Sitrep for Oct. 5-12, 2026 (as of 10:00 a.m. UTC+3)
Frontline Situation Update
In the Oleksandrivka direction, the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue their offensive operations and, according to Ukrainian military observer Kostiantyn Mashovets, have reestablished the Velyka Novosilka direction. At present, the village of Velyka Novosilka lies deep in the Russian rear. Ukrainian forces previously crossed the Mokri Yaly River and advanced near the village of Komar, intending to push toward Velyka Novosilka if successful. Mashovets’s report hints that the advance has already begun, but this cannot yet be confirmed.
The Russian side continues to insist that Ukrainian forces are trapped in a "pocket" in the border area of the Kharkiv region. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, positions of the Russian Armed Forces have linked up near the villages of Bilyi Kolodiaz and Lozova, while nearly all settlements within the purported encirclement have allegedly been captured recently, except for the villages of Mykolaivka, Varvarivka, Chorne, and Nefedivka.
In reality, there is no reason to speak of Russian control over this territory, and the AFU continue to move armored vehicles through the eastern part of this "encirclement." For example, a video has emerged showing a tank and a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle of the 475th Assault Regiment accompanied by drones near the village of Anyshchyne, north of Vilkhuvatka. The footage also shows one of the Ukrainian drones shooting down a Russian fiber-optic drone.
One of the main topics in recent days has been the deal between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin concerning diesel fuel. According to Trump, Russia is to immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel fuel to the US and global markets, followed by another 500,000 tonnes during November and 1 million tonnes immediately afterward. Later, if the condition of Russian oil refineries allows, a further 3 million tonnes are expected to be supplied. According to estimates by German economist Janis Kluge and other experts, these volumes are small in terms of the global market and should not have a noticeable impact on pricing in the US. Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department has already issued a temporary license authorizing the supply of Russian diesel.
For Russia, the deal is beneficial for several reasons. In addition to export revenues, it will free up storage tank capacity: continued production amid export restrictions has quite possibly already led to a buildup of unsold fuel. Freeing up storage capacity will allow oil refineries to continue producing both diesel and gasoline, the latter of which remains in short supply in Russia. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has already announced the lifting of restrictions on diesel exports. Meanwhile, seeking to emphasize the friendly nature of the conversation between Putin and Trump, Yuri Ushakov said that neither of them had wanted to be the first to end the call.
Meanwhile, according to the Financial Times, US officials threatened to cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine if it continued striking Russian oil refineries. According to the report, Trump allegedly struck a deal with Putin after Ukraine repeatedly refused to halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Ukrainian and Russian Strikes
Over the past week, Ukraine continued striking oil refineries:
- On Oct. 8, UAVs hit a plant in Omsk.
- On Oct. 9, an oil refinery in Ukhta, in Komi [Russia's constituent republic], came under attack.
It is abundantly clear that Ukraine has no incentive to make concessions to Putin by unilaterally halting these strikes while Russian forces continue terrorizing civilians and attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure. At the same time, Ukrainian strikes on Russian ports in the Black Sea have significantly reduced oil and grain exports through those ports.
Recently, reports have emerged that Russia is attempting to transport its oil and petroleum products to the Leningrad region for export through the port of Ust-Luga. As a result, according to MarineTraffic, a large number of tankers have accumulated in the Gulf of Finland, waiting to load cargo at this port.
This may explain the increased frequency of Ukrainian strikes on the Samara linear production and dispatch station on Oct. 2, 7, and 10. We assume that the AFU are attempting to prevent Russia from restructuring its logistics and redirecting oil and petroleum products from the Black Sea route to the Baltic Sea route.
Meanwhile, Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine had allegedly agreed to an energy ceasefire, effective immediately, although neither Moscow nor Kyiv has confirmed such an arrangement. Moreover, Axios, a media outlet close to the US administration, reported that Russia was still considering the proposal. In Ukraine, meanwhile, reports indicate that no one has even heard of the proposed ceasefire. If the ceasefire is indeed limited to strikes against oil refineries, it would benefit Russia exclusively, as Ukraine has only one oil refinery, in Kremenchuk, which has been out of operation since spring 2022. The Russian MoD last reported a strike on the facility in August 2026.
