Russo-Ukrainian war, day 1629: Russia races to swamp Ukraine’s air defenses as July becomes deadliest month for civilians since 2022

Exclusives

Ukraine's cardboard protests look like democracy working. In a war, that's also the risk.. Three weeks on, the protests go on—smaller but daily. Fedorov's old seat is filled by an acting minister, and Fedorov himself won't join the crowds demanding his return.

Military

"What happens here affects next 50 years": why American left Pennsylvania to fight in Ukraine's 47th Brigade. "Lighthouse", a soldier in the 47th Brigade's reconnaissance company, came from Pennsylvania after the full-scale war.

"This is money of his accomplices burning": Russian partisans and Ukraine hit Siberian plant tied to Putin's inner circle. The plant is located over 2,000 km away from the Ukrainian border and is one of Russia's largest.

Ukraine's Crimea campaign could strike seven times more targets with faster funding, Brovdi says. To clear the skies over the peninsula, the force destroyed more than 300 Russian air defense assets in recent months, its commander said.

Russia's advance in Ukraine slows as casualties per square kilometer rise 3.5-fold, Radio Svoboda reports. Ukrainian drone operators say Russian infiltration units moving on foot lose all but one soldier out of every fifteen.

Zelenskyy says Russia could receive up to 50,000 North Korean troops. Kyiv says North Korean deployment numbers have grown from hundreds to tens of thousands within roughly two months, according to Ukrainian estimates.

Drones strike Russian oblasts overnight: thick smoke over a Nizhnekamsk refinery as Crimea's Krasnoperekopsk industrial zone burns. Unmanned aircraft reportedly hit a Tatarstan oil hub and the occupied peninsula, with satellite sensors flagging heat signatures and 15 airports halting flights.

Russian electric locomotive was named target of Ukrainian partisan operation. It carried military supplies toward Kharkiv front. The ATESH partisan movement says its agents destroyed the cab of an electric locomotive.

Intelligence and technology

Forged end-user certificates through eight countries: how one network kept European tech flowing into Russian missiles. Austrian counterintelligence exposed an international network that funneled high-tech industrial equipment to Rostec-linked Russian defense firms.

70 ballistic missiles and 12 launchers: Ukraine lines up deep-strike refill from an unlikely supplier. The M39 ATACMS flies about 165 kilometers the short-range original, carrying a warhead that scatters 950 bomblets over troops and air defenses.

Russian plants are overfulfilling monthly missile production quotas by 110-120% and unlikely to pause strikes, Ukraine's intelligence says. Moscow met its full-year Zircon and Onyx output targets by early August, seven months into 2026, Ukraine's deputy intelligence chief said.

New Iranian loitering munition has started reaching Ukraine, analyst says. It's built to hit deep behind front. Iran is improving its Shahed-107 kamikaze drones based on the Ukraine war, adding shrapnel elements.

International

Ukraine gave up 1,900 nuclear warheads in 1994 on Western promises that didn't work. New plan would replace them with Britain's shield instead. Plan pairs Britain's nuclear deterrent with Ukraine's army as Europe doubts US protection and struggles to deter Russia.

The Atlantic: US firms may fear cheaper Ukrainian Patriots, Republican official says. A Republican congressional official says intellectual-property concerns may mask fears of Ukraine being able to make Patriots more cheaply and more quickly.

Humanitarian and social impact

A $20,000 "welcome bonus" that was never paid: how a Colombia-registered recruiter sent Peruvians into Russia's war. Russia has deceived more than 450 Peruvian citizens into its army, and some have already been killed.

Occupied Ukraine's schools get a new Russian ideology class, a separate military-training track, and behavior grades from 1 September. Behavior grades for children as young as the second grade, a standalone military-training course, and a compulsory Russian identity subject take effect together across the temporarily occupied territories from 1 September.

A Russian missile took Oleksandra Paskal's leg at six. At 10, she competes in rhythmic gymnastics across five continents. She returned to the gym roughly seven months after the amputation, and now trains as hard as any girl in her group, on a prosthesis.

July was Ukraine's deadliest month for civilians since 2022 — and Russia is scaling its ballistic missile salvos toward 200 at once. Kyiv's unmanned-forces commander warns the Kremlin is racing to swamp a depleted air shield, echoing intelligence that Moscow now overfulfills its monthly weapons plans.

ISW: Russia strikes the Mayaki bridge linking southern Ukraine to Romania and Moldova. Moscow's overnight hit on the M-15 highway forced Kyiv to halt traffic toward the Danube ports, its main grain outlet after sea exports collapsed.

Political and legal developments

Sweden says it stopped Russian operation to discredit country and EU. But no one will be prosecuted. Sweden's Säpo exposed a Russian intelligence operation that recruited an agent in a foreign diplomatic mission to undermine Swedish decision-making.

A Russian who moved to Ukraine got 13 years the moment he visited relatives back home. Eleven alleged transfers of about 100 hryvnias ($2.23) each led Ivan Stolbov to a harsh sentence after he returned to Russia.

Zaluzhnyi, Fedorov, and Budanov lead Ukraine's trust ranking as Zelenskyy places fourth – KIIS. Three of Ukraine's most recognizable wartime figures now command the strongest public confidence, a late-July sociological study found, even as the president's standing lags noticeably behind.

Read our earlier daily review here.