New Delhi, Oct. 3 -- Europe builds a "drone wall" while Zaporizhzhia runs on backup-and Moscow bets time will do the rest

KIYV - Russia Ukraine war Day 1315 of the war opened to a familiar metronome in Ukraine's east: sirens over Kharkiv, the thud of aerial munitions, and firefighters threading hoses through a market still warm from the night. Vendors counted losses in cartons and coins. The city's routine-coffee before curfew lifts, buses re-routed around rubble-resumed all the same. In the Donetsk region, the front moved by meters rather than miles, a cartography of attrition rather than breakthrough.

South, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant again edged toward contingency mode. The reactors remain in cold shutdown; the fuel still d...