The death toll from a Russian attack in southern Ukraine on a site where people had gathered to receive humanitarian aid has risen to 31, with dozens of people still missing.
The attack was part of a wave of overnight strikes which targeted power plants across the country, damaged hospitals and wounded scores of people.
Teams of rescuers and volunteers continued to search the cratered blast site of a destroyed aid facility and shelter in Komyshuvakha, a village in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, hoping to find more than 45 missing residents alive under the rubble.
Instead, more bodies were pulled out and carried away in white plastic sheeting.
The Russians carried out a complex, massive attack overnight, aimed primarily at our critical infrastructure. And the main target was energy – power generation facilities and substations – in the Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv, and… pic.twitter.com/HgMtbMPVC6
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 3, 2026
“The scale of the tragedy is terrifying,” Mykhailo Semikin, acting head of the region’s military administration, wrote in an online post.
“This is one of the worst tragedies in terms of the number of civilian victims in our region since the start of the full-scale war.”
Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles across nine regions, triggering emergency power cuts, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an online post that noted the barrage coincided with US elections.
“The Russians think America won’t notice this signal of theirs,” he said.
“But we need to notice and stop such terror. We need to help Ukraine defend its skies; otherwise, Russia will never stop its missile strikes.”
Three days of mourning were declared in Zaporizhzhia where Russian bunker-busting bombs, filled with nearly 1.5 tons of explosives, were used in Monday’s attack.
The dead included four police officers and two rescue workers, Mr Semikin said on Tuesday. At least five people were hurt.
In the north-east region of Kharkiv, a combined Russian missile and drone attack wounded at least 62 people, local authorities said.
A strike damaged a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district, shattered windows in four apartment buildings and damaged cars. More than 200 patients were transferred to other medical facilities, head of the regional military administration Oleh Syniehubov said.
In the Dnipro area, rescuers pulled a woman alive from the rubble on Tuesday morning, after a Russian attack killed one person and wounded 17, local authorities said.
The attack damaged an outpatient clinic and a hospital. Patients were transferred to other hospitals, Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said.
Moscow kept up its nightly attacks on power plants and energy infrastructure ahead of winter, causing extensive damage and electricity outages as it carried out 20 strikes in 10 regions overnight, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.
Ukrainian power utility DTEK said three of its power plants halted operations after significant damage from intense attacks. No injuries were reported.
Russia’s ministry of defence said on Tuesday that it had shot down 856 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 493 drones were fired towards the Russian capital.
A Ukrainian drone attack wounded two employees at an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl, regional governor Mikhail Yevrayev said on Tuesday.
He added that there was damage to the refinery’s infrastructure.
Rolling blackouts have been instituted in the south, west and east of Russian-occupied Crimea following attacks on energy infrastructure, Moscow-installed officials said on Tuesday.
Mr Zelensky travelled to Germany on Tuesday, beginning a new round of consultations with European leaders ahead of US-mediated talks on November 10-11 in Abu Dhabi to try and end the war.
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, confirmed the date of the talks late on Monday, with negotiations to focus on post-war security arrangements, de-escalation and humanitarian efforts.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that a Russian delegation would attend the talks.
Russia had agreed last month to resume three-way negotiations with Washington and Kyiv aimed at ending the war, setting up the first such talks since February.
The European Commission said it would host a meeting on Wednesday with officials from the UK, France, Germany, the European Union, Nato, Ukraine, the US and the World Bank to discuss post-war reconstruction in Ukraine.
Commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho did not comment on whether Mr Zelensky would attend.
Share