Key developments on Oct. 26:Ukrainian forces carry out 2 aerial evacuations of wounded soldiers, video showsDeath toll from Russian attack on park in Kharkiv Oblast on Oct. 19 rises to 6 after child dies in hospitalUkraine strikes Russian plant producing missile, bomb batteries in Yelets, General Staff
"Russia is building the military-industrial capacity to continue waging wars even after the war in Ukraine ends. These are not the actions of a country preparing for lasting peace," Oleksandr Danylyuk, chairman of the Center for Defense Reforms and former chief adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, told the Kyiv Independent.
It was the second night running that Russia sent at least 140 drones, and strikes hit 15 locations both times.
Ukraine will not discuss limits to its armed forces or enforced neutrality at November meeting, president says. What we know on day 1,706A trilateral meeting between Kyiv, Washington and Moscow will take place in November aiming to restart stalled Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
“We are ready to talk. If it’s a territorial issue, it must be addressed at a leadership level. Other issues fall within the remit of the technical groups. All this can therefore be discussed in November,” the Ukrainian president said on Sunday in an interview.
Zelenskyy also renewed his push for a meeting between him and Vladimir Putin, believing that Putin is the only person in Russia who can make major decisions to end the war.Zelenskyy says that at the trilateral talks, Ukraine will not discuss limits to its armed forces, or enforced postwar neutrality.
Kyiv has long sought entry into Nato despite the reticence of some members.Meanwhile, US warnings about imminent Russian ballistic missile strikes, critical to Ukraine’s air defences, have been fully restored, according to Zelenskyy. He told Ukraine’s TSN television channel that SpaceX’s Starshield satellite internet had been working at speeds of up to 420km/h since early on Saturday, after a meeting with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo.
Starshield was throttled earlier in October amid diplomatic pressure on Kyiv from Washington.The US has been trying to pressure Ukraine to suspend strikes on Russian oil refineries, which it says push energy prices higher. However, Zelenskyy has repeatedly said Kyiv will only stop the strikes if Moscow stops hitting Ukraine’s power infrastructure, or if the US allows Ukraine to use of Starshield over Russia to detect launch places of its ballistic missiles, or if it supplies Ukraine with Patriot missiles.Zelenskyy on Sunday said Russia had launched nearly 2,300 drones targeting Ukrainian cities over the past week, renewing his call on western allies to speed up deliveries of interceptors.
“This week alone, Russia has launched about 1,600 guided bombs, 48 missiles of various types, including ballistic missiles, and almost 2,300 strike drones at Ukraine,” he wrote in an online post.Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its drones had struck a cargo vessel bound for the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk in an overnight attack and another cargo vessel en route to the port of Odesa during the day.
The ministry said the vessels were being used to supply the Ukrainian army. Russian forces also hit a logistics centre, a distribution centre and a logistics terminal in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv overnight. Reuters could not confirm the reports.A Ukrainian drone attack overnight on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed three people and injured 13, local authorities said on Sunday, while a separate drone strike later in the day killed another person.
The overnight attack on Belgorod damaged 30 apartment buildings, regional governor Alexander Shuvayev said.The presidential election in Bulgaria on Sunday ended inconclusively, with the next head of state to be picked in a runoff. In a surprisingly strong performance, the candidate of the pro-western reformist opposition, Andrey Gyurov, will face the incumbent leftist president, Iliana Yotova.
Iotova opposes military aid to Ukraine and favours dialogue with Russia, while Gyurov has often expressed firm support for Kyiv. The vote was held amid security concerns after a series of drone attacks on ships in the Black Sea. Continue reading...
Ukrainian Storm Shadows reportedly hit Russia’s only maker of glide bomb guidance batteries and drones struck a titanium plant in the Urals 1,500 km away, while the Pope’s envoy became the first foreign representative to reach Ukrainian POWs in Russia since 2022, Ukraine’s ombudsman says.
The plant is reportedly Russia’s only producer of batteries for glide bomb guidance modules and a key supplier of specialized power sources for missile systems used in attacks on Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Sunday, Oct. 25, that Russian forces launched roughly 1,600 guided aerial bombs, 2,300 strike drones, and 48 missiles – including ballistic systems – against Ukraine over the past week. Overnight bombardments damaged thermal power plants, substations, coal mines, grain silos, and a postal depot across nine regions, alongside deadly strikes in Dnipropetrovsk region, Vinnytsia, and Kharkiv.