Undercover reporters ordered 500 drone mesh modems from a Chinese firm, which billed them to Russia’s Alabuga drone plant, investigation by The Insider found. The outlet estimates the firm makes about half the high-power mesh modems that let Russia steer its drones deep into Ukraine. The firm’s director also named US company AMD as the source of a key chip, and AMD says it has not sold to the firm.
Geran drones and Banderol drone-missiles have become Russia’s main weapons against Ukraine’s energy grid. Russia began this winter’s strike campaign against that grid in late September, ISW assessed. Ukrainians’ survival this winter depends largely on how fast the West halts mesh modem sales to Russia, the outlet argued.
A mesh modem links drones into one radio network. Each unit relays data for the others, so if one drone is shot down, traffic reroutes through the rest. Information keeps flowing even if nearly 80% of the drones are downed, Ukrainian defense adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov said in November 2025.
Range is the other half of the threat. One XK F-359 holds a line-of-sight link over 100–300 km, The Insider says. In theory, a couple of relay drones could keep a whole attack on Kyiv connected. Operators can then send new commands in flight and steer around air defenses. Russia’s Gerbera drones, first built as cheap decoys, increasingly carry these modems.
To trace the part, The Insider’s correspondent in Ukraine examined an unmarked mesh modem from an upgraded Gerbera with a vertical tail fin, a version that appeared this summer. The outlet identified it as Xingkai’s XK F-359, the part Ukrainian intelligence and earlier reporting, Euromaidan Press included, had logged as the XK-F358. The Insider calls that label a misidentification.
Next, The Insider and the Nordsint investigative project contacted Xingkai on WeChat, posing as a Russian military supplier based in Alabuga. A company employee who introduced himself as “Jack Jiang” confirmed the firm is the model’s sole maker. The Insider identified him as Jiang Qin, Xingkai’s director and owner.
The reporters then ordered 500 units for delivery to Alabuga, home to the plant that makes most of Russia’s long-range drones. Jiang invoiced 19.5 million yuan, which The Insider put at about $2.87 million. He offered two ways to pay: dollars to Xingkai’s DBS Bank account in Hong Kong, or yuan to his personal Ping An Bank account.
In the chat, the reporters said outright that the end user was a military production facility. Jiang raised no objection, The Insider reported.
Later, after the reporters asked to update the address, Xingkai sent a revised invoice with “Alabuga” spelled in Latin letters. This time, it routed payment to a China Merchants Bank account in the name of a former Xingkai manager. She left a management post at the company in 2025, according to Tesari corporate records cited by The Insider. None of the three banks answered The Insider’s requests for comment.
Jiang also claimed the modem’s programmable chip is made by AMD. Asked for an AMD license, he refused, saying Xingkai buys the chips through a middleman. AMD told The Insider that Xingkai “is not an AMD customer or authorized partner,” and said it had sold the company nothing. AMD added that it bars exports of its products to Russia that violate US export controls and sanctions.
Ukraine's defense minister raised the urgent need for Patriot interceptors with Sweden on 22 October, the Defense Ministry reported. The same day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of more Russian ballistic strikes and blamed US supply cuts.
Patriots are Ukraine's main defense against Russian ballistic missiles, and their deliveries keep shrinking. Figures Zelenskyy released in August showed Patriot interceptor deliveries falling from 675 in 2023 to 364 in 2025, with 264 projected for 2026. Europe holds enough PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptors for Ukraine's minimum winter needs, Zelenskyy told journalists on 16 October, but he did not yet know how many Europe would hand over, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Russia fired 21 ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight on 22 October, Zelenskyy said. Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara told his Swedish counterpart, Pål Jonson, that Ukraine must counter ballistic threats as fast as possible, in particular with Patriot interceptors.
The ministry's readout says Ukraine has Patriot missiles under contract. It also says Kyiv asks partners to transfer interceptors from their stocks in exchange for future deliveries allocated to Ukraine.
Khmara made the same request at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting on 8 September. He said then that Ukraine was contracting about 1,000 Patriot missiles with partners' help and an EU loan, but they would arrive only in the coming years, LB reported. He asked allies for missiles from their stocks now, in exchange for future upgraded missiles under Ukraine's contracts.
Zelenskyy spoke to journalists before meeting Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Ukrinform reported. He said the Americans had reduced supplies and Russia would step up ballistic attacks.
