While the world, spurred on by Trump, argues over who is to blame for oil prices, Russia sent a drone this morning to strike another public minibus, this time in the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk. Five people died at the scene, and at least seven were hospitalized. Over the past day, Russian attacks in Ukraine have killed at least nine people and wounded 36, which has been a relatively standard daily toll for several months now. Overnight, Russia launched another 80 drones—including Shaheds, their jet-powered variants, Gerbers, and decoys—and air defenses shot down 63 of them, with strikes reported from ten locations. In the Zaporizhzhia region, one person was killed and seven were injured; Russian forces carried out 746 strikes against 52 locations there over the course of the day. In the Kherson region, one person was killed and seven were injured; two people were killed in Sloviansk; and in the Kharkiv region, twelve people were injured. In response to the attack, Poland scrambled its fighter jets shortly after 7:00 a.m., put its ground-based air defense on alert, and suspended operations at the airports in Lublin and Rzeszów for forty minutes. And this also happened:

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• Ukraine has eliminated Russian Major General Anton Grunis. This was confirmed by Robert Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, who stated that on September 12, a unit from the 427th Separate Unmanned Systems Regiment, known as “Rarog,” took him out in the occupied territory of the Donetsk region. Grunis commanded the 4th Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade on the Kostiantynivka front and in July personally reported to Putin that Russian forces had captured Kostiantynivka. The Ukrainians denied this at the time … and fighting for the city continues to this day. On August 27—barely three weeks ago—Grunis received the Gold Star of the Hero of the Russian Federation from Defense Minister Belousov for courage and heroism. “The Hungarian” added that this was already the seventh Russian commander at the brigade, division, or army level whom his units had eliminated.
• Three of Russia’s six largest refineries curtailed or completely halted operations in September due to Ukrainian drones. The six refineries—Kirishi, NORSI, Taneko, Omsk, Perm, and Volgograd—account for roughly half of Russia’s total oil production. Kirishi has shut down completely, while NORSI and Volgograd are operating at about a quarter of capacity. In the Leningrad region, where Kirishi is located, authorities have imposed limits on fuel purchases at gas stations. It’s worth recalling that last week Trump called on Zelensky to stop destroying Russian oil, claiming that it is driving up fuel prices worldwide. According to the data, however, the price increases are primarily due to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
• In her annual State of the Union address, Ursula von der Leyen presented a new mechanism to counter Russian hybrid threats, modeled after NATO. It is to include a so-called anti-hybrid manual and a tool supplementing Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty for incidents that do not reach the level of armed aggression but clearly threaten security. For Ukraine itself, the speech offered very little.
• U.S. prosecutors have charged five people linked to a Russian network that allegedly organized acts of sabotage and assassinations targeting supporters of Ukraine or opposition figures in countries that support Ukraine. According to the indictment, the network has been operating since at least 2024 and most recently attempted to recruit several people directly in the U.S. to track down and kill Russian dissidents in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars.
• The ISW reported today that the Ukrainian counteroffensive, codenamed “Vivaldi,” has disrupted Russia’s plan to encircle the Donetsk defensive line. The operation north of Lyman is being led by the 3rd Army Corps, and its commander, Andriy Biletsky, only revealed it on Tuesday, stating that the Ukrainians had cleared 75 square kilometers and that this was only the first series of counterattacks so far.
• According to DW, a Cuban salsa instructor living in Russia recruited at least a dozen people to carry out acts of sabotage across Europe on behalf of Russian intelligence services. The targets included businesses, a bus depot (!), and equipment destined for Ukraine.
• A Russian drone strike destroyed a warehouse containing costumes, sets, and props from the past 20 years of the “Kvartal 95” comedy studio, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy co-founded before entering politics.
• Belarus will release 25 political prisoners in exchange for U.S. sanctions relief. Special Envoy John Coale announced this, noting that the U.S. will lift sanctions on two Belarusian companies: Lakokrasky and Bellesbumprom.
• The U.S. House of Representatives has moved a bill imposing sanctions on Russia to the next stage. The latest procedural vote passed on Tuesday by a narrow margin of 214 to 211; the final vote is scheduled for today.
• Yulia Mendel, a collaborator and former spokesperson for Zelenskyy, was invited by the pro-Russian AfD to speak at the European Parliament. However, due to Ukrainian sanctions, she was barred from entering the building.
• Two European Commissioners sent a letter to the Verkhovna Rada reminding it that it can close the gap in the Ukrainian budget on its own if it pushes through the promised reforms.
• Zelenskyy rejected Kushner’s ridiculous idea of a peace deal in which “everyone wins.” According to him, that’s not possible if Putin wants all of Ukraine.
• Democrats in Congress have launched an investigation into Donald Trump Jr.’s ties to a Russian oligarch.
• Ukraine struck a Russian Su-24 aircraft at the Saky airport in occupied Crimea.
• According to “The Fisherman,” Ukrainian forces have re-entered the Luhansk region.

