An oil depot in Poltava Oblast was attacked by Russian Geran-2/4 drones last night, resulting in a large fire breaking out.

A 7th Russian Geran-4 jet-drone strike has just occurred on Kyiv, reportedly targeting the Karavaevi Dachi Railway Station in western Kyiv.

Earlier, a Geran-4 struck the Darnytsia Railway Station in eastern Kyiv.

An 8th Russian Geran-4 jet-drone strike was just carried out on Kyiv, this time targeting something just north of the city centre.

Explosion in Kyiv.

Another Russian Geran-4 jet-drone has impacted, this time in the Sovky District of southwestern Kyiv.

This is the 9th strike since this morning.

Odesa is once again under attack from Russian Geran-4 jet-drones.

A strike was carried out near the Cherʹomushky District in the southern suburbs of Odesa. Smoke can be seen rising from the impact site.

Debris from a shot down Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile fell in a parking lot next to a maternity hospital in Kyiv, killing one civilian.

The missile was shot down by a Patriot system.

Following today's large-scale Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv, Russia has now launched over 100 Geran-2 drones and a few Geran-5 jet-drones at western Ukraine.

Repeated launches of Geran-2/4 drones are expected to continue for the coming hours.

Explosions have already been heard in/near Zlazne and Sarny (Rivne Oblast). Up to 100 more drones are detected in Ukrainian airspace right now, with the first ones entering Ternopil and Rivne Oblasts. Ukrainian air defence is doing its best to shoot down as many as possible before they reach the western regions of Ukraine.

Approximate flight routes of the missiles launched in tonight's combined missile attack on Kyiv.

The following was launched:

~6 Iskander-M ballistic missiles launched from near Klintsy, Bryansk Oblast.

~4 RM-48U modified S-400 ballistic missiles launched from near Klintsy, Bryansk Oblast.

~4 Kn-23 ballistic missiles launched from near Liski, Voronezh Oblast, and near Fatezh, Kursk Oblast.

~4 Oniks-M supersonic cruise missiles launched from near Zheleznogorsk, Kursk Oblast.

~2 Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles launched from near Millerovo, Rostov Oblast.

As of the time of writing, a *minimum* of 2 Oniks-Ms, 1 Iskander-M, and 2 RM-48U S-400s were shot down by Ukrainian air defence.

Note: these numbers may be adjusted in the coming hours as new information comes in. They are only early estimations.

In the last 3 months, at least 350 Russian strikes 🇷🇺 have been recorded in Kyiv 🇺🇦 and around

▫️July 2026 : 112 strikes including 70 missiles
▫️August 2026 : 124 strikes including >21 missiles
▫️September 2026 : 117 strikes including >25 missiles

It's worth noting that a big part of missile strikes in August and September will take time to be recorded, since many targeted industries and critical infrastructure. Also, numbers for July are +/- complete but not for August and September.

What is Russia targeting in Kyiv ?
▫️Mainly warehouses : 31 in July, 52 in August and 62 in September
▫️Industries, military bases and very often civilian targets, including debris, crash, downed drones/missiles and misses.

Analysis : due to the lack of Patriot missiles and the mass arrival of jet drones (Geran-4/5) guided with Mesh network in July, Russia started a massive bombing campaign of Ukraine's capital city. Most of the missiles get through and many drones manage to target critical industries and warehouses.

I was going to write a post regarding the Hromadske article about the whole OPSEC situation in the Lyman direction, but @Thorkill65 made a post almost perfectly describing my thoughts on it.

In short, it is a form of informational warfare, pressuring OSINTers from doing their independent reporting. The Russian command was well aware about this counteroffensive from the start, as evidenced by the massive aerial bombing campaign on advancing Ukrainian forces using KAB glide-bombs, which had been ongoing since May 2026.

Thorkill wrote some important points in his post, so I will quote him below. I encourage you to read his entire post which I have linked below.

"1. The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps command simply wanted some peace and quiet. No information about ongoing offensive actions means that in case of potential failure, no one will find out about the defeat."

