Russia attacked Ukraine with 140 drones, including Shahed and Gerbera attack drones and Parodiya decoys, and four missiles overnight on 26 October, the Ukrainian Air Force reported. The missiles were one Kh-31P anti-radiation missile and three Kh-59/69 air-launched guided missiles, launched from occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts.

Jet-powered Shaheds are becoming a larger part of Russia’s aerial campaign, challenging Ukraine’s air defenses and prompting efforts to develop faster interceptors. Alongside guided bomb attacks and strikes on energy infrastructure, these attacks add to the pressure on Ukraine’s defenses as winter approaches, and Ukraine says Russia has a plan for it.

Air defenses downed or suppressed 112 drones, including 56 of the 70 jet-powered Shaheds, and three Kh-59/69 missiles, according to preliminary Air Force figures. Hits were recorded at 15 locations, and debris fell at four more.

Four wounded in Zaporizhzhia

Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia overnight wounded two women aged 22 and 30, and two men aged 40 and 61, the State Emergency Service (DSNS) said. The strikes damaged the windows of a hotel and two buses, a private house, and four outbuildings, and three cars caught fire. The oblast administration had first reported one wounded.

Russian strikes injured 8 people in Ukraine overnight on 26 October

Russia injured 2 women, aged 22 and 30, and 2 men, aged 40 and 61, in Zaporizhzhia overnight, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. Russia also shattered windows in a hotel and 2 buses and damaged a house, and… pic.twitter.com/42bvnHt0qk

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 26, 2026

Later in the morning, Russian forces hit a shopping center building that had already closed, the administration said. The building caught fire. According to preliminary information, no one was hurt.

Guided bombs hit two districts of Izium

At about 02:40 on 26 October, Russian forces struck two districts of Izium in Kharkiv Oblast with guided aerial bombs, and three people needed medical help, the city military administration said, as Suspilne Kharkiv reported. More than 10 private houses and a youth sports school were damaged, and several streets lost power and internet.

Russia struck a burning Odesa Oblast plant twice more as firefighters worked

Overnight, a Russian attack destroyed an industrial enterprise in Odesa Oblast and set it on fire, the DSNS reported. As firefighters put out the blaze, Russian forces struck the site twice more. The rescuers were in shelter and were not hurt, but fire equipment was damaged. At another address, four garages were damaged and a car was destroyed. The oblast administration said there were no casualties.

Energy facility hit in Khmelnytskyi Oblast

On the evening of 25 October, a Russian attack damaged an energy facility in Kamianets-Podilskyi district of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, causing emergency power outages, the oblast administration said. Windows were also damaged in two residential buildings. No casualties were reported.

Meanwhile, Russian drones attacked the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast more than 10 times overnight, damaging a high-rise and an administrative building, the oblast administration reported. No one was hurt. Mykolaiv Oblast also came under Shahed attack overnight, with no casualties, according to its administration.

The attack continued into the day. On the morning of 26 October, a Russian strike hit a civilian infrastructure site in Vinnytsia, the oblast administration said. Preliminary reports showed no casualties.

Strikes on 26 October kill three in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts

On 26 October, Russian aircraft dropped four guided bombs on homes and shops in the center of Yasnohirka near Kramatorsk, killing one person and wounding 10, the DSNS said. Among the wounded is a 13-year-old girl, Donetsk oblast head Vadym Filashkin said. In Sloviansk, a Russian airstrike destroyed a private house, and rescuers recovered the body of its owner, the DSNS said.

A Russian drone strike on Pavlohrad in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast killed one person and injured seven, including two children, the DSNS said. The injured include two 10-year-old girls, the oblast administration said.

Six hurt in Kharkiv Oblast over the past day

Over the past 24 hours, Russian attacks hurt six people in Kharkiv Oblast, oblast head Oleh Syniehubov said. In Kharkiv, a 60-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy suffered acute stress reactions. Two women aged 51 and 71 were wounded in Krasnopavlivka. His count lists two wounded men in Izium, aged 72 and 52, while the city administration says three people there needed medical help. Russian attacks also set fire to a house in Kotliary, a production building in Vilshany, a building in Derhachi, a house in Mykolaivka, and a site in Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district, the DSNS reported.

In Sumy Oblast, Russian attacks over the past day injured five people, the National Police said, including two women aged 76 and 56 hit by a drone in Sumy community.

On 25 October: two killed in Kherson and Donetsk oblasts

In Chernihiv Oblast, Russian attacks on 25 October injured a man at a hangar in Pryluky district and a woman at a grain store in the Novhorod-Siverskyi area, the oblast administration said. Drones also damaged a school in a village of Koriukivka community, and a strike destroyed 700 metric tons of potatoes at an enterprise in Mena community, the administration said. A large warehouse fire broke out in Koriukivka district, the DSNS said.

