The Ukraine Daily Briefing · Sunday, November 8, 2026 · Day 1,719 of the Full-Scale War
Prepared by Diana Bozhyk
The Day’s Reckoning
On the second straight night of strikes on the power grid, the cost of a Russian winter began to show up in Ukrainian homes. Drones cut electricity to 600,000 people around Dnipro and heat to 140 apartment blocks in Zhytomyr, and near Kyiv a family running a generator in the basement died of the fumes. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant lost its last outside power line, and a drone struck rescuers still digging in Komyshuvakha. Ukraine’s General Staff reported the deadliest week of the war for Russian troops, and Ukrainian drones hit a bridge on the highway that feeds Russia’s forces in the south. Ahead of Tuesday’s talks in Abu Dhabi, France said Europe will be at the table, Washington’s Democrats drafted a new aid package, and Ukraine warned that Russia had used the Oleshky truce to move more than a thousand troops toward the Dnipro.
Firefighters inspect the site with damaged a residential building and a shop following a Russian airstrike in Sloviansk, Ukraine. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Night the Lights Went Out in Dnipro
In the village of Chupyra, just south of Kyiv, a family started a generator in their basement. Three people, among them a child, died of carbon monoxide poisoning, the State Emergency Service said. Another child was taken to hospital. Since Russia’s largest attack of the year on the grid on November 3, generators have come back into millions of Ukrainian homes, and rescuers warned again: run them outside.
Overnight, Russia launched 164 drones, most of them jet-powered, and three Kh-59/69 cruise missiles; Ukraine downed 137. The worst damage was around Dnipro, where DTEK said “important facilities” were hit and more than 600,000 people lost power, from the city to the Pavlohrad, Samarivskyi and Kamianske districts. “Electric engineers in the region are already working to restore electricity. The work is complicated by repeated attacks,” the company said. In the Zhytomyr region, strikes cut central heating to 140 apartment blocks. Zelensky called the situation in the Kharkiv region acute, with rolling blackouts across many communities, and a drone set fire to an industrial building in the Rivne region.
On Saturday evening, a strike in Odesa killed one person and set fire to a food warehouse that had been hit before, Governor Oleh Kiper said. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it hit a container ship southwest of Odesa that it said was carrying weapons, a claim that could not be verified. Across the past day, Russian attacks killed seven people. Five died in the Donetsk region, two of them in Kramatorsk, and two in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Russia launched 725 strikes on 53 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region and nearly 40 on the Sumy region; three people were wounded in Kharkiv, two in the Kherson region and one in Khmelnytskyi.
A private home burns in Kharkiv Oblast as a result of Russian attack on residential communities across the region in the night. (Governor Oleh Syniehubov/Kharkiv Oblast regional military administration/Telegram)
Zelensky counted the week: 115 missiles, nearly 1,900 guided bombs and more than 3,000 drones, many of the missiles built this year. “If the world does not have enough anti-ballistics to protect Ukrainian skies, missiles must be stopped on the assembly lines,” he said, asking for a strong 22nd EU sanctions package. He also asked Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi to set up free above-ground transport in Kyiv for days when bridges and the metro are knocked out.
A Plant on Diesel, Rescuers Under Fire
At 2:36 a.m., the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest, lost its only remaining outside line, the 330-kilovolt Ferrosplavna-1, and switched to emergency diesel generators, Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom said. All six reactors are shut down, but their fuel still has to be cooled. “Operating in blackout mode creates a direct risk of failure of life-support systems and nuclear fuel cooling in the event that diesel generators break down or exhaust their fuel reserves, which could lead to a radiation accident,” Energoatom warned. The International Atomic Energy Agency said power was restored about 10 hours later and that the cause was unknown. “It is the 27th such event during the conflict, underlining the continued precarious nuclear safety situation,” Director General Rafael Grossi said. Energoatom counted 16 such blackouts this year.
In Komyshuvakha, where Russian bombs killed 55 people at an aid site on November 2, a Russian FPV drone struck on Sunday morning as rescuers continued searching the rubble for a seventh day, Zelensky said. People may still be trapped beneath it.
