July saw the heaviest civilian casualties in Ukraine since October 2022, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said, adding that coordinated attacks launched by the Russian armed forces across Ukraine on July 8 which killed dozens of people during a single day made last month exceptionally deadly.

"The 8 July attack pushed civilian casualty numbers to a height we have not seen in 20 months. I truly hope that the July number was an exception and that this trend of increasing civilian casualties will end," Danielle Bell, the head of HRMMU, said.

In its monthly update on civilian harm, HRMMU said it verified that conflict-related violence killed at least 219 civilians and injured 1,018 in July. The number of civilian casualties in July were the highest since October 2022, when conflict-related violence killed 317 civilians and injured 795.

The UN said the pattern of civilian harm in July resembled previous months with explosive weapons with wide area effect causing the vast majority of civilian harm, and most harm occurring in territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine.

The single largest number of casualties occurred on July 8, when Russian armed forces launched high-precision missiles against targets in Kyiv City, Dnipro City, Kryvy Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Kyiv region. In total, the 8 July attacks killed at least 43 civilians, including 5 children, and injured 147, including 7 children.

"In-depth assessment of the impact site, witness testimonies, and videos, including footage of the missile immediately before impact indicate that the hospital complex was damaged by a direct hit from a missile and not from falling debris from an air defense interception," the mission said.