Russians kill one person in Ukraine on October 15

Russian shelling on October 15, 2025, killed one person in the Donetsk region and wounded 17 others across the Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Kherson, and Kharkiv Oblasts, the National Police of Ukraine reported.

The site where a residential building in Dobropillia in the Donetsk region stood before the Russian strike, from under the rubble of which a person’s body was retrieved

The single fatality from Russian strikes on October 15 was a resident of Dobropillia, where two others were wounded. The Russian army dropped at least four guided aerial bombs (KABs) on the city, and the region sustained over 2,100 strikes in total for the day.

In addition to the victim and those wounded in Dobropillia, four more wounded people were reported: two residents of Kostiantynivka and two from Lyman.

The Donetsk region remains one of the most affected areas due to the full-scale Russian invasion. Official Oblast Military Administration data, as of October 16, 2025, counts over 3,600 fatalities and over 8,300 wounded civilians. The data is incomplete, as it excludes casualties from Mariupol, Volnovakha, and other areas under Russian temporary occupation.

In Dobropillia, a dog was found under the rubble of buildings shelled by Russia, which was handed over to veterinarians

Moreover, four civilians were wounded in both the Kharkiv and Sumy Oblasts following Russian strikes on October 15.

The wounded in the Kharkiv Oblast included four men of various ages from the villages of Andriivka and Staryi Merchyk. In the Sumy region, the wounded included a woman and two men whose car was hit by a Russian drone in the Putylivska hromada – a local government area that includes one or more nearby settlements – while they were driving, and a man wounded by mortar shelling in the Seredyna-Buda hromada.

Two civilians were also wounded in the Kherson region. A 75-year-old man was hit by a Russian drone strike in Zolota Balka and was hospitalized with a blast injury, lacerations to the face and abdomen, and multiple gunshot wounds to the legs.

In Kherson city, Russians struck the Shumenskyi District with drones in the morning, first hitting a trolleybus, and then a car at a gas station. A 36-year-old man was hospitalized with blast and traumatic brain injuries, a concussion, and shrapnel wounds to the thigh.

Rescuers in Kherson region are extinguishing a fire after a Russian strike on a high-rise building, as a result of which no one was injured

Another civilian was wounded in Russian shelling on October 15 in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast.

The victim was a farmer working on his land near Huliaipole when a remotely controlled drone struck his tractor. Police did not provide details on the civilian’s condition, but noted that the drone operator was controlling the weapon remotely and saw where they were aiming.

A police officer looks at the destruction that remained after a Russian strike on the Sumy region on October 15, 2025

By way of background, on October 14, 2025, Russians killed five people in Ukraine by shelling and injured more than fifty others.

Earlier, Bohdan Bernatskyy, a member of the Sanctions Policy Working Group of the Crimean Platform Expert Network, revealed at the Third Parliamentary Summit in Latvia that over 1,300 Russian military companies and 2 million industrial workers continue to operate, many without international restrictions.

Ukraine urges the international community to unite to restore global security under the UN Charter and strengthen sanctions against Russia to enforce compliance with international law. Following Russia’s initial invasion in 2014, Ukraine has pursued the liberation of its territories within its internationally recognized 1991 borders while developing comprehensive reintegration strategies and policies for all liberated areas.

As is known, India, China, North Korea, and Brazil also assist Moscow in killing citizens of Ukraine in Russia’s war, including funding the Russian budget through trade. 

General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported on October 16 that the Russian military command is deploying North Korean units to assist in military operations in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast. North Koreans are conducting reconnaissance with unmanned aerial vehicles, identifying Ukrainian positions and helping adjust fire against them in Sumy Oblast.

On October 15, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, expressed confidence that Russia would have lost the war long ago without support from its allies and that Ukraine would liberate its own territories.

The next day, he stated that Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries have inflicted greater economic damage than any international sanctions imposed on Moscow.

“In reality, our strikes have had more impact than the effect of sanctions. This is simply a mathematical truth. Through direct action, we have inflicted far greater damage on the Russian Federation’s profits than any economic leverage that has been applied to date,” cites Budanov, Suspilne public broadcaster, as saying at the Kyiv International Economic Forum. 

The intelligence chief emphasized that Ukraine carried out a significant portion of strikes on Russian refineries using domestically produced ammunition.

He also stressed that existing sanctions pressure on Russia remains insufficient.

“This is also an unpleasant truth because it leads us to the next conclusion that evidently, this is not enough. I mean, sanctions pressure — it is insufficient. And if this continues as it is, it will not have enough impact to change the Russian Federation’s worldview,” the intelligence official said.

He pointed out that Russia currently has sufficient “margin of strength” to continue the war for “quite a long time.” According to him, the economic difficulties Russia faces have not yet reached a critical level. However, the intelligence chief added that “any protracted war has never helped any economy or country in the world,” so the thesis that Russia is finding things increasingly difficult “is, in principle, inherently correct.”