Published On 17 Oct 202517 Oct 2025
Here is how things stand on Friday, October 17, 2025:
Fighting
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Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev has been killed by a Ukrainian drone strike while on assignment on the front line of the war in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, his publication, state news agency RIA said. Zuyev’s colleague, Yuri Voitkevich, was seriously wounded in the attack.
- Russia launched a large armoured assault with more than 20 armoured vehicles near the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia, Ukraine’s Azov brigade said, adding that its forces repelled the attack.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces carried out a massive overnight strike on Ukrainian gas infrastructure, which supports Kyiv’s military, in retaliation for what it said were Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched a barrage of more than 300 drones and 37 missiles in that attack. Ukraine’s state grid operator, Ukrenergo, has also introduced emergency power cuts in every region of the country.
- Ukraine struck Russia’s Saratov oil refinery overnight, the Ukrainian military general staff said in a statement on Telegram.
- Some 84,000 people are still without power in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region after Ukrainian strikes this week on energy infrastructure, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region.
- Alexey Likhachev, the head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said a decision could be taken as early as Friday on a pause in fighting to enable repairs to power lines at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine.
- North Korean troops based in Russia are operating drones across the border into Ukraine on reconnaissance missions, the Ukrainian military said, the first time Kyiv has reported a battlefield role for North Koreans in months.
Ceasefire talks
