Russian Strikes Kill Eight and Cut Power in Ukraine

Russian attacks on Friday killed at least eight people and injured 60 across Ukraine, and cut electricity to more than a million.

Russian attacks on Friday 16 October 2026 killed at least eight people and injured 60 across Ukraine, officials said. The strikes hit two shopping centres and cut power to more than a million people. In Kharkiv, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said a 71-year-old woman and a 58-year-old man were killed, and 12 people were wounded, in three districts of the city. Further strikes in the evening injured nine more. In Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, two people were killed. Two more were killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region. In Volyn, in the north-west, on the border with Poland, a drone hit a food-processing plant and killed one person and wounded eight, Governor Roman Romaniuk said. The energy ministry later said repair crews had returned power to more than a million people. It did not say how many were still in the dark.

Why it matters

This is the second night of the war that ordinary people measure in switches and heaters, not in maps. Volyn is far from the eastern front. A drone there killed a worker at a food plant and, Romaniuk said, left 370,000 people without power in the morning. About 100,000 had supply back later. In Lutsk, the regional capital, Mayor Andriy Razumovskyi said the blackout could last at least 24 hours. Drones also hit a customs terminal in Kovel, on the main road from Kyiv to Poland, and set fire to about 10 trucks. Shopping centres were hit in Sumy, close to the front, and in the Rivne region. Large parts of Rivne city were without power after the energy system was struck. A mall and a food plant are civilian buildings. Cutting the power as the weather turns is how a grid attack becomes a household emergency. Kharkiv's dead were a 71-year-old woman and a 58-year-old man, not soldiers named in a briefing. Kovel's burning trucks were cargo on a road to Poland. The war's edge and its rear were hit on the same day.

Key facts

• Officials said Friday's attacks killed at least eight people and injured 60, and cut power to more than a million.

• In Kharkiv a 71-year-old woman and a 58-year-old man were killed and 12 wounded. Evening strikes injured nine more.

• Two people were killed in Kramatorsk and two in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

• A drone on a food plant in Volyn killed one person and wounded eight. About 370,000 people there lost power for a time.

• The mayor of Lutsk said the blackout in the city could last at least 24 hours.

• Repair crews restored supply to more than a million people. The number still without power was not given.

What's next

The unanswered figure is how many homes were still dark after the repairs. Winter is close, and a grid that is patched by day and struck again at night does not heat a flat. Ukraine has dropped an energy truce it said Moscow was ignoring. Friday's list, from a border food plant to a Kharkiv street, is what that decision looks like for civilians on both the map's edge and its middle. Crews can restore a line by morning and lose it again the next night. The million who got power back are safe only until the next strike on the same grid.