🔴BREAKING: Ukraine hits three Russian refineries in three nights, defying U.S. pause pressure

Latest update: November 2, 2026 — 3:35 PM EST

• Russian guided bombs struck a school used as an aid distribution centre and a nearby shelter in Komyshuvakha, in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, on Monday.
• At least 24 people were killed, including two rescuers and four police officers; President Zelenskyy later put the toll at 26, with about 20 people still missing.
• Zelenskyy said nine more bombs hit the shelter after people gathered there — aid was handed out at the school every Monday.
• The strike came as a six-day local humanitarian ceasefire in the neighbouring Kherson region expired.
• Sources for this update: The Associated Press, Reuters (text reporting).

Ukraine has resumed long-range drone strikes on Russia’s oil refineries, hitting plants at Novokuybyshevsk, Ufa and Kstovo over three consecutive nights and ending a pause of about two weeks. Kyiv resumed the campaign despite Washington’s push for a halt before Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, while Russia’s overnight drone barrage left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian households without power.

• A Ukrainian drone strike hit Rosneft’s Novokuibyshevsk refinery in Russia’s Samara region before dawn on October 30 — the first strike on a Russian refinery since October 15. The Ukrainian company Fire Point said its FP-1 drones scored several hits, including on a diesel hydrotreating unit, and European satellite imagery published by Reuters showed smoke drifting from the plant.
• On October 31, drones hit Ufa in Bashkortostan, where monitoring footage geolocated to the Bashneft-Novoil refinery showed smoke rising over the plant. Ukraine’s Strategic Communications Center named Bashneft-Novoil and a sister Bashneft plant as targets.
• Overnight into November 1, a large drone attack on the Kstovo district of Nizhny Novgorod region caused significant damage to an industrial facility, Governor Gleb Nikitin said, with more than 100 drones reported downed and no casualties. Ukrainian media and monitoring projects identified the site as Lukoil’s NORSI refinery, one of Russia’s largest at about 17 million tonnes of crude a year; Russian officials have not named the plant. Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a terrorism case over the attack, and the regional government moved to keep petrol stations supplied, urging drivers to avoid panic buying.
• Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak confirmed on October 30 that three refineries and a gas-chemical complex had been hit, saying a pause in the attacks had ended. On Sunday he said the renewed strikes were adding to imbalances in global fuel markets and affecting prices.
• The strikes break a reported pause that The Wall Street Journal said Kyiv had observed under heavy pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Envoy Jared Kushner had suggested a 30-day halt; Ukrainian officials say Kyiv never agreed to one and that no such order was given.
• In the same exchange of attacks, Russia launched 433 long-range drones at Ukraine from Saturday evening, of which Ukraine’s air force said 371 were shot down or suppressed. The strikes hit power infrastructure in four regions and left hundreds of thousands of households without electricity. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had also hit the Kamensky plant in Russia’s Rostov region, which he said produces Russian missiles.
• A major Samara oil pumping and storage hub was also reportedly struck overnight into Monday, November 2 — NASA satellite data analysed by Bloomberg showed a fresh heat anomaly at the site — but Samara’s governor said only that an attack was being repelled, and the damage there is unconfirmed.
• Fuel prices frame the dispute: the U.S. national average retail diesel price stood at $6.29 a gallon on November 2, up from $3.68 a year earlier, and the Trump administration has blamed Ukraine’s refinery campaign in part for tight diesel supplies.

Sources: The Guardian, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg

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