Ukrainian drones blew up a Russian ammunition depot near Khrustalnyi in occupied Luhansk Oblast overnight on 27 October, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. Drones also hit the oblast’s capital, Luhansk, for hours, and part of the city lost power. Russia’s occupation authorities have not commented.

Russia keeps pushing toward the last big Ukrainian-held cities in Donetsk Oblast. Its artillery there runs on shells kept in rear depots across occupied territory, and those depots sit within reach of Ukraine’s mid-range drones. Each depot lost behind the front pushes Russia to store and move its shells from farther back. That lengthens the supply runs Ukraine’s drones already hunt on the roads of occupied Ukraine.

Secondary detonations near Khrustalnyi lasted over an hour

The drone attack on occupied Luhansk Oblast went on for several hours, Exilenova+ said. Ukraine’s Defense Forces hit the depot near Khrustalnyi, and secondary detonations continued for more than an hour, the channel added. It posted night footage of a large fire glowing on the horizon.

An attack by strike drones has been ongoing for several hours in the occupied Luhansk region.

The Defence Forces have blown up an ammunition depot near the village of Khrustalnyi. Secondary detonations have been ongoing for over an hour. pic.twitter.com/yEGTgrfsm7

— Exilenova+ (@Exilenova_plus) October 26, 2026

Russia has occupied Khrustalnyi, formerly called Krasnyi Luch, since 2014. The city lies about 65 km southwest of Luhansk. It serves Russian troops as a rear and logistics hub.

Luhansk lost power as drones hit its former airfield

The attack on the city of Luhansk lasted more than four hours, Petro Andriushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of Occupation, said. Residents reported many explosions and fires in several districts, and the power went out. The main strike hit the city’s former airfield, he added. In October 2023, Ukraine’s ATACMS missiles destroyed Russian helicopters at air bases in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk.

On Yandex Maps, the Russian online mapping service, the struck area near Luhansk airport is blurred, Andriushchenko noted. Yandex blurs military and critical infrastructure sites this way, he wrote.

Exilenova+ also reported a series of explosions in Luhansk. The oblast had been under a mass drone attack for an hour, with dozens of hits in different towns, Ukrainian Telegram channel DroneBomber wrote late on 26 October.

Neither side’s military has mentioned the attack on Luhansk Oblast. Ukraine’s General Staff left it out of its morning report. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 222 drones over Russian regions, occupied Crimea, and the Black Sea, without listing Luhansk Oblast.

Pro-Russian local channels confirmed the attack from their side. A channel covering occupied Luhansk Oblast wrote that eyewitnesses saw a large fire and secondary detonations in Khrustalnyi. LIC, the news agency of Russia’s occupation administration in Luhansk Oblast, reported a series of powerful explosions over Luhansk and a visible glow.

The third drone night over occupied Luhansk Oblast in a week

Drones have now hit occupied Luhansk Oblast on three nights in seven days. On 21 October, they struck the seized telecom building in the city of Luhansk that houses the occupation’s mobile operator. Two nights later, strikes cut communications and power in part of the city.

Khrustalnyi itself burned on 12 October, when strikes hit a former motor depot housing Russian troops. Ukraine also hit an ammunition depot there in June 2022. Back then, the site supplied Russia’s offensive on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Blasts in Mariupol, Berdiansk, and Melitopol, and Russian claims from Bryansk

Occupied Mariupol heard two waves of explosions overnight, and the power went out after the attack, Andriushchenko also said. In occupied Berdiansk, several blasts near the Ekvator shopping center preceded a large fire, he added.

On the evening of 26 October, strike drones attacked occupied Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Exilenova+ said. Locals also reported FPV drones hitting targets in the city.

In Russia’s city of Bryansk, Governor Yegor Kovalchuk claimed a night drone attack injured six people and damaged three apartment blocks. He said a man also died when a drone-dropped explosive went off. Yevhen Balytskyi, the Russian-installed head of occupied Zaporizhzhia Oblast, claimed a drone hit a Simferopol–Moscow bus near Prymorsk, killing one passenger.

As the attacks began, Russian monitoring resources tracked up to 350 Ukrainian drones in the air, DroneBomber said. Most flew over Bryansk and Oryol oblasts, with more groups near Crimea, Novorossiysk, and occupied Luhansk Oblast.

Ukraine’s drones also weigh on Russia’s road to occupied Crimea. Truck traffic on the R-280 highway from Rostov Oblast has halved to about 1,000 a day because of drone attacks. Anatolii Tsurkin, who heads a carriers’ association set up in occupied Crimea, said so.

Kyiv set aside $113 million for the first phase of a program of middle-strike drones aimed at Russia’s rear. That makes nights like this one likely to keep coming for depots, airfields, and roads across occupied Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials contacted the White House, CIA, and Pentagon after the restrictions, which Ukraine says affected both Starlink and Starshield, Axios reported on 14 October. A senior US official told Axios the Trump administration had nothing to do with the restrictions. On the same day, Elon Musk said on X that Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government, and that any speed or usage limits are decided by the US military and ultimately the president.

The restrictions could affect Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian attack drones and carry out mid-range strikes against Russian forces and military targets in occupied Ukrainian territories. A speed cap of 160 km/h was insufficient to intercept some jet-powered drones, an unnamed Ukrainian official told Axios. Ukrainian officials told Axios they suspect SpaceX imposed the restrictions to pressure Kyiv to accept US President Donald Trump’s demand to stop striking Russian oil refineries, though the motive remains unconfirmed. But Starlink does not work inside Russia, and the drones attacking Russian oil facilities use other communications systems, according to Reuters.

What Musk and the White House said

Musk did not directly address the throttling, Axios noted. Starlink, he wrote, “is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX,” limited to civilian or defensive use.

White House officials told the Ukrainians they don’t have control over SpaceX, two sources told Axios. One said the administration would reach out to SpaceX to figure out what happened. The White House did not immediately respond to Axios’s request for comment.

How the cap disrupted drone missions

Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov said on 14 October that SpaceX had imposed a 160 km/h limit on Starshield’s “military package” overnight without warning. Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps said mid-range strike drones must reach high speed quickly and that an unstable connection “will make it impossible to launch such aircraft or use them as intended.” One unit on the Huliaipole front had to cancel some missions, the corps told Novynarnia.

Ukrainian officials told Axios the system turned off when drones exceeded 160 km/h, and sometimes 80 km/h, before service was partially restored on 14 October. The Defense Ministry said SpaceX continues to restrict Starlink to 160 km/h and that it remains in communication “with partners and SpaceX regarding stable service conditions and the prevention of sudden restrictions,” Axios reported.

A diesel deal

The restrictions followed Trump’s 9 October deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin easing sanctions on Russian diesel. A day later, Trump told reporters: “We said you could do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries,” the Kyiv Independent reported.