Ukraine has waited almost a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on missiles for its Patriot and NASAMS air defense systems, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 26 October. He ordered his team to raise it with Washington again. Two other US holds on Ukraine, on Starlink speeds and intelligence sharing, have been lifted, leaving the interceptors as the last one.

Russia keeps firing ballistic missiles at Ukrainian cities and the power grid before winter, and Patriots are the only systems in Ukraine that reliably stop Iskander-M, Kinzhal, and Zircon missiles. Zelenskyy has told EU leaders Ukraine needs 300 interceptors to get through winter, diplomatic sources told Radio Svoboda. The holds came as Washington pressed Kyiv to stop striking Russian refineries, which Trump blames for high US fuel prices before the midterms.

Zelenskyy: almost a month waiting for Hegseth’s signature

Zelenskyy held a meeting on weapons supplies with Ukraine’s defense minister, foreign minister, and commander-in-chief. They reported on interceptors for air defense, above all for Patriot systems. Afterward, Zelenskyy wrote:

“We are working in several directions: with the United States, Europe, and other partners that have stocks of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles. In particular, for almost a month we have been waiting for Mr. Hegseth’s signature on missiles for Patriots and NASAMS. I have instructed the team to discuss this with the American side once again.”

Talks with other countries continue, he added. The meeting also covered preparations for November’s Ramstein meeting of Ukraine’s allies, where Zelenskyy wants decisions already on the table carried out faster.

Allies’ missiles need US approval

Some of the transfers come from friendly countries and need Hegseth’s approval, because the US must sign off on any re-transfer of its missiles, a US official and three people familiar with the matter said on 19 October. Hegseth has neither refused nor approved them.

A Ukrainian official said in mid-October that only “a couple” of interceptors were left. Hegseth has said the US wants “our guys” to have “the most possible” interceptors, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted nothing was “being deliberately denied to Ukraine.”

Two of three US holds lifted

In an interview aired on 25 October, Zelenskyy listed three problems from his Oslo talks with the Americans: air defense, Starlink limits, and limits on US intelligence sharing. Full Starlink speeds returned on 24 October, and missile warnings resumed after his 20 October call with Rubio. Progress on Patriot missiles is “very slow,” he said, “slower than the flight of Russian missiles.”

Kyiv has also tried to trade for the missiles. Zelenskyy told US senators he had offered US envoys a 30-day pause in strikes on Russian refineries in return for Patriot interceptors. The envoys showed no openness to the idea.

Trump has called those refinery strikes a disgrace that only pushes oil prices higher. He said it days after striking a deal with Putin to bring Russian diesel back to the US ahead of the midterm elections on 3 November.

Trump treats Ukraine as the weak link to squeeze and wants a visible win partly with US domestic politics in mind, Ukrainian diplomat Oleksandr Khara has argued.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Russia is trying to create “favorable conditions” for European companies that stayed in the country, The Moscow Times reported. He said it on state TV weeks after his decrees put several of the largest Western businesses in Russia under Kremlin-appointed managers. Meanwhile, Russia’s own government expects investment to fall at the fastest pace in over a decade.

To keep paying for its full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has drained reserves, borrowed more, and raised taxes. Its war spending will still rise by 27% next year, as the EU moved this month to adopt its largest sanctions package against Russia’s war industry. Fresh foreign money could ease that squeeze, and the Kremlin keeps scaring it away.

Putin: Europe’s companies left Russia in tears

Putin made the claim in an interview with Kremlin propagandist Pavel Zarubin, which Russian state outlet Vesti published on 25 October. He claimed Russia has “many friends in Europe,” but European governments forced their businesses out:

“When some companies were leaving us under pressure from Western European governments, our friends from these countries nearly cried… Some of them, by the way, are working, and we are trying to create appropriate favorable conditions for them.”

He also attacked Western sanctions, calling it stupid to ban “everything that comes from Russia.”

The decrees came first

On 17 September, Putin’s decree handed the Russian assets of Nestlé, Auchan, and the former Leroy Merlin chain to a firm run by an Interior Ministry major general. US packaging maker Aptar and German wholesaler Metro followed. In mid-October, Russia seized French flooring maker Tarkett and four more foreign-owned firms.

