Russian jet-powered drones struck a home in northern Ukraine on Friday, killing a 29-year-old woman and her 9-year-old son, officials reported.
The strike occurred one day after the United Nations announced that July had become the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since the initial weeks following Russia's full-scale invasion more than four years ago.
According to the UN human rights monitoring mission in Kyiv, at least 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 wounded in July. This represents a 70% increase compared to July of the previous year and a 30% rise from June of the current year. The UN reported that the number of civilian casualties in July was the highest documented in a single month since March 2022.
The attack in the Sumy region also injured four other individuals, including the deceased boy's father and grandmother, who sustained severe burns and were hospitalized, stated Oleh Hryhorov, the regional military administration chief.
In a separate incident in the eastern Donetsk region, a Russian glide bomb destroyed six floors of a 10-story apartment building, resulting in one death and 16 injuries, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy noted that Russia is deploying approximately 220 glide bombs daily against settlements near the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine. He described Russian forces as using glide bombs, artillery, missiles, and drones to crush settlements before advancing infantry units.
Russian forces also struck two tugboats in the Black Sea that were escorting cargo ships carrying Western weapons for Ukraine, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said. The ministry added that its drones overnight hit the railway station of Ukraine's southern Izmail port, which it claims is used for transporting military cargo and fuel.
Overall, Russia attacked 12 Ukrainian regions overnight, wounding dozens of people, Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian forces have continued their long-range strikes against Russian infrastructure. On Friday, they hit the port of Ust-Luga in the Leningrad region, north of Moscow, causing a brief fire, according to its governor, Alexander Drozdenko. Ust-Luga is a major oil and gas export terminal and has been a frequent target of Ukrainian drone attacks aimed at disrupting Russian oil exports that fund its war effort.
Ukraine also conducted an attack on the premises of Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, which Kyiv asserts supplies the Russian military. The attack damaged a wall of a Wildberries warehouse in the Tver region, north of Moscow, reported acting governor Vitaly Korolyov. Wildberries stated the damage was "insignificant" and that stored goods were unaffected.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses intercepted 553 Ukrainian drones over 18 Russian regions, as well as occupied Crimea and the waters of the Azov and Black seas overnight.
In NATO airspace, fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace early Friday, according to the Latvian army and a NATO official. Latvian authorities did not specify the drone's origin but stated it entered the country "as a result of Russian electromagnetic warfare." Several drones have previously crossed into Latvia, with many suspected to be Ukrainian drones that deviated from their course due to Russian electronic jamming. Two Italian Eurofighter jets were deployed, with one successfully downing the drone, a NATO spokesperson confirmed. Turkish fighter jets were also deployed. Residents in five eastern Latvian municipalities were alerted to the airspace threat and advised to take shelter.
Additionally, a drone crashed in woodland in Romania approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the Ukrainian border, Romania's Defense Ministry reported Friday. The drone was not detected by military radars due to its "very low" altitude. The ministry provided no information regarding the drone's origin.