Interesting videos

• Updated RuAF Losses
• Vivaldi
• Russian propaganda has another bizarre story
• “Elections” are taking place in the Donbas
• Sabotage in Russia
• Minus General Grunis
• Russian drone over Odessa
• Analyzing Logistics

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Last night on his Truth Social account, Trump announced that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to attack each other’s energy infrastructure, and immediately added that Russia’s war with Ukraine—not Iran—is to blame for the global rise in oil prices. Neither of the parties mentioned has confirmed the agreement yet, though Moscow welcomed Trump’s statement. When asked by a reporter whether Russia truly intends to halt such strikes, Peskov replied… that he would not answer. Zelenskyy, on the other hand, had said a few hours earlier that Ukraine had proposed to its partners that they negotiate with Russia to halt strikes on critical infrastructure—namely, the energy sector, food supply chains, logistics, and other facilities necessary for meeting the basic needs of the population. “If our partners can ensure that Russia truly has no intention of attacking our power grid, other energy facilities, critical infrastructure, or food supply chains, then we are, of course, prepared to refrain from carrying out such strikes. It must be reliable, long-term, and have a real impact on people’s lives—not something that will fall apart as soon as the Russians hold their ‘elections’ and get temporary relief on gasoline and diesel prices,” he said. In other words: Kyiv is offering a clearly conditional ceasefire and is waiting for concrete guarantees, while that idiot Trump has, in the meantime, unilaterally declared a done deal online. The U.S. war with Iran—which took part of the Middle East’s refining capacity offline and effectively choked off the Strait of Hormuz—naturally doesn’t feature in his explanation of oil prices. And this also happened:

