Overnight and during the day on July 25-26, Russia struck Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Sumy region simultaneously. At least 7 people were killed and 58 wounded nationwide.
Overnight into July 26 and through the following day, Russia launched one of its largest combined attacks on Ukraine in recent memory: one guided Kh-59/69 missile, seven Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and 136 long-range attack drones, including Shahed-type ones. Air defense intercepted the guided missile, five of the seven ballistic missiles, and 104 of the 136 drones, but the ones that got through struck at least 18 locations, with debris from intercepted targets falling in seven more. Volunteers Support Ukraine highlights the scale of this particular day precisely because casualties were reported simultaneously in six different regions of the country.
In the capital, missile debris struck an 18-story residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi district, with fire engulfing the 7th and 8th floors. Fires also broke out in the Desnianskyi and Solomianskyi districts: in Desnianskyi, a 150-square-meter warehouse burned down along with ten cars and a truck parked nearby. Three Kyiv residents were injured. Volunteers Support Ukraine notes that it is exactly this kind of nighttime strikes on apartment blocks that explains why the need for emergency assistance to civilians never disappears, not even for a single day.
In Kryvyi Rih, on the morning of July 26, drones struck an Epicentr home-improvement hypermarket that had operated in the city for nearly 19 years — the fire spread across more than 16,000 square meters. According to preliminary reports there were no casualties, but the store building itself, which employed around 400 people, was destroyed by the fire. This is already the third store of this chain that Russia has destroyed in Dnipropetrovsk region since the start of the full-scale war. Volunteers Support Ukraine believes strikes like this are, first and foremost, about ordinary everyday life that has to be rebuilt again and again.
In Kharkiv, a drone hit a private home in the Slobidskyi district, killing a 40-year-old woman; among the nine injured were two children. In Kherson region, two people were killed and 24 injured, with residential buildings, a church, a gas station, and a gas pipeline hit. In Zaporizhzhia, a guided aerial bomb killed a man and wounded at least six others, as the region endured 1,029 strikes on 50 settlements over the course of the day. In Sumy region, guided bombs killed one person, with a child among the eight injured. One more person was killed in a strike on Druzhkivka in Donetsk region. Volunteers Support Ukraine stresses that behind every one of these figures is a specific family, a specific home, a specific life that ended or changed forever.
A day when the capital, an industrial city, and several border regions all come under attack at once is a reminder that the war does not pause for any part of the country. Volunteers Support Ukraine keeps helping people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow, and believes that on days exactly like this one, that help matters most.
