A unilateral ‘energy truce’? Day 1693 of the war
Despite a slowdown in the pace of Ukrainian counterattacks in the Lyman sector, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are not giving up on their attempts to dislodge the enemy from most of the remaining positions on the western bank of the Zherebets River. Ukrainian troops have managed to expand the area under their control in the northern part of Zarichne and advance towards the town centre. The defenders have also managed to regain control of most of the large forest complex north of Rai-Oleksandrivka. Fighting for its central streets is currently taking place, though a vast grey zone still persists there. According to unconfirmed reports from Russian sources, the Ukrainians have managed to cross the Donets–Donbas Canal in small groups.
Fierce fighting is ongoing in the Dobropillia area, where Russian forces are attempting to penetrate from the south into the town centre in small groups. Ukraine, meanwhile, is attempting to counterattack north of the town, consolidating their positions in Zolotyi Kolodiaz and preventing the Druzhkivka conurbation from being encircled from the west. Russia is continuing its infiltration of Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka, though fierce fighting is still ongoing in the vast grey zone in the north-western part of Kostiantynivka.
Russia continues to carry out massive attacks on energy infrastructure, industrial, storage and arms facilities, as well as residential buildings. During an intense raid carried out on the night of 6–7 October, targets included a residential building in Pryluky (Chernihiv Oblast), where 22 people were killed, including five children, and 54 were injured. Fatalities caused by strikes also occurred in Kyiv, where targets included an office and warehouse building, and in Kyiv Oblast, where the Trypilska Thermal Power Plant was shelled (six people were killed and 21 injured). The ‘Kyiv’ power substation in the Nalyvaikivka area of Kyiv Oblast was repeatedly targeted. In Poltava Oblast, the Kremenchuk Hydroelectric Power Plant was the target of a missile attack; in Odesa Oblast, port infrastructure was targeted (with attacks repeated on 9 and 10 October); and in Zaporizhzhia, one of the three bridges over the Dnieper was targeted.
On the night of 6–7 October, Russian sources reported attacks on “enterprises of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex operating on behalf of Fire Point”. The strikes were reported to have targeted six oblasts, where storage facilities and manufacturing plants were allegedly hit (including, amongst others, a film studio building in Kyiv that had been repeatedly attacked on previous occasions). The Ukrainian side has not commented on these reports.
On 8 October, the Donetsk regional authorities reported that 33 people had been killed and 18 injured as a result of a Russian attack on two passenger buses in Kramatorsk. Zaporizhzhia has repeatedly been the target of attacks on civilian infrastructure; on 8 October, a Russian drone struck the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council building, and the following day one hit a minibus carrying passengers (one person was killed and six were injured), and on 10 October aerial bombs were used to strike several multi-storey buildings (at least 20 people were killed and more than a dozen were injured). On 9 and 10 October, there were strikes in Ivano-Frankivsk (at least one person killed), Chernihiv (an attack on a supermarket and a bus) and Lviv (again on 13 October). On 9 October, Kryvyi Rih was attacked several times, as were Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. On 11 October, Dnipro was struck. On the following day, Vinnytsia and Rivne were struck. On 13 October, an educational facility in the centre of Rivne was hit (20 people were injured).
On 10 October, the Ukrainian telecoms operator TENET reported that a technology complex belonging to the company had been seriously damaged as a result of a Russian attack on Odesa. The damage affected key systems supporting the facility’s operations, resulting in some customers experiencing interruptions to their internet access and some telecoms services. On 12 October, the Ukrainian company Naftogaz reported that Russian forces had carried out an overnight attack using a jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicle against natural gas extraction infrastructure in Kharkiv Oblast.
The Russians repeated their massive attack on energy infrastructure facilities in Kyiv on 10 October. As a result of strikes on power stations (including, once again, in the Nalyvaikivka area), there were disruptions to electricity supplies for residents, water supplies and the suspension of public transport services (including the metro). The mayor of the Ukrainian capital, Vitali Klitschko, stated that the city was operating in ‘survival mode’ and urged any residents able to leave temporarily to do so.
President Volodymyr Zelensky reported on 12 October that the Russians had struck the combined heat and power plant in Kharkiv (TEC-5) and – once again – in Nalyvaikivka, thereby breaching the agreement on the mutual non-attacking of energy facilities announced by Donald Trump the previous day.