"Europeans can provide the missiles only when the American side approves it," Zelenskyy said.
He said the US had sent most of its interceptors to the Middle East.
On 19 October, Zelenskyy told US senators that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was not signing off on Patriot deliveries allies had already paid for. Axios obtained the call transcript from Ukrainian officials. A US government official told the Kyiv Independent that Ukrainian officials' claims that Hegseth was holding up the missiles were "not true."
Washington says nothing has changed. "We have our own needs, too," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on 20 October, but there is "nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine." Hegseth told reporters in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, that the US had not changed its posture toward Ukraine, "but certainly with things like interceptors, we want to make sure our guys have the most possible as well."
On Oct. 21, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff gushingly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for being a "humanitarian."
Just a few hours later, Kyiv once again came under a fresh barrage of devastating Russian missiles, killing at least one person and injuring over 20.
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The missile landed between the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the Holy Presentation (Sviato-Vvedenskyi) Monastery. Monastery buildings, homes, shops, cafés and other civilian infrastructure sustained damage in the surrounding area.
Zelenskyy disclosed that Russian forces had used three cluster-equipped ballistic missiles during the assault. Ukrainian authorities described weapons designed to explode in the air as they approach their targets, distributing explosive submunitions over an area approximately 400 metres in diameter.
After receiving reports from officials overseeing emergency operations across Ukraine, the president accused Moscow of deliberately choosing a weapon capable of inflicting extensive civilian casualties in a densely populated district.
“This was a deliberate choice of weapon and area of deployment,” Zelenskyy said.
He maintained that there were no military installations in the vicinity and that the attack had been intended to inflict maximum damage on civilians and their property.
Pecherskyi is one of Kyiv’s oldest districts, containing religious institutions and architectural monuments associated with centuries of Ukrainian history.
Among them is the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, established in the 11th century and subsequently developed into an important centre of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
The complex includes historic churches, monasteries and an extensive system of underground caves. Together with Saint Sophia Cathedral and its related buildings, it forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage property that has appeared on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 2023.
Thursday’s explosion occurred in the area separating the Lavra from the Holy Presentation Monastery. Ukrainian authorities identified damage to buildings belonging to the latter, alongside neighbouring residential and commercial premises. Assessments of the destruction across the historic district were continuing.
This was not the first occasion in 2026 on which Russian weapons had damaged the area’s religious heritage.
On 15 June, a Russian drone struck the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex, causing severe damage to the Dormition Cathedral. Its roof and structural elements suffered extensive destruction, prompting UNESCO to undertake emergency stabilisation measures.
Ukraine’s Security Service subsequently published evidence identifying fragments of a Russian Geran-2 drone recovered from the site.
The October strike has again exposed the vulnerability of the capital’s historic religious buildings, as well as the civilian neighbourhoods surrounding them.
The reported choice of ammunition has particular implications for the investigation into the attack.
Whereas a conventional missile warhead delivers its explosive force around a principal impact point, cluster munitions release numerous smaller explosive devices capable of striking separate locations across a broad area.
In an urban environment, such weapons can cause casualties and destruction well beyond an intended target. Unexploded submunitions may remain dangerous after the initial attack, posing further risks to residents and emergency workers.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that deploying cluster munitions in populated areas creates a high likelihood of indiscriminate effects.
Under international humanitarian law, military operations must distinguish between civilian persons and objects and legitimate military targets. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited.
The reported deployment of cluster warheads in central Kyiv therefore raises questions about whether those requirements were observed. Zelenskyy’s account of the three missiles had not, at the time of reporting, been independently established through publicly available forensic evidence.
The Pecherskyi explosion was one incident in a much larger attack on the Ukrainian capital.
According to Zelenskyy, Russia launched 21 ballistic missiles against Kyiv in three successive waves overnight. Ukrainian authorities reported at least two people killed and more than 30 wounded, with strikes damaging apartment buildings, commercial premises, transport infrastructure and energy facilities.
The bombardment took place shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin met US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on Wednesday, 21 October.
During their discussions, Putin indicated that Russia was prepared in principle to resume negotiations with Ukraine and the United States, potentially in November. However, no confirmed timetable emerged.
Witkoff’s visit followed consultations in Norway between American, Ukrainian and European representatives over possible arrangements to end the war.
The renewed diplomatic activity has done little to resolve the underlying disagreements. As EU Today has previously examined, Moscow continues to advance territorial demands while the parties remain divided over Ukraine’s future security guarantees.
