Ukraine recorded its deadliest month for civilians since the early stages of Russia’s invasion, with July’s toll rising sharply as Moscow intensified its campaign of long-range missile strikes, the United Nations said.
Russia also launched more missiles at Ukraine than in any previous month, according to an AFP analysis of figures released by Ukraine’s air force. Many of the attacks involved ballistic missiles, which are particularly difficult to intercept as they plunged toward Kyiv and other cities.
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“At least 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 injured in Ukraine in July, a 30% increase compared with the previous month and a 70% increase compared with July 2025,” the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission said in a statement.
“The number of those killed is the highest recorded since May 2022,” it added.
The war has become Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, while US-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting have failed to produce a breakthrough.
The UN said it had verified 16,874 civilian deaths since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The figure is almost certainly an underestimate, however, because monitors have been unable to confirm casualties in areas of Ukraine under Russian occupation.
Mariupol is among the places excluded from a complete accounting. Russia besieged the southern port city at the beginning of the war, and thousands of people are widely believed to have died there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly urged allies to provide more sophisticated air defence systems, especially US-made Patriots, to protect cities from the rapid ballistic missiles that are among Russia’s most difficult weapons to stop.
Kyiv was among the worst-affected areas, with at least 54 civilians killed there in July. The UN described the capital as “one of the hardest hit cities”.
Kyiv was comparatively well shielded during the first years of the war. But dwindling air-defence supplies, combined with Russia’s escalating attacks, have left the capital increasingly vulnerable.
Ukraine has stepped up its own long-range strikes inside Russia, saying the attacks are retaliation aimed at disrupting Moscow’s military infrastructure and reducing the energy revenues that help finance its war effort.
Russian authorities said 79 civilians were killed in Russia during July.
The United Nations, however, said it could not “independently verify these figures to its verification standards due to lack of access and limited information.”
Two killed in train strike
Russian forces overnight struck Ukraine’s largest Danube port for grain shipments, damaging infrastructure and triggering a fire, authorities said. The attack came after Mr Zelensky warned that Ukraine needed additional US air-defence missiles to survive the winter.
Izmail, located near the Romanian border in the southern Odesa region, is a key outlet for Ukrainian grain and other commodities.
The Izmail regional state administration said on Telegram that the strikes damaged port facilities and disrupted electricity supplies in the city’s southeast.
The assault followed a Ukrainian strike a day earlier on Novorossiysk, a major grain-export hub on Russia’s Black Sea coast.
Romania, which belongs to both NATO and the European Union, scrambled two fighter jets, its defence ministry said on X. The ministry added that an aerial target remained in Romanian airspace for about 10 minutes before departing toward Ukraine.
Elsewhere in the Odesa region, a Russian drone struck a passenger train, killing the driver and his assistant, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, CEO of the Ukrainian Railways, said in a post on Facebook.
Russian forces have repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s rail network during the four-and-a-half-year war. Kyiv says the strikes are intended to disrupt logistics while also putting civilian passengers at risk.
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Footage released by Ukraine’s emergency services showed flames engulfing the train’s cab, with the front section torn open and badly twisted.
“Today in the Odesa region, the Russians once again destroyed an ordinary passenger train locomotive with a jet-powered drone. There were 340 people on the train,” President Zelensky said.
“Whoever was operating that drone certainly could not have been unaware that the target was entirely civilian,” he added.
A view of a damaged vehicle following a Russian airstrike in Kramatorsk, Ukraine
Late yesterday, Mr Zelensky told CNN that Ukraine required at least 5% of the current US stockpile of Patriot interceptor missiles to counter the surge in Russian ballistic-missile attacks.
Kyiv has been pressing for more PAC-3 interceptors, the newest Patriot missiles designed to bring down ballistic weapons.
Patriot deliveries to Ukraine declined after the war in Iran redirected supplies.
During the interview, Mr Zelensky said receiving 10% of the existing US Patriot stockpile would be enough to stop every Russian ballistic-missile attack.
“Sell us 5%, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives. If they can sell us 10%, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1%,” he told CNN.
Ballistic missiles travel at extreme speeds and follow steep flight paths, making them considerably more difficult to intercept than drones or cruise missiles.
Russia launched more than 450 missiles of various types at Ukraine in July, with over half identified as ballistic, Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force, said on Facebook.
He added that the air force would no longer publish daily totals for Russian ballistic missiles that had been destroyed or suppressed, instead releasing those figures each month.
Russia and Ukraine also exchanged the remains of fallen soldiers, one of the few forms of cooperation that has continued between the two sides.
“The bodies of 261 deceased persons have been returned to Ukraine, which, according to the Russian side, belong to Ukrainian servicemen,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.
Kyiv has previously accused Moscow of including civilian remains and the bodies of Russian soldiers in such exchanges.
The RBC media outlet likewise reported that Russia had transferred 261 bodies, while Ukraine had handed over 24.