The Week Russia Lost the Most
Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia lost 16,130 troops killed and wounded from November 1 to 7, the highest weekly toll of the full-scale war. “On average, more than 2,300 occupiers daily, or nearly a hundred every hour,” it said, comparing each day’s losses to a whole motorized rifle regiment. The figures could not be independently verified. Zelensky said Ukraine’s airborne assault troops and other units have now freed more than 800 square kilometers in the Oleksandrivka direction this year.
The hackers who broke into Russia’s statistics agency added detail to their count of Russia’s dead. They said Rosstat registered at least 440,982 deceased servicemembers through August, about 356,000 of them listed under “war operations,” and that yearly deaths rose from about 19,000 in 2022 to more than 182,000 in 2025, most of the dead aged 30 to 49. The Institute for the Study of War said it could not verify the figures but called them broadly consistent with Mediazona and Meduza, who estimate more than 350,000 registered deaths.
On the ground, ISW found that Russian forces had pushed into southwestern Dobropillia and the smaller village of the same name to its south, and were fighting in Nadiya, southwest of the town. A Ukrainian military source reported an infiltration near Novoyavlenka, northeast of Dobropillia and about 18 kilometers from Russia’s farthest confirmed position, which ISW could not verify. A Russian blogger claimed attacks toward Velykyi Burluk, without evidence of gains. Elsewhere, Russian attacks failed near Kupyansk, Borova, Lyman, Sloviansk, Kostiantynivka and Orikhiv, where Ukrainian forces counterattacked. A source close to Russia’s Western Group of Forces denied Russian claims to hold central Dibrova, saying Ukrainian drones pin Russian soldiers there in place. A Russian blogger claimed Russian strikes destroyed every Ukrainian crossing over the Konka River south of Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian open-source analysts said Russian troops are now planting mannequins along roads and in dugouts to fool Ukrainian drones that pick targets automatically.
Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces hit four Russian drone command posts in a day: a base of the elite Rubikon drone unit in occupied Berdiansk, posts near Oleshky and Bilytske, and a site near Aleksandrovskoye in Russia’s Bryansk region. “Every disabled command post means fewer Russian drones over our positions and supply roads,” it said.
The Bridge on the Road to Crimea
Before dawn, drones hit a bridge over the Mius River in Russia’s Rostov region, on the highway Russia calls “Novorossiya,” which carries military cargo to occupied Mariupol, Melitopol and Crimea. Governor Yuri Slyusar said the span and two cranes were damaged and no one was hurt; he first said traffic was limited to one lane, then that the road was shut. A Ukrainian monitoring channel said an FP-2 drone hit the bridge, a claim the Kyiv Independent could not verify. Later, Slyusar said a drone damaged the Sulin substation in the Millerovo district, cutting power to several villages. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it downed 142 Ukrainian drones over eight regions, and Kursk Governor Alexander Khinshtein said a drone killed one person in his region.
Russian military bloggers noticed. One wrote that Ukraine keeps widening the reach of its strikes on supply routes and that hits on road bridges make Russian logistics harder; another complained that Russian authorities hide the damage. The same day, Russia’s new deputy defense minister for logistics, Col. Gen. Valery Solodchuk, said the army’s top priority is using unmanned systems to move supplies through the “kill zone,” the strip about 30 kilometers behind the front where Ukrainian drones hunt anything that moves.
What the Truce Bought Russia
Zelensky said Russia used the Oleshky ceasefire to rotate a large number of troops and equipment onto the left bank of the Dnipro. The drone commander of a Ukrainian brigade in the Kherson direction gave details: more than 1,000 soldiers, plus artillery, drones, boats, electronic warfare systems and fuel, brought in under cover of the humanitarian operation. The truce, he said, let Russia move its supply lines about 20 kilometers closer to the river and set up new drone control posts, and Kherson may face heavier strikes as a result. Russian forces are storing equipment in Oleshky’s hospital, he said; Ukraine is not striking it to avoid killing civilians. So far, Russian troops have not attempted any significant assault.
