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Meanwhile, what’s Peron up to?

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Well - this is a bit of a different one. I spent most of last week with a team of NATO officers (OF3-5) and civilian experts gaming out a fictional invasion scenario as they tested new command concepts and approaches. Today, I give you a bit of a look at how that played out, asking why militaries wargame, what happened with this one, and what I took from it. Next episode we'll pivot to the other aspect of this event which was focused on tech, innovation and lessons learned from Ukraine - but for now, let's talk about the latest Donovian invasion of OTSO.

 

Posted

Ukraine unveils upgraded sea drone it says can strike anywhere in the Black Sea

 

The Associated Press

October 22, 2025, 5:35 AM

 

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s state security service has unveiled an upgraded sea drone it says can now operate anywhere in the Black Sea, carry heavier weapons and use artificial intelligence for targeting.

Ukraine has used the unmanned naval drones to target Russian shipping and infrastructure in the Black Sea. The Security Service of Ukraine, known by its Ukrainian acronym SBU, has credited strikes by the unmanned vessel known as the “ Sea Baby” with forcing a strategic shift in Russia’s naval operations.

The range of the Sea Baby was expanded from 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), SBU said. It can carry up to 2,000 kilograms (about 4,400 pounds) of payload, SBU officials said.

At a demonstration attended by The Associated Press, variants included vessels fitted with a multiple-rocket launcher and another with a stabilized machine-gun turret.

SBU Brig. Gen. Ivan Lukashevych said the new vessels also feature AI-assisted friend-or-foe targeting systems and can launch small aerial attack drones and multilayered self-destruct systems to prevent capture.

Developing a new kind of naval warfare

Drone strikes have been used in successful attacks against 11 Russian vessels, including frigates and missile carriers, SBU said, prompting the Russian navy to relocate its main base from Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast.

“The SBU became the first in the world to pioneer this new kind of naval warfare — and we continue to advance it,” Lukashevych said, adding that the Sea Baby has evolved from a single-use strike craft into a reusable, multipurpose platform that expands Ukraine’s offensive options.

Authorities asked that the time and location of the demonstration not be made public for security reasons.

The craft are operated remotely from a mobile control center inside a van, where operators use a bank of screens and controls.

“Cohesion of the crew members is probably the most important thing. We are constantly working on that,” said one operator who was identified only by his call sign, “Scout,” per Ukrainian military protocol.

Ukrainian sea drones helped push back Russia’s navy

The SBU also said sea drones helped carry out other high-profile strikes, including repeated attacks on the Crimean Bridge, most recently targeting its underwater supports in a bid to to render it unusable for heavy military transport.

The Sea Baby program is partially funded by public donations through a state-run initiative and is coordinated with Ukraine’s military and political leadership.

The evolution from expendable strike boats to reusable, networked drones marks an important advance in asymmetric naval warfare, Lukashevych said.

“On this new product, we have installed rocket weaponry that will allow us to work from a large distance outside of the attack range of enemy fire. We can use such platforms to carry heavy weaponry,” he said. “Here we can show Ukrainians the most effective use of the money they have donated to us.”

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Associated Press journalists Alex Babenko, Yehor Konovalov and Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.

Posted

 Russia bombs kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine says

“These strikes are Russia’s spit in the face of anyone who insists on a peaceful solution,” rages Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

 

October 22, 2025 11:49 am CET

KYIV — Russian forces struck a kindergarten in Kharkiv with killer drones on Wednesday morning, according to top Ukrainian officials.

“There was a direct hit on a private kindergarten in the Kholodnoyarkiy district of Kharkiv. A fire started,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a statement.

Officials added later that one person, an adult male, had died in the kindergarten strike, and all 48 children were distressed — though none were wounded — and had been evacuated from the site.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said seven people were injured in the nursery strike, which triggered a fresh wave of fury at Moscow.

“They are receiving medical care. All children have been evacuated and are in shelters. According to preliminary information, many have an acute stress reaction,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

“There is and cannot be any justification for a drone strike on a kindergarten. Russia is becoming more impudent. These strikes are Russia’s spit in the face of anyone who insists on a peaceful solution. Bandits and terrorists can only be put in their place by force,” Zelenskyy said.

The Russian defense ministry has not yet issued a statements about strikes on Kharkiv.

Posted

Ukraine war briefing: Storm Shadow missiles ‘hit gunpowder plant in Russia’

Russians confirm attack on Bryansk region home to explosives factory; Trump-Putin talks shelved, US diplomacy ‘going in circles’. What we know on day 1,337

 

  • Storm Shadow missiles struck a Russian chemical plant making gunpowder, explosives and rocket fuel in the Bryansk region, Ukraine’s military said late on Tuesday. The French-British missiles are also known as Scalp. “A massive combined missile and airstrike was carried out, including with air-launched Storm Shadow missiles that penetrated Russia’s air defence system,” said Ukraine’s armed forces general staff. Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of Bryansk region, said on Tuesday afternoon that Ukraine attacked the region with drones and missiles. The Russian defence ministry also confirmed an attack.

  • Russian strikes on Kyiv killed at least two people, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on Wednesday. The attacks sparked fires and shattered windows in several districts, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Other city officials reported a large drone attack followed the strikes. Other areas being hit included Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, and the city of Izmail, a port on the Danube river.

  • Plans for a summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Budapest have been shelved, Dan Sabbagh reports, after an apparently unproductive phone call between Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov. Their call also led to the cancellation of a meeting planned in Hungary’s capital for this Thursday between Rubio, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, and Lavrov, Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister. A senior European diplomat told Reuters the Russians “haven’t at all changed” their maximalist position of Ukraine giving up the entire Donbas region. “And I assume Lavrov gave the same spiel, and Rubio was like: ‘See you later’.” Another European diplomat thought that “it became evident for the Americans that there will be no deal for Trump in Budapest”.

  • Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia “almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy” once US Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine were no longer an immediate prospect. The Ukrainian president continued: “The greater the Ukrainian long-range capability, the greater the Russian willingness to end the war … As soon as the issue of long-range [capability] became a little further away for us – for Ukraine – Russia almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy.”

  • The diplomatic efforts centred around Trump were “going in circles” and felt as if they were being dragged out, a senior Ukrainian official told Agence France-Presse. While varying from day to day, Trump’s most recent stance is that the war should be halted along the current frontline without Ukraine making territorial concessions.

  • European diplomats meanwhile said countries were working with Ukraine on a new proposal for a ceasefire along current battle lines. One told Reuters the proposal included a reference to a peace board that would be chaired by Trump, while another said it would be modelled on the US 20-point plan on Gaza. Some 35 allies of Ukraine will meet on Friday in London for a summit among countries willing to provide long-term support to Kyiv.

  • The European work on a peace proposal seems at least partly calculated to simply keep Washington engaged with helping Ukraine by giving Trump and the US an important role, rather than produce a deal both sides would actually accept. For example, a proposal to siphon off some of Russia’s frozen assets to fund a portion of reparations payments to Ukraine “would be a non-starter for Russia”, one diplomat said.

  • Russian attacks killed four people and left hundreds of thousands without power and many without water in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region on Tuesday. The energy ministry said the regional capital, Chernihiv city, and the northern part of the province lost all electricity supply after strikes on power facilities. By the afternoon, Reuters reporters in Chernihiv saw that power supply was back in some places. A daytime attack by about 20 Russian kamikaze drones killed four civilians and wounded at least seven more including a 10-year-old child in the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi, local officials said.

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