Ukraine

As Brussels pushes ahead with a new wave of enlargement, the numbers behind Europe’s trade with its candidate countries reveal a story of dependence, asymmetry, but also a large, untapped potential.

The official EU candidates are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine. Kosovo is treated as a potential candidate.

Together, they cover a diverse sweep of geography from long Adriatic coastlines to lush forests and some of Europe’s most productive farmland — also including some of Europe’s youngest populations.

But while trade flows between the bloc and future members are booming, the relationship remains unequal, with more EU-produced goods finding a market than those stemming from potential member states.

A relationship measured in billions

According to the European Commission’s 2025 Western Balkans trade factsheet, total trade in goods between the EU and the six Western Balkan partners reached €83.6 billion in 2024, up 28.6% since 2021.

Exports from the EU to the region stood at €49.06bn, while imports from the Western Balkans came to €34.52bn, leaving Brussels with a €14.54bn trade surplus.

The EU’s dominance as a market is overwhelming. It accounts for around 62% of all Western Balkan trade, whereas the region represents barely 1.7% of the EU’s external trade.

For Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania, between two-thirds and three-quarters of all exports go to EU countries.

“All (candidate) countries, with the curious exception of North Macedonia, have persistent trade deficits with the EU, meaning they import more from the EU than they export there,” explained Branimir Jovanović, an expert with The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW).

“These are economies with small productive sectors. They do not produce enough of what they need, so they have to import, and they also do not produce enough to export,” Jovanović continued.

Over the past decade, North Macedonia has become a production base for components that go straight into EU industry that qualify for preferential access to the EU market under the Stabilisation and Association framework (SAA).

The result is that North Macedonia can sell a relatively high share of what it makes directly into the EU without being blocked by technical standards.

This is very different from, say, Albania, which leans more on raw materials and low-value textiles, or Montenegro, which is tourism-heavy and import-dependent in goods.

It is also different from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, which still import a lot of higher-value machinery from the EU and then export a more mixed, lower-value basket back.

Ukraine and Moldova import high-value EU machinery, vehicles and industrial equipment, while exporting mainly lower-margin goods. In essence, they supply raw materials and basic products, and the EU supplies the technology to produce them.

Barriers to trade

The Western Balkans trade with the EU under SAAs, which gradually remove tariffs and align national laws with EU rules as part of the formal accession process. By contrast, Ukraine and Moldova operate under Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs), broader deals that open large parts of the EU single market in exchange for adopting much of the EU’s regulatory framework.

In essence, SAAs are a pathway to membership, while DCFTAs offer deep EU market integration without full membership. This distinction has, however, become blurred — with Brussels indicating that it believes in full membership for Ukraine and Moldova after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Countries exporting to the EU face many barriers aside from tariffs. Economists call these technical barriers to trade, such as phytosanitary standards,” Jovanović explained.

So even if they produce something that there is a demand for in the EU, it never reaches those markets because these companies might not have the necessary certificates.

“So, although unemployment has decreased, there is no real progress in development. There is also a real risk of a middle-income trap, in the sense that these economies remain assembly-line economies, with low wages and limited technological development and innovation.”

The same debate now extends to Ukraine, which formally opened EU accession talks in 2024. Despite the war, trade between the EU and Ukraine has surged. Eurostat data shows the bloc exported €42.8bn worth of goods to Ukraine in 2024 and imported €24.5bn, yielding a €18.3bn surplus for the EU.

The composition of that trade has shifted dramatically since the Russian invasion. Agricultural commodities still dominate Ukrainian exports such but the EU has become its conduit for reconstruction materials and machinery.

Neighbouring Moldova, another candidate country since 2023, shows similar patterns. The EU is Moldova’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 54% of its total trade in goods in 2024. Some 65.6% of Moldovan exports head to the EU.

Trade turnover reached about €7.5bn last year, with EU exports to Moldova amounting to €5.1bn and imports to €2.4bn.

EU standards, a distant dream?

The Western Balkans have made solid progress since the early 2000s, but full convergence with the European Union remains a distant goal, warned the OECD’s Economic Convergence Scoreboard for 2025.

The six economies have more than doubled their output in two decades — yet the region still only reaches about 40% of the EU average. At current growth rates, full convergence won’t arrive until 2074.

The region’s output per person (in purchasing-power parity terms) has more than doubled in 20 years, showing real improvement in productivity, investment, and living standards.

That means the Western Balkans are closing the gap, but painfully slowly, and the strong growth rates are offset by the much higher productivity and capital stock inside the EU.

Growth, on its own, is not enough for convergence. The Western Balkans need qualitatively different growth which is driven by innovation, skills, and higher-value industries.

Infrastructure and productivity are the region’s weakest links.

According to the OECD report: “The insufficient quality and coverage of core public transport infrastructure can be a significant obstacle to higher economic growth…as inadequate transport networks can severely constrain the connectivity of producers and consumers to global and regional markets.”

With regard to Ukraine, its economy has adapted after a historic shock, but the damage is staggering. Much of the population has been displaced and large swathes of infrastructure have been destroyed.

