October 22nd, 2026
Politics - Kremlin agrees in principle with trilateral talks
- Possible talks November 10th
- Exchange of the dead
Combat Ops - Strikes continue, large strike on Kyiv
- Ground war grinds on
Weather
Kharkiv
56 and partly cloudy. Partly to mostly cloudy through Saturday, sunny on Sunday. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the upper 50s to low 60s. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.
Melitopol
61 and partly cloudy. Partly cloudy for the next week, daily lows in the high 40s, daily highs in the mid 60s. Winds easterly, 5-10kts.
Kyiv
53 and mostly cloudy, gusting to 20. Mostly cloudy through the Monday, rain showers on Friday and again on Monday. Daily lows in the 40s, daily highs in the upper 50s. Winds easterly, 10-15kts.
Politics
Following Wednesday’s meeting between President Putin and Ambassador Witkoff, the Kremlin reported that Putin said he agrees in principle to the resumption of trilateral talks among the Russia, Ukraine and the US.
Later, the Kremlin said that Russia has agreed to hold trilateral talks at the technical level in Abu Dhabi, perhaps beginning as early as November 10th.
Putin thanked President Trump for his efforts and commented:
“I know that President Trump is paying special attention to this, primarily for humanitarian reasons.” He then thanked U.S. First Lady Melania Trump for her “contribution to resolving humanitarian issues.”
Witkoff described his earlier meeting with Zelenskyy as “productive” urged Putin to resume trilateral talks to “discuss the next steps toward achieving a settlement…I believe that all of us and the world are ready for this.”
Witkoff also presented documents for Putin’s review, an outline for a peace agreement with Ukraine.
President Zelenskyy had already commented to Fox News:
“This is very important that Putin will support the peace, maybe first steps of this like ... food security ceasefire, ceasefire on the sea, or energy ceasefire, which is very important, which was raised by President Trump, and I think it was a strong idea from the president. I supported it immediately.”
“Right now, we have to freeze, and I think this is a real way to end this war… the minimum.”
Zelenskyy stressed Ukraine’s need to security guarantees:
“This is the most important—not to be afraid that occupation will come back, aggression will come back, killings will come back.”
Russia and Ukraine conducted another body exchange yesterday (the last was in mid September), with Russia turning over 252 Ukrainian dead and Ukraine turning over 25 Russian dead.
This brings the number of Ukrainian bodies returned by Russia to Ukraine since the exchanges began early in 2025 to a total of 21,065, and the number of Russian bodies turned over to Russia to 449.
There is still no official explanation for the disparity in numbers.
German federal prosecutors have confirmed that a Ukrainian man (“Vadym Y.”) has been arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia.
The man, arrested in Brandenburg (35 miles west of Berlin), has reportedly been working for Russian intelligence since at least July 2025, and has been gathering intelligence on German armored vehicle production and ammunition production.
Air and Maritime Operations
Ukrainian Forces
At least 630 Ukrainian drones were reported to have been launched into Russian air space, with drones striking "AO 75 Arsenal" (“75th Arsenal”) military repairs plant in Serpukhov of Moscow region (less than 50 miles south of Moscow center). Russian sources stated that all but a handful of drones penetrated Russian air defenses. The 75th arsenal’s main facility was reported to be on fire.
Ukrainian forces continue drone and missile strikes against Russian oil infrastructure.
During the night of October 19th-October 20th Ukrainian forces struck the oil production facility at Novonikolskoye (about 250 miles south-east of Moscow).
Commercial imagery on the VK data center in St Petersburg, struck during the night of October 17th-18th, shows “significant damage” to the facility. Commercial imagery also showed 5 oil tanks damaged or destroyed at the oil terminal in St Petersburg.
Russian Forces
During the period from October 21st-October 22nd Russian forces launched at least 25 x missiles (a mix of Iskander, Oniks, Zircon and S-300/400 missiles missiles) at Kyiv, as well as 210 strike drones.
Damage was reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, and Zhytomyr oblasts. Targets included power grid and associated infrastructure, as well as logistics related sites. A large retail mall was also struck.
The Pivdennyi (southern) Bridge was struck and the subway line across the bridge is reported to have been damaged.
Civilian casualties included at least 3 dead and 56 wounded.
During the period from October 20th-October 21st Russian forces launched at least 186 x strike drones into Ukrainian airspace.
Damage was reported in Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Poltava, Volyn, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Targets included power grid and associated infrastructure, as well as logistics related sites. Power outages were reported in Kyiv.
Civilian casualties included at least 4 dead and 46 wounded.
