The Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU) issued an urgent appeal Nov. 4 urging the international trade union movement to take action against Moscow’s “ongoing aggression on Ukrainian workers, trade unions and civilian infrastructure.”
After nearly five years of war, the invading Russian army has been pushed back by Kyiv’s forces. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime has “increasingly pursued a strategy of terror, carrying out round-the-clock missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities, civilian infrastructure, workplaces and the population,” KVPU said. Repeated waves of drone and missile airstrikes expose “workers and civilians to continuous physical danger and psychological pressure.”
The KVPU said casualties among Ukrainian civilians from January to September this year — 2,570 killed and 15,211 injured — were 59% higher than in the same period in 2025 and more than twice as high as in 2024.
A Russian attack Nov. 2 targeted the township of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region with guided aerial bombs, then used “double-tap” tactics to hit rescue workers as well. A huge bomb struck an underground school that is also a shelter, trapping many people beneath the rubble, KVPU reported. The attacks killed at least 53 people, with dozens still missing.
“Russian forces continue to deliberately strike workplaces, mines, coal-processing plants and even the transport used to bring workers to and from enterprises,” the union statement said. During the first nine months of 2026, 1,241 workers were killed in attacks at their workplaces and 4,679 workers injured on the job.
The KVPU cited the World Health Organization, which documented more than 3,000 attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system, targeting hospitals, outpatient clinics and other medical facilities, with 340 sites completely destroyed.
“At least 510 healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, other healthcare personnel and combat medics” have been killed during the war, the KVPU said. The Red Cross emblem “has increasingly become a target rather than a guarantee of protection.”
The union statement said Russian forces deliberately struck the administrative building of the DTEK coal company in Pavlohrad Oct. 1. Among the offices destroyed were those of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, as well as a small museum on the history of the independent trade union movement.
Despite Moscow’s continued assaults, Ukrainians refuse to put aside culture. The third Kyiv Baroque Fest is slated for Nov. 12-22, with 15 concerts along with forums and exhibitions, drawing musicians from Belgium, Germany, Poland, the U.S., France, Italy and Switzerland.
A determined Ukrainian operation, dubbed Vivaldi, has since February led to the recapture of a sizable portion of territory in Donbas. This has dealt a serious blow to Moscow’s drive to capture the last cities there to bolster Putin’s demand to be given control.
The recent Ukrainian offensives forced two Russian field armies into disorderly retreats. They reversed Moscow’s efforts to encircle the town of Lyman and blocked any advance beyond Pokrovsk, lifting threats for now to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, both of which are vital to Ukraine’s defensive front in the Donbas region.
Russian forces pushed back in east
Tenacious Ukrainian defenders, using newly developed middle-range drones, pushed Russian supply points further back from the front. The Kremlin was forced to pull its elite Rubicon drone units from there after they suffered heavy losses from Kyiv’s own drone forces.
As Moscow’s troops run short of fuel, ammunition and food, some have been holding up cardboard pleas for supplies. Russian soldiers have to walk miles to the front, each sometimes carrying an artillery shell.
The Kremlin thought its superior numbers of troops in this battle would allow for success, but instead 8,000 of its soldiers have been killed through Operation Vivaldi, 10 times the number of Ukrainian defenders, according to the Ukraine army commander, Andriy Biletskyi.
Overall, Moscow’s forces suffered 54,000 troops killed or severely wounded in October, a record for the war.