Russia struck at least four Ukrainian regions overnight with missiles and drones, killing five people, officials said Tuesday, while Ukrainian forces hit yet another Russian oil refinery in their latest long-range strike.
The daily exchange of aerial attacks, even as the front line barely shifts, formed the backdrop to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the United States. He’s set to meet other world leaders, including President Trump, at the UN General Assembly in New York, where he hopes to rally support to end Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fifth year. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not expected to attend.
The war has taken a heavy toll on both sides: Western officials estimate more than 500,000 Russian troops have been killed, while Western analysts put Ukrainian military casualties above 500,000, including up to 140,000 deaths.
Repeated Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, combined with Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, have driven up diesel prices and caused shortages worldwide, according to Trump, though the global squeeze has also been worsened by disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz stemming from the Iran war.
Zelensky is also seeking help protecting Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea, which Russian attacks on cargo vessels have severely disrupted. Russia and Ukraine together have recently accounted for roughly 30% of global wheat exports and 12% of corn exports, most moving through the Black Sea, but last month’s attacks cut both countries’ agricultural exports by two-thirds, according to a report from Thomas de Waal of Carnegie Europe. The report warned that reduced grain supplies put several African nations at risk of famine and could push world cereal prices even higher, on top of increases already caused by the Hormuz closure.
Zelensky brings de-escalation proposals to New York
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that France would supply Ukraine with additional radar systems to help defend its power grid, and said he’d discussed with Trump the possibility of a Moscow-Kyiv truce on energy infrastructure strikes, along with a potential “moratorium” on Black Sea attacks.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and French President Emmanuel Macron talk each other during a meeting, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in New York City, US, in this handout picture released September 22, 2026. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
Zelensky opened his New York visit by meeting with US senators, thanking them for bipartisan support and for passing a tougher Russia sanctions bill that Trump has since signed into law, which he said would bring peace and security closer once fully in effect. He said on social media that he briefed the senators on de-escalation proposals he planned to raise with Trump later that day.
In Kyiv, 36-year-old Iryna Panina woke around 2 a.m. Tuesday to a jet-powered Russian drone approaching her home; it blew out a window and left her apartment strewn with debris. She said she’s lost faith in leaders’ peace efforts. “As an ordinary person just trying to live and survive each day, I find it hard to believe they fully understand what’s actually happening, how hard it is, and how much ordinary people are suffering,” she told the AP.
Zelensky also intends to again push Trump for more US-made Patriot air defense systems to counter Russian ballistic missiles.
Ukrainian forces say they hit a Russian refinery
Ukraine said it struck the Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara, southeast of Moscow, overnight, with several drones sparking a large fire, according to Ukrainian special forces. The Rosneft-owned refinery is a major fuel source for central Russia, producing gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and other products; Ukraine says it also hit the same facility last June. One person was killed and four wounded in the Samara strike, regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said, adding that “the enemy targeted industrial facilities” without giving further detail.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 297 Ukrainian drones overnight across 14 Russian regions and the annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Smoke and flames rise from an oil refinery in Samara, Russia, September 22, 2026, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
Russia says it struck a missile plant and ammunition factory
Russia’s overnight barrage on Ukraine included anti-ship, ballistic and cruise missiles along with more than 200 drones, according to Ukraine’s air force. The strikes killed four people in the central city of Dnipro, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, while a drone strike killed a woman in the northern Sumy region, local police said. Attacks across several regions damaged homes, businesses and storage facilities, wounding at least five people, including five in Kyiv, authorities said.
Firefighters work at the site of a shopping centre hit by a Russian drone attack, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine, September 19, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces targeted Ukraine’s metallurgical and chemical industries, its fuel and energy sector, its military-industrial complex, and port facilities across four regions, including a Fire Point plant in Kyiv that makes components for long-range cruise missiles and a tobacco factory in the central Poltava region allegedly used to produce small arms ammunition.
