As Russia’s full-scale invasion grinds toward a fourth winter, this past week in Ukraine has been dominated by two interconnected battles: the brutal urban struggle for the eastern city of Pokrovsk and an escalating campaign against energy infrastructure that is plunging millions into darkness. From 6 to 13 November, the front lines shifted only incrementally on the map, but the intensity of shelling, drone attacks and long-range strikes underscored that the war is now being fought as much over electricity grids and industrial capacity as over trenches and streets.
On the eastern front, Pokrovsk remains the epicenter. Russian forces are pushing deeper into the city and neighboring Myrnohrad, using dense fog to mask infiltration teams and armored columns. A video geolocated by Reuters shows Russian soldiers entering Pokrovsk on motorbikes and battered civilian vehicles in scenes likened to “Mad Max,” visual proof that assault units have reached at least part of the urban area. Moscow claims its troops are advancing from several directions and that the city, long described by Russian media as “the gateway to Donetsk,” will provide a springboard toward the remaining Ukrainian-held strongholds of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
Kyiv emphatically denies that Pokrovsk is encircled or lost. The Ukrainian military says the “defense of the Pokrovsko-Myrnohrad agglomeration continues” and insists that food and ammunition supplies are still reaching the garrison, though spokespeople admit that logistics have become increasingly complicated. Ukrainian officials describe the “most intense fighting” as taking place in the city’s industrial zone, reflecting a pattern seen earlier in Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where factories and warehouses became last-ditch defensive bastions. Independent analysts at the Institute for the Study of War say Russia is trying to close a Ukrainian salient near Pokrovsk, especially along the northern shoulder of the pocket, but is struggling to concentrate enough forces to complete an encirclement.
Beyond Pokrovsk, Russia continues to grind forward along parts of the Donetsk and southern fronts. The Russian Defense Ministry says its troops have captured Hnativka in Donetsk Oblast as well as Solodke and Nove in the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region, claims that Kyiv has not fully confirmed but partially acknowledges through reports of “tactical withdrawals” from several settlements in the south. Ukraine’s top commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, has warned that fog and low cloud are limiting the effectiveness of Ukrainian drones while allowing Russian infantry to infiltrate positions in Zaporizhzhia, forcing “gruelling battles” to stabilize the line. This week he admitted that the situation in parts of Zaporizhzhia had “significantly worsened”, even as he stressed that the fiercest clashes are still in the besieged Pokrovsk area.
The northern sector around Kupiansk and Lyman also saw renewed pressure. Russia says it is “curling around” south of Kupiansk, threatening Ukrainian supply routes in Kharkiv region. Ukrainian commanders report an uptick in fighting there, with artillery duels and small-unit assaults testing overstretched defenders. President Volodymyr Zelensky has said around 170,000 Russian troops are concentrated in Donetsk alone, part of a front that now stretches roughly 1,250 kilometers. The Kremlin’s strategy appears to be a slow, corrosive advance across multiple axes rather than a single decisive offensive, gambling that Ukraine’s shortages of manpower and ammunition will eventually force retreats.
While territorial gains remain limited, Russia has significantly escalated its long-range attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. Overnight on 8 November, Moscow launched a major wave of missiles and drones that struck power and gas infrastructure in multiple regions, including Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv. At least seven people were killed, among them residents in Dnipro, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, when a drone hit an apartment building and other civilian targets near energy facilities. Ukraine’s state power operator reported that generating capacity briefly fell to “zero” the following day, forcing grid operators to rely on emergency imports and backup systems. By mid-week, many areas of the country were enduring scheduled outages lasting 10–12 hours per day, with city streets lit by torches and generator hum replacing the usual urban noise.
Russian strikes on the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions this week demonstrated how closely the energy and battlefield campaigns are linked. Shelling in Kostiantynivka, a town west of Pokrovsk that serves as a logistics hub for the eastern front, killed at least one person and wounded others, while further attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk region injured civilians and damaged infrastructure. In Zaporizhzhia, an explosion from unexploded ammunition inside a hospital ward injured a man, a reminder of the lingering dangers posed by years of shelling. Ukrainian officials describe these attacks as part of a deliberate strategy of “energy terror” designed to break civilian morale and complicate military logistics.
Kyiv, however, is responding with its own long-range campaign aimed at Russia’s energy and war-supporting infrastructure. On Sunday, Ukrainian drones struck power and heating facilities across the Belgorod, Kursk and Voronezh regions, leaving more than 20,000 residents without electricity and cutting power to 10 municipalities in Kursk after a fire at a power plant in the village of Korenevo. Regional officials reported a separate fire at a heating facility in Voronezh and said repairs would take days. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have shot down dozens of drones, but local authorities acknowledged significant damage to electricity and heating networks.
Earlier in the week, Ukrainian forces hit the Stavrolen chemical plant in Budionnovsk in Russia’s Stavropol region, a facility that produces polymers used in composite materials for the Russian military. Ukrainian sources say they also targeted a pumping station at the Hvardiiske oil depot in occupied Crimea and struck the Saratov oil refinery, a major producer of petroleum products. Russia, for its part, reported destroying Ukrainian naval drones near the Black Sea port of Tuapse, whose fuel export infrastructure was damaged in an earlier Ukrainian attack. These reciprocal strikes highlight how both sides are using relatively cheap drones to hit high-value energy and industrial targets far behind the front line.
The human cost of this week’s escalation is still being counted. In Ukraine, at least seven people were killed and dozens injured in the major nationwide strike on 8 November alone, with further casualties in subsequent shelling and drone attacks in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Millions are enduring long blackouts in sub-zero temperatures, relying on improvised stoves, power banks and neighborhood “warm points” to get through the night. In Russia, Ukrainian drone and artillery strikes have left tens of thousands temporarily without power in border regions and caused sporadic civilian casualties; a man wounded in a drone attack in the village of Belyanka in Belgorod died in hospital this week, and other strikes in the region have previously killed several residents. Precise military casualty figures on both sides remain classified and are impossible to verify, but Ukrainian and Western estimates suggest that Russia is paying a heavy price in personnel and equipment for its incremental gains.
Diplomatically, the week brought renewed statements of support but no sign of a breakthrough toward ending the war. G7 foreign ministers meeting in Canada strongly condemned Russia’s attacks on energy facilities and reiterated that support for Ukraine’s defense and energy security would continue. Several governments announced new financial or technical assistance, including funding for emergency repairs to Ukraine’s power and heating systems, and additional sanctions targeting Russia’s defense-industrial and energy sectors. European governments continued internal discussions over multi-year funding plans for Ukraine and the use of profits from frozen Russian assets, while Kyiv prepared to receive another tranche of EU macro-financial support.
Compiled by Ana Dumbadze
