Russian missile strike kills 14, Injures 44 in Kostiantynivka shopping centre

On the afternoon of August 9, 2024, Russia launched a missile strike on a shopping centre in central Kostiantynivka, the Donetsk Oblast. The attack specifically targeted the Eko-Market supermarket and a post office branch.

The removal of rubble from the Russian strike on the town of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk Oblast on 9 August was completed. According to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Ihor Klymenko, in a Telegram post, final figures indicate that the attack killed 14 people and injured 44.

“Kostiantynivka: workers have cleared the rubble of the shopping centre. Emergency workers dismantled 76 tonnes of building debris at the site. Yesterday’s Russian attack claimed the lives of 14 people and injured 44 more. Police forensic experts have identified five of the eight unidentified bodies: three women and two children – girls aged 12 and 10. Three more bodies remain to be identified,” he wrote.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, as of the morning of 10 August, the Russian attack on Kostiantynivka also killed two children. The investigation reports that these were girls aged 9 and 11.

Klymenko added that authorities established an interagency investigation team, comprised of officers from the National Police and the Security Service of Ukraine, to thoroughly document the Russian war crime.

Moreover, the Russian army attacked a secondary education institution in the City of Kharkiv on August 9, Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, reported. Earlier, the Air Force of Ukraine had warned about the threat of Russians using ballistic weapons from the east.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 injured in Ukraine in July 2024, which makes it the deadliest month for civilians since October 2022. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine stated that the high number of casualties in July continues a trend of increasing civilian casualties since March 2024.

The UN pointed out that a large-scale coordinated attack launched by the Russian Armed Forces across Ukraine on July 8, 2024, killed at least 43 civilians, including 5 children, and injured 147, including 7 children, in Kyiv City, Dnipro City, Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Kyiv region.

One missile in the 8 July attack also struck a hospital complex in Kyiv city, destroying the toxicology department of the Okhmatdyt National Children’s Hospital and significantly damaging the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

In June and July, the most intensive offensive military operations by the Russian Armed Forces shifted from the northern Kharkiv region to the Donetsk region, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted. As a result, verified civilian casualties in the Donetsk region increased from 125 civilians killed or injured in May to 224 in June and 269 in July 2024.

The vast majority of civilian casualties (90%) and damage to educational and health facilities (86%) continued to occur in Government-controlled territory.

As for now, it is impossible to determine the exact number of casualties, as Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the representatives of the ICC have no access to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.