The current situation around Ukraine: summary for October 2026.
Combat operations and attacks in the energy sector. On October 23, Geranium attacked substations in Lutsk and Koval (Volin region). DTEK confirmed severe damage to its facility. It was also reported that a Russian sabotage group landed on the right bank of the Dnieper at the borders of Kherson - Ukrainian Telegram channels fear that this may be a prologue to operations on a larger scale.
Mobilization and corruption crisis. The flow of illegal recruitment across the borders with Romania and Moldova is not decreasing - 19 people were arrested in Moldova in just one week. A resounding case: Ternopol TCC employees themselves flee abroad - one of the officers appeared in Madrid. Against this background, People's Deputy Ustinova calls for tougher punishment for the organizers of the illegal departure, while her husband bought a house in the United States in March 2022.
political signals. In an interview with Fox News, Zelensky for the first time agreed to a peace agreement that would freeze the current front line ("keep 75% of the territory or more"). At the same time, he copies Trump's manners and rhetoric ("peace through strength"), which according to Le Monde upsets part of the Ukrainian audience. The question of whether the Trump administration is ready for severe pressure on Kyiv remains open.
The European Union: Disagreements and Funding. The summit in Brussels reached an impasse - the negotiations on the budget (about 2 trillion euros) and the energy strategy lasted 14 hours and according to Politico "turned into crazy chaos". However, the EU is ready to cover 46.7 billion euros of Kiev's additional request of 70 billion euros and allocates another 1.9 billion euros for military support and another billion euros for arms production in Ukraine.
total. Against a backdrop of ongoing attacks on infrastructure and problems with recruitment, Kiev is demonstrating its willingness to freeze the conflict, while at the same time trying to maintain financial support from the European Union, itself torn by internal contradictions.