Speaking at Friday's weekly Ministry of Defense press conference, Kaju said that Russia has maintained its current level of operations from recent weeks, but without achieving any major changes on the battlefield.

Kaju said that the focus of the fighting and main area in which pressure is being exerted is still in the Donetsk Oblast around Pokrovsk, where Russia has continued its attacks using armored units. However, no major successes have been achieved, and the line of contact is largely unchanged.

Russia's tactical advances have also stalled in other directions, including Zaporizhzhia and Kupiansk.

Throughout the past week, Russia has continued its daily strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure. "On average, we are talking about 100 different means of attack," Kaju said.

On Tuesday, October 21, Russia attacked Ukrainian infrastructure with nearly 400 drones along with various types of missiles. The attack was mainly directed at Kyiv, but other major settlements were also attacked, including in the Odesa region.

According to Kaju, Russia has changed its deep strike tactics and is now focusing on systematic strikes against Ukraine's entire electricity supply system.

"These attacks are usually carried out using drones, but ballistic missiles and other missiles are being also used. The tactic is to launch 10 or more drones at the target at specific intervals, rather than all at once, and then follow up the drone attack with missiles," Kaju explained.

"This change in tactics shows that Russia has actually realized it will not achieve rapid military success through combat operations alone," he added.

Kaju emphasized that Russia is trying to break Ukrainian society's will to resist. "It is trying to achieve this by destroying the electricity infrastructure ahead of the winter. Russia's hope is that Ukraine will break elsewhere, if not on the front lines."

This week, U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which had been earmarked for Budapest. Kaju said that at the time when the news of the cancellation broke, Russia launched a nuclear exercise.

"They do this every year, but the choice of date – October 22 – was probably not accidental. It was, rather a message to prove that their nuclear capabilities are still operational."

"It would have been particularly strange if Russia had conducted nuclear triad exercises while high-level peace talks were taking place," Kaju pointed out. "However, we can conclude from this that Russia has no desire for high-level peace talks with Ukraine in the near future, but is still trying to buy time to achieve its goals both on the battlefield and in terms of breaking Ukraine's will to defend itself by other means."

Kaju concluded by saying there have been no major changes in terms of the bigger picture. "The situation on the battlefield is fairly static, with Russia making some tactical gains, as it has always done, but at the cost of heavy losses. They are able to maintain their pace of operations, however, it is also clear they understand that they need to make some different maneuvers in order to break Ukraine."

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