Concrete apartment blocks of nine and twelve storeys stand dark against a deep-blue night sky with a bright moon and faint stars, only a handful of windows faintly lit, bare trees in front of them and a few dark parked cars on an unlit street below.

The Strike

Dnipro Goes Dark After a Second Night of Jets

Russia sent 164 drones, 112 of them jet-powered, Ukraine’s Air Force said; President Zelensky said more than 600,000 people in Dnipro and its region lost power.

KYIV, Ukraine, Nov. 8 — Russia sent 164 drones at Ukraine overnight into Sunday, 112 of them jet-powered, by the count of Ukraine’s Air Force. For a second night running, more than two-thirds of the drones were jets. The Air Force also counted three Kh-59/69 guided missiles, fired from over the Sea of Azov, and reported hits at 23 locations.The CountThe Air Force counts each night from 6 p.m. Kyiv time. Its drone total puts Shahed-type drones, the jets among them, in one tally with Gerbera drones and Parody decoys. These are its preliminary figures, not independently verified.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 600,000 people in Dnipro and the region around it were left without power. “There was an attack on the Dnipropetrovsk region in the night. The Russians struck energy,” he wrote on Telegram on Sunday morning, in Ukrainian; translations here are this paper’s.

The two nights press on the weak points Ukraine’s own officials have named. Against conventional Shaheds, effectiveness “already exceeds 90%,” the defense minister, Yevhenii Khmara, told journalists last month, in Ukrinform’s English account. “The challenge now is jet-powered drones, which require different interception speeds,” he said. Mr. Khmara also said Ukraine had successfully intercepted jet drones and was expanding the systems that worked. And against ballistic missiles, Mr. Zelensky wrote on Saturday, “a significant shortage of interceptors for the Patriots persists,” which the United States, above all, could help overcome. Of the 36 ballistic missiles fired overnight into Saturday, he said, only four were stopped, as this paper reported on Saturday.

On both mornings, the Air Force reported a lower share of jet drones shot down or suppressed than of other drones. By 8 a.m. Kyiv time on Sunday the Air Force reported 137 drones shot down or suppressed, 88 of them jets, with several still in the air: 79 percent of the jets, against 49 of the other 52 drones. It gave no figure for missiles downed. The night before, it counted 137 jets among 172 drones, or 80 percent. Jet-heavy nights are not new: on the morning of Oct. 30, the Air Force counted 83 jets among 113 drones, or 73 percent.

The damage ran beyond Dnipro. In the Zhytomyr region alone, Mr. Zelensky said, 140 apartment blocks were left without heating, and the situation in the Kharkiv region was difficult. On Sunday morning Ukrenergo, the national grid operator, said emergency power cuts were in force in the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions, and that the published schedules there no longer applied. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrenergo said, the situation “remains extremely difficult,” though it expected to restore power to all consumers by the end of the day, at first in rotation.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its drones had hit a 330-kilovolt substation near Biloshytsi, in the Zhytomyr region, which it said powered Ukraine’s military industry. That is Russia’s claim; Ukraine’s statements named no site. The ministry also said it had destroyed 142 Ukrainian drones overnight, over regions including the Moscow region.

Mr. Zelensky put the week’s total at 115 missiles of various types, almost 1,900 guided aerial bombs and more than 3,000 attack drones. “If the world does not have enough anti-ballistic defense to protect the Ukrainian sky, the missiles must be stopped on the assembly lines,” he wrote, and said he was counting on a strong 22nd package of European Union sanctions.The AskOn Saturday Mr. Zelensky said new packages of energy support for Ukraine were coming, and that Ukraine would be represented at meetings being prepared in the Group of Seven format.

Sources

  1. Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram, “Night into Nov. 8: three Kh-59/69 missiles and 164 drones, 112 jets; 137 drones downed or suppressed (post 94139),” Nov. 8, 2026.
  2. Volodymyr Zelensky, on Telegram (in Ukrainian), “Statement: Dnipro outages, Zhytomyr heating, the week’s totals (post 21723),” Nov. 8, 2026.
  3. Ukrenergo, on Telegram (in Ukrainian), “Emergency outages in Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions; Dnipropetrovsk region (post 5623),” Nov. 8, 2026.
  4. Ukrenergo, on Telegram (in Ukrainian), “Power restrictions for Nov. 8 (post 5622),” Nov. 7, 2026.
  5. Volodymyr Zelensky, on Telegram (in Ukrainian), “After a meeting on the strike: four of 36 missiles neutralized; Patriot interceptors; KN-23 (post 21717),” Nov. 7, 2026.
  6. Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram, “Night into Nov. 7: missiles and 172 drones, 137 jets (post 93936),” Nov. 7, 2026.
  7. Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on Telegram, “Night into Oct. 30: missiles and 113 drones, 83 jets (post 91428),” Oct. 30, 2026.
  8. Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, on Telegram (in Russian), “Claims a 330 kV substation near Biloshytsi, Zhytomyr region, hit overnight (post 68838),” Nov. 8, 2026.
  9. Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, on Telegram (in Russian), “Claims 142 Ukrainian drones destroyed overnight (post 68839),” Nov. 8, 2026.
  10. Ukrinform, “Ukraine already has interceptor drones for jet-powered Shaheds, scaling up production – Khmara,” Oct. 11, 2026.
  11. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, “Ukrenergo Transmission Network Modernisation.”