Russia Set a Record for the Number of Missile Strikes on Ukraine in July – Le Figaro
In July 2026, Russian forces fired 376 missiles at Ukrainian territory, marking the highest monthly total since the start of the full-scale invasion. This is more than double the number of missiles fired in June, when Russia carried out 161 missile launches.
At the same time, the Russian military deployed 4,956 long-range strike drones—14% fewer than the previous month. Kyiv remained the primary target of the July attacks, enduring some of the most devastating strikes since the war began. The scale of the July shelling of the capital and other regions was clearly demonstrated by the nighttime attack on July 30, when Russia launched 358 air-attack weapons at Ukraine—74 missiles and 284 drones— with Kyiv, Lviv, the Poltava region, and Kryvyi Rih coming under fire.
Ukrainian air defense continues to successfully intercept most attack drones, but protection against missiles depends largely on supplies from Western allies. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly stated that the country faces a critical shortage of modern air defense systems, especially given Russia’s increasing use of ballistic weapons.
Ballistic missiles travel along a high trajectory at supersonic speeds and reach their targets within minutes of launch, often leaving minimal time to react even after an air raid alert has been issued. According to military analysts’ estimates, Russia deployed approximately 200–300 ballistic missiles throughout 2024, while 126 were launched in July 2026 alone. According to AFP’s calculations, Ukrainian air defense forces managed to intercept less than a third of them.
This was reported by Le Figaro.
On the night of August 1, drones attacked several temporarily occupied cities in Ukraine. According to reports from monitoring Telegram channels, fires broke out in Zuhres, Berdyansk, Luhansk, Dolzhansk, and Sevastopol following the strikes.
As a reminder, the Russian online marketplace Ozon evacuated employees from its logistics center in Zelenodolsk (Tatarstan) due to the threat of an attack by Ukrainian drones. After the alert ended, the warehouse resumed normal operations.
On the morning of July 31, drones attacked a warehouse complex in Zelenodolsk (Tatarstan, Russian Federation), where the logistics facilities of the Ozon and Wildberries marketplaces are located. Following this, a number of Ukrainian sources reported that strikes on Ozon warehouses might continue.
