.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine this year “had two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025”.

“Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before,” he said. “This year, I’m asking American partners to sell me 5 percent of missiles [that] they have in their stocks.”

“If they sell us 5 percent, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives,” he added. “If they can sell us 10 percent, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1 percent.”

Ukraine has reported an acute shortage of Patriot interceptors since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran in February, diverting supplies of the advanced systems.

Ballistic missiles are much harder to intercept than cruise missiles or drones because they move faster and follow steep trajectories.

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s air force said it would stop publishing detailed figures on Russian ballistic missile strikes as Ukrainian forces struggle to intercept Russia’s heightened attacks.

The restrictions concern “the number of targets launched, shot down, suppressed or those that failed to reach their targets,” air force communications chief Yurii Ihnat said on Facebook. Real-time warnings would continue unchanged, he added, and the air force would keep providing generalised figures on Russian missile launches.

Last month, Russia fired more than 450 missiles at Ukraine, nearly 200 of them on ballistic trajectories.

Asked if the US had responded to his requests, Zelenskyy said he hopes that he gets the interceptors.

“From 1 percent to 5 percent, I have some months and millions [of] phone calls and anything else,” he said. “I do some things which I can’t even share. It doesn’t mean that it’s out of the law. But I can’t speak about it.”

If European states seize vessels with Russian cargo, Moscow will respond in kind ‘wherever necessary’, says Putin.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has threatened to seize European vessels if European states follow through on plans to seize more commercial ships with Russian cargo.

Putin delivered the warning on Wednesday while on board a Russian cruiser off the Pacific island of Sakhalin, where Russia’s navy was conducting a drill. He said Russia would be ready to carry out its own seizures “wherever we deem it necessary and appropriate,” according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

The statement comes after several European countries intercepted ships suspected of being part of Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet”, carrying Russian oil in contravention of European sanctions.

New sanctions passed last month permit European Union members to sell the oil or any other cargo seized from the ships.

Putin appeared to reference the sanctions, saying some countries are trying to “restrict the movement of vessels belonging to our economic operators” and recently “came up with the idea of possibly seizing our ships and selling off property stolen from us”.

“If these plans are put into practice, we will have to respond in kind,” Putin said in comments carried by Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, calling the moves “piracy and robbery”.

He said “relevant instructions” had already been delivered to Russia’s Ministry of Defence and Pacific Fleet, the naval fleet responsible for Russia’s maritime military interests in the Pacific.

NATO ‘making inroads in Asia Pacific’

Putin also accused the NATO military alliance of making inroads into the Asia Pacific region and heightening tension in the Arctic. “NATO is making inroads into the ‌region, new military-political blocs are being formed, and new weapons systems that pose a threat to Russia are ‌being deployed or are slated for deployment,” the Russian leader said.

Russia’s naval exercises in the West Pacific come a week before joint US-South Korean war games, designed to simulate a possible invasion from North Korea.

Tensions are high in the region amid accusations from Kyiv and Seoul that Pyongyang and Moscow are further intensifying their military cooperation.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of using North Korean missiles in a deadly air raid across Ukraine. A day earlier, he had warned that Moscow was receiving more ballistic projectiles and troops from its ally Pyongyang, a development he said posed dangers not only for Ukraine but for countries in East Asia.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has already sent thousands of troops and plentiful supplies of weapons to support Putin’s four-year invasion.

Espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, and covert operations are a ‘constant reality’, says Germany’s interior minister.

Germany is facing daily “hybrid warfare” attacks from abroad, an official has said, days after an explosive-laden drone was discovered at Leipzig/Halle Airport.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the local newspaper Bild am Sonntag on Sunday that foreign powers wanted to subdue Germany politically and socially by stirring up fear.

“We’re not at war, but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare,” Dobrindt said.

“Espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks, or covert operations by foreign powers aimed at destabilising Germany or inflicting direct harm are a constant reality.”

He did not identify any countries behind the alleged attacks.

The minister’s comments come after a drone loaded ‌with explosives was discovered at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany on Tuesday.

Some German lawmakers pointed the finger at Russia, which has been at war with Ukraine since its full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

The Russian embassy in Berlin on Friday dismissed the Leipzig event as a “fabricated provocation”, saying it was another example of unsubstantiated accusations against Moscow.

