Sitrep for May 9-11, 2026 (as of 10:30 a.m. UTC+3)

Ukrainian and Russian Strikes

On May 8, even before the ceasefire announced by Trump, Ukrainian forces struck the office of the Southern Air Navigation (a branch of the State Air Traffic Management Corporation) in Rostov-on-Don. This office manages all air traffic in southern Russia, including international flights passing through regions controlled by the center. The air navigation center cannot be considered a legitimate military target. The strike was likely intended to exert psychological pressure on Russian residents who were on vacation during the May holidays. As a result of the strike, numerous flights were canceled and delayed, leaving the sky over the southern part of the country empty. The imposed flight restrictions were lifted fairly quickly: some were removed already on May 9, and the Ministry of Transport announced the complete lifting of restrictions on May 10.

The ceasefire regimes unilaterally declared by Russia and Ukraine did not significantly affect the intensity of attacks and strikes. From May 6 to 8, the attacks, including long-range strikes, resulted in civilian casualties. After Trump's ceasefire took effect, the number of air attacks decreased significantly. There were no long-range strikes at all, although raids continued in border and frontline regions. In this war, a full ceasefire has never been fully implemented, and during the current one, drones continue flying and fighting has not ceased in some sectors of the frontline.

In particular, in the territory controlled by Ukrainian forces:

on the evening of May 9, in the Kharkiv region, a drone attacked a civilian vehicle in the Kupiansk district—two men and a woman were injured; meanwhile, in the city of Kharkiv, a Molniya drone struck the technical floor of a nine-storey residential building, causing six people, including three children, to suffer acute stress reactions;
in the Donetsk region, four people were injured in UAV strikes on the towns of Kostiantynivka and Druzhkivka, and the village of Dobropillia on May 9;
in the Dnipropetrovsk region, a man was killed in the early hours of May 9; later that day, another woman was killed and two people, including a three-year-old girl, were injured; on May 10, a drone struck a fire truck, injuring the driver;
in the Zaporizhzhia region, a driver was killed and two passengers were injured in a UAV attack on a vehicle; three more people were injured in drone strikes on May 9 and 10;
in the Kherson region, one person was killed and two injured in UAV strikes on May 9, while on May 10 another person was killed and three more were injured;
in the Mykolaiv region, three people were injured in drone strikes on a residential building and a car on May 10

The need to evacuate civilians from frontline areas remains urgent. In the village of Novomykolaivka, a woman was killed in an airstrike shortly after refusing to evacuate, despite the fact that the four-storey apartment building where she lived had already previously been targeted in a bombing attack. Based on reports from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine and a monitoring project, we assume she was killed on May 7.

During the ceasefire, Ukrainian strikes were also recorded against occupied territories and Russian regions:

in the Donetsk region, one person was killed and six others were injured in the city of Donetsk and occupied villages on May 9;
also on May 9, a drone struck a vehicle, injuring a man in the Bryansk region;
in the Kursk region, one civilian was injured in a drone strike on May 10;
in the Belgorod region, a UAV attacked a Magnit supermarket and a pharmacy in the village of Razumnoye, injuring six people, including a child and three medical workers on May 9. Six more people were injured from drone raids on the same day and the following day. Previously, strikes on or near commercial sites had occurred repeatedly in the Belgorod region, and Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov had commented on the lack of protection in place (simple measures such as sandbags could have been used);
additionally, a drone raid in Chechnya [Russia's constituent republic] resulted in six injuries.

From the evening of May 8 to the evening of May 10, 14 civilians were reported killed and 77 injured. Specifically, on May 9 and 10—during the ceasefire period—six people were killed and 61 others injured. Despite Trump’s expressed hopes that the ceasefire would be extended, there are no signs that this will happen. For Russian authorities, it was important to observe the May holidays with relative calm, after which we expect a resumption of large-scale long-range aerial attacks.

The Ukrainian-Polish Postup Solutions company has unveiled Scan Horizon, an autonomous anti-drone turret engineered to detect and intercept small unmanned aerial vehicles at close range. The system reportedly integrates microphones, radar and optical surveillance to identify drones within a 60-to-80-foot radius, utilizing a net launcher for interception at distances of approximately 8 to 20 feet. However, demonstration footage has raised questions regarding the turret’s efficacy; its seemingly sluggish response time suggests it may struggle to reliably neutralize the high-speed threat posed by FPV drones in real-world combat scenarios.

