Here is how things stand on Wednesday, October 22, 2025:
Fighting
A “massive” Russian attack killed four people and injured seven in the town of Novhorod-Siverskyi, in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, Governor Viacheslav Chaus wrote in a post on Telegram.
Chaus said that Russian forces launched about 20 Shahed drones in the attack and that there was “a lot of destruction in the city”.
Russian attacks killed two people and injured one person in the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the head of the Kostiantynivka City Military Administration, Serhii Horbunov, wrote in a post on Facebook.
A Russian drone attack injured nine people in Ukraine’s Sumy region, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said.
A Ukrainian attack killed one person and injured five in settlements in a Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, the Russian-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, said.
A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person in the village of Novostroyevka-Pervaya in Russia’s Belgorod Region, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported, citing regional authorities.
Russian attacks on energy facilities left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians without electricity in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine said on Tuesday.
More than 1,000 people were left without electricity due to a Ukrainian attack on the Kamianka-Dniprovska area of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian Zaporizhia region, TASS reported, citing local officials.
Ukrainian forces struck the Bryansk chemical plant in Russia, Ukraine’s General Staff said in a post on Facebook, adding that the “outcome of the strike is being assessed”.
Ukrainian volunteers in Sloviansk, Ukraine, on Tuesday work to identify Russian bodies recovered from the front lines to return them to their families [Jose Colon/Anadolu]
Politics and diplomacy
A senior White House official told Al Jazeera that “there are no plans for [US President Donald] President Trump to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the immediate future”, days after Trump suggested a meeting could take place in Hungary “within two weeks or so”.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said of developments: “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting… I don’t want to have a waste of time, so I’ll see what happens.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also implied that any potential meeting could take time, saying “preparation is needed, serious preparation”.
However, Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, said on X late on Tuesday that the “media is twisting comment about the ‘immediate future’ to undercut the upcoming Summit”, adding that “preparations continue” for the meeting between Trump and Putin.
Media is twisting comment about the “immediate future” to undercut the upcoming Summit. Preparations continue. 🕊️🇷🇺🤝🇺🇸
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that Moscow’s dwindling interest in the presidential meeting came after the US appeared to back away from considering supplying long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine.
“As soon as the issue of long-range mobility became a little further away for us – for Ukraine – Russia almost automatically became less interested in diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said.
Regional Security
A man who shot and wounded Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico last year has been found guilty of terrorism charges and handed a 21-year jail sentence. The shooter said he opposed the approach taken towards Ukraine by Fico, who ended state military assistance to Ukraine and sought closer ties with Moscow.