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• Denys Prokopenko, commander of the 1st Corps of the Azov National Guard, warned at the Yalta European Strategy forum that Russia could mobilize up to 600,000 people for another offensive, which is double the previously announced fall draft of 300,000, due to Putin’s stated goal of occupying the Donetsk and Luhansk regions down to the last meter. According to him, by the end of the fall campaign, the Russians will attempt to fight their way into one of the Donbas strongholds—Dobropillya, Kostyantynivka, Druzhkivka, Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, or Sviatohirsk—and use it as a springboard for a further offensive. As early as October, Prokopenko says, due to rain, fog, and shorter days, they may shift from small infantry groups to mechanized breakthroughs. Then, at the beginning of winter, part of the mobilized reserves may head north to the Sumy and Chernihiv regions with the aim of creating a buffer zone there, continuing the terror campaign against Kyiv, and tying down Ukrainian reserves so they cannot be redeployed to the east.
• Satellite images have shown that Russia is continuing to expand its suicide drone factory. The Dnipro Osint channel has published images of the southern part of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone near Yelabuga in Tatarstan—over a thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border—where at least five completed, long production halls with new internal roadways stand, and more are under construction. Since 2023, the zone has been assembling Geran strike drones and Gerbera decoys, which are produced at one-tenth the cost of a Shahed, in order to force the Ukrainian defense to waste its anti-aircraft missiles. According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia is producing roughly 3,000 jet-powered drones per month and has stockpiled over 6,000 Gerans for mass attacks. Chinese companies supply the engines, navigation systems, and avionics, while students from the local Alabuga Polytechnic and female migrant workers from Africa and Central Asia work on the production line.
• Ukrainian drones once again targeted the Krasnodar Region overnight, focusing primarily on Sochi. The target was the 92N6 radar station, one of the key components of the S-400 Triumf air defense system, which detects aerial targets and guides missiles toward them. Monitoring channels also reported possible strikes near the port and an oil depot, and according to initial reports, Bocharov Ruchey, Putin’s residence in Sochi, was also damaged. During the night, strikes were also reported on warehouses and launch sites for Russian strike drones near Kursk and in occupied Donetsk, the command post of the drone unit in Novohrodivka, radar stations near Lityzh, Trostenchyk, and Lipovka in the Bryansk region; three relay stations in the Bryansk region; and a short-range navigation system near Saky Airport in occupied Crimea.
• In Odessa, the Russians set fire to a warehouse belonging to the pharmaceutical distributor BaDM—one of the largest wholesalers supplying Ukrainian pharmacies—during a nighttime airstrike. This is the fourth drug warehouse to be hit in two weeks: Yesterday, a Russian strike also destroyed the sorting center of the EVA chain, which supplied stores in the Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Kherson regions.
• Polish soldiers recovered a drone from the Baltic Sea that, according to preliminary data, was manufactured by the Russian military. Donald Tusk warned that “very intense actions” can be expected from Russia in the coming months. A former Polish defense minister believes that Russia’s strikes near the border are intended to intimidate Poles and weaken support for Ukraine, and he did not rule out further provocations directly on Polish territory, possibly under a false flag.
• According to the Financial Times, Canada is in talks to join the EU’s support loan for Ukraine; both sides aim to finalize the amount before the EU–Canada summit in Montreal in late October. In addition, the World Bank will soon provide Ukraine with $841 million in budgetary support backed by Canadian guarantees.
• In Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region, Banderol-type guided missiles struck the town center around 10 a.m. They hit the warehouses of an agricultural company and surrounding buildings. Three people were killed, and the number of injured rose to twelve by the afternoon.
• The Trump administration is considering allowing Ukraine to manufacture “less sophisticated” anti-missile systems for the Patriot system. At the same time, they presented Zelensky with new interceptors designed to counter jet-powered drones.
• Mediazona has identified more than 248,000 fallen Russian soldiers by name in its database. Since the last update at the end of August, 6,097 names have been added to the list.
• The Ukrainian Navy reports that Russia has been firing Kalibr cruise missiles directly from its bases for the fourth consecutive month without sending its ships into the Black Sea.
• The Polish military has been ordered to shoot down all enemy aircraft that enter the country’s airspace.
• Ukraine will have a guaranteed capacity at the new LNG terminal in Klaipėda, Lithuania.

Interesting videos

• Updated RuAF Losses
• Pavlohrad
• Safari in Kherson
• Drug Warehouses in Odessa
• Peskov

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Ukrainian drones flew toward two Russian cities overnight. In Taganrog, in the Rostov region, residents reported a series of loud explosions. According to the ASTRA portal, smoke rose from the Taganrog-Centralny military airfield, home to the 708th Military Transport Aviation Regiment; the 325th Aircraft Repair Plant, which maintains, among other things, the rare A-50U aircraft and Il-76 transport planes, is also located nearby. Satellite data showed a fire at the TagAZ automobile plant in Taganrog, where drones are manufactured for the Russian military. The second target of the night was Tolyatti in the Samara Region, roughly 880 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, where the Kuybyshevazot chemical plant was on fire following an airstrike; one of the key enterprises in Russia’s nitrogen industry, which produces ammonia, ammonium nitrate, urea, and caprolactam, and accounts for roughly half of Russia’s caprolactam production and three-quarters of the cord fabrics used in tires. Its products are also used in the manufacture of solid rocket propellants for tactical and ballistic missiles. And this also happened:

