A Russian jet-powered drone set homes on fire in Kharkiv’s Osnovianskyi district during the night, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) reported. A small child was among the people hurt. Around 13:00 on 28 October, another Russian drone hit the same district, starting a fire, killing one person and injuring two, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Of the 88 Shahed-type drones Russia launched from 18:00 on 27 October, 38 were jet-powered, the Air Force reported. By its preliminary count at 08:00, defenses had downed or jammed 31 of those 38. Several drones were still in the air. Russia also fired an Iskander-M or S-400 ballistic missile from Taganrog. Even so, Russian weapons hit eight locations, and debris fell on two more.

One strike, a casualty count that shifted

Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov reported a drone strike on the district at 22:42 on 27 October. At 23:12, he clarified that a child hurt in the strike had acute stress reaction. At 23:39, he listed four people hurt: women aged 32 and 65, a 56-year-old man, and a 4-year-old boy. Three went to hospital. Eight minutes later, he added that a 65-year-old woman had acute stress reaction. His morning summary of the day’s strikes lists two 65-year-old women in Kharkiv, one wounded and one with acute stress.

The SES put the number of people hurt at five, including the child. Rescuers said a jet-powered drone struck the area, starting a 2,500 m² fire.

Kharkiv’s last two days

The Osnovianskyi fire was part of a run of Russian strikes on Kharkiv and the area around it. On the evening of 26 October, Russian multiple rocket launchers hit the city’s Novobavarskyi district, killing two people and hurting four. That night, jet drones struck three places in Kharkiv district, which surrounds the city. One hit, in the settlement of Vilshany, left people hurt. The SES counted three injured that night.

During the day on 27 October, another Russian jet drone hit a warehouse in the city’s Slobidskyi district. Preliminary reports showed no casualties. Drones also hit the Shevchenkivskyi district that afternoon, wounding one person, Terekhov said. Another hit damaged an administrative building in the Kholodnohirskyi district, he added. Hours later came the strike on Osnovianskyi. Across Kharkiv Oblast, 14 people were hurt over the past day, including a child, Syniehubov’s morning summary shows. In Osnovianskyi, rescuers were again working under the threat of repeat strikes.

Russian forces struck a warehouse belonging to Ukrainian publishing house KSD in Kharkiv on 27 October, disrupting the publisher’s planned November releases. No employees were injured, but the company is still assessing the damage and losses.

The attack came on the Day of Ukrainian Writing and Language, a national holiday celebrating Ukraine’s language and literary heritage. It adds to a series of Russian strikes on Ukrainian publishing houses, printing facilities, and book warehouses that have destroyed millions of books and disrupted the country’s publishing industry.

KSD announced the strike on social media, saying it had planned to greet readers on the holiday and reveal its November releases but instead had to deal with the attack. The publisher said strikes in the area were continuing, preventing it from determining the full extent of the damage.

The company had planned to begin releasing its new books on 5 November. It has now postponed the announcements while it assesses the situation and determines how to proceed.

“We really want to show you the new releases we had prepared for November,” KSD said. “But for now, as we clarify the details, we cannot yet assess the scale of the destruction and understand how we will work going forward.”

The publisher said it would share updates as more information became available.

Russian forces struck a warehouse building in Kharkiv’s Slobidskyi District with a drone, as Moscow continues targeting civilian and industrial infrastructure across Ukraine.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service pic.twitter.com/F6Ee7VybbI

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) October 27, 2026

Russia’s attacks devastate Ukraine’s book industry

KSD’s warehouse is the latest publishing facility affected by Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s book industry. In July and August alone, Russian attacks destroyed around 13 million books, nearly a third of the number Ukrainian publishers printed in all of 2025, according to the Ukrainian publishing industry.

On 1 August, a Russian strike on a warehouse used by the Ranok publishing group in Kharkiv destroyed around 8 million books, including hundreds of thousands of school textbooks. A separate attack on a printing facility in July destroyed print runs and book materials belonging to numerous Ukrainian publishers.

In October, Russian strikes also damaged a Kyiv warehouse belonging to publisher Knyholav, destroying tens of thousands of books, including titles and reprints that had replaced stock lost in an earlier attack.

These strikes threaten more than publishers’ finances. Destroyed print runs and damaged warehouses delay new releases, deprive readers of Ukrainian-language books, and force publishers to spend scarce resources replacing titles instead of developing new ones.

KSD has not yet disclosed its losses or announced a revised release schedule for its November books.

Artem Koval suffered severe injuries in the drone strike and was taken to hospital. Despite a week of efforts to save him, doctors were unable to overcome his life-threatening injuries, the Vodolaha Village Council said.

US President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries a disgrace in an interview with Newsmax and questioned President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s will to settle the war on 15 October. His statements came after he made a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to allow Russian diesel back into the US ahead of the mid-term elections in the US.

Kyiv says its long-range strikes have knocked out more than half of Russia's refining capacity, one of the few levers it controls on Moscow's war income, according to Ukraine's Defense Ministry. This is part of efforts to reduce the aggressor's capabilities to launch assaults, including the latest, during which four Russian regions fired 39 Iskander-M, North Korean KN-23, hypersonic Zircon, and supersonic anti-ship cruise Oniks missiles, Zelenskyy said.

