The Ukraine Daily Briefing · Saturday, November 7, 2026 · Day 1,718 of the Full-Scale War
Prepared by Diana Bozhyk
The Day’s Reckoning
Three days before talks with Russia, Moscow answered with ballistic missiles. Overnight, Russia fired 36 of them at Kyiv and its region, aiming at the substations that carry nuclear power into the capital and hitting the Northern Bridge, a kindergarten and homes, while Ukraine could stop only four. The toll from Monday’s bombing of an aid site in Komyshuvakha rose to 55, and Ukraine’s military intelligence published the names of the pilots it says carried it out. The two delegations bound for Abu Dhabi took shape as Trump promised a sweeping deal that neither Europe nor Kyiv could explain, and Moscow rejected any European force in Ukraine. On the front, Russia’s push on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk stalled for lack of soldiers even as Ukrainian troops pulled out of Chasiv Yar, and Ukraine hit Iskander launchers, a missile parts plant and a refinery deep in Russia. Hacked Russian records suggested Moscow’s dead number in the hundreds of thousands.
Rescuers at work amid a Russian attack on Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine. (Ukraine’s State Emergency Service / Telegram)
Four Out of Thirty-Six
On Friday evening, a Russian drone hit a house in Bohdanivka, a village in the Brovary district outside Kyiv. The house collapsed and caught fire. A 66-year-old woman pulled herself out of the rubble. Rescuers dug out her 75-year-old husband. He died later, the regional governor, Tymur Tkachenko, said.
It was the start of the night. Russia launched 172 drones, most of them jet-powered, and 36 ballistic missiles, all of them aimed at Kyiv and the surrounding region, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Ukraine relies on scarce American-made Patriot interceptors to stop ballistic missiles, and it is running short. “In the strike tonight, there were 36 missiles approaching targets on a ballistic trajectory. Only four missiles could be neutralized,” Zelensky wrote.
The main targets were substations in the Kyiv region that connect the Rivne and Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plants to the capital and central Ukraine. Substations were also hit in the Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, and Naftogaz’s acting chief, Serhiy Fedorenko, said Russia struck one of its oil and gas sites in central Ukraine three times, causing an explosion and a large fire; staff had already gone to the shelter. Investigators found that North Korean KN-23 missiles hit one energy facility. “This is further proof that global sanctions regimes deserve tangible reinforcement,” Zelensky said.
Six missiles flew at the Northern Bridge over the Dnipro, and four hit it, tearing up the roadbed and the trolleybus and power lines. In the Solomianskyi district, a missile destroyed a two-story building on the grounds of a kindergarten, and part of a five-story apartment block’s facade collapsed. Nine people were wounded in and around the capital, among them a child. By morning, Kyiv faced “serious difficulties with its electricity, water, and heat supplies,” Zelensky said. In Kremenchuk, drones hit two private businesses, wounding four.
A kindergarten damaged by a Russian ballistic missile attack in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district after a two-story building on the grounds was destroyed overnight. (Aleksandr Gusev/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
At an emergency meeting, Zelensky ordered Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi to draw up backup transport routes for Kyiv, noting that the city has none. “Russia is preparing for the trilateral talks by launching ballistic missiles at Ukrainian critical infrastructure,” he said. “We hope that the United States, like our other partners, will act with resolve.” He said European countries have made preliminary commitments to new contributions to PURL, the NATO mechanism for buying American weapons for Ukraine, that new energy aid packages are coming, and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha briefed him on upcoming G7 meetings. On Friday, Zelensky also briefed the leaders of the Nordic-Baltic Eight on Ukraine’s needs before winter.
Komyshuvakha: The Pilots
Six days after the bombs fell, rescuers recovered nine more bodies and fragments of bodies from the collapsed shelter in Komyshuvakha, bringing the toll to 55, the State Emergency Service said. Dozens of people are still missing; intelligence analysts estimate the remains of about 30 more may lie under the concrete. Rescuers can work only 15 to 20 minutes at a time before Russian drones and the threat of more bombs force them out, a regional spokesperson, Oleksandr Kovalenko, said.
Firefighters stand next to twisted metal extracted from the rubble after a Russian airstrike on an underground school serving as a humanitarian point in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine. (Francisco Richart/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Ukraine’s military intelligence, known as HUR, said two guided bombs hit the school gym at 9:45 a.m. on November 2, where villagers had gathered for aid. An hour later, a three-ton FAB-3000 fell on the underground shelter where people, rescuers and police had gone for cover. HUR said the strike was planned by Col. Fyodor Zubakov of the headquarters of Russia’s Dnepr Group of Forces and carried out by four Su-34 bombers. It named six pilots: Capt. Sergei Yeliseyev, Capt. Dmitry Zverev, Sr. Lt. Rodion Plotnikov, Sr. Lt. Nikita Ignatyev, Sr. Lt. Maksim Sokolenko and Lt. Vadim Perekhrest. The claims could not be independently verified.
