The Ukraine Daily Briefing · Sunday, October 25, 2026
Prepared by Diana Bozhyk
A Russian drone struck an apartment building in Synelnykove on Saturday evening, killing four people and wounding an 11-year-old girl among more than a dozen others, and in Kharkiv a second strike hit the rescuers who came to put out the fire. Within 24 hours, Russia hit four Epicentr home-goods stores, while Ukraine struck a titanium giant in the Urals and a missile-battery plant in Yelets. The Kremlin said it would return to three-way talks after its November 4 holiday, and Zelensky said November will show “whether it was a trick or not.”
The aftermath of a Russian attack on an Epicentr hypermarket in Poltava, Ukraine. (Ukraine’s Emergency Service)
The Day’s Reckoning
The drone hit the fourth floor. It was Saturday evening in Synelnykove, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, and the apartment building caught fire as shops and cars below were damaged. Three people died at the scene. A 62-year-old man died in hospital on Sunday morning. Among the wounded was an 11-year-old girl.
That is the plot of this Sunday: a week of war added up. Zelensky counted it out — about 1,600 guided bombs, 48 missiles and nearly 2,300 attack drones in seven days. “This is precisely how Russia reacts to diplomacy and de-isolation,” he said. In Kharkiv, rescuers who came to put out the fires were hit by a second strike as they worked. Across four cities, the hardware stores where Ukrainians buy the materials to repair their homes were set on fire.
And from Moscow came a date. “The next deadline is now Nov. 4, our major holiday. After that, we will be ready to resume negotiations,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said. He called the first meeting a “trial run.”
Synelnykove and Kharkiv
You live in Synelnykove. On Saturday evening, a Russian strike drone flies into the fourth floor of the high-rise down the street.
The blast set the floor on fire and wrecked nearby shops and parked cars, said Dnipropetrovsk Governor Oleksandr Hanzha. Three people were killed on the spot, and a 62-year-old man died of his wounds on Sunday morning. Kyiv Post, citing the governor, reported 13 wounded, including an 11-year-old girl; the Kyiv Independent counted 14. Four were in serious condition, and surgeons stabilized two women and a man before sending them on to Dnipro; a 50-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man were in critical condition. Zelensky put the toll in the Synelnykove strikes at four dead and 22 wounded. In the Nikopol district, Russian attacks over the past day killed two women and injured five people.
That same evening and overnight, Russia struck three districts of Kharkiv. A jet-powered drone hit the Novobavarskyi district, killing one person and wounding four, and setting a one-story building on fire, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. In the Osnovianskyi district, a shopping center was hit twice within a minute, wounding a 39-year-old man and setting the building ablaze. In the Industrialnyi district, a drone hit a business and wounded a worker. When State Emergency Service crews arrived, Russia struck again. Two rescuers were wounded and their fire truck destroyed; a third firefighter was hurt fighting the blaze at the shopping center. Elsewhere in the Kharkiv region, three men aged 70, 54 and 47 were wounded in Derhachi and a 45-year-old woman in Mala Danylivka.
In Vinnytsia, before dawn on Sunday, a drone struck a five-story apartment building, regional head Nataliia Zabolotna said, destroying four apartments between the second and third floors and injuring six people, one of them hospitalized. The blast damaged a private nursing home next door, and rescuers evacuated its 15 elderly residents. More than 60 rescuers worked the site.
Overnight, Russia launched 153 drones, 92 of them jet-powered. Ukraine downed 119, including 64 jet-powered drones; strikes landed at 15 locations, and debris fell at nine. Zelensky said the attacks hit thermal power plants, substations, coal mines, grain storage, shopping centers and a postal terminal in nine regions. Across Ukraine, regional authorities counted eight killed and 51 injured over the past day. In the Donetsk region, one person was killed in Yarova and six were injured elsewhere. In the Sumy region, an 18-year-old man was wounded in the Buryn community, and a drone hit a car in the Boromlia community, wounding three women aged 68, 56 and 36. Four people were hurt in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Russia launched 832 strikes on 52 settlements; two in the Kherson region, where Russia shelled 43 settlements; and two women in Chernihiv suffered acoustic trauma.
Four Hardware Stores in a Day
You work at an Epicentr hypermarket. After every Russian strike, your customers come for building materials to repair their homes. This weekend, your store was the target.
“Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia, Poltava. Again in less than 24 hours,” wrote Yuliia Chudnovets, head of public relations for Epicentr, one of Ukraine’s largest home-improvement chains. The company called it the “total destruction of the network” in those four cities. On Sunday morning in Poltava, a drone hit the Epicentr building, starting a fire and injuring a 52-year-old woman, regional head Vitalii Diakivnych said. “A fire broke out. Information regarding the extent of the damage is being clarified,” he said. Authorities in the other cities did not report injuries at the stores.
A medical worker treats a woman injured in a Russian attack on Vinnytsia overnight. (Ukraine’s Emergency Service)
It was not the first wave. On October 22, Chudnovets said Russia had hit five company sites, including one in Kyiv, in 48 hours. Epicentr ran 72 hypermarkets before the full-scale invasion; by August, 10 had been completely destroyed and 13 damaged, the company told Ekonomichna Pravda. Ukrainian officials and retailers say such stores serve no military purpose; they sell the materials families and utility crews use to repair homes and infrastructure after Russian strikes.
Zelensky used the weekend’s toll to make his case for air defense. “It is necessary to unblock the supplies of Patriot interceptors already agreed upon by the Europeans,” he said. “It is necessary to further support Ukrainian combat aviation to protect against jet-powered Shaheds. Every such defense package, especially ahead of winter, helps save lives.”
Titanium, Batteries and a Mall in Belgorod
You work at the Avisma plant in Berezniki, in Russia’s Perm region, more than 1,400 kilometers from Ukraine. On Sunday morning, drones reach you.
Perm Krai Governor Dmitry Makhonin said 11 drones were shot down, that an industrial facility in the north of the region suffered “minor” damage and kept working, and that five of its employees were injured. Ukrainian monitoring channels said the target was Avisma, part of VSMPO-AVISMA, one of the world’s largest producers of titanium sponge, used in military aircraft, nuclear submarines, armored vehicles and missiles. It has been under U.S. sanctions since 2023.
Flames and smoke rise over an explosion in the center of the Russian city of Belgorod during a drone attack. (Exilenova-Plus / Telegram)
Later in the day, Ukrainian forces struck the Energiya plant in Yelets, in the Lipetsk region, about 250 kilometers from the border. Footage showed large plumes of smoke. Energiya is Russia’s largest maker of electrochemical power sources, including batteries for drones and air-defense missiles; Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi said Storm Shadow missiles hit it and that it makes power cells for Iskander-K and Iskander-M missiles. Lipetsk’s governor said an “industrial zone” was hit and one person injured. The plant had been struck before, in May and July 2025 and in January 2026.
Overnight, a swarm of drones struck the city of Belgorod. Monitoring channels said the target was MegaGRINN, the city’s largest shopping and entertainment center, which was closed and empty. Belgorod, 34 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, is a frequent target. Its mayor, Valentin Demidov, said one person was killed and 10 injured; regional authorities later reported 14 injured and damage to at least 30 apartment buildings and 35 vehicles. The claims could not be independently verified.
Satellite images showed that Friday’s strike on the Proton-Electrotex plant in Oryol had damaged two buildings that produce semiconductor wafers and microchips for Russian weapons, an RFE/RL journalist reported. And Russia has built a new ring of air-defense towers within 50 kilometers of Putin’s residence at Valdai, RFE/RL and an open-source analyst found, with what appear to be Pantsir or Tor systems south of the residence, covering the Khotilovo military airfield, which Putin reportedly uses and which is linked to the residence by its own rail line, and a secret laboratory on Lisiy Island. Russia claimed last December that Ukraine had attacked the residence; Kyiv called it a lie, and the CIA later told Trump the claim was false.
After November 4
Ushakov told Russian state television that the Kremlin is ready to resume three-way talks with Ukraine and the United States after November 4, Russia’s National Unity Day. He said he expected little from the first meeting: a “trial run,” with a peace agreement that “still needs work.” Zelensky had said the talks could come in the first half of November, possibly in Abu Dhabi. The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected ceasefire proposals and demanded that Kyiv hand over the rest of the Donbas, territory Russian troops have not been able to take.
