Ukrainian strikes kill three in Russia’s Belgorod region

What the report says

Ukrainian drone attacks killed three people in Russia’s Belgorod region, according to local officials cited by Al Jazeera on Wednesday. The region borders Ukraine and has frequently been hit in the cross-border war. In the same round of fighting, Russian strikes also damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine, causing power outages in several cities and regions, including Kyiv, as winter approaches.

Al Jazeera reported that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said overnight Russian attacks hit power generation facilities and substations across nine regions, leading to emergency outages. Russia’s Defence Ministry said it struck power stations in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr areas, while Ukrainian officials described hours-long disruptions to electricity and water supplies in the capital and nearby areas. Separate reports also pointed to outages in Russian-occupied Crimea, where temporary energy restrictions were introduced.

The exchanges also reached southern Russia, where a drone strike set fire to an Ozon warehouse in Adygeysk, in the Republic of Adygea. Ozon said workers were evacuated and no one was hurt. Moscow said its air defenses downed 709 Ukrainian drones across multiple regions, Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas.

Beyond the battlefield, the article noted Kremlin comments after the US midterm elections and Zelenskyy’s decision to award US First Lady Melania Trump a Ukrainian honor for humanitarian support. These details provide political context, but the main development remains the intensifying cross-border strikes on energy and transport infrastructure.