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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Russia and Ukraine exchanged fresh strikes on critical energy infrastructure on Tuesday, just after the U.S. said it would lead a new round of negotiations between the two countries in the United Arab Emirates next week.
Moscow carried out a "complex, massive attack" on energy facilities in 10 regions across Ukraine, including with 17 hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles and nearly 300 drones, Ukrainian officials said.
Large power plants in the northeastern Kharkiv, central Dnipropetrovsk and western Vinnytsia regions were hit, according to Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi.
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Ukraine's biggest private energy-generating company, DTEK, said the Russian attacks caused "extensive" damage and three of its thermal power plants stopped generating electricity.
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Emergency shutdowns were reported in at least six regions and power outages hit five regions, including southern Odesa, according to Ukraine's state-owned electricity transmitter. DTEK said one of its impacted plants was in Odesa.
Russia's Defense Ministry, acknowledging the attacks on Tuesday, said it struck two thermal power plants in Dnipropetrovsk, one in Vinnytsia and another, plus two electrical substations, in Kharkiv.
A Russian strike on a hospital in Kharkiv injured 73 people and damaged the cardiology department, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said more than 1,000 windows in the hospital and surrounding buildings were damaged.
The overnight bombardment came a day after at least 33 people were killed in a Russian attack on a former school building being used to distribute humanitarian aid in Zaporizhzhia, southern Ukraine, officials said. More than 40 others are missing.
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Meanwhile, the governor of Russia's Yaroslavl region, northeast of Moscow, said Ukraine launched a "large-scale" assault using around 124 drones on the oil refinery on the outskirts of the regional capital.
Two refinery workers were injured, Mikhail Yevrayev said in a post to messaging app Telegram. The refinery suffered unspecified damage and emergency services were battling blaze, Yevrayev said.
Ukraine has resisted pressure from President Donald Trump to stop its campaign of strikes on Russian oil refineries. The White House has been concerned in the run-up to Tuesday's midterm elections about the soaring price of diesel for U.S. consumers.
The U.S.-led war against Iran, which began on February 28 and has rumbled on with no hint of a peace deal, caused fuel prices to skyrocket as Tehran imposed an effective blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy chokepoint.
Kyiv has homed in on Russian oil refineries to cut off the Kremlin from income sources feeding its war effort. Russia is a major oil exporter and relies on the revenue to keep its economy going, especially because it dedicates so much of government spending to the military.
Russia's army also needs fuel to make sure it can sustain its tanks, armored vehicles and logistics operations in south and eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine has targeted at least 28 of Russia's refineries since Russia's invasion on February 24, 2022, leaving just five—mostly in the remote regions of Siberia, too far for Ukraine's in-operation drones—untouched, according to the International Energy Agency.
Russia says its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure are in retaliation for Ukraine's operations and are intended to harm Ukraine's war campaign.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday that the U.S. will hold three-way talks with Russian and Ukrainian officials in the Emirati city of Abu Dhabi beginning on November 10.
Witkoff said the delegations would discuss a peace deal and "de-escalation." Previous rounds of U.S.-pushed talks stalled after the U.S. turned its attention to its war against Iran that began on February 28.
U.S. teams will meet with European representatives in the Belgian capital, Brussels, this week to discuss security guarantees from Kyiv and what post-ceasefire European security could look like.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that it would be "impossible" for European officials to take part in the tripartite talks.
Ukraine, and many European officials, have looked on with concern at the rapprochement between the White House and the Kremlin, worried that Europe could be cut out of the crafting of a future Ukraine peace deal entirely.
During a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, Witkoff called the Kremlin chief a "humanitarian," attracting bipartisan condemnation in the U.S. and horror among many of America's allies.
Days later, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said they had spoken with Putin, a rare contact that cracked European unity as several other leaders spoke out against the move.
A temporary truce brokered by U.S. first lady Melania Trump specifically for the southern Ukrainian town of Oleshky expired on Sunday without any reported violations. U.S., Ukrainian and Russian officials hailed the localized ceasefire as a "success," but significant doubts remain about whether a nationwide peace deal can be reached, with no evidence either side has budged on their demands since previous rounds of negotiations.
Zelensky has in recent weeks decried what he called unfair pressure on Ukraine to bend in negotiations, rather than the U.S. forcing Russia to make concessions.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Tobias Meyjes and Dave Siminoff.
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