Mutual attacks on border energy infrastructure. Day 1322 of the war
Ukrainian forces carried out a series of counterattacks in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, regaining at least partial control of two settlements – Sosnivka and Khoroshe. However, this did not stop the Russian advance on the border between the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia oblast, where they got behind the defenders in the newly recaptured Sosnivka.
Fighting continues in the southern part of Pokrovsk, where, according to some sources, Russia has reached the section of the Donetsk-Dnipro M04 motorway that runs through the city. Russia is also thought to have regained the initiative north of the Pokrovsk conurbation in the Dobropillia area, where they pushed the defenders out of some of the positions they had recaptured in previous weeks.
Russian troops deepened their encirclement of Siversk and Lyman. They captured more towns south of the former and north of the latter. According to some sources, northwest of Lyman, they also reached the railway line running through it from Kramatorsk to Kharkiv.
The northern part of Kupiansk has come under Russian control, and according to some sources, it has also captured its centre and western part, flanking Ukrainian forces holding out north of the Kupianka River (a tributary of the Oskil). The Ukrainians were to begin withdrawing some of their forces to the south in order to secure the crossing on the left bank of the Oskil near Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, which is the last supply route for the Ukrainian group on that side of the River Oskil. The invaders crossed the River Vovcha and continue to advance in the south-western part of Vovchansk. The entire northern part of the city is already under their control.
On 5 October, Russia carried out a massive air strike, targeting mainly western Ukraine. According to the authorities in Lviv, this was the largest attack on the city since the start of the full-scale aggression. According to the local air defence command, 163 air targets were destroyed in the area, including 23 cruise missiles (Russia is thought to have used 51 of them that day, 38 of which were shot down). Lviv was partially cut off from electricity supplies. The largest local industrial facility, the Sparrow industrial park, was destroyed. According to some sources, it was used as a collection and distribution point for military aid arriving in the country from Poland. Drohobych and Stryi were also attacked. A total of four people were killed and eight wounded in Lviv Oblast. Russian missiles and drones also struck critical and industrial infrastructure in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (according to some sources, the Burshtyn Thermal Power Plant was hit) and Vinnytsia Oblast.
Russian forces intensified air strikes on energy infrastructure in the Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts. As a result of attacks on substations and combined heat and power plants, blackouts or partial power outages occurred, among others, in Chernihiv (1, 2, 4 and 5 October), Kharkiv (1, 5 and 6 October), Nizhyn (2 October), Zlatopil (3 October), Shostka (4 October) and Pryluky and Sumy (7 October). In many towns in these regions, the power outages – and often also water shortages – continue, and some facilities (including two substations supplying Kharkiv) are reported to have been completely destroyed. Industrial plants and fuel depots were also attacked. Attacks on energy infrastructure, resulting in temporary power and water outages, also occurred in the Ukrainian-controlled part of Donetsk Oblast, including in Kramatorsk (3 and 6 October) and also in Zaporizhzhia (5 October), where one person was killed and ten were injured, and the Motor Sich plant was also targeted. Russian drones struck the latter city again one day later.
Russia continued its air strikes on railway infrastructure. The railways were temporarily suspended after attacks on Bobrovytsia in Chernihiv Oblast (30 September), Konotop and Odesa (2 October), Shostka (4 October), where unmanned aerial vehicles struck locomotives standing at the railway station, killing one person and injuring 30, and Poltava (7 October). In Konotop, Odesa and Poltava, locomotive depots were the main targets of the attacks. According to the Konotop authorities, reconstruction of the destroyed facility will be possible after the end of hostilities.
On 3 October, Russian missiles and drones struck gas infrastructure in Poltava Oblast. According to Naftogaz, this was the largest attack on gas extraction facilities since the start of the full-scale aggression. Two days later, gas infrastructure became a targets of strikes on western Ukraine. Dnipro was attacked three times (on 30 September and 3 and 4 October), with industrial facilities being the main targets. According to Ukrainian data, from the evening of 30 September to the morning of 7 October, Russia used a total of 1,389 strike drones and their imitators, as well as 104 ballistic and manoeuvrable missiles. Ukraine declared that it had neutralised 1,083 unmanned aerial vehicles (for the first time in local statistics, the number of "Shaheds" that hit targets during the week reached 300) and had shot down 48–56 missiles.
