Russia continued missile and drone strikes on Ukraine despite reports of a possible pause in Ukrainian attacks during visits by U.S. negotiators. President Zelensky described the past several days in Ukraine as “horrific,” particularly because of the intensity of Russian attacks. “The strikes continue from morning until night,” he said.
As Ukraine faces shortages of both air-defence systems and air-to-air missiles for fighter jets, the country is particularly vulnerable at this stage of the war.
In this edition:
Can Ukraine Expect Taurus Deliveries from Germany?
Air-to-Air Missile Shortages in Ukraine;
Ukraine’s Bohdana Artillery System;
The Current State of Drone Autonomy on the Battlefield;
and 10+ additional developments in Ukraine and Russia.
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Can Ukraine Expect Taurus Deliveries from Germany?
There is some hope in Ukraine that the rise in so-called “hybrid” attacks linked to Russia will prompt Germany to reconsider supplying Taurus missiles, which Ukraine has long requested.
On September 1, the German government said that it held Russia "responsible" for an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4. However, authorities insist that Germany is “not at war” but that it is “a daily target of hybrid warfare.” Therefore, Germany would respond to the hybrid attack in Leipzig in a “proportionate and measured, yet resolute manner.”
Andreas Umland, a Policy Fellow at the European Policy Institute in Kyiv, told Liga.net that Russia’s hybrid war against Germany is already approaching the threshold of conventional military action. “Explosives and drones... To what extent can this still be considered hybrid warfare? It is already on the verge of military action,” Umland said.
He noted that Germany has so far responded to Russian actions mainly with symbolic measures, including the closure of the Russian consulate in Bonn and the Russian House in Berlin.
In response, Putin accused Germany of planting evidence to blame Moscow for the attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport.
Wolfgang Kubicki from Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) said that Germany should threaten Russia with the transfer of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine if the Kremlin does not stop its hybrid attacks on German infrastructure.
Germany’s Free Democratic Party had long been one of the strongest advocates of providing Ukraine with long-range weapons. However, following the most recent parliamentary election, the party did not enter the Bundestag.
In July 2026, Germany's parliament rejected a proposal by the Green parliamentary group calling for the transfer of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, expanded production of Patriot PAC-2 missiles, and increased military and humanitarian aid.
Earlier, in an interview with Bild, the German Defense Minister said he saw no need to supply Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian forces were already effectively striking Russian infrastructure.
Taurus missiles, with a range of more than 500 km, could reach targets in Crimea, Donbas, and several Russian border regions. The Taurus is designed to strike hardened targets, including command posts, airfields and runways, and could also be used against major concrete infrastructure such as the Crimean Bridge.
The missile is equipped with a warhead featuring a PIMPF fuze, allowing it to strike hardened, multilayered structures such as bridges and bunkers. This capability has earned the Taurus the nickname “bridge killer.”
Taurus missiles were featured repeatedly in Friedrich Merz’s statements during the election campaign and after he became chancellor. He said that Ukraine should be given the capability to destroy the Kerch Bridge, also known as the Crimean Bridge, in order to disrupt a key Russian military logistics route. Taurus missiles are among the systems capable of inflicting significant damage on such hardened infrastructure.
Russian commentators are indeed concerned about the possibility of such deliveries. Russian military analyst Dmitry Kornev told Izvestia that there is no guaranteed protection against the Taurus, just as there is no complete protection against the British Storm Shadow or the French SCALP missiles. If used as part of operations intended to suppress or penetrate air defences, some Taurus missiles could still get through.
Russian Ambassador-at-Large Konstantin Dolgov commented that Germany had so far refrained from supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine, but that such a move could not be ruled out. “They are supplying quite a lot of weapons to Kyiv, and their motives are also clear. They continue to proceed from the need to inflict a defeat on Russia. This is a disastrous course for Europe and for Germany,” Dolgov said. He added that Russia would view any potential delivery of Taurus missiles by Germany to Ukraine as an additional factor of escalation and as another hostile act by Berlin.
Despite Taurus missiles having been part of the debate since 2023, Germany has taken no concrete action to supply them to Ukraine. Over the same period, Ukraine has continued to expand its domestic long-range strike capabilities, including long-range drones, missile-drone systems, jet-powered drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. These capabilities have already produced meaningful results against Russian military and energy infrastructure.
At the same time, partner-supplied long-range weapons remain an important component of Ukraine’s strike capability because of their technological sophistication, accuracy, and ability to engage hardened or high-value targets.
In February 2026, Ukrainian Armed Forces targeted a Russian command facility near Novopetrivka in the Donetsk region with the U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles. And in August 2026, Ukraine decided to buy 70 M39 ATACMS from Turkey.
The most recent verified Ukrainian strike using British Storm Shadow cruise missiles took place in August 2026. Just two days earlier, on Ukraine’s Independence Day, the British government authorized defence manufacturer MBDA to disclose classified information needed to support Ukraine and France in establishing local production of Storm Shadow/SCALP long-range cruise missiles.
However, for now the prospects of Ukraine getting German Taurus missiles seem pretty low.
In a separate conversation with me, Andreas Umland said that German public opinion remains opposed to supplying Taurus missiles to Ukraine because many Germans fear Russian retaliation. He described this, in part, as a success of Russian and pro-Russian propaganda. “As long as public opinion does not change, the government is unlikely to satisfy Ukraine’s request,” he added.
Check out other relevant reports:
Air-to-Air Missile Shortages in Ukraine
The War Zone reported that Ukrainian F-16 pilots are facing such a severe shortage of air-to-air missiles that, on some daytime sorties, they have had to rely solely on the fighters’ internal guns to engage Russian aerial threats.
According to a separate interview with Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, Ukrainian aviation expert and a reserve Air Force officer, the shortage is partly due to the intensive use of F-16s against these faster drones.