Strikes, shortages and sanctions: Ukraine on 11 August 2026

What did the war look like on 11 August 2026, and which pressures were bearing down on each side? The reports from the preceding days, 5 to 10 August, point to an air war aimed at cities and energy facilities, and to a sanctions push in the United States.

Missiles without interceptors

The most serious single episode came on 5 August. Russian forces launched dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at Kyiv, killing at least 17 people, including eight civilians at a railway station in Kyiv Oblast, and wounding dozens more. According to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, none of the missiles were intercepted, because Ukraine was short of Patriot missiles. That was a stark admission about air defence, and it framed the days that followed.

The strikes continued. On 6 August, Russian airstrikes across Ukraine killed six people, including three civilians in Kharkiv Oblast. A total power outage hit the city of Kherson after critical infrastructure was targeted overnight by Russian drones. On 7 August, a Russian drone strike hit the Chornomorets Stadium in Odesa; Odesa Oblast governor Oleh Kiper reported two people injured. On 8 August, Zelenskyy reported that a 3-year-old boy and his grandparents had been killed by a Russian drone strike in Kyiv.

These reports show attacks on power supply, on a sports venue and on residential areas. Earlier patterns of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, which began in 2022, were visible again in Kherson's blackout.

Ukraine's strikes on Russian refineries

Ukraine was also striking inside Russia. On 6 August, Ukrainian drones attacked two oil refineries, the Yaroslavl refinery and a Bashneft-Novoil refinery in Bashkortostan, causing large fires at both. On 10 August, a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan, killed at least 13 people, including a child, and injured 39 others.

The Nizhnekamsk toll was the heaviest reported from the Ukrainian strikes in this period, and it came a day before the covered date. Taken together, the reports show a pattern of repeated attacks on Russian oil-processing sites within a few days.

Sanctions move in Washington

The political counterpart came on 7 August, when the United States Senate voted 86–11 to pass a bill imposing sanctions on Russia's energy revenues, financial institutions, officials and shadow fleet. It also authorised tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian oil and gas. The bill was due to go to the House of Representatives for a vote.

The margin was wide. The measure targets the revenues that fund the war and the buyers of Russian energy, a different lever from the sanctions imposed since 2022. Russian authorities had mitigated the effect of those earlier measures by turning to trading partners that ignored Western sanctions, such as China, India, Turkey and the UAE, so the tariff provision on major buyers addressed that route directly. The second Trump administration, in office since 2025, had proposed a peace deal and sought to distance itself from financing Ukraine's resistance, which makes a bill with such a large Senate majority notable. Its fate in the House was still open on 11 August 2026.

What the week showed

The reports from 5 to 10 August show a mismatch. Ukraine said it lacked the interceptors to stop ballistic missiles aimed at its capital, while its own drones were hitting Russian refineries across several regions. Neither side's strikes spared civilians: the dead included a child in Kyiv and a child in Tatarstan.

Whether the Senate bill would become law, and whether Patriot shortages would be eased, were questions the reports left open as of 11 August 2026.