Death to NATO

As the country spirals into a demographic disaster, Ukrainian authorities face a quandary: who will be left to pick up the pieces once the war ends?

Despite the [conflict in Ukraine] and increasing Ukrainianization, Russian is still frequently spoken in Kiev schoolyards. Why? Deutsche Welle spoke with students, parents, teachers, and experts.

After the start of Russia's [Special Military Operation] in February 2022, many people in Ukraine consciously began speaking only Ukrainian and avoiding Russian in their daily lives.

However, over time, this initial emotional impulse seems to have subsided, and some Russian-speaking Ukrainians have reverted to their native language. A significant number of young people in schools, and sometimes even teachers, continue to speak Russian with one another.

According to a study by the State Service for Educational Quality, conducted in cooperation with the Commissioner for the Protection of Ukrainian as an Official Language in April and May 2025, the use of Ukrainian in schools across the country is generally continuing to increase.

The [Kiev regime's] study found that 48 percent of the students surveyed in the officially bilingual Ukraine communicate exclusively in Ukrainian, an increase of seven percentage points compared to the previous school year.

However, this finding does not apply equally to all regions: The results are particularly striking in the capital, Kiev, where a negative trend is even evident. The percentage of students who exclusively use Ukrainian in their schools has fallen by ten percentage points compared to the last school year and now stands at just 17 percent.

Oksana (who prefers not to give her real name) is a teacher at a school in Kiev. "In class, the children speak Ukrainian, but when the bell rings for recess, they start speaking Russian among themselves," she reports.

[...]

"For example, a girl speaks Ukrainian to me, and when her father picks her up, she immediately switches to Russian," Oksana recounts. According to her, she is a family of internally displaced persons from eastern Ukraine.

That many people in the Ukrainian capital speak Russian doesn't surprise Oleksiy Antypovych, head of the Rating polling institute. "In Kiev, about 50 percent speak Ukrainian, just under 20 percent Russian, and 30 percent speak both languages.

This is a Kiev regime "poll", notoriously unreliable and known to be manipulated to align with the nationalist ideological agenda. Many people are often afraid to answer truthfully for fear of being accused of being "unpatriotic". The real numbers are probably much worse for Ukrainian.

Pure Ukrainian is only really spoken natively in the West of the country. What they call "Ukrainian" in these polls is often a mix of Russian and Ukrainian called Surzhik, which is what is spoken in the middle regions of the country alongside Russian. Many so-called "Ukrainian speakers" actually speak it very poorly.

"In fact, twice as many people in Kiev report speaking Russian as the Ukrainian average," Antypovych told DW, citing a study by his institute.

DW's sources also observed a return of Russian in everyday life. "With the start of the [Special Military Operation], there was a massive mobilization of internal forces regarding our national symbols. Since 2024, the Russian language, especially in Kiev, has been present on the streets again, and speaking it is no longer frowned upon," Antypovych said. He added, however, that the proportion of people who speak Ukrainian in everyday life remains stable.

Olena Ivanovska believes that much work remains to be done to create a Ukrainian-language environment in the country's schools, even outside of class. "Patriotism alone is not enough. The will of the state and a consistent policy regarding the language used by teachers and school administrators are essential." Therefore, it is important "that Parliament adopts the draft law to guarantee a Ukrainian-language learning environment in educational institutions," says the Commissioner for the Protection of the Official Language.

The draft law, introduced to Parliament in October 2024, defines the term "Ukrainian-language learning environment."

It stipulates that the educational process encompasses not only classroom instruction but also breaks, communication on school grounds, and other educational activities. If the law is passed, authorities would be required to develop a system for assessing children's language proficiency. However, measures against students or parents who communicate in Russian are not included.

The last sentence here is included purely for Western audiences. In reality serious abuses are already taking place, where ideological Banderite school administrations and teachers take it upon themselves to bully, shame, coerce and punish Russian speaking students.

