At least 73 injured as Russia bombs Kharkiv hospital, power grid

Kharkiv — Russia bombed a hospital in Kharkiv overnight, injuring at least 73 people, while striking energy infrastructure across nine Ukrainian regions in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a “complex, massive attack”. The barrage came a day after at least 31 people were killed in a Russian strike on an aid distribution centre, and days before US-brokered peace talks are due to open in Abu Dhabi.

Zelenskyy said on X that “the Russians directly struck a city clinical hospital. Seventy-three people were injured, and the cardiology department, where people were receiving treatment, was damaged.” Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, confirmed on Telegram that the hospital sustained heavy damage in Monday night’s bombardment, with more than 1,000 windows shattered, Al Jazeera reported.

According to Zelenskyy, Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles overnight. He said the main targets were power generation facilities and substations in the Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv and Rivne regions. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had hit electricity facilities in the Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, claiming the sites supplied power to the Ukrainian army and military factories.

The human cost of the energy campaign is already measurable. Governor Vitalii Bunechko said more than 180,000 people in the Zhytomyr region were without power on Tuesday morning, and Odesa has introduced scheduled outages. Russia also reported effects on its own side: two employees at an oil refinery in Yaroslavl were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack that caused a fire, according to Governor Mikhail Yevrayev.

The escalation lands as diplomacy accelerates. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said US, Russian and Ukrainian officials would meet in Abu Dhabi next week, with talks focused on “post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace”. US negotiators will first meet French, German, British, EU and NATO representatives in Brussels this week to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.

For Kyiv, the stakes of Tuesday’s US midterm elections are unusually direct. Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine, reporting from Kyiv, noted there have been no significant US military aid packages for Ukraine since the Trump administration took office and Congress flipped Republican – compared with $60bn under President Biden. Europe has largely filled the gap, but restoring US aid has topped Zelenskyy’s agenda for over six months. The Abu Dhabi meeting, and the vote in Washington, will show whether that changes.