Russia launches massive overnight barrage on Ukraine, knocking out power across the country as aid-site death toll hits 29
File photo: Kyiv residents shelter in a metro station during an air attack (AFP)Russia launched a sweeping, multi-wave bombardment of Ukraine's energy infrastructure overnight Tuesday, knocking out power across swathes of the country, a week before U.S.-brokered peace talks are due to resume, Reuters reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions, triggering emergency power cuts.
Ukraine's largest private energy company, DTEK, said three of its five thermal power plants had been knocked offline. Ukrainian officials said the damage forced power outages across the capital, Kyiv, and at least six other regions. Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said railways were also hit, damaging passenger carriages, locomotives and a train station. The strikes hit power plants and substations from the Black Sea port of Odesa in the south to Rivne in the west, Zelenskyy said.
"The Russians think America won't notice this signal of theirs," Zelenskyy said in an online post that noted the barrage coincided with U.S. elections. "But we need to notice and stop such terror. We need to help Ukraine defend its skies; otherwise, Russia will never stop its missile strikes."
Meanwhile, the death toll from Monday's Russian attack on a site where people had gathered to receive humanitarian aid rose to 29 on Tuesday, with 48 still missing, the Associated Press reported. Dozens of rescuers and volunteers continued to search the cratered blast site of a destroyed aid facility and shelter in Komyshuvakha, a village in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, hoping to find missing residents alive under the rubble. Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia, where Russian bunker-busting bombs filled with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives were used in Monday's attack. The dead included four police officers and two rescue workers, and at least five people were hurt, acting regional military administration head Mykhailo Semikin said Tuesday.
In the northeast region of Kharkiv, a combined Russian missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people, local authorities said. A strike damaged a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district, shattered windows in four apartment buildings and damaged cars, and more than 200 patients were transferred to other medical facilities. In the Dnipro area, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble Tuesday morning, after a Russian attack killed one person and wounded 17 and damaged an outpatient clinic and a hospital.
Ukraine struck back overnight: a Ukrainian drone attack wounded two employees at an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl and damaged the refinery's infrastructure, regional Gov. Mikhail Yevrayev said Tuesday. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had shot down 856 Ukrainian drones overnight, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 493 drones were fired toward the Russian capital. Rolling blackouts were also instituted in the south, west and east of Russian-occupied Crimea following attacks on energy infrastructure, Moscow-installed officials said Tuesday.
Sources: The Associated Press, "Death toll hits 29 after Russian strike on Ukrainian aid site, with 48 still missing" (Nov. 3, 2026); Reuters, "Russian strikes knock out power to swathes of Ukraine; Kyiv hits Russian refinery" (Nov. 3, 2026).
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