Russia Says It Downed 50 Ukrainian Drones Over Border Regions and Crimea

Russia's Defense Ministry says its air defenses took down 50 Ukrainian drones over the course of Sunday, spread across the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Rostov regions as well as the Republic of Crimea. The ministry dropped the figure in its latest daily update. No word on casualties or damage from the reported interceptions.

The drone tally is only one thread of a loud weekend. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claims Russia used a ceasefire in Oleshky, a town in southern Ukraine's Kherson Oblast, to pull off what he called a significant rotation of personnel and equipment. Additional occupier forces were moved into Oleshky and the surrounding community, he said in a Telegram post, adding that Ukraine's Armed Forces command must present proposals to better protect life in Kherson.

Diplomacy is cranking up too. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Sunday that European representatives will be in the room when peace negotiations on the war take place in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11. France will be in Abu Dhabi to take part in the discussions, Barrot told RTL. His remarks follow Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov's claim that the talks will run in a trilateral format and center on security issues.

On the ground, the power grid is taking a beating. The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lost external power on Sunday and flipped to backup diesel generators, according to the plant's press service and Ukrainian nuclear company Energoatom. Energoatom said the last working 330 kV line, Ferosplavna-1, went down and an automatic re-energize attempt failed, calling the situation a critical threat.

Further west, over 600,000 Ukrainians were left in the dark after Russia hit energy facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region, power company DTEK said. Important energy facilities were damaged in a night attack, DTEK posted on Telegram, with outages hitting Pavlohrad, Samariv, Kamian, Dniprovsky districts and the city of Dnipro. Crews are working to restore electricity, though repeated attacks are complicating the job, with critical infrastructure the first priority.