Six Killed in Belgorod; Russia, Ukraine Trade Overnight Strikes
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- A Ukrainian missile strike on the village of Koloskovo in Russia's Belgorod region killed at least six and wounded four including a 14-year-old, acting Governor Alexander Shuvaev reported on the state-backed MAX platform; Koloskovo sits about 15km from Ukraine's border.
- Russian forces launched simultaneous missile and drone strikes across at least six Ukrainian regions overnight, killing at least four and wounding 19, with hits in Zaporizhia (2 dead), Sumy (2 dead), Dnipropetrovsk (5 injured), Kharkiv's Izyum (4 injured), Kherson (5 injured), and Odesa.
- A Russian attack on Izmail district port infrastructure in Odesa damaged a Togo-flagged civilian vessel; Izmail, near the Romanian border, is Ukraine's largest port on the Danube.
- Russia has intensified hard-to-intercept ballistic missile use to exploit Ukraine's air-defense shortages, a gap worsened by the US-Israel war against Iran drawing on global supplies.
- Ukraine has increasingly targeted Wildberries warehouses, saying the retailer sells drone components and outfits Russian soldiers, alongside strikes on oil refineries aimed at undermining Russia's war economy, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
- July civilian tolls hit their highest since May 2022: the United Nations tallied 437 civilians killed in Ukraine, while Russian authorities reported 79 Ukrainian-attack deaths, up from June.
Why it matters: With front-line fighting at a near standstill and US-backed talks frozen, both sides have shifted the killing to long-range strikes deep inside each other's territory — pushing July's civilian toll to its highest since May 2022. Russia's pivot to harder-to-intercept ballistic missiles directly exploits Ukraine's depleted air-defense stockpiles, a shortfall worsened by the US-Israel war against Iran drawing on global interceptor supplies.
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