Russia began using modernised Kinzhal and Iskander-M missiles, capable of confusing and evading Patriot air defence systems. As a result, the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defence in intercepting ballistic missiles fell from 37% in August to 6% in September. This information was reported by the Financial Times on 2 October. Contrary to the article’s implication, the effectiveness, calculated on the basis of reports from the Ukrainian Air Force Command (UAFC), does not apply exclusively to Patriots – the only systems capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles. A large proportion of Kinzhal and Iskander missiles are directed at targets not protected by American systems, which means that the possibility of shooting down these missiles is close to zero. The decline in the effectiveness of Patriots resulting from the modernisation of enemy missiles and changes in the way they are used was confirmed on 5 October by UAFC spokesman Colonel Yuriy Ihnat. He emphasised that the problem is not new and that countermeasures have been in development for six months. The reduced effectiveness of American systems is also due to periodic shortages of PAC-3 MSE missiles.
On 4 October, Ukrainian drones damaged the main oil processing facility at the Kirishi refinery in Leningrad Oblast. According to Reuters, during the repairs, which may take up to a month, the plant’s processing capacity will fall to 70% of its original potential. Unmanned aerial vehicles also attacked refineries in Orsk in Orenburg Oblast (3 October), Kstovo in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (5 October) and, as part of a diversionary operation on Russian territory, Tyumen in Siberia (6 October), but did not cause any serious damage. Chemical plants in Berezniki in Perm Krai (3 October) and an explosives manufacturing company in Dzerzhinsk in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (6 and 7 October) were also attacked.
Between 5 and 7 October, Ukrainian forces carried out a series of strikes on energy infrastructure in the border regions of the Russian Federation. Belgorod was attacked three times with drones and missiles from HIMARS launchers, resulting in a partial blackout due to damage to a combined heat and power plant and a transformer station, and on 5 October, Klintsy in Bryansk Oblast was attacked with similar results.
On 6 October, occupied Crimea was the target of a massive drone attack. At least one fuel tank at the Feodosia fuel depot, one of the most frequent targets of Ukrainian operations on the peninsula (12 of the 34 tanks there have been destroyed so far), was destroyed. The airports in Saki in Novofedorivka and Kacha north of Sevastopol were also attacked, most likely without success. In total, on 6 October, the Ukrainians used at least 356 strike drones in attacks on Russia and the occupied territories. Kacha and Belbek air base were also targeted by drones on 3 October.
On 4 October, the Special Operations Forces (Ukrainian: SSO) are thought to have carried out an attack on the Grad missile corvette (project 21631 Bujan-M) located on Lake Onega, which carries Kalibr cruise missiles. An inland route from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian Sea runs through there, which is used by the Russian Navy to move smaller vessels. The "right side of the engine room" of the ship was reportedly damaged, but this has not yet been confirmed by other sources. The day before, the SSO reported that two radar stations in Voronezh Oblast had been hit.
Of the €4 billion transferred to Kyiv by the EU from interest on frozen Russian assets, €2 billion will be allocated to the production of drones. This was announced on 1 October by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The funds were allocated from the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration for Ukraine (ERA) programme.
Slovakia and Ukraine signed a memorandum on the 14th package of Slovak aid, including engineering equipment and mine clearance support. This took place during a meeting between the defence ministers of both countries, Robert Kaliňák and Denys Shmyhal, on 6 October in Kyiv. The package will include five Božena minesweepers.
On 1 October, Camp Jomsborg, a training camp for Ukrainian soldiers, officially opened in Poland. The initiative was implemented by the Norwegian Armed Forces on Polish territory in cooperation with the Polish Ministry of National Defence. The camp is located at the Dęba-Lipa Land Forces Training Centre in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship. The training will include realistic combat simulations and will focus on effective command in frontline conditions under combat stress. According to information from the Polish Ministry of Defence, 250 Norwegian instructors are already on site, and they will soon be joined by trainers from Estonia and other NATO countries.