Separately, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov showcased video of combat testing for a domestic AI-powered turret developed by an undisclosed participant of the Brave1 platform. This system autonomously detects, tracks and calculates the trajectory of a UAV, requiring the operator only to authorize the strike with a single button press. The turret is reportedly already deployed with the K-2 54th Mechanized Brigade and more than 10 other units across various sectors of the frontline. While technical specifications remain classified, the requirement for human intervention suggests the system is designed to detect threats at a sufficient distance to allow for operator reaction and engagement.

In our previous sitrep, we showed footage from a Russian Gerbera drone flying over central Kyiv. New footage has now emerged showing a Ukrainian Hornet UAV over Mariupol, approximately 120 km [74 mi] from the frontline. These American-made drones have recently been equipped with Starlink terminals. As we noted earlier, the interface shown in the footage suggests that the UAV may incorporate machine-vision technologies capable of detecting and identifying objects.

Greek fishermen discovered an unmanned surface vessel in a cave off the coast of Lefkada in the Mediterranean Sea. The vessel, equipped with a Starlink terminal, resembled a Ukrainian Magura-type kamikaze naval drone. Ukrainian forces have allegedly been launching such vessels from Libya, as previously reported. The fishermen towed the USV ashore in order to hand it over to the coast guard. Unfortunately, they did not realize that the drone could detonate, exposing themselves to considerable danger by towing it.

Ukrainian military expert Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov stated that Russia began developing its own unmanned surface vessels as early as 2024, shortly after Ukraine started deploying naval drones. In February 2025, unified tactical and technical requirements for Russian Navy unmanned vessels were reportedly introduced, and by spring, several enterprises began producing maritime surface drones. Large-scale testing and training exercises involving USVs took place in mid-summer 2025. On Aug. 25, 2025, the Simferopol ship was reportedly attacked in the Danube Delta, followed by a number of attacks in the fall on other targets along the Danube and Black Sea coasts. Dozens of USV models were reportedly developed, including the Orkan, Katran, Vizir, Murena, Sardina and 1000. However, according to Beskrestnov, these plans were ultimately disrupted by the shutdown of Starlink access in early 2026, since Starlink terminals had served as the core communications infrastructure for Russian naval drones. This illustrates the importance of sanctions efforts and restrictions on the Russian defense industry’s access to the components and technologies used in weapons production.

We do not agree with the view that mobile internet shutdowns are useless just because they cannot completely stop drone attacks. For example, when drones began to be widely used against armored vehicles, tanks started being equipped en masse with jammers. The emergence of fiber-optic drones, against which such systems are ineffective, did not make jammers obsolete. They still provide protection against radio-controlled drones, which are cheaper and continue to be widely used along the frontline. No single measure is capable of fully preventing attacks. Nevertheless, mobile network shutdowns may still partially improve protection. In November 2025, Beskrestnov, wrote that Ukraine should also revisit the issue of restricting mobile communications as a way of countering Russian drone raids.

The real problem, in our view, is that Putin and the officials around him lack technical competence and are unable to strike the right balance between protecting civilians from UAV attacks and avoiding serious disruption to the economy and communications. In theory, brief and localized shutdowns of individual cell towers in areas facing an immediate drone threat could improve security without severely disrupting business activity. At the same time, practice has shown that even whitelists can be bypassed, which is why mobile internet access was shut down completely during the parade.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty published a report based on satellite imagery showing the ongoing expansion of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, where Shahed-136 [Geran-2] loitering munitions are manufactured. It is reasonable to expect that the number of drones employed by Russia will continue to increase in the future.

The new Geran-5 jet-powered UAVs were also featured in footage shown during the broadcast of the Victory Day parade on 9 May.

During the same parade in Moscow, personnel from the presidential security special forces unit of the Federal Protective Service [FSO] were observed carrying shotguns. The significance of the red coloration on these weapons remains unclear. In some cases, such markings are used to indicate the type of ammunition loaded. It is possible these shotguns were equipped with buckshot or specialized counter-UAV munitions.

FSO personnel armed with RPG-26 launchers were also observed, although such weapons are clearly ineffective against drones. Notably, grenade launchers have been part of Putin’s security detail since the early years of his rule; reports of such equipment date back to 2001 and 2003.

In Surgut, a column representing the Russian Community movement participated in the May 9 procession. It is worth noting that these so-called nationalists have no direct relation to the war.

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