Output fell –28.8% in 2022 and rebounded +5.5% in 2023. Public finances are being stretched to the limit by defence needs, hindering convergence with EU member states.

Foreign investment: Friend or foe?

Foreign direct investment (FDI) brings factories and jobs to candidate countries, as well as building stronger links with existing EU member states. Even so, Jovanović argued that this has not led to “structural transformation” in the candidate nations.

The pattern is visible, for example, in Serbia — where car plants are boosting employment but the country is still importing high-tech machinery.

When FDI concentrates in lower-value stages of production and local supplier bases remain thin, wage gains are limited and more value is captured abroad.

“There is a duality in how FDI is perceived: politicians still see it as the key — sometimes even the only way — to develop the economy, while people are increasingly seeing it as a vicious circle,” said Jovanović.

“Hence, a change in the economic model is long overdue — with a more selective approach towards FDI, focusing on high-quality and high-tech investment and a greater focus on domestic companies through industrial and innovation policies,” Jovanović added.

The argument is clear: while FDI raises employment and links these economies to EU markets, it becomes transformative only when it upgrades the local production base.

Otherwise, candidate countries risk remaining an assembly platform rather than a full partner in Europe’s value chains.

A test of Europe’s promise

In the end, the numbers tell both a success story and a warning. They show integration without transformation: Exports are up, factories are open, but productivity and infrastructure still lag.

The next phase will need to hinge on quality, not just quantity, say experts. This means selective FDI that upgrades supply chains, targeted single-market access tied to reforms, and faster investment in skills, energy, and transport.

If Brussels and the candidates can shift from assembly to innovation, the gap can narrow within a generation. If not, the candidate countries risk remaining a dependable workshop rather than a prosperous partner.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are interlocked in desperate battles for control of Ukraine’s eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad, which Moscow considers a gateway to the remaining unoccupied areas of the Donetsk region.

On Sunday, Valery Gerasimov, Russian chief of staff,  told President Vladimir Putin his 2nd and 51st Combined Arms Armies were “advancing along converging axes” and “have completed the encirclement of the enemy” in Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad.

He claimed some 5,500 Ukrainian troops were surrounded, including elite airborne and marine units.

Russian military reporters contradicted these claims, with one named “Military Informant” telling 621,000 Telegram subscribers, “There is simply no encirclement” as the two claws of Gerasimov’s attempted pincer movement were still “several kilometres” apart.

On Thursday, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, also denied Gerasimov’s claim.

“The statements of Russian propaganda about the alleged ‘blocking’ of the defence forces of Ukraine in Pokrovsk, as well as in Kupiansk, do not correspond to reality,” Syrskii said.

The Russian reporter also thought it “extremely unlikely” that thousands of Ukrainian troops were trapped.

“If earlier urban battles were a classic meat grinder ‘head-to-head’ with battles for each house,” he said, now they are “conducted by small groups of infantry with the support of many drones”.

Geolocated footage showed that isolated Russian groups had entered western and central Pokrovsk on October 23, but they did not appear to control areas within the city, rather to stake out positions and await reinforcements.

Ukraine’s General Staff said the situation around Pokrovsk “remains difficult”, and estimated that some 200 Russian troops had infiltrated the town, but said defending units were conducting sabotage operations that prevented Russian units from gaining a permanent foothold.

The front around Pokrovsk also remained dynamic.

Ukrainian military observer Konstantyn Mashovets reported that Kyiv’s troops were able to ambush Russian rear positions in the village of Sukhetsky, northeast of Pokrovsk, demonstrating the porousness of the front line.

“[Russian] small infantry groups in some places began to collide with Ukrainian corresponding groups quite often and suddenly, even before their deployment or when moving to strengthen and replenish their assault groups directly,” said Mashovets.

“Due to the abundance of drones in the air, which make the movement of any large concentrations of infantry extremely dangerous, the positions of both sides remain mixed,” said Kremlin-aligned Russian military news outlet Rybar. “This leads to the absence of a single front line and prevents the determination of the exact boundaries of the control zones.”

Mashovets estimated that the Russian 2nd Combined Arms Army, which he described as the “main impact force”, had received reinforcements of between 6,000 and 10,500 troops from other areas of the front ahead of the latest assault, which began in mid-October.

“Special attention is focused on Pokrovsk and the neighbouring areas. That is where the occupier has concentrated its largest assault forces,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Monday evening address. “It is Pokrovsk that is their main objective.”

Ukraine strikes Russian energy hubs

Zelenskyy has often said his objective is to return the war to Russian soil. Ukraine’s long-range drones and cruise missiles were performing that task during the past week.

Ukraine struck the Ryazan oil refinery for the fifth time this year on October 23, setting ablaze a crude oil distillation unit. Russia’s Defence Ministry said 139 Ukrainian drones had been shot down overnight.

Leningrad’s regional governor said “several” Ukrainian drones had been shot down without causing damage or casualties on Saturday.