We've seen numerous stories leak about children of parents with extremist nationalist views who are being taught to attack and abuse their Russian speaking classmates, and many teachers turn a blind eye to this. With the introduction of such a law things will only get worse.

“Furthermore, we need to make it clear to parents who speak Russian with their children at home that their child will be significantly disadvantaged when they start school compared to other children whose mother tongue is Ukrainian,” Ivanovska adds.

Civilized, democratic European values on display right here. Openly admitting to systemic discrimination against not even just a minority but a majority of the country (though Kiev regime polls will never admit this, it is a fact that the majority of the country do not actually speak Ukrainian at home and in everyday life) on ethnic and linguistic grounds.

Seeing an article like this from a very pro-Ukrainian western outlet in which they admit to this inconvenient fact that they have been trying to hide for the past three years is especially interesting given that just recently the Kiev regime passed a law depriving the Russian language of protected status.

This after the use of the language has already been proscribed in education, public commerce and official government institutions, and even attempts of wholesale bans of Russian cultural products were made. Many Ukrainians are often been beaten and abused by nationalists for speaking Russian. Children are punished in schools for it.

Despite these increasingly desperate measures to try and stamp out the Russian language and force Ukrainization, the use of Russian by the youth is only increasing. The Ukrainian population is rejecting the Banderite project.

Some in the European media are finally starting to enter the phase of acceptance:

The continent long ago surrendered the ability to play a role in great power politics

Donald Trump refuses to fund Ukraine’s war effort, so Europe must do so on its own – that is the basic financial and military reality of this final phase of the conflict.

European leaders have lavished Ukraine with promises of support, drafted gigantic defence-spending proposals and even formulated plans to put European boots on the ground. But what has been conspicuously lacking are actual transfers of sufficient hard cash and weaponry to plug Kyiv’s estimated $60bn budget gap, pay for a comprehensive defence against Russia or even less mount any kind of pushback.

Meanwhile, the actual nuts and bolts of the war’s endgame are being thrashed out – however imperfectly – directly between Putin and Trump’s envoys without reference to Europe or to Ukraine.

The sad truth is that European leaders act like they play a part in great power politics, but in reality the continent has long surrendered the ability to fill that role. As news of the 28-point peace plan drafted by Trump’s man Steve Witkoff and Kremlin representative Kirill Dmitriev broke, Kaja Kallas, Europe’s foreign policy chief, spoke out to say that “the EU has a very clear two-point plan: first, weaken Russia; second, support Ukraine”.

Soon after, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer weighed in to say that the ultimate peace deal “requires the approval of the European partners or a consensus of the Allies”.

In theory, yes. Ukraine is a major European nation and its fate and security is the natural concern of Kyiv’s closest neighbours and allies. In practice, though, the top table of international diplomacy is reserved for nations ready and willing to deploy significant military and financial power to achieve their ends.

As historian Niall Ferguson put it bluntly in a recent tweet, “if you want to take back territory and try Putin, you have to win the war … realistically, Ukraine has never been in a position to defeat Russia.” By the same token neither Europe nor the US have had any interest in fighting a direct war with Moscow.

Europe’s politicians may lie to Ukraine and to themselves about their devotion to Kyiv’s cause, but the numbers tell a truer story.

Back in March, as Europe was realigning to the new reality that Washington was pulling its funding of Ukraine, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a “ReArm Europe” plan that she said “could see up to €800bn poured into the defence sector over the next four years”. The EU’s first move was to tweak its borrowing rules to exclude defence investment, thereby potentially allowing members to borrow more to spend on defence.

Days later, von der Leyen announced €150bn of defence spending loans open to EU member states but with one proviso – 65 per cent of the military kit would have to come from suppliers in the EU, Norway or Ukraine. The rest could be spent in non-EU countries like Britain if they signed a security agreement with Brussels.