National Police released body-camera video from an officer who was guiding residents into the shelter before its ceiling collapsed. He was killed. The village had about 5,000 people before the war; the shelter was the last relatively safe place left in it.
“It is very difficult to comprehend the scale of this tragedy,” said Mykhailo Semikin, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional administration.
Before Abu Dhabi
The teams for Monday’s talks in Abu Dhabi were named. Ukraine’s will be led by Rustem Umerov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, with Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov, his deputy Serhiy Kyslytsya, adviser Dmytro Lytvyn and lawmaker Davyd Arakhamia. Russia’s will be led by Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who in Geneva in February used his turn to lecture on the war’s “historical roots,” Moscow’s shorthand for its original demands. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who handles relations with Washington, joins for the first time, with military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov. It will be the first such meeting since February, when the process stalled after the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran.
In Palm Beach, President Donald Trump said, “Russia and Ukraine, to me, for the first time want to make a deal. I think it’s going to be a very massive settlement. I think all of Europe is going to be involved in it.” Envoy Jared Kushner has outlined five pillars for a European security framework, from crisis hotlines to military transparency. Three European officials told CNN they could not explain how it would work, and Zelensky said he had few details.
Moscow drew its own lines. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called any foreign troops in Ukraine “categorically unacceptable,” a “military intervention.” On Monday, the coalition of the willing, more than 30 mostly European countries planning security guarantees for Ukraine, begins its first large exercise, “Koalicja,” with thousands of troops from 11 countries and Ukrainian soldiers at Nowa Deba in Poland, without the United States. Zakharova said it proved that “Europeans have no place” at the table.
Europe answered in Warsaw. “Ukraine should not negotiate its future under the pressure of shelling against civilians,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said. “No solution can be imposed on Ukraine without its consent and presence at the table.” In Washington, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said Trump needs new negotiators, “not fawning pawns who call this brutal murderer a ‘humanitarian,'” and promised a pro-Ukraine bill. Zelensky told CNN the Oleshky truce showed a ceasefire can be arranged quickly. “We count on increased attention to Ukraine from the US Congress,” he said.
The Line
The fighting east of Kramatorsk has slowed to almost nothing. Military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets said Russia’s 3rd Combined Arms Army has achieved no tactically significant gains for about two weeks, because it lacks the men; many are lost on the way to the front. Russia still holds parts of Fedorivka, Markove and Rai-Oleksandrivka, he said, and Ukrainian forces cleared Russian infiltrators from Mykolaivka, east of Sloviansk, leaving only one small Russian group nearby. Russian infantry still slips into the area around Pyskunivka and Starodubivka and between Stinky and Molocharka, southeast of Druzhkivka, without holding it, and Mashovets expects Russia to narrow its attacks to the few places it can still man. But Ukrainian troops withdrew from Chasiv Yar, the Institute for the Study of War reported, citing Mashovets.
Elsewhere, Russian attacks north of Kupyansk, near Lyman, Kostiantynivka, Dobropillia and Hulyaipole failed. A source close to Russia’s Western Group of Forces said infiltration attempts into Doroshivka lacked support and failed, and that Ukrainian forces counterattacked northeast of Borova. Geolocated video showed Ukrainian troops advancing in central Mala Tokmachka, southeast of Orikhiv. In the Zaporizhzhia region, Russia launched 785 strikes on 51 settlements in a single day.
Ukraine struck back at the weapons aimed at its cities. The General Staff said its forces hit two Iskander missile launchers and a Pantsir-S1 air-defense system in Russia’s Bryansk region, and fired a Neptune missile at the Proton-Electrotex plant in Oryol, which makes parts for Iskander-M missiles. Drones hit the Saratov refinery for at least the eighth time this year, and a fire broke out at a warehouse beside the Almaz defense plant in Rostov-on-Don. “Some facilities, even military airfields, have no air defense cover at all,” Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said. “In some places they have one Pantsir system, in others two. Of course, this is nothing like Valdai, where there are dozens of them.”