In an interview with Alla Mazur of TSN, Zelensky laid out what Ukraine will bring. “Our security guarantees are our guarantees, and they cannot be dictated by the Russian side,” he said. “Restrictions on our army and Ukraine’s neutrality are not up for discussion.” He said the best guarantee would be “NATO plus a strong Ukrainian army,” and that if Ukraine has the money it wants to keep an army of 800,000. “If we are in NATO, the number can be 800,000 or less. But it will be a question of who is willing to finance or co-finance with us.” Territory, he said, is “a red line that can only be discussed at the level of leaders. Everyone should understand: first, we are not exchanging anything for anything.”
He offered three concrete subjects for the talks. “Energy, grain, and people – these are the specifics,” he said: an energy ceasefire, a new deal to protect grain shipments in the Black Sea, and prisoner exchanges. A Russian refusal, he said, would show whether Moscow is serious. “If it’s just a political maneuver and Putin is simply saying, ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ because he doesn’t want to escalate tensions with America before the elections, we will very quickly see in November whether it was a trick or not.” He warned against easing sanctions beforehand: “I don’t want us to be left without tools – without sanctions, without money, or without frozen assets – at the meeting with Putin.”
On air defense, he said there is progress, “it’s just very slow. It’s not enough to simply say, ‘Yes, we will give them to you,’ and then not deliver them for a month or two.” On Saturday, Trump told reporters he expects to “do business with Ukraine and with Russia after this war ends.” Of past U.S. aid, he said: “I feel foolish because all you had to do is ask them, and they would have paid. Meaning the EU would have paid.” The first tanker of Russian diesel under his deal is on its way to New York, and about 900,000 tons are planned in the coming months, the first such deliveries since President Joe Biden banned Russian oil imports in 2022.
Oleshky: Two Days to Go
Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said he and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, had confirmed the timing directly. “I informed the Russian side that the ceasefire will take effect from Oct. 27 at 3:00 a.m. Kyiv time,” he said. “The Russian commissioner, for her part, informed me of the same – that from the Russian side, the regime of silence is established from Oct. 27 at 4:00 a.m. Moscow time. That is the exact same time.” He said the operation will go in phases because of the danger on the ground, and thanked Melania Trump and her team for mediating. About 1,700 civilians remain in the town, which has received no aid convoys since late May and whose power, water and heating networks are badly damaged.
Zelensky said the truce will have to last several days and warned of Russia’s intentions. “Of course, Russia will do everything it can to clear the roads in a way that encourages people to go towards Russia and stay there; they won’t simply let people go,” he said. “The most important thing is to unblock the people so they can live.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine kept supplying the town from the air. Drone operators of the National Guard’s “Bolharychi” special company, part of the 11th Brigade, flew 15 containers carrying more than 600 kilograms of baby formula, cereal, dried food and toys into Oleshky, Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said. “Among the children who remain in blocked Oleshky are those born during the full-scale war who have known no life without terror,” he said.
Taking Back Fedorivka
You are a Ukrainian soldier on the Mokri Yaly River, east of Oleksandrivka. This month, your unit has been pushing Russians off the riverbank one village at a time.
Military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported that Ukrainian forces have liberated Perebudova, Komar across the river, and Fedorivka to the south, and advanced as far as Skudne. ISW said the gains are slow but tactically significant, and may eventually threaten Russian logistics in the Oleksandrivka and Hulyaipole directions. Russian forces still hold the northeastern outskirts of Perebudova, Mashovets said, but his reporting indicates Ukrainian troops have pushed them out of a salient northwest of the Fedorivka-Burlatske line. A Russian blogger also claimed Ukrainian counterattacks in the Hulyaipole direction.
Near Kupyansk, a prominent Kremlin-affiliated Russian blogger said Russia will likely lose some positions in the city because of Operation Veles, the Ukrainian push through gas pipelines, since Russian gains there depended on one of the pipelines Ukraine is clearing. The blogger said Ukrainian forces may exploit Russia’s habit of ignoring battlefield problems until the last minute. A source close to Russia’s Western Group of Forces said Veles has complicated Russian logistics. North and northeast of Kharkiv, Russian attacks failed to advance as Ukrainian forces counterattacked, and neither side reported fighting near Borova.