"2. Imposing OPSEC on the Lyman operation allowed Ukrainians total control over the narrative. We're seeing that now: instead of immediately announcing the success, they've turned it into a kind of "serial show." Now, throughout September (and probably most of October), A. Bilotsky will be filming weekly reels and YouTube content about liberating each successive village on the liquidated bridgehead on the western bank of the Zherebet River, while DeepState dutifully marks it blue bit by bit on their map. There's no military purpose to this – it's purely propagandistic."

This second point can also be used to obscure losses. I have been reporting on this counteroffensive for over 4 months, from start to finish. However, posting a few updates for the entire operations towards its conclusion, with pre-made flashy videos and edits, creates the illusion that there were much less losses involved, with people subconsciously viewing it as a sudden breakthrough into Russian lines, rather than a 4-month-long gruelling, fierce, and costly advance.

"3. All such discussions about OPSEC procedures, requests to Western OSINT analysts not to disclose info on Ukrainian operations, etc., are really aimed at stifling the free flow of independent information about this war. It's about roping independent analysts into the Ukrainian propaganda system, stripping them of autonomy and freedom of speech – in Gombrowicz's words: just plain "duping" them. Of course, in my case, that won't fly."

I completely agree with this third point. The more centralised the information space is, the more effective narrative control efforts are.

I'm not denying OPSEC is a real issue with how this war is fought right now. I'll quote an earlier post I made about OPSEC to give you an idea of where I stand on this.

"There's a fine balance with this sort of stuff. Yes, OPSEC is very real in today's war - far more so than in 2022, 2023, 2024, or even 2025. When very few soldiers are actually on the "line of contact", mapping a position as controlled based on your info from the ground can actually endanger them. But after the higher Russian command is aware of the counteroffensive, pretending it's not happening is useless, and only mapping precise control zones is the dangerous part. So I do understand why such an influential mapping project like Deepstate didn't post any updates on it as even if they were to purposefully show a very simplified or incorrect frontline, it could still be used by some lower command for targeting positions, potentially putting Ukrainian soldiers at risk. But ordinary OSINTers aren't going to change anything as long as they are purely using open sources for their mapping, like me."

Original post: https://x.com/Thorkill65/status/2102697523596951712

I think the time and losses portion of this argument is crucial. The counteroffensive itself lasted 4 months but there was also almost constant counterattacks by Ukraine from January through May in that area, some of which succeeded but many failed. Ukraine's gains here took almost a year of effort and heavy losses during that period, however with the way they've controlled the information space and how they've presented it you'd think it only took a couple of easy weeks to achieve.

This is how Ukraine wants it to work going forward; being able to deny and ignore the areas they are doing poorly in whilst overexaggerating the speed of their successes and hiding the effort and time it took to achieve them. A few week quick counteroffensive to take several hundred km2 looks impressive and is something they can sell to western media to milk for months, but 5 months of counterattacks followed by a 4 month counteroffensive to achieve that same thing doesn't have the same effect and raises questions as to the use of resources.

And at the bottom of it all is the poor Ukrainian grunt sent to fight and die in battles their command and country deny ever happened.

To the Nafoid boomers who keep emailing my parents trying to inform them that I'm supposedly spreading Russian propaganda, just know that you're wasting your time.

They have been aware of my reporting since day 1, and have followed my work this entire time. They are proud of my achievements, and enjoy reading my posts to stay informed themselves. I think a lot of you are under the impression that I'm "secretly" posting "Russian propaganda" without their knowledge lmao.

I also think a lot of you aren't very good at maths, as I was doxxed over 2 years ago when I was 17. This isn't a case of me being a child whose actions are being enabled by my parents not watching my internet activity.

The IDF claims to have killed Abu Alwan, Hamas' Head of Finance, in a recent targeted assassination strike on the Khan Younis area in the southern Gaza Strip.

According to the IDF, Alwan served as the head of Hamas' Finance Department for the last 10 years, and was involved in budgeting in all of Hamas' branches. The IDF claims that Alwan transferred over 1 Billion Shekels (around 329 Million USD) to fund Hamas' military operations.