Wars 2022 02/24 Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

[Saif]

Civilian deaths in Ukraine jumped in July as Russia hit cities, UN says

Civilian casualties from the war in Ukraine rose by nearly a third month-on-month in July, to the highest level since May 2022, as Russia struck towns and cities far from the battlefield with missiles and drones, the UN said on Friday. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Civilian deaths in Ukraine jumped in July as Russia hit cities, UN says

Smoke rises in the city during a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine Aug 11, 2026. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/Files

Civilian casualties from the war in Ukraine rose by nearly a third month-on-month in July, to the highest level since May 2022, as Russia struck towns and cities far from the battlefield with missiles and drones, the UN said on Friday.

The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report that it had confirmed at least 437 civilians killed and 2,610 injured in July, a 30 percent rise from June and a 70 percent jump from the same month last year.

Long-range weapons, such as missiles and drones, remained the leading cause of civilian deaths last month, accounting for 38 percent of the total.

"Most casualties from these weapons occurred far from the frontline in urban centres," the UN report said.

Ballistic Missile Attacks

In recent months, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine with ballistic missiles, which due to their speed and steep trajectory are much harder to intercept than drones or cruise missiles.

Ukraine has a chronic lack of US-made Patriot interceptors needed to defend against these attacks. President Volodymyr Zelensky urgently appealed to Washington this week for more supplies.

Russian glide bombs – an air-launched guided munition – became the second-largest cause of death. Civilian casualties from aerial bombardments increased by 143 percent month-on-month in July to 105 killed and 753 wounded.

The UN also noted a rise in the number of deaths from short-range drones near the frontline, which killed 111 people and wounded 710 in July, the highest monthly level since the war began in February 2022.

Residents in cities close to the battlefield – such as Kherson – have coined the term "safari" to refer to Russian drones "hunting down" civilians and vehicles in the streets.

Overall, Kyiv was the hardest-hit city, with a total of 54 civilians killed in July, followed by Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the UN said.

"The number of child casualties (17 killed; 166 injured) was the highest since April 2022," the report stated.

The figures also included 25 civilians killed and 50 wounded in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia, the UN said. Due to increasingly limited publicly available information – the actual figure was probably significantly higher, it noted.

Both Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians.

More than 16,000 civilians have been killed in nearly four-and-a-half years of fighting, according to the United Nations, the overwhelming majority of them Ukrainian.

Ukraine is also increasingly attacking Russia with drones and long-range missiles, some of which have caused civilian casualties, Russian authorities say.

On Monday, authorities said that a Ukrainian drone strike in the Russian city of Nizhnekamsk killed at least 13 people.

The Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent group that tracks the war, estimated that a total of 634 civilians were killed in July on both sides of the frontline. Reuters was not able to verify that figure independently.​

 

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/310318/russian-strike-kills-10-in-ukraine

Russian strike kills 10 in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 18 August, 2026, 23:14

This handout photograph released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on Tuesday, shows burning cars following an air attack in Pechenigy, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian attack of Ukraine. | AFP photo

A Russian attack on a village in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine killed 10 people, Kyiv said Tuesday, vowing to respond.

The strike comes amid a surge in civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war.

Russian forces ‘carried out a rocket strike on Pechenigy’, a village around 40 kilometres from the Russian border, Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media.

‘According to preliminary information, 10 people were killed,’ he added, with 17 people wounded.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media that the strike hit a busy intersection, ‘a location with a post office and stores, surrounded only by residential buildings’.

Images from the site of the attack posted by the Ukrainian emergency services showed rescuers working at the scene, carrying people to safety amid destroyed buildings, smouldering rubble and cars on fire or reduced to charred shells.

‘We will definitely respond to this Russian strike. And it is equally important that our partners also complement our responses with their own actions to put pressure on Russia and support Ukraine,’ Zelensky said.

The Kharkiv region — parts of which are occupied by Russian forces — has been hit hard since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

According to the United Nations, more civilians have been killed in the war in recent months than in any period since the start of the invasion.

Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday ordered almost 2,200 children with their guardians to leave settlements in the country’s centre-east Dnipropetrovsk region amid ramped up Russian strikes and Moscow’s troops inching forward.

Mandatory evacuation has been announced for 16 settlements located east of the region’s capital Dnipro, Oleksandr Ganzha, the head of the regional military administration, said on social media.

“Within a month, families with children must leave these areas. Parents, guardians or legal representatives must take 2,177 boys and girls to safer territories,” Ganzha said.

He said the evacuees would be taken to transit centres and assisted with finding new accommodation.

The Dnipropetrovsk region is frequently pummelled by Russian drones and missiles.

Fighting is ongoing in the region’s east, but the Ukrainian army made minor gains in the area last month, according to AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.

Russia’s advance across the sprawling frontline has slowed in 2026, though Ukraine’s army remains stretched by manpower shortages and fatigue as the Russian invasion drags through its fifth year.

The number of civilians killed in Ukraine in July jumped to its highest level since the first months of the Russian invasion, the United Nations said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian foreign minister Andriy Sybiga and his Belgian counterpart Maxime Prevot were on Tuesday forced to hold talks in an underground shelter as an air alert blared out in Kyiv.

‘Due to Russian drones attacking our capital, we held our talks underground in the @MFA_Ukraine bomb shelter — a daily reality for millions of Ukrainians, shared by our Belgian guests today,’ Sybiga said on social media.

He posted a picture of the two top diplomats sitting at a table in a windowless room and a video of the two delegations making their way through underground corridors.

Air alerts ring out in war-torn Ukraine every day as Russia launches barrages of drones and missiles at its neighbour, forcing people into shelters and killing civilians in the capital and across the country.

During a visit to Kyiv in July, European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen had to shelter briefly because of an air alert and drone threat in the city.​

 

[Saif]

Wartime election would ‘destroy’ Ukraine, Zelenskiy says

Poll shows 57% of Ukrainians favour holding elections only after the fighting ends

www.thedailystar.net

Wartime election would ‘destroy’ Ukraine, Zelenskiy says

Poll shows 57% of Ukrainians favour holding elections only after the fighting ends

Reuters

Reuters file photo

Holding a wartime election in Ukraine while active fighting with Russia continues would "destroy" the country by splitting Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

His comments, released to reporters on Sunday, were Zelenskiy's first on the subject since ousted former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for a wartime poll in a bombshell address last week.

Fedorov's surprise dismissal last month sparked widespread protests, but supporters calling for his reinstatement later baulked at his call for an election - the first such demand by a major Ukrainian political figure since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

"I believe that if we want to destroy the country, then we can move towards elections during this kind of war," Zelenskiy said.

Elections in war are prohibited by Ukrainian law. Analysts also say security concerns and the millions of Ukrainians abroad, under Russian occupation or fighting at the front mean it would be too difficult to hold an election.

ELECTIONS WOULD SPLIT UKRAINE, PRESIDENT SAYS

Zelenskiy's approval rating has remained generally stable at about 60%, but pollsters have said that while Ukrainians want fresh faces in politics, many have little appetite for voting now.

An August 5 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 57% of Ukrainians want elections only after fighting ends.

Echoing his previous comments on the matter, Zelenskiy said a wartime election might be possible if Kyiv's partners could guarantee security, but that no one has proposed such a plan.

"Elections right now are a tsunami for the state, which will split Ukraine," he said.

"That's why my strategy is to steer the country toward an ending of the war and to preserve an independent and sovereign state."

Fedorov, a longtime Zelenskiy ally who has been seen as a top political challenger, did not explicitly say whether he would stand in any future election.​

 

[Saif]

https://www.newagebd.net/post/europe/311093/uk-pm-dismisses-russian-threats-as-ukraine-allies-gather-in-kyiv

UK PM dismisses Russian threats as Ukraine allies gather in Kyiv
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 24 August, 2026, 23:36

Britain’s prime minister Andy Burnham receives the ‘Honorary Distinction to the British People’, ‘Gratitude of the Ukrainian People’ award from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, left, during a commemorative ceremony marking Ukraine’s 35th Independence Day outside St. Sofia cathedral in Kyiv on Monday. | AFP photo

The United Kingdom will keep providing defence aid to Ukraine despite Russia’s threats, prime minister Andy Burnham said Monday on a visit to Kyiv where allies gathered to discuss support.

