Russia builds 200 missiles, 10,000 drones a month, Ukrainian intelligence says

Ukraine's military intelligence puts Russian output at more than 200 missiles and about 10,000 strike drones a month, with up to 700 ballistic missiles in stock before winter. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin October 21, 2026

Russia is building more than 200 missiles and about 10,000 strike drones a month, Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) told NV on October 20.

The agency puts the stockpile as of October at up to 700 ballistic missiles, several thousand cruise missiles of various types and more than 6,000 strike drones. Of the missiles coming off the lines each month, 110 are ballistic.

That is a war industry already running past the plan Ukrainian intelligence set out for it a year ago, when it reported a Russian aim to double missile output to 2,500 a year and lift drone production to 2,700 a month. The headline missile rate annualises to more than 2,400 a year, while the named classes add up to about 225 a month; the drone figure is almost four times the stated 2,700-a-month plan. Ukraine, which started the war with no missile industry of its own, still counts its missile output in the hundreds a year.

Russia already outbuilds Ukraine's 2027 missile target. Annual output of missiles and of drones of all types, the current rate against the stated plan or 2027 target. Russian missile output is GUR's monthly figure annualised; Russia's 2,500-a-year plan dates from 2025 and no 2027 figure has been published. Drone totals include FPV models and are not like for like with long-range strike output.

Ukraine now makes 10mn drones a year and wants 20mn with help from its partners, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in July, against about 4mn in 2025. Its missile and drone arsenal is the mirror image of Russia's: the missile side rests on the Neptune and the Flamingo, whose maker Fire Point plans serial production from 2027 at up to seven a day, or 2,555 missiles a year, with a ballistic programme that saw its first combat use, of the FP-7, in October.

Russian missiles 

The Kh-101 remains the mainstay of Russia's mass strikes, with a monthly plan of more than 80 and factories said to be beating it. Iskander-M output runs at up to 65 a month against a stock of about 115.

The RM-48U, an S-300PM and S-400 air defence missile adapted to hit ground targets, is made at about 40 a month from a stock of up to 400, and the sea-launched Kalibr at about 29 against more than 450 held. Most new Kalibrs go to the strategic reserve and to the fleets because Ukrainian air defences shoot down so many, the agency said.

Russian output a month by class, October 2026, with the stockpile in brackets. Tsirkon and Oniks are given by GUR as year-to-date and seven-month totals and are shown here as a monthly average; Kinzhal production is suspended. GUR's drone total of 10,000 a month is larger than the variants it names, and the residual is plotted as unaccounted for. Source: Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR).

Stocks of the modernised Oniks anti-ship missile, now given a longer range and a heavier warhead, exceed 600, of which more than 55 were built in the first seven months of 2026.

The hypersonic Tsirkon passes 120, with just over 30 made this year. Production of the Kinzhal aeroballistic missile has been suspended because it was not accurate enough, and that capacity switched to conventional ballistics.

The list leaves out the Banderol, the cheap light cruise missile Russia put into mass production in August.

Russian drones

On drones the agency gives a total of 10,000 one-way attack aircraft a month and an operational reserve of about 6,200 Geran airframes of all modifications, jet-powered ones included. Since the summer the effort has gone into the jet Geran-4 and Geran-5, at up to 4,000 a month, alongside up to 2,000 piston Geran-2s and hundreds of plywood and foam Gerbera decoys flown to drain air defences and expose Ukrainian launcher positions.

This year's state order for Geran-type and decoy drones at the Alabuga special economic zone in Tatarstan has passed 100,000 units, a figure intelligence said showed "a systemic bet by the enemy on exhausting the Ukrainian air defence system", Ukrainska Pravda reported on October 21.

Russia is also developing a modernised Iskander-M with a projected range of 550-700 km, against up to 500 km now. GUR deputy head Vadym Skibitskyi said in September that Russia planned to finish testing a new ballistic missile reaching 800 km by the end of 2026, and in August he put the defence industry's performance against its own missile plans at 110-120%.

Ukraine goes into winter with its interceptor missiles run dry and Russia again working to freeze it into submission by taking down the grid.

