Kyiv (2 July 2026) – Last night’s large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine is the latest in a series of deadly strikes that are driving a sharp rise in civilian casualties, the UN Human Rights Office said today.
Overnight, Russian armed forces launched a reported 74 missiles and almost 500 attack drones, which mostly at Kyiv city.
Ukrainian authorities report that the attack killed at least 22 civilians and injured more than 100, including four children. As search and rescue operations continue, the number of casualties is expected to rise.
“This massive assault affected every district of Kyiv city,” said Danielle Bell, Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU). “Our findings have repeatedly shown that the use of powerful explosive weapons in densely populated civilian areas has devastating and foreseeable consequences for civilians.”
HRMMU visited one of the worst-affected sites in Darnytskyi district of Kyiv city, where a missile directly struck a nine-story residential building, causing a large part of the building to collapse. When HRMMU visited the site on 2 July, emergency workers were still clearing the rubble, searching for at least seven people believed to be trapped.
“The scale of destruction and obvious human suffering is horrific” said Bell, who visited the site today in Darnytskyi. “The missile impacted a residential building surrounded by other apartments, a school and a playground. Even as rescue operations continued, families faced profound uncertainty as they waited for news of their missing loved ones.”
HRMMU interviewed residents affected by the strike. One woman described how her apartment had been completely destroyed and that she and her four-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter survived only because they had taken shelter before the attack. She also said that two of her neighbors were still missing, believed to be trapped under the collapsed building.
Civilian casualties in Ukraine have increased each month in 2026 and are significantly higher than comparable periods in the previous three years. One of the principal drivers of the rise in casualties is the increasing use by Russian armed forces of long-range missiles and drones in urban areas across Ukraine.
For more information about civilian harm in Ukraine, see here. We will soon publish our monthly update on civilian harm, which will also include an analysis of civilian harm for the first six months of 2026.
