Russia reports downing nearly 500 drones as Kherson truce collapses and strikes pound Ukraine
Russian air defence systems shot down nearly 500 drones heading towards Moscow, the capital's mayor said on Tuesday (November 3, 2026), as a renewed flare-up in fighting with Ukraine dimmed hopes of progress towards peace.
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced the figure but gave no further details, and the claim could not be independently verified. Ukrainian officials did not immediately respond to the statement.
The reported barrage came two days after a rare local pause in the fighting in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson ended on Sunday (November 1). The truce — the longest since the war erupted in February 2022 — allowed a humanitarian mission to reach Oleshky, a Russian-occupied city in the region.
Hours after that local ceasefire lapsed, a Russian strike hit a village in Zaporizhzhia in south-eastern Ukraine, killing at least 26 people, the acting regional governor said.
Overnight into Tuesday, Ukrainian authorities reported a string of Russian strikes across the country, forcing patients to be evacuated from a medical facility in Kharkiv and prompting neighbouring Poland to activate its air defences.
Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, said on Telegram that a strike hit a passageway between buildings at a medical facility in the Nemyshlianskyi district, wounding 25 people and damaging a building, windows and cars. Preliminary information suggested 200 patients would be moved to other medical facilities, he added.
Kharkiv mayor Igor Terekhov said on Telegram that the city was "under a combined attack by ballistic missiles and guided aerial bombs" and urged residents to be careful. Ukraine's army warned of ballistic missiles heading towards Kharkiv and other regions, including the capital Kyiv, Dnipro and Sumy.
Oleksandr Ganzha, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said a Russian strike hit critical infrastructure in Dnipro as well as in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown.
Poland said it activated air defences to protect its airspace, particularly in areas bordering Ukraine. Warsaw has repeatedly scrambled aircraft and activated ground-based defences during large-scale Russian strikes on western Ukraine.
The renewed violence comes as US special envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington-led talks between Russia and Ukraine were set to resume next week. President Donald Trump has pushed for a settlement to the war, but there has been no breakthrough.
The war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, is now in its fifth year. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions displaced, and large areas of eastern and southern Ukraine remain contested or occupied. Local ceasefire arrangements such as the Kherson pause have been rare and short-lived, with both sides trading blame for violations.
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on medical facilities and requires all parties to take precautions to protect civilians. Independent monitors have repeatedly cautioned that casualty figures from both sides are difficult to verify because of restricted access to front-line areas.
