Kharkiv Hospital Hit: 73 Injured as Russia Targets Ukraine Grid

A Russian missile strike on a hospital in Kharkiv injured at least 73 people on Monday night, marking the latest escalation in attacks on Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure. The bombardment occurred just one day after a separate strike on an aid distribution center killed at least 31 people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the hospital took a direct hit while patients were being treated. He reported damage to the cardiology department. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov posted that more than 1,000 windows in the facility were shattered. Zelenskyy said Russia launched 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles, and 59 cruise missiles overnight.

Power generation sites and substations were the primary targets of the offensive. Zelenskyy listed affected regions including Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv, and Rivne. The Russian Ministry of Defense said its forces attacked electricity facilities in Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv. It claimed these sites supplied power to Ukrainian armed forces and military factories.

Governor Vitalii Bunechko reported that more than 180,000 people in Zhytomyr lacked electricity on Tuesday morning. Scheduled outages were also introduced in Odesa. In a counter-attack, Ukraine launched a drone strike on an oil refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl. Regional Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said the attack started a fire and injured two employees.

The strikes coincide with renewed diplomatic efforts by the United States. Officials from the US, Russia, and Ukraine are scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi next week. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said the agenda will cover post-war security, tension reduction, and humanitarian work. He also announced that US negotiators would meet with representatives from France, Germany, the UK, the EU, and NATO in Brussels this week to discuss security guarantees and economic rebuilding.

These developments occur against the backdrop of Tuesday's US midterm elections. Al Jazeera correspondent Audrey MacAlpine reported from Kyiv that the elections are consequential for Ukrainians. She noted that no significant military aid packages have arrived since the Trump administration took office. This contrasts with the $60 billion in aid provided during the early years of the war under President Biden. Europe has largely covered the funding gap, while Zelenskyy has prioritized restoring US aid for more than six months.