Two strikes on 18 August 2026 kill eleven in Ukraine
A drone attack in Enerhodar and a ballistic missile strike in Pechenihy left civilians and a plant worker dead.
What did the war cost the regions of Ukraine on 18 August 2026? Two attacks, in Kharkiv Oblast and in Enerhodar, accounted for at least eleven deaths.
In Pechenihy, Kharkiv Oblast, a Russian ballistic missile strike killed ten civilians and injured eight others. Several homes were completely destroyed.
The same day, a drone strike hit a bus stop near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar. One plant worker was killed and several other people were injured.
The Enerhodar setting
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Russian forces attacked and occupied it on 4 March 2022, during the Battle of Enerhodar, at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The site has since been at the centre of an ongoing nuclear safety crisis, which Ukraine has described as an act of nuclear terrorism by Russia.
The attacks on 18 August 2026 were reported as separate incidents, one in the north-east of the country and one in the south, and both struck places where people live and work.