Ukraine struck a fuel and lubricants container in Simferopol on Wednesday, Crimean occupation Governor Sergey Aksyonov said.

Putin boasts of weapons ‘nobody else in the world has’

Russian officials who have been supportive of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a peace directly with Putin changed their tone after Trump cancelled a summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russian oil majors Lukoil and Rosneft last week.

“The US is our adversary, and its verbose ‘peacemaker’ is now firmly on the warpath against Russia,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, saying Trump was now “completely aligned with mad Europe”.

Over cakes and tea with Russian war veterans on Monday, Putin announced the successful test launch of a new nuclear-powered torpedo with the ability to create radioactive tidal waves targeting coastal regions.

The Poseidon reportedly has a range of 10,000km (6,200 miles) and travels at 185km/h (115mph). As with previous unveilings of Russian weapons, Putin said, “There’s nothing like it in the world, its rivals are unlikely to appear anytime soon, and there are no existing interception methods”.

Duma Defence Committee Chairman Andrey Kartapolov said the Poseidon was“capable of disabling entire states”.

Three days earlier, Putin had announced the successful test of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Burevestnik, which is also nuclear-powered.

“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin said.

Russia followed a similar political intimidation tactic in November 2024, when it launched the Oreshnik, a hypersonic, intermediate-range ballistic, nuclear-capable missile, to hit a Ukrainian factory in Dnipro. On Tuesday, Putin said he would deploy the Oreshnik in Belarus by December.

Russia also tested the Sarmat, a new intercontinental ballistic missile that Putin said is not yet operational, in the Sea of Japan. None of the tests were independently verified, and it was unclear whether any of the new weapons were battle-ready or whether they could be produced at scale.

On October 22, Moscow conducted a routine strategic forces exercise, sending Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers over the Baltic Sea, framing it as a reaction to Western aggression.

Trump said on Monday that Putin should instead focus on ending the war.

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying,” said the US president. “You ought to get the war ended; the war that should have taken one week is now in … its fourth year, that’s what you ought to do instead of testing missiles.”

A residential building floor collapsed as rescue workers were searching through the rubble, following overnight Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia. Officials said six children were among 13 injured in the strikes.

An agreement designed to further liberalise trade between the EU and Kyiv came into force on Wednesday.

It will replace the deal in place since 2016, by expanding tariff-free access for Ukrainian goods and services.

However the new agreement has become a political headache for the European Commission, as Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are not lifting bans on Ukrainian agricultural imports.

“We are engaging with all the parties to try to find solutions,” Commission deputy chief spokesperson Ariana Podesta said on Tuesday.

“We believe (the agreement) is a stable, fair framework, that can be reliable both for the EU and for Ukraine, to ensure a gradual integration in our single market, while providing stable trade flows,” Podesta added.

The new deal includes safeguards limiting imports of certain sensitive products such as grains and oil. Nevertheless, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have refused to lift their national bans on Ukrainian agri-food imports.

These restrictions were first introduced after the EU opened its market completely to Ukrainian agricultural products following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as the Black Sea — a vital export corridor for Kyiv — was effectively blocked.

The resulting land corridors into the EU, designed to keep Ukrainian exports flowing, sparked anger among farmers in neighbouring countries who accused Brussels of allowing unfair competition.

Politically charged

The issue became politically charged, weighing on Poland’s 2023 general election and fuelling tensions in Slovakia and Hungary.

“After the war, imports of agriculture to the EU doubled. We have 117% increase compared to the pre-war levels,” Tinatin Akhvlediani, an expert at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), told Euronews.

However, Akhvlediani added that “it has been unnecessarily politicised because these Ukrainian goods were easily absorbed by the neighbouring countries.”

Ukraine’s main agricultural exports — grain, sugar and oil — are largely unprocessed goods.

“This is complementary with the trading of the EU because it mostly exports processed agricultural goods,” Akhvlediani explained.

“Ukrainian goods in fact are highly demanded in the EU market. That explains why Ukraine is the third largest import partner for the European Union after Brazil and the UK.”

The new trade deal includes a “safeguard clause” allowing either side to impose protective measures if surging imports damage domestic industries.

Yet this has not eased concerns in neighbouring countries.

“Although Brussels wants to give farmers’ money to Ukraine, we are protecting the resources, the livelihoods of Hungarian producers and our market,” Hungarian Agriculture Minister István Nagy wrote on Facebook on Monday, as he and his EU peers met in Brussels.

The ongoing dispute illustrates the broader obstacles facing Ukraine’s path to EU membership.

Within the bloc, some are concerned about how Ukraine’s enormous agricultural capacity — 42 million hectares of cultivated land, the largest in Europe — would affect the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which distributes funds based on farm size.

Even if CAP payments were reformed to focus on production rather than land area, “Ukraine remains quite competitive,” Akhvlediani said.

“The solution could be that the EU puts transition measures in the accession treaty which would limit the benefit from certain policies or not benefit from them at all. This could be the case for the CAP. It’s completely up to the EU,” she concluded.