Kallas then presented another plan for EU members to chip in €40bn actual cash to finance arms for Kyiv, rather than for the EU’s own defence. But that proposal was rejected by Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. Even a slimmed down pledge of €5bn, focused on just the artillery ammunition component of the rejected package, was also scrapped. Indeed even the term #ReArmEurope was deemed too militaristic by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. “I don’t like the term rearm,” objected Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez. “I think the EU is a political project of soft power … This is my principled objection to the term of rearm.”

With enemies like these, who needs friends?

On the economic front there’s a similar disconnect between Europe’s words and its deeds. By some estimates the EU paid Russia €311bn for its energy products since Feb 2022, while giving €187bn in support for Ukraine. “Sanctions are hitting Russia where it hurts,” claimed Kallas this week, adding that the EU is preparing its twentieth package of sanctions.

Yet the continent continues to import Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) while Hungary and Slovakia are busy negotiating sanctions opt-outs in order to continue importing piped Russian gas and oil. And the first really painful sanctions against Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft are being introduced this month by Washington, not Brussels.

Who is buying Russian fossil fuels

The clear pattern that has emerged over four years of war is that Europe’s northeastern corner, led by the Scandinavians and the Baltics, have been the most consistently hawkish on Russia and adamant about the continent’s need to rearm. Finnish president Alexander Stubb has argued that Ukraine must be “militarised to the teeth” to deter Moscow, for instance, while Kallas said in January that Europe must “prepare for war” – after last year fantasising about breaking up the Russian Federation into little statelets.

But the European countries who will actually have to pay the bills have been more measured. Macron, for instance, while being wholeheartedly supportive of Kyiv diplomatically has spoken out against confiscating frozen Russian assets.

The irony is that Europe’s economy and defence sector may be smaller than the US’s, but not by that much. Washington this year is expected to spend $980bn on defence, the EU and Britain $525bn – and Russia some $154bn, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. France builds its own nuclear warheads and aircraft carriers, Sweden’s Gripen fighters are considered among the most sophisticated in the world, while the market capital of Germany’s Rheinmetall has overtaken that of car manufacturer Volkswagen.

US defence spending dwarfs Europe's

Germany’s Taurus cruise missiles and the UK-French SCALP-Storm shadow are comparable to the US workhorse Tomahawk missiles, albeit the Tomahawk having a much longer range. Indeed overall its Europe, not the US, which has given more funds to Ukraine over the course of the war. According to the Kiel Institute a Germany-based think tank that tracks international support for Ukraine, the US has spent a total of $130.6bn between January 24 2022 and June 30 2025 and Europe $165.7bn.

So why has Europe’s generosity not translated into more diplomatic heft in the Ukraine peace process, and why has the continent’s enormous armaments industry not been able to keep Ukraine supplied with air defences, armour, artillery and rockets that it needs? One answer is capacity, complicated by national differences. Europe’s militaries are vastly smaller than the US’s, and keep correspondingly smaller stockpiles.

The capacity of European factories is therefore limited too. And fatefully, though Nato equipment like the standard 155mm artillery shell is meant to be seamlessly interchangeable, “Ukraine’s experience has made clear that Nato … howitzers and munitions are not truly interoperable,” according to a recent report by West Point Military Academy’s Modern War Institute.

Europeans tend to spend their defence procurement money domestically, leading to a bewildering array of British, French, German, Czech, Swedish and Polish infantry fighting vehicles, all with different spare parts, operating on Ukrainian front lines. Overall, that’s made Europe’s military contribution bitty, complex and expensive.

More importantly in practical terms is that the most effective big-ticket weapons, from Patriot air defence missile batteries and ATACMs short range cruise missiles to F-16 fighters, are made in the US. Though Trump has cut funding, he’s still allowing Europeans to buy American equipment for donation to Kyiv, but that arrangement adds another layer of complication.

The most crucial problem of all for Europe is, bluntly, money. Spending is always a political choice and every major EU economy, as well as the UK, is facing a similar crisis of ballooning spending, deficits and debt.

