The night of Sunday brought new casualties to the civilian population in the conflict zone between Russia and Ukraine, with the most serious incident recorded on the territory of the annexed Crimean peninsula.
In the early hours of the day, intense artillery and drone exchanges continued to inflict heavy damage on residential areas and civilians, following the wave of the deadliest air strikes of the year since the beginning of the week.
Strikes on civilian targets in Russia and its controlled territories
- Attack in Northern Crimea: The heaviest blow to non-combatant objects in this time period was inflicted in the northern part of the Crimean peninsula. In an attack carried out by Ukrainian forces, one civilian was killed and two others were injured. According to regional authorities, one of the injured is in critical condition in hospital.
- Shooting of border regions: Residents of Belgorod and Bryansk regions report on social networks sporadic artillery fire and activation of air defense systems. The ongoing tension comes after yesterday's strikes on a market in the Zaporizhia region and drone attacks on oil terminals in St. Petersburg and Leningrad regions, which left Russian border towns with power outages and fuel shortages.
The situation in Ukraine and strikes in the rear
- Continued pressure on Sumy and Kramatorsk: Overnight, Russian forces maintained artillery pressure in the border areas of Sumy region, where in the previous days a Russian drone hit a residential building and caused the death of a small child.
- Slovyansk direction: Frontline reports from the morning of July 5 indicate that the Russian army continues to carry out tactical strikes with guided aerial bombs and drone systems directly on civilian buildings and infrastructure in the city of Sloviansk. This is happening against the backdrop of extremely fierce fighting in the east.
- Humanitarian ultimatum for Konstantinovka: A serious information clash also unfolded during the day. The Russian Defense Ministry has issued a formal ultimatum to Kiev by 12:00 on July 5, demanding a temporary halt to Ukrainian shelling of the town of Konstantinovka on July 6 under the pretext of retrieving the bodies of fallen soldiers. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has categorically rejected Moscow’s claims that the town has been taken, calling the Kremlin’s claims of complete control disinformation.
According to the latest reports by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), the use of long-range weapons in densely populated urban areas remains the leading cause of the surge in civilian casualties in the first half of 2026.
Sources: TASS, Kommersant, News.ru, Telegram, RFE, ISW)