Romanian President Nicușor Dan, whose country also borders Ukraine, is one of the rare EU leaders to have spoken openly about the issue, saying the discussion about agriculture is “pending”.

According to the Romanian president, the risks of imbalances for the EU are “significant”, especially since Ukraine “does not currently meet the standards that we impose on the agricultural sector in the EU.”

“The discussions taking place are that, in terms of agriculture, Ukraine should have a special status so that it can continue to make significant exports to non-European countries while, in all other clusters, it should be treated as an equal,” Dan said.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Both Russia and Ukraine depend on Chinese-made components for drones, jamming systems and the fibre optic cable attached to the drones to make them immune to jamming.

If Beijing wanted to end the Russia-Ukraine war, it could do so promptly and singlehandedly by banning the imports, according to one of the pioneers of drone warfare in Ukraine.

“Almost each component is made in China,” Andrey Pronin, who runs a drone school in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. “China could cut off their side – or ours.”

Beijing supplies Moscow with four-fifths of drones, electronic chips and other dual-purpose goods that end up on the front line, keeping the Russian war machine rolling, according to Ukrainian intelligence.

Ukraine is trying to wean off its reliance on Chinese drones amid Beijing’s restriction of exports, but they still account for a staggering 97 percent of components, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank in Washington, DC.

United States President Donald Trump hopes that Thursday’s summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping can change that.

“I’d like China to help us out with Russia,” Trump said on October 24, two days after cancelling his talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and slapping sanctions on two Russian oil companies.

Trump is scheduled to meet with Xi in South Korea’s Seoul on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Their last meeting was held in 2019, in Japan’s Osaka.

Zelenskyy hopes meeting will ‘help us all’

Beijing, which has claimed it is officially neutral regarding the war, denies direct involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But it plays a role as Moscow’s main political and economic backer.

As Beijing seeks to “return” Taiwan to its fold, Moscow is understood by observers to be sharing with the Chinese military information on the use of drones, the vulnerabilities of Western-supplied weaponry and the management of airborne troops.

Meanwhile, amid mounting Western sanctions, Beijing is buying discounted oil, gas and raw materials, paying Moscow tens of billions of dollars a year.

That is the weak spot Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants Trump to target in talks with Xi.

If Trump manages to “find an understanding with China about the reduction of Russian energy exports”, he said on Monday, “I think it’ll help us all.”

But Trump’s latest Russia sanctions slapped on state-owned oil giant Rosneft and the private Lukoil company could inadvertently strengthen Beijing.

Both companies will be forced to sell their foreign subsidiaries and diminish their role in international projects – namely, in ex-Soviet Central Asia and several African nations, where their place may be taken by Chinese companies.

According to Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank, Xi’s role in ending the war is pivotal.

“Without the financial support, without the economic cooperation with China, Russia can’t continue the war,” he said. “China is Russia’s main economic resource.

“Had [Beijing] wanted to end this war, it would have achieved it very fast,” he added. “China’s harsh position in closed-door, non-public talks with Putin would be enough.”

However, Beijing has “no inclination or interest in making a gift to Trump”, said Fesenko.

During his first presidency, ties with Beijing spiralled as the White House sought to curb China’s growing global clout and its access to Western technologies.

China and the US have introduced tariffs on mutual exports as Beijing threatened to cut off the trade in critical minerals, and Washington promised to curb the transfer of technologies. The Russia-Ukraine war is unlikely to dominate the summit, as Trump and Xi have bigger fish to fry as their nations now face a trade war.

‘Freezing the war’

At the same time, Beijing has been boosting its economic clout in Eastern Europe, Moscow’s former stomping ground, investing heavily in new infrastructure.

“The escalation of the war, its spread to Europe, is something that contradicts China’s interests,” Fesenko said.

However, Washington and Beijing may want to keep the war simmering or frozen without letting Moscow or Kyiv win a decisive victory, argued Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych.

Washington is not going to benefit from Russia’s “overwhelming victory” as the Kremlin will undoubtedly seek the role of a “third global leader”, he said.

But neither Beijing or Washington could benefit from Russia’s full defeat, as China is concerned by destabilisation near its northern and northwestern borders.

“Washington is active about freezing the war,” Tyshkevych said. “I won’t be surprised if Beijing will be active in the same direction.”

If frozen, there are fears that the war could reignite when Russia recovers economically and accumulates enough resources.

To avoid that, Kyiv would look to building new or strengthening existing partnerships, especially with the European Union and its individual members, as well as countries such as Turkiye and Pakistan that both have cordial ties with Beijing.

And Putin still has plenty of incentives to offer to Trump.

There is a reported proposal to create infrastructure for the Arctic sea route that will shorten the delivery of goods from Asia to Europe by weeks.

Moscow also considered a joint project to sell Russian natural gas to Europe, develop oil and gas fields in Russia’s Far East, and supply rare earths that are crucial for US tech giants.

In a post-war environment, Putin may also propose Russia’s expertise in processing spent nuclear fuel from US power stations – and come up with nuclear security deals, including non-proliferation.