Meanwhile, Kyiv faces an immediate requirement for additional air-defence ammunition.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly appealed for more Patriot interceptor missiles capable of engaging ballistic targets. Difficulties surrounding American military assistance and intelligence cooperation have increased tensions between Washington and Kyiv at a time when Russia is intensifying attacks against Ukrainian cities.
The latest strike also presents Ukrainian investigators with the task of establishing whether the reported use of cluster munitions against a historic civilian district constituted an unlawful attack.
For Zelenskyy, the bombardment following Putin’s latest diplomatic discussions demonstrates that Moscow’s military conduct remains unchanged. He has argued that Russia’s actions provide no evidence of a genuine intention to bring the war to an end.
Russian tech giant Yandex's data center in Sasovo burned out from the inside, a Ukrainian OSINT analyst wrote on 22 October. On cloud-free satellite images, he saw almost no significant holes in its roof. Ukrainian drones hit the site overnight on 8 October.
Sasovo was the first strike on a data center in Russia. It came two weeks after Russia destroyed data centers in Kyiv. Drones then hit Yandex sites in Vladimir and Kaluga, a Sber data center, and a VK data center near St. Petersburg, which VK acknowledged. In occupied Donbas, monitoring channels reported hits on buildings housing telecom operators.
The analyst, who goes by Harbuz, runs the Ukrainian OSINT channel Dnipro Osint. His roof reading comes from the images. His interior claim comes from what he called available information: he wrote that a fire broke out inside and put part of the equipment out of action.
In an earlier post, Harbuz wrote that a third of the data center had burned out. In the new one, he writes that the building burned out from the inside. He does not say whether he revised the earlier figure.
Russian outlet Agentstvo studied Airbus images from 12 October. It found damage on about a third of the building. Unlike Harbuz, though, Agentstvo described a blackened western roof with damage resembling holes.
On 8 October, Yandex stated that the attack caused a fire and forced it to suspend operations at the site, which hosts tens of thousands of servers, Reuters reported. Yandex Cloud and the Disk and Documents services that run on it ran with major disruptions that morning, Russian outlet The Bell reported.
Later that day, the company stated: "The scale of the damage to the infrastructure is still being assessed. For the moment, we cannot confirm whether it is possible to restore the data centre equipment in Sasovo." Two of Yandex's three supercomputers, used to develop its AI model, are housed there.
The same day, journalists asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether Ukraine was targeting Russian data centers. He did not refer specifically to the Yandex strike, Reuters noted, but said: "We always respond in mirror-like fashion."
Russian missiles and drones killed one person and injured 24 in Kyiv overnight on 22 October, the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office said. Damage spread across six of the city’s districts, the city military administration reported.
The strike came hours after Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin had told Witkoff that Russia was “in principle” ready to resume three-way talks with the US and Ukraine in mid-November. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy read the overnight attack as a sign that Russia’s attitude has not changed. A day earlier, Russian drones killed two people in a 24-story Kyiv apartment block.
Russia fired 21 ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight, Zelenskyy said. The barrage came in three waves, around 22:00, at about 02:00, and around 03:30.
Across Ukraine, air defenses downed or suppressed 181 of 210 Russian drones, the Air Force said. Its report did not mention any ballistic missiles shot down.
The only death in Kyiv came in the Dniprovskyi district, on the city’s left bank. There, Russian strikes destroyed 13 detached houses on several streets, prosecutors said. Police said the man killed was 48 and that six people were injured in the district, four of them children, the youngest aged five.
Of the injured, five are minors and two are young children, and prosecutors reported acute stress reactions among them. A 16-year-old boy is in hospital with a closed head injury, prosecutors said. Sixteen of the injured were hospitalized, the city military administration said. The final number of injured is still being established.
In the Holosiivskyi, Obolonskyi, Pecherskyi, and Sviatoshynskyi districts, the attack damaged eight apartment buildings, prosecutors said. It also damaged a building-supply hypermarket, a restaurant, a monastery building, a post office, and office premises.
In Pecherskyi, Russia damaged an ambulance station and six ambulances, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote. The State Emergency Service said eight people were injured in that district, three of them children, and reported damaged transport infrastructure in the Darnytskyi district.