During the NATO REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 25 exercises, organised in the second half of September in Portugal, representatives of the Ukrainian Navy led the opposing forces (OPFOR). This was the first time that Ukrainians were involved in planning, coordinating and directing an element of NATO’s exercises. The unmanned aerial vehicles used in the project (over 100 platforms) were integrated using the DELTA system employed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), as reported by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence on 6 October.
At the end of September, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, disbanded the Dnipro operational-strategic military group, as reported by the Ukrainska Pravda daily on 6 October. It was created on the basis of the “Khortytsia” group and several smaller formations, and existed for only a few months – it was responsible for defending the main front line from Zaporizhzhia Oblast to Kharkiv Oblast. The change was presented as a consequence of the transition to a corps system. However, some sources suggest that the reason for this was that the vast majority of land formations remained under the command of General Mykhailo Drapatyi, who was seen as a possible rival to Syrskyi. After the disbanding of the Dnipro group, Drapatyi became the commander of a formation half the size, responsible for the north-eastern section of the front. He also remains the commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
On 1 October, the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Semen Kryvonos, reported that the potential losses resulting from abuse and irregularities in procurement in the national defence sector amount to approximately 12.5 billion hryvnia (approximately $330 million). He noted that this amount does not represent the actual value of the damage, but is an estimated sum based on ongoing criminal proceedings. For comparison, in 2024, NABU detectives referred cases to the courts in which the total value of confirmed losses in defence procurement amounted to approximately 400 million hryvnias (approximately $10.5 million).
Also on 1 October, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the State Investigation Bureau of Ukraine and the National Police of Ukraine carried out a joint operation in six regions of the country, resulting in the elimination of 11 groups supporting the evasion of mobilisation. A total of 23 people were detained – organisers and intermediaries of the scheme. They offered the possibility of avoiding conscription for sums ranging from $2,500 to $17,000. Their activities included forging documents, organising illegal border crossings and bribing representatives of the military administration and health service. Those detained face up to nine years in prison and confiscation of their property.
On 3 October, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced that the government had approved a decision to restrict public access to data on defence industry companies for the duration of martial law. This step is intended to improve the protection of facilities against Russian air strikes and sabotage. Information from public registers concerning the location of production facilities and the manufacturing capacity of arms companies, as well as data that could pose a threat to their security, will not be available.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence plans to merge the Defence Procurement Agency and the State Logistics Operator, responsible for the supply of food, fuel and uniforms, among other things, by 1 January 2026. On 6 October, this decision was strongly criticised by the Social Anti-Corruption Council at the Ministry of Defence. Its experts emphasised that the entities operate in different markets and rely on different contract systems, and that the merger is not part of a long-term strategy, but only a tactical, isolated move intended to bring savings. No data was presented to confirm that this would not be at the expense of supply efficiency. Council Chairman Yuriy Hudymenko also stated that the merger of the agencies could carry the risk of corruption, especially in the implementation of classified contracts, including those with foreign companies.
Following Russia’s intensification of air strikes, the SZU continues its efforts to improve the security of training centres and relocate them deeper into the country. In some of them, the construction of underground facilities has begun to improve the protection of personnel and infrastructure.
On 6 October, Reuters, citing the US State Department, reported that up to 5,000 Cuban mercenaries may be participating in the war against Ukraine. The disclosure of this information is related to Washington’s international diplomatic campaign opposing a UN General Assembly draft resolution calling for the lifting of the US trade embargo on Cuba. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that Washington is aware of the presence of Cuban mercenaries in the Russian army, but declined to provide details.
According to information from the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (FISU) on 6 October, North Korea continues to supply artillery ammunition to Russia, sending 200,000 to 260,000 artillery shells per month, mainly 152 mm and 122 mm calibre. The list of deliveries also includes artillery rocket systems and KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles. Ukrainian intelligence points out that both countries treat the ongoing war as a platform for testing North Korean weapons, including a modernised version of the Soviet Konkurs anti-tank missile, the Bulsae-4 guided anti-tank system and the KN-25 600 mm multi-launch rocket system. There are currently between 8,500 and 13,000 North Korean military personnel in Kursk Oblast, including approximately 1,000 sappers and 5,000 construction workers who arrived in September. According to the FISU, Moscow plans to bring in 26,000 North Korean citizens, 6,000 of whom are to be sent to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.