The Kremlin claimed their home countries are “actively involved” in fighting Russia, and Putin cited his 2023 decree on retaliating for Western moves against Russian property. Since the full-scale war began, Russia has put 135 foreign-linked firms under such management. Asked which European companies could be next, a senior Russian official said: “Let them be scared.” Metro reportedly asked to be taken over itself, hoping to keep more control over its fate.

“We don’t steal,” Putin said three weeks earlier

In early October, Putin denied that the takeovers amounted to seizures. At the Valdai Discussion Club on 1 October, he claimed: “We take nothing from anyone, we don’t steal, and we don’t nationalize… Yes, we place some enterprises under external management.”

Russia’s investment drop is the worst since 2015

Putin has demanded an urgent new “investment cycle.” Instead, his economy ministry expects investment to shrink by 5.4% this year. Russian authorities have seized assets worth 7.6 trillion rubles (about $95 billion) from their owners during the war, law firm NSP estimates. More than half of large Russian companies ended 2025 with lower profits and cut or froze investment projects.

Ukrainian long-range strikes add to the risk of building anything in Russia. Overnight on 26 October, drones attacked a Voronezh aircraft plant that makes parts for Russia’s military transport planes. A day earlier, drones reportedly hit a titanium plant in Perm Krai, and Storm Shadow missiles reportedly struck a battery plant in Yelets supplying Russia’s missiles and glide bombs.

Ukrainian forces are making slow but tactically meaningful gains near Velyka Novosilka that could eventually threaten Russian supply lines in the south, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed on 25 October. The push has already pulled Russian naval infantry and tank units away from offensives elsewhere, according to a Ukrainian military observer ISW cites. The same observer cautions that the advance has slowed.

Russia keeps grinding toward Donbas's last big free cities, yet Ukraine has liberated more land than Russia captured since the start of fall. Each elite unit Moscow sends to plug a gap in the south is one it cannot throw at those cities.

Three villages along the Mokri Yaly River

Ukrainian units apparently pushed Russian troops out of Perebudova, Komar, and Fedorivka, Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets reported. He described weeks of intense fighting in the villages. Russian infantry still holds several houses on Perebudova's northeastern edge, he said.

Southwest of Vesele, Ukrainian troops came within 3.1 km of Skudne. Between 12 and 24 October, they advanced 1.5–2 km on average and up to 3.3 km in places, Mashovets wrote. ISW assessed that Ukraine likely pushed Russian forces from a salient northwest of the Fedorivka–Burlatske line. Komar, north of Velyka Novosilka, has long anchored Russian defenses on the road south.

Russia's marines defend instead of attacking

Persistent Ukrainian counterattacks forced Russia to send elements of its 120th Naval Infantry Division (Baltic Fleet) and 40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet) to defend near Oleksandrivka instead of attacking at Huliaipole, Mashovets wrote. The move "was clearly unplanned and caused precisely by the Ukrainian offensive," he said.

Russia's naval infantry is relatively elite, and Moscow usually sends it to priority sectors, ISW noted. These units fought near Dobropillia before moving south in March, ISW said at the time, when Ukraine's counterattacks were already burning Russian reserves.

Russia also moved part of its 90th Tank Division into the sector, though it was apparently meant to reinforce the push toward Druzhkivka. "Instead, only some of its units appeared there, and a larger part ended up" defending in the south, Mashovets said. ISW has tracked the division's elements in several directions, including near Sumy as recently as September.

A road junction behind Russia's push on Orikhiv

Velyka Novosilka sits at a road junction that supports Russia's drive west from Huliaipole to envelop Orikhiv from two sides. Further Ukrainian advances would threaten the rear of those Russian forces, ISW assessed. Mashovets called the Huliaipole–Velyka Novosilka road an important supply route for Russia's 36th and 5th armies as early as July, ISW reported. Ukraine has counterattacked in this direction since early February, contesting Russia's initiative across the front, ISW added.

Russian attacks near Oleksandrivka and Huliaipole on 24 and 25 October made no confirmed advances, ISW said. A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger acknowledged that Russia's advance toward Orikhiv has slowed. Russia is preparing to resume mechanized assaults in the south, Ukrainian military officials warned last week.

