Ukraine: 164 Russian drones and three Kh-59/69 missiles overnight – 600,000 consumers without power in the Dnipropetrovsk region

Russia struck Ukraine with 164 long-range drones and three Kh-59/69 guided missiles from 18:00 on Saturday, November 7 to the morning of Sunday, November 8. The Ukrainian Air Force reports that the missiles were launched from the Sea of Azov area. The drones took off from Oryol, Kursk, Milerovo and Primorsko-Akhtarsk in Russian territory, as well as from occupied Donetsk and Hvardiiske in occupied Crimea.

The Russian swarm included Shahed and Gerbera drones and “Parodiya” decoys, built to look like attack drones and tie up air defences. Of the 164, 112 were jet-powered Shaheds. By 08:00 Kyiv time, 137 drones had been shot down or neutralised by electronic warfare, 88 of them jet-powered, while several were still in flight. The defence involved fighters, anti-aircraft missile units, electronic warfare and unmanned systems, together with mobile fire groups. The Air Force counted strikes at 23 locations and debris at 6.

The Dnipropetrovsk region paid the heaviest price. Already at 19:49 on Saturday the Regional Military Administration counted more than 60,000 consumers without power in the city of Dnipro after successive attacks on the energy grid. By Sunday morning the picture was far worse: over 600,000 consumers were left without electricity in the Dnipro, Kamianske, Samarivskyi, Pavlohrad and Synelnykove areas. Hospitals and critical infrastructure switched to generators, while continuous shelling makes the crews’ work difficult. Thirteen drones were shot down over the region. Infrastructure was damaged in the Dnipro and Kamianske districts, an apartment block in Nikopol and a house that caught fire in the Dubovyky community.

In the Zhytomyr region, late on Saturday evening, the regional administration reported drone strikes in three of its four districts, Korosten, Zviahel and Zhytomyr. Heating and power facilities in the Zhytomyr community were hit hardest, causing interruptions to central heating and part of the electricity supply. In Khmelnytskyi the State Emergency Service recorded damage to houses and broken windows in apartment blocks. One person was lightly injured.

In Kyiv the night passed with a brief drone alert after 01:00. Earlier, on Saturday afternoon, a drone hit a house in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where a fire broke out and two neighbouring houses were damaged, while in the Obolon district a large area of a warehouse burned. On Saturday evening the capital’s water utility restored normal pressure on both banks after round-the-clock work following the power cuts left by the ballistic missile attack on Kyiv the night before. We covered the damage to the Northern Bridge and the power supply.

Ukrenergo has scheduled hourly power outages for all of Sunday in parts of the regions, for 1.5 to 4 groups of consumers, along with limits on industry, because of the damage from the massive Russian attacks. On the night to Saturday, November 7, Russia had fired 36 ballistic missiles and 172 drones, and only four of the missiles were neutralised. Ukrainian intelligence estimates that Russia has up to 700 ballistic missiles.