This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Russian overnight deadly missile and drone strikes on Ukraine continue as Kyiv says it has deployed special forces to defend the city of Pokrovsk, a key eastern stronghold.
At least six people were killed and dozens of others, including children, wounded across Ukrainian regions on November 1, officials reported.
According to local authorities, Russian strikes targeted at least seven Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours, damaging residential buildings and disrupting municipal services.
Ukraine’s southern Mykolayiv and Kherson regions, which were the subject of intense land fighting in 2022 and are now located just across the river from Kremlin forces, were among those hit the hardest.
Vitaliy Kim, head of the Mykolayiv military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile strike on the city of Mykolayiv killed one person and injured 19 others, including a child, adding that the attack damaged a gas station and several vehicles.
In Russian shelling of the Kherson region, three more people were killed and at least 22 wounded, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said.
Prokudin added that 26 villages across the region came under fire in the latest attacks.
In Ukraine’s east-central Dnipropetrovsk region, where border evacuations are underway amid the frontline’s gradual westward shift, one person was killed and two others wounded. Another death was later reported in the neighboring Donetsk region.
The head of the Chernihiv military administration, Vyacheslav Chaus, reported that Russian overnight strikes also hit the historic northern city of Novhorod-Siverskiy.
Chaus added that the attack also damaged the region’s administrative buildings, shops, a pharmacy, and a downtown coffee shop, injuring an elderly woman.
“Seven drones hit the territory of an agricultural enterprise in [the town of] Koryukivka. A hangar caught fire and rescuers extinguished the fire… A 66‑year‑old civilian woman was injured in the shelling,” he wrote on the Telegram.
Special Forces Active In Key Frontline City, Kyiv Says
Elsewhere, Ukrainian military intelligence reported that a special forces operation is now ongoing in Ukraine’s Pokrovsk city, located in war-torn Donetsk region.
Several Ukrainian and Western media outlets reported that Kyiv recently began an operation as Russian forces claimed to have encircled the Ukrainian forces defending the city.
While Moscow’s forces claimed to have repelled an assault, according to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, the operation was still ongoing as of November 1, with military sources inside the Ukrainian intelligence describing the statement about the defeat as Russian provocation.
On the same day, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said the operation was ongoing, claiming the city was not blocked and that his forces were doing “everything” to keep logistics in the area alive.
“Our soldiers have to hold back the pressure of a multithousand-strong enemy force, which continues attempts to infiltrate residential areas and cut off our supply routes,” Syrskiy wrote on Telegram.
“The enemy in Pokrovsk is paying the highest price for attempting to carry out the Kremlin dictator’s orders to occupy Ukraine’s Donbas,” he added.
The situation inside Pokrovsk was described by Ukrainian troops as deteriorating. Estimates suggest that between 200 and 400 Russian soldiers are now embedded within the city’s eastern districts, using urban terrain, basements and civilian disguises to evade Ukrainian detection.
Throughout 2025, Pokrovsk has become the fiercest area on the Ukrainian frontlines.
Similarly to Bakhmut in 2023 and Avdiyivka in 2024, which were previously captured by Russian forces in the bloodiest and longest battles of the war, the city is now witnessing the most intense fighting.
Russian forces have slowly advanced on its eastern and southern edges, seizing key roads and strangling supply lines into the city.
Like the region’s major cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, which remain under Ukrainian control, Pokrovsk holds significant military value, providing Ukrainian forces with vital supply routes.
Analysts warn that the city’s fall could open a route west into Dnipropetrovsk for Russian forces, putting Ukraine’s southern regions at risk.
Ukraine Claims Attack On Key Pipeline
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military has claimed it struck a Russian petroleum‑products pipeline in the Ramenskoye District of the Moscow region on October 31, adding that the attack caused explosions and suspended operations at the site.
The attack destroyed transportation pipes for petrol, diesel, and aviation fuel for the Russian Army, the Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said on Telegram.
Footage shared by the agency appeared to show a pipeline site, with aerial views of fire and thick black smoke rising from a cut‑off section of large‑diameter piping. The claim cannot be independently verified.
There was no public confirmation from Russian authorities of the alleged pipeline attack.
The country’s defense ministry said on November 1 that its air defenses had downed 98 Ukrainian drones overnight, adding that eleven drones were destroyed over the Moscow region.
Kyiv has been targeting Russian oil refineries in recent months, increasing the strain on both Russia’s military capabilities and its wider economy.