Germany has been most generous to Kyiv, with Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, pledging €11.5bn in military aid in 2026. The lion’s share of that will remain in Germany and be spent on German-made equipment; effectively a form of military Keynesianism. But that doesn’t do much to help pay Kyiv’s bills, which EU officials propose to meet by raising more debt in the absence of member states’ actual cash.

With Russia advancing in Donbas and Zaporizhia, Ukraine’s military facing a severe manpower shortage and its corruption scandal-mired government running out of money, Volodymyr Zelensky’s options are limited.

Europe urges him to fight on, but cannot provide the funds for him to do so. That leaves Ukraine little choice but engage with Trump’s heavily Russian-accented peace proposal.

A perfect storm is hitting Ukraine, as political, battlefield, financial, and infrastructural pressure mount to unprecedented levels since the war began. Full grid collapse is now on the table. It’s just a question of if the Russians will choose to pull the plug.

It's giving Napoleon

"During a recent trip to frontline areas near the encircled strategic city of Pokrovsk, the Ukrainian president, his chief of staff, and commander-in-chief visited the 1st Azov Corps from the National Guard of Ukraine, and they found themselves standing next to a neo-Nazi flag, awarding soldiers who appeared to be wearing SS bolts on their arms. Actually, that PR debacle (which the international press has dutifully ignored) occurred at another command post — a brigade from the National Guard’s 2nd Khartia Corps."

For those who want to learn more about the Nazification of Ukraine and the Neo-Nazi Banderite movement, in the diaspora and in Ukraine itself, you should follow this substack ( https://azovlobby.substack.com/ ) and its sister substack ( https://banderalobby.substack.com/ ).

They do great work covering the internal politics of the Ukrainian Nazi movement and its western supporters that is rare to find anywhere else. Some of the articles are paywalled but there is plenty that is free to read that is extremely educational for those who really want to delve into the details of this topic.

"Russia's oil processing has fallen just 3% this year despite Ukraine's biggest drone attacks to date as refineries averted a steep decline in fuel production by leveraging spare capacity to offset damage from the strikes, sources said and data showed."

I've been saying all along these pinprick attacks are a nothing burger as far as the trajectory of this conflict is concerned.

Excerpts:

"The special military operation is not a war for territories but an operation to save lives of millions of people who have lived on those territories for centuries and whom the Kiev junta seeks to eradicate – legally, by prohibiting their history, language and culture, and physically, by using Western weapons. Another important goal of the special military operation is to ensure Russia’s security and to undermine the plans of NATO and the EU to create a hostile puppet state at our western borders that, by law and in reality, relies on Nazi ideology. It is not the first time we have stopped fascist and Nazi aggressors. That happened during World War II and it will happen again."

"The goals of the special military operation were determined by President Putin in 2022 and remain relevant to this day. It is not about spheres of influence but about Ukraine’s return to a neutral, non-aligning and non-nuclear status, and strict observance of the human rights and all the rights of the Russian and other national minorities – this is how these obligations were stipulated by Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence of 1990 and in its Constitution, and it was precisely in view of these declared obligations that Russia recognised the independence of the Ukrainian state. We are seeking and we will achieve the return of Ukraine to the healthy and stable origins of its statehood, which implies that Ukraine will no longer subserviently offer its territory to NATO for military development (as well as to the European Union, which is quickly turning into a military block of similarly aggressive military bloc), sweep out the Nazi ideology prohibited in Nuremberg, return of all their rights to the Russians, Hungarians and other national minorities. It is indicative that, while dragging the Kiev regime into the EU, the Brussels elites remain silent about the outrageous discrimination of “non-indigenous ethnicities” (as Kiev contemptuously calls Russians who have lived in Ukraine for centuries) and praise Zelensky’s junta for defending “European values.” This is just another proof that Nazism is resurging in Europe. It is something to think about, especially after Germany and Italy together with Japan recently began to vote against the General Assembly’s annual resolution on the unacceptability of glorifying Nazism."

