As Russia’s bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities continues to intensify, the civilian death toll is rapidly rising. June 2025 saw the highest monthly casualties among the Ukrainian civilian population in more than three years, according to new data from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Losses included 232 deaths with a further 1343 Ukrainians injured, UN officials reported.
This sharp rise in Ukrainian civilian casualties is the result of a Russian air offensive that has expanded dramatically in scope since late 2024. During June, the number of drones and missiles launched at Ukrainian targets was ten times higher than the volume one year earlier.
“Civilians across Ukraine are facing levels of suffering we have not seen in over three years,” commented UN Monitoring Mission head Danielle Bell. “The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline.”
The trend of increasingly deadly Russian bombardments continues to gain momentum at an alarming rate with a series of record-breaking aerial attacks in early July, each featuring more than 500 drones along with cruise and ballistic missiles. Based on the current trajectory, analysts warn that Russia will soon be able to conduct regular bombing raids involving in excess of 1000 drones.
Russia has managed to increase the scale of its bombing operations thanks to progress made since 2023 in the domestic production of drones. During the first year of the full-scale invasion, Iran supplied Russia with the long-range Shahed drones used to bomb Ukraine. Moscow has since reduced its reliance on the Iranians by securing the necessary Shahed drone blueprints from Tehran and establishing production lines inside the Russian Federation.
A growing number of dedicated Russian facilities are now manufacturing thousands of drones each month for the invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has reportedly imported laborers from a number of Asian and African countries to bolster the workforce in these factories. China has also been accused of providing vital components in large quantities.
In addition to ongoing increases in output, Russia has also introduced a series of upgrades to Iran’s Shahed drones. The most recent models are faster and able to operate at higher altitudes, making them significantly more difficult to intercept. They are equipped with video cameras and in some cases utilize AI technologies, paving the way for autonomous flight operation and target selection. Crucially, the new generation of Russian bomber drones can also carry much larger warheads, leading to far greater destruction and loss of life.
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The escalation in Russia’s air war comes as Putin’s army struggles to make progress on the ground while suffering catastrophic losses. The Russian military has held the battlefield initiative since early 2024, but has managed to seize less than one percent of additional Ukrainian territory during this period, raising doubts over Putin’s ability to achieve his maximalist war aims. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently reported that the Russian army had lost over 100,000 soldiers during the first half of 2025 alone.
With no sign of an imminent breakthrough along the frontlines of the war, Putin’s bombardment strategy appears aimed at terrorizing the Ukrainian civilian population and undermining the country’s will to resist. The US-based Institute for the Study of War recently assessed that Russia’s ongoing large-scale air strikes seek to degrade Ukrainian and Western morale while underscoring Ukraine’s need for continued Western support.
Ukrainian officials have reached similar conclusions regarding the Kremlin’s intentions. “The Russians are intensifying terror against cities and communities to increasingly intimidate our people,” commented Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 13. “Russian terror against the rear is an attempt to break the nation,” stated Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office. “Russia can’t achieve Putin’s goals on the frontline, so it keeps targeting civilians.”
The recent geographical expansion of Russia’s nightly bombing raids certainly seems to support these claims and appears designed to demoralize the entire Ukrainian population by sending a message that nowhere in Ukraine is now safe. Key targets in early July included cities in western Ukraine that had little previous experience of major bombardment such as Lutsk and Chernivtsi.
Ukraine is now seeking to address Russia’s terror bombing strategy with a combination of technological innovation, expanded military capabilities, and increased Western support. While additional air defense systems like US-made Patriots are a priority, Kyiv is developing and testing its own domestically produced interceptor drones as the most cost-effective way to combat Russia’s massive drone raids.
Long-range weapons are also vital as Ukraine seeks to strike back. Some commentators believe Ukraine can never have enough air defenses to neutralize the threat posed by Russia’s ever-expanding bombardments. They argue that the only way to stop Putin from bombing Ukrainian cities is by boosting Ukraine’s ability to hit targets deep inside Russia including production facilities and launch sites.
With Putin’s war machine cranking out missiles and drones in even greater quantities, larger Russian raids in the coming months are inevitable. The Ukrainian authorities must urgently come up with effective solutions before the civilian death toll rises further. Putin appears to believe he can bomb Ukraine into submission. While there is currently no indication that the civilian population is approaching breaking point, the horror of Russia’s increasingly deadly air raids is weighing heavy on the war-weary nation.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the ’s UkraineAlert service.
The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the , its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.
Image: Firefighters work at the site of the apartment building hit by Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine July 10, 2025. (REUTERS/Stringer)