Non-proliferation “is the only field where Russia is ‘equal’ to the United States,” Tyshkevych said.

Here are the key events from day 1,342 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, October 28, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia killed a 44-year-old man and wounded several others, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Monday, as the death toll from other assaults on Sunday continued to rise.
• Ukrainian officials said the attacks on Sunday killed two people in the eastern Donetsk region and a 69-year-old man in the northern Sumy region. Fifteen others, including two children, were wounded in Sumy, police there said.
• Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) claimed the killing of Lieutenant Vasily Marzoev, the son of a Russian general, using a guided aerial bomb. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the report.
• A Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian minibus in the village of Pogar in the Bryansk region killed the driver and injured five passengers, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported, citing Governor Alexander Bogomaz.

• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces seized the Ukrainian village of Yehorivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. However, the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported that Ukrainian forces had cleared Russian troops out of the village. Neither claim could be independently verified by Al Jazeera.

• Russia’s Defence Ministry also said its forces captured the villages of Novomykolaivka and Privolnoye in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, according to TASS.

• TASS also reported the ministry as saying that Russian forces shot down 350 Ukrainian drones, two guided missiles and seven rocket launchers in the past 24 hours.
• A report by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found that Russian drone attacks were used as “part of a coordinated policy to drive out civilians from [Ukrainian] territories”, amounting “to the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of population”.
• The report described civilians who were chased over long distances by drones with mounted cameras, and sometimes attacked with fire bombs or explosives while seeking shelter.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump said that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, should end the war in Ukraine instead of testing nuclear-powered missiles, adding that Washington had a nuclear submarine positioned off Russia’s coast. The comments came a day after Putin said that Russia had successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile.

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was nothing in the test of the missile that should strain relations with Washington, and that Russia was guided by its own national interests.
• Norway’s military intelligence service said that Russia’s test of the Burevestnik missile was launched from the Barents Sea archipelago of Novaya Zemlya.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the US-based Axios news outlet that Kyiv and its allies have agreed to work on a ceasefire plan in the coming 10 days, following Trump’s recent proposal to stop the war at the current lines.
• Putin signed a law on Monday terminating an already defunct plutonium disposal agreement with the US that aimed to prevent both sides from building more nuclear weapons.

• North Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son Hui met Putin at the Kremlin on Monday to discuss strengthening cooperation with Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Tuesday.

• “Many future projects to constantly strengthen and develop” the bilateral relationship were discussed during the meeting, KCNA said, with Choe also conveying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s “brotherly regard” to Putin. The Russian leader, in turn, asked Choe to tell Kim that “everything was going to plan” during the meeting.

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will discuss US sanctions on Russian oil companies, among other issues, when he meets Trump in Washington next week, Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said on Monday.

Regional security

• Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene said on Monday that her country will begin to shoot down smuggler balloons crossing the border from Belarus, a close Russian ally, after the balloons repeatedly interrupted the Baltic nation’s air traffic.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that helium balloons over Lithuania were a “provocation” and “a hybrid threat”, adding in a post on X that the balloons are another reason to accelerate the European Union’s Eastern Flank Watch and European drone defence initiatives.

Weapons

• Ukraine’s military intelligence published a list detailing the origins of 68 foreign components used in Russian missiles and other weapons, which it says came from China, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the US.

North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui praised the ‘spiritual closeness’ between the two states.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has met North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in the latest high-level engagement between the two countries, which have strengthened ties during the Ukraine war.

Footage released by Russian state news agencies showed Putin greeting Choe in the Kremlin on Monday. Russia’s top diplomat Sergey Lavrov also appeared at the meeting.

Putin said the countries’ “relations and development prospects” are progressing “according to plan”, and extended regards to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to Russia’s Sputnik news agency. Choe, in turn, passed on “warm wishes” from Kim, having earlier praised the “spiritual closeness” of the two nations’ relationship in talks with Lavrov.

Russia and North Korea, both under extensive Western sanctions, have significantly bolstered ties in recent years, including signing a 2024 defence pact committing each country to provide military support to the other in the event of “aggression”.

Since then, North Korea has sent around 10,000 troops to join Russia’s war against Ukraine, at least 600 of whom have died in combat, according to estimates from Seoul and Kyiv.

Pyongyang first acknowledged its soldiers’ involvement in the war in April, saying they helped Russia retake its strategic Kursk region after a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Several days ago, Kim held a ceremony marking the opening of a museum in Pyongyang to honour the North Korean troops killed in the conflict. He said their deployment “marked the beginning of a new history of militant solidarity” with Russia, with which there is an “invincible” alliance.

Putin last met Kim in person on September 3 in Beijing, where the leaders held official talks after attending a military parade hosted by China’s President  Xi Jinping. At the time, Putin praised North Korean soldiers for fighting “courageously and heroically” in the Ukraine war.

“I would like to note that we will never forget the sacrifices that your armed forces and the families of your servicemen have suffered,” Putin said.