"The Western governments do not hide the fact that in reality, they are waging a proxy war against Russia through Ukraine and this war will not be finished even “after the current crisis.” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Brussels bureaucrats Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas, and US President’s Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg have spoken about it on many occasions. It is evident that Russia’s determination to protect itself from the threats created by the West using the regime under its control, is legitimate and reasonable."

"Most of the European capitals currently make up the core of the so called “coalition of the willing” whose sole desire is to keep hostilities in Ukraine running for as long as possible. Apparently, they have no other way of distracting their voters from sharply deteriorating domestic socioeconomic problems. They sponsor the terrorist regime in Kiev using European taxpayers’ money and supply weapons which are used as part of a consistent effort to kill civilians in Russian regions and Ukrainians who are trying to flee the war and the Nazi henchmen. They undermine any peace efforts and refuse to have direct contacts with Moscow; they impose more and more sanctions that have a boomerang effect for their economies; they are openly preparing Europe for a new big war against Russia and are trying to talk Washington into rejecting an honest and fair settlement."

"We would like to see the awareness of such a disastrous policy sink in with European governments most of whom are pursuing a rabid anti-Russia agenda. Europe already waged wars [against us] under Napoleon’s flags, and last century also under the Hitler’s Nazi banners and colours. Some European leaders have a very short memory. When this Russophobic obsession – I am at a loss for a better phrase for that – fades away, we will be open for contacts, ready to hear if our former partners are going to do business with us further. And then we will decide if there are prospects for building fair and honest ties."

"The West’s efforts have totally discredited and dismantled the Euro-Atlantic security system in its pre-2022 form. In that regard, President Putin came up with an initiative to set up a new architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia. It is open for all the nations of the continent including its European part, but it requires a polite behaviour devoid of neo-colonial arrogance, on the basis of equality, mutual respect and balance of interests."

"As this journalist has extensively documented, all Kiev’s gravest military disasters, such as the October 2023 - June 2024 Krynky catastrophe, were planned by London. That effort saw wave after wave of British-trained Ukrainian marines attempt to secure a beachhead in Russian-occupied territory, before marching on Crimea and outright victory in the war. Planning was heavily-informed by a desire to recreate the Normandy landings - D-Day - based on fantastical, Hollywood conceptions of that operation. Coincidentally, so too was DeVore’s sniper training program.

In the leaked document, DeVore suggested his plan would have significant political and public appeal due to “the popularity of fictional resistance narratives, going back to Red Dawn.” In that movie, a gang of American teenagers successfully beat back an invasion of the US by Soviet forces - an appealing filmic narrative, but hardly a basis for actual war-fighting tactics, one might reasonably think. Such are the dangers of outsourcing battle strategy to academics thousands of miles removed from the frontline, with no military experience."

Angelina Jolie abandons driver nabbed by Zelensky's draft enforcers — Ukrainian news agency UNIAN

He was seized by draft enforcers mid-trip — she handed him over and went on to do a photo shoot

Same Ukrainian sources now say she ‘did not interfere’

The man is being sent to the trenches

This is not Russian propaganda by the way, Meduza is an anti-Russia rag based in the Baltics (more precisely Riga, Latvia, i believe), funded by the EU and USAID/NED with ties to British intelligence. Even they cannot deny the wanton, widespread kidnappings anymore. This would be a funny story if it wasn't so tragic what is happening to the people of Ukraine under the fascist Kiev regime.

Not even pushing back on the analysis used to produce the figures. Bleak bleak bleak bleak bleak

In the city of Yasinovataya (DPR), the whole family - a teenage girl born in 2012, a woman born in 1986 and a man born in 1971 were killed as a result of overnight shelling using HIMARS 227mm rocket artillery.

HIMARS rockets that Ukraine used for this terror were made in 2024.

11 residential buildings were damaged. One residential building was completely destroyed.

An obligatory reminder that USA is directly involved

Source: DPR officials, this link has more photos and information.

