Russia will intensify strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed to hit Russian refineries harder, the defence ministry said, Interfax reported on October 4.

Strikes on military and military-industrial facilities in Kyiv and other regions "will be intensified" after Zelenskiy's statement, the ministry said. Zelenskiy told Reuters in an interview published on October 3 that Ukraine would respond to Russia's attacks on its energy system by hitting Russia's: "First of all, oil refiners: what gives money to them for this war. But we will not respond, of course, just like them, on any civilian objects." The Russian foreign ministry on the same day repeated its call for foreign nationals, including diplomats, to leave Kyiv.

Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched 135 strike drones, 52 of them jet-powered Shahed-type drones, and two Banderol or Dan-T missiles between 18:00 on October 3 and the morning of October 4, and that 123 drones and both missiles were downed or suppressed, with hits at five locations, Ukrinform reported. Russia used more than 1,900 attack drones, more than 800 of them jet-powered, 1,700 aerial bombs and 25 missiles against Ukraine over the week, Zelenskiy said.

In Russia, the defence ministry said its air defences destroyed 559 Ukrainian drones overnight on October 4 and 280 between 08:00 and 20:00 Moscow time, Interfax reported. Drones were shot down over Tula and Rostov regions overnight on October 5, their governors said. The Russian side of last night is not yet fully reported at the time of writing.

Russia has moved at least a dozen new Iskander-M, Oniks-M and Zircon missiles to Kursk, Bryansk and Rostov regions in recent days, bringing its stock of ground-launched missiles near the border to at least 40, the monitoring account AMK Mapping said on X on October 5. Western intelligence had warned Ukraine's military intelligence agency HUR of a possible large attack on energy targets in Kyiv, Kyiv region, Dnipro and Kremenchuk, the account said. Neither claim has been confirmed officially.

Refinery strikes

Nationwide: no new strike, halt or restart at a Russian refinery was reported for October 4 or the night of October 4-5 at the time of writing.

Krasnodar region: no restart has been reported at the Ilsky refinery, which IntelliNews reported on September 30 had halted after the September 26 strike. Russian authorities have not confirmed the shutdown.

Nationwide: plants reported halted or cut in September account for about 121.6mn tonnes a year, or 37% of Russia's 327mn tonnes nameplate capacity, by IntelliNews' refinery ledger, and up to 159.2mn tonnes, or 49%, if earlier halts still hold. The Ilsky halt, which rests on Ukrainian sources, is not counted. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in early September that about 10% of Russian refining capacity was under repair.

Metal plants hit

No new strike on a Ukrainian steel, iron ore, coke, ferroalloy, pipe or non-ferrous plant was reported for October 4 or the night of October 4-5 at the time of writing.

Oil depots, factories and military targets in Russia

Adygea: drones attacked the Khanskaya military airfield near Maykop overnight on October 4, and NASA's FIRMS satellite fire data showed a fire in the airfield's area, Militarnyi reported, citing local footage. Drone alerts lasted from 01:42 to 05:34. Neither side has reported the extent of the damage. The base houses a training unit of the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots, and Ukraine's General Staff has said Su-34, Su-27 and Su-35 jets were based there. Adygea was on the Russian defence ministry's list of regions where drones were downed that night. UPDATE: the monitoring account OSINTtechnical said on X that Ukrainian drones destroyed an Su-34 and an Su-35 dispersed at the base. Neither Ukraine's General Staff nor Russia has confirmed any aircraft losses.

Moscow: air defences destroyed 14 drones flying at the capital from the night of October 3-4 through the evening of October 4, a total that includes six reported overnight, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, Kommersant reported. Flights at Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo were restricted during the day.

Rostov region: about 100 drones were shot down over 12 districts overnight on October 4, with greenhouse glass damaged at a farm in Tarasovsky district and no casualties, Governor Yuri Slyusar said, Kommersant reported. Five more were destroyed in three districts overnight on October 5 while the attack was still being repelled, he said, RIA Novosti reported.

Tula region: 10 drones were destroyed overnight on October 5, with no casualties or damage, Governor Dmitry Milyaev said, Interfax reported.

Belgorod region: the Russian defence ministry accused Ukraine of striking residential parts of Belgorod overnight on October 4, damaging apartment blocks, houses and cars, Kommersant reported. The regional headquarters said a man was killed when an FPV drone hit a lorry in Shebekino district and four people were injured, Interfax reported.

Samara region: UPDATE, night of October 1-2: the pro-Ukrainian monitoring account NOELreports said Ukrainian FP-1 drones hit the Samara oil pumping station, causing a large fire. No official has confirmed the type of drone or the extent of the damage.