The strikes damaged metro infrastructure on the Pivdennyi (Southern) Bridge, Kyiv Metro said. As of the morning, green-line trains ran in two sections, Syrets–Vydubychi and Osokorky–Chervonyi Khutir. Inspections and repairs would continue after the all-clear, the metro said.
Oleksii Biloshytskyi, head of Ukraine’s Patrol Police Department, announced that traffic across the bridge toward the left bank was temporarily closed. The city is adding buses on routes 22 and 91, the city administration said. Russian drones had already hit the bridge repeatedly in early October.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Thursday morning that at least two people had been killed and 34 injured, including five children, in Russian attacks affecting 12 Ukrainian regions. The capital sustained extensive damage, with strikes reported against railway and metro infrastructure, shopping centres, industrial premises and a monastery.
The bombardment followed a three-hour meeting between Witkoff and Putin on Wednesday, during which the Russian president indicated his willingness to resume trilateral negotiations involving Moscow, Washington and Kyiv. The Russian attacks continued despite the diplomatic initiative, prompting Zelenskyy to call for renewed international pressure on the Kremlin.
In a statement published on Telegram, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had launched three waves of ballistic missiles against the Ukrainian capital, causing numerous direct hits and widespread destruction.
The Ukrainian president referred sarcastically to Russia’s supposed humanitarian intentions, an apparent reference to Witkoff’s description of Putin as a humanitarian during their meeting the previous day.
Emergency services were deployed across several districts of Kyiv, where residential and commercial buildings suffered damage. Part of the capital’s metro infrastructure on the Southern Bridge was affected, disrupting traffic, while a strike on an ambulance station in the Pecherskyi district damaged six emergency vehicles. No medical personnel were injured at that location.
According to Ukrainian military and emergency service reports, the overnight assault also involved 210 attack drones and several types of missiles, including Iskander-M, S-400, Zircon and Oniks weapons.
By Thursday morning, Ukrainian air defences had intercepted or suppressed 181 drones. Russian weapons struck 32 locations, while debris from intercepted drones fell at eight others.
The assault followed several consecutive days of Russian attacks against Kyiv, including earlier strikes on hospitals, residential buildings and the capital’s transport network.
The timing of the latest bombardment placed renewed scrutiny on Washington’s diplomatic engagement with Moscow.
On 21 October, Witkoff met Putin at the Konstantin Palace in St Petersburg, accompanied by Russian officials, including Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s representative for international economic cooperation. The discussions lasted approximately three hours.
The meeting followed talks in Oslo on 20 October, where Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Zelenskyy alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
Following the St Petersburg meeting, Witkoff described the discussions as constructive and indicated that negotiations would continue at the technical level between representatives of the United States, Russia and Ukraine.
Putin reportedly expressed agreement in principle to restarting trilateral negotiations, potentially during the first half of November. However, no agreement on a ceasefire or suspension of Russian attacks was announced.
The meeting also attracted controversy after Witkoff praised Putin as a humanitarian following the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American citizen who had been detained in Russia for more than four years.
The remarks prompted criticism from Republican lawmakers in Washington, who questioned the characterisation of the Russian president while Moscow continued its military campaign against Ukraine.
Zelenskyy characterised the overnight missile attack as evidence that Russia’s participation in negotiations had not produced any substantive change in its conduct.
He argued that diplomatic efforts to end the war should continue but must be accompanied by measures capable of altering Moscow’s military calculations.
Those measures, according to the Ukrainian president, include stronger air defence capabilities, faster deliveries of interceptor missiles, the ability to destroy Russian ballistic missile launchers and continued economic sanctions.
The latest attacks also place Ukraine’s air defence requirements firmly within the ongoing negotiations with Washington. Kyiv has repeatedly sought additional Patriot missiles and more reliable advance warning of Russian ballistic launches, particularly as repeated strikes place increasing demands on its interception capabilities.
For the Trump administration, the immediate question is whether Russia’s stated willingness to negotiate can produce verifiable commitments to reduce hostilities.
The Kremlin has offered the prospect of further talks without announcing a halt to its offensive operations. Kyiv, meanwhile, continues to face missile and drone attacks against civilian infrastructure even as discussions concerning a possible settlement proceed.
The events of 21–22 October leave Washington’s diplomatic initiative moving forward against the background of an expanding Russian aerial campaign, with no indication that Moscow intends to suspend its attacks while negotiations continue.
Kyiv has put 85 new buses into service. They have been bought under a financing agreement with the European Investment Bank, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, after meeting EIB Group Vice-President Karl Nehammer to mark the project’s completion.