 

Russia strikes Kyiv with three cluster-warhead ballistic missiles, Zelenskyy says

Copyright AP Photo

By Sasha Vakulina

Published on 22/10/2026 - EURONEWS

The latest Russian bombardment of Ukraine's capital came just hours after US envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg, underscoring the stark contrast between Washington's renewed diplomatic efforts and Moscow's continuing attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Russian forces struck Kyiv overnight with three ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads designed to inflict maximum casualties across densely populated areas, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Thursday.

One of the missiles struck Pechersk, the Ukrainian capital's historic centre, hitting an area between the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Holy Presentation Monastery, damaging religious buildings, homes, shops, cafés and other civilian infrastructure.

The missiles were designed to detonate in the air as they approached their targets, dispersing explosive submunitions across an area 400 metres in diameter, Zelenskyy said.

Serhii Beskrestnov, Ukraine's presidential adviser known by his callsign "Flash", earlier identified one of the missiles as an Iskander equipped with a K5 cluster warhead.

At least two dead and dozens injured

"This warhead detonates above the ground and is used specifically for inflicting maximum harm to people and equipment over an area of 400 by 400 metres," Beskrestnov said, adding that its 58 bomblets explode in the air.

Zelenskyy accused Moscow of deliberately targeting civilians in Kyiv's historic centre, insisting that the choice of both weapon and location was intentional.

"This is another extraordinarily revealing strike – revealing because it was no accident. The choice of weapon was deliberate, the choice of target area was deliberate, and so was the intent to inflict as much loss and damage on civilians as possible," he said.

"There was no military target nearby, not even in theory, and the weapon was designed to cause widespread destruction."

The strike was part of a large-scale Russian aerial assault on the Ukrainian capital and surrounding region overnight on 21–22 October.

At least two people were killed and 34 others injured, including five children, across the affected areas, according to Zelenskyy.

Firefighters try to extinguish a fire after a Russian missile attack in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026. AP Photo

The bombardment came in several waves, with ballistic missiles and drones striking residential neighbourhoods, transport facilities and medical infrastructure across the capital.

Kyiv authorities reported damage in the Holosiivskyi, Obolonskyi, Pecherskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Dniprovskyi districts.

Ukraine's Air Force said Russia had launched 210 drones, including 110 jet-powered variants, alongside Iskander-M, S-400, Zircon and Onyx missiles.

Ukrainian air defences intercepted or suppressed 181 drones, including 87 jet-powered variants, while strikes were recorded at 32 locations and falling debris at another eight.

Zelenskyy said Russia had fired 21 missiles in total during three waves of ballistic strikes on Kyiv.

The attacks continued throughout Thursday, with further strikes reported in Kharkiv, Dnipro, Marhanets, Mykolaiv and Kherson, as well as several other regions. In Kharkiv, a commuter train was hit, according to the Ukrainian president.

Zelenskyy said Russia had carried out more than 170 strikes against critical energy facilities since 11 October, despite Ukrainian air defences intercepting significant numbers of drones and some missiles.

He warned that Ukrainian intelligence identified Russian priorities for further attacks in the coming weeks, accusing Moscow of exploiting delays in Western air defence supplies.

"Russia is clearly taking advantage of the slowdown in air defence supplies from our partners," he said, calling for the accelerated delivery of military assistance already approved by Ukraine's allies.

The overnight bombardment came just hours after US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg as Washington sought to revive negotiations to end the war.

During the visit, Witkoff described Putin as a "humanitarian", despite the Russian president being wanted by the International Criminal Court over the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.

Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Ukraine was ready to accept literally any form of truce, on any aspect of the war, that Russia would be willing to agree to.

But following the latest attacks, the Ukrainian president questioned Moscow's willingness to pursue peace.

"Russia has not changed the way it wages this war, and it is taking no steps that would signal a genuine desire to end it," he said.

 

Ukraine's partners peel away as Poland dispute threatens arms package over UPA honours

An unnamed source said a Polish arms package was on hold after a Lviv tribute to wartime nationalists; Poland’s defence ministry denied the report. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin October 22, 2026

Poland has put a large weapons package for Ukraine on hold after Lviv regional councillors voted to dedicate 2027 to the far-right  Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), RBC-Ukraine reported on October 21, relations with several of Ukraine's allies deteriorate thanks to diplomatic blunders. 

Later the same day, Poland’s defence ministry spokesman called the report “false information”, RBC-Ukraine reported, but relations with Poland are tenser than first appear due to lingering animocity over the Volhynia WWII massacre and a growing resentment to the million Ukrainian refugees living in the country. 