The deepening Russia-North Korea relationship has drawn concern from the United States, which says there is evidence that Russia is increasing technology support for North Korea, including in space and satellite programmes. After Putin and Kim’s September meeting, US President Donald Trump claimed they were conspiring against the US – a statement dismissed by the Kremlin.

Here are the key events from day 1,340 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, October 26, 2025:

Fighting

• Russia launched a drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in the early hours of Sunday, striking residential buildings and wounding at least five people, including two children, according to officials.
• Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight on Saturday killed at least two people and wounded 12 others, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on X. She accused Moscow of trying to “create a humanitarian catastrophe” in her country amid the winter season.
• The Russian attacks on Saturday targeted “critical infrastructure”, the energy grid, a railroad and residential areas in the Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumy and other regions, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha wrote in a separate post on X. “Russian terror can and should be stopped,” he said, as he called for “stronger sanctions” against Moscow.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that such attacks intensified Ukraine’s need for Patriot air defence systems. “America, Europe and the G7 countries can help ensure that such attacks no longer threaten lives,” he wrote.
• Ukraine’s Air Force, in a statement on Telegram, said it downed four of nine missiles and 50 of 62 drones launched in the Russian attacks across the country on Saturday.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, said that its forces had downed 121 Ukrainian drones overnight, including seven that were flying towards Moscow.
• Separately, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that Ukrainian forces struck a dam on a reservoir in the border area, causing damage. He warned that the strikes could risk flooding and advised residents of two border settlements to temporarily evacuate.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump told reporters on board Air Force One, while heading to Asia, that he is “not going to be wasting” his time on meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin until he thinks a deal is in place to secure peace between Russia and Ukraine.
• The Reuters news agency, citing a US official and another person, reported that Trump’s administration is also preparing additional sanctions it could use to target key areas of Russia’s economy if Putin continues to delay ending the war.
• Reuters quoted the US official as saying that Washington would like to see European allies make the next big Russia move, which could be additional sanctions or tariffs.
• Zelenskyy has welcomed the latest US sanctions targeting two of Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, “a strong and much-needed message that aggression will not go unanswered”.
• In a separate statement on Telegram, Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine expects to receive up to 150 Swedish Gripen fighter jets starting next year, hailing the deal as necessary to defend the country.
• Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, however, said in an interview with the US cable broadcaster CNN, that Moscow, Washington and Kyiv are close to a diplomatic solution to end the three-year war.

Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine have killed at least four people and wounded several others, local officials say, as Kyiv’s allies push sweeping measures against Moscow as the war nears its four-year mark.

Two people were killed in a ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and nine were wounded in the overnight attacks, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said on Saturday.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said a blaze erupted in a non-residential building in one location as a result of the attacks, while debris from intercepted missiles fell in an open area at another site, damaging windows in nearby buildings.

“Explosions in the capital. The city is under ballistic attack,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a social media post.

In the central-east Dnipropetrovsk region, acting Governor Vladyslav Haivanenko said two people were killed and seven wounded in a Russian attack. He added apartment buildings, private homes, an outbuilding, a shop and at least one vehicle were damaged in the strikes.

One of the victims was an emergency worker, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “One rescuer was killed and another wounded as a result of a repeated missile strike on the Petropavlivska community in the Dnipropetrovsk region,” the ministry said on social media.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired nine Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 62 attack drones. Four ballistic missiles and 50 drones were downed, it added.

There was no immediate comment by Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in February 2022.

For its part, Russia blamed Ukraine on Saturday for striking a dam on a local reservoir. In a statement on Telegram, Belgorod region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said repeated strikes on the dam had increased a risk of flooding and advised residents in Shebekino and Bezlyudovka to leave their homes for temporary accommodation.

Belgorod region borders Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region and has previously come under attack by Ukrainian forces.

Overall, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences had shot down 121 Ukrainian drones over Russia overnight.

Pressuring Putin to end war

The attacks come as Kyiv’s Western allies ratchet up pressure on Russia as the war enters its fourth winter.

The United States and the European Union announced new sweeping sanctions this week on Russian energy aimed at crippling Moscow’s war economy.

US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s top oil firms, Rosneft and Lukoil, on Wednesday in an effort to pressure Moscow to reach a ceasefire. The EU adopted a new round of sanctions against Russian energy exports on Thursday, banning liquefied natural gas imports.

At a joint news conference in London on Friday after a meeting of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the sanctions and called for additional pressure on all Russian oil companies, as well as military aid to bolster Ukraine’s long-range missile capabilities.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy said the overnight attacks intensified his country’s need for air defence systems. “It is precisely because of such attacks that we pay special attention to Patriot systems – to be able to protect our cities from this horror. It is critical that partners who possess relevant capability implement what we have discussed in recent days,” he wrote on social media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would not bend to pressure from the West. “No self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever decides anything under pressure,” he said, calling the US sanctions an “unfriendly act.”

