Russia-Ukraine War 2026

Washington licensed Russian diesel on 9 October, three weeks after signing its hardest Russia sanctions law, and pressed Kyiv to stop striking refineries. Moscow has classified the refinery data that would show whether those strikes work. Revised maps show the summer front moved more, on both sides, than first reported.

The Bank of Russia held its key rate at 14% on 11 September and named motor fuel prices in its inflation reasoning, the first time Ukraine's strike campaign has shown up in Russia's own official numbers rather than in Ukrainian claims. Novorossiysk shut for nine days in August and fuel imports hit a record 172,000 tonnes, while total Russian budget revenue still rose 9.2%.

Russia fired a record 376 missiles and took 42,860 casualties in July 2026 to gain 37.85 square kilometres, against 455.74 a year earlier. In the same week, Sberbank's finance chief said Russian banks can no longer buy the government's bonds, leaving the Central Bank as the buyer of last resort. A Russian missile also came down in Poland, which three days later flew surveillance for an EU tanker boarding.

Zelenskyy has replaced his entire top command in eight days, dismissing Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and chief of the general staff Anatoliy Hnatov as sustained protests demanded Syrskyi's removal and Fedorov's return, all while the roughly 1,000km front barely moves. The EU finally passed its 21st sanctions package after Slovakia folded, and Urals crude swung from $41.66 to $71.40 as the lapsed US waiver went unreplaced. The war's decisive contests have moved off the battlefield.

Zelenskyy sacked Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, drew three days of protests across eight cities, lost his first replacement pick and handed the ministry to acting SBU chief Yevhen Khmara. Gerasimov announced Donetsk captures that ISW says it can find no evidence of. Ukraine hit 159 shadow-fleet vessels in twelve days, ballistic intercept rates fell to zero, and Russia posted its first monthly budget surplus of the year.

On 8 July, Deputy PM Alexander Novak announced Russia's first formal diesel export ban of the war, running to 31 July and now covering producers, days after Ukraine shifted its strike campaign to fuel tankers in the Sea of Azov. In the same fortnight the US crude waiver that cushioned Moscow's revenue crossed 26 days with no successor licence, the longest gap yet, and NATO pledged €70bn for 2026 at Ankara. The squeeze is real; the bleeding is not yet decisive.

Four Russian drone-relay stations inside Belarus stopped transmitting on 22 June, five days before Kyiv's deadline, though Belarus confirmed nothing and Zelenskyy says he does not know whether the kit was dismantled or merely switched off. The same long-range drone campaign has pushed Russia's fuel crisis onto Putin's own desk, and Moscow has begun quietly planning the manpower call-up it spent a year avoiding.

Ukraine's deepest strikes of the war shut Moscow's Kapotnya refinery and hit a plant 2,000 km away in Siberia, and by 23 June at least 15 Russian regions were rationing petrol. Deputy PM Alexander Novak told Putin the fuel market was challenging but under control while weighing a diesel export ban. Russia's Finance Ministry quietly topped up its wealth fund to cover the shortfall, and Zelenskyy gave Belarus a week to dismantle four drone relay stations or be struck.

Western pressure closed on Russia's war economy from three directions this week: the Iran ceasefire collapsing the Hormuz price premium, the US crude waiver expiring with no successor, and Royal Marines boarding a shadow tanker in the Channel. Russia, unable to move a stalled front, set Kyiv's holiest cathedral ablaze two nights before the G7.

Overnight into 6 June, Ukraine sent more than 400 drones deep into Russia and set fire to the Baltic Fleet corvette Boikyi at Kronstadt during Putin's St Petersburg investor forum. It was the first confirmed Ukrainian strike on a Russian warship in the Baltic, around 1,000km from the border. The deep-strike reach, not the frozen front, is now the decisive theatre.

Russia fired two Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Ukraine on 24 May, the first dual launch of the war, then Lavrov told Rubio to evacuate Kyiv. The weapons escalation came as ISW data showed Russia losing 100 square miles in four weeks at triple the attrition cost of 2025. Istanbul Round 2 agreed a 1,200-prisoner exchange but no ceasefire.

Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul on Saturday 16 May for the first direct talks since 2022. One hour, a 1,000-prisoner deal, and zero movement on territory. Behind the cameras, Ukraine has halted roughly a quarter of Russia's refining capacity, Treasury has rolled the crude waiver for a third 30-day window, and Russia's Q1 deficit has already blown past its full-year target.

Russia launched roughly 800 drones at 20 Ukrainian regions on 13 May, the war's largest single-day barrage of the diplomatic season, on the same morning Trump said peace was getting very close. Three ceasefire templates in eight days all collapsed without a signed instrument. OFAC's General License 134B expires in 72 hours with no extension visible, landing against a Russian fiscal year in which oil and gas revenues have already fallen 38.3%.

Russia stripped its 9 May Victory Day parade of tanks and missiles, the first hardware-free Red Square procession in roughly two decades. Within the same 48 hours Putin asked Trump for a parade-day truce, while Treasury quietly extended the at-sea Russian crude waiver one day after publicly killing it. Refinery throughput hit a 16-year low and Ukraine outflew Russia overnight for the first time.