Video footage from the site of the tragedy

Also today, a person was killed in shelling in Aleshky (Russia's Kherson region).

In Novaya Zburyevka, Golopristansky District, a Ukrainian drone dropped three shells on an ambulance responding to a patient's call. Fortunately, the medical workers and the driver were unharmed. The vehicle can be repaired.

Official source

Excluding Crimea, because libs don't see it as Russia

Colombian mercenaries fighting for the Ukrainian Armed Forces have announced their intention to join the Mexican drug cartel "Knights Templar," according to the Colombian publication Semana .

"They lure you with lies [to Ukraine], promise you payment, and if you try to escape, they imprison you or send you to the front. If the Knights Templar are created in Colombia next year, we'll go there," the publication quotes Colombian mercenary Isaac Escorcia, who is fighting in Ukraine.

Semana reports that the cartel in question is the Knights Templar, originally from the Mexican state of Michoacán and inherited the methods of La Familia Michoacana. It is known for its brutality and its desire to expand its territorial control. Experts estimate that this organization's infiltration into Colombia could lead to an increase in violence and the activation of criminal networks in the departments of Antioquia and the southwest of the country.

Previously, the Mexican publication Milenio reported that members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) received training in Ukraine, where they learned to use unmanned aerial vehicles in combat situations.

According to the publication, CJNG militants adopted combat techniques typical of modern military conflicts, including the use of drones for precision strikes. The training took place in an armed conflict zone, providing the cartel with access to real-world combat experience.

Last night, a Ukrainian drone strike on the village of Zhelezny Port in the Golopristan district (Russia's Kherson region) killed a married couple: a 66-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman, who were staying at a temporary accommodation center for evacuees, where civilians forced to leave frontline areas lived. They had been evacuated earlier and hoped to wait out the dangerous period in a safe location. However, the drones struck their home.

Ukraine also launched several more strikes on residential areas, damaging local homes.

Yesterday, October 17, three people, including a 10-year-old child, were killed as a result of Ukrainian shelling of houses in Aleshki (also Russia's Kherson region). Six people were wounded.

Over the past week, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have struck the Aleshki District more than 700 times.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces struck stores, a market, trucks and cars near a fruit and vegetable sales area, and a security booth. Communication towers, residential buildings, and an abandoned school building were damaged.

In Golaya Pristan, a 49-year-old woman died from a direct shell hit. In Bekhtery, a 51-year-old woman's foot was severed after a mine dropped by Ukrainian Armed Forces militants exploded. The victim was rushed to Skadovsk.

In Novaya Mayachka, a drone struck a grocery store. Two civilians, a woman born in 1973 and a man born in 1966, suffered back and leg injuries and were hospitalized.

Source: Bloknot Herson media and Governor of the Kherson region

KEY FINDINGS

This report covers the key events, trends and examples related to the crimes committed by the Ukrainian political authorities and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU[1]) in three months, from July 1 to September 30, 2025.

The violation of the international humanitarian law norms and principles and the military crimes committed by the Ukrainian side amounts to as deliberate and articulated strategy of Zelensky’s regime. The information we have collected prove that the tasks set by the Kiev regime’s political leadership for the AFU include killing and injuring civilians, damaging civilian infrastructure, intimidating civilians in the Russian regions, and so on. Systematic terror towards civilians was aimed at disrupting nascent negotiations, creating a negative information background for the international events held during that period, and destabilising internal political atmosphere in the Russian Federation.

Kiev has been doing its utmost to create a “bloody backdrop” for the talks and meetings that were directly related to the Ukraine crisis. The obvious surges in the AFU’s criminal activity towards Russian civilians and civilian facilities in the territory of Russia were directly connected with the political and international events that took place in that period.

On July 23, during the third round of the Istanbul talks aimed at settling the Ukraine crisis, the Russian delegation put forth several humanitarian and political initiatives. The Kiev regime responded with terrorist attacks against the civilian population of the Russian Federation. The AFU delivered large-scale strikes targeting crowded public places in the frontline regions, in particular, in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and the Krasnodar Territory.

