Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky says Kyiv has made significant battlefield gains ‘exactly as planned’

As we reported earlier, Russian authorities said Ukraine had attacked an industrial area in Russia’s Bashkortostan region.

Wildberries, the online retailer that Kyiv has been targeted in a drone campaign which aims at “bringing the war home” to ordinary Russians, has confirmed that one if its facilities was set on fire by the attack.

No goods were stored at the premises, said the company, which has been targeted since 18 July.

As we earlier reported, the site is also home to a large oil refinery and petrochemical complex, according to Reuters.

A drone attack triggered a fire in an industrial area in Salavat in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, according to the republic’s head Radiy Khabirov said on messaging app Telegram.

The site is home to a large oil refinery and petrochemical complex, and is situated more than 1,300 kilometres (830 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

We’ll bring you more on the attack as it comes in.

We’ve heard from Moscow’s Defence Ministry, which said Russia came under a large Ukrainian drone attack.

Russia’s air defences intercepted and destroyed 362 drones overnight across several regions, it said.

Moscow does not usually share the full number of drones which crossed into its territory.

Ukrainian soldiers from the 121st Brigade say they spent four months on the frontline without rotation and suffered severe shortages of food and water, with some reportedly drinking urine during a 12-day period when drone-dropped supplies failed to arrive.

Platoon commander Anatoliy Saichuk accused senior officers of misleading soldiers’ families about their conditions, saying: “Some of my servicemen were semi-conscious for several days due to lack of water and food.”

He said he eventually ordered the men to abandon their positions when they had the opportunity.

The brigade confirmed the video was authentic but said it was taking measures to ensure soldiers were properly supplied.

The South joint forces group acknowledged the unit was operating in a “difficult and dynamic sector” but described the video as “an isolated fragment of a complex operational environment”.

Nobel laureate and former chief editor of newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, said that Russia cannot claim victory in Ukraine because the war has devastated both countries, and that Ukraine may be destroyed but cannot be conquered.

He told the BBC: “There will never be ‘victory’. Because what has been going on for nearly five years – no matter how it ends – can no longer be considered a victory.

“It cannot be a victory when two Slavic nations have ripped a million people to shreds. Or more than a million.”

He said: “It seems to me that the situation with Ukraine now is this: you can destroy it, but you cannot conquer it. What do I mean by destroy? Continued escalation all the way to the use of a nuclear weapon.”

He continued: “All those political experts who say ‘Putin thinks this’ or ‘Putin is scared of that’…they’re all charlatans.

“It’s in the same league as astrology. Nobody knows what’s going on in Vladimir Putin’s head. And I don’t know.

“I see things only as a journalist. I study big data. And since the beginning of the year, the need to use nuclear weapons has been mentioned more than 500 times. When wackos say this, I pay no attention. But I’ve heard it discussed on state TV. And at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, a state-run event, one of the speakers talked up the use of nuclear weapons as something favourable, something good.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin has threatened tit-for-tat seizures of European vessels if European countries seize Russian commercial ships or cargo.

He called such moves “piracy and robbery” and said Russia’s defence ministry and Pacific Fleet had already received instructions to prepare a response.

The warning follows European seizures of vessels suspected of belonging to Russia’s “shadow fleet”, which transports Russian oil in breach of sanctions.

New EU sanctions allow member states to sell seized oil or other cargo.

He said Russia would be ready to carry out its own seizures “wherever we deem it necessary and appropriate,” according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Two attacks over the last week have targeted military assets in Gelendzhik, around 12 miles from the Russian leader’s holiday home.

On Sunday, a further strike was launched on an S-400 anti-aircraft missile system and launch pad just 500m away from the previous attack.

Major Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces said the S-400 had fired six missiles on Sunday night before it was left “ablaze and sputtering for three hours”.

Moldova has agreed to give Ukraine a 50 per cent discount on rail transit charges for Ukrainian cargo until the end of 2026, helping exporters use alternative routes through Moldova to Moldovan and Romanian ports.

The move comes as Russian attacks have disrupted Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and shipping.

Russia also struck Ukraine’s Izmail port area in Odesa region, damaging infrastructure and causing fires.

Izmail is a key Danube port for Ukrainian grain and other exports.

Meanwhile, Russia said it was seeking alternative routes for its own exports after Ukrainian attacks disrupted operations at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

Ukraine needs five per cent of US Patriot interceptor stocks to get through the winter and 10 per cent to destroy all Russian ballistic missiles, Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN.

He said Ukraine had “two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025”, while Russia was firing twice as many ballistic missiles each month.

Zelensky said he was asking the US to sell Ukraine 5 per cent of its interceptor stocks.

Zelensky said Ukraine was currently receiving only “1 per cent” of what the US makes.

“From 1 per cent to 5 per cent… I have some months and millions [of] phone calls and anything else. I do some things which I can’t even share. It doesn’t mean that it’s out of the law. But I can’t speak about it.”