The weekend’s war news came from Ukraine’s cities and Russia’s budget

Russia is signaling a longer war on two fronts at once. Its 2027 budget, presented Sep 28, raises defense spending 27% to a war-high 17.1 trillion rubles and puts the 2026 deficit at 3.2% of GDP against 1.6% planned; Putin the same day raised the armed forces’ authorized strength to 2,441,630 and ordered refinery and export data withheld — Reuters via Moscow Times. Zelensky warned of new mobilization and about 10,000 more North Korean troops. On the ground, Russian strikes killed 7 in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk on Sep 28, including an aide to former security chief Horbulin, and injured 43 in Kharkiv; overnight into Sep 29 air defenses downed all 3 missiles and most of 149 drones. Ukraine’s Operation Vivaldi regained ground north of Lyman, 176 km² in total, and its drones hit four Krasnodar oil depots and plants in Tula and Voronezh. Trump told Kyiv it ‘gotta take it easy on the refineries’; Ukraine says it will stop only under a reciprocal energy truce, and trilateral talks in the UAE could come as early as next week. Russian losses stand at 1,532,500 (+1,440). On Iran, Araghchi met Qatari mediators in New York; Axios reported Washington would ease sanctions and release frozen funds for concrete nuclear concessions, but Trump said he had offered Iran ‘NOTHING.’ NBC disclosed that an Iranian missile hurt 8 US Marines aboard a ship in the strait on Sep 14, and UKMTO reported a vessel struck by a projectile on Sep 28. Speaker Ghalibaf warned that if Iran cannot sell oil, no one in the region will. Brent settled at $105.28 on Sep 28 and fell to about $103 on Sep 29 as the US offered a final 40 million-barrel SPR tranche — Trading Economics. Elsewhere, the UN Security Council renewed Haiti’s Gang Suppression Force to Mar 31, 2027, 12–0 with three abstentions; Israel killed Hamas’s North Gaza Brigade commander as settlers attacked the West Bank village of Jalud; DR Congo’s Ebola toll reached 3,901 deaths from 8,067 cases; and Ethiopian fighting spread in Afar and southern Tigray.