The buses were purchased under the “Ukraine Urban Public Transport” project, backed by an EIB loan of 18.5 million euros, and arrived in several batches. All 85 will carry passengers on the capital’s routes, part of a push to modernize the fleet of the municipal operator Kyivpastrans even as the war grinds on.
“The purchase made it possible to increase the accessibility of public transportation in the capital and improve passenger travel conditions,” Klitschko said, thanking the EIB for its help.
The vehicles are built for accessibility. The 12-meter low-floor buses carry ramps for people with disabilities and limited mobility, information displays, air conditioning and heating, video surveillance cameras, stop announcements, energy-saving LED lighting, and tinted glass.
Each bus seats 27 passengers and holds another 80 standing. The vehicles are Turkish-built low-floor models that entered Kyiv service in batches between 2025 and 2026, aimed at riders whom older high-floor buses left behind, from wheelchair users to parents with strollers.
The buses are one piece of a longer partnership. Since Russia’s war began, the EIB has provided more than 2 billion euros for emergency repairs to Ukraine’s infrastructure, the bank reported.
Its urban-transport work for Kyiv has already delivered 20 new low-floor trams, and the bank signed a separate 50-million-euro loan, the first tranche of a 200-million-euro package, to help the Kyiv metro replace coaches that were 80% Russian-made before the war and end its dependence on Russian spare parts, the EIB said. The money is intended to upgrade or replace between 120 and 160 metro coaches.
Anna Lodyhina, a mother of a 5-year-old, spent many nights on the cold floor of Kyiv's metro, driven there — like many others — by relentless Russian attacks. As her child slept, she watched over him, exhausted by the constant threat and lack of sleep.
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Russian drones struck a 24-story apartment building in Kyiv, a university building in Kremenchuk, warehouses, and hypermarkets overnight on 21 October, killing two people in the capital and an elderly couple near Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said. The attack went well beyond Ukraine’s power grid, hitting places where people live, study, and shop. Over the past day, Russian strikes also killed three more civilians and injured dozens across several oblasts.
Russia has kept up nightly drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities through the autumn, mostly aimed at the energy system. It struck Ukraine’s energy 76 times during a US-declared truce, and fired 39 ballistic missiles at the grid three days after Washington announced it. This time the targets also included homes, a university, warehouses, and shops.
Overnight, Russia launched 186 Shahed-type and other attack drones, 88 of them jet-powered, along with Iskander-K cruise missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force said. Air defenses downed or jammed 150 drones. Hits were recorded at 27 locations, and debris fell at 13 more.
A drone hit a 24-story residential building in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district at the level of the 20th floor, starting a fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The fire spread over about 70 square meters, and rescuers found the bodies of two people while clearing debris, the State Emergency Service said. Two people were injured and hospitalized, Klitschko said, including a 46-year-old man who was walking past the building, according to the police.
In the Desnianskyi district, seven parked cars caught fire, the State Emergency Service said; police put the number at about 10. The evening before, drones hit a warehouse building in Desnianskyi and a transport facility in Solomianskyi district.
In the village of Korotych near Kharkiv, Russian drones killed an 81-year-old woman and an 83-year-old man, Kharkiv Oblast Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Rescuers recovered their bodies from the rubble of their house, the State Emergency Service said. Eleven people, including a two-month-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, were treated for acute stress, and 13 houses were damaged.
In Kremenchuk, a drone hit a building of the Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi National University, setting it on fire, the State Emergency Service said. Three people were injured, including a 16-year-old who was hospitalized with a concussion, Poltava Oblast Governor Vitalii Diakivnych said. In the Poltava community, drones damaged an administrative building and warehouses.
In Lviv Oblast, an attack set fire to an enterprise in a village in Lviv district and injured two people, while a house was damaged in a neighboring village, the State Emergency Service said. In Uman, drones hit a hypermarket and damaged a hotel, injuring one person, Cherkasy Oblast Governor Ihor Taburets said.
On the evening of 20 October, a drone hit an Epicentr hypermarket in Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast, injuring eight people, acting Governor Heorhii Reshetilov said. Russia also struck a hypermarket in Rivne Oblast several times that day, injuring four and forcing rescuers to pull back while they fought the fire, the State Emergency Service said.
