30 August 2026

August 2026 in brief

A Russian drone strike on a warehouse in Myla near Kyiv on 28 August set off blasts that killed 38 people, Zelensky said, in a warehouse Ukrainian officials said stored ammunition, and two drones hit a crowded shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih on 21 August, killing at least 16, according to Ukrainian authorities cited by HRMMU. ^[1][2] Ballistic missile and drone attacks around Kyiv killed at least 17 civilians overnight into 4 August, the UN human rights office said, and strikes on 20 August killed at least 17 more, according to local authorities, damaging a children's hospital and a school. ^[1][2] HRMMU said July had been the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since May 2022, with at least 437 killed, and a WHO warehouse of frontline medical supplies in Dnipro was destroyed after repeated strikes, the UN said. ^[1][2] The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant lost its last off-site power line on 20 August and relied on emergency diesel generators to cool its reactors, the IAEA said. ^[1] Ukraine said it damaged four Russian warships in an attack on the Novorossiysk naval base on 12 August, Tatarstan authorities said a drone attack on Nizhnekamsk killed 13 people, nine of them in a workers' hostel, and the Moscow and Rostov governors said a later Ukrainian attack killed six. ^[1][2][3] An explosive-laden drone struck the wing of a Ukrainian An-124 cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle airport without detonating, Moldova recalled its ambassador to Moscow after a drone or missile exploded near a village, and Romanian F-16s disabled an explosive-laden sea drone in Romania's economic zone. ^[1][2][3] Russia and Ukraine exchanged 103 prisoners of war each, and at the end of the month Russia's defence ministry said it was preparing massive strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks. ^[1]

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