According to estimates by the Ukrainian Air Force Command, between the evening of 6 October and the morning of 13 October, Russia deployed an undisclosed number of Zircon/Onyx anti-ship missiles, Iskander-M, S-400 and KN-23 ballistic missiles, at least 48 Kh-101 missiles, Iskander-K and Kalibr missiles, one Kh-59 air-to-surface missile, nine small manoeuvrable missiles (drone missiles) of the Banderol/Dan-T type, and 913 Shahed-type attack unmanned aerial vehicles, Gerbera or Parodiya-type decoy drones (576 of which were jet-powered, meaning they accounted for 63.1% of all those used). Ukrainian air defences reported having neutralised 745 unmanned aerial vehicles (81.6%), including 384 jet-powered ones, which translates to a neutralisation rate for jet-powered drones of 66.6% during the period under review.
On 7 October, Zelensky accused Russia of attacking two merchant ships off the coast of Bulgaria on the same day – one vessel sank and a fire broke out on the other. This was the first incident of its kind in that country’s territorial waters. Bulgarian Defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov stated that it was not currently possible to determine whether the drones used were Russian or Ukrainian. To investigate the incident, Kyrylo Budanov, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, visited Sofia on 8 October; the outcome of the meeting was not disclosed. On 13 October, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev reported further attacks on ships in the Black Sea off the Bulgarian coast. As a result of the night-time drone strikes, one vessel is reported to have sunk – five crew members were rescued, whilst 11 are presumed missing. A second vessel is reported to have been attacked by three drones, but no one sustained serious injuries. Prime Minister Radev condemned the attacks without explicitly attributing responsibility for them to Russia, although he assessed that their consequences are beneficial to Russia.
On 7 October, President Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian armed forces had carried out strikes on targets linked to the financing and conduct of Russian military operations. He reported that, over the previous 24 hours, two oil infrastructure facilities and a military training ground had been attacked in the Perm, Samara and Astrakhan oblasts. He also confirmed that a strike had been carried out in the Black Sea, but did not provide details regarding the target or the results. However, this most likely refers to the ‘Aframax Rio’ tanker (which belongs to Russia’s so-called ‘shadow fleet’) off the coast of Sochi, on which a fire had broken out the previous day.
On 8 October, Ukrainian forces attacked the Yandex Sasta data centre in Sasovo in Ryazan Oblast; the following day, they attacked another one in Kaluga; and on 11 October, one in Vladimir. A statement from Yandex reported that the attack led to a complete shutdown of the facilities and serious disruptions to internet services. The Russian media, meanwhile, reported that around 435,000 users had reported problems with the services. The disruptions affected, amongst other things, the Yandex Pay system, email, the instant messaging service, cloud services, the music platform, and transport and delivery apps. According to Russian industry sources, it could take up to six months to replace the damaged equipment. Russia’s Minister for Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, described the scale of the attacks as unprecedented and announced talks with the Ministry of Defence regarding the protection of data centres.
Also on 8 October, the Ukrainian armed forces carried out an attack on the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat refinery and petrochemical complex in the city of Salavat in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan. The strike caused a fire on the company’s premises, though the extent of the damage has not yet been disclosed. On the same day, an attack took place on an oil refinery in Omsk, located over 2,500 km from the Ukrainian border. According to the Ukrainian company Fire Point, modernised FP-1 drones were used in the strike, and a fire broke out on the plant’s premises as a result of the hits. The following day, the Russian media reported an attack by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles on the city of Ukhta, situated approximately 1,700 km from the Ukrainian border, where the target was the Ukhta refinery (Lukoil-Ukhtaneftepererabotka) owned by the Lukoil group.
The General Staff of the AFU announced that strikes had been carried outovernight from 8–9 October in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast: the Centre for the Operation of Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Facilities (TsENKI) in Dalneye Konstantinovo-5, and the intercontinental ballistic missile disposal facility near the village of Surovatikha. On the same day, Ukrainian drones reportedly struck the Redkino Experimental Plant in the Tver Oblast.