Councillors in Lviv voted on October 20 to name next year after the UPA, which served as the military wing of the OUN-B (the Banderite faction of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and has been accused by historians of participating in mass ethic cleansing and other atrocities. The year is also dedicated to UPA's commander Roman Shukhevych and the nationalist poet Oleh Olzhych.The regional authorities had "managed" to hold the vote just as Warsaw was preparing the shipment, the source said.

"Their irresponsible actions have now put delivery of this package on hold. Intensive efforts are underway through back channels to resolve a problem that was created out of nothing."

Ukraine fatigue is gathering momentum fast. When the UN General Assembly voted to condemn the invasion in March 2022, 141 states backed the text and just five opposed it – including Russia. This month, when Russia put its own resolution counting Western sanctions among the modern forms of colonialism to the Assembly’s Fourth Committee, only 49 countries voted against it — the US, the UK, Japan, Israel, Ukraine and all 27 EU members among them — while every BRICS state voted in favour, backing the Russian motion. The coalition that once mustered 141 votes against Moscow can no longer reliably field 50, and almost all of those it does field are Western.

Relations rows

The quarrel is the third in a month between Kyiv and a country it counts as a friend. South Korea is pulling half its diplomats out of Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused US President Donald Trump of pushing Ukraine to capitulate, and a growing number of EU governments say they will not help fill a €70bn hole in Ukraine's 2027 war budget.

The coalition behind Kyiv has shrunk from the whole EU, under the Biden administration, to the coalition of the willing and now to a handful of leaders whose voters are losing patience with the heavy spending going to 

Warsaw reacted angrily. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said such demonstrations "only harm Ukraine", and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski asked for a five-year Schengen entry ban on Sviatoslav Sheremeta, the councillor behind the resolution. Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz called the vote unacceptable and said it "deepens divisions" between the two nations. "The Ukrainian authorities must distance themselves from this position," he said.

Kyiv moved quickly. Ukraine's foreign ministry called the Lviv decision "counterproductive", and Poland's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki said officials close to Zelenskiy had promised it would not take effect. The announcement has since disappeared from the council's website, although it has not been formally revoked.

History wars

The UPA is honoured by many Ukrainians as an independence army that fought Soviet rule, but its units killed an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Polish civilians in Volhynia and eastern Galicia in 1943-1944, crimes Poland regards as genocide. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Ukrainians were also killed in the violence.

The Lviv vote reopens a wound that had barely closed. In the spring Zelenskiy gave a special forces unit the honorary title "Heroes of the UPA", and on June 19 Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped him of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest award. Senior politicians in Warsaw then threatened to block Ukraine's EU accession bid unless Kyiv stopped glorifying the UPA. Polish voters are with them: 44% favoured suspending military aid over the UPA honours in a July poll, against 41% who wanted it to continue.

The shift in Kyiv's memory politics has been driven from the top. In May Zelenskiy attended the reburial of Andriy Melnyk, a wartime leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists who offered to march alongside the Wehrmacht, with his chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov at his side. Budanov presented it as the first step towards a "Pantheon of Prominent Ukrainians".

The links between the state and the far right are an uncomfortable fact that Kyiv's allies have mostly chosen not to discuss. Andriy Biletsky, founder of the Azov movement, now commands the army's 3rd Corps and regularly appears in presidential polls, and veterans of Azov's political wing run frontline technology units showcased to Western defence companies.

Seoul walks out

South Korea said on October 20 it would withdraw about half of its embassy staff from Kyiv, after recalling its ambassador on October 8 for the first time in protest since a 2008 dispute with Japan. A charge d'affaires and the consular team will stay.

The row began when Zelenskiy told the UN General Assembly on September 23 that Ukraine had handed two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul. South Korea says both sides had agreed to keep the transfer secret to protect the men's families in North Korea. Kyiv "had taken no positive steps" despite repeated requests for an explanation and an apology, foreign ministry spokesman Park Doo-soon said. Seoul is one of the few Asian democracies that has backed Ukraine politically and with humanitarian aid.

Trump turns

The break with Washington is the most damaging. "I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate," Zelenskiy told Bloomberg in an interview on October 18, accusing the US of slowing Starlink connections, delaying Patriot interceptors and failing to pass on early warnings of Russian ballistic missile launches.

