Russia strikes Ukrainian substations again; Ukrainian drones set an Ozon warehouse ablaze on Russia's Unity Day

Russia and Ukraine exchanged hundreds of drones overnight into Wednesday, 4 November — Russia’s National Unity Day public holiday — a day after one of the largest Russian bombardments of Ukraine’s energy system in the war.

Strikes on Ukraine

• Russia’s defence ministry said it hit two power substations, in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions, and a cargo vessel at sea near Odesa that it said carried supplies for the Ukrainian military.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the “complex, massive” attacks damaged generation facilities and substations in nine regions, including Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernihiv and Rivne.
• Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 272 Russian drones by Wednesday morning.

Strikes on Russia

A Ukrainian drone strike set fire to a logistics hub of e-commerce group Ozon in the town of Adygeysk in southern Russia, the company and a regional official said — the second attack on that site. Ozon said staff were evacuated and it knew of no casualties. In results last week, it said it expected losses of 30.1 billion roubles (about $367 million) from drone attacks on 11 of its sites. Since July, Ukraine has hit dozens of warehouses run by Ozon and rival Wildberries, Reuters reported.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed it intercepted 709 Ukrainian drones over 14 regions, Crimea and the Azov and Black seas; temporary restrictions were imposed at more than a dozen Russian airports, including Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo. Ukraine did not comment on the Ozon strike.

Ahead of Abu Dhabi

The strikes come before US-mediated three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi on 10–11 November. Last month a Kremlin aide said Moscow’s attitude to the talks would depend partly on whether Ukraine launched a large-scale attack on Unity Day.