22 July 2025

July 2025 in brief

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission (HRMMU) recorded 286 civilians killed and 1,388 injured in Ukraine in July, its highest monthly death toll since May 2022. ^[1][2] A missile and drone strike on Kyiv on 31 July killed 32 people, the capital's highest verified civilian toll of the war according to HRMMU, and aerial bombs on a penal colony in Zaporizhzhia region on 28 July killed at least 16 prisoners, a strike the Kremlin denied carrying out. ^[1][2] Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 728 drones and 13 missiles overnight into 9 July, mainly at Lutsk, the largest attack of the war at that point, and WHO recorded an attack affecting a health facility and a health warehouse in Kyiv. ^[1][2] Russia's defence ministry claimed the capture of Chasiv Yar on 31 July, a claim Ukraine's military rejected, while the monitoring group DeepState reported Russian infiltration groups inside Pokrovsk. ^[1][2] The White House paused some weapons shipments to Ukraine on 1 July after a Pentagon stockpile review, and a third round of direct talks in Istanbul on 23 July agreed an exchange of at least 1,200 prisoners each but no ceasefire. ^[1][2] President Donald Trump said on 29 July that Russia had ten days to agree a ceasefire, after which he had threatened secondary tariffs of up to 100 percent on buyers of Russian goods.

Written from the records it cites; every figure appears in a cited record.