Germany plans to boost anti-drone capacity

Germany is planning to strengthen its ability to counter drones amid concerns over the threat, Bild reported, citing government sources.

The newspaper said Dobrindt’s ministry wanted to double the federal government’s team of anti-drone experts from 150 to 300 and increase its network of related bases from four to eight.

Germany’s armed forces said on Saturday that two drones were spotted late on Thursday over a German military base site in Mechernich, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Separately, a drone exploded on Saturday in Bulgaria near the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline.

Bulgaria’s defence ministry said there was no reason to suspect the incident was intentional. Ukraine said it was working with Bulgarian authorities to clarify the circumstances.

The drone incidents across Europe have renewed concerns that Russia’s war in Ukraine could increasingly affect neighbouring NATO states.

NATO and European Union officials have blamed Russia for previous drone sightings. Russia has rejected all the allegations.

The US Senate approved its strongest move against Russia under Trump, advancing sanctions that could impose tariffs on major buyers including India and China.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has claimed that Russia’s army suffered 42,800 casualties in July, which, if accurate, would be the highest rate of losses so far this year estimated by Kyiv.

At the same time, Russia has responded to its poor battlefield performance and domestic energy crises by doubling down on the two weapons Ukraine has not found an adequate defence to – glide bombs and ballistic missiles.

Russia unleashed 8,300 glide bombs in July, more than in any other month of the war, said Ukraine’s defence ministry.

Ukraine’s kill rate is rising to meet what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes will be a call-up of up to half a million Russian reservists in October.

Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify either side’s claims of casualties in the war, now raging on in its fifth year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far refrained from using regular army conscripts and reservists in what he calls his Special Military Operation in Ukraine, fearing a political backlash. Should Ukraine force him to do so, it could mark a political inflexion point in Putin’s popularity at home.

As for Ukraine’s casualties, Zelenskyy recently told Fox News they amounted to 450,000, of whom 50,000 are fatalities.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has recently estimated that “the Russia-Ukraine casualty rate has likely risen to nearly 8:1 in the first half of 2026, up from between 2:1 and 3:1 for much of the war, in large part due to Ukraine’s use of drones”.

Drones were responsible for 30,272 of Russia’s casualties in July, said Zelenskyy.

Russia in retreat

Russia’s rising casualty rate is accompanied by a falling rate of performance on the battlefield.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank that assesses territorial control using geolocated open-source material, estimates that Russia occupied a total of 37.85sq km (15sq miles) of Ukraine in July, compared with 455,000sq km (176,000sq miles) in July of 2025.

That is demonstrative of Russia’s poor showing this year.

The ISW estimates that on balance, Russia has lost 183.5sq km (70sq miles) of Ukrainian territory this year, compared with the 2,198sq km (848sq miles) it seized during the first seven months of 2025.

Moscow has succeeded in infiltrating areas of Ukraine – a tactic of sending individual troops to pre-position themselves and await reinforcements, thus placing Ukrainian control of territory in dispute, if not firmly controlling it.

Russia infiltrated 121.6sq km (47sq miles) in July, according to the ISW, bringing total infiltrated territory for the year to 379.9sq km (147sq miles).

Many of these infiltrations have been reversed by the Ukrainian military, but they may yet prove effective in Kostiantynivka, the southernmost of Ukraine’s fortress cities, where Ukrainian defenders have recently expressed doubt about their ability to hold the city for more than a few more months.

Strike campaign renewed

Ukraine has also been holding its own in the air.

Zelenskyy declared a 40-day air strike campaign a success and renewed it on August 4.

The three-tiered campaign aimed to hit military production and oil refining inside Russia, energy and weapons flows in occupied territories close to the front line, and front-line positions.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it had struck 14 refineries, dozens of oil depots and loading terminals, 14 aircraft and four airfields over 40 days.

Many of those strikes took place in the past week, when Ukraine set fire to a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd, three refineries in the city of Ufa, 1,600km (994 miles) from Ukraine, the Slavneft-Yanos oil refinery in Yaroslavl, the Engels 2 and Saratov airfields, and a factory in Izhevsk manufacturing Shahed drones.

