Russia launched 317 drones at Ukraine overnight, including 105 jet-powered models, while a strike on an Odesa warehouse holding food supplies for kindergartens and schools killed three people, according to local officials. The barrage came just a day before U.S., Russian and Ukrainian delegations were due to sit down for talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending nearly five years of war.
Russian strikes hit Ukraine's power grid once again, part of what is described by the Associated Press as Russia's campaign to deny Ukrainian civilians heating, light and running water as winter approaches. Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces targeted four electrical substations in the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Vinnytsia regions. Separately, Ukrainian air defenses said they neutralized 271 of the 317 drones launched against the country from the evening of November 8, according to Ukrinform.
Deadly Strike on Odesa Food Warehouse
The Odesa strike killed three people when Russian forces hit a warehouse storing food meant for the city's kindergartens and schools, local officials said. The attack adds to a grim pattern: Russia and Ukraine remain locked in battle with neither side showing signs of yielding on its demands, in a war that analysts and humanitarian organizations say has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of civilians.
Russian strikes have also been intensifying in volume. ACLED data cited by CNN show Russian strikes on Ukraine rose from 3,650 in January 2026 to 5,532 in October 2026, a climb that underscores the strain on Ukraine's economy and power grid heading into another winter. In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the European Union had agreed to activate a special emergency mechanism that speeds up funding for power-grid repairs.
Fire Reported at Major Russian Refinery
Ukraine's own long-range campaign struck back overnight, with a drone attack reportedly starting a fire at the KINEF oil refinery near St. Petersburg, one of Russia's largest, according to Leningrad Gov. Alexander Drozdenko. The Kyiv Independent reports the refinery can produce 20 million metric tons of oil annually, while the Kyiv Post puts its annual crude-processing capacity at up to 21 million metric tons; the two outlets differ on the exact figure. The strike was not an isolated event — the Kyiv Post notes Ukraine resumed attacks on Russian oil infrastructure on Oct. 30, with further refinery strikes reported through Nov. 7, and the Kyiv Independent notes Ukrainian drones had targeted the same refinery previously on Aug. 30, with an earlier May 5 strike damaging three of its four crude distillation units and temporarily halting processing.
Russia has increased strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent weeks, causing widespread blackouts and water outages, according to the Kyiv Independent's reporting on the exchange of strikes. The tit-for-tat targeting of energy and fuel infrastructure has become a defining feature of the war as both sides try to grind down the other's capacity to fight through the colder months.
Talks Set to Open in Abu Dhabi
The three-way talks between envoys from the U.S., Russia and Ukraine are due to start in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, marking the first such meeting since inconclusive talks in Geneva delivered no significant progress in ending the war in February, according to the Associated Press's account carried by MySA. NPR describes the Abu Dhabi session as the fourth round of talks brokered by the Trump administration, and the first since those February discussions in Geneva.
President Donald Trump said in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday that Moscow and Kyiv are “very close” to a deal, adding that Ukraine would have a somewhat different shape under a settlement, though he did not elaborate on what that would look like. The U.S. peace effort is aiming to broaden the conversation from territorial claims toward wider European security issues in hopes of breaking the stalemate, according to the New York Times.
European Role in Question
Questions remain over how involved European governments will be in the Abu Dhabi talks. NPR reports that France's foreign minister said France and other European representatives would be in the UAE for the discussions, even as Moscow has signaled it does not expect European officials to take part in the Abu Dhabi talks themselves. The dynamic reflects a broader tension in the diplomacy, with Vladimir Putin having sought to sideline European countries and negotiate Ukraine's future directly with Trump.
As the drone and missile exchanges continue, the stakes for civilians on both sides remain immediate. For Ukrainians facing another winter under bombardment, and for the families of those killed in Odesa this week, the outcome of the Abu Dhabi talks could shape whether the barrages that have battered both countries' infrastructure finally begin to ease.
