Russia and Ukraine trade overnight airstrikes as reconstruction and security talks resume in Brussels
Russia and Ukraine exchanged airstrikes overnight into Thursday 5 November 2026, each side publishing large drone counts that the other does not confirm: Ukraine says its air defences shot down or suppressed 105 of 128 Russian attack drones and that Russian strikes wounded four people in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions, while Russia's defence ministry says its forces shot down 496 Ukrainian drones over 13 Russian regions and the Black and Azov seas. As the strikes continued, talks resumed at NATO headquarters in Brussels for a second day on Ukraine's postwar reconstruction, funding for 2027 and Western-backed security guarantees — days before Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators are due to meet in Abu Dhabi. This page is in Checking state: the talks are verified; the overnight strike figures are each side's own account.
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Key points
- Talks on Ukraine's reconstruction, 2027 funding and security guarantees resumed for a second day at NATO headquarters in Brussels (Umerov; NATO spokesperson) — with the US, UK, France, Germany, the EU, NATO, the World Bank and BlackRock at the table.
- Ukraine's account: 105 of 128 Russian drones downed or suppressed; four people wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions. Russia's account: 496 Ukrainian drones downed; five killed in occupied Luhansk, its installed officials say. Both accounts are labelled Not yet verified.
- Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators are due to meet in Abu Dhabi within days; Zelenskyy spoke for 90 minutes with Witkoff and Kushner on Wednesday.
What happened
The Brussels track is about the peace that does not yet exist: reconstruction money for 2027 and the security guarantees Ukraine's allies would stand behind after the fighting ends. It runs in parallel with the direct track — the Abu Dhabi meeting between Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators — and, on the evidence of Thursday night, in parallel with the war itself, which neither track has yet slowed.
Overnight drone exchanges on this scale are now a near-nightly feature of the war. Each side publishes its own interception counts every morning; the figures cannot be reconciled from outside, which is why this page carries them as the two sides' labelled accounts rather than as a single settled record. The same AP report describes rescue teams still searching for more than 30 people believed missing after Monday's Russian guided-bomb strike on Komyshuvakha, near the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region, where President Zelenskyy said 43 people have been confirmed killed.
Both sides, in their own words
Both sides heard. Neither believed for free. Publishing a side's version is not endorsing it — the claim checks below are where verdicts live.
Side A · Ukraine's account of the night
- Ukraine's air defences shot down or suppressed 105 of 128 Russian attack drones overnight and into early Thursday (Ukrainian officials, via AP).
- Russian strikes wounded four people in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and the Kyiv region (Ukrainian officials, via AP).
Side B · Russia's account of the night
- Russia's defence ministry says its forces shot down 496 Ukrainian drones over 13 Russian regions, Crimea and the Black and Azov seas overnight (via AP).
- Kremlin-installed officials in Russian-occupied Luhansk say a Ukrainian attack killed five people and wounded 13 there on Thursday (via AP).
Independently verified
The Brussels talks: talks on Ukraine's postwar reconstruction and security guarantees resumed at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday for a second day, focused on reconstruction, funding for 2027 and security guarantees backed by Ukraine's Western allies, Ukraine's lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said. The discussions bring together officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union and NATO, and are also attended by the World Bank and the US investment group BlackRock. NATO spokesperson Allison Hart said the representatives would meet again 'to discuss the way forward on bringing about a just and sustainable end to the war in Ukraine.' What comes next diplomatically: the Brussels meetings are taking place days before negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, for talks aimed at trying to end the war. Late on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held a 90-minute conversation with the US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.Not yet verified
Ukraine's account of the overnight strikes: Ukraine's air defences shot down or suppressed 105 of 128 Russian attack drones launched overnight and into early Thursday, Ukrainian officials said, and Russian strikes wounded four people in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and the Kyiv region. Russia's account of the overnight strikes: Russia's defence ministry said its forces shot down 496 Ukrainian drones over 13 Russian regions overnight, as well as the Crimean Peninsula and the Black and Azov seas. In Ukraine's Russian-occupied Luhansk region, Kremlin-installed officials said a Ukrainian attack on Thursday killed five people and wounded 13 others — a strike on a bus travelling between the regional capital, Luhansk, and a nearby town, the region's Moscow-backed leader Leonid Pasechnik said, with two teenagers among the wounded.Claim by claim
Why this label: Verified on AP's reporting (read in full in this run through its syndications): Umerov's own account of the talks he leads and NATO's spokesperson's on-record statement are the participants' own words, and the participant list is consistent across the AP carries read. What the talks will produce is not claimed anywhere here.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
Why this label: Carried as Not yet verified: these are Ukrainian officials' figures, reported by AP, with no independent confirmation of the counts in the reporting read. They are Kyiv's account of the night, stated as such — neither endorsed nor contradicted by anything else read in this run.
