Trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi are scheduled after the latest strikes
Residents of the southern Ukrainian town of Komyshuvakha were receiving humanitarian aid at a school when Russian forces struck the site on Monday, according to local authorities. The attack killed at least 31 people, injured five and left nearly 50 people missing as of Tuesday. It was one of this year’s deadliest Russian airstrikes.
Local authorities said the site was hit with nine aerial bombs, including a three-ton bomb designed to destroy concrete bunkers. A direct hit brought down the concrete structure of the underground center and left a huge crater. People were trapped beneath rubble after the strike, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“After a direct hit, the concrete structure of the underground center collapsed,” said Mykhailo Semikin, the governor of Zaporizhzhia region. “At that moment, there were ordinary people there. They had come for help—not to a military facility, not to a front-line position, but to a place where they were supposed to receive support.”
A separate Russian missile strike on a hospital in Kharkiv injured 73 people on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The report said the attacks came as Russia continued to intensify strikes on civilian locations.
Russian missiles and drones had also pounded Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent days. The Wall Street Journal described the attacks on energy infrastructure as part of a campaign to leave Ukrainian cities without heating or electricity as winter approaches.
Overnight, Russian forces launched 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles against Ukrainian cities and civil infrastructure. Damage from the strikes forced three power plants to stop work, according to DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company. Most Ukrainian regions experienced power cuts on Tuesday as energy crews worked to restore the facilities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was exploiting the fact that the U.S. was distracted by the midterm elections to step up its attacks. “Ukraine must be helped to defend its skies, otherwise Russia will never stop its missile strikes,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Since September, President Trump had piled pressure on Ukraine to halt drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, according to The Wall Street Journal, even as Moscow continued its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Amid U.S.-Ukrainian tensions in October—including the disruption of Ukraine’s military-grade version of Starlink, the satellite internet service run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX—Kyiv’s military held back from striking Russian refineries for two weeks.
Ukrainian drone forces have resumed strikes on Russian refineries in recent days in response to Russia’s uninterrupted missile-and-drone barrages, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The United States, Russia and Ukraine are scheduled to resume three-way negotiations in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 10-11, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on X. The talks are set to discuss de-escalation of the war, humanitarian efforts and postwar security arrangements.
Few officials in Kyiv or Europe expect the talks to achieve a breakthrough, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Kremlin has continued to reject Ukraine’s calls for a ceasefire, saying it will halt its invasion only when it has achieved its war aims in full.