It remains unclear whether Trump will increase pressure on Ukraine by restricting intelligence sharing or even deliveries under the PURL mechanism, or whether he will limit himself to rhetoric. US midterm elections will take place in early November, and the Republican Party could well lose. On the one hand, shifting responsibility for high diesel prices onto Ukraine—despite the fact that the price surge was driven by the war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—is intended to influence the domestic audience. On the other hand, if Trump's party loses, he may blame Zelenskyy and attempt to retaliate against him in some form. (The updated headline of the aforementioned Financial Times article refers to Trump's demand to replace Zelenskyy as Ukraine's leader. Meanwhile, the Kremlin rejected the idea of a 60-day ceasefire to allow elections, as proposed by Zelenskyy.) We assess that, at this stage, even if Ukraine loses access to intelligence data, it will continue striking previously identified targets. It may also be able to leverage intelligence provided by European services, although this would reduce the effectiveness of strikes against command posts and air-defense systems. Restrictions on military assistance, however, could affect deliveries under the PURL mechanism, which would have significantly more serious implications for Ukraine.
Russia, meanwhile, continues to intensify its campaign of terror against Ukrainian civilians:
- On Oct. 7, a missile hit a five-story residential building in the center of the town of Pryluky in the Chernihiv region, killing 22 people, including at least 5 children, injuring 54 others, and completely wiping out three families;
- On Oct. 8, an air-dropped bomb struck two buses in the city of Kramatorsk, killing 30 people and injuring 20 others;
- On Oct. 10, an air-dropped bomb equipped with a Universal Gliding and Correction Module (UMPK) hit a residential building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least 23 people, including 4 children, and injuring another 32, including 3 children;
- On Oct. 11, Banderol missiles struck a store in a suburb of Kharkiv, killing 3 people, including a child, and injuring another 22, including 2 children.
In the case of the strike on Kramatorsk, judging by the geolocation of the strikes, the target was most likely a hypermarket of the Ukrainian Epicentr DIY retail chain—this chain is regularly subjected to Russian attacks. We also consider such strikes to be war crimes. By tragic coincidence, two buses carrying passengers were passing nearby during the air attack, resulting in such a high number of casualties.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest fully integrated mining and steelmaking company, has announced that it is beginning the process of placing its operations into cold shutdown. Over the next two months, the company plans to safely halt production and mothball its industrial assets so that operations can resume once combat operations have ended. This will deal a serious blow to the economy of Kryvyi Rih: in 2025, the company accounted for 27% of the city budget’s revenue, and its overall contribution—including wages, taxes, land rent, and jobs provided by contractors—was estimated by the CEO at half of the city’s economy. The company employed around 16,000 people. In this case, therefore, Russian strikes on Ukrainian industry have achieved their objective, inflicting significant economic damage.
Over the past weekend, Russian jet-powered Shahed drones, judging by published footage, appear to have reached Lviv for the first time. Previously, only conventional UAVs with piston engines had flown such distances: jet-powered versions consume much more fuel, so their range was believed to be limited. The new variant may have been fitted with larger fuel tanks by reducing the size of its warhead, or the warhead may have been removed altogether, turning the drone into a decoy designed to divert air defenses. A flight over such a long distance may also indicate the use of Russian relay stations in Belarus, although this cannot yet be confirmed.
To intercept jet-powered UAVs, Ukrainian aircraft use air-to-air missiles, which, according to Taras Chmut, head of the Come Back Alive Foundation, are in short supply. As a result, aircraft crews have to use older Soviet-made R-73 and even R-60 missiles. Due to technical malfunctions, the latter can explode during launch. Chmut says that such incidents have already led to the loss of several Ukrainian aircraft. Ukraine therefore particularly needs modern air-to-air missiles to counter Russian jet-powered drones.
Meanwhile, due to the deteriorating security situation (in particular, following the aforementioned deaths of civilians in buses in Kramatorsk), urban and suburban public transport services in Sloviansk were suspended as of Oct. 9. In Kyiv at the end of last week, electric public transport services were periodically suspended due to Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, and at times the metro completely ceased operations. Outages occurred in various parts of the city, although there was no overall shortage of generating capacity in Ukraine's power grid.
As Ukrenergo explained, Russian forces are systematically hitting generation facilities in specific regions, which requires electricity to be transmitted to consumers over hundreds of kilometers via networks not originally designed for such loads. Constant strikes on substations and power transmission lines further limit network capacity, making supply to some regions difficult or altogether impossible, even if a power surplus remains in other regions. Emergency restoration work is complicated by air-raid alerts and repeat attacks on sites where energy workers and specialized equipment are operating. The company urged consumers in regions subject to restrictions to conserve electricity to reduce the load on damaged networks and shorten the duration of power outages.