Putin has called for the complete disarmament of Ukraine and for Russia to keep any territory it has seized during the war. That position seems to be non-negotiable for Ukraine. Trump, who before his return to the White House in January, had boasted of being able to end the war in 24 hours if re-elected – has been unable to make any headway between the two positions.

Plans for an in-person meeting between Trump and Putin fell apart this week after the US president proposed “freezing” the war with a ceasefire along the current front lines.

Despite ongoing disagreements, Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, on Friday said he believed a diplomatic solution was close.

EU leaders had hoped to agree on a plan to fund a loan of 140 billion euros to bolster Ukraine.

Leaders across the European Union have agreed to help Ukraine fund its fight against Russia’s invasion, but stopped short of approving a plan that would draw from frozen Russian assets to do so, after Belgium raised objections.

EU leaders met in Brussels on Thursday to discuss Ukraine’s “pressing financial needs” for the next two years. Many leaders had hoped the talks would clear the way for a so-called “reparation loan”, which would use frozen Russian assets held by the Belgian financial institution Euroclear to fund a loan of 140 billion euros ($163.3bn) for Ukraine.

The EU froze about 200 billion euros ($232.4bn) of Russian central bank assets after the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In order to use the assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, the European Commission, the EU’s executive, has floated a complex financial manoeuvre that involves the EU borrowing matured funds from Euroclear.

That money would then, in turn, be loaned to Ukraine, on the understanding that Kyiv would only repay the loan if Russia pays reparations.

The scheme would be “fully guaranteed” by the EU’s 27 member states – who would have to ensure repayment themselves to Euroclear if they eventually decided Russia could reclaim the assets without paying reparations. Belgium, the home of Euroclear, objected to this plan on Thursday, with Prime Minister Bart De Wever calling its legality into question.

Russia has described the idea as an illegal seizure of property and warned of retaliation.

Following Thursday’s political wrangling, a text approved by all the leaders – except Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban – was watered down from previous drafts to call for “options for financial support based on an assessment of Ukraine’s financing needs.” Those options will be presented to European leaders at their next summit in December.

“Russia’s assets should remain immobilised until Russia ceases its war of aggression against Ukraine and compensates it for the damage caused by its war,” the declaration added.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a guest at the summit, had urged a quick passage of the plan for the loan.

“Anyone who delays the decision on the full use of frozen Russian assets is not only limiting our defence, but also slowing down the EU’s own progress,” he told the EU leaders, saying Kyiv would use a significant part of the funds to buy European weapons.

Earlier, the EU adopted a new round of sweeping sanctions against Russian energy exports on Thursday, as well, banning liquefied natural gas imports.

The move followed United States President Donald Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that Russia’s two biggest oil companies would face US sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday struck a defiant tone over the sanctions, saying they were an “unfriendly act”, and that Russia would not bend under pressure.

United States President Donald Trump sanctions Russia’s two biggest oil companies – after scrapping a summit with President Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine war.

The European Union has also announced new measures targeting Russian oil and assets.

Will they bring an end to the war any closer?

Presenter: Bernard Smith

Guests:

Anatol Lieven – Director of the Eurasia programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Steven Erlanger – Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for Europe at The New York Times

Chris Weafer – CEO of Macro-Advisory, a strategic consultancy focused on Russia and Eurasia

This week, we are getting our first visual evidence of Russia’s notorious glide bomb kit capability combined with a small turbojet engine, a modification that provides this class of munition with a significant boost in range. The latest version of the weapon is reportedly designated UMPK-PD, in which the “P” suffix very likely denotes Dalniaya, for long-range, although other sources describe a similar weapon as the UMPB-5R. Regardless, they look set to become another problem for Ukraine’s air defenses… if they work as advertised.

At least some of the photos of the wreckage of the glide bombs, posted recently to social media, appear to show the remains of the turbojet engine among the other components. The first such photos were apparently initially shared on a Ukrainian Telegram channel, Polkovnik GSh, and are said to date from the late spring or early summer of this year.

Meanwhile, reports in the Ukrainian media describe the use of such munitions against targets in the Kharkiv region, specifically the town of Lozovaya, around 56 miles from the front line, and in the Sumy region, where the reported target was the village of Khoten, 6.2 miles from the front line.

Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), has said that a new Russian glide bomb (presumably the UMPK-PD or UMPB-5R) was combat-tested in September/October and is now entering series production. He has said the weapons include “new control modules” and superior resistance to electronic countermeasures.

There have long been rumors that the Russian UMPK, or Unifitsirovannyi Modul Planirovaniya i Korrektsii, meaning unified gliding and correction module, glide bombs had started to be adapted to accommodate propulsion. This would be in keeping with the steady improvements that have been made to this series of weapons, which have included using new types of warheads as well as increasingly larger payloads.

A recent report from the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant states that the latest version of the UMPK can strike targets at ranges of up to 62 miles, thanks to various aerodynamic improvements. This range is said to be achieved when released at an altitude of around 40,000 feet and at a speed of around 621 miles per hour. The range would be correspondingly reduced when launched at lower altitudes and lower speeds.

