Ukrainian drones targeted an ethanol plant in Russia’s Voronezh region, Russian Telegram news channels reported last night.

According to the region’s governor, the attack caused a fire at an unspecified industrial facility and injured one person.

Emergency services were sent to the fire, Alexander Gusev, governor of the Voronezh region in southern Russia, said on his Telegram channel.

He said that late yesterday about 10 Ukrainian drones were destroyed or intercepted over the region, causing debris to fall on an industrial enterprise and causing a fire.

The Baza News Telegram channel close to Russian security services and several other Russian news Telegram channels reported that two explosions were heard near the Ethanol Spirit plant in the village of Krasnoye.

While Kiev has not commented on the reported attacks, it has often said that its drone strikes in Russia target infrastructure essential to Russia’s war effort and are in response to Moscow’s continued attacks on Ukrainian territory.

Russian air defense units destroyed 21 Ukrainian drones last night, the Russian Defense Ministry said this morning.

Of these, 13 drones were destroyed over the Belgorod border region, six over the Bryansk region, also bordering Ukraine, while the remaining two were destroyed over the Voronezh and Kursk regions, the ministry said.

After the BRICS summit in Kazan on Thursday (October 24), the Russian president said: “This is something that has been continuously discussed for more than a year.

“At one point we were accused of this, and Trump himself of being somehow connected to Russia. Then, as a result of an investigation in the United States itself, everyone came to the conclusion, including in Congress, as far as I know, that this was complete nonsense, that nothing like this had ever happened before.

“It didn’t happen before, and it’s not happening now.”

Volodymyr Zelensky said cooperation within the ‘Ukraine plus Northern Europe’ format is gaining speed, with more steps that could increase pressure on Russia in the coming week.

“They understand that it is necessary to create problems for the aggressor so that Russia loses the opportunity to spoil the life of the world,” Zelensky said in his nightly speech last night.

“We will talk (in the coming week) with the ‘North’ about new fundamental steps that can increase pressure on Russia for this war and for the sake of fair diplomacy,” he said.

The five Scandinavian countries – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland – are now all NATO countries and have all been staunch supporters of Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion.

Russia lost nearly 200 soldiers, with 80 confirmed fatalities in eastern Ukraine, where fierce fighting is ongoing, officials said.

Russian troops made 27 attempts to break through Ukrainian defenses on the Pokrovsk front near Myroliubivka, Promin, Krutyi Yar, Vyshneve and Selydove, but met strong resistance, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said.

About 189 Russian soldiers on this front have been killed or wounded, adding to Russia’s losses, military officials said in a late night update.

In the past 24 hours, 142 combat engagements took place on the front lines and the most intense fighting was reported from the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove fronts, with additional activity by Russian forces on the Kupiansk, Lyman and Vremivka fronts, the military officials said.

Russian forces blocked a new cross-border incursion by Ukrainian forces in southwestern Russia, a local official claimed.

An “armed group” tried to break through the border between Ukraine and Russia’s Bryansk region yesterday but was repulsed, local governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said.

The Russian local official did not specify whether Ukrainian soldiers carried out the attack, but claimed the situation was “stable and under control” by Russian forces in the evening.

Responsibility for previous raids on Russia’s Belgorod and Bryansk regions has been claimed by two shadowy groups: the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Legion of Freedom of Russia.

The Bryansk region borders Kursk province, where Ukraine launched a surprise attack on August 6 that rattled the Kremlin and marked the largest attack on Russia since World War II.

A high-level delegation from South Korea will brief the North Atlantic Council today on North Korea’s troop deployment in Russia, NATO said, after the US expressed serious concerns about the possible use of the troops against Ukraine.

“Ambassadors from NATO partners in the Indo-Pacific region – including Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea – are invited to attend the meeting,” the military alliance added. The North Atlantic Council is NATO’s main decision-making body.

Ukrainian military intelligence said Thursday that about 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were already in Russia and training was taking place at five military bases.

Speaking on the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin did not deny that North Korean troops were in Russia. But he said it is Moscow’s business how to implement a treaty with Pyongyang that includes a mutual defense clause to help each other against external aggression.

Several people were injured overnight in multi-wave Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, Ukrainian military officials said early today.

Two people were hospitalized late yesterday after Russia hit the city of Kharkov – the administrative center of the wider Kharkov region – with precision-guided bombs and damaged several residential buildings, the city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Later in the evening there were more attacks on the city, Terekhov said, partially damaging several buildings.

At least four more people suffered various injuries in the Kharkiv region later in the evening after Russia launched more attacks, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.

An attack on the town of Chuhuiv damaged a residential building, Syniehubov said. He added that no injuries were reported in that attack.

Donald Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan that he could negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine if he were elected.

When asked how he would avoid the end of World War III, he said: “I know them both very well. If I told you exactly what I would do, I would never be able to close the deal. “I believe that as president-elect I would ensure that the war would be stopped quickly.

“We have enormous power in the US. I have stopped other wars just by using tariffs.”