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• Anthropic released a report stating that Russia used its Claude model in cyberattacks against Ukraine and Europe. According to the document, the most frequent targets were members of the Ukrainian government, military, and diplomatic corps. The attacker scanned email services and remote access systems at more than two dozen Ukrainian government organizations. The GTG-20006 group, which Anthropic links to the state-sponsored Midnight Blizzard group, used automation to speed up its work and modified the malware itself to evade known security tools. It also took over WhatsApp accounts: it connected them via a browser farm, disabled read receipts so that victims would not notice anything, and exported Russian and Ukrainian conversations in bulk. At least two former high-ranking Ukrainian officials were targeted in this manner.
• Overnight, Russia launched a combined attack against Ukraine: Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles from the Voronezh and Rostov regions and from occupied Crimea; eight Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea; six Kh-59/69 guided missiles launched over the Black Sea; and 129 Shahed-type drones, S8000 Banderol missiles, and Parodija decoys from Kursk, Orel, the occupied Donetsk region, and Hvardijsk in Crimea. Roughly half of the Shaheds were jet-powered. The main target was the Odesa region. Air defenses shot down or neutralized 110 targets: six Kalibr missiles, one Banderol, two Kh-59/69 missiles, and 101 drones. Hits were reported from twenty locations, and debris fell at four additional sites.
• In Odessa, a Russian strike hit a multi-story residential building. The number of injured rose to at least twelve by mid-morning, including one child. Oleh Kiper, head of the Odessa Regional Administration, described the attack as a massive missile and drone strike on the region’s civilian infrastructure. Shortly after the airstrike, the Air Force warned that more Shahed drones were in the area.
• British Chief of the General Staff Richard Knighton stated that more than half a million Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since February 2022. This represents a portion of the 1.5 million Russian casualties, including the wounded and missing, which roughly matches Ukrainian estimates. According to him, the overwhelming majority of these losses occurred after January 2023, during which time Russia captured about two percent of Ukrainian territory. Knighton added that the Russian military also lost an “enormous” amount of equipment.
• In an interview with Canada’s CBC, Zelenskyy said that Putin will never give up on his goal of occupying all of Ukraine. “He wants to occupy all of us. And he will do so if we are not strong enough, if the world grows weary, and if we do not receive security guarantees,” he said, adding that such guarantees must mean that Ukraine will not have to fear another occupation. He added that he is ready for direct talks with Putin and rejected the idea that all sides could emerge from the war as winners.
• Overnight, Kaspiysk in Tatarstan was struck, along with a Project 11661K Gepard-class frigate stationed there, which is armed with Uran anti-ship missiles and an Osa-MA anti-aircraft system and serves as the flagship of the Russian Caspian Flotilla.
• Overnight, the Russians shelled Kryvyi Rih with ballistic missiles from several directions. A strike on an industrial facility left one person dead and two injured. During the same wave of attacks, Dnipro was also hit, where another industrial complex caught fire.
• German investigators believe that a Russian GRU officer organized the drone attack on the Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4, 2026. He entered Germany via Turkey, then flew to Serbia, and is currently in Russia.
• Vladimir Putin has once again threatened Europe. According to him, sending European troops into Ukrainian territory would mean war with Russia, while at the same time he claims that Moscow poses no threat to Europe.
• A fire broke out at the ammunition depots of the Bulgarian company EMCO near the village of Gorni Vărpišta. This is the second such incident in just one month.
• According to Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine will need at least $91 billion over the next decade to rebuild and develop its energy sector.
• Portugal supported the use of frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine.
• Canada will allocate more than $30 million for the rehabilitation of Ukrainian veterans.

Interesting videos

• Updated RuAF Losses
• A Ukrainian drone flees from a helicopter
• Minus 78
• The Vatnici Are Rebelling
• Polish Nazi vandalizes UPA memorial
• Minus the ramp with Shahed
• Bull’s-eye!
• Russian airstrike on a gas station in Kyiv
• Minus Russian technology
• One less valuable item

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The General Staff confirmed that the Ukrainian strikes on Novorossiysk on September 9 hit at least three Russian warships: the frigate Admiral Essen, the large landing ship Petr Morgunov, and the small naval minesweeper Zheleznyakov. According to the Ukrainian Navy, the frigate, which carries Kalibr cruise missiles, was hit by an anti-ship missile from the Neptune system, and the bridge was on fire after the strike. In addition to the ships, local fuel oil storage facilities were also hit. The operation was led by the HUR’s Active Operations Department in coordination with other components of the defense forces. The command has not yet specified the extent of the damage to the vessels. However, the first satellite images confirming the strikes emerged later that day. And this also happened:

