The massive bombardment triggered air-raid alerts in every region of the country and struck on the day Ukraine marked Armed Forces Day. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, defenders shot down or electronically jammed 585 drones and 30 missiles, but 29 locations were still hit. At least eight civilians were wounded, three of them in the Kyiv region. Drone debris and explosions were reported as far west as Lviv Oblast, more than 800 kilometres from the front line.
Energy infrastructure bore the brunt of the assault. Ukraine’s national grid operator Ukrenergo reported that power stations and transmission facilities were deliberately targeted in several regions, causing widespread blackouts as temperatures hovered near freezing. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the main goal was “to leave Ukrainians without light and heat in winter,” and confirmed that a drone strike had completely burned down the railway station in Fastiv, a logistics hub southwest of Kyiv.
Most alarmingly, the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant – Europe’s largest – temporarily lost all external power for the first time since the war began. The International Atomic Energy Agency said the plant relied on emergency diesel generators to keep cooling its six shut-down reactors and spent fuel pools. Power was partially restored after about half an hour, but the incident underscored the persistent nuclear safety risks at the seized facility.
In a separate development, Ukrainian forces confirmed they had struck the Ryazan Oil Refinery southeast of Moscow overnight. Video circulating on Russian social media showed large fires and thick black smoke rising from the plant, which processes around 340,000 barrels of crude per day. Ryazan regional governor Pavel Malkov acknowledged that drone debris had fallen on an “industrial facility” and damaged a residential building but reported no casualties.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed its air defences destroyed 116 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory during the same period.
The barrage came against the backdrop of intensive diplomacy in the United States. In Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner hosted Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umerov and Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Andriy Hnatov for a second full day of negotiations on Friday. The parties issued a brief joint statement saying they had made progress on a postwar security framework for Ukraine, but stressed that “real progress toward any agreement will ultimately depend on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace.”
The Florida meetings follow a five-hour session earlier in the week in which Witkoff and Kushner presented Kremlin officials with a 28-point U.S.-mediated peace proposal. While details remain closely guarded, sources familiar with the talks say the discussions centre on security guarantees for Kyiv, territorial issues, sanctions relief, and reconstruction funding. President Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to end the war quickly, describing the Moscow leg of the diplomacy as “very productive.”
Ukrainian officials have welcomed the renewed U.S. engagement but insist that any deal must respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russian officials, meanwhile, have dismissed several elements of the American plan as unacceptable.
As negotiators prepared to resume for a third day on Saturday, the overnight bombardment served as a brutal reminder of the gap between battlefield reality and diplomatic optimism. In Kyiv, air-raid sirens continued into the morning, and repair crews worked through the night to restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of households. In Brussels, EU foreign ministers condemned the attacks and announced an additional €5 billion package to help Ukraine repair and decentralised energy infrastructure before deeper winter sets in.
For ordinary Ukrainians, the contrast was jarring: while envoys discussed ceasefires in the Florida sunshine, cities from Kharkiv to Lviv spent another night in darkness and under fire. “We are grateful for every effort to stop this war,” said Olena Marchenko, a resident of a Kyiv suburb that lost power overnight, “but when the missiles are still flying, peace feels very far away.”
