Ukrainian drones kill Russian general soon after false victory claim

Ukrainian drone forces killed Russian Maj Gen Anton Grunis in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, according to drone commander Robert Brovdi, who said Grunis was the seventh Russian military commander killed by his unit. Another Russian commander, Apti Alaudinov, confirmed Grunis's death.

Grunis had received Russia's Gold Star Hero of Russia award in late August after reporting to Vladimir Putin that his troops helped capture the Donetsk city of Kostiantynivka, earning praise from the Russian president. However, the claim remains heavily disputed. The US-based Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces had infiltrated the city but not fully seized it, describing the claim as part of a broader information campaign portraying Ukraine's frontlines as collapsing. The battle for Kostiantynivka remains gruelling and contested.

Early Thursday, Russian airstrikes damaged buildings in Kyiv and injured three people in Odesa, including a child, when a 19-storey apartment building was hit. On Wednesday, Russian drones struck a passenger bus near the frontline city of Nikopol, killing five people and wounding seven others, and also attacked a train in the Mykolaiv region, where passengers and crew were evacuated safely. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the bus attack an act of brutality with no military logic. Russian shelling also killed people in the Kherson region and Odesa, while attacks in Sumy and Kropyvnytskyi injured more than a dozen people.

Polish officials said a Russian Gerbera-2 drone recovered from the Baltic Sea near Poland was armed with explosives, and prosecutors are investigating possible legal action. Russia extended its diesel export ban until the end of October amid fuel shortages caused by Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries, several of which have significantly cut or halted production.

Britain's Ministry of Defence named Maj Paul Wilks, a 40-year-old intelligence officer, who died in a road crash away from the frontlines in Ukraine on Saturday. A Russian strike also destroyed a Kyiv warehouse storing props from Zelenskyy's former TV production company, Kvartal 95.