The quarrel followed Trump's deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold off new sanctions in exchange for Russian diesel exports to cool fuel prices before the November 3 midterms. Trump has since said "somebody else" should negotiate for Ukraine and told reporters that "Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine". It is the worst rupture since the Oval Office shouting match of February 2025, after which Kyiv spent weeks getting relations "back on track" by agreeing to US-led ceasefire talks.

Kyiv can least afford it now. Ukraine's interceptor missiles have run dry as Russia steps up strikes on the grid, and Nato officials fear the personal feud could force Kyiv into a painful settlement, Bloomberg reported on October 20.

Running out of money

Europe is also tiring of the bill. The EU has already lent Ukraine €90bn for 2026-2027, but Zelenskiy has asked for at least €70bn more to cover next year, putting the cost of the war in 2027 at €155bn. EU leaders agreed at their October 15-16 summit that the €70bn gap must be covered, but Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said straight afterwards that Czechia would not guarantee more borrowed EU money for Kyiv.

Bulgaria followed on October 20. "Bulgaria cannot contribute to this EUR 70 billion," Prime Minister Rumen Radev said, state news agency BTA reported. Radev had already pulled Bulgaria out of the coalition of the willing in July, saying it would not take part in a group "that insists on continuing financial and military aid to Ukraine", Ukrinform reported. With Slovakia refusing state military aid since Robert Fico returned to power in 2023, most of Central Europe is now outside the camp paying for Ukraine's war.

In France, the far-right frontrunner for next spring's presidential election, Marine Le Pen, has pledged to end financial support for Kyiv while continuing to train Ukrainian troops and supply military aid, the Kyiv Post reported.

Germany remains Kyiv's biggest European backer, but at a political cost to Chancellor Friedrich Merz. "My biggest concern is not our economy," Merz told the Berlin Global Dialogue this week, saying he worried more about Russia's influence on German society, the Berliner Zeitung reported. Only 15% of Germans are satisfied with his work, the AfD leads at a record 30% and more than four in 10 say German support for Ukraine has gone too far, an INSA poll for Bild am Sonntag showed in early October, Euronews reported.

That leaves Ukraine relying on a shrinking circle of governments in Berlin, Paris, London and the Nordic and Baltic capitals, whose leaders remain committed even as their voters drift away.

 

Kallas Accuses US Of Pushing Ukraine Towards Surrender

European Union's Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas. Photo Credit: Consilium/European Union

October 21, 2026

By Rapporteur

By Pietro Guastamacchia

Key Takeaways:

EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas told the European Parliament that Ukraine has not surrendered on Russian terms because of European support, despite nearly two years of American negotiators attempting to push Kyiv toward capitulation.

Her remarks follow Ukrainian accusations that Washington has halted sharing of intelligence used to intercept Russian missiles and has slowed Starshield satellite communications.

Kallas said she presented foreign ministers in February with a “maximalist plan” so Europe can table its own demands in negotiations, and insisted the EU must be at the table because any lifting of sanctions on Russia requires European decisions.

(Rapporteur) — The US has been trying to push Ukraine towards surrender and European support is all that prevents Kyiv’s capitulation to Vladimir Putin, Kaja Kallas told MEPs on Tuesday.

“Although American negotiators have been trying to push Ukraine into surrender for already almost two years, now why Ukraine hasn’t surrendered on Putin’s terms is because Europe has been supporting Ukraine,” she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday during a debate on security in the Black Sea.

Her remarks are an inflammatory criticism of Donald Trump and a strident defence of the EU’s role in the war as diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s invasion continue.

Her comments come as Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, has accused Washington of halting the sharing of vital intelligence used by Kyiv to intercept Russian missile strikes.

Kyiv has also accused Washington of slowing down Starshield satellite communications services, reducing the connectivity needed to maintain Ukraine’s interception capabilities over its cities.

Kallas also said she had presented foreign ministers with a “maximalist plan” for peace negotiations in February, arguing that Europe must put forward its own demands rather than simply respond to Russia’s.

“If Russia is presenting their maximum demands and requests, we should put our maximum demands also on the table to balance these negotiations,” she said.

