A week after the last strike, Ukraine hit the area again
The first attack lasted for hours and hit the city’s power, and this time Ukrainian monitors caught the fire on video from the edge of town.
Yuri Zoria
November 3, 2026
Euromaidan Press
Ukraine’s Defense Forces attacked a military site near the former airfield in Russian-occupied Luhansk on 3 November, Ukrainian military outlet Militarnyi reported. Russian combat helicopters had been seen at the airfield before, and Russian troops were using the grounds next to it. It was the second attack on the area in a week, and it came a day after drones hit the occupied city’s phone network.
Russia’s war on Ukraine runs on what it keeps behind the front: ammunition, aircraft, fuel, and the troops who use them. Much of that rear sits on occupied Ukrainian land. This autumn, Ukraine has gone after it from both ends, from three refineries deep in Russia that together handle about a tenth of its refining to a supply base that burned in occupied Luhansk Oblast in October. Whatever survives there feeds Russia’s assaults on what remains of Ukrainian-held Donbas.
Black smoke over the old airfield
The strike hit the area of the abandoned airfield, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported shortly before 09:00 Kyiv time. Russian occupation forces use the airfield’s infrastructure for military purposes, the channel added. A fire broke out on the grounds of a military unit, and a thick column of black smoke rose into the sky, Militarnyi said.
Another Ukrainian monitoring channel, Supernova+, described the site as an ammunition storage area, without giving details. Pro-Russian Telegram channel LNR Today wrote of an explosion and a large fire near Luhansk airport.
Russia has occupied Luhansk, a regional capital in eastern Ukraine, since 2014. Russian Ka-52 and Mi-28 attack helicopters had earlier been spotted at its airfield, Militarnyi noted. So had Mi-8/Mi-17 transport helicopters.
Next to the airfield stands the former Luhansk Higher Military Aviation School of Navigators. Russian occupation troops used its grounds to house personnel and equipment, the outlet added.
The site has drawn Ukrainian fire before. In October 2023, Ukraine’s US-made ATACMS missiles destroyed Russian helicopters at air bases in occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk.
A week ago, overnight on 27 October, drones attacked the city of Luhansk for more than four hours. The main strike then also hit the former airfield. On Russia’s Yandex Maps, the area around it is blurred, the way the service hides military sites.
Ukraine’s General Staff has not claimed the strike. By late morning, it had posted only its regular morning updates. Russia’s occupation authorities in Luhansk have not commented either.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it downed 856 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over occupied Crimea and the Black Sea, Russian Telegram channel Astra reported.
Overnight on 2 November, drones struck the building of the occupation’s backbone telecom operator in Luhansk, Exilenova+ said. The operator provides mobile service and internet across occupied Luhansk Oblast, and Russian occupation army units use its infrastructure, the channel added. Drones also hit the premises of the Luhansk Telephone Company, it wrote.
Night footage from the city shows a fire glowing between apartment blocks.
Four drones hit the operator’s building and three hit the telephone company, Oleksandra Veselova, a deputy head of the occupation’s “digital development ministry,” said, local outlet Realna Gazeta reported. She said no one was hurt. The operator’s management said the strike had paralyzed its work and that restoring service would take time. It closed its customer office on Karla Marksa Street and stopped serving customers at two others.
The operator works out of the seized Ukrtelecom building, which drones also hit on 21 October. The occupation built its mobile network there on equipment taken from Ukraine’s Kyivstar.
NASA’s FIRMS satellite fire map shows a new heat source on 2 November near Dubivskyi, a village in the Antratsyt community of occupied Luhansk Oblast. The map recorded no fires at that spot all October. That evening, the occupation’s energy “minister” said an “emergency situation” had cut power in eight districts, Antratsyt among them, the occupation’s news agency LIC reported. No source has linked the two.
Last night, a strike hit the military unit that guards the Kerch Bridge in occupied Crimea, Ukrainian Telegram channel Krymsky Veter (Crimean Wind) reported, citing a reader. Fire and detonations at an ammunition depot there went on until morning, the channel said. The bridge, which links the peninsula to Russia, stayed closed to traffic until 08:50, the channel added.
Power went out across Crimea from about 03:10, Krymsky Veter said. The Russian-run power company Krymenergo blamed an accident outside the peninsula, the channel added. Mikhail Razvozhayev, Russia’s occupation head of Sevastopol, said energy facilities outside the city had been hit again. Even the rotating outage schedule could not be kept for now, he added. Occupied Crimea has lost power after drone attacks before.
Ukrainian partisan movement Atesh reported a large column of smoke inside Sevastopol shortly before 01:00 Kyiv time.
Yuri Zoria is a philologist by education, in 2003-2007 Yuri worked as a journalist in a Luhansk online media. He was born and lived all his life in the peaceful provincial city of Luhansk, where nothing serious happened. Until 2014. Now he is an IDP. Follow Yuri on twitter: @loogunda