Unlike the larger Shahed factory in Alabuga, which relies on Chinese parts, this one uses almost exclusively Russian parts, said military technology expert Serhii Beskrestnov.

Ukraine has destroyed about a third of Russia’s actual refining capacity, a recent Financial Times analysis of satellite photographs found.

Ukraine has been launching close to 10,000 long-range drones a month to achieve these results.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 6,225 Ukrainian drones flew towards Moscow in July, representing approximately two-thirds of all Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian soil.

When Ukraine launched its drone campaign at the end of 2023, its goal was to manufacture 11,000 long-range drones in all of 2024. It has since contracted agreements with nine allies to manufacture drones on their soil, sending 50 percent of production to Ukraine, and says 15 more agreements are pending.

The results of the 40-day campaign have been most dramatic in occupied Crimea, where Ukraine has struck 201 electricity substations.

“The Crimean Peninsula’s power grid faced an unprecedented load and operated in critical mode. Rolling blackouts occurred in all Crimean districts,” said the Kremlin’s ambassador-at-large, Rodion Miroshnik.

Things were not much better in the adjacent occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhia, where he said “large-scale power outages … were recorded throughout the week in all regions”.

Ukraine said it has also sunk or disabled 206 Russian tankers and ferries carting oil and war materiel to Crimea across the Black and Azov seas. The head of its unmanned systems forces said it had run out of targets.

The energy crisis has forced the Kremlin to spend billions of roubles subsidising the peninsula, including placing a 100 rouble ($1.20) price cap on petrol in the past week.

Meanwhile Ukrainian strikes have continued, levelling a 60,000-tonne petroleum products tank farm in Taman, on the Russian side of the Kerch Strait, used to supply Crimea, and causing a catastrophic fire on July 31. Ukraine followed up by striking aircraft hangars in Yevpatoria, a naval boat yard in Chornomorske and an artillery brigade’s supply base, all in Crimea.

Russia’s response

Russia’s glide bombs are inertial ordnance fitted with fins giving them extra range and accuracy, so they can be dropped at safe distances of 20 to 30km (12 to19 miles) from the front lines.

Some carry three tonnes of explosives. They fly too fast to be intercepted by drones and cannot be disoriented by scrambling.

As well as glide bombs, Russia also unleashed its greatest monthly tally of missiles against Ukrainian cities – 376 in July, compared with a previous record of 288 in March. Of these, 120 were ballistic, and their density has depleted Ukraine’s stock of Patriot interceptors – the only missile that has proven effective against them.

During the past week, Ukraine stopped only one out of 51 Iskander-M ballistic missiles.

The Russian penetration rate translated directly into hits and civilian deaths – at least nine on August 1 and 17 on August 5 in Kyiv alone.

Russian production of Iskander-Ms is estimated at 70 a month, but North Korean ballistics may now be coming into play.

A missile fired at Radushne, Ukraine last month was of Korean manufacture, claimed Zelenskyy – only the second such missile to be used in the war.

Zelenskyy has pleaded for countries to send some of their stockpiles of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 Patriot interceptors.

“The United States knows what we need. Europe knows what we need. Anti-ballistic missiles must protect people – not sit in stockpiles,” he said.

Ukraine’s vulnerability is clear from figures shared by its air force. It has intercepted 4,626 missiles of various types since the beginning of the war, but only 437 ballistic missiles.

Ukraine has struck another warehouse belonging to Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries in a long-range drone attack. Kyiv says the company stores drone components used by Russia’s military.

Europe is rearming for a new era of conflict. European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius calls for a “big bang” increase in defence spending, warning the continent must be ready for a potential Russian attack by 2030. He explains how Ukraine is reshaping modern warfare, why drones, satellites and space capabilities are now as vital as tanks and troops and why Europe must achieve greater defence independence. For Kubilius, only strength can preserve peace.

At least three people are dead and more than 20 injured after a bomb exploded outside a restaurant in central Moscow. Russian authorities say a woman carrying an explosive device was stopped by a security guard before it exploded. It’s not clear who the target was.

Warsaw asserts missile recently made, illustrating Russia’s nightly barrage against Ukraine is draining arsenal.

