Signal No. 167 · Patriot: Berlin prepays for an earlier slot

Germany is replacing the two Patriot fire units it gave Ukraine, and paying to be served first. The Bundestag's budget committee approved the purchase on Wednesday: about EUR 650 million through the US Foreign Military Sales channel, more than half of it paid by Norway, which said in August 2025 it would help pay for their replacement. Berlin is reported to be paying the whole net sum, about EUR 560 million, when the contract is signed, so that Germany is served earlier than other nations; deliveries are to start this year and finish in 2028. The place in the queue was promised earlier: in August 2025, by the German ministry's account, Washington agreed in return for the donation that Germany would receive newly manufactured systems ahead of every other country. In September Germany was reported to be taking the two fire units originally destined for Switzerland, whose own 2022 order Washington had told Bern in May would slip by five to seven years.

The committee also approved a seven-year framework worth more than EUR 1.1 billion with ARGUS Interception, a start-up from Rotenburg an der Wümme founded, by its own account, in 2023 by former Bundeswehr officers, for about 450 systems whose drones catch small drones in a net. The Bundeswehr took delivery of its first one in September 2025, and the federal and several state police forces have bought the type. The ministry wants them to protect Bundeswehr sites at home and abroad against drones used for sabotage and espionage. A first call-off of about EUR 165 million is to be delivered in full by 2027; the contract is not yet signed.

Kyiv asked for something else on Wednesday. After the night's strikes, reported below, Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for "additional packages of interceptors for the Patriots". Britain, receiving him in London, brought forward GBP 10 million of the Lightweight Multirole Missiles it supplies against jet-powered drones, part of GBP 45 million in deliveries. Estonia will add EUR 10 million to PURL, NATO's channel for buying US equipment for Ukraine, without naming what it buys. Mark Rutte, NATO's secretary general, asked allies in Tallinn to "do more, especially in support of air defence".

Russia aimed Tuesday night's attack at Ukraine's energy sites with what the Ukrainian Air Force called a large number of ballistic missiles. Of the 39 it counted, Iskander-M, KN-23, S-400, Zircon and Oniks, four were shot down; 115 of the 128 drones were. The Russian defence ministry listed its targets as five energy sites in and around Kyiv, among them the CHP-5 and CHP-6 plants and the Trypilska power station, and two in the Kharkiv region. At least 600,000 people lost power. Four people were killed in Kyiv; CBS News put the night's toll at six. Vitali Klitschko, the mayor, told the Rada the capital's energy supply has been hit nearly 50 times this year and asked where its air defence was.

The strike hit the energy sector Trump had declared a ceasefire for on 11 October. Zelenskyy called it "entirely deliberate and demonstrative in scale" and asked Trump for sanctions under the Lindsey Graham law, which he said had recently been passed and signed. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, asked what the ceasefire covered: "What perimeter of the energy ceasefire has been drawn, what does it mean?" After the first ballistic strike on Kyiv late on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said partners had again given no warning. CBS News, citing unnamed sources, reported that US officials may have withheld early warning of this week's strikes, telling Kyiv the detection system had failed in bad weather, and that it appeared to be working again for the 3 a.m. wave on Wednesday. Andrii Sybiha, the foreign minister, said US intelligence was still flowing, and Rutte cited Trump that sharing "has not stopped".

Dimitar Stoyanov, the defence minister, set out Bulgaria's response to Tuesday's attacks off its coast, which sank the HS Dignity and hit the Chelsea 3, to parliament on Wednesday. Bulgaria expects to join NATO's initiative against low-flying aerial threats by 30 October, for EUR 220,000 a year. It has set aside EUR 80 million of its EU SAFE defence loan for 20 counter-drone systems, half mobile and half fixed, to be bought jointly with Spain under Drone Edge, the counter-drone effort NATO launched in July; the memorandum with Madrid could be signed "at any moment". Along the coast, radar coverage has been strengthened and two drone systems are to fly reconnaissance over territorial waters, one of them reaching well into the economic zone.

Rumen Radev, the prime minister, told the same chamber: "Logic does point to Russia, but the problem is that we cannot prove it. The government works with facts, not slogans." The search for the HS Dignity's 11 missing crew resumed on Wednesday morning. The Able, hit on 6 October, has left Bulgaria's economic zone after an inspection found no drone wreckage.

The trial over the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines opened in Hamburg on Wednesday. Serhii Kuznetsov, a 50-year-old former Ukrainian officer, is accused by the federal prosecutor of leading the group that blew them up, acting with other soldiers for unidentified Ukrainian state bodies; the charges include the war crime of attacking civilian objects. Kuznetsov denies any involvement and exercised his right to silence; Kyiv also denies any role.

His lawyer, Nicola Canestrini, moved to dismiss, arguing that the pipeline was a "Russian weapon" and so a legitimate target: "Is it unlawful to destroy an aggressor's infrastructure without a person coming to harm?" He also argued that Kuznetsov, bound by Ukrainian state secrets, cannot fully defend himself. Hearings are set into February 2027. A second suspect, Volodymyr Z., is held in Croatia pending extradition.