Key developments on Oct. 26-25:
Three killed, 32 injured in Kyiv amid Russian drone attack on residential buildings’I’m not going to be wasting my time’ — Trump rules out Putin meeting without Ukraine peace progress’More to come,’ HUR says, as sabotage fires spread across RussiaUkraine retakes 2 villages in Donetsk Oblast near Dobropillia, military saysRussia says it tested nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile
Russia launched a drone attack on Kyiv overnight Oct. 26, killing at least three people and injuring at least 32, including seven children, in strikes on residential buildings, local authorities said.
Multiple explosions were heard in Kyiv starting around 2:35 a.m. local time, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground. Of the 101 Shahed, Gerbera, and other types of drones Russa launched at Ukraine overnight, 90 were downed by the Ukrainian air defense, the Air Force reported.
Two children who were injured in the attacks had been hospitalized, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration.
The overnight drone attack comes just one night after another Russian missile strike killed two people and injured 12. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Oct. 26 that Russia had launched more than 50 missiles, nearly 1,200 strike drones, and more than 1,360 guided bombs against Ukraine this week.
“This week, these are attacks on residential buildings, on our people, on children, on civilian infrastructure,” Zelensky said in a video address posted on Facebook.
“These are the most important targets for the Russians.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitscko reported that a nine-story residential building was struck in the Desnianskyi district of the city, damaging the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building.
Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said that a 16-story residential facility was struck in the Desnianskyi district, leading to a fire. Windows were reportedly shattered between the 1st and 9th floors of the building.
The drone debris from the attack also fell on a 16-floor apartment building in Obolonskyi district, leaving minor damage, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration.
Videos posted on social media appear to show a large fire at one of the buildings damaged.
Russia has repeatedly attack Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, with drones since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. In recent month, Russia’s military has intensified its attacks on energy infrastructure, forcing Ukraine to introduce blackouts.
‘Pure terror’ — 2 killed, 12 injured in Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, reported that multiple fires had broken out at “several locations on the left bank of the city.”
‘I’m not going to be wasting my time’ — Trump rules out Putin meeting without Ukraine peace progress
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Oct. 25 that he does not plan to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin unless he sees a clear path to a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
“We’re going to have to know that we’re going to make a deal. I’m not going to be wasting my time,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I’ve always had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin, but this has been very disappointing.”
Trump said he had expected peace in Ukraine to be easier to achieve than other diplomatic breakthroughs. “I thought this would have gone long before peace in the Middle East… if you look at India and Pakistan, I could say almost any one of the deals that I’ve already done, I thought would have been more difficult than Russia and Ukraine. But it didn’t work out that way. There’s a lot of hatred between the two — between Zelensky and Putin. There’s tremendous hatred.”
Two days earlier, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said a Trump–Putin summit remains “not completely off the table.”
“The President has also long expressed his frustration with Vladimir Putin and, frankly, both sides of this war. He’s always said in order to negotiate a good peace deal, both sides need to be interested in a good peace deal,” Leavitt said on Oct. 23. She added that Trump has seen “not enough interest and enough action” from Russia to move toward peace.
Leavitt’s comments came a day after Washington imposed its first sanctions on Moscow since Trump took office. On Oct. 22, the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as their subsidiaries.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the measures aim to pressure the Kremlin into accepting a ceasefire. “Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” he said.
Russia is preparing Ukrainian children from occupied territories to fight in its war
High-ranking Russian officers are running military training programs for Ukrainian children from occupied territories and overseeing a system of youth militarization, an investigation by the Kyiv Independent has found. The programs are organized by the Warrior Center for Military and Patriotic Education — a network created in 2022 by direct order of Vladimir Putin. An investigation by the Kyiv Independent’s War Crimes Unit revealed that Ukrainian teenagers from occupied parts of Kherson, Zapor
‘More to come,’ HUR says, as sabotage fires spread across Russia
Russia faces an increase in the arson and “spontaneous combustion” of electrical panels, railway relay cabinets, and other infrastructure helping Moscow wage its war against Ukraine over the past week, a source at Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) said on Oct. 26.
The HUR source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that electrical panels, railway relay cabinets, and communication towers burned in multiple cities across Russia, including Moscow.
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify HUR’s allegations. Moscow has not commented publicly this week on the alleged incidents of arson and sudden fires.
