Ukraine Conflict Monitor
Update
Ukraine war situation update | 15 – 21 November 2025
Overview of political violence and conflict events in Ukraine from 15 to 21 November 2025
Key stats
1,472 political violence events
2% decrease compared to last week
93 incidents of violence targeting civilians
6% decrease compared to the previous week
At least 82 fatalities from civilian targeting
116% increase compared to last week
Key events
-
17 Nov.
Odesa — A Russian drone sets ablaze a Turkish LNG tanker in Izmail port
-
17 Nov.
Donetsk — Ukrainian drone strikes on energy infrastructure result in widespread blackouts
-
19 Nov.
Ternopil — A Russian cruise missile hits two high-rise residential buildings in Ternopil city, killing at least 34 civilians
Key trends
- Russian forces occupied a total of seven settlements: three at the junction of the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhia regions; two east of Siversk and one south of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region; and one southwest of Vovchansk in the Kharkiv region.
- Russian forces launched at least 35 long-range missile and drone attacks, including on the western regions of Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, and Ternopil.
- Russian strikes killed at least 72 civilians in the Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Sumy, Ternopil, and Zaporizhia regions. Ukrainian strikes reportedly killed eight civilians in the Russia-occupied parts of the Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Spotlight: A Russian missile buries over 30 civilians in their homes in Ternopil
On the morning of 19 November, after an overnight Russian aerial assault on energy infrastructure in multiple Ukrainian regions, a Russian cruise missile struck two apartment blocks in Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil in the eponymous region, killing at least 34 civilians and wounding 42 others. A nearby electronics plant, which Russia bombed with multiple missiles and drones at the same time, may have been the intended target. As in the case of the 8 July 2024 strike on Ukraine’s main hospital for gravely ill children in Kyiv city, video footage of the direct hit soon emerged.1 The mass civilian casualty event in Ternopil has become the second deadliest in 2025, after the 13 April ballistic missile strikes on Sumy city. ACLED records over 1,900 civilian fatalities due to Russian strikes in the first 11 months of 2025 — the highest annual toll since 2022, which was marked by atrocities in Kyiv suburbs and Mariupol in the initial stages of Russia’s invasion.
The air war between Russia and Ukraine is escalating. Between January and November this year, Russia has already more than doubled the number of drone strikes on Ukraine compared to the entire 2024. It has also scaled up the number of drones sent to targets in each salvo.2 At the same time, Ukraine has expanded its aerial campaign to power plants and substations in Russia and occupied areas, in addition to oil refineries it has targeted since mid-year, seemingly in reaction to Russian attempts to disable Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as cold weather set in the fourth quarter.
Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure Calculator to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.