Kallas added that the EU must be present at the negotiating table because any decision on lifting sanctions against Russia would require European involvement.

“All of those things that they are interested in, lifting sanctions, all of these things actually Europe needs to be around that table because it’s European decisions,” she said.

“Over the past hundred years, Russia has attacked numerous countries, some of them at least three or four times. We must therefore ensure that this does not happen again.”\


About Rapporteur
Rapporteur, formerly EurActiv, is Europe’s expert media organisation for policy and politics. Through deeply reported journalism, trusted expertise and a commitment to engagement with our audiences, we aim to help the people shaping Europe’s future make better decisions.
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Two Ukraine peace options for Europe to consider - FT

Gideon Rachman’s October 19 Financial Times opinion column outlined two possible trade-offs between territory and Ukraine’s Nato prospects. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin October 20, 2026

Gideon Rachman, the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist, has outlined two possible paths to peace in Ukraine, each trading territory against Nato membership.

• Freeze the war along the current front line with a guarantee that Ukraine would not join Nato.
• Ukraine gives up the rest of Donbas in exchange for Nato membership.

The proposals mark a shift in how Europe handles the war. After months of "Trump-whispering", coaching Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and flattering US President Donald Trump to soften Washington's line, European leaders are now preparing to talk directly to Moscow, according to Rachman, who said Europe sees direct involvement in peacemaking as a necessity now that its money is keeping Ukraine afloat after the cut-off in US financial aid, Rachman wrote on October 19 in an opinion column for the Financial Times.

Both choices would be seen as a betrayal by some in Ukraine, Rachman wrote, though Zelenskiy might be able to sell either given the strong desire for peace. European officials are much less confident that Putin would accept either one.

Ukrainian opinion is hostile to the Donbas option. In an October 8-16 poll published October 19, 61% of respondents called a withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the parts of Donbas Kyiv still controls, in exchange for US and European security guarantees, categorically unacceptable; 35% were ready to accept the concession, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.

Putin may also try to keep the Europeans out of the room. He has floated a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss Ukraine, which would leave out both Kyiv and its European backers, The Wall Street Journal reported on October 19.

The European rethink comes as relations between Kyiv and Washington sour again. Zelenskiy has accused the US of throttling Ukraine's satellite services, Kyiv has defied a US demand to stop hitting Russian energy facilities, and Trump has eased sanctions to let more Russian diesel onto world markets while urging Europe to resume Russian gas imports as part of a peace deal.

 

Ukraine's highly successful Operation Vivaldi ends

Ukraine's Third Army Corps says Operation Vivaldi freed 277 sq km and killed more than 8,000 Russian troops in four phases north of Lyman. Independent mapping backs the gains but not the casualty count. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin October 21, 2026

Russia’s winter campaign is just getting underway with a barrage of missiles and drones shattering what is left of Ukraine’s power sector and relations with the Trump administration hit a new low, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) highly successful Operation Vivaldi has reached the end of the fourth part of the concerto and pushed Russia’s forces back from the three key Fortress Belt cities in a victory for Bankova.

Ukrainian forces have driven Russian troops back to the Zherebets river and ended their Vivaldi offensive in the Donbas, Third Army Corps commander Andriy Biletskyi told hromadske on October 20.

The operation ran north of the town of Lyman and was fought in four phases that the corps named after Vivaldi's four concertos and called seasons. It began in the summer and was first made public on September 15. Biletskyi put the ground retaken at 277 sq km and 16 settlements, and said Russia's 144th Division of the 20th Army had been smashed and no longer existed as an organised force.

Russian troops entered Kostiantynivka in the summer, the southern anchor of the Donbas fortress belt, and closed on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two cities whose loss would have given Moscow the whole of Donetsk region and its central war aim. Vivaldi has pushed the line back east instead, and it has done so while the throttling of American military help leaves Ukraine's cities steadily more exposed to Russian missiles.

Pushback

Despite being outgunned and outmanned, Ukrainian assaults killed more than 8,000 Russian troops across the four phases, Biletskyi said, and 270 Russians surrendered, among them more than 20 officers. Two Russian battalion commanders died in the final phase.

"In Operation Vivaldi we attacked a stronger enemy and lost seven times fewer troops than Russia," he said. "Count only the dead and the gap is tenfold. Most Russian losses are killed, most of ours wounded. We can attack, and we can be effective."