Air defence supplies are due to be the main priority at the meeting of the Coalition of the Willing, jointly chaired by the leaders of France and Germany, who will participate remotely, and by Britain’s Burnham.

Burnham has arrived in Kyiv for his first trip abroad since taking office, alongside other European leaders and EU Council president Antonio Costa.

‘Despite Russia’s outrageous threats to my country, we will continue our support for Ukraine’s defence,’ Burnham said in a speech delivered on Ukraine’s independence day and ahead of the meeting.

Russia has recently pounded Kyiv with ballistic missiles, ripping open apartment blocks and killing dozens in the capital.

The escalating Russian strikes have pushed civilian deaths to their highest levels since the first months of Moscow’s 2022 invasion.

A Russian drone attack on Chernigiv, north of the capital, wounded 15 people, Ukraine emergency services said.

‘Right now, things are really very difficult for all of us. But there is a force holding us firmly by the hand,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address to mark the occasion, adding: ‘It is the strength of our mutual circle’.

He called on allies to give Ukraine ‘everything it needs to stop this war’.

Also Monday, the European Union said that it had released another 6.1 billion euros ($7.1 billion) in military aid for Ukraine to boost its air defences.

The finance is part of a 90 billion-euro loan, including 60 billion euros in military aid, that the EU has said will go to Ukraine.

Ahead of the talks, Ukraine has forged ahead with its campaign against Russia’s logistics sites, hitting multiple warehouses belonging to e-commerce giant Ozon.

Ozon reported fires early Monday at its warehouses in Krasnodar and Makhachkala, both in southern Russia, adding that sites in Adygeysk and Nevinnomyssk were evacuated due to threats of drone attack.

Russian authorities also said debris from a Ukrainian drone attack killed two children and wounded nine others.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Saturday said Kyiv had ‘opened Pandora’s box’ by targeting Russia’s economy and promised further escalation, including against Ukrainian agriculture.

Burnham is set to announce that the British government is authorising defence firm MBDA to release classified information needed to help Ukraine and France set up local production of the long-range SCALP missile.

The Kremlin accused London of preventing peace in Ukraine by handing the information to Kyiv and threatened to target and ‘destroy’ facilities producing the missile in Ukraine.

On Saturday, French president Emmanuel Macron pledged Paris would deliver new interceptor missiles.

The ballistic missiles Russia has been firing in their dozens are incredibly fast and travel with a high-arching trajectory, making them difficult for Kyiv to intercept.

Ukraine relies on advanced systems — chiefly, US Patriot interceptors — to protect its skies.

But it has reported a shortage of Patriot interceptors since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February, diverting supplies.

Ahead of the meeting, Zelensky revealed the extent of the deficit, releasing usually closely guarded numbers.

He said deliveries of crucial Patriot interceptors had halved since 2023.

‘Over the entire of 2023, Ukraine received 675 missiles, and over all of 2025 — 364, even though Russian missile strikes have increased,’ Zelensky said.

‘For 2026, as currently projected, it is 264,’ he added, saying Ukraine was seeking a package of at least 300 for the upcoming winter.

The United States faces its own shortages of the missiles during its war on Iran and has resisted releasing large numbers to Ukraine.

Zelensky said Russia could produce around 100 ballistic missiles a month.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has accelerated its own campaign of long-range strikes on Russian energy and logistics sites — including oil refineries and retail warehouses.

The Coalition of the Willing is a Franco-British initiative to deliver support to Ukraine and ramp up pressure on Russia.

Originally designed as a group of countries that would be willing to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event a ceasefire was reached, it has become a parallel forum for marshalling support to Kyiv as uncertainty persists over US commitments under Donald Trump.​