Key developments on July 31:
Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles against Kyiv overnight on July 31, killing at least 16 people and injuring 159 in one of the heaviest attacks in recent weeks.
The attack killed 10 people in Kyiv's Sviatoshynskyi district and two in Solomianskyi, including a six-year-old boy. The rescue operation is ongoing.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city's military administration, said that as of 9:44 p.m. local time, 16 people in total had been killed in the attack, including two children.
"Unfortunately, the worst predictions regarding the number of people who may be trapped under the rubble have been confirmed," Tkachenko said.
Three police officers and 12 children were among the injured. Thirty people, including five children, remain hospitalized as of 2:40 p.m. local time, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. First responders have been working at the scenes of the attacks.
Klitschko added that the number of children injured was the highest recorded in the city since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
Russian forces launched over 300 drones and eight missiles against Ukraine overnight, targeting Kyiv and other regions, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
In response to the attack, Aug. 1 has been declared a Day of Mourning in Kyiv. Flags will be flown at half-mast on all municipal buildings. All entertainment events are banned in the city for the day.
U.S. President Donald Trump wants a deal to end Russia's war in Ukraine by Aug. 8, senior American diplomat John Kelley told the United Nations Security Council on July 31.
The comments come after a deadly Russian overnight attack that killed at least 13 people in Kyiv, leaving 135 more injured.
"Both Russia and Ukraine must negotiate a ceasefire and durable peace. It is time to make a deal," Kelley said, addressing the council. "President Trump has made clear this must be done by Aug. 8. The United States is prepared to implement additional measures to secure peace," he added.
Trump warned on July 29 that tariffs on Russia would take effect within 10 days unless the Kremlin agreed to halt its full-scale invasion.
The proposed tariffs include sweeping secondary sanctions on countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas, and other exports — a move that would directly impact major trading partners such as Chinaand India.
"Ten days from today. And then we're gonna put on tariffs and stuff," Trump said in audio released by the White House. "I don't know if it’s gonna affect Russia, because he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) wants to obviously probably keep the war going, but we're gonna put tariffs and various things."
Trump originally issued a 50-day deadline to Putin on July 14, threatening "severe" tariffs of up to 100% if Moscow failed to agree to a peace deal. Later, on July 28, Trump said he was no longer willing to wait.
The Ukrainian military denied on July 31 Moscow's claim that Russian forces had captured the front-line city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast, one of the main hotspots of the front line in eastern Ukraine.
Earlier the same day, Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its forces had captured the city during an offensive in the Kramatorsk-Druzhkivka direction.
Lying only a few kilometers west of the occupied Bakhmut, now largely destroyed Chasiv Yar has stopped Russian forces in their tracks since they first entered the city limits in April 2024.
"The situation in Chasiv Yar is the same as in recent months. Russia is simply lying again, precisely so that the claim spreads through refutations," said Viktor Trehubov, spokesperson of the Khortytsia group of forces, in a comment for the RBK-Ukraine news agency.
An estimated Russian advance (red) in Chasiv Yar, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, as of July 30, 2025. (DeepState/OpenStreetMaps)
According to Ukrainian open-source monitoring group DeepState, Ukrainian forces continued to hold parts of Chasiv Yar’s southern and western neighborhoods as of July 30, with the rest of the city in Russian hands.
But Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group monitoring group, said it was likely that Russia was in control of the vast majority of the city.
"We've been able to geolocate Russians to many parts of the city, to the edges of the city," he told the Kyiv Independent.
"It's still possible that on the furthest edges and outskirts of the city there is still some fighting going on, but it is very likely that the Russians control most of Chasiv Yar at this point," he added.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) drones struck a Russian radio electronics plant in the western city of Penza that manufactures military-grade equipment, a source in the agency told the Kyiv Independent on July 31.
"At least 11 explosions were recorded" following a large-scale fire at the JSC Radiozavod plant, a sanctioned facility owned by the Russian state-owned Rostec defense corporation, the source claimed.
The statement comes after Russian officials and media reported mass Ukrainian strikes across multiple regions overnight on July 31, including against an industrial facility in Penza and energy infrastructure in Volgograd Oblast.
Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, said the Radiozavod plant specializes in equipment for mobile command units, automated combat control systems, and military-grade radio stations.
"It is a key enterprise of the Russian military-industrial complex," Kovalenko said.
According to the SBU source, the automated combat control systems produced at the facility are used across multiple Russian military branches, from air defenses to artillery.
The United States held new talks with Russian officials earlier this week, but they had "no progress" toward ending the war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview Fox News Radio on July 31.
Rubio said the discussions took place Monday or Tuesday and involved "some of Putin's top people," but not the Russian president himself. The talks were aimed at finding a path toward a ceasefire and peace deal before the Aug. 8 deadline set by U.S. President Donald Trump earlier.
"We've not seen any progress on that," Rubio said. "What bothers the president the most is he has these great phone calls where everyone sort of claims, 'we'd like to see this end…' And then he turns on the news and another city's been bombed.”
Since Trump imposed the new deadline for Russia, Moscow has attacked numerous cities across Ukraine. The latest attack on Kyiv overnight on July 31 killed at least 15, and injured — 135.
Trump has pushed for a peace deal by next week, threatening new tariffs if Russia does not halt its invasion. The president warned that U.S. sanctions would target countries that continue trading with Russia, especially major oil buyers like India and China.
"Ten days from today. And then we're gonna put on tariffs and stuff," Trump said on July 29. "I don't know if it’s gonna affect Russia, because he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) wants to obviously probably keep the war going, but we're gonna put tariffs and various things."
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Ukraine war latest: 16 killed, record number of children injured in Russia’s massive attack on Kyiv – The Kyiv Independent