Occupied Crimea: fires broke out at two solar power plants on October 4, the 69.7 MW Mykolaivka plant near Simferopol and the 80 MW Okhotnykove plant in the Saky district, the Telegram channel Krymskyi Veter said, citing satellite imagery, UAWire reported. The cause has not been reported. Explosions in Krasnoperekopsk, Simferopol and the Saky district on October 2 caused widespread power cuts on the peninsula.

Nationwide: the defence ministry's daily report on October 4 claimed 1,222 fixed-wing drones, four guided bombs and three HIMARS rockets shot down over the previous 24 hours, Interfax reported. That total overlaps the overnight and daytime figures above.

Ukraine under fire

Kyiv: a Russian drone hit the North Bridge again on the morning of October 4, damaging the road surface and injuring two people, one of whom was taken to hospital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, Ukrinform reported. It was the second strike on the bridge in two days. A Russian attack the same day damaged a heating main in the Desnianskyi district, cutting hot water, Klitschko said.

UPDATE, October 3: a combined Russian ballistic missile and drone attack early on October 3 killed a man and injured two people in Kyiv, with fires in the Sviatoshynskyi and Obolonskyi districts, Klitschko said, the Kyiv Post reported.

Russia has attacked Kyiv's bridges six times in three days, and traffic has been restricted or stopped on five of the city's six road bridges, the New York Times reported, Belsat said. Drones damaged a support, the road surface and the metro barrier on the Southern Bridge on October 1 and 2, Meduza reported. Infrastructure Minister Mykola Kalashnyk told Suspilne that work on reserve pontoon crossings and earth dams would begin the following week and could take up to three months, and that about 600,000 cars cross between the two banks each day, Ukrainska Pravda reported on October 3.

Sumy: guided bombs and three drones hit four locations in the city and the Bezdrich community on October 4, killing a 52-year-old worker at an enterprise and injuring 13 people, including a child, the city council said, Ukrinform reported. An earlier report put the injured at seven and said gas networks serving about 70 apartments were damaged. Zelenskiy said one person was killed at a pharmaceutical warehouse in Sumy. UPDATE: the number injured rose to 19, including a one-year-old boy, after a repeat guided-bomb strike, former presidential spokeswoman Iuliia Mendel said on X, a figure also carried by Ukrainska Pravda.

Dnipropetrovsk region: Russian drones, artillery and guided bombs struck four districts more than 70 times on October 4, killing one person and injuring four, including one in Pavlohrad, the regional administration said, Ukrinform reported.

Poltava region: a drone hit an energy facility on October 4, leaving about 22,000 customers temporarily without power, with no casualties according to preliminary information, regional governor Vitalii Diakivnych said, Ukrinform reported.

Odesa region: a port facility of Kernel, Ukraine's largest sunflower oil producer and exporter, near Chornomorsk was on fire after explosions on the evening of October 4, Russian-leaning monitoring accounts Military Summary and vicktop55 said on X, citing ballistic missiles and drones. No Ukrainian official or Kernel statement confirming a hit had been found at the time of writing.

Data centres, telecoms, media and R&D

Dnipro: a telecommunications company was hit in an overnight attack on October 4 and six people were injured, Zelenskiy said, Ukrinform reported. The regional administration also listed a telecoms company among the sites hit in Dnipro. Neither named the company.

Weapons and technology

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced €1bn ($1.12bn) in military aid and €350mn ($393mn) for energy repairs on a visit to Kyiv on October 4, Reuters reported. Germany and Ukraine are finalising a deal to produce drones, missiles and software together, with priority on drones to intercept Russian attack drones and weapons with a range of more than 1,000 km.

Ukraine expects to start using small air defence missiles against Russian drones in the second half of October, Zelenskiy told a press conference with Merz, Militarnyi reported. He told Reuters that F-16 and MiG fighters were bringing down about 60% of Russia's jet-powered drones but were running short of 20mm ammunition, and that two of five new interceptor drone models had shown a success rate of about 30% in tests.

Ukraine will receive 2,000 Bars jet-powered interceptor drones co-produced with Germany, which currently bring down about 30% of their targets, the best rate among Ukraine's interceptors against jet drones, Zelenskiy said, Kyiv Post reported. More than 12 automated .50-calibre turrets have been installed in Kyiv, with eight more planned for Kyiv region. "The Russians will now focus precisely on jet-powered drones and ballistics," Zelenskiy said, predicting a shift from conventional Shaheds to jet variants.