Trump criticizes Zelenskyy over oil prices while remaining silent on Russian strikes

Earlier, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine stopped refinery strikes for three days to meet US wishes after Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” on 11 October. At the same time, Russia struck a Kharkiv heat-and-power plant within hours of the announcement, he emphasized.

Meanwhile, in the interview with Newsmax, Trump said Zelenskyy is only pushing world oil prices higher.

“Well, I think that’s a disgrace,” he said.

He added that Ukraine has other options: “There are a lot of targets that you can hit.”

At the same time, Trump didn't say a word about Russian strikes on Ukraine's civilian buildings and power infrastructure ahead of the winter.

Trump compares Zelenskyy to a circus showman

The US leader said he is “not a big fan” of Zelenskyy. He claimed both sides “would like to see it end,” but that he finds Zelenskyy “more difficult to deal with than Putin.”

He also said that he believes the depletion of US ammunition stockpiles is linked to the aid provided to Ukraine under the Biden administration, rather than the war with Iran.

Ukraine has repeatedly offered to help the US counter Iranian drones during the operation. The New York Times reported that a Ukrainian team departed the day after the US made such a request.

Nevertheless, despite Kyiv’s offers and actions, Trump once again compared Zelenskyy to P. T. Barnum, the 19th-century American circus showman, saying that he received a tremendous number of Patriots and Tomahawks.

However, there is no public confirmation that Tomahawk missiles were transferred to Ukraine during the Biden administration.

Within hours of Donald Trump announcing an immediate halt to Russian and Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure, Moscow struck a major power plant in Kharkiv. Kyiv has agreed to a reciprocal ceasefire, but Russia has yet to confirm its participation, leaving serious doubts over what Washington has actually secured.

President Donald Trump’s announcement of an immediate ceasefire covering Russian and Ukrainian energy infrastructure was overtaken by events on Sunday evening when Russian forces struck a major thermal power station in Kharkiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Ukraine’s willingness to suspend attacks on Russian energy facilities, but said Moscow was continuing its bombardment even as Washington presented the arrangement as an accomplished diplomatic breakthrough.

The contradiction emerged within hours of Trump declaring that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop targeting each other’s energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy, responding in his evening address on 11 October, welcomed the proposal but reported that Russian attack drones remained active over Ukrainian territory and that Kharkiv’s CHP-5 thermal power station had just been struck.

The Ukrainian president made clear that Kyiv had not rejected the American initiative. Ukraine was prepared to refrain from attacking Russian energy installations and expected Moscow to accept the same restrictions. However, no corresponding commitment had been publicly confirmed by the Kremlin, and Washington had provided no explanation of how the supposed ceasefire would be implemented.

The timing was particularly significant because Ukraine had apparently not been informed that a binding agreement had been concluded. According to accounts of the announcement, Zelenskyy was unaware of Trump’s declaration before it became public, although he subsequently indicated his readiness to support the initiative.

His response therefore amounted to an acceptance of the proposed terms rather than confirmation that a negotiated ceasefire was already in force.

More than 200 attacks on Ukraine’s power network

The reported strike on Kharkiv came at the end of a particularly destructive week for Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. Zelenskyy said Russian forces had carried out more than 200 attacks against electricity generation and transmission facilities over seven days, alongside 17 strikes targeting gas and oil installations.

He also reported that more than 150 Ukrainians had been killed and over 700 wounded during the week. These figures, supplied by the Ukrainian authorities, have not been independently verified.

The continuing bombardment places additional pressure on Ukraine’s power network as winter approaches. Thermal power stations and substations remain particularly vulnerable, while damage to generating capacity can disrupt electricity, heating and water supplies across entire urban districts.

Washington’s pressure on Kyiv

Trump’s ceasefire announcement follows an increasingly bitter dispute over Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries, which have damaged Moscow’s fuel production and distribution infrastructure.

The American president has blamed Ukrainian strikes for worsening international diesel shortages and rising fuel prices. His administration has also threatened restrictions on military assistance and intelligence sharing if Kyiv refuses to suspend its campaign against Russian refineries.

Meanwhile, Washington has reached an arrangement with Moscow permitting substantial Russian diesel exports under a temporary easing of sanctions. Zelenskyy has criticised the decision, arguing that additional energy revenues could strengthen Russia’s capacity to continue its invasion.

For Ukraine, refinery attacks have become an important means of disrupting Russian military logistics and imposing economic costs on Moscow. Agreeing to suspend them without guarantees that Russian strikes will also cease would remove one of Kyiv’s principal instruments of pressure.

The diplomatic sequence has consequently raised questions about whether Trump’s initiative offers equivalent obligations to both countries, or primarily serves Washington’s immediate objective of stabilising fuel supplies.

Kremlin silence leaves ceasefire in doubt

By Sunday evening, Moscow had issued no public confirmation that Putin had accepted the arrangement. Washington had provided no details of its duration, the installations covered or any mechanism for verifying compliance.

An agreement confined to energy infrastructure would also leave both armies free to continue other military operations, including attacks on cities, industrial installations and military positions.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had received the necessary orders, while Kyiv awaited clarification of Washington’s discussions with Moscow. He maintained that Ukraine supported credible measures to end the fighting but expected Russia to demonstrate a corresponding commitment.

The immediate question is whether Trump obtained an undertaking from Putin that Moscow is prepared to honour. Until Russia confirms the terms and its attacks cease, the announced energy truce remains a presidential declaration rather than an established cessation of hostilities.