On July 22−24, several Russian regions were subjected to large-scale artillery and UAV attacks. At least 413 strikes targeted civilian facilities in the Kherson Region, killing seven civilians and injuring 20.

Immediately after the end of the talks on the night of July 24, the Kiev regime launched a massive attack by strike fixed-wing UAVs on residential districts in Sochi, Krasnodar Territory. Two women were killed and 13 people injured in that attack. At the same time, large numbers of UAVs attacked the Vasilyevka and Pologi municipal districts of the Zaporozhye Region, killing three and injuring nine civilians.

The Kiev regime’s terrorist operations peaked during Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska on August 15. Between August 14 and 17, the number of AFU’s attacks on civilian facilities tripled. Almost simultaneously, Kiev delivered a series of “symbolic” demonstration strikes on the central districts of regional centres in the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Belgorod, Rostov, Kursk and Bryansk regions.

On August 14−15, at least 388 Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure were registered in the Belgorod Region, including the buildings of the regional government, courts and social centres. As the result, 22 civilians were wounded and one person killed. On August 15, a woman was killed and 15 people were wounded in a direct UAV strike on an apartment house in Kursk. Fifteen people were injured in a similar attack in Rostov-on-Don.

On August 18, an armed detachment of the 3rd Regiment of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was neutralised in the Bryansk Region, where they prepared to blow up a passenger railway line. Three Ukrainians were detained and another three were killed. They carried Western rifles, explosives and equipment. On May 31, 2025, the Kiev regime perpetrated a similar terrorist attack, exploding a bridge over a passenger train in the Bryansk Region. Seven people died and 113 were wounded.

The UN General Assembly High-Level Week was seen as yet another reason to intensify attacks on Russian regions. The number of shelling attacks on civilian infrastructure increased dramatically on September 22−28, in particular, in the Belgorod, Kherson and Kursk regions. As many as 39 civilians, including four minors, were injured in these attacks on September 22−23.

Ahead of Zelensky’s speech at the UN on September 23, the AFU attacked a substation line connected to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. As a result, the Dneprovskaya high-voltage transmission line was disconnected, cutting off electricity supply to the Zaporozhye NPP and creating the risk of a major nuclear accident.

These unambiguous signals, reinforced by crimes committed on the ground, are proof of the Kiev authorities’ lack of commitment to a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.

There are several trends that characterize Ukraine's actions during the reporting period, in particular:

• A significant increase in the intensity of Ukrainian shelling attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Daily attacks on civilian facilities varied between 450 and 520.
• A significant increase in the number of civilians killed and wounded in the AFU strikes compared to the beginning of 2025. Over the three months under review, 200 more civilians have been injured than in the previous three months.
• The growth of UAV attack victims. Over 70% of civilian victims were targeted by UAVs. Overall, about 1,300 civilians have been injured in UAV attacks in the reporting period.
• The AFU used rocket projectiles to attack crowded public places. The second largest number of civilians were killed and injured by high-precision MLRS systems, mostly HIMARS, Grad and similar systems.
• The use of new types of UAVs by the AFU against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including FPV UAVs, fixed-wing strike UAVs and heavy hexacopters. They targeted densely populated urban districts, civilian transport, emergency vehicles, farming machinery, refuelling stations, and civilian facilities.
• The use of inhumane weapons against civilians, such as fragments that cannot be detected with X-rays, anti-personnel mines, explosive devices disguised as household items, and the like.
• The growing number of strikes on the agrarian sector. Over 100 farm machines have been damaged by Ukrainian UAVs. The strikes were delivered to destroy the harvest and processing equipment.
• Deteriorating nuclear safety and security. Kiev continues attacking nuclear power facilities. Over the past three months, Ukraine targeted Russia’s Zaporozhye, Kursk and Smolensk nuclear power plants at least 19 times.

