Still no date for the talks: the kremlin promises to “let you know”, Vedomosti says 10.11

Civilian casualties of russian strikes on 26–28 October and overnight into 29 October, as reported by the authorities on the morning of 29.10. The figures are incomplete and may rise; the reports cover different periods, so they are not added up:

• Kharkiv region, 27.10 — 3 killed (two men aged 41 and 60 in Kharkiv, a 74-year-old woman in Shevchenkove), 8 injured (among them a 17-year-old girl with acute stress reaction); strikes on Kharkiv and another 12 towns and villages (regional governor Oleh Syniehubov, via LB.ua)
• Kharkiv (Osnovianskyi district), 28.10 — 1 killed (a man aged 60), 3 injured; drone strike, fire (Mayor Ihor Terekhov, Syniehubov, via Ukrinform, 14:00 28.10)
• Pavlohrad (Dnipropetrovsk region), 26.10 — 1 killed, 7 injured (including two 10-year-old girls); drone; apartment blocks, a shop and cars damaged (Interior Ministry, via Glavcom, 16:15 26.10; the regional administration had reported at least three injured)
• Kramatorsk (Donetsk region), 28.10 — 1 killed (a volunteer from Canada, evacuating animals, hit by a drone) (via Ukrinform, 15:10 28.10)
• Kyiv, night of 27.10 — 1 killed (a 46-year-old woman, according to the city health department, issue of 28.10), 18 injured (4 in serious condition), an educational institution in Desnianskyi district damaged (Kyiv City Military Administration spokeswoman Kateryna Pop, via Ukrinform, 28.10)
• Kharkiv, night of 28.10 — 0 killed, 5 injured (including a 4-year-old child), fires in residential buildings and at an industrial site (Interior Ministry, via Novyny.LIVE, 08:19 28.10); whether this is included in the Osnovianskyi district figures above is not stated
• Dnipro, 27.10 — 0 killed, 3 injured, attack on a critical infrastructure facility (regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha, via Ukrinform, 18:26 27.10)
• Sumy and Sumy region, 28.10 — drone strike on a warehouse in Sumy, 1 injured; almost 40 strikes on the region in a day, with casualties (via Ukrinform)

Kharkiv region, 27 October — an update to the issue of 28.10. Three killed (two men aged 41 and 60 in Kharkiv, a 74-year-old woman in Shevchenkove) and eight injured: four in Kharkiv (two wounded, two more, among them a 17-year-old girl, with acute stress reaction), three in Vilshany in Solonytsivka community and one in Shevchenkove. Separately, a man (43) was blown up by an unidentified explosive device in a forest near Kutuzivka; whether he is among the eight is not stated. New: on 28.10 another man (60) was killed in Kharkiv in a separate strike; the sources do not say whether he is the same person as the 60-year-old killed on 27.10.

Kyiv, night of 27 October — the number of injured has risen to 18 (16 in the issue of 28.10): four in serious condition, five in moderate condition (hospitalised), the rest treated at the scene, according to Kyiv City Military Administration spokeswoman Kateryna Pop (on air, via Ukrinform, 28.10). Two of the injured are students of a damaged educational institution in Desnianskyi district. This report names no fatalities; earlier the city health department reported a 46-year-old woman killed, and the attack used ballistic missiles and drones (issue of 28.10).

189 combat clashes on 28 October — 11% above the previous week’s average (~171), according to Ukraine’s General Staff (report as of 08:00 29.10, Ukrinform 08:19; at 22:00 on 28.10 it was 181). The fiercest fighting is on the Pokrovsk direction in Donetsk region: 42 assaults, the most since 16.10 and almost twice the weekly average (23) — 47% of all assaults on the named directions. russia carried out 79 air strikes (weekly average 69) with 257 KAB glide bombs, used 9,135 kamikaze drones and carried out 2,439 shelling attacks. The named directions account for only 90 of the 189 clashes; the report does not explain this. Assaults by direction:

• Pokrovsk — 42
• Kostiantynivka — 18
• Huliaipole — 9
• South Slobozhanskyi — 7
• Lyman — 5
• North Slobozhanskyi — 4
• Sloviansk — 2
• Kupiansk, Oleksandrivka, Orikhiv — 1 each
• Kramatorsk and Prydniprovskyi — no assaults

1,560 russian troops in 24 hours on 28–29 October — 15% below the previous week’s average (~1,830) and below 1,600 for the third day running (21–26.10 it ranged from 1,820 to 2,250), according to Ukraine’s General Staff. Total: ~1,584,910; no independent confirmation:

• personnel — 1,560
• tanks — 1
• armoured vehicles — 5
• artillery systems — 25
• MLRS — 4
• operational-tactical drones — 1,614
• vehicles (including fuel tankers) — 272
• unmanned ground vehicles — 4
• aircraft — 1
• special equipment — 1
• air defence systems — increase not given (cumulative 1,727)

unverifiedSumy region, 28 October: Ukraine’s Defence Forces denied a russian claim to have captured Barylivka — according to a Ukrinform headline (14:59); the text was not read, no details.

🛩️112 drones overnight into 29 October — a third below the previous week’s average (~168) and the second quiet night in a row (89 the night before). 40 of them were jet-powered (Shaheds, Gerberas and Parodiyas not counted separately), launched from the Oryol and Millerovo areas and from occupied Donetsk. 97 were shot down or suppressed (87%): 30 of the 40 jet-powered drones (75%) and 67 of the other 72 (93%). Hits at 7 locations (weekly average 18), debris at 5; about 7 drones were still in the air. No missiles are mentioned in the material read (Ukraine’s Air Force, as of 08:00).

