Daily review

Ukraine freed 270 captives, including American teacher Stephen Hubbard, as a drone sank a cargo ship off Romania and killed a Ukrainian sailor and Ukrainian Storm Shadows reportedly hit an Oryol plant that makes Iskander components.

On the ground, Ukrainian forces went more than 15 kilometers underground to capture over 30 Russian soldiers.

Ukraine has built its own jet-powered Shahed-hunting interceptor, Bars, which Zelensky says hits about 30% of Russian jet drones.

The US restored ballistic missile warnings after a week of silence and Rubio says Starlink is fixed while Kyiv says it still cuts out above 161 km/h, as Ukraine hit a Druzhba diesel tank and Moscow lifted its fuel export ban after US sanctions relief.

Ukraine’s front-line arms store now supplies 1 in 5 state-bought drones, and a hexacopter flies out a wounded soldier.

In Lithuania, officials foiled a night arson attack on a Starlink site serving Ukraine, the third such target after Poland and Bulgaria. The G7 pledged €260 million to repair the Chornobyl shield Russia pierced in 2025.

Reports that the White House limited Ukraine’s Starlink service after pressure from Musk drew questions from Berlin, while Belgium promised 10 F-16s by year-end and Russian drones left 370,000 without power in Volyn Oblast.

Russia’s largest drone attack on Kirovohrad Oblast kills three, as a strike also fells a Kyiv power tower.

Elsewhere, Russia bombed a Sloviansk warming center, wounding four Red Cross workers.

With Washington reportedly tying its intelligence and arms to Kyiv sparing Russian refineries, Ukraine’s largest steelworks began shutting down after Russian strikes, and Ukraine answered abroad by winning a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

Washington has suspended its new sanctions on Russian diesel, and bipartisan US senators say the deal conflicts with a 2022 ban and could help finance the war.

Trump announced an immediate energy ceasefire, which Zelenskyy said was news to him.

Meanwhile, five Russian bombs kill 17 in Zaporizhzhia, a day after Trump lets Russia ship its first 300,000 tonnes of diesel.

Ukrainian forces rerun the Vivaldi playbook outside Kramatorsk and push Russia back across the Siverskyi Donets, drones hit a Kh-101 fuel plant and a far-north refinery inside Russia, and Russian strikes on warehouses, a store, and a farm kill three.

The Pryluky death toll reached 22, including five children, as rescuers finished searching the rubble, while blackouts returned to Kyiv and ISW warned that faster jet-powered Gerans are freeing Russia to concentrate missiles for its winter campaign against Ukraine’s energy.

US-made sensor found in Russia's new jet drone.

Germany accuses Russia of a drone bomb attempt at Leipzig and is rolling out drone detection at its eight biggest airports.

Russia burned 628,000 new school textbooks in a Kharkiv warehouse at the peak of back-to-school season.

Drones struck Volgograd and Samara overnight, ISW found Russia ended September with a net territorial loss despite more than 46,000 casualties, and Hungary agreed to unblock two EU accession clusters once Ukraine passes its minority-schooling bill.

NATO chief Mark Rutte says there is no risk of Russia using nuclear weapons against the Baltics, even as Moscow warns that isolating Kaliningrad could trigger a nuclear response.