Ukraine repaired the Druzhba pipeline that it had publicly accepted responsibility for restoring, then struck Russian oil infrastructure upstream in the same 72-hour window. Hungary dropped its veto, the EU Council approved a €90 billion Ukraine loan and a 20th sanctions package, and Russia's Development Minister admitted on the record that Moscow's reserves are 'largely exhausted'.

Treasury refused to renew GL 134A on 16 April and redesignated Rosneft and Lukoil under coordinated US, UK and EU sanctions, closing a ~$150M/day Russian revenue channel against wire consensus that predicted extension. Tisza's 137-seat supermajority broke Budapest's EU veto on election night, but May government formation and a June disbursement calendar leave Kyiv's mid-May cash crunch intact.

In one week the Trump administration signed a $4.76bn four-year Patriot contract allocated almost entirely to foreign buyers, the State Department warned Kyiv off striking Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminals owned by Chevron and ExxonMobil, and the Treasury headed toward extending a sanctions waiver that Bloomberg estimates is worth $150 million a day to Moscow. Putin's Kremlin calendar for the same seven days shows no bilateral US diplomatic activity.

Ukraine's Baltic port strikes cut Russian crude exports by 43%, but the Iran war pushed Urals crude from $54 to $121 per barrel, handing Moscow a net revenue windfall. Explosives were found at the TurkStream pipeline one week before Hungary's election, an RFI investigation revealed Ukrainian military bases in Libya, and the Kremlin's Telegram ban triggered harsher domestic backlash than expected.

Ukrainian strikes shut down Russia's two largest Baltic export terminals at least four times in ten days, collapsing seaborne crude exports by 43% and costing Moscow roughly $1 billion in a single week. President Zelenskyy framed the campaign as 'Ukraine's own sanctions,' a direct substitute for the US Treasury waivers that released 124 million barrels of Russian oil on 12 March.

The Pentagon notified Congress on 26 March of plans to divert $750 million from the NATO PURL programme to restock US inventories depleted by the Iran war, while Russia launched 948 drones at Ukraine on 24 March, the single largest attack of the conflict. Britain closed the English Channel to Russia's shadow fleet, and the EU froze Hungary's €16.2 billion rearmament loan in an unprecedented act of intra-bloc financial coercion.

Ukraine and the US held bilateral talks in Miami on 21–22 March; Russia declined to attend. Battlefield analysis revealed Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive weakened Pokrovsk defences, where Russia is advancing toward Dobropillia. Hungary and Slovakia blocked EU summit conclusions, stalling both the €90 billion loan and a sanctions package targeting 43 additional shadow fleet vessels.

Ukraine dispatched a negotiating team to Washington for a 21 March meeting as combat hit a 2026 record of 286 engagements on 18 March. ISW data confirmed Russia's first sustained net territorial loss since 2023, while SIPRI revealed Moscow devotes 40% of federal spending to defence — a proportion not seen since the Soviet era. European navies seized three shadow fleet vessels as the EU's phased Russian gas ban approaches its first deadline on 25 April.

The US Treasury granted sanctions waivers for approximately 124 million barrels of Russian oil at sea, while CREA data showed Moscow earned €6 billion in fossil fuel revenues in the Iran war's first fortnight. The EU approved a €90 billion loan for Ukraine after breaking Hungary's Druzhba pipeline blockade, and Zelenskyy claimed Ukrainian forces had disrupted Russia's planned March offensive.

Ukraine deployed counter-drone crews to four Gulf states and fielded arms requests from eleven countries within a fortnight, pivoting from aid recipient to exporter. Storm Shadow cruise missiles struck Kremniy El, a key Iskander guidance chip manufacturer in Bryansk. Russia sustained over 9,000 weekly drone launches against Ukrainian cities as trilateral peace talks remained frozen.

The Iran war froze the US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral, halting diplomatic momentum from Geneva and Abu Dhabi. Russia deployed its new jam-resistant Izdeliye-30 missile against a Kharkiv apartment block, killing ten including two children, as daily kamikaze drone volumes rose to 9,837. Ukraine pivoted from aid recipient to potential arms provider, offering counter-drone expertise to the US and Saudi Arabia in exchange for ceasefire progress.

The sanctioned LNG carrier Arctic Metagaz was destroyed off Libya on 3 March — the first such loss in modern conflict — threatening Russia's sanctions-evasion revenue stream. The third US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral was displaced from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul. Germany's Merz told Trump that Europe will reject any deal negotiated without it.

Ukrainian forces recaptured 300–400 sq km in February — their best relative performance since the August 2024 Kursk incursion — while Russia launched 8,828 kamikaze drones in a single day, roughly triple the 2025 average. Moscow is threatening to suspend peace talks unless Kyiv pre-commits to ceding four occupied oblasts ahead of an expected Abu Dhabi trilateral.