HUR’s claim comes as Russian regional and national media, controlled by the Kremlin, have reported several incidents in October involving civilians, including minors, being detained for burning railway relay cabinets and a telecom cabinet. Some Russian regional media have also reported electrical panel fires, but made no mention of a relation between the incidents and the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there have been local sabotage movements in Russia and the occupied territories, including a campaign of railway sabotage, but their impact is difficult to measure.
Culture is not neutral: The troubling presence of Russia’s Eksmo in Frankfurt
There were two questions lingering over conversations among people at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair: Where was the stand of the Russian publisher Eksmo located, and why were they even allowed to be there nearly four years into Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine? I will never forget the look of horror and disgust of one exiled Russian author, who is fiercely pro-Ukrainian and quietly attended many of Ukraine’s events at the book fair with a visible awe at this year’s event program, when h
Ukraine retakes 2 villages in Donetsk Oblast near Dobropillia, military says
Ukrainian forces liberated two villages in eastern Donetsk Oblast about 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of embattled Pokrovsk, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Oct. 26.
The General Staff said that Ukrainian troops operating in the area cleared Kucheriv Yar and Sukhetske of Russian troops over the past 10 days. The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the claim.
The General Staff’s report comes nearly three months after Russian forces made a sudden 10-kilometer (6-mile) push in just days toward the key highway connecting Kramatorsk and Dobropillia in early August. Since the rapid Russian advance in the area, Ukrainian forces have taken back nine villages, and nine more have been cleared of Russian sabotage groups, the General Staff said in its Facebook post.
Ukrainian open-source battlefield monitoring group DeepState also shows the villages of Kucheriv Yar and Sukhetske as controlled by Ukrainian forces. The villages are about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Dobropillia, a town that Russian forces have heavily struck since the August breach.
Across the front, Russian forces continue to launch offensives on multiple sectors despite the Ukrainian claims that its troops have effectively stalled Moscow’s momentum.
Russian troops have already entered the long-embattled Pokrovsk, semi-encircling what used to be a key Ukrainian logistics hub, and are trying to further close in on the city to force a Ukrainian withdrawal.
The General Staff acknowledged on Oct. 26 that Russia has accumulated about 200 servicemen in Pokrovsk, infiltrating small infantry groups, reporting shooting and drone battles in the city.
The 7th Corps of Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces acknowledged the Russian penetration to the railway on Oct. 20.
Analysis: Pokrovsk on the brink as Russian troops, drones infiltrate deeper into Ukraine’s fortress city
At first, the pictures went viral for another reason. Two Ukrainian civilians were shot dead and another injured on the roadside, the victims of another Russian war crime that was as everyday as it was horrific. Ordinary, peaceful residents of the city of Pokrovsk — the very people Russia claims to be “liberating” in its war of destruction in the Donbas, who held on to life in their homes for a year after their city became a war zone — snuffed out in an instant. But beyond the shock and anger
Russia says it tested nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile
Russia has tested its newly developed nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed Burevestnik cruise missile, Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said in a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 26.
“I have a report from the industrial bodies, and in general, I am familiar with the estimates provided by the Defense Ministry. It’s a unique product that no one else in the world possesses,” Putin claimed, according to Russian state media.
Russia was ready to test the low-flying nuclear missile ahead of Putin’s summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska on Aug. 15, Reuters previously reported. Satellite imagery revealed extensive activity at the Pankovo test site on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.
“We have launched a multi-hour flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it covered a 14,000-kilometer (8,700-mile) distance, which is not the limit,” Gerasimov said, adding that the test launch lasted for 15 hours.
Western analysts remain skeptical of the cruise missile. Eight experts interviewed by Reuters pointed to the missile’s troubled development history and inherent design flaws. They questioned whether its deployment would significantly alter the nuclear balance between the West and other adversaries.
Analysts say the Burevestnik missile has become more important to the Kremlin since the White House announced in January plans to develop the Golden Dome U.S. missile defense shield.
Note from the author:
Ukraine War Latest is put together by the Kyiv Independent news desk team, who keep you informed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you value our work and want to ensure we have the resources to continue, join the Kyiv Independent community.
AI drones in Ukraine — this is where we’re at
Ukraine’s drones are setting new standards for self-piloting on the battlefield. Full autonomy, however, remains well out of reach — and is likely to stay there. The broader vision of drones operating fully independently of pilots remains something of a holy grail for drone developers, even as it may seem a dystopian nightmare to many human rights activists and luminaries, including the pope himself. Ukrainian developers hope that progressively delegating more tasks to drones and software can