Measured on Ukraine's map the operation freed 277 sq km, he said; measured on the maps Russia publishes, which he called fake, the same ground would come to 1,260 sq km.

The corps attacked with the troops already holding about 160 km of front, the longest sector in the war, and many of them had been retreating six months earlier, Biletskyi said. Russia had more men, more drones and far more artillery, but ended up retreating in disorder. 

Ukrainian used its new mid-range drones, introduced this year, to cause havoc to Russian logistic supply lines up to 150 km behind the line, he said. Russian troops once unloaded 10 to 15 km from the front and now get off 40 to 50 km back and walk in, with shells passed hand to hand over the last 20 to 30 km by what he called mules. On some days the corps destroys up to 50 Russian vehicles.

Disputed claims

Every one of those figures is the corps' own, given by the commander of the force and there is no independent count of Russian dead on the Lyman axis.

While it is clear t4he AFU has made extraordinary progress, the details remain cloaked in the fog of war and disinformation. The headline totals have grown as the operation went on. The area officially retaken stood at 176 sq km after three phases in late September, with more than 2,000 Russian losses claimed in the third phase alone.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in early October that more than 5,000 Russian troops had been killed and 250 captured, figures that could not be independently verified, The New York Times reported on October 7. When the corps announced the end of the operation on October 15 it put Russian losses for the whole of Vivaldi at 8,000 killed or wounded, United24 Media reported. Biletskyi's October 20 account has 8,000 killed.

The US-funded Institute for the Study of War put the ground Ukraine retook around Lyman at 147 sq km or more in its September mapping, and calculated that Russian forces had lost control of a net 293.59 sq km across the whole front since March, United24 Media reported on October 2. Russia lost dozens of square miles during the Ukrainian campaign and September was its worst month for net territorial gains since June 2023, The New York Times reported.

The 1,260 sq km figure is a claim about Russian cartography rather than a second measurement of the same ground, and no independent test of it is available.

French milblogger Clement Molin reports on the basis of confirmed strikes that the Ukrainian advances were wider than the Russian side were willing to admit. @clement_molin

 

The French milblogger Clement Molin said the operation's scope was broader than had been reported in September. Ukrainian troops had pushed on towards the Zherebets and reached it at several points, he said, and Russian forces no longer controlled any territory west of the river, with the exception of the forest east of Lyman.

Parts of that forest, the village of Zarichne and some nearby settlements remain in what Molin designates the grey zone. "Despite various rumors, I have not been able to confirm that the Ukrainians have actually crossed the river," he said.

South of the Siverskyi Donets, where Ukrainian units moved to clear Russian infiltrators, those operations recaptured territory and cleared some infiltrated areas, Molin said, but he prefers to keep a broad grey-zone marking because many Russian positions still remain.

Putin said on October 16 that Russian forces controlled the whole of Luhansk region. Biletskyi called that "absolute nonsense" and said Vivaldi had extended Ukrainian control in the region from about 40 km at its most vulnerable point to more than 100 km, Interfax-Ukraine reported on October 19.

Ukraine's General Staff disputed Russian claims of control over Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk, the outskirts of Sloviansk and Mykolaivka, with Major Andriy Kovaliov saying Ukrainian troops still held positions in Kostiantynivka as of October 17.

The line on the ground

Clearing the forests east of Lyman has fully secured the city, Molin said, which now lies well behind the front line and can be resupplied. Ukrainian artillery can sit in those forests to defend Sloviansk, and Ukrainian units can cross the Siverskyi Donets without constant threat from FPV drones, particularly around Izium.

The Third Army Corps, now under the Centre army group, has secured the northern flank of the Donbas and is working to stabilise the situation east of Sloviansk as winter sets in, Molin said. He ties the operations south of the river to General Mykhailo Drapatyi taking command of Ukraine's forces.

Molin does not expect Ukrainian troops to cross the Zherebets. They hold strong defensive positions on the western bank, he said, and a Russian crossing would be extremely difficult because it would mean negotiating a chain of about 10 dams along the river and its lakes.

Russia's broken plan

Russia's plan for 2026 was to break out of its bridgehead on the Chornyi Zherebets towards Sviatohirsk, cut Ukrainian forces east of the Oskil river in two and push on to Barvinkove, Biletskyi said. A second strike through the hard contested town of Dobropillia was to close the ring, and the objective was the whole of Donetsk region.

