The commander of the Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps, Brigadier General Andriy Biletsky, confirmed yesterday that his units are conducting an offensive operation against the Russian salient north of Lyman. His forces have liberated or cleared 85 square kilometres, including the village of Serednie, and repelled Russian incursions in Novoselivka, Yarova, Oleksandrivka and on the outskirts of Korovii Yar. He warns that this is only the first phase of the operation.
The actual gains are likely to exceed this figure. Geotagged images show Russian artillery pounding positions in Kolodiazi, and an influential Russian military blogger has implicitly acknowledged that his troops are seeking to dislodge the Ukrainians from there, suggesting that the town has changed hands.
The offensive has been accompanied by a campaign of strikes on the rear. Drone operators from the 3rd Corps have targeted Russian logistics first up to 50 kilometres from the front line, and then up to 120 kilometres. A pipeline supplying fuel to the occupied Luhansk region has been shut down; support units of the 144th Motorised Division have been relocated to the Voronezh Oblast; and ammunition depots and command posts have had to be dispersed, in some cases as far as Russia and into the forests.
The operational impact is considerable: the Russian plan to encircle the fortress belt around Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the north has become unachievable, and the offensive on Sloviansk has been delayed. The northern flank of the Southern Group is now exposed to Ukrainian counter-attacks. Among Russian military bloggers, the blame lies with the culture of ‘whitewashing reports’ – those embellished accounts that make their way up the chain of command, with some commanders hastily forming assault units from untrained soldiers to conceal the scale of their losses.
The aerial war, meanwhile, shows no sign of abating. Russia launched 200 drones during the night of 14–15 September, 187 of which were shot down; they struck two petrol stations in Kyiv and a locomotive in Volhynia, near the Polish border. For its part, Ukraine struck the Syzran refinery in the Samara Oblast and the Atlant Aero drone factory in Taganrog. Institute for the Study of War
Europe
🇨🇦 Canada - 🇪🇺 European Union • In her State of the Union address today in Strasbourg, Ursula von der Leyen proposed offering Canada an unprecedented status as an associate member of the EU, in the presence of Mark Carney, as well as the creation of a European Security Council involving Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom and Ukraine. She cited cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and drone incursions to emphasise that hybrid threats are becoming less and less hybrid.
🇺🇦 Ukraine • Russian drones struck a coach near Nikopol and a passenger train in the Mykolaiv region today, killing five people and injuring seven. All 168 passengers on the train were evacuated unharmed. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has condemned the attack as an act of brutality with no military logic, with the Ukrainian rail operator reporting that 120 carriages, 304 locomotives and 43 stations have been bombed since January.
🇩🇰 Denmark – 🇱🇹 Lithuania – 🇵🇱 Poland • A Russian frigate fired two flares at a Danish helicopter off the coast of Gedser, one of which passed in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft, whilst Italian NATO fighter jets shot down a drone originating from Belarus over Lithuania. In Poland, flights were briefly suspended at Lublin and Rzeszów airports, as the air force carried out preventive operations in response to Russian missile strikes on Ukraine.
🇷🇺 Russia - 🇺🇦 Ukraine • Russia has increased its launches of jet-powered drones sixfold in three months, rising from around 450 in June to 2,850 in August, at speeds of 240 to 500 km/h that Ukrainian interceptors are struggling to keep up with. Nearly 20 per cent of these drones are targeting Kyiv and its suburbs. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that a new Ukrainian anti-drone weapon is currently being tested.
🇽🇰 Kosovo • Former President Hashim Thaçi was sentenced today to 25 years in prison by the special tribunal in The Hague for murder, torture and unlawful detention during the 1998–1999 war. The judges found him responsible for 96 murders of opposition figures, but acquitted him of charges of crimes against humanity. His co-defendants Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi were sentenced to 25, 18 and 13 years respectively.
🇩🇪 Germany • Friedrich Merz has decided not to attend the UN General Assembly, as his presence is deemed necessary in Berlin following the CDU’s defeat in Saxony-Anhalt. An INSA poll shows that a majority of conservative supporters no longer see him as fit for the chancellorship – a view shared by 78 per cent of Germans – and party leaders are meeting on Sunday to demonstrate their unity.
🇭🇺 Hungary • Peter Magyar’s government is scrutinising expenditure from Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power, with 22 potential corruption cases referred to investigators involving an estimated €5.8 billion. The police are investigating the purchase of 12,000 plastic motorbikes paid for at three times their price, and a loan of 1.5 billion euros to the Egyptian railways. The director of the new anti-corruption agency considers it unrealistic to expect final verdicts for another five or six years.