Ukrainian strategy towards civilians

Russian forces held the initiative on the battlefield in the reporting period, whereas Kiev has lost control over an area of approximately 1,709 square kilometres. The Ukrainian regime, which is losing battles against Russia, resorted to prohibited forms and methods of warfare, in violation of international norms. The AFU used Western-supplied weapons to kill women and children and destroy hospitals, schools, residential houses, and social and administrative buildings.

Vladimir Zelensky openly stated that the AFU’s crimes had a strategic goal −to make Russia feel its losses, which should allegedly force it to use diplomacy. The Ukrainian dictator’s rhetoric is designed to justify terrorist attacks on civilian facilities far beyond the zone of hostilities: “We must push the war back to where it came from, into Russia. And not just in the border areas.” Regarding the attribution of war, we would like to remind everyone that it was the Kiev regime, which came to power as the result of an illegal state coup that launched hostilities against civilians in Donbass in 2014, including with the use of combat aircraft.

Strikes on civilian facilities

The average number of AFU shelling and air strikes on civilian facilities has almost doubled in the reporting period compared to April−June 2025. Between July 1 and September 30, 2025, the AFU launched at least 38,278 various munitions at civilian targets. The aggregate number of munitions used by the Kiev regime against civilians since February 2022 has reached at least 316,382.

The analysis of documented Ukrainian attacks on civilian facilities in Russia in the reporting period helps pinpoint the most endangered areas, that is, the areas subjected to the most intensive daily and hourly attacks by the AFU.

The largest number of massive artillery, howitzer and various UAV strikes was reported in the Belgorod Region. These attacks most often targeted facilities in the Shebekino and Graivoron municipalities and the Krasnaya Yaruga, Belgorod and Borisovka districts. The largest attacks in the Kherson Region targeted districts and cities on the left bank of the Dnieper, primarily the Alehski, Golaya Pristan and Novaya Kakhovka municipalities. Other such targets were Gorlovka, Donetsk and Makeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lisichansk urban district and the Svatovo and Kremennaya districts in the Lugansk People’s Republic, Energodar, Kamenka Dneprovskaya and Vasilyevka municipal districts, the Glushkovo and Sudzha districts in the Kursk Region, and the Pogar, Starodub, Suzemka, Klimovo and Sevsk districts in the Bryansk Region.

The AFU mostly targeted apartment blocks and private houses, civilian energy infrastructure and water supply system (power plants, refuelling stations, gas pipelines, and water intake units and towers), civilian transport (passenger buses and cars), industrial facilities (refineries, food and processing facilities, and industrial enterprises), special rescue and emergency transport (Emergencies Ministry vehicles, ambulances, and emergency utility services), healthcare and educational establishments (schools, kindergartens, universities, etc.), and commercial facilities (trading objects, office centres, etc.).

Civilian victims

In accordance with verified data[2] based on reports by the federal and local authorities between July 1 and September 30, 2025, at least 1,749 peaceful citizens of the Russian Federation have been injured, the largest quarterly figure since the beginning of 2025 (1,489 in January−March, and 1,537 in April−June).

In total, 1,532 civilians, including 88 minors, sustained injuries of varying severity.

217 civilians, including six minors, were killed.

Overall, at least 24,299 people have suffered at the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since February 2022. At least 17,205, including 1,041 minors, have been wounded, and 7,094 people, including 234 minors, have been killed. Unavoidable punishment

Russia’s Investigative Committee has initiated 632 criminal proceedings in the reporting period. Since February 2022, Russian courts have handed down guilty verdicts to 622 people based on investigations into 483 criminal cases. From July 1 to September 30, 2025, investigation into 35 criminal cases against 35 Ukrainian servicemen have been completed.

Complete report https://mid.ru/upload/medialibrary/a0d/tpfhmncb50y7wui8jz2vp8y9iaukttmu/Quarterly%20report%20(July-September%202025).pdf