For now Russia has dropped both the encirclement of Donetsk region and a frontal assault on the remaining Fortress cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which he said would have been costly and bloody. Its main push is Dobropillia - a gateway to attacking the Fortress cities. 

"We disrupted the offensive of Russia's Zapad Group of Forces," Biletskyi said when the corps closed the operation, which it said had degraded the 20th and 25th Combined Arms Armies and the 1st Guards Tank Army.

Small groups and drones

Both sides have changed tactics this summer. Russian attacks shifted to small "infiltration" infantry formations over the summer, using dense vegetation to infiltrate Ukrainian positions, find weak points and establish forward footholds before heavier weapons were brought up. The method cut the visibility of an advance, under pressure from constant FPV drone attacks, and kept armoured vehicles out of reach of Ukrainian drones.  It has displaced the costly massed mechanised assault as Russia's main way of taking ground previously. 

At Pokrovsk that fell to Russia in December Russian troops infiltrated in small groups and the city stayed a contested grey zone for weeks, with Ukrainian military intelligence running counter-sabotage sweeps through streets that had no front line. Ukraine now uses the method itself: Vivaldi began as an operation to eliminate Russian infiltrators north of Lyman and grew into an offensive.

Supply roads behind the front are now a kill zone, crossed under anti-drone netting, with fibre-optic cables from Russian FPV drones strewn across the fields and ground robots carrying food and ammunition in place of vehicles. Ukrainian ground robots went further during Vivaldi, fitted with grenade launchers, driven up to Russian positions to fire at close range and then blown up inside them.

Ukrainian officers described gaps of up to a kilometre between defensive positions last autumn, with drone operators and mortar crews several kilometres behind the line fighting as improvised infantry because there were not enough men to hold it, and those are the gaps assault groups of four and five men are sent through.

Casualties stay high

Both armies are thought to be losing 20,000 to 35,000 men a month in periods of heavy fighting, and neither publishes a figure. Russia's volunteer recruitment has fallen to about 20,000 a month, roughly 70% of what it loses from the fighting, while Ukraine mobilises 15,000 to 30,000 reluctant conscripts and has opened at least 100,000 desertion cases.

Smaller assault groups have not brought those rates down. The reconnaissance drones that find a mechanised column find four men in a treeline as well, and the zone they make lethal reaches tens of kilometres behind the line of contact, covering rotations, supply runs and casualty evacuation as much as the assault itself. Russian infantry dismounting 40 to 50 km back, on Biletskyi's account, is a measure of how deep it now goes.

Frontal assaults on fortified towns have largely stopped without the casualty totals following them down. Zelenskiy put Russian dead in Vivaldi at more than 5,000 in early October and the corps put them at 8,000 two weeks later, on an operation whose entire territorial result is a strip of farmland and forest 277 sq km in size.

Open skies over the cities

Zelenskiy said the US was sending 12 Patriot interceptors a month, about a quarter of the rate under former president Joe Biden, in an interview with Bloomberg on October 18, and accused Washington of holding back deliveries Kyiv had already paid for.

"I believe steps have been taken to convince Ukraine to capitulate," he said, adding that he was not saying this was the goal his partners were pursuing.

Ukraine's interceptor missiles ran dry over the summer and the hunt for air-defence ammunition has not closed the gap. Russia has spent the autumn working the grid again, the campaign it ran last winter to freeze Ukraine into submission, and hourly power cuts were in force across Ukraine on October 21.

Holding the line through winter

Molin expects Ukrainian forces to consolidate and take up a defensive posture, securing the gains around Lyman, finishing the clearance of the forest to the east and covering the eastern approach to Sloviansk near Mykolaivka, before organising a coherent defensive line between Sloviansk, Lyman and Borova.

Consolidating the front around Kramatorsk and Sloviansk is Biletskyi's priority, Molin said, and Ukrainian troops should hold the new line far more effectively than when they lost this ground suddenly a year and a half ago. A further offensive could come in winter or spring, in his view pushing north from Borova towards Kupiansk to move the front away from the Borova sector.

With the northern flank of the Donbas secured, at least for a time, the focus moves to the southern flank, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, Molin said. Russia's main effort is already there.