🇬🇷 Greece • Ilias Kasidiaris, former spokesperson for the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, who was sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison for leading a criminal organisation, was released from prison yesterday after six years in custody. Greeted by his supporters, he has already announced the formation of a national party ahead of next year’s general election, even though Greek law prohibits parties led by convicted criminals from standing for election.
🇹🇷 Turkey • The police crackdown on LGBT+ people continued yesterday with around a hundred arrests in Istanbul and Ankara, including those of two journalists. Amnesty International and the Council of Europe have called on the authorities to put an end to this crackdown.
Middle East
🇵🇸 Gaza • At least 21 people, including 12 children, died on Wednesday when a six-storey building in Gaza City, weakened by Israeli strikes, collapsed in the middle of the night. Dozens of residents were sleeping there due to a lack of housing. Rescue workers are digging with rudimentary tools and accuse Israel of preventing heavy machinery from entering the area, whilst the ICRC fears further collapses due to the winter rains.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia - 🇾🇪 Yemen • Riyadh accuses the Houthis of launching a drone towards Mecca, which was intercepted south of the holy city, and speaks of a ‘red line’, a claim the rebels deny, calling it a tired old lie. However, they have today claimed responsibility for attacks on an Aramco facility in Yanbu and the Khamis Mushait airbase, and claim to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet. The Kingdom, the world’s leading exporter of crude oil, is seeing its options dwindle: the Strait of Hormuz is blocked by Iran, its East-West oil pipeline has been shut down following drone attacks, and its transit volumes through Bab el-Mandeb fell to near-zero levels in August. Mohammed bin Salman called in Cairo, alongside Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for freedom of navigation in the Red Sea to be guaranteed.
🇺🇸 United States - 🇮🇱 Israel • Washington is set to approve the sale of at least 40,000 bombs to Israel for $2.8 billion, including 20,000 one-metric-tonne MK-84 warheads, according to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Israeli operations have left more than 1,300 people dead in Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire, and many Democrats are campaigning to reduce US support.
🇨🇳 China - 🇺🇸 United States - 🇮🇷 Iran • Speaking in Beijing on Wednesday, Wang Yi urged Iran and the United States to return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as soon as possible. China’s foreign minister, who was hosting his counterpart Abbas Araqchi, said he did not want to see tensions spread to Yemen and the Red Sea, a week before the meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Washington.
🇺🇸 United States - 🇮🇷 Iran • The head of the International Chamber of Commerce has warned of an unprecedented food crisis: before the war, a third of the world’s fertiliser passed through the Strait of Hormuz. He called on Washington and Tehran to make use of the mechanism proposed by the UN to secure these shipments, and hopes that France, which holds the presidency of the UN Security Council this month, will take up the matter.
Asia-Pacific
🇨🇳 China • Defence Minister Dong Jun called on Wednesday, at the opening of the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, for zero tolerance of any provocative acts and for vigilance against displays of hegemonism, militarism and historical revisionism – a veiled criticism of Japan without naming it. Some 2,000 officers, diplomats and academics from around 100 countries are attending the event.
🇨🇳 China - 🇺🇸 United States • Beijing is urging Washington to halt its military build-up in space, following an admission by US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink that space-based weapons are already in orbit. China opposes the transformation of space into a theatre of war, whilst Moscow is proposing a binding treaty banning offensive weapons in orbit.
🇮🇩 Indonesia • Forest fires could last until early November, as the rainy season is expected a month later than forecast, Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni warned today. The most severe fires in 11 years are ravaging Borneo and Sumatra, with cases of respiratory illnesses having more than doubled in seven provinces.
Americas
🇬🇹 Guatemala - 🇭🇳 Honduras - 🇸🇻 El Salvador • Central America’s ‘dry corridor’ is experiencing the worst drought in living memory, exacerbated by an El Niño that could become the strongest on record. Maize harvests have been lost, livestock carcasses litter the fields of southern Honduras, and maize is already selling for 50 per cent more in Guatemalan villages. The World Food Programme fears food shortages for 16 million people in Latin America, with effects expected to last until 2027.
🇺🇸 United States • The war against Iran has cost Washington $38 billion since it began on 28 February, according to the Congressional Budget Office, including $21.7 billion for ammunition replacement alone. The bill is rising by two to three billion a month, and US forces are reported to have used up between half and two-thirds of their stockpile of interceptor missiles since June 2025.
🇺🇸 United States • On Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency repealed greenhouse gas emission limits for power stations and is proposing to block any future regulation in this area. Its director describes this as the most extensive deregulation drive ever undertaken in the electricity sector, whilst environmental organisations have announced they will take legal action.
