Drones
Ukraine: 433 Russian drones in one night, with energy infrastructure hit in four regions
Russia attacked Ukraine with 433 drones overnight into November 1, and the General Staff says air defence downed or neutralised 371. Zelensky said energy facilities were hit in four regions, leaving hundreds of thousands of families without power.
Four regions of Ukraine had their power grid hit overnight into Sunday, November 1, after a Russian drone attack. The Armed Forces General Staff recorded an attack with 433 drones, while Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of hundreds of thousands of families without electricity.
433 drones from six directions
By 07:30 Ukrainian time, air defence had downed or electronically neutralised 371 of the 433 drones, 47 of them jet-powered, while more than 40 were still in the air. The General Staff report, covering the period from 18:00 on Saturday, recorded strikes at 16 locations and falling debris at another 14.
Russia used Shahed drones (64 of them jet-powered), Gerbera drones and Parodiya-type decoys. They came toward Ukraine from the Oryol, Kursk, Shatalovo, Bryansk and Millerovo directions in Russia, as well as from occupied Donetsk. Aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units, electronic warfare and unmanned-systems units and mobile fire groups took part in the defence. The attack had not ended by around midday, when the Air Force was still tracking groups of strike drones in the Sumy, Poltava and Cherkasy regions heading toward the south of the Kyiv region.
Substations and transmission lines
Zelensky said that energy infrastructure was hit in the Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Khmelnytskyi regions: substations, transformers and lines that supply homes. Repair crews are working everywhere. In Kyiv, emergency power cuts were introduced because of the continuous strikes on the energy system. The day before, Russian strikes had left 200,000 families in Dnipro without power.
The State Emergency Service reported four people affected in the Ostroh area of the Rivne region, where a house caught fire after a new Russian attack and the blaze covered 100 square metres. In the Sumy region six people were injured in a series of strikes, and in the Hlukhiv community a Russian drone hit a residential area; while firefighters were putting out the blaze, the spot where rescuers were working was struck again. None of the rescuers was hurt.
Zelensky: Russia is betting on ballistic strikes this winter
The Ukrainian president also gave the week’s tally: 1,940 strike drones, more than 1,580 guided bombs and 44 missiles, 36 of them ballistic. According to him, the Russians are trying to exploit the shortage of interceptors against ballistic targets. He noted that Kyiv raises the issue of Patriot missiles daily with the United States and Europe and that this month the US and European countries took new decisions on new packages for Ukraine. “But these deliveries cannot wait for years,” he stressed, adding that air-defence decisions must be implemented now.