Russia advanced southwest of Novopavlivka near Filiya, Mashovets said, and kept widening its infiltration in central Dobropillia, according to geolocated footage. Russian bloggers claimed the capture of Bilytske and Hulyaipilske and advances around Raiske, west of Kostiantynivka, none of which ISW confirmed. Russian attacks near Lyman, Kryva Luka east of Sloviansk, Kostiantynivka, Hulyaipole, Velykyi Burluk and in northern Sumy made no confirmed gains, and a Kremlin-affiliated blogger admitted Russia’s advance toward Orikhiv has slowed. Behind the lines, Ukraine’s General Staff reported hitting Russian radar stations near Gostishchevo and Kurganskoye in the Belgorod region, a command post in occupied Zaporizhzhia, a command-and-observation post in occupied Kherson, and troop concentrations in occupied Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.
ISW also measured what the Starlink cap cost. Ukraine’s interception rate for jet-powered drones fell from about 77 percent to about 74 percent during the October 14 to 24 restrictions, it said, because interceptor drones, Ukraine’s most effective weapon against them, largely need Starshield to fly fast enough. Ukraine also uses F-16s, which down jet drones with costly missiles and cannon fire, and mobile fire teams. ISW said Ukraine will need new jet-powered interceptors to keep the rate up over the long term.
Also Today
The Black Sea toll. Strikes have hit more than 570 vessels in the Black Sea this year, 387 of them between July and September, killing at least 40 sailors, maritime security firm Ambrey and the International Maritime Organization told the Financial Times. Ambrey said Russia accounts for about 90 percent of strikes on civilian shipping since September 10.
Weightlifting in Moscow. The International Weightlifting Federation said Moscow will host its 2030 world championships, the first event an Olympic-recognized body has awarded Russia since the full-scale invasion.
Serbia turns. Aleksandar Vučić, the Putin-endorsed former president running for prime minister, conceded defeat to the student-led Students’ List, which is projected to win 135 to 140 seats, an absolute majority, against about 105 for his party, on the highest turnout since 1992. Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar congratulated the winners: “Sound familiar?”
Lula wins a fourth term. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was reelected with 51.79 percent; his opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, refused to concede. Zelensky accepted Lula’s offer to help mediate in June.
The Closing
Tonight, a family in Synelnykove is mourning four neighbors, and Kharkiv’s firefighters are counting a lost truck and three wounded colleagues. Russia has named the day after which it will talk. Ukraine has named what it will talk about: energy, grain and people. And in Oleshky, a mined road is now two days away from its first test. November will show which side meant what it said.
A Prayer for Ukraine
1. For Those Who Defend
Lord of hosts, strengthen the soldiers on the Mokri Yaly River who have brought Perebudova, Komar and Fedorivka home, and the troops pushing through the dark beneath Kupyansk. Guard the defenders of Dobropillia and Novopavlivka, and the drone crews and pilots who face jet-powered Shaheds by night. Keep them safe through the long nights, and give them rest when the day is done.
2. For the Wounded and the Grieving
God of all comfort, receive the four who died in Synelnykove, the two women lost in Nikopol district, and the dead of Kharkiv and Yarova. Heal the eleven-year-old girl and every wounded neighbor in Dnipro’s hospitals, the six of Vinnytsia, and the woman hurt in Poltava. Comfort the elderly of the nursing home who were carried out at dawn, and every family that woke to fire.
3. For the Rescuers
Faithful God, protect the firefighters of Kharkiv who were struck while saving others, and the rescuers of Synelnykove and Vinnytsia who worked through the night. Heal the wounded among them, replace what was destroyed, and let no one ever again be targeted for running toward the fire. Bless every medic and every volunteer who answers the call when the sirens fall silent.
4. For Oleshky and Those Who Lead
King of kings, let the silence come to Oleshky on Tuesday and hold long enough to bring every family to safety. Bless the drone crews who carried formula and toys to children who have known only war. Give President Zelensky wisdom for the talks ahead, and let the leaders of the world see clearly who seeks peace and who seeks time.
5. For a People Who Keep Standing
Father, Ukraine rebuilds every morning what is broken every night. Sustain those who sell the building materials, those who patch the windows, those who keep the lights on, and those who simply refuse to leave. 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.