Footage showing the launch of a Russian nuclear-capable Intercontinental ballistic missile 15P155M "YARS" during today's nuclear exercises.

Russia is expected to launch Oreshnik IRBMs from today until the end of October as part of their ongoing nuclear exercises. As a result, country-wide air raid alerts may be issued for Ukraine due to activity at the Kapustin Yar Training Ground in Astrakhan Oblast.

The probability of any Oreshnik strikes on Ukraine is practically 0%.

The first Russian soldiers have entered Kostyantynivka proper.

A very stupid and borderline suicidal idea in my opinion. Russia hasn't even properly consolidated east of the city, with the grey zone stretching nearly 9 km east of this infiltration.

The entire area is completely covered by Ukrainian drones as there are practically endless hiding spots for drone operators, and Russia has been really struggling to locate and destroy them for literally the last 8 months.

There is simply no way to properly consolidate right now, unless some terrible weather conditions and fog arrive, allowing for the Russians to sneak in significant reinforcements and supplies. I predict that this infiltration will be reversed in under two weeks from now, but let's wait and see.

Siversk, Pokrovsk, Kupyansk, Bilohorivka... when will they learn not to storm these "cauldron cities" like this? Makes zero sense, and the only time that I can think of when something similar to this has worked was in Toretsk, and even then the whole city had to be wiped out for them to take it, and proper consolidation had taken actually place in the previous, much larger settlements.

Of course, it's nothing compared to Ukraine's storming of places like Tetkino, Toretsk, Klishchiivka, Robotyne, etc, but you would still expect Russia to show more adaptation when it comes to this.

Some of the communications between one of the Tu-95MS and ground controllers "Khlebobor & Troitsa" as they carry out training missions over the Kuril Islands area of the Pacific Ocean.

They may carry out simulated launches of Kh-101 cruise missiles with electronic warfare as a part of the training, as they did earlier this week.

Ukraine's Ukrenergo has announced additional rolling hourly power outages for household consumers. They will take place for 18 hours every day between 7am and 11pm, and are being put in place due to today's Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, as well as earlier attacks.

Industrial consumers will be prioritised, with power limitation schedules being put in place for them rather than outright outages.

The 2 Tu-22m3 and 1 Tu-95MS strategic bomber flights which I reported on earlier were taking part in the ongoing Russian nuclear exercises.

This video shows the two Tu-22m3s carrying out training, alongside escort crews of Su-34S and Su-27 aircraft. One of the Tu-22m3s can be seen equipped with a Kh-22 cruise missile. These training flights lasted for more than 5 hours.

Russian mapper Radov corroborates my reports on the complicated situation east of Kostyantynivka.

For those who think Russia has properly consolidated here.

Russian forces have captured the village of Molodetske, western flank of Pokrovsk, Donetsk Oblast.

Pre-war population: ~148.
Total land area: ~0.95 km².

Russian forces have captured the village of Promin, Pokrovsk direction, Donetsk Oblast.

Pre-war population: ~73.
Total land area: ~0.16 km².

KAB launches to Kherson City

Correction: flying to the Komyshany area, west of Kherson.

Explosions in Kherson.

4 KABs were used on the western suburbs of Kherson. The Su-34s are returning to Crimea, where a Su-35 (currently circling near Krasnoperekopsk, northern Crimea) will escort them back to their airbase.

We will probably see a video of the strikes filmed from a Russian recon drone in the coming hours.

The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, reports that the Trump administration has lifted restrictions preventing Ukraine from using western long-range weapons to strike targets inside internationally recognised parts of Russia.

Yesterday, the Ukrainian general staff reported that Ukrainian Storm Shadow cruise missiles impacted the Bryansk Chemical Plant. While there is no visual confirmation of this yet, some Russian channels have corroborated these claims.

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent has announced that the U.S. will implement additional sanctions against Russia. The details of this sanctions package are expected to be announced as early as this evening. Meanwhile, the EU has agreed to implement their 19th package of sanctions against Russia.

This comes as Trump and Putin's scheduled meeting in the Hungarian capital of Budapest was cancelled yesterday, with Trump saying that he was avoiding a "wasted meeting", after reports that Putin refused to freeze the frontline along its current line of contact in a phone call with Trump.