Poland has summoned the Russian ambassador in protest over a missile incursion into one of its eastern regions.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Friday that the ambassador had been summoned after Warsaw confirmed that the projectile, which landed in the village of Tarnawa Kolonia in the Lublin region on Thursday, was a Russian Kh-101 missile. No casualties or injuries have been reported.

An investigation into the incident suggested that Russia’s weapon stockpiles may be running low as it continues to launch nightly barrages of drones and missiles at Ukraine while its more than four-year war drags on.

“The ambassador was informed of our unequivocal condemnation of hostile actions directed against the security of a sovereign state and its citizens,” Maciej Wewior, spokesman for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told journalists.

“We emphasised that any escalation at the border of the European Union and the North Atlantic alliance [NATO] is unacceptable,” he added, underlining that the root of the incident was “the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation”.

The incident marked the latest in a series of incursions on NATO’s eastern flank. Drones and missiles intruding on the territory and airspace of Poland, Romania and the Baltic states have fuelled fears that the war in Ukraine may spill over the alliance’s borders.

NATO and European leaders have been swift to support Poland and condemn Russia for the missile.

Depleted stockpiles

Poland has identified the missile as part of an attack that killed at least eight civilians in Ukraine and injured more than 50.

Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz reported that Warsaw had established that the missile was produced near Moscow in the second quarter of this year.

“This means that Russia is using newly produced missiles to strike Ukraine,” he wrote on social media. “It confirms reports that Russian wartime stockpiles have been depleted.”

An expert from Ukraine who arrived at the scene “did not have the slightest doubt” about the origins or model of the missile, Marcin Kozak, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Lublin, said.

“I will point out that this type of missile is used exclusively by Russian strategic aviation,” Wewior noted.

Russia claimed this week to be advancing into Ukraine’s regions of Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk, as Ukraine installed new political leadership in its defence ministry and a new military leadership in its armed forces.

The changes followed the unprecedented firing of both defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov and commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii within a week.

Most concerning was the news from Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern region of Donetsk that Russia was “effectively cutting off” Kostiantynivka, the southernmost of four “fortress cities” Russia had pledged to overthrow in a bid to capture the remaining free territory of the region by the end of the year.

Kostiantynivka was “the key to liberating the entire territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic”, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said.

“Things are very bad in Kostiantynivka. It’s not a question of whether we’ll lose [it] or not – we’ve effectively already lost it,” a soldier told the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske. “If there’s a large number of Russians there, you can’t really say we’re holding it. They’re just pushing our guys into a corner.”

A local Ukrainian commander told Hromadske that Russians were moving into the villages of Molocharka and Izhevka north of the city, and his units could find themselves surrounded in “another month or two” unless reinforcements arrived or containment tactics changed.

Shortly before he was dismissed on July 21, Syrskii had painted a more optimistic picture, saying there were an estimated 145 Russian infiltrators in the city who were suffering “significant losses” of about 25 people a day, as Ukrainian drone units hunted them down in their urban shelters.

The commander of a group called Kurt and Company shared that more optimistic view with the news outlet Suspilne.

“Heavy fighting and gunfire are going on all over the city,” said the commander, identified by the call sign Kurt. “But we still control most of the city and the enemy is mainly on the flanks. They are trying to bypass us, cut us off, but we are holding our defence there. We are just constantly under attack from the KABs – they are just taking out positions with aerial bombs. This is the only thing that still gives the Russians success and this is a big problem for us.”

KABs are massive aerial ordnance with payloads of between 500kg and 3,000kg, which Russia has been dropping on Ukrainian positions at a rate of more than 200 and sometimes more than 300 a day. Ukraine has repeatedly placed aerial defence equipment at the top of its list of requirements from allies.

As recently as three weeks ago, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, estimated that Russian forces had a presence in just 37 percent of Kostiantynivka, mostly in the form of “infiltrations” rather than firm control. Its most recent assessment of Russian infiltration suggests that it has spread to most of the city, however.

Overall, Russian forces have been slowing down, though. The ISW estimated that they were capturing 16.6sq km a day in the first half of 2025, but just 1km a day in June this year. In July, the ISW has assessed that Russia has been losing territory at a rate of 1.6sq km a day.

