KILLING OF CIVILIANS SHOULD NEVER BE NORMALIZED IN WAR

Last night, many of Kyiv's three million residents and thousands more across the region spent up to 11 hours in shelters or taking cover at home to the terrifying sounds of war.

Following one of the largest-scale attacks by the Russian Armed Forces since the full-scale invasion, people in Ukraine’s capital emerged from a sleepless night to devastating news: at least 13 residents were killed, and nearly 90, including several children, were wounded. Among the casualties are several health workers and ambulance drivers injured by a strike that hit an ambulance station and damaged several vehicles.

Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing to save people trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed residential buildings, including a 15-year-old girl and her family. Multiple homes, a hotel, a market and other civilian facilities were destroyed or damaged in nearly every part of the capital.

The loss and fear caused by this and every other attack intensify the psychological trauma countless people have to bear. The longer the war goes on, the deeper these invisible scars become. These latest attacks are part of a continuing deadly pattern of strikes observed in densely populated areas across Ukraine. Between December 2025 and May 2026, civilian casualties increased by 40 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Civilians in Kyiv and across the country should not be bracing for yet another attack; they are protected under international humanitarian law.