Russia Drones Target Diplomats as Ground War Stalls — SkimNews
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- Russia struck a Ukrainian passenger train locomotive 5km from the Polish border on September 13 carrying Boris Johnson and European officials returning from the Yalta European Strategy conference, and a Russian drone entered Moldovan airspace on September 8 as President Zelenskyy's plane prepared to depart Chisinau.
- Russia's Third Army Corps retook 85 sq km near Lyman in Donetsk, with commander Brigadier-General Andriy Biletskyi declaring "the northern pincer has effectively been defeated and destroyed," even as Putin's December 31 deadline to seize the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk–Druzhivka fortress belt became his 15th of the war.
- Zelenskyy reported Russia launched approximately 2,100 drones and 78 missiles at Ukraine in one week, including a Wednesday drone strike on an intercity minibus near Nikopol that killed five people.
- Ukraine struck 26 Russian refineries in 2025 — eight in the past week — removing at least 30% of Russia's actual refining capacity, which Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina cited as the primary driver of summer inflation.
- Both houses of the US Congress passed a bill from Senators Darline Graham and Richard Blumenthal imposing secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil and gas, a move that could strip export revenues from a budget that allocates one-third to defense.
- Russia's peace terms, per Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, include Ukraine surrendering the remaining one-fifth of Donetsk it controls plus a broad demilitarized buffer zone; Lavrov said Moscow has "no grand illusions," while envoy Jared Kushner told the YES conference a deal is largely prepared and blamed Kyiv's Donetsk refusal.
- Russia's military intelligence chief said Russian generals have requested 800,000 troops above normal recruitment, as monthly casualties tracking above 40,000 threaten to outpace reported recruitment rates.
Why it matters: Russia is shifting to asymmetric drone strikes on Western diplomatic transit routes as its conventional offensive collapses, using disruption to shape negotiations from a weaker position. With 30% of refining capacity knocked out, inflation rising, and generals requesting 800,000 extra troops, Moscow's maximalist demands — the rest of Donetsk plus a buffer zone — look increasingly detached from its battlefield reality.
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