Mashovets was cautious about what comes next. Ukraine's advance has slowed to a minimum, and its units will likely have to pause or regroup because their forces are limited, he wrote. He also noted Russian positions southwest of Filiia, near Novopavlivka, which ISW read as a recent Russian advance there.

If Ukrainian troops cross the Huliaipole–Velyka Novosilka road in force, Russia would have to turn part of its 5th Army from facing west to facing north, Mashovets wrote.

Drones attacked the VASO aircraft plant in Russia's Voronezh overnight on 26 October, Ukrainian Telegram channel Supernova+ reported. The plant builds Il-96 airliners and parts for Russia's military transport planes. A synthetic-rubber plant was also reportedly hit and fires broke out across Voronezh, while another rubber plant in Tolyatti, farther east, reportedly came under attack again.

Ukraine keeps hitting the plants behind Russia's weapons, from Voronezh's missile chips to Urals titanium for warplanes. Each supplier knocked out of rhythm slows how fast Russia replaces the hardware it loses and keeps using against Ukraine.

What the Voronezh plant builds

Supernova+ described VASO as part of Ilyushin, which belongs to Russia's state-owned United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). The channel published a photo of fire and smoke at the site. The plant lies about 190 km from the Ukrainian border.

VASO makes pylons, engine nacelles, and flap rails for the Il-76MD-90A, a modernized military transport plane, and sends them to Ulyanovsk, UAC's press service said in 2024. "We have reached the production pace of Il-76MD-90A aircraft kits that our Ulyanovsk colleagues need," Igor Butyrin, who runs the plant's Il-76 program, stated at the time. In 2016, the plant built an Il-96-300 that UAC handed over to the Rossiya special flight detachment of Russia's presidential property office.

A rubber plant and a bridge on the list too

Supernova+ also named Voronezhsintezkauchuk, a plant of Russian petrochemical group Sibur that makes synthetic rubbers. The channel later reported a hit on the plant's industrial zone and claimed an attack on the city's Northern Bridge. Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ published footage of a drone arriving, reportedly at the rubber plant.

The moment the UAV arrived this morning, reportedly at the Voronezhsintezkauchuk factory. pic.twitter.com/2PXyQ5P7sb

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 26, 2026

Voronezh Oblast Governor Aleksandr Gusev declared a missile alert at 04:47 Kyiv time, but no source has named a missile type. Kyiv has not commented. Ukraine's Air Force, which launches Storm Shadow cruise missiles, and its Navy, which fires Neptunes, have posted nothing on Voronezh.

Earlier this month, Ukraine's Navy said it hit six Su-34 bombers in Voronezh Oblast with Neptunes. Storm Shadows reportedly struck an electronics plant in Oryol on 23 October and a battery plant in Yelets two days later.

Fires across the city

Gusev claimed air defenses downed 113 drones over the region, more than 70 of them over the city. He listed fires at several industrial enterprises, which he said caused no serious consequences, plus a business center, an apartment block, and a school stadium. Russian Telegram channel Astra published video of a drone hitting the Galereya Chizhova business center. Exilenova+ footage showed cars burning below apartment blocks.

Voronezh pic.twitter.com/I3WbnGLZhO

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 26, 2026

Damage in residential districts may have come from downed drones or from Russian air-defense missiles falling back on the city. During a 23 October attack on Gorodets, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Exilenova+ claimed a Pantsir air-defense missile hit a house.

Gusev also claimed two men were killed and 17 people injured, many of them on a train struck by drone debris. Russian Railways said five passengers were hurt at Somovo station and traffic on the line stopped. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses downed 290 drones over 15 regions and the Moscow area.

Tolyatti's rubber plant reportedly attacked again

Locals reported an attack on the Tolyattikauchuk chemical plant in Tolyatti, Samara Oblast, Exilenova+ said. The city lies about 890 km from the front line. Ukraine's General Staff confirmed a strike on the same plant on 24 October. Its synthetic rubbers go into solid fuel for Russia's tactical and ballistic missiles, among other uses.

Until Kyiv comments or satellite imagery shows the site, the damage at VASO stays unconfirmed, and so does any delay to Russia's Il-76 parts line.