A Russian camera-equipped drone struck an ATB supermarket in Chernihiv on Sunday afternoon while it was open for business. Two people were killed, including a 9-year-old girl, and 25 others were wounded.
On the afternoon of Sunday, July 26, 2026, while shoppers were going about an ordinary Sunday errand at an ATB supermarket in Chernihiv, a Russian camera-equipped attack drone struck the store. Two people were killed, including a 9-year-old girl, and 25 others were wounded. A car service station and a warehouse nearby were hit in the same strike. Volunteers Support Ukraine extends its condolences to the families of the victims and to everyone affected in Chernihiv that day.
Police explosives experts determined that the supermarket was hit by a jet-powered drone fitted with a video camera, meaning its operator was watching a live feed and deliberately steered the munition into a building full of people rather than launching it blindly along a preset path. Investigators point to that camera as evidence that the strike on a civilian site was not a stray or misfired weapon but a conscious choice of target. The fire that engulfed the building afterward hampered rescuers for hours as they worked to reach the site and assess the full extent of the damage.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called the strike "a deliberate act of Russian terror that has no military justification," describing it elsewhere as a "deeply cynical" attack on an ordinary supermarket with nothing that could plausibly be linked to a military objective. He renewed his call on Ukraine's partners to tighten sanctions on Russia and to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses, so that strikes like this one become physically impossible to carry out. Emergency crews continued working at the scene long after the fire was brought under control, clearing debris and documenting evidence for a future war crimes investigation.
The attack on the Chernihiv supermarket came as part of a wider wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine that day, which also hit other regions of the country. But it is the supermarket, a place people visited for bread and groceries rather than anything resembling a front line, that most starkly illustrates how little distinction Russia draws between military and civilian targets. Chernihiv, a northern city not far from the borders with Russia and Belarus, has endured repeated strikes throughout the war, but an attack on a crowded retail site in the middle of a Sunday is a stark reminder of how exposed everyday life remains in Ukrainian cities.
Volunteers Support Ukraine helps people affected by the war every day, within the resources and reach the organization has. Tragedies like the strike on the Chernihiv supermarket are a reminder of why that work still matters: civilians in cities near and far from the front line continue to lose their lives doing ordinary things — shopping, at home, on the way to work. NGO Volunteers Support Ukraine remains committed to supporting people whose lives have been upended by this war, and we ask everyone who is able to stand with the people of Ukraine.
