Damage to an apartment block from a Russian drone strike, Dnipro, Ukraine, November 8, 2025

EA on Ukraine’s War and Politics 24: Will Putin’s Invasion End in His Fall from Power?

Friday’s Coverage: Ukrainian Court Sentences Russian Soldier for Killing of POW

UPDATE 1610 GMT:

All thermal power plants operated by Ukraine’s State-owned Centrenergo are down after “the largest Russian attack” on them.

Centrenergo said the plants, restored after attacks last year, were targeted by Russian drones “each minute” overnight.

Centrenergo operates three thermal power plants: Trypillia in the Kyiv region, Zmiivska in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, and Vuhlehirska in the Donetsk region in the east.

Centrenergo said:

For safety reasons, we remained silent, but we did everything possible to ensure that Ukrainians got through the last winter with electricity and heat, overcoming hellish challenges to successfully start the current heating season.

Less than a month has passed since the previous strike, and last night the enemy again hit all of our power generation facilities simultaneously.

UPDATE 1559 GMT:

The commander of a Ukrainian unmanned systems battalion has been charged with negligence after Russia struck an awards ceremony for his soldiers, killing 12 servicemen and seven civilians and wounding 36 people.

The Russians hit a formal assembly of more than 100 troops in frontline areas of the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine on November 1.

The General Staff had prohibited such gatherings, but the commander did not halt the event and disperse soldiers during an air raid alert.

The ceremony was struck by three Geran drones and two Iskander missiles.

UPDATE 1118 GMT:

At least 11 civilians have been murdered and 44 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

Air defenses downed 406 of 458 drones but only nine of 45 cruise and ballistic missiles.

In Dnipro, at least three civilians were killed and 12 injured, including two children. Three others were injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

In the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, three civilians were murdered and six injured.

In the neighboring Kherson region, two people were killed and 20 wounded in attacks on 32 settlements.

In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, a 48-year-old man was slain and 10 people wounded.

Casualties were also recorded in the Poltava, Kyiv

UPDATE 1111 GMT:

More than 1,400 citizens from three dozen African countries are fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, says Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha.

Sybiha said Russia is enticing Africans to sign contracts that are “equivalent to…a death sentence….Most of them are immediately sent to the so-called ‘meat assaults’, where they are quickly killed.”

South Africa said on Thursday that it is investigating how 17 of its citizens joined mercenary forces after the men sent distress calls for help to return home. Kenya said some of its citizens are detained in military camps across Russia after unknowingly being caught up in the war.

Russia has lured men from other countries with promises of work, but then sent them to the frontlines in Ukraine.

UPDATE 1103 GMT:

The toll from Russia’s drone attack on an apartment block in Dnipro (see Original Entry) has risen to at least three murdered and 12 injured, including children aged 2 and 13.

At least one person was killed in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine.

UPDATE 0725 GMT:

The Trump Administration has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions over imports of Russian oil and gas.

A White House official confirmed the exemption after Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a long-time ally of Vladimir Putin, met Donald Trump in Washington.

The official said Hungary committed to buying US liquefied natural gas with around $600 million of contracts.

Last month, the US imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft, threatening secondary sanctions on entities trading with the firms.

Alongside Orbán, Trump rambled:

We’re looking at it, because it’s very different for him to get the oil and gas from other areas. As you know, they don’t have…the advantage of having sea. It’s a great country, it’s a big country, but they don’t have sea. They don’t have the ports.

But many European countries are buying oil and gas from Russia, and they have been for years. And I said: “What’s that all about?”

Hungary relied on Russia for 74% of its gas and 86% of its oil in 2024.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Power is out in areas across Ukraine, after Russia’s latest mass drone and missile strikes on energy infrastructure and residential blocks.

Moscow fired Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, at the cities of Kyiv, Kremenchuk, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv and on the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy, Odesa, and Poltava regions. In Kyiv, explosions were heard just before 4:30 a.m.

In Dnipro in south-central Ukraine, at least one civilian was murdered and 11 injured, including children aged 2 and 13, by a drone strike on a multi-story residential building. Fire broke out, and several apartments were destroyed between the fourth and sixth floors.

Officials said rescue efforts are ongoing and the number of casualties may rise.

Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk reported the power outages. She said consequences are being determined and electricity will be restored “once the situation in the energy system stabilizes”.

In the latest initiative to cope with the Russian attempt to break the energy grid, Ukraine will import at least 300 million cubic meters of US liquid natural gas through an agreement with Poland’s gas trader Orlen.

“Despite the enemy’s plans, Ukraine will have light and heat this winter,” Hrynchuk said.