Russian aerial bomb strike on Sloviansk kills at least five, injures nine
At least five people have been killed, and nine have been injured in a Russian attack on Sloviansk in the Donetsk Oblast, according to the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office and Vadym Filashkin, head of Donetsk Oblast Military Administration.
On 24 July 2026, Russian forces dropped aerial bombs on Sloviansk.
The aftermath of the Russian attack. Photo credit: Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s OfficeThe administration reported that 10 houses, a business and the premises of the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Latvia have been damaged.
Under the procedural guidance of the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office, a pre-trial investigation has been launched into a war crime (Article 438.2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
To provide background, international efforts to broker an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine remain ongoing. U.S., European and Ukrainian officials continue discussing diplomatic options. Diplomatic contacts over a possible end to the war have intensified in recent months, but the sides remain far apart. Ukraine says peace must be based on international law, security guarantees and respect for its territorial integrity. Russia, meanwhile, continues to maintain its territorial demands, which Kyiv rejects as unacceptable.
On 23 July 2026, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the press in Manila that Russia’s approach proposed in Anchorage last year failed because it was unacceptable to Ukraine. He was asked how relevant the proposals put forward by Russia in Anchorage remained today, the news outlet European Pravda reported.
The US Secretary of State said that the reported proposals, which the Russians called “3+2” and which involved the division of territories, had failed. He stressed that a peace agreement could not be reached unless both sides agreed to it and noted that the Ukrainians had not agreed to the proposals, which was why those efforts had not succeeded.
He added that, in view of this, new proposals and new ideas would have to be sought, because clearly that option was unacceptable to Ukraine then, and he doesn’t think it is acceptable to them now either.
Rubio said that the proposals were probably even less acceptable to Ukraine now. He added that he believed peace, if achieved, would come through new ideas and concepts, and that the US was prepared to offer some of those in the appropriate context and format.
Ukrainian experts point out that countries, including China, Greece, North Korea, Hungary, Slovakia, Iran, and Brazil, assist Moscow in killing Ukrainians in its war against Ukraine by funding the Russian budget through trade.
Human rights organisations and Ukrainian authorities emphasise that structural economic pressure remains a key tool to halt such atrocities. They urge every nation and individual government worldwide to strictly enforce global sanctions, close existing regulatory loopholes, and completely sever remaining commercial and technological ties with the Russian Federation. Civil society groups stress that any continued cooperation by foreign businesses directly contributes to the resources Moscow uses to sustain its ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
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