Weekly Ukraine war summary: “Gray zone” in Selydove, maneuver warfare in Kursk, Russia deploys Soviet BRDM-2 scout cars due to APC shortage

Meanwhile, reports from South Korean intelligence indicate that North Korea’s military presence in Russia has grown to 3,000 personnel, prompting Seoul to consider (1, 2) sending its military observers and translators and supplying arms directly to Ukraine.

The Insider and Ukraine’s “Nash Vykhod” (lit. “Our Exit”) project have published a video report on soldiers who served in Russia’s “Storm” units before being captured by the AFU. They describe how Russia’s MoD recruits prisoners, sending those who disobey orders to these units, and recount the relentless “meat-grinder assaults,” in which few attackers make it out alive.

Mutual strikes and sabotage

The Ukrainian Air Force Command reported 517 drones — including Iranian-designed Shaheds — launched by Russia over the past week (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), with 307 shot down and 152 “radar-lost” (some due to electronic warfare). Close to 10 ballistic and air-to-surface guided missiles were also reportedly launched.

One of the Shahed drones was shot down by Belarusian air defenses after it entered the country’s airspace from Ukraine. Another Shahed drone — branded as the “Geran-2” by Russia — demonstrated that it could be used to transmit video in-flight, though Ukrainian military technical expert Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov noted that the feature wasn’t new, and the low video quality made it difficult to make out anything significant. Russia was also noted to have employed “decoy drones,” one of which was intercepted by a first-person-view (FPV) UAV. Also, for the first time, a Russian Kh-69 guided missile launched at Ukraine was found to be equipped with a cluster munition warhead.

Throughout the week, Russian forces launched attacks using guided aerial bombs in the Sumy Region, injuring seven people and causing emergency power outages. Strikes on Zaporizhzhia (1, 2) resulted in two deaths and 23 injuries, while 17 people, including a rescue worker, were injured in Kryvyi Rih. In Kharkiv, 12 civilians were wounded, and in Kupiansk, one person was killed and 10 were injured. Frontline towns in the Donetsk Region — Myrnohrad, Kurakhove, and Novoukrainka — were also shelled. A locomotive depot in Pokrovsk was also damaged following a Russian attack.

Russia's Defense Ministry, for its part, reported (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) intercepts of 194 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones and a single balloon over internationally recognized Russian territory and occupied Crimea over the past week. Ukraine struck the following targets:

• An electric substation in St. Petersburg (cutting power to 300 homes);
• The “Kremniy EL” factory in Bryansk, which makes microelectronics for the Russian military (a press release published by the plant indicated that production was halted);
• The Sverdlov Plant, one of Russia’s largest manufacturers of military explosives, located in the town of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, saw one of its workshops damaged after a drone strike;
• Four distilleries across the Tula, Tambov, and Voronezh regions;
• A Russian mobile radar station in occupied Crimea.

Losses

Russia and Ukraine completed another prisoner exchange on Oct. 18, with 95 POWs returning home on both sides. The Ukrainian group included 34 “Azov” Regiment soldiers held in Russian captivity for over two years since the siege of Mariupol in 2022. The group also included 48 Ukrainians sentenced by courts both in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine, with 20 of them serving life sentences. Four Chechen soldiers were also returned to Russia — despite previous assurances from “Akhmat” special forces commander Apti Alaudinov that they would not be included in any exchanges.