4 July 2026
A Russian guided-bomb strike on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed a 34-year-old woman and her 5-year-old daughter on the evening of 3 July, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow continued a nationwide campaign of missiles, drones and glide bombs that has stretched into 4 July.
Aftermath of mass aerial bombardment on residential high-rise infrastructure. Source: Iowa Public Radio
Sumy Regional Military Administration head Oleh Hryhorov said Russian forces struck a busy central street with guided aerial bombs (KABs), hitting an apartment building, shops and a roadway. Four people were killed – the woman and her daughter, along with two men aged 64 and 56 – while at least 27 others were injured, including seven children.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Russian forces dropped five guided bombs between 9:38 p.m. and 9:46 p.m., damaging 14 apartment buildings, a medical facility, two schools and eight shops.
The attacks formed part of a broader overnight wave that also struck southeastern Ukraine. In Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, one person was killed and seven others were injured after a Russian missile hit the city, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the city’s Defence Council. Regional officials also reported damage to homes, businesses and civilian infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia region.
The Sumy strike came a day after Russia carried out what Ukrainian authorities described as the largest combined aerial assault of the full-scale invasion. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 570 aerial weapons overnight into 2 July, including 74 missiles and 496 drones. The attack primarily targeted Kyiv, where the death toll rose to 30 after rescue teams recovered additional bodies over the following two days, according to Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko. More than 90 people were injured.
The missile salvo included four Zircon hypersonic missiles and 24 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, while the drone package combined Shahed attack drones with Gerbera, Italmas and Banderol drones, as well as Parodiya decoys. These low-cost expendable drones are fitted with radar-reflecting Luneburg lenses designed to imitate the radar signature of Shahed drones, complicating Ukrainian air-defence operations.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat has said decoys such as Parodiya and Gerbera have at times accounted for up to half of the drones in individual strike packages. Rather than causing significant damage themselves, they are intended to draw Ukrainian interceptor fire, expose radar positions and reduce the effectiveness of Ukraine’s layered air-defence network.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed in its 2 July campaign update that Russia’s evolving mix of missiles, strike drones and decoys is making it progressively more difficult for Ukrainian forces to intercept incoming attacks, increasing the likelihood that missiles and drones penetrate Ukrainian air defences and reach civilian areas.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned that the growing frequency of mass attacks is placing sustained pressure on interceptor inventories, particularly Patriot missiles needed to defeat ballistic threats. President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed calls this week for faster deliveries of Patriot interceptors and greater European production capacity, saying Ukraine continues to seek additional support from the United States and its European partners.
Russia’s sustained strike campaign continues to focus heavily on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure, while Ukraine’s expanding long-range drone campaign has concentrated primarily on military, energy and logistics facilities inside Russia. As Moscow increases the scale and complexity of its strike packages, the availability of Ukrainian air-defence interceptors – particularly those for Patriot systems capable of engaging ballistic missiles – is emerging as one of the war’s most significant operational constraints.
