Russia launched another intense overnight barrage of ballistic missiles, drones, and glide bombs at Kyiv and the surrounding region, killing at least four people — including a three-year-old boy — as Ukraine braces for a winter energy crisis of unprecedented severity. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking during a landmark visit to Belgrade, warned that the country now has "virtually no intact thermal power plants" left functioning, the result of months of near-daily Russian strikes on energy infrastructure. Thermal plants, which burn coal or gas to generate electricity, serve as a critical complement to Ukraine's nuclear power supply, particularly during the heating season.
The deadliest single incident struck the village of Pukhivka, outside Kyiv, where a drone destroyed a two-storey family home, killing a grandfather, grandmother, and their three-year-old grandson. The child's parents, his 15-year-old brother, and a neighbour who rushed to help were all hospitalised — the neighbour caught in a deliberate second strike as rescuers arrived. A separate attack involving six ballistic missiles targeted civilian infrastructure inside the city of Kyiv itself, killing at least one more person. Ukraine's air force said it intercepted 135 of the 151 drones fired overnight. Russia claimed the Kyiv strikes hit a facility manufacturing parts for Ukrainian cruise missiles, allegations it provided no evidence for; Kyiv reported burning oil tanks in the Obolon district.
In a further escalation across the broader conflict, Ukraine struck two Russian oil refineries — in Ilsk, in the southern Krasnodar region, and in Syzran, in the Samara region — setting fires at both sites and injuring at least five people, according to Russian regional authorities. Russia, in turn, claimed to have attacked a cargo ship in the Black Sea, east of Odessa, alleging it was transporting weapons to Ukrainian forces. On the ground, Russian forces claimed to have seized the settlement of Ivanivka in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, a claim that could not be independently verified.
Zelensky's visit to Serbia — his first since taking office in 2019 — carried clear diplomatic weight. Serbia, a country in the western Balkans with deep historical ties to Russia, remains one of the very few European nations that has declined to impose sanctions on Moscow, a stance that has complicated its path toward European Union membership. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic reiterated that his government's position on sanctions had not changed, though he reaffirmed support for Ukraine's territorial integrity and noted that non-military aid to Kyiv continues. A senior Ukrainian official described the visit as "a slap in the face for the Russians." Zelensky used the occasion to press for tougher international sanctions to cut off the supply of missile components reaching Russia "from almost every continent."
On the international diplomatic front, the United States Senate voted 86 to 11 in favour of a new sanctions package targeting Russian officials, companies, and energy exports — legislation significantly advanced by the late Senator Lindsey Graham. Whether the House of Representatives will pass the bill remains uncertain. For Ukrainians facing their fourth winter under large-scale bombardment and now without functioning thermal power generation, the stakes of that uncertainty are acutely concrete.