Moscow and Kyiv traded strikes on November 1, with dozens of drones reportedly destroyed over Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region and energy infrastructure hit in four Ukrainian regions, leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
The governor of Russia's Nizhny Novgorod region, Gleb Nikitin, said that an "industrial enterprise" in the Kstovo district had been struck by a "massive drone attack" overnight, causing "significant damage."
He added that more than 100 drones were destroyed in the attack, with no casualties reported so far.
Ukrainian media reports suggested the strike had hit the LukOil refinery in Kstovo as well as the combined heat and power plant in Novogorkovskaya. RFE/RL could not independently verify the information.
The development came less than 24 hours after the Ukrainian military said it targeted the Russian state-owned Kombinat Kamensky chemical and defense enterprise in Russia's Rostov region with drones and Neptune coastal missile systems.
Bordering Ukraine, the region is a strategically important industrial and logistics hub in southwestern Russia. Last month, Reuters reported that Russia had nearly finished building a major new base for launching jet-powered drones there in just six weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the October 31 attack on the Rostov region had caused tens of millions of dollars' worth of damage, as Kyiv seeks to curb Moscow's war efforts with what it calls "long-range sanctions," referring to its strikes inside Russia.
With the Kremlin showing no interest in compromising to end the war while continuing to pound Ukraine with devastating strikes, the country's military has increasingly responded by targeting energy and military sites deep inside Russia.
On November 1, Zelenskyy said Russia attacked energy infrastructure in four Ukrainian regions overnight, leaving hundreds of thousands without power as cold weather sets in accross the Eastern Europe.
"Just this night, our energy sector in four regions was under Russian attacks: Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytsky. These are substations, transformers, and power lines that provide electricity to our people's homes," he wrote on Telegram.
"Repair crews are working everywhere. As of now, hundreds of thousands of families remain without electricity," Zelenskyy said, adding that this week along Russia has launched 1,940 strike drones, over 1,580 glide bombs, and 44 missiles of various types over Ukraine, 36 of which are ballistic.
"The intensity of the strikes is very high, and the Russians are trying to take maximum advantage of the shortage of ballistic interceptors," he added.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces attacked the country with 433 drones just on November 1 and that the drones were fired from Oryol and Shatalovo in Russia, as well as the Russian-occupied region of Donetsk.
Last Day Of Oleshky Cease-Fire
The evacuation of residents from the Russian-occupied southern Ukrainian city of Oleshky has been completed as Moscow and Kyiv continued a localized cease-fire brokered by US first lady Melania Trump on November 1.
Trapped in the largely ruined city, which was surrounded by land mines and cut off from the outside world, Oleshky residents had endured extreme conditions for months, with little to no access to food, drinking water, medicine, or electricity.
On October 30, dozens of buses carrying civilians left the war-torn area for the first time in more than four years without incident, with people choosing whether to travel to Ukrainian- or Russian-controlled territory.
Melania Trump said on November 1 that "the ceasefire across Oleshky and the surrounding Kherson region has provided residents with the freedom to move, access to food, clean water, medicine, plus a renewed sense of dignity without the constant threat of attack."
"Let Oleshky become the starting point for lasting peace," she wrote on X.
Zelenskyy, thanking the United States and Melania Trump for their mediation, said residents who wished to travel to Ukraine had crossed into the country on October 31.
"Until we got on the buses, we were still afraid," Oleshky evacuee Liubov told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. "We were so worried and nervous. Before that, we couldn't sleep at night, wondering how this would go."
Just before midnight on November 1, Ukrainian Human Rights Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said the truce had concluded.
"The cease-fire, which was in effect from October 27 to November 1, has ended," he said. "This was an important stage of joint humanitarian work together with the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova, coordinated by the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump."
While the humanitarian efforts in Oleshky have set a rare precedent for cooperation between Ukrainian and Russian civilian representatives, the Kremlin said the temporary cease-fire there should not be extrapolated to the broader peace settlement process in Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly said it was not seeking a partial easing of the conflict, urging a complete resolution that would include its hard-line demands, including full control over Ukrainian territories that Russian forces have been unable to seize on the battlefield.
Zelenskyy, in turn, has been for years calling for a leaders' meeting in response, saying that issues surrounding control of Ukrainian territories have to be discussed at the highest level.
As Russian and Ukrainian officials are expected to meet in Abu Dhabi in mid-November amid US-mediated negotiations to end the war, a senior Russian official said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would respond if Zelenskyy wished to speak to him by phone.
"I think he will, of course. Putin has never refused to talk," Putin aide Yuri Ushakov was quoted as telling Russian media on November 1.
Putin has previously sought to cast doubt on Zelenskyy's legitimacy and has repeatedly said the presidents could only meet when a comprehensive peace deal has been agreed, though he has also suggested he and Zelenskyy could meet in Moscow.
The Kremlin knows that the prospect of a meeting in the capital of the country that is attacking Ukraine is unacceptable to Kyiv. Zelenskyy has expressed readiness to meet with Putin in a third country.
