Ukraine’s refinery campaign had its most effective week of the war, and the answer came not from Moscow but from Washington: a diesel deal with Putin, a threat to the intelligence lifeline, and a demand for a new president in Kyiv.
The week opened with Ukraine’s Defence Ministry claiming 51% of Russian refining capacity disabled, up from 45% two weeks earlier (Monday, Kyiv Independent), and every day after went deeper. Roughly 650 drones set the Volodarskaya depot ablaze on Tuesday, the largest raid on Moscow in two years, as Russia’s September oil and gas revenues came in 22.3% down year-on-year (Ukrainska Pravda, NV); the AFRAMAX RIO burned off Sochi on Wednesday while the finance ministry announced a fivefold increase in forex purchases to cover the shortfall (Guardian); on Thursday the Salavat refinery in Bashkortostan was hit 1,400 km from the border and a Yandex data centre went dark, the first attack on a major Russian data centre (Ukrainska Pravda, Kyiv Independent). Last week’s review recorded Trump’s request that Kyiv ease the refinery strikes and Kyiv’s demand for reciprocity. This week the request became an ultimatum and the ultimatum became policy. On Friday Rubio declared a negotiated end “currently unattainable” and Zelensky said Ukraine “knows a lot” about parallel US-Russia economic talks (Kyiv Independent). On Saturday, with Ukraine’s delegation sitting in Miami, Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel until April 7, 2027, a licence covering around 5 million tons, after Putin told him Russia would fight until its objectives were met; Axios reported US envoys had threatened to cut intelligence sharing if the refinery strikes continued (BBC, Axios). By Sunday Trump was saying “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president,” the Miami talks had collapsed, and the NYT had the US offer to Moscow in detail: frozen-asset releases, a Lukoil stake sale and Belarus potash exports for a limited ceasefire (Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda). The Lukoil deal that last week’s review flagged as a first-week story is now the centre of the American offer, and the diesel shortage that last week was patched with a G7 stock release has this week been patched with Russian diesel. Ukraine’s reply was drones over Moscow that reportedly kept Putin from landing at Vnukovo (United24).
Russia’s side of the exchange was the bloodiest week of civilian strikes in the paper’s record. The MoD formally announced its intensified infrastructure campaign on Monday with a retaliation framing that ISW and even Rybar called false (Ukrainska Pravda); Wednesday’s wave of 161 aerial assets destroyed a Pryluky apartment block; Thursday’s count was 28 dead across Ukraine, 22 of them in Pryluky, on Putin’s birthday, the same day military chiefs from all 32 NATO members arrived in Kyiv for the first time in eight years (BBC, United24); a missile on two buses in Kramatorsk killed at least 30 on Friday (Guardian); glide bombs on Zaporizhzhia killed 20 within a day of the diesel deal (BBC). The bridge question this review posed last week has an answer of a kind: Kyiv’s two crossings were struck seven times from October 1, Putin has reportedly tasked Surovikin with destroying all seven Dnipro bridges to cut the city in two, an intercepted plan lists 60 energy and municipal targets including hydro and nuclear sites, emergency outages began on Friday and Klitschko urged residents who can to leave before winter (RBC-Ukraine, France24). The war also crossed into NATO waters: three merchant ships hit in Romanian and Bulgarian economic zones in 48 hours, two sunk, and neither capital willing to name Russia (Euromaidan Press). The paradox sits in Friday’s ISW assessment that Operation Vivaldi has operationally defeated Russia’s 2026 Donetsk campaign, with the two northern armies unable to resume offensive action and the spring 2027 deadline out of reach (ISW). Russia is losing on the ground, winning in the air, and, as of this week, winning in Washington.
The Middle East ran on two chokepoints at once. Last week’s review left Hormuz with three carrier groups and no mediation; this week the IRGC struck ten tankers in seven days, the highest weekly count this year, halving crude through the strait and taking Brent from $102.25 on Monday to $105 by Friday, with the nuclear chief ruling out any halt to enrichment (WSJ, Washington Post). Washington’s response was to order CENTCOM to prepare “massive” strikes on Thursday, with a congressional count of 81 aircraft lost or damaged at up to $3.3 billion, and then on Friday to rule out any strike before the November 3 midterms (Axios, CNN). The Saudi offensive this review asked about did launch, on Monday, with the US declining to join; by Tuesday the Mecca Alliance had activated its mutual-defence clause for the first time, Turkey and Pakistan were sending troops, a 100-jet air campaign had retaken Mocha, and by Saturday Yemeni government forces claimed the Bab al-Mandeb itself (Al Jazeera, Guardian). The price arrived in Riyadh: Houthi strikes on Saudi airports three times in a week, three dead on Thursday, a parked aircraft on Friday, and twelve dead including a US citizen with more than 300 injured on Sunday, as the UN envoy declared Yemen back in full-scale war, Taiz’s hospitals neared collapse under siege, and Trump said the US was “evaluating” joining Saudi strikes (Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera). RAF Fairford moved from last week’s “strong indications” to a detailed account: the IRGC recruited British nationals to deliver drones and car bombs against the B-1s, modelled explicitly on Ukraine’s Spider’s Web, and US intelligence had the bombers withdrawn on September 27, which Rubio called a “routine reallocation” (Telegraph).
Around the wars, electorates and institutions shifted. Brazil’s first round went to a runoff on October 25 that Lula called “unexpected” (Guardian); Sánchez called a snap election for November 29 after losing two housing votes (Al Jazeera); the Parti Québécois won Quebec with a referendum promised by 2028 (BBC); Trump’s approval set a new low for the second week running (Al Jazeera). Former BND chief August Hanning was arrested for passing secrets to an unnamed foreign service in the same week his successor told parliament Germany risks direct conflict with Russia (BBC). The Nobel Committee gave the Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, the US sanctioned the ICC within hours, and Trump warned Norway he would “not forget” (Reuters, Bloomberg). At home, statsbudsjettet for 2027 spends 608.4 billion oil kroner, cuts income tax by 6.4 billion, raises Norgespris to 45 øre and cuts Posten to one delivery day a week, with the Finance Ministry warning of structural underfunding from 2028 (E24). The week’s sharpest Norwegian security story was small and concrete: Chinese-owned rental cars used in a Heimevernet exercise had stored video of soldiers, routes and the access codes to military gates, Forsvaret kept using them for lack of alternatives, and justisministeren answered questions about it without saying the word «Kina» (Aftenposten, DN). Markets, as usual, declined to notice: the VIX went from 16.3 on Monday to 14.84 on Saturday and equities rose on the day Russian diesel re-entered world markets. The one financial signal worth keeping was the US 10-year yield at its highest since 2002 as the AI build-out moves from equity to debt. AI, which carried a full paragraph last week, otherwise vanished from the front pages, as did the Epstein/IPI hearing.
Running storylines
From last week:
Posed this week:
cd /home/jbe/repos/josse-posten && claude --resume b6af489f-2f06-47aa-8fd4-40f173f89869