Now, it appears that Russia has been mounting an effort to regain the offensive. The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (SBS), Robert Brovdi, said “the actual number of enemy personnel involved in offensive operations along the front line” during the month had increased by 12 percent compared with June and 18 percent compared with May, based on analysis from the SBS intelligence centre. Russian casualties increased by similar proportions, he said.

In the northern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, Russia claimed to have destroyed 10 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control centres on July 27, killing 70 personnel.

Three days later, it said its troops had routed defenders in Nova Sich, Mogritsa and Malaya Slobodka in Sumy and Yurchenkovo in Kharkiv, by copying the Ukrainian tactic of using drones to disrupt ammunition deliveries.

“Russian servicemen found large amounts of abandoned weapons, ammunition and military equipment,” according to a Russian report.

A local Russian official claimed Moscow had captured 13 settlements in Kharkiv this month.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the Russian claims, which have in the past been inflated or premature, and Ukraine denied Nova Sich had fallen.

An autumn offensive?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week he had received intelligence that Russia was preparing an “expanded mobilisation” to counter losses of 225,000 this year, versus recruitment of 221,000 people. Six out of 10 casualties were fatalities, he said.

Zelenskyy told Sky News Putin aimed to raise 300,000 to 500,000 troops in early October, after Russian parliamentary elections had taken place in September. “He will not be able to quickly prepare these people. This, again, means that he will send poorly trained people to the battlefield, which will inevitably lead to heavy losses,” Zelenskyy said.

More worrying, perhaps, were the 30,000 North Korean troops Russia was preparing barracks for in Voronezh, in southwestern Russia, according to Zelenskyy. Russia received 3,000 North Korean soldiers in 2024, and used them to reclaim territory Ukraine had counterinvaded in Kursk.

Fedorov announced a plan in June to attract foreign fighters by raising the salary for a front-line soldier to $7,000 a month. “I believe that 50 percent of the front line or among the attack aircraft could be foreigners,” he told Ukrainska Pravda this week.

Russia estimates that Ukraine currently employs about 4,000 foreign troops. Ukraine’s armed forces are estimated at 900,000 people.

Long-range strikes

Ukraine struck blows in its economic war against Russia, hitting refineries and oil depots.

Those included confirmed hits against the Subkhankulovo oil tank farm in Bashkortostan, 1,350km from Ukraine, six refineries, an oil loading terminal at Rostov-on-Don, and fuel and lubricant depots at Ishki in occupied Crimea and Udmurtia.

Ukraine has recently struck targets as far afield as 2,500km, and Zelenskyy said it had now acquired range of at least 3,000km.

Ukraine claims to have disabled 42 percent of Russian refining capacity this year. A Financial Times investigation using satellite photographs confirmed that it had disabled 45 percent of nominal capacity and 30 percent of actual capacity, causing damage lasting weeks or months.

Russia, which has been experiencing a fuel crisis as a result, extended a fuel export ban from the end of August to the end of January.

Ukraine also struck military production targets, including the Avitek plant in Kirov city, producing components for aviation and missiles, and an S-400 radar. On July 27, it downed a Forpost-R heavy drone used to carry KABs – only the sixth such prize of the entire war.

Brovdi’s forces continued to starve Crimea of electricity and fuel, striking 37 electricity substations and four oil tankers during the week, bringing the total number of electricity infrastructure nodes struck in July to 164, and the total number of tankers hit in the Black and Azov seas to 205.

Brovdi’s forces focused much of their fire on the warehouses of the Wildberries online retailer, suspected by Ukraine of providing equipment to mobilising troops.

During the past week they have struck warehouses in Voronezh, Leningrad, Simferopol, Udmurtia and Penza, bringing the total number of warehouses set ablaze to 12 and the estimated damage to $2.2bn.

Russia also claims to have hit military targets in massive drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, but many of the hits were civilian.

One person died when a supermarket in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine, was struck on July 26, and the entire Voronov family was wiped out in Radushne in central Ukraine when their house was blown to smithereens on July 30. A record 56,000 people spent the night sheltering in the Kyiv Metro that night.