🚢Three drones struck the Liberian-flagged container ship CONTSHIP JET in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea on 28 October — inside the waters of an EU and NATO member — according to the Bulgarian authorities (via Novinite and Ukrinform, 16:37). All 18 crew members were rescued and no one was hurt; “The crew is safe,” said a spokesman for the Greek owner. Who launched the drones, and exactly when, is not stated in the report.

💥Ukraine’s General Staff reported hitting four targets on 27 October and overnight into 28 October; three of them were air defence, radar and electronic-warfare assets. Such strikes, the General Staff says, open temporary “windows” in russia’s air defences for Ukrainian long-range drones. Hit: a Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile system near Rzhava and a radar station near Maloye Gorodkovo (both Kursk region), an electronic-warfare station near Semyachki (Bryansk region) and a supply depot near Valerianivka in occupied Donetsk region. The General Staff gave no details of the damage. The only confirmation is from the General Staff; no statements by local authorities or independent imagery were found.

• Tor-M2 — near Rzhava (Kursk region, russia)
• radar — near Maloye Gorodkovo (Kursk region, russia)
• electronic-warfare station — near Semyachki (Bryansk region, russia)
• supply depot — near Valerianivka (occupied Donetsk region)

local authorities silentLocal authorities (governors of Kursk and Bryansk regions, 27–28.10): no statements about these sites found in the material read; a search for 28.10 returned only old reports

🔥unverifiedThe Novolipetsk steelworks (NLMK) in Lipetsk, one of russia’s largest steelmakers, may have been attacked with Storm Shadow missiles — the Anglo-French air-launched cruise missile — overnight into 28 October, the Kyiv Post reports (28.10, 16:01), citing OSINT channels. The report contains no official confirmation (General Staff, SBU, HUR, SSO, USF); the local authorities were not checked. In the issue of 28.10, Obozrevatel and Slovo i Dilo reported a fire near NLMK.

local authorities silentLocal authorities (Lipetsk region authorities, 28.10): no statement found for that day

⚡unverifiedYakovlevo mining and processing plant (Kursk region, part of the Severstal steel group), 26 October: after an attack by Ukrainian drones, power was partly cut and miners were brought to the surface, according to The Moscow Times (via the Kyiv Post, 28.10). The plant had already scaled back work after an earlier attack in October. The report contains no official confirmation from the Ukrainian side.

local authorities silentLocal authorities (Kursk region authorities, 26–28.10): no statement found

ℹ️As of the morning of 29 October, no new confirmations of strikes in the past day (General Staff, SBU, HUR, SSO, USF, OC South, StratCom, Zaluzhnyi) were found apart from the results for 27–28.10; confirmations often appear later in the day. russia’s MoD figures on drones shot down are given for contrast only (see discrepancies).

Ukraine has shifted its drone strikes from russian oil refineries to steel and metals plants — that is the Kyiv Post’s assessment (28.10). The last documented strikes on the oil sector, according to the paper, were the Ryazan refinery (15.10) and a facility in Surgut (16.10). This issue carries exactly such targets: NLMK in Lipetsk and Severstal’s Yakovlevo plant (neither strike confirmed). The paper gives no official explanation for the change of targets; this is its assessment, not a statement by Kyiv.

No UK MoD or IAEA updates for 28–29.10 could be found; nor a new monthly UN (OHCHR) report since September’s, so civilianStats is unchanged. No new estimates of recruitment into the russian army noticed.

unverifiedThe trilateral talks (russia, the US, Ukraine) are scheduled for November (Kyiv Post, 28.10), but there is still no date. Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said on 28.10 that it would be named soon; Vedomosti reports that Zelensky allegedly named 10 November and Abu Dhabi — neither Kyiv nor Moscow has officially confirmed this. Zelensky, according to a Kyiv Post headline, insists that Europe take part in the November talks (text not read).

unverifiedBackground, covered in detail on 22.10: Putin told US special envoy Steve Witkoff he was ready to resume direct peace talks, and russia freed an American prisoner (Axios, 21.10, headline only).

🤝 Ukraine and russia — repeated from the issue of 28.10. Beside his plane at Joint Base Andrews (Maryland) overnight into 28 October, Trump told reporters that a Putin–Zelensky meeting would be set up “very soon”, adding: “We’re making a lot of progress with russia-Ukraine.” He named no date or venue; the US midterm elections on 3 November were six days away (Kyiv Post).

There'll be a meeting set up very soon

Iran. No fresh statements by Trump on Iran for 28–29 October were found in the material read.

💼unverifiedrussia and sanctions. The Trump administration is considering lifting sanctions on a kremlin-linked investment fund — according to a Kyiv Post headline citing The New York Times; the text was not read and no official confirmation was found.

🎭light noteLight relief: no amusing moment worth noting with a reliable source was found for the past day — we did not make one up.

🗣️“When there is a date, we will let you know,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on 28 October about trilateral talks between russia, the US and Ukraine (RIA Novosti, via Vedomosti). The same day Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said the exact date would be announced soon. Officially no one has named a date; the “10 November, Abu Dhabi” in Vedomosti is attributed to Zelensky and unconfirmed.

🗣️The outcome of the trilateral talks will not affect the planned contacts between Putin, Trump and Xi Jinping — “No, these are completely different things,” Peskov told Izvestia on 28 October. He added that there is “potential readiness” for a three-way meeting, but no final agreement. According to the same report, Ushakov said on 25.10 that preparations were under way and the meeting was expected at the APEC summit in November.