KYIV: A Russian missile hit a Ukrainian army training ground, killing three soldiers and wounding 18 others, authorities said, in the latest attack to embarrass military officials as they struggle to make up a severe manpower shortage in the nearly 3½-year war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that the strike killed or wounded about 200 Ukrainian troops. The ministry said that Ukraine’s 169th training center near Honcharivske in the Chernihiv region was hit with two Iskander missiles, one armed with multiple submunitions and another with high explosives.
Meanwhile, Russia continued its stepped-up aerial campaign against Ukrainian civilian targets, launching 78 attack drones overnight, including up to eight newly developed jet-powered drones, Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday. At least five people were wounded.
Civilian casualties
The U.N. mission in Ukraine says there has been a worsening trend in civilian casualties from Russian attacks this year, with 6,754 civilians killed or injured in the first half of 2025 — representing a 54% increase from the same period in 2024.
Since Russia launched an all-out invasion of neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, at least 13,580 Ukrainian civilians, including 716 children, have been killed, according to the U.N.
In an effort to stop that, U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he's giving Russian President Vladimir Putin until Aug. 8 for peace efforts to make progress or Washington will impose punitive sanctions and tariffs. Western leaders have accused Putin of dragging his feet in U.S.-led peace efforts in an attempt to capture more Ukrainian land.
Recent attacks under investigation
Ukrainian forces are mostly hanging on against a grinding summer push by Russia’s bigger army, though the Russian Defense Ministry has claimed some recent small advances at places along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.
Ukrainian ground forces acknowledged that a Russian strike hit a military training ground in the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine, but its casualty report differed widely from one issued by Moscow.
A Russian Defense Ministry video showed multiple small explosions apparently caused by a missile with a shrapnel warhead followed by one big blast, apparently from the other one armed with a high-explosive warhead.
A similar Russian strike occurred last September, when two ballistic missiles blasted a Ukrainian military academy and nearby hospital, killing more than 50 people and wounding more than 200 others.
Ukrainian authorities said that a commission led by the head of the Military Law Enforcement Service has been formed to determine whether negligence or misconduct by officials contributed to the casualties in Chernihiv.
The attack was the fourth deadly strike in as five months on Ukrainian military facilities. The three previous strikes killed at least 46 soldiers and wounded more than 160, according to official reports.
Ukraine badly needs more troops
Ukraine can ill afford to lose more troops. Though it has more than 1 million Ukrainians in uniform, including the National Guard and other units, it badly needs more.
Deeply rooted problems have bedeviled Ukraine and brought questions about how Kyiv is managing the war, from a flawed mobilization drive to the overstretching and hollowing out of front-line units through soldiers going AWOL.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a bill Tuesday that allows Ukrainian men over the age of 60 to voluntarily sign contracts with the armed forces. The new law allows those who want to contribute their experience and skills, particularly in noncombat or specialized roles.
In February, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry began offering new financial and other benefits that it
hopes will attract men between the ages of 18 and 24 to military service. Men in that age group are exempt from the country’s draft, which covers men between 25 and 60 years old.
Ukraine lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25, but that has failed to replenish ranks or replace battlefield losses.