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• Ukrainian drones have reached Western Siberia for the first time. Special Operations Forces reported a strike on the Novourengoy gas condensate processing plant in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, approximately 3,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. This is the deepest strike since the start of the major invasion, and according to the Special Operations Forces, it targeted an area that Russia had previously considered completely secure. The plant processes about 19.5 million metric tons of raw material annually and produces diesel and other petroleum products for the Russian military. The second target was the neighboring Purovsky gas condensate processing plant, which processed 13.4 million metric tons last year alone. The Ukrainian arms manufacturer Fire Point, producer of the Flamingo missiles, claimed responsibility for the attack using an FP-1 drone; prior to that, it had only posted a message along the lines of “guess who traveled over 3,300 kilometers and hit the target.” The strikes then continued with an airstrike on Makhachkala in Dagestan, Russia’s only ice-free deep-water port on the Caspian Sea and a key hub in the logistics corridor between Russia and Iran, through which components and Shahed drones flow from Iran and, in the opposite direction, explosives, drone parts, and ammunition.
• Rosneft’s Ryazan refinery, which supplies gasoline to Moscow and the surrounding area, completely halted oil processing following a drone attack on September 6. According to two Reuters sources, both primary units that were operating at the time of the attack were damaged: AT-6, accounting for about 48 percent of the plant’s capacity, and AVT-4, accounting for another 23 percent. The third unit, AVT-3—which accounts for roughly 18 percent of capacity—has not been operational since an airstrike in May. It is Rosneft’s largest refinery and one of the three largest in Russia. It produces over two million metric tons of gasoline and more than three million metric tons of diesel annually. This is the third shutdown due to drones since late spring; repairs are reportedly expected to take several weeks.
• The Romanian intelligence service, SRI, foiled a sabotage operation coordinated by Russia. A 40-year-old Russian citizen was detained. Between February and July, he took photographs and videos of targets of strategic military importance, including Romanian and allied military bases, communications centers, movements of military equipment and personnel, as well as Ukrainian ANTONOV cargo planes during their stay on Romanian territory.
• According to Serhiy Skibchyk, an officer with the 65th Brigade, Russia has amassed about 120 assault groups from the 58th Army—specifically from the 19th and 42nd Motorized Rifle Divisions—near Orikhiv. In total, this amounts to roughly 150,000 soldiers. However, the line of contact has not changed, and the city remains under Ukrainian control. Only the so-called “kill zone” has expanded, which complicates logistics for both the Russians and the Ukrainians.
• According to Vladyslav Vlasyuk, the President’s Special Representative for Sanctions, three of the five tankers targeted by U.S. forces on September 8 have direct ties to Russia’s shadow fleet. These are the Kaviz, Charminar, and Riesco, which were transporting Russian oil, calling at Russian ports, and turning off their AIS tracking systems. All three are subject to sanctions imposed by both Ukraine and the U.S.
• A fire broke out in Sochi following an attack by Ukrainian naval drones. The attack interrupted a concert by singer Tatyana Bulanova, who has publicly supported Russia’s aggression since the start of the large-scale invasion. Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, noted that a number of members of the Russian elite were in Sochi at the time.
• In Sumy, a Russian drone struck the Manufaktura shopping and entertainment center in the city center. A 21-year-old man and a woman of the same age were killed, and at least 20 people were injured, including three children; four of them are in serious condition. The Russians then attacked the center once more.
• Trump described his phone call with Putin as “great.” According to him, Putin wants a deal, and if Zelenskyy wanted one too, that would be “very nice.” When asked what is standing in the way of peace, he replied that it comes down to two people who hate each other. He said he does not rule out a trilateral meeting.
• Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said on NRK television that a Russian drone nearly struck the plane carrying Zelenskyy as it took off from a Moldovan airport on Tuesday; Zelenskyy was en route to the funeral of King Harald V.
• In a new report, Amnesty International has labeled Russia’s recruitment of foreigners into the military as human trafficking. According to the report, Russia targets people from poor countries, uses coercion, and sends them straight into combat after two weeks.
• The Russian FSB arrested a security guard at the British Embassy and accused him of attempting a terrorist attack against the British ambassador “on the orders of Ukrainian intelligence services.”
• According to the Financial Times, Trump is considering giving CIA Director John Ratcliffe a greater role in the negotiations to end the war, while the roles of envoys Witkoff and Kushner will be scaled back.
• In Khmelnytskyi, the wreckage of a downed drone set a market on fire. An explosion occurred while firefighters were extinguishing the blaze, and four firefighters were injured.
• Zelenskyy has arrived in Canada; he is set to discuss primarily air defense and preparations for winter with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
• The SBU foiled an FSB plot to assassinate a civil society activist in the Kyiv region and detained a suspect.
• A Russian agent who helped direct strikes against the city was detained in Kharkiv.
• Russian casualties have exceeded one and a half million.

Interesting videos

• Updated RuAF Losses
• Minus artillery
• Sums
• Recruits
• Sochi
• Prisoners

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