Technology
Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reports that, as of the beginning of October Russia has 700 ballistic missiles and several thousand cruise missiles stockpiled. Iskander ballistic missiles are being produced at a rate of 65 per month and the stockpile has increased in size by 13% since August.
The stockpile also includes: 450 x Kalibr cruise missile, 600 x Onyx missiles and 120 x Zircon hypersonic missiles.
The GUR also notes that Russia has passed the 10,000 strike drones per month production level. Note, these are the larger, long range, winged dozens; FPV drone production numbers are guesstimated to be in excess of 15,000 per day (450,000 per month). Ukrainian FPV production is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 19,000 per day (550,000 per month). Of interest, the GUR notes that Russia is currently producing some 4,000 jet-powered drones per month.
Ground Operations
Russian infiltrations continue along much of the line - north of Kharkiv, north and east of Kupyansk, North-east and east and south-east of Slovyansk, on the north and north-east edges of Kostiantinivka, on the eastern and southern edges of Dobripillia, and in an arc from south-west to north-west of Hulyaipole, but there are no confirmed changes in the line. Rather, the gray area between the forces “simply” continues to slowly become more of an irregular checkerboard of intermixed Russian and Ukrainian elements - that process is slowing, but continues.
North-east of Kharkiv Ukrainian forces appear to control the village of Karaichne, a village that was the site of large commercial farm, with a population of 232 before the war.
North of Pokrovsk, in the general Dobripillia area, per Ukrainian General Staff reporting, Russian forces pushed along the Byk River into the center of the town of Hannivka (just north-east of Dobripillia) and appear to have reached (and therefore cut) the T0514 Roadway that runs into Dobripillia from the north-east.
Economic Reporting
Feb22 Jul9 Aug7 Sep8 Oct8 Oct21 Oct 22
Brent 94.71 77.93 81.75 98.19 105.80 108.90 111.50
WTI 92.10 73.11 76.66 93.28 92.99 97.93 98.38
NG 3.97 3.12 2.64 2.95 3.16 2.86 2.81
Wheat 8.52 6.06 6.35 7.46 6.86 6.23 6.22
Ruble 85 76.31 82.61 86.21 85.20 82.02 81.84
Hryvnia 28.6 44.51 44.73 44.63 44.93 45.05 45.16
Urals 91.66 57.80 79.19 89.44 123.93 104.76 101.56
ESPO 94.52 73.53 78.79 98.44 108.70 138.79 138.82
Sokol 99.31 71.56 77.42 94.09 109.20 116.69 117.34
ESPO Forward, 22 October - 128.70.
Thoughts
Russia has participated in talks before but their position - to include insisting Kyiv cede all of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as balking at any sort of NATO or EU backed security force, prevented any meaningful negotiations.
While there has been recent talk about a Yalta 2 style meeting (with Trump, Putin and Xi filling in from FDR, Stalin and Churchill) and how destructive that would be, Yalta, as one of my correspondents points out, really was a different situation (Poland was already fully occupied by the Russian army’s as was virtually all of Eastern Europe).
The more appropriate analogy is, perhaps Korea. As you’ll recall, Syngman Rhee refused to agree or sign. Today, 73 years and 4 months later, there still is no peace treaty. There is, instead a ceasefire, and in the shadow of that ceasefire the Republic of Korea rebuilt and became an economic powerhouse with a per capita income perhaps 70 times that of North Korea.
As for the turnover of bodies, the last several months have seen Ukraine regain some ground, pushing Russians back, and claiming truly remarkable casualty counts over the Russians. Why then the continued disparity in the number of exchanged dead? The gains negate the argument that it was because of the advance that Russia could gather Ukrainian bodies. Who knows…
But, it is at least worth a note that looking at the various Russian casualty figures released by various elements of the Ukrainian government, there is one that is of the same order as numbers published by Mediazone, which is, as I’ve noted before, the only public figure that has a reasonable methodology to track Russian KIAs. Mediazone numbers now suggest that between 276,000 and some 400,000+ Russian soldiers have been killed in the war. These numbers have grown steadily, so while there are spikes and drops in the number, Russian casualties have on the whole stayed between 1,000 and 1,600 per week (4,000 - 6,500 per month).
And one figure that was just released was that Russian forces over the course of the summer (13 weeks) had suffered 49,000 casualties. Note that for every 100 KIAs there are an additional 60 severely wounded (will not return to active duty) and some 100 wounded (will return to active duty. Those ratios, fitted into 49,000 total casualties, produce the following results (just KIAs, severely wounded and lightly wounded) over the course of 13 weeks: 18,000 KIA / 11,000 severely wounded / 18,000 lightly wounded.
That said, overall reporting still supports the conclusion that Ukrainian casualties are of the same magnitude as Russian.
v/r pete
