Russia Launches 289 Drones and 76 Missiles at Ukraine on US Election Day, Zelenskyy Says

Since the local ceasefire around the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky ended on Sunday, Nov. 1, Russian strikes on Ukraine have escalated. The latest wave came overnight into today, Nov. 3, the day of the US congressional elections.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles. The main targets were power generation facilities and substations, he said.

Ukraine's Air Force said the attack began at 6 p.m. on Nov. 2. By 9 a.m. today, air defenses had shot down or suppressed 309 of the targets: 3 ballistic missiles, 49 cruise missiles and 257 drones. The Air Force logged missile and drone strikes at 23 locations, with debris falling at 14 more.

Energy grid, hospitals and a village

Zelenskyy listed the affected regions as Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv and Rivne. He said emergency and unscheduled power outages continue in many cities and communities. In the Odesa region, a DTEK energy facility took significant damage.

In Kharkiv, Zelenskyy said Russian forces struck the city clinical hospital directly, injuring 73 people and damaging the cardiology ward where patients were being treated. Early on, regional military administration head Oleg Synegubov had put the injured at 25 and said about 200 patients were evacuated. The higher figure is Zelenskyy's later count.

In Dnipro, strikes hit a combined heat and power plant, a residential neighborhood and a police station. A hospital was also damaged, and 15 people were injured, according to Ukraine's Air Force. Regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said critical infrastructure was also hit in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy's hometown.

The highest death toll is from Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region. Zelenskyy said rescue work there has run since Monday and the toll has reached 29 dead and five wounded, with people still trapped under rubble. He warned of the risk of Russian "double-tap" strikes on rescuers. The village was hit hours after the Oleshky-area ceasefire lapsed. Regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov accused Moscow of "striking people who had come to receive humanitarian aid."

Moscow's account

Russia's Defence Ministry said it carried out a "massive strike" on energy facilities across Ukraine and on port infrastructure in the Odesa region. It did not address the Kharkiv hospital or the Zaporizhzhia village in the statements cited here.

Moscow is also absorbing Ukrainian drone attacks. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said nearly 500 drones headed for the capital region were destroyed. Separately, Russia's Defence Ministry said it downed 212 Ukrainian drones overnight on Nov. 2, including over the Moscow region, Rostov, Crimea and the Black and Azov Seas. Zelenskyy said Ukraine hit the Kamensky plant in the Rostov region on Nov. 1, which he described as involved in missile production. Poland said it activated air defenses along its border areas during the attack.

The pressure leading up to today

Today's barrage follows a run of strikes on the grid. On Oct. 31, Zelenskyy said drones hit a thermal power plant in Kyiv, four substations in the Dnipro region and a thermal plant in Shostka. That left about 200,000 families in the Dnipro region and more than 80,000 households around Kyiv without power. Overnight on Nov. 1, he said, four more regions lost power.

On the night of Nov. 1, millions of Ukrainians received false alerts in the Air Alert app warning of a nuclear threat, a chemical attack and street fighting in Kyiv. Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat confirmed to AFP that the app had suffered hostile interference. Ukraine blamed Russian hackers. Moscow has not been shown to have acknowledged it. The false alerts arrived during a real raid of 193 drones, 75 of them jet-powered, according to the Air Force.

Zelenskyy's message to Washington

Zelenskyy tied the timing to the US vote. "It's very telling that all of this happened on the day of the U.S. congressional elections. The Russians believe that America won't notice this signal of theirs. But we must take notice and stop this terror," he said. He added that without help defending Ukraine's skies, "Russia will never stop its missile strikes."

He made a related point on Nov. 1, saying the US and European countries had decided on new aid packages but that "these deliveries cannot take years," with Patriot missiles at the center of the request. No source offers evidence on Moscow's intent in timing the strike. Zelenskyy's reading is his own.

What's next

The strikes come as Washington pushes talks. US special envoy Steve Witkoff said the US will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11, "advancing President Trump's mission to end the war." He said the agenda covers post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts and next steps toward a peace agreement.

The Oleshky-area truce was brokered by First Lady Melania Trump. It was the longest local pause of the war, and it let a humanitarian mission reach the city. Hostilities resumed within hours of its expiry.

Ukrainian authorities said air raid alerts were continuing across the country this morning. It is unclear whether the Abu Dhabi delegations will arrive next week with any pause on energy strikes on the table. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has said so.