On Saturday, Oct. 10, in Kyiv, judging by published footage, ballistic missiles were intercepted—the footage appears to showa 9M723 missile from an Iskander short-range ballistic missile system tumbling through the air as it falls. This may indicate that stocks of interceptor missiles for Patriot systems have been replenished.
The Russian MoD has claimed that its strikes on Kyiv hit the ATM Ukrsibbank data center, which the ministry alleges was used by the AFU to collect, process, and store intelligence information. However, the Russian MoD presented no evidence of the bank data center being used for military purposes. Such statements could set a precedent for retaliatory Ukrainian strikes on similar facilities within Russian banking infrastructure, such as data centers linked to Sberbank [Russia's largest bank].
The AFU launched a series of strikes against Yandex data centers, hitting a facility in the Ryazan region on Oct. 8, a second in the Kaluga region on Oct. 9, and a third in Vladimir on Oct. 11. Video footage from the Vladimir attack shows active air defense engagements, although this was most likely air defense operated by a RuAF unit rather than by Yandex itself. Despite attempts to intercept the incoming drones, the data center was struck, causing service outages in Russia and abroad. Service was restored more quickly after the first attack.
Zelenskyy described the strikes as a mirror response to Russian attacks, including strikes on Ukrainian data centers. Yandex added drone and missile attacks to the force majeure provisions of its service agreements. Since such attacks would likely already qualify as force majeure, the change appears to be primarily intended to warn users of possible disruptions.
The pro-Russian Telegram channel Voyenny Osvedomitel [Military Informant] criticized Russian authorities for failing to prepare for Ukrainian retaliatory strikes. The channel argued that Russia should have anticipated retaliatory strikes against similar facilities, drawing a parallel to previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian depots and ships, after which Russia struck similar facilities in Ukraine.
One of Rosneft’s oil refineries has begun recruiting crews for ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and BMP-2M infantry fighting vehicles equipped with Berezhok combat modules to defend against drones. Applicants must sign a contract with the Russian MoD to join the mobilization manpower reserve, undergo training and unit cohesion exercises, and then serve as part of standby crews while living in barracks during training periods. Judging by the job postings, prior experience operating such equipment is not required. Accelerated training could increase the risk of mistakes, including engaging the wrong aerial targets.
On Oct. 9, authorities in the Yaroslavl region reported intercepting small reconnaissance balloons allegedly launched from Ukrainian territory. Judging by the reported interception locations, the balloons may have traveled a considerable distance from the Ukrainian border, reaching the Yaroslavl region, northeast of Moscow. Ukraine may be experimenting with using balloons to disrupt civilian aviation in European Russia. Unlike drones, balloons are significantly cheaper, allowing them to be launched in large numbers and potentially trigger temporary restrictions on operations at Russian airports. However, a major drawback of such systems is the inability to control their flight paths.
Mediazona [independent Russian media outlet] has identified at least 20 Russian officers killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Donetsk on Aug. 26. Of these, 18 were killed on the day of the attack, while another two later died of their injuries. Most of those killed served at the headquarters of the Group of Troops "Center"—the Central Military District and the 41st Combined Arms Army. The AFU struck an underground parking garage at an unfinished residential complex and an abandoned building on Ilyicha Avenue, both of which were believed to have been used as RuAF command posts. According to Mediazona, this is the largest known number of Russian officers killed in a single attack since the start of the war.
Mark Krutov, editor of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news service, pointed out an error in reports claiming that Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of the prominent pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar and subject to EU sanctions, had flown to Bosnia and Herzegovina from Germany. The Bosnian outlet Detektor had previously claimed that Zvinchuk arrived in Sarajevo on Oct. 2 on a flight from Memmingen, Germany, before traveling to Montenegro. However, Krutov found that Zvinchuk had been in Belgrade shortly beforehand, where he recorded videos, and that a flight from the Serbian capital arrived in Sarajevo at approximately the same time as the flight from Memmingen. Thus, Zvinchuk almost certainly flew to Bosnia and Herzegovina from Belgrade rather than Germany. There is no evidence that he was in Germany, making the initial reports of a possible violation of EU sanctions unfounded.
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