A Russian overnight strike heavily damaged a German-owned car-parts plant in Zhytomyr Oblast, forcing it to halt production, the company said. No workers were hurt, but the destruction was extensive. One of the region's major employers now has no restart date.

A German plant knocked offline

Russia struck Zhytomyr Oblast overnight into 9 August and hit the Kromberg & Schubert plant, which reported the attack on Facebook. Its production lines and infrastructure took heavy damage. 

"The most important thing for us is that no employees were hurt in the attack," the statement said. 

With the damage so severe, the plant suspended operations for an indefinite period. A restart depends on a technical assessment and the full scope of repairs, the company added.

Kromberg & Schubert is a civilian manufacturer with 100% German investment. It has run in the Zhytomyr region for 11 years and employs about 3,500 people. The plant makes the wiring harnesses that thread through cars, supplying European automakers.

Vitalii Bunechko, head of the Zhytomyr Oblast Military Administration, called it one of the region's budget-forming enterprises. He said the administration and local authorities are working to help the strategic investor and keep the plant running.

Part of a wider overnight assault

Bunechko reported that Russia had launched a massive strike on the oblast overnight. The attack also damaged civilian infrastructure, he said. State Emergency Service crews contained the fires, and investigators began work at the site. 

Russia has repeatedly struck Zhytomyr Oblast during the war, stepping up its drone strikes on northwestern Ukraine, often exploiting Belarusian territory.

Russia is trying to knock out Ukraine's gas production before the cold comes. Russia carried out massive strikes on the assets of the Naftogaz Group in eastern, western, and central Ukraine, the company reported.

The strikes target Ukraine's ability to produce the gas it needs for winter. The Russians aim to inflict maximum damage on Ukrainian production and other critical infrastructure to make preparation for the heating season impossible, acting Naftogaz chairman Serhii Fedorenko said, calling the intensity of attacks on oil-and-gas infrastructure sharply higher in recent days.

The strikes hit extraction across the country

Russia targeted the sites where Ukraine pulls gas from the ground. On the night of 9 August, the extraction assets of Ukrnafta and a company drilling site came under massive attack, with Russian forces using dozens of strike drones against the extraction infrastructure.

The damage stopped production. There is substantial destruction at the site; part of the equipment has been put out of commission, and the asset's operation has been halted. However, safety measures meant that workers at the attacked facilities were unhurt.

Fuel stations and production sites were also hit

The campaign extended to Naftogaz's retail and production network. On 7 and 8 August, seven UKRNAFTA filling complexes in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv oblasts came under drone attack, and a worker at one station was injured and is in hospital receiving care.

Central Ukraine was struck, too. On 8 August, Russia attacked Naftogaz production facilities in the central part of the country with jet-powered drones, and the facility suffered serious destruction, though staff were in shelter at the time of the strike.

The target is the heating season

The strikes match the warning from First Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal, who has said Russia's aim this winter is to destroy the systems Ukrainians need to survive the cold, from power to water, Politico reported. Damaging gas production now, months before winter, is meant to leave Ukraine unable to heat itself when temperatures drop, turning the coming season into another front against civilians in Russia's war.

Satellite imagery has confirmed that Ukraine's Defense Forces destroyed a Russian electronic-warfare system built to jam Starlink at Gelendzhik in southern Russia, the Ukrainian defense outlet Militarnyi reported. Ukrainian drones hit the machine on the grounds of a Russian border-guard base during their sweep of the Black Sea coast. It is one more of these costly jammers Russia has lost, even as Ukraine's long-range drones cannot use Starlink over Russia.

Satellites caught the before and after

Satellite images published by the OSINT community Dnipro Osint show the site cleared at Gelendzhik, in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. The Volna Kupol Garant complex is gone. Researchers called it the third destruction of this jammer recorded in open sources. The strike landed on the grounds of military unit 2156, the Novorossiysk border detachment of Russia's FSB Border Service.

Ukrainian drones likely hit it alongside a 7 August strike on cargo ships near Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik. Geolocated photos from residents point to a repeat strike on the base on 8 August.

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The Volna Kupol Garant is built from trailers carrying satellite antennas. It tracks a passing Starlink satellite and beams a strong signal that scrambles the terminals below across up to 20 km². Starlink is the SpaceX satellite-internet network that Ukrainian drones rely on to reach their operators. Each unit costs about $1.8 million. A same-named firm registered in occupied Simferopol builds it. The developer also makes the Volna 3M jammer that Russia has fitted to Mi-8AMTSh helicopters to block drone satellite navigation.

Ukraine has knocked out these jammers before. The 422nd Unmanned Systems Regiment, the Security Service of Ukraine's (SBU) Alpha special-operations center, and other Ukrainian units have struck such systems, including in occupied Crimea. The complex's weakness is its own power: beaming enough energy to reach a satellite makes it loud and easy to find. 

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And deep inside Russia, there is little Ukrainian Starlink to jam — SpaceX geofences the network to Ukrainian territory, and Elon Musk has refused Kyiv's push to use it for strikes into Russia so far.

The wider hunt

Ukraine's drone crews have spent 2026 tearing into Russia's air defenses and rear. The same run of Black Sea strikes that wrecked this jammer also burned a Russian S-400 air-defense system on the Gelendzhik coast. 

Russian forces struck a residential high-rise in Kharkiv's Saltivka district on the morning of 9 August 2026, killing two people and injuring more than 20 others, according to city and oblast officials. The strike collapsed several upper floors and trapped residents inside. Firefighters carried people down from the top stories while a second strike hit a neighboring building.

A missile through the upper floors

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported the strike on Saltivka shortly after 07:00. He said Russia had hit a multi-apartment residential building. Minutes later he confirmed the blast destroyed floors 7 through 10, with wounded people inside.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration, first described a Russian drone strike that killed two. His administration later clarified that a missile hit the high-rise, and that Russia also struck an office building nearby.

Residents were trapped behind the collapse, and crews began a rescue operation. Firefighters brought seven people down from the upper floors, the State Emergency Service reported. The destroyed ceilings sat between the seventh and tenth floors.

As the rescue got underway, Russia struck again. Terekhov said a neighboring high-rise was hit, writing that Russia "is deliberately striking residential buildings" and urging people to shelter. A third impact followed in one of the district's parks.

Russia regularly employs the double-tap tactic — striking a site, then hitting it again once rescuers arrive — to maximize casualties among first responders.

Two dead, 21 wounded, a boy of five among them

Terekhov counted a dozen wounded at first, then confirmed two people killed at the site. Syniehubov gave the fuller account: two men, aged 50 and 66, killed, and at least 21 people injured.

Among the wounded was a five-year-old boy. 11 people suffered blast injuries and two had carbon monoxide poisoning. Another eight, including a child, had acute stress reactions, and medics hospitalized four.

By late morning, Syniehubov said crews were still clearing the collapsed floors to be sure no one remained underneath. Specialists would then judge whether the building could still be used.

A day of strikes across the oblast

Over the past 24 hours, Russia struck Kharkiv and 12 settlements across the oblast, killing three people and wounding or shocking 25, the regional administration said.

In Izium, shelling injured eight people. Russia killed a 68-year-old man in Kivsharivka, near Kupiansk, and wounded a 47-year-old woman in Mykhailivka. In Lozova, a 60-year-old woman was hurt, and a transit evacuation point there took in 227 more people.