Europe at the Table
“The Europeans will be represented and France will be in Abu Dhabi to participate in these talks,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told RTL. “France will be there and will ensure that Europe’s voice is heard.” He said he knew no details of the sweeping deal Trump has promised and that no agreement touching Europe’s security could be discussed without Europeans. Russia has said Europeans have no place at the table. European Council President António Costa said on Friday that the EU must take part in a way that lets it “convey a clear and unified message,” backing Italy’s call for an EU envoy.
Zelensky drew his own lines in a CNN interview. “We don’t want to have Yalta 2.0,” he said, referring to the 1945 conference that divided Europe into spheres of influence. “We are not ready to leave Donbas, to give our territory. Even the territory which is temporarily occupied, it’s temporarily occupied. It’s not Russian territory. Nobody will recognize it.” He told Fox News that Ukraine would stop striking Russian refineries for a month if Washington sold it a month’s worth of Patriot interceptors. “For one month, if you need us not to attack their refineries one month, give me Patriots for one month,” he said.
In Washington, Democrats who will control both houses of Congress from January are drafting a roughly $15 billion military aid package and want emergency help for Ukraine’s grid before then, the Financial Times reported. They plan to add measures on sanctions, intelligence sharing, faster interceptor deliveries and oversight of Starlink to the annual defense bill, and to investigate envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Any such law would still need Republican votes or a two-thirds majority to override a veto.
Also Today
A raid in Moscow. Moscow police detained more than 200 people, many of them minors, near the Kitay-Gorod metro station on Saturday evening, and detainees said adults were pressed to sign military contracts, Russian Telegram channels reported. Police called it a measure against drinking and drugs.
Russia back in junior hockey. The ice hockey federation put Russia back into the world junior championship in Canada, which starts December 26, dropping Norway to a lower division. “This clearly shows all the practical challenges and immediate consequences for everyone involved when countries are to be reinstated immediately,” said Norway’s federation secretary general, Petter Salsten. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said officials who allow it are “staining themselves with blood” and urged a boycott. Switzerland’s team said it will not play Russia, and Canada said its immigration minister will individually bar Russian and Belarusian players. Germany’s federation dropped its threat to give up hosting next year’s world championship.
An office in flames in Volyn. Debris from a downed jet-powered drone set fire to an office at a farm business in the Lutsk district.
The Closing
In Chupyra, a child is in hospital after the generator that was supposed to keep the family warm filled the basement with fumes. In Dnipro, line crews worked through repeated alerts to bring power back to 600,000 people. In Komyshuvakha, rescuers went back into the rubble after the drone flew off. And on a highway in southern Russia, two cranes stood broken beside a damaged bridge.
A Prayer for Ukraine
1. For Those Who Defend
Lord of hosts, cover the soldiers of Dobropillia who hold the line as the enemy creeps into the town, and the defenders near Lyman, Kupyansk and Orikhiv. Guard the drone crews who struck the command posts that hunt them, and the soldiers on the Dnipro who watch an enemy that used a truce to grow stronger. Bring them home safely.
2. For the Wounded and the Grieving
God of all comfort, receive the family of Chupyra, among them a child, who died seeking warmth, and heal the child who survived. Receive the dead of Kramatorsk, of the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, and the one lost in Odesa. Comfort every family that keeps a generator burning and fears what the winter will bring, and teach us all to care for one another.
3. For Those Who Lead
King of kings, give Ukraine’s negotiators in Abu Dhabi wisdom and firmness, and let Europe’s voice be heard beside theirs. Let no one divide nations into spheres as they were divided before, and let no people be traded away. Move leaders in Washington to send the help that protects lives, and let every promise of peace be measured by the safety of the people.
4. For the Grid and the Towns
Faithful God, strengthen the engineers of Dnipro, Zhytomyr and Kharkiv who work between the alarms, day and night, to bring back light and heat. Keep the cooling pumps of Zaporizhzhia’s reactors running, the diesel flowing, and the workers safe. Protect the rescuers of Komyshuvakha, still searching under the threat of the drones, and grant them strength and courage for each new day.
5. For a People Who Keep Standing
Father, Ukraine enters another winter of darkness with its doors still open to one another. Sustain those who share generators and warmth with neighbors, guard them from every unseen danger, and give them hope that light will return. 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.