On 10 October, an attack took place on the oil terminal at the Novoshakhtinsk Oil Products Plant in Rostov-on-Don, where a massive fire broke out. According to independent OSINT sources, the fire destroyed seven of the 12 storage tanks, whilst another was damaged. On the same day, the General Staff of the AFU reported a renewed strike by Ukrainian armed forces on the Samara oil transit station, located near the village of Prosvet in Samara Oblast. The facility belongs to the Transneft network and is one of the largest hubs in Russia’s oil transmission infrastructure.
On 13 October, President Zelensky stated that, over the two days since Trump’s announcement of an ‘energy ceasefire’, Ukraine had refrained from attacking Russian refineries and energy infrastructure, whilst Russia had continued to strike Ukrainian energy facilities and critical infrastructure. He also declared Kyiv’s readiness for reciprocal de-escalation measures, emphasising the need to compel Moscow to respect the suspension of attacks on such facilities.
On 11 October, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence reported that in 2026 the Defence Procurement Agency had signed contracts for 300% more unmanned aerial vehicles of various types and purposes than in the whole of 2025. According to the ministry, in recent months the number of drones procured was around five and a half times higher than in the corresponding period of the previous year.
On 12 October, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) announced the start of the ‘Indestructible Brotherhood-2026’ and ‘Barrier-2026’ joint military exercises in Belarus, which will last until 16 October. More than 1,500 soldiers from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are taking part in the manoeuvres. Plans include the use of over 300 pieces of weaponry, as well as military and specialist equipment, and around 80 unmanned aerial vehicles of various types. The exercises are taking place at the Belarusian training grounds of Losvido and Starodorozhsky, and their main components involve conducting peacekeeping operations and neutralising the sources of chemical and biological threats. According to a statement by the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, the manoeuvres are routine in nature and are not directed against third countries.
On 12 October, Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR) published an interactive 3D model on the War&Sanction website, along with information on the composition and supply chain of the Russian Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile. The data collected comes from analyses of missile debris used against targets in Ukraine. According to the findings, the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile is said to be 90% compatible with the Iskander-M system. Its key features include a radar guidance head, an active jamming system and decoy mechanisms. HUR also announced that it had identified 58 companies involved in the production of ‘Kinzhal’-type missiles, 22 of which are reportedly still not subject to Western sanctions. Ukrainian intelligence assesses that the main factor limiting the Russians’ use of the Kinzhal missiles is the small number of available MiG-31I and MiG-31K aircraft, which are used to carry these missiles.
On 9 October, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced the arrest of a former lawyer who had served as a soldier in one of the Airborne Assault Forces units. Acting on behalf of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), he was alleged to have passed on information to the Russians, including details of the unit’s deployment and operations on the front line. The agent was recruited by the FSB via an instant messaging app shortly after he was released from prison, where he had been serving a sentence for disseminating information concerning the Ukrainian Defence Forces. According to the SBU, the arrest took place at an early stage of the operation’s preparation, thereby thwarting plans to provide the Russians with information on the location of Ukrainian forces in the frontline area.
Furthermore, on 12 October, the SBU reported that a 19-year-old resident of Kyiv had been detained at the end of September on suspicion of attempting to carry out a terrorist attack against soldiers of the Ukrainian Defence Forces in Rivne. According to the evidence gathered, the man travelled to the city and, upon reaching the designated location, collected a rucksack containing a mobile phone, a power bank and an explosive device. He then placed it under a minibus used by Ukrainian forces, whilst concealing the mobile phone and power bank inside a juice bottle and positioning it in a spot from which he could observe the bus and remotely detonate the device.
On 6 October, Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken announced that Sabena Engineering, the company responsible for repairing Ukrainian F-16 fighter jets, is servicing four aircraft a month and plans to increase this number to six. In early October, President Zelensky claimed that as many as half of Ukraine’s F-16s were in Western Europe undergoing prolonged repairs.
On 7 October, the European Commission announced the disbursement of a further tranche of €1.24 billion from the €90 billion loan to Ukraine. The latest tranche is to be allocated to unmanned systems and ammunition. To date, €16.9 billion has been disbursed to Kyiv under this loan.
On 9 October, the Finnish Ministry of Defence announced the dispatch of the 35th consignment of military aid to Ukraine, worth approximately €1 million. Helsinki has already supplied Kyiv with military aid totalling €3.6 billion.