In Kherson Oblast, Russian attacks killed one person and wounded eight in the 24 hours to 06:00 on 26 October, the oblast administration reported. On 25 October, a Russian drone strike on a minibus in Kherson’s Central district killed one person and wounded six, the administration said after one more man sought medical help. Police said the minibus was hit by an FPV drone.

In Donetsk Oblast, Russian forces killed one person in Kramatorsk and wounded 10 across the oblast on 25 October, Filashkin said. Russia hit Kramatorsk with drones and six KAB-250 guided bombs, and 18 hits on Sloviansk wounded four, police said.

On 25 October, a Russian attack on Synelnykove district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast sent a 30-year-old man to hospital, the oblast administration said. In Vinnytsia, the number of people injured in the Russian attack on the morning of 25 October rose to seven, two of them hospitalized, the DSNS said. In Uman, an 86-year-old woman burned in the Russian attack on 21 October died in hospital, the Cherkasy oblast administration said.

Russian forces attacked Epicentr’s hub in Khmelnytskyi, a city in western Ukraine, 10 times on 13 October, starting five large fires that destroyed about 85% of the goods stored inside, the company said.

Epicentr is a Ukrainian chain of home-improvement and household-goods stores. The attack adds pressure to Ukraine’s logistics network, already damaged by Russian strikes. On 10 September, Ukrainian entrepreneur Ruslan Shostak, co-owner of the popular retail chains Eva and Varus, said that 2.1 million square meters of Ukraine’s modern warehouse space had been destroyed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began. He put the country’s total modern warehouse space at approximately 5 million square meters. The strike on the hub came the same day Russia opened a barrage of 39 ballistic missiles on Ukraine’s power grid.

About 30 drones in the sky kept the fire from being put out, and the hub burned down completely overnight, Epicentr said. None of its people were hurt, the company said.

“The most important thing is that all our people are alive,” Epicentr wrote.

Russia had earlier completely destroyed Epicentr’s two largest logistics complexes, in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, the company said. The Khmelnytskyi hub had remained effectively its only surviving large warehouse complex. Goods were sent from there to the company’s shopping centers, and people worked there every day “so that millions of Ukrainians could buy what they need,” it wrote. Epicentr described every such attack as a blow to Ukrainian businesses’ ability to operate, pay wages, preserve jobs, and support the country’s economy.

Epicentr’s earlier losses

Epicentr said in August that 10 of its shopping centers had been completely destroyed since February 2022. Another 13 retail sites had been damaged, and one in Melitopol remained under Russian occupation, it said. At the time, the company operated 70 shopping centers, down from 80 at the end of 2021.

Earlier, during a Russian missile attack overnight on 5 August, Epicentr’s logistics center in Kyiv burned down completely, Epicentr’s Yulia Chudnovets said. The company’s ceramic tile plant in Kalynivka, one of the largest in Ukraine, was effectively lost, she said. One employee was killed and three were injured, she added.

On 25 May 2024, Russian airstrikes on an Epicentr hypermarket in Kharkiv killed 19 people, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Attacks across Khmelnytskyi Oblast

Fires broke out at enterprises in Khmelnytskyi and Shepetivka districts on 13 October, Serhii Tiurin, head of the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Military Administration, reported. He did not name the enterprises. On 14 October, Tiurin said one of the fires had been put out, and crews were still fighting the other. Khmelnytskyi Mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn said six people were injured in Khmelnytskyi district that day, where Russian strikes damaged private enterprises, a gas station, and a medical facility.

Russian munitions brought down a stairwell of an apartment building in Kharkiv on the evening of 12 October, and rescuers recovered three bodies from the rubble overnight, local authorities reported. Survivors described fire, falling glass, and pets left behind. The strike came days after Washington waived sanctions on Russian diesel, as it expects Kyiv to stop hitting Russian refineries.

Russia hits Ukraine’s cities every day as it readies a winter campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure, and its oil exports keep bringing in the money that pays for the drones and missiles. A halt to Ukraine’s refinery strikes with no matching halt to Russia’s strikes would leave Moscow’s fuel income intact while Kharkiv digs through rubble. Estonia’s prime minister has already urged Europe to help Ukraine destroy those refineries instead.

A stairwell gone in Kholodnohirskyi district

Russian munitions hit Kharkiv’s Kholodnohirskyi district repeatedly from around 21:17, and Mayor Ihor Terekhov preliminarily identified them as Banderols. At 22:21, he said one strike had hit a residential building, possibly trapping people. He then added in a follow-up post: “Very serious destruction—an entire stairwell has collapsed.”

The strike destroyed an entrance of the four-story building, the State Emergency Service (DSNS) said. It counted 11 injured across the city’s evening strikes, and a rescuer was hospitalized, while Terekhov put the number at 10. By 06:56 on 13 October, rescuers had found a third body. Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov confirmed three dead and said the search continued. Experts will check whether the building is still fit to live in, he added.

Over 24 hours, Russian attacks killed three people in Kharkiv and injured 37, including two children treated for acute stress, Syniehubov reported.

