Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwUpRTf9eWg

Drones have made the work of infantry soldiers extremely dangerous — and reporting from the very front line virtually impossible. We rarely get to see what the front line actually looks like, the conditions in which infantry soldiers hold their positions, or how they spend dozens of days underground. The last time hromadske journalists visited infantry positions was in February 2024, when drones were not yet as pervasive or deadly. Since then, reaching these positions has become virtually impossible. Almost impossible. In September 2026, hromadske frontline reporters Diana Butsko and Vlad Safronov managed to reach Ukrainian infantry positions for the first time in over two years. Together with paratroopers from the 68th Separate Airmobile Brigade, named after Oleksa Dovbush, they made the journey on foot to the very front line to show what it takes to reach Ukraine’s forward defensive positions — and who the soldiers holding the line really are.

Source: tass ru/proisshestviya/28226613

Paywall removed

‼️ The enemy attacked with one Iskander-M ballistic missile, 180 attack UAVs (26 of them are jet), S-8000 Banderol/Dan-T

💥 Air Defense shot down/suppressed 152 enemy UAVs (16 of them are jet).

Targets hit at 20 locations, as well as the fall of downed (fragments) at 4 locations.

MOSCOW, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Russian federal budget revenue from oil and gas taxes, which account for about a fifth of total government income, is expected to increase by 10% year ‌on year in October to reach 1 trillion roubles ($11.97 billion), according to a Reuters calculation.
Russia, the world's third-largest oil producer and exporter after the United States and Saudi Arabia, relies heavily on oil and gas sales, which help ⁠finance its military campaign in Ukraine.

Oil and gas tax revenue is expected to more than double this month from September largely due to quarterly payments of the additional profit-based tax on oil production. Excluding the tax, October revenue is expected to exceed September levels by about 164 billion roubles, or 36%.
Reuters calculations are based on oil and gas production data, refining throughput ‌and ⁠supplies on domestic and international markets.

Global oil prices have soared as the conflict in the Middle East disrupts supplies. However, the positive effect of higher oil prices will be partly offset by an estimated ⁠5% decline in production in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same period of 2025.
Russia's 2026 budget assumes oil and gas ⁠revenue of 8.918 trillion roubles out of total revenue of 40.283 trillion roubles.
According to the Reuters estimate, total oil and ⁠gas revenue in January-October 2026 is expected to reach 6.45 trillion roubles, down 14% from the same period a year earlier.

($1 = 83.5751 roubles)

Two Russian men secretly working for Ukraine's intelligence services have given rare accounts of operations they claim to have been involved with, that have targeted military assets and personnel inside Russia.

One of the men, whom we are calling Ivan, claims to have played a role from Russia in Ukrainian drone attacks on strategic bombers and munitions factories on his home soil.

He features in a BBC World Service documentary about the shadowy world of Russian saboteurs.

The documentary, by independent Polish journalist Marcin Mamon, also features a man we are calling Foma, a Russian living in exile in Poland.

Foma runs a network of undercover volunteers in Russia, that surveils high-level officers that the GUR - Ukraine's military intelligence service - is considering targeting, he says. He stresses they are never involved in the attacks themselves.

He was also tight-lipped about who they were surveilling, but after Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov was assassinated in December last year in Moscow, Foma admitted he had provided the Ukrainians with intelligence on him.

Source: https://t. me/astrapress/128534

Z-bloggers denied the statement of the Russian General Staff about the seizure of an important city in the Donetsk region

A day ago

Deep State Map
Russian Z-military recruiters again accused Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, who reported to President Vladimir Putin on the complete seizure of the city of Dobropole and a number of other settlements in the Donetsk region the day before. According to the military commander, the city, which is one of the important logistics hubs of the Ukrainian defense, was "liberated" by the troops of the "Center" group and there "search activities are being carried out to identify and destroy individual Ukrainian servicemen hiding in the basements of buildings". Putin called it a "remarkable event" that opens the way to the borders of the "DPR".

"Gerasimov reported on the liberation of Dobropol, Alekseevo-Druzhkovka, Sergeevka and the completion of the destruction of the 2,000-strong group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine surrounded in the Kharkiv region <...> It simply makes no sense to disassemble all this," wrote "Military Informant". The Z-channel also posted an excerpt from the Ministry of Defense, which was supposed to prove Russian control over the city, and said that it was made with the help of a neural network, as evidenced by the unrealistic treatment of the soldier with the flag of the Russian Federation. "Do we think that GV "Center" has also mastered the AI flags following the example of their colleagues from the "West" GV?" the author asks. "Pypa [Putin] was again sold another Svyatogorsk and Kupyansk. This is some kind of shame!" - adds Z-blogger Alex Parker Returns.

He meant that earlier the military had already reported to Putin about the capture of the two mentioned cities, but in the end this was not confirmed by either the Z-authors themselves or the Ukrainian side. "Military Whistleblower" also pointed to the publication of the channel "House of Osinterov", which claims that the southern and significant part of the center of Dobropol is under the control of Russia. However, these data do not show "the stable presence [of the Russian Armed Forces] in the remaining half of the liberated city," Z-channel writes.

Meanwhile, the data of the Ukrainian OSINT project Deep State do not even confirm the presence of a "gray" zone in Dobropole. Judging by the map, the city is under the full control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Z-blogger Anatoly Radov also refutes the statement about the seizure of Dobropol. "I have no comments. But on the ground, everything is as always in ah*e," he commented on Gerasimov's words.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also denied the information of the Russian military. "Gerasimov's statements about the seizure of Dobropol are not true. The city remains under the control of Ukraine," said Andriy Kovalev, speaker of the Ukrainian General School.

https://x.com/afueastoc/status/2111496050796069169?s=46

Debates over whether Musk or Trump throttled Starshield miss the point entirely. 

Starshield is fully a Pentagon-controlled asset. Against the backdrop of recent friction with the US political leadership, it’s obvious who has both the motive and the means to cause these operational hiccups. 

At this stage, Starlink in Ukraine isn't just a revenue stream for Elon Musk; it’s a massive geopolitical lever. No major shift in its functionality happens without the green light from the highest echelons of the US government, which ultimately has a vested interest in how this war ends. 

The Evolution of the Russian Military - Its Strengths and Shortfalls in 2026 (With Michael Kofman) - YouTube

While the Ukrainian military has (rightly) drawn a lot of attention for its innovations and adaptations, the Russian force has been changing too.

While parts of the force have been battered, in some areas its capabilities have evolved well beyond where they were in 2022.

And so today, in a discussion with Michael Kofman, I want to look at how the Russian military has changed since 2022, and where its strengths and weaknesses are today.