Deaths mount, trauma sets in as Russia ramps up missile attacks on Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine – On the sunny morning of July 24 , three Russian missiles whizzed towards Kyiv.

Ukraine’s air defence downed only one because of a dire, desperate lack of Western-made missile interceptors, and the other two struck a sports centre that hosted an exhibition of drones.

The ear-popping, earth-shattering strikes wounded more than 100 people and killed 12, including Valentyna Savitska, a fair-haired, 32-year-old border security officer and mother of two.

“Their childhood is over; they lost their mum,” Savitska’s husband, Ihor Solovey, told Al Jazeera.

His son Vladyslav, 15, is now determined to join the military as “his choice is revenge, revenge for mum,” said Solovey, who heads the government-run Center for Strategic Communication that analyses and refutes Russian disinformation.

“Mum is unconditional love, mum is tenderness, mum is support. And [Polyna] already understands that she lost it all,” Solovey said. “Her psychologist says there’s a delayed stress, a scar for life.”

July became the Russia-Ukraine war’s deadliest month since May 2022 as Moscow launched 376 missiles, a sinister record compared with 288 in March and 192 in July 2025.

Russia also sent nearly 5,000 long- and short-range drones and hundreds of gliding guided bombs that collapsed entire buildings in front-line areas.