The overnight strikes followed a day of attacks. In Kyiv, Russian strikes on 20 October killed one person and injured 21, three of them seriously, Klitschko said. An administrative building caught fire, rescuers freed four people trapped on its upper floors, and a healthcare facility was damaged, the State Emergency Service said. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, two men were killed and seven people injured that day, regional officials said.
In Kharkiv Oblast, Russian attacks over the past day injured 11 more people in Kharkiv, Derhachi, and Shestakove, Syniehubov said. In Kherson Oblast, 13 people were injured, three of them children, the regional administration reported. In the Chernihiv region, an 89-year-old woman and a young woman were hurt in strikes on villages and on Novhorod-Siverskyi, Governor Viacheslav Chaus said, and a 21-year-old woman was injured in the Sumy community, according to the Sumy regional administration.
More than 5,000 subscribers lost power in Volyn Oblast’s Lutsk district, Governor Roman Romaniuk said. In Ternopil Oblast’s Kremenets district, 7,949 subscribers remained without power after earlier Russian strikes on energy facilities, the regional administration reported.
South Korea will withdraw more staff from its embassy in Kyiv, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Doo-soon said on 20 October. Seoul says Kyiv broke an understanding to keep the transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war confidential, which was meant to protect the soldiers and their families in the North. Seoul had conveyed its position through several channels but received no sufficient response from Kyiv, Park added.
The Korea Herald noted, the move comes amid a dispute with the host government itself. That matters beyond the two countries. Good ties with Kyiv serve South Korea’s interests, AP reported earlier this month, citing experts, because Ukraine could share intelligence on North Korea’s expanding cooperation with Russia and its battlefield experience.
Officials put the planned withdrawal at about half the embassy’s staff. The Korea Herald added that the timing has yet to be set. A chargé d’affaires and all consular staff will stay in Kyiv to keep diplomatic contacts and protect South Korean citizens.
Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly in September that Ukraine had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to South Korea. Ukrainian forces had captured both men in Russia’s Kursk Oblast in January 2025, where Pyongyang had sent troops to fight for Moscow.
On 6 October, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Sybiha’s messages included words of apology but fell short of what Seoul expected. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi replied that Sybiha had written he regretted the situation reaching an exchange of critical comments.
In an interview published on 12 October, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told the dispute stemmed from differing readings of confidentiality at various stages of the transfer. He considers the matter closed. “Ukraine fulfilled all its obligations.”
Ukrainians can now check a free live map of where Russian attack targets are flying, a Ukrainian air-threat monitoring project called monitor announced on X on 13 October. The beta pulls public reports of drones in flight into a single view and lays them over official air raid alerts.
Russia now flies jet-powered drones, and some switch off their engines before an attack and glide in. Over a hundred drones can arrive in one night. Yet since September, drone-only yellow alerts in some Oblasts no longer shut everything down. So during drone alerts, some Ukrainians now stay at their desks rather than in shelters. The new maps offers them a quick look at the sky from a phone, even on a weak signal.
The launch post described the service as one that tries to show where each target is, using open sources and algorithmic processing. It said the beta focuses on drones, with other targets to follow.
The drone data does not come from radar. The service draws on regional Telegram channels that post where drones and missiles are flying over their own oblasts. It cross-checks those posts to estimate what each target is, roughly where it is, and where it is heading, the project explains. The same page already lists cruise and ballistic missiles among the targets. It also says the map is free, ad-free, and needs no registration, and that it runs in a browser or on Telegram, designed to work on a phone with a weak signal.
A target log lists each drone’s district and course. Alert data comes from alerts.in.ua, and areas under alert turn red or yellow. The map refreshes about every 20 seconds while targets are airborne.
However, the developers warn that the dots are only estimates and show up late. Some targets slip through untracked. That is why “an empty map does not mean you are safe,” they wrote. When sirens sound, they urge people to rely on official signals and take shelter.
On 17 October, the Defense Ministry said that Ukraine’s Air Alert app now maps the approximate position and heading of some targets. These include cruise missiles, Banderol drone-launched missiles, and Shahed-type drones. The data comes straight from the Air Force over secure channels.
For security reasons, it carries no exact coordinates or real-time tracking and may lag. Ballistic missiles and anything faster than 2,000 km/h don’t appear at all. The ministry’s advice matches monitor’s: get to a shelter first, then check the map from there.
Ukraine is counting on buying part of Lockheed Martin’s growing output of ballistic missile interceptors, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He met the US company’s team in Kyiv on 19 October and also raised servicing and repairing F-16 fighter jets inside Ukraine.
Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s power grid with ballistic missiles, and interceptor supplies fall short of that threat. Kyiv is working every route to more Patriot missiles, from US deliveries to allies’ stocks, and some have stalled. Greece, for one, has not confirmed it will hand any over, citing its own defense needs. A purchase from the missiles’ maker would add one more route.
Lockheed Martin builds the PAC-3 MSE interceptors fired by Patriot air defense systems, as well as the F-16. Zelenskyy said both matter against Russian ballistic missiles and jet-powered Shahed drones. Neither area is easy right now, he added.
“We count on the opportunity to purchase some of them to protect more lives,” he wrote.
On 28 July, Zelenskyy met the company in Washington to discuss joint production. That came weeks after US President Donald Trump pledged Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriots.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has not signed off on a “significant” batch of Patriot missiles, Ukrainian officials told the Kyiv Independent. One official said allies had already paid for them. A US government official called the claims untrue, and the Pentagon did not respond. A NATO official said allied-funded deliveries, including air defense, continue. A second NATO official said some shipments could be delayed, but likely not for political reasons.
Zelenskyy told Bloomberg on 18 October that the US delivers only 12 Patriot interceptors a month. On 20 October, interceptors topped his list in a call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
No purchase was announced, so new interceptors from this route remain a prospect. Meanwhile, partners’ early warnings of Russian ballistic launches have gone missing three times recently, Zelenskyy wrote. Those warnings give air defenses extra minutes to prepare.
Russia attacked Kyiv with ballistic missiles in two waves overnight on 18–19 October. Information from partners did not arrive before the first wave, at around 23:00, Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said on national television. A warning came before the second wave, at around 03:00, but the window was short, he told NV.
Hours earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC that US warnings of Russian ballistic launches were working again after three days without them, and that only the United States has that intelligence. Those warnings have for years given Ukrainian authorities several minutes to sound alarms and let civilians reach shelters before ballistic missiles hit.
“Once again, a Russian ballistic attack in several waves overnight, and once again there was no warning from partners,” Zelenskyy wrote. It was at least the third ballistic strike on Kyiv in a week to begin without warning from partners, following attacks on 12 October and 13 October.
One person was killed and eight injured in Kyiv, Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said. A strike damaged a metro station on Kyiv’s left bank, and debris broke the rails beside it, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. City authorities said the damaged station was above ground, closed Chernihivska and Lisova stations, and said red-line trains would run only between Akademmistechko and Darnytsia. The attack also damaged a 25-story building, a medical facility, and the Cosmo Multimall shopping center in the Solomianskyi district, NV reported, and Zelenskyy said a school was hit too.
The attack also damaged one of Ukraine’s main ice arenas, on Shalett Street in Kyiv, which hosts Ukrainian championship hockey games and youth training, hockey Telegram channel Flamingo reported. Parts of the facade, metal structures, and roof were damaged, but the ice surface showed no significant visible damage, according to preliminary information, Suspilne reported.
Koretskyi said energy and infrastructure were the main targets, with damage in 11 oblasts. Russia also hit warehouses of medicines, railway stations, shops, and homes, he said. In Kyiv Oblast, Russian strikes injured six people in Irpin, including three children, and three more were missing, oblast head Tymur Tkachenko said. In Kharkiv Oblast, six people were injured, including two children, Koretskyi said. In Rivne Oblast, four people were injured, and one of them was hospitalized, regional police reported.
Zelenskyy said that more than 10 energy facilities were damaged and at least 550,000 families lost power. Ukrenergo reported new outages in 10 oblasts: Volyn, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Mykolaiv. In Volyn Oblast, about 15 jet-powered Shahed-type drones targeted the region, and around 66,000 customers were without power on the morning of 19 October, oblast head Roman Romaniuk said. Kovel, Manevychi, and Lutsk were hit hardest, and no casualties were reported. In Vinnytsia Oblast, a critical infrastructure facility in Koziatyn was damaged, and power there would stay unstable for some time, city council secretary Iryna Repalo said, Suspilne reported.
Zelenskyy said Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast. The Air Force reported that Russia also used Iskander-K cruise missiles and 269 drones, and that by 09:00 air defenses had shot down or suppressed four Iskander-K cruise missiles and 243 drones. Its preliminary count did not list any ballistic missiles among the intercepted targets.
