Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Kyiv, October 4, 2026
EA on Pakistan TV: Ukraine — The Black Sea Blockades Are Choking Grain Exports
EA-Ukraine VideoCast: What is the Meaning of “Glory to Ukraine”?
Sunday’s Coverage: Zelensky — We Will Step Up Attacks on Russia’s Oil Refineries
UPDATE 0632 GMT:
More than 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity has been disabled by Ukrainian attacks, claims Ukraine’s Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara.
Khmara cited analysts from Ukraine’s intelligence services, Defense Ministry, and General Staff: “This is the result of carefully planned, systematic, and comprehensive actions aimed at crippling the Russian war machine and destroying its military-economic potential.”
UPDATE 0627 GMT:
One civilian was murdered and six injured by a Russian double-tap strike with Banderol missiles on Kharkiv’s industrial district.
At least 10 multi-story residential buildings were damaged, and an administrative building and vehicles were set afire.
Ukraine air defenses downed 172 of 205 drones launched by Russia overnight, 49 of them jet-powered. Strikes were recorded at 13 locations.
A drone strike on an energy infrastructure facility in the Poltava region in central Ukraine left around 22,000 consumers without electricity.
UPDATE 0612 GMT:
Moscow police detained about 60 people at an authorized Communist Party rally on Sunday after participants began chanting anti-Kremlin slogans, according to Russian rights monitor OVD-Info.
The rally marked the anniversary of Russia’s 1993 constitutional crisis, when a standoff between President Boris Yeltsin and hard-line lawmakers culminated in the military shelling the Parliament building in Moscow. Authorities said 123 people were killed, while unofficial estimates put the toll in the hundreds.
The Communist Party has organized annual events as a symbol of resistance to Yeltsin-era reforms. However, Sunday’s gathering took a turn as participants chanted slogans including “Freedom for political prisoners,” “For fair elections”, and “Down with the Tsar”.
The participants also shouted, “No to political repression” and “Down with the party of crooks and thieves”.
Of those seized, 26 were Communist Party participants, 30 were members of the liberal Yabloko party, and several were activists.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the Trump Administration is pushing for Ukraine-Russia technical talks before the end of October.
At a press conference alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Kyiv, Zelensky said, “The American side is currently in contact with Ukraine and Russia and is proposing to hold some kind of meeting at the technical level in a trilateral format.
The President said he spoke directly with the US negotiating team on Saturday, but he could not disclose all the details of the preparations.
“We’re open to the UAE or any other country proposed by the US side [as a venue],” Zelensky said. “I know they’ll propose this to the Russian side as well — or may have already done so, I’m not sure of the sequence of events. And we’ll wait for a response.”
Ukraine and Russia had three sets of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi and Geneva in January-February 2026. The military discussions made some technical process; however, the political talks were stymied by the Kremlin maintaining its maximum demands for Ukraine’s surrender of territory and the rest of the country left without effective security guarantees.
Donald Trump has sought a meeting with Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. The Russian leader has rejected any encounter with Zelensky unless it is in Moscow.