Counting Russia’s Dead
Hackers who broke into Russia’s statistics agency, Rosstat, published what they said were death records showing between 394,000 and 450,000 people fighting for Russia or linked to the war have died since 2022. The Belarusian Cyberpartisans counted at least 393,881 deaths where military operations were listed as the cause; the group Silent Crow, using a broader method, counted up to 450,100. Rosstat admitted it was attacked between October 29 and November 1 but denied any data leaked. The figures could not be independently verified. The independent outlet Mediazona, working from open sources, has confirmed 285,881 Russian military deaths by name and says the real toll is far higher. Russia has seized about 73,000 square kilometers of Ukraine since 2022, according to the mapping project DeepState.
Also Today
Germany can give no more Patriots. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Germany has no more Patriot systems to spare. “We cannot do more right now,” he said, urging others to step up, and estimated Russian losses at 30,000 to 40,000 troops a month.
Generators from Poland. Sikorski pledged another 8 million zlotys, about $2 million, for generators for Ukraine.
“We will get through it.” Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov told CBS News that Russia is hitting infrastructure to provoke protests and force surrender. “It will be difficult, but we will get through it,” he said.
Changes at the top. Zelensky said on Friday he is preparing personnel decisions in the armed forces with Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi, and promised more dismissals at the Security Service after a corruption case revealed officials protecting criminal groups, including the drug ring known as Khimprom, which he said is already operating in Poland and planning to sell synthetic drugs in Germany; Kyiv has raised it with Washington. Anti-corruption investigators also released tapes in which suspects discussed attacking journalist Denys Bihus over his reporting.
Bombs on Sumy. On Friday, six guided bombs hit Sumy, wounding seven people aged 23 to 90 and damaging more than 15 homes.
Russia’s satellites and supply chiefs. Russia launched a Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying a military satellite from Plesetsk, and Putin formally made the army’s chiefs of logistics and armaments deputy defense ministers.
Chornobyl’s broken shield. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is seeking at least €500 million to repair the Chornobyl shelter damaged by a Russian drone in February 2025, ahead of a donor conference in Paris on November 9.
Hackers target Italy’s minister. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said hackers were selling his data on the dark web because of Italy’s support for Ukraine; Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni blamed pro-Russian hackers.
Ice hockey. The hockey federation kept Belarus out of the 2027 championships but said it is studying how to readmit Russia. “Some say that sports are separate from politics, but that’s not true as long as missiles are destroying ice arenas and killing athletes,” said Ukraine’s captain, Ihor Merezhko.
The Closing
In Bohdanivka, a woman of 66 climbed out of her ruined house alone; her husband did not survive. In Kyiv, the Northern Bridge carries four new holes. In Komyshuvakha, rescuers go back into the concrete for 20 minutes at a time. And on a police officer’s body camera, the last thing recorded is people walking down into a shelter.
A Prayer for Ukraine
1. For Those Who Defend
Lord of hosts, cover the soldiers who left Chasiv Yar after holding it for so long, and those who cleared Mykolaivka and pushed forward in Mala Tokmachka. Steady the air defenders who faced thirty-six missiles with only a handful of interceptors, and the crews who struck the launchers aimed at their cities. Bring them home to the families who wait for them, and give them rest.
2. For the Wounded and the Grieving
God of all comfort, receive the fifty-five of Komyshuvakha, the police officer who led others to shelter, and the man of seventy-five from Bohdanivka. Comfort his wife, who climbed from the rubble alone. Heal the child and the wounded of Kyiv, Kremenchuk and Sumy. Let those who planned and flew this terror answer for it before Your justice, and let no victim be forgotten.
3. For Those Who Lead
King of kings, give Ukraine’s negotiators in Abu Dhabi clear minds and steady hearts. Let no one decide Ukraine’s future without Ukraine at the table. Grant the leaders of America and Europe courage to send the interceptors that save lives, and let every promise of peace be measured by what happens to the people under fire. Grant them truth and humility.
4. For the Grid, the Bridges and the Towns
Faithful God, strengthen the engineers repairing the substations that carry light from Rivne and Khmelnytskyi to Kyiv. Restore the Northern Bridge, the kindergarten and the homes of Solomianskyi. Protect the rescuers of Komyshuvakha who dig in short, dangerous turns, and bring water, heat and power back to every home in the capital and every village before the cold of winter deepens.
5. For a People Who Keep Standing
Father, Ukraine heads to talks with its capital in the dark and its villages still searching the ruins. Sustain the families who wait for news and the workers who keep going between alarms. Give them the endurance Budanov spoke of, to get through what is difficult. In Your mercy, in Your justice, in Your time — bring this war to its end, and let the ending be worthy of what Ukraine has endured.