On the ladder: the evidence so far sits low — early, single or social sources. We publish the claim as a claim, never as fact.
Why this label: Carried as Not yet verified: the drone count is the Russian defence ministry's own figure and the Luhansk toll is the occupation authorities' figure, both reported by AP with no independent confirmation in the reporting read. The Luhansk toll in particular is a casualty claim from one side's installed officials and is labelled accordingly — it is not carried as a settled toll anywhere on this page.
On the ladder: the evidence so far sits low — early, single or social sources. We publish the claim as a claim, never as fact.
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Why this label: Verified on AP's reporting read in this run: the Abu Dhabi meeting's scheduling and Zelenskyy's account of his own call are stated by the participants/reporting consistently across the AP carries read. Whether the Abu Dhabi talks happen as planned, and what they produce, is not yet known and is not claimed here.
On the ladder: a claim earns Verified from primary evidence, or from two independent sources that do not copy each other.
What we know / what we don't know yet
What we know
- That the Brussels talks resumed for a second day at NATO headquarters, their agenda and their participants — from Ukraine's lead negotiator and NATO's spokesperson, via AP, read in this run.
- That both sides launched large overnight drone strikes — each side's own published account, via AP, agrees that the exchanges happened; only the counts are each side's own.
What we don't know yet
- The true overnight drone and interception numbers — Kyiv's 105-of-128 and Moscow's 496 are each side's figures, unconfirmed independently in the reporting read.
- Whether the Luhansk toll (five killed, 13 wounded, per Kremlin-installed officials) is accurate — no independent source for it appears in the reporting read.
- What, if anything, the Brussels talks agreed — no outcome document appears in the reporting read.
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- Whether the Abu Dhabi meeting happens as scheduled and what it produces.
Why it matters
Two wars are being fought over Ukraine at once: the nightly one of drones and interceptions, and the conference-table one over who pays to rebuild the country and who guarantees its safety afterwards. Thursday held both at full intensity. The Brussels agenda — 2027 funding and guarantees — only matters if the Abu Dhabi track can stop the first war; the first war's scale, on both sides' own numbers, is not diminishing while the talking goes on.
Background
First day of the Brussels reconstruction and security meetings; in the evening Zelenskyy holds a 90-minute call with US negotiators Witkoff and Kushner.
Both sides launch large drone strikes; each publishes its own interception count the next morning.
Brussels talks resume for a second day at NATO headquarters, days before the scheduled Russia–Ukraine–US meeting in Abu Dhabi.
Update history
No silent edits. Every change is written here, with its time.
- Latest
Story published in Checking state as a brief from queue #1702 (Arab News/AP: Russia and Ukraine trade airstrikes as talks resume in Brussels). Basis: AP's report read in full in this run via Military.com and Europe Says. JUDGE AUDIT: (1) headline, slug, SEO title and summary state the same outcome — strikes traded while talks resumed; no side's figure is stated as fact in any of the four. (2) The talks claim is Verified on the participants' own statements; both strike accounts sit in Not-yet-verified claims and in labelled Side A / Side B panels as positions, and the summary and key points repeat the labels. (3) Every number traces to its named side via AP: 105 of 128 (Ukraine), four wounded (Ukraine), 496 (Russia's ministry), five killed and 13 wounded in Luhansk (Kremlin-installed officials). (5) Neither side's account is missing; the absence of any Brussels outcome document is in the don't-know list. (6) Photo is NATO headquarters, labelled a file photo; no official video was oEmbed-verified, so none is attached. Translations: headline, summary and take labels in all 13 non-English languages at publish; this story carries no FR/AR full text, so no full-text rebuild arose.