Russo-Ukrainian war, day 1658: Ukraine’s new top commander is pushing to give combat-tested sergeants real authority

Exclusives

Ukraine’s prosecutor general resigns as the watchdogs he was appointed to leash close in. He is the third powerful figure they've brought down. What looks like a government in crisis is a state where impunity at the top is ending.

A US-Russia deal won’t end the war. It will start the next one. Two American processes are converging on the same point: the cost to Russia of attacking NATO. A peace on Moscow's terms lowers the political price; a US troop drawdown lowers the military one. Moscow is waiting to read both before it moves.

Team news

Vacancy: deputy editor-in-chief.

Military

Ukraine is sending its winning brigades to where the fighting is worst. The 46th just turned up outside Kramatorsk. Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are the last two big cities in the Donbas that Russia does not hold. The 46th Airmobile Brigade left the southeast in early July and reached them before anyone outside the army knew.

Trump’s peace envoys left, and Russia hit Kyiv with ballistics—the one thing Ukraine still struggles to stop. Only two ballistic missiles came down overnight, and the shortfall is now the centerpiece of what Kyiv is asking its allies to deliver.

Ukraine’s new top commander is pushing to unwind a Soviet-inherited command model mid-war. He wants combat-tested sergeants to have real authority. Ukraine inherited a system where officers decided everything and sergeants were senior soldiers with no ladder of their own.

Russia deploys missile brigade to Belarus as fears grow over new threat to Kyiv. The move comes as Russia steps up aerial attacks on Kyiv from the north and Belarus allows Moscow to use its territory to help guide strikes against Ukrainian targets.

Some ten robot boats. Five hundred Russian air sorties. One very lopsided hunt. Missions that once took a night now stretch to five days, and Russia keeps its fleet hidden, a naval drone unit commander says.

Intelligence and technology

Ukrainian engine for “Bars” missile-drone passes final tests. This is the last major imported component of the jet-powered drone used for deep strikes against Russia.

A Ukrainian strike drone that quietly hit 450-plus Russian targets steps out of the shadows. The drone pairs with a scout to punch through Russian jamming.

Ukraine’s new Hryfon Zakhid runs the whole drone chain on one screen. One operator assigns targets to drone crews from a tablet, in real time and without radio.

Ukrainian Armor unveils two new troop carriers at Polish arms exhibition: fast light scout and mine-resistant MRAP. Both meet NATO’s STANAG 4569 protection standards. Both cover opposite ends of the same job.

Ukraine shows a home-built missile designed to hit ballistic targets for the first time, the Koral, at Poland’s MSPO. Its guidance combines inertial navigation, radio correction, and an active radar homing head.

European NATO members may be the second target of Russia’s winter missile buildup—Ukraine’s foreign intelligence. The warning went to the national security advisors of Europe's leaders, with a call for urgent sanctions on 55 more firms keeping Russia's missile lines running.

Ukrainian AI targeting module placed third among 60-plus entries in NATO contest. NATO and Ukraine ran the challenge through their first jointly staffed body.

Ukrainian university and the Flamingo missile-maker opened an engineering course. On the first try, zero of 150 passed. Even students who scored well on the university entrance exam flunked the physics round.

Ukraine’s Brave1 says it can down Russia’s Banderol missiles with cruising speed 650 km/h for less than what they cost, and has destroyed at least four. In July, Ukrainian troops downed Banderols with Swedish Bofors L70 anti-aircraft guns designed in the late 1940s.

Ukraine has 67 companies working to shoot down Russia’s jet-powered drones en masse, Zelenskyy says. Only three to five have real results. He called the whole air-defense push "Plan B" to diplomacy's "Plan A".

China calls itself neutral—but its fiber ends up in the drones that hit Ukraine. The papers, reviewed by Western governments, trace drone-grade material straight from a Chinese state firm to a sanctioned Russian plant.

International

Brussels cleared Ukraine to spend EU loan money on American Patriot missiles for the coming winter of Russian attacks. The request went in four days earlier, and the funds come from the bloc's existing credit line rather than any new pledge.

Ukrainian journalist asks Trump’s envoy to his face whether he was disgusted to sit across from “international criminal” Putin. Witkoff wouldn’t answer directly. Earlier, Russia's FSB put a $400,000 bounty on Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon.

Humanitarian and social impact

A Russian drone hit a Kyiv television newsroom in broad daylight while the channel was live on air. At least 5 people were injured, the building is partly destroyed, and firefighters put out the blaze at the site.

Russian-occupied nuclear plant ran on diesel for almost three weeks. Ukraine ended that, and the UN’s nuclear watchdog calls it a crucial step against an accident. The IAEA calls it a crucial step to prevent a nuclear accident at a site that had been facing a possible station blackout.

Russia burns occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s last-resort generators as everyday power, Ukraine says. Off-site power has been gone since 20 August, and the plant has cut its running generators to two to stretch the fuel that is left.

“Now on the 1,657th day”: Ukraine’s crews restored power to over 900,000 homes last week as Russia keeps striking grid before winter. Crews brought it back to 596 settlements, most of them in Odesa and Donetsk.

Kyiv stockpiles food and water as Russia’s new aerial tactics threaten a brutal winter. Russia has already targeted food storage around Kyiv, while Ukraine’s limited air defenses struggle to stop ballistic missiles and faster drones.

Political and legal developments

Russia’s FM says war must end so there is “no more Nazism” in Europe. Russian occupation official already said what that means: erasing Ukraine and stopping its aid. The collaborator put it plainly: "denazification is re-Russification".

Read our earlier daily review here.