On 19 October, Rubio told reporters in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, that “there’s been no pause” in intelligence-sharing with Ukraine, Reuters reported. He said he did not know where Zelenskyy was getting such claims and that he should focus on ending the war. He also said he did not know whether a failure had happened the previous night, but that a few nights earlier there had been a software problem with “their early warning system,” and that US European Command was looking into the strikes, The Guardian reported. US officials had not mentioned a software glitch before, and in at least one case Ukraine was told that bad weather over southern Russia had hidden launch preparations, the newspaper noted.
Ihnat said Ukrainian specialists and their partners were working to establish why information about the first launch had not arrived. He added that similar gaps had occurred during earlier attacks.
Zelenskyy wrote that when missile supplies for Ukraine’s air defense are blocked while Russia gets sanctions relief or delays, “this is, unfortunately, a denial of reality on the part of partners.” A night earlier, Russia had hit Ukraine’s energy system again, while Ukrainian drones set fire to St. Petersburg’s oil terminal despite Washington’s pressure to stop refinery strikes.
Ukrainian president accuses Washington of ‘denial of reality’ in continuing row with Trump over apparent support for Moscow
Ukraine did not receive a warning from the US about an impending Russian missile attack on Sunday evening, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, reviving concerns that Washington is withholding intelligence to bully Kyiv into capitulating to Moscow.
Yuri Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, said on television on Monday morning that Ukraine had not received a warning before a Russian missile barrage hit power plants in Kyiv at about 11pm. Earlier, a Ukrainian government official had told the Guardian the US had not warned the capital about the impending missile strike.
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© Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
© Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
© Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
The US has resumed sharing intelligence on Russian ballistic missile launches with Ukraine after a pause of several days, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News on 18 October. The blackout fell on days when Russia was firing ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Limits on the Starlink satellite service that Ukraine’s forces rely on remain in place, he said.
Russia has leaned on ballistic missiles in this month’s strikes on Ukraine’s grid, firing 39 in a single attack, and Ukraine is short of interceptors to stop them. Washington has used its support as leverage, reportedly telling Kyiv to spare Russian refineries or lose US intelligence and arms.
The sharing had been blocked for some period of time before it was restored, Zelenskyy said on Meet the Press.
“We are very thankful for this. Now it works,” he said.
Ukraine gets other intelligence from Europeans and dozens of other partners, he explained. But only the United States has the data that tells Kyiv when Russia launches ballistic missiles.
“We didn’t get it during ballistic attacks during three days,” Zelenskyy said.
A timely warning gives Ukraine’s air defenses extra minutes to prepare and lets authorities alert civilians, Liga noted. Late on 12 October, Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv before the air-raid alert reached people, with no advance data on launches from Russian territory. The next day, US President Donald Trump said Washington was still sharing intelligence. Two days later, Zelenskyy said Kyiv had received no US warnings of incoming ballistic missiles while it paused its strikes on Russian refineries at Washington’s request. That pause followed the energy ceasefire Trump declared on 11 October, which Russia never confirmed.
Starshield, the military version of Starlink, still cuts out above 161 km/h, Zelenskyy said, too slow for Ukraine’s interceptor drones to catch Russia’s jet-powered Shahed-type drones. NBC News, which aired the interview, separately reported that Starlink services had resumed at normal speed. He said Ukraine’s generals and government believe the order came from the US government and SpaceX carried it out, though he did not know who exactly made the call. Ukraine had instead asked SpaceX and Trump to open Starlink over Russia so it could hit ballistic missile launchers, he said.
“If [Trump] will personally decide to lift this decision, it will immediately work as it was before,” he said.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who appeared on the same show, called Zelenskyy’s charge “very reckless” and said Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio had denied any administration role. Asked about the break in intelligence sharing, he said he did not know anything about it but that Zelenskyy should be “very careful about making statements like this that aren’t true.” Reuters had reported, citing three officials, that White House officials ordered the Pentagon to limit the service.
Asked whether Ukraine could win without the United States, Zelenskyy said it would be very difficult.
“But if the United States will support Putin, I mean, it’s unbelievable, it’s tragedy. It’s historic mistake and big tragedy,” he said.
He also said his team had received word that US negotiators wanted to meet, and that he had offered to meet in Brussels or London, hoping the US team would be ready this week.
The warnings are back, but they stopped once without explanation. Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s missiles still runs through decisions made in the US.
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