Zelenskiy also said the Fire Point company's FP-9 ballistic missile, which the maker says could reach Moscow, would be ready "this autumn", Reuters reported. Its shorter-range FP-7 was used in combat for the first time on October 1, Zelenskiy said.

A Ukrainian Mirage 2000-5F shot down a Russian S8000 Banderol cruise missile with its 30mm cannon, the first such kill of the missile, Militarnyi reported, citing the French Aid to Europe monitoring project. The date of the engagement was not given.

Ukrainian maker SkyFall said its Thor's Hammer strike drone carries a 40-50kg warhead, comes in versions with ranges of 350 km and 600 km and is already used at the front, Censor.NET reported on October 1. The company plans to build 5,000 a month by the end of the year.

One to three hidden Russian MESH radio repeaters may be operating in Kyiv, giving jet-powered Geran drones a brief control channel to correct their aim at targets such as the bridges, presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov, known as Flash, said, Euromaidan Press reported on October 3. "Let me be wrong about the repeaters," he said.

Arson and sabotage in the EU and the UK

Moldova: Moldova has detection capacity but no means of intercepting drones, largely because of budget constraints, political analyst Dionis Cenusa said on X after the October 3 incursion, in which President Maia Sandu said five Russian missiles and drones exploded on Moldovan territory.

Places in Moldova where police found drone fragments and the defence ministry reported explosions on October 3, 2026. Map clipped from X; original publisher not identified. Base map: OpenMapTiles, OpenStreetMap.

Germany: UPDATE, October 2: the Daily Telegraph identified Russian national Oleg Levushkin as the suspected organiser of the August sabotage attempt at Leipzig airport and Andrei Karshakov as the man who carried it out, and linked the operation to GRU military unit 29155, Meduza reported. German authorities have not named the suspects. Germany blamed Russia for the attempt in September and expelled diplomats. Merz cited the Leipzig plot in Kyiv on October 4 as evidence of why counter-drone technology matters to Germany's own security, and said Moscow's warnings to diplomats had not deterred him: "This shows: we will not allow ourselves to be intimidated," Kyiv Post reported.

Latvia: Turkish F-16s and German Eurofighters have arrived in Latvia to reinforce Nato air defence, Nato said on X on October 4.

Tit for tat

Russia hit Kyiv's North Bridge for a second day, raised the toll in Sumy to one dead and 19 injured, knocked out power to 22,000 customers in Poltava region and promised to step up the campaign on the capital, while monitors reported new missiles massing near the border. Ukraine's drones set a fire at a pilot-training airbase in Adygea, where two fighters are claimed destroyed, and Zelenskiy said Russia's refineries come first.

The ledgers

The running ledgers are kept as six public spreadsheets at permanent addresses. The first three are non-exhaustive, every row is sourced, and where only one side has spoken the row says so. Defence ministry figures are recorded as claims, and in the sabotage ledger attribution is given exactly as the authorities state it and no further. The fourth tracks what has happened to Ukraine's steel, iron ore, coke, ferroalloy and non-ferrous plants since 2021, grouped by owner. The fifth tracks strikes on data centres, telecoms, media and research sites; the sixth tracks refinery strikes.

RUSSIA STRIKES LEDGER: Russian strikes on Ukraine's economic infrastructure, 338 rows

UKRAINE STRIKES LEDGER: Ukrainian strikes on economic infrastructure in Russia and occupied territory, 203 rows

ARSON & SABOTAGE LEDGER: Arson, sabotage and drone incursions in the EU and the UK, 71 rows

METAL STRIKES LEDGER: Ukraine's metals and mining assets: 2021 baseline against status in September 2026, 38 plants and mines

DATA CENTRE & TELECOM STRIKES LEDGER: Data centres, telecoms, media and research sites hit in Ukraine, 34 rows

REFINERY STRIKES LEDGER: Russian oil refineries hit, and how badly, 27 refineries

Russian oil refineries hit by Ukrainian strikes, as of September 30, 2026. Non-exhaustive; strike counts are floors. Damage: 0 claimed, no damage confirmed; 1 fire or minor damage; 2 secondary unit damaged, output reduced; 3 primary distillation unit damaged; 4 refinery halted. Plants reported halted or cut in Sep 2026 account for about 121.6 mn t/yr, about 37% of the 327 mn t/yr nameplate total; up to 159.2 mn t/yr (49%) if earlier halts still hold. Russian officials put capacity under repair at about 10% (Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, early September). Status mostly from unnamed industry sources cited by Reuters. Full sourced ledger: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AHjZvX9Hf-6jdKxcTE8Dw7f6O2_svY0kX54sqKPyU_s

This article was produced with the help of IntelliNews Lambda analytical tool