Ukraine

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.

The EU wants Ukraine to make reforms before it provides more money, while Kyiv is pressing Europe to use €210 billion in immobilized Russian central-bank assets.

Ukraine's Vivaldi counteroffensive reaches Russian fortifications near Lyman without drone fire, Ukrainian crews down a Geran-5 jet drone at 425 km/h, Belgium sends three F-16s, and Estonia confirms Moscow ordered the arson attack on a robot-maker supplying Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian marines cleared 5 square kilometers on the Pokrovsk front and captured two Russian soldiers.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has begun testing candidate US drones against Ukrainian-built jamming systems to see which designs can survive real electronic warfare.

Elsewhere, Ukraine's Defense Ministry unveiled an AI system called SPECTR that helps commanders plan operations rather than just observe the battlefield.

Russia struck a Kyiv maternity hospital with ballistic and hypersonic missiles as a US-led energy truce push advanced, and Zelenskyy said Russia's war has cost it nearly 249,000 troops this year for about 1,000 square kilometers gained.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Vivaldi operation near Lyman succeeded not through robotics but through precise reconnaissance.

. Germany's AfD party has begun talks with Gazprom on restoring gas supplies the country cut after the 2022 invasion.

For the first time in the war, Ukraine has dropped small robotic vehicles from heavy bombers deep behind Russian lines, helping clear 125 square kilometers of Donetsk Oblast near Lyman.

The news of 50 square kilometers clawed back came as Ukrainian long-range strikes reached a major Moscow oil refinery during Russia’s State Duma elections.

Ukrainian drones strike the crude unit that handles 52% of Russia's TANECO refinery 1,200 km away, Russia seizes Nestlé and Auchan's local assets as it turns foreign-owned businesses into leverage, and Tusk warns Moscow may stage "accidental" drone strikes on NATO members.

Brussels pledged a further €3.3 bn with von der Leyen promising more is coming, even as Russia struck Kyiv's water system without a single missile intercepted and Ukraine hit back at two S-400 launchers in Bryansk that had bombed the capital hours earlier.

Ukrainian partisans, meanwhile, claimed to have sabotaged a Russian plant that supplies components for missiles used to bomb Ukrainian cities.

The reveal lands as Russia floods Ukrainian skies with faster attack drones that killed a man in Kyiv overnight, Finland approves its second-largest defense package before winter, and Italian jets down a drone over Lithuania in a first for the country.

Anthropic, meanwhile, said it detected and shut down a Russian espionage campaign against Kyiv that had been automated through its Claude chatbot.

The attacks raise the risk to civilian travel near a NATO frontier, days after Warsaw warned Moscow could hit the crossings, while far from home Ukrainian drone specialists surface fighting Russian forces from Mali to Sudan.

Elsewhere, occupied Oleshky marked its 942nd birthday under a Russian blockade so tight that residents say they're reduced to eating roadside grass.

A Russian lawmaker separately warned that a fourth Oreshnik missile strike is coming.