“I realize I’m on fire”: two residents recall the strike

Larysa Maksimenko had just put her bedridden husband to sleep when the strike hit, she told Suspilne Kharkiv. She suffered a head wound and burns.

“I went to the kitchen to switch on the kettle for myself, to have some coffee. I realize I’m on fire. Then glass fell on me. I came to, and I’m buried under everything. All covered in blood,” she said.

The window bars were broken, and medics carried her husband out through the window. Rescuers later found a woman under the rubble in her apartment, likely a neighbor, Maksimenko said. All she wants now, she said, is to get to her husband in hospital.

Viacheslav Chibitko, who lives on the second floor next to the collapsed entrance, saw a flash, and then everything blew out. He got his three dogs out, but five cats are still inside. During the clearing, a concrete slab fell on a rescuer, Suspilne’s correspondent reported. Crews pulled him out and handed him to medics.

Kyiv’s toll rises, and strikes hit other cities overnight

The evening drone strike on a 25-story building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district killed two people, Kyiv prosecutors reported. The second victim was found dead in a car near the building. Prosecutors counted at least seven injured, including a 17-year-old girl, while Mayor Vitali Klitschko counted 11 in the capital.

From 18:00 on 12 October, Russia launched five ballistic missiles, nine loitering munitions, and 108 attack drones, Ukraine’s Air Force reported. Air defenses downed or suppressed 88 drones. A Russian drone attack injured four patients at a medical facility in Khmelnytskyi Oblast, oblast head Serhii Tiurin said. In Dnipro, a Russian attack injured a 64-year-old man, oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha reported. A downed Russian drone set two houses on fire in Murovane near Lviv, oblast head Maksym Kozytskyi said.

On 12 October, a Russian Smerch rocket with a cluster warhead hit a house in Cherkaske, Donetsk Oblast, killing three people, including a 13-year-old girl, oblast head Vadym Filashkin reported.

Russian attacks killed more than 150 people in the week to 11 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Russian bombs killed at least 20 people in Zaporizhzhia on 10 October, by the oblast’s count. On 9 October, the US waived its sanctions on Russian diesel until April 2027. The White House expects Kyiv to halt refinery strikes under its proposed energy ceasefire.

Ukraine’s prosecution service has dismissed eight people named in connection with an anti-corruption probe into the alleged protection of scam call centers, acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalskyi reported. His office is also running internal checks on several officials linked to the case. A separate probe covers the trip abroad of his predecessor, who left Ukraine in September.

Ukraine’s main prosecution service is auditing itself while the country’s anti-corruption agencies investigate an alleged scheme run from inside it. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) allege that a PGO official set up a criminal organization in mid-2025. They say it drew in serving prosecution employees and unofficial associates, took bribes for leaving scam call centers alone, and laundered the proceeds. The investigation is called Operation Carthage.

A probe from the outside, an audit from the inside

Ukraine’s main prosecution service is auditing itself while the country’s anti-corruption agencies investigate an alleged scheme run from inside it. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) allege that an official of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) set up a criminal organization in mid-2025. They say it drew in serving prosecution employees and unofficial associates. The group allegedly took bribes for leaving scam call centers alone and then laundered the proceeds. The case is known as Operation Carthage, Espreso reported.

Dismissals and polygraph tests

Seven of the eight dismissed people worked at the PGO, Kovalskyi said. Separately, four people were removed from administrative posts, including the heads of the IT department and the cybercrime directorate. Kovalskyi said 24 prosecutors took polygraph tests. The results went to a commission running an internal investigation. He wrote that trust in the prosecution service would be restored not through announcements of change but through consistent, balanced decisions and concrete results.

The internal probe concerning former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko covers his trip abroad. Investigators are checking whether he followed established procedure and how the business trip was organized. Kravchenko left Ukraine in an official car on the night of 13–14 September, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing law enforcement sources. He explained his departure as an official trip to Lithuania.

On 14 September, Kravchenko announced he had signed a notice of suspicion against NABU director Semen Kryvonos. That evening, his own office said Kryvonos had never been properly served and that the register entries were cancelled.

On 15 September, lawmakers backed Kravchenko’s resignation 317–0. Two days later, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy assigned Kovalskyi the duties of prosecutor general by decree. Before that, Kovalskyi headed the Khmelnytskyi Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

Two Carthage figures under internal review

The PGO completed an internal investigation into Aidyn Khudiiev, a former deputy department head, Kovalskyi said. Its findings will go to the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors, and the PGO abolished his post. SAPO prosecutor Mykola Karas told a court hearing that detectives seized $50,000 at Khudiiev’s workplace during the Carthage searches.

The PGO is also investigating Serhii Kropyva, former deputy head of its international cooperation department. NABU detained him on 4 September, the first day of the operation. The internal probe looks at whether he used his powers for private interests and interfered in other prosecutors’ work. The PGO’s General Inspectorate has filed a disciplinary complaint against him with the same commission, and his post was also abolished.