A farmer gathers surviving piglets at a farm hit by a Russian drone strike on Oct. 3, 2025, in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine. Viktoriia Yakymenko/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

A Russian drone strike on a farm in northeast Ukraine overnight into Friday sparked a fire that killed some 13,000 pigs, emergency service officials said.

Ukraine's state emergency service said the Russian drone attack hit a "farming enterprise in the Novovodolazka community" in the Kharkiv region. A worker at the farm was injured.

Photos released by the service showed pig carcasses piled up in cramped sheds that were partly burned down, some with their roofs shattered.

The pigs were held in eight stalls spanning just over 140,000 square feet, all of which burned down in the fire, the emergency service added.

Animals have suffered along with people throughout the three-and-a-half-year war. Previous Russian strikes have hit stables and zoos.

In September, seven horses were killed in the Kyiv region during a large-scale Russian attack that hit an equestrian club. Zoos across Ukraine have been damaged throughout the war, with one attack killing a ram in Odesa zoo in June.

The strike appears to be part of a large attack by Russia against natural gas facilities run by Ukraine's state-owned Naftogaz Group.

Ukraine's air force said Russia fired a total of 381 drones and 25 missiles at gas extraction and processing facilities in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions, some of which sustained critical damage.

"This is deliberate terror against civilian facilities that provide gas extraction and processing for the normal life of people," Serhii Koretskyi, chief executive of Ukraine's state-owned gas company Naftogaz, said in a statement. "It has no military purpose. This is yet another act of Russian malice aimed solely at disrupting the heating season and depriving Ukrainians of warmth in winter."

Russia's Ministry of Defense said its forces launched a mass strike using drones and guided weapons against Ukraine's military-industrial complex and the gas and energy infrastructure that supports it. "All designated targets were hit," it said in a statement.


A massive strike by Russian drones hit a farm in the Nova Vodolaha settlement hromada in the Kharkiv region. Viktoriia Yakymenko/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC "UA:PBC"/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images

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