Russian attacks across Ukraine on October 16 killed at least eight people and wounded 60, striking two shopping centers and cutting power to more than a million people, according to Ukrainian officials.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said the day's strikes targeted nine regions. In the eastern city of Kharkiv, a 71-year-old woman and a 58-year-old man were killed and 12 people were wounded in attacks on three districts.
In Kramatorsk, a front-line city in the Donetsk region, two people were killed; two others died in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region.
In the northwestern Volyn region, which borders Poland, a drone strike on a food-processing facility killed one person and wounded eight, governor Roman Romaniuk said. Drones also hit a customs checkpoint and set about 10 trucks ablaze in the town of Kovel, which lies on the main highway linking Kyiv with Poland.
In Rivne, drones struck a large shopping center and several other sites, killing one person and wounding seven, regional governor Oleksandr Koval said. A shopping center in Sumy, near the front line, was also hit.
Widespread power outages
Ukraine's Energy Ministry said repair crews had restored power to more than a million people left without electricity on October 16. In Volyn, about 370,000 households lost power, of which at least 100,000 had been reconnected. Lutsk mayor Andriy Razumovskyi said outages in the regional center could last at least 24 hours. Most of the Rivne region was also without power.
The same day, Russia's chief of the general staff reported to President Vladimir Putin that the military had marshaled the resources needed to continue its air campaign against Ukraine's energy system.
Rising civilian toll
The United Nations said the same day that civilian casualties in Ukraine had risen sharply. According to UN human rights monitors, at least 328 civilians were killed and 2,105 wounded in Ukraine last month, an 85% increase compared with September 2025.
Between January and September 2026, 2,570 civilians were killed and 15,211 wounded — nearly 60% higher than the same period a year earlier and more than double the level in 2024, according to the report.
"The first two weeks of October were one of the bloodiest periods for civilians in years," said Danielle Bell, head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine.
