‘Like It or Not, We’re in a Direct Confrontation With Russia’ – Ukraine at War Update for Oct. 15

Germany’s foreign intelligence chief, Bruno Kahl, told a parliamentary hearing on Monday that Russia will likely be capable of launching an attack on NATO countries by 2030, AFP reported, and is stepping up its efforts to disrupt Ukraine’s Western supporters, such as Germany, through sabotage.

“Whether we like it or not, we are in a direct confrontation with Russia,” the head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) told members of the Bundestag. President Vladimir Putin’s long-term goal was to weaken the West, Kahl said, while a military clash with NATO was “becoming an option” for Russia.

In financial terms, Berlin is Kyiv’s second-biggest military backer behind only Washington.

Joining the chiefs of Germany’s other two main intelligence agencies, the BND chief said that Germany increasingly has been targeted by Russian spies and saboteurs.

“In terms of personnel and materiel, Russian armed forces are likely to be capable of carrying out an attack against NATO by the end of the decade at the latest,” he said.

“Russian espionage and sabotage in Germany are increasing, both qualitatively and quantitatively,” domestic intelligence chief Thomas Haldenwang said in his turn at the podium.

Quoted by AFP, Haldenwang described specific sabotage activities, including a near miss involving an exploding package and a DHL cargo plane. The parcel had burst into flames on the ground at the airport in Leipzig in July before it could be loaded onto the plane.

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“If it had exploded onboard during the flight, there would have been a crash and the debris could have hit all the people here in Germany who, openly or secretly, sympathize with Putin,” said the chief of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, the BfV.

The third intelligence official to brief the Bundestag was Martina Rosenberg, head of the country’s military intelligence agency, the Militärischer Abschirmdienst, or MAD. Rosenberg said that the German armed forces had seen a “significant increase” in espionage and sabotage activities linked to Russia, including “reconnaissance of German arms deliveries to Ukraine” and surveillance of military training and armaments projects.

Russian artillery kills two elderly ladies and wounds another woman in the Kherson region

The Head of Kherson’s regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, reported on social media that Russian forces, firing artillery shells on the regional capital’s Dniprovskyi district, had killed two elderly women in a residential apartment building on Monday.

Over the weekend, Russian forces had launched drones at residential districts of Kherson, killing a 34-year-old man on a moped and causing a fire to break out in a warehouse.

“Sadly, we have fatalities,” he wrote. “Two elderly women sustained fatal injuries. They were inside the house when the attack happened.”

Another woman, 42, was hospitalized and suffered blast injuries in the attack, the regional military administration continued, causing bruising to her chest and other parts of her body.

Details of Zelensky’s long-touted Victory Plan to be unveiled this week

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced in his evening address of Monday that the specifics of his “Victory Plan,” or peace plan, will be made public this week.

For the past two weeks or so, Zelensky has shopped out to allies iterations of his outline for negotiating an end to the war with Moscow from a place of strength, to persuade them to increase military commitments to Kyiv, especially as regards permission to fire Western-made long-range missiles deep within Russian territory.

“This week, we will present to all our partners in Europe our strategy for compelling Russia to bring this war to a just end. Of course, the Victory Plan will be made public,” the president said.

An advisor to the president said that Zelensky will likely present this plan during his address to Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, on Wednesday, Oct. 16.

Fighting continues to heat up in the Pokrovsk area of the Donetsk region

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Kremlin’s forces on Monday conducted a mechanized assault in the area of Kurakhove, near Pokrovsk, in the region of Donetsk, but defending troops have been holding off Moscow’s forces.

Geolocated footage published on Sunday may indicate that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) recently repelled a reduced-battalion-sized mechanized assault consisting of 25 Russian armored vehicles and five tanks near Kurakhove direction. Ukrainian forces reportedly destroyed seven of the armored vehicles and one tank.

The AFU has been engaged in a fierce battle for weeks to defend Pokrovsk, the war’s latest pivotal city to garner international attention on Ukraine’s eastern front.

On Sunday, the BBC reported that its correspondents recently visited the front lines there:

“The medics tell us they recently treated 50 soldiers in one day, numbers rarely seen before during the course of this war,” the correspondents wrote. “Just months ago, this was considered a relatively safe place - home to about 60,000 people, its streets lined with restaurants, cafes and markets. Soldiers would often come from the front line to the city for a break.”

Russian milbloggers claimed on Monday that the Kremlin's forces seized the settlement of Ostrivske (east of Kurakhove), but ISW analysts wrote that they had yet to confirm that Moscow’s units have seized the entire town.