Ukraine struck deep inside Russia this week, attacking an oil storage facility in St Petersburg and a drone factory in Rostov Oblast, according to the International Conflict Weekly Briefing for 18-24 October 2026. The Ukraine strikes came as Russia conducted airstrikes on Ukrainian electrical facilities throughout the week.
Hundreds of thousands of households experienced power outages from the Russian strikes, the briefing said. The shift at the end of the week was a limited local truce in Oleshky, Kherson Oblast, rather than a wider halt to fighting.
Power grid under sustained attack
Russian long-range strikes on electricity substations and power plants have left many parts of Ukraine without power, according to UN reporting earlier in October. The country already faced emergency and rolling outages before colder temperatures drove up demand.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday that he was appalled by a wave of attacks that killed civilians across Ukraine over four days, according to Global Issues. They included a strike on two public buses in Kramatorsk that left at least 30 civilians dead, local authorities said.
Since Monday of that week, at least 85 civilians were reportedly killed and 346 injured in Russian strikes, Turk said, describing the scale and manner of the attacks as reprehensible.
Deep strikes and civilian protection
Turk said he was also deeply concerned by reports of Ukrainian attacks that killed and wounded civilians in occupied territory and in Russia, according to the UN report. Civilians are strictly protected under the laws of war and may never be attacked, he warned.
Deliberate attacks on civilians could amount to war crimes and those responsible must be held to account, Turk said. The briefing noted that Ukraine’s deep strikes targeted military-industrial and energy facilities, not civilian areas, according to its synthesis.
Officials said the coming winter will test Ukraine’s power grid further, with repair crews working under fire to restore substations and plants. International partners have pledged equipment and support to keep the grid running.
Energy officials said repair teams would work through the weekend to restore power to affected households, and they urged residents to conserve electricity during peak hours, prepare for possible rolling outages, and to follow official alerts rather than rumours about grid collapse or wider blackouts.