Meanwhile, the same weapon fitted with a motor reportedly doubles that baseline range, to 124 miles, comparable with a standoff weapon like a shorter-range cruise missile. While all these range figures should be treated with caution, anywhere near these range figures would provide an impressive leap in capability over the weapon’s unpowered counterpart.

Publicly available data attributes the original UMPK weapons with a range of between 25 and 45 miles when strapped to a FAB-250, FAB-500, or FAB-1500 bomb. A range of between 31 and 37 miles can be achieved when using the heavier FAB-3000 bomb.

In its baseline form, the aerodynamic improvements for the UMPK-PD include a pair of wings, replacing the single pop-out wing that was originally used in the glide bomb kits. These provide increased area and, therefore, generate more lift for sustained flight.

The ‘twin-wing’ configuration is something that has been seen in use for some time now, but the motor wasn’t visible. That apparent anomaly now makes much more sense, given that versions of the UMPK-PD can be employed with or without the range-extending engine.

Otherwise, the baseline UMPK-PD is also fitted with redesigned tail fins, guidance and control unit, and a power source, all of which are bolted to a standard free-fall bomb.

When fitted with a jet engine, for maximum reach, the twin wings are reportedly of smaller size and are swept back. As for the engine, photos of the wreckage indicate this is a Chinese-made Swiwin SW800Pro-Y turbojet, which is commercially available and generates around 180 pounds of thrust. Russia’s ability to source large numbers of small turbojets domestically has been questioned in the past, so getting them from China off-the-shelf would certainly make sense.

The Kommersant report states that the powered UMPK-PD is now being combat-tested in prototype form, which means there may not yet be a standardized format for this version, with the potential for changes to be made based on early operational experience.

According to a report on Telegram from the pro-Russian military Fighterbomber channel, the specific bomb used as ‘payload’ for the UMPK-PD is the FAB-500T, a 500-kilogram (1,102-pound) class weapon. It is claimed that the specific properties of the FAB-500T, which include a more aerodynamic body and heat-resistant features, make it more suitable for powered, long-range flight.

Interestingly, the FAB-500T was originally developed during the Cold War for carriage by the MiG-25RB Foxbat reconnaissance-bomber. In this case, the letter “T” stands for Termostoykaya (thermally stable), since it was designed to withstand in-flight heating at the MiG-25RB’s cruising speed of 2,500km/h (1,553mph) at high altitude. It’s unclear how many FAB-500Ts remain in the Russian stockpile, but presumably other FAB-series bombs could also be adapted for use with the UMPK-PD, too.

The UMPK-PD reportedly also features a new launch procedure, in which a combination of a spring mechanism and a pyrotechnic serves to deploy the wings after release from the aircraft. The various control surfaces are then adjusted to direct the munition toward the target.

This is very likely intended to overcome previously reported problems with the standard UMPK series.

As we wrote back in 2023, quoting an online critical analysis of the UMPK module, conducted anonymously by an employee of a Russian company:

The wing is opened after the bomb is dropped by a spring hooked to the locking mechanism. The wing opening mechanism is unreliable, and “the fact that the wing is not brought into flight position is a standard occurrence for this product.”

Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Analysis of Strategy and Technologies (CAST), a Moscow-based think tank, told Kommersant that the UMPK-PD is an “excellent, but probably temporary solution” to the problem of a lack of more purpose-designed precision-guided munitions to support the Russian ground forces. Pukhov noted that the UMPK-PD would help compensate for a lack of longer-range precision-guided munitions and even cruise missiles, but that it wouldn’t offer the same level of accuracy or destructive power.

Nevertheless, the UMPK-PD is another major headache for the hard-pressed Ukrainian air defenses.

Since their first employment in the war in Ukraine, the Russian glide bombs have proved to be extremely difficult to shoot down, being small in size, relatively fast, and with no thermal signature.

They have also been continually improved.

Meanwhile, Russia introduced another new standoff weapon last year, a winged precision-guided bomb known as the UMPB D-30SN, or simply UMPB. As we discussed at the time, this munition has some interesting parallels to the U.S.-made Small Diameter Bomb (SDB).

As for the UMPK-PD, this can meanwhile be compared to a much cruder counterpart to the powered version of the Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER). The Powered JDAM essentially combines a JDAM-ER winged precision-guided bomb with a small turbine engine, creating something like a lower-cost cruise missile.

As we have noted in the past, Russia has a limited air-launched standoff precision-guided munitions arsenal, overall, so being able to convert dumb bombs into longer-range guided weapons is of significant utility. The result is a series of weapons that allow the Russian Aerospace Forces to strike deeper in certain areas, as well as to conduct more survivable weapons deliveries in others.

Due to the crash program to develop these kinds of bombs, the earlier versions suffered from several shortcomings. However, with the Russian Aerospace Forces’ huge demand for weapons that can be launched at a safer distance from air defenses, and the tempo of airstrikes in general, the continued appearance of more refined versions of these weapons, including with longer range, is no surprise.

Contact the author: [email protected]