Kostiantynivka is an industrial city in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine. It is situated on the Kryvyi Torets river. In the Soviet era it developed into a major centre for the production of iron, zinc, steel, and glass. Administratively, it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance. It was the administrative center of the Kostiantynivka Raion until 2020, although it did not belong to it. After the raion was abolished, it was incorporated into the Kramatorsk Raion. Its population is approximately 67,350.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian-controlled forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 kilometres from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage from the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km from the border. The shoot-down occurred during the war in Donbas over territory controlled by Russian separatist forces.
A rocket attack on Mariupol was launched on 24 January 2015 by Russian and pro-Russian forces against the strategic maritime city of Mariupol, defended by Ukrainian government forces. Mariupol had come under attack multiple times in the previous year in the course of the War in Donbas, including in May–June 2014, when the city was under the control of Russian controlled forces; and in the September 2014 offensive.
Russian war crimes are the violations of the international criminal law including war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide which the official armed and paramilitary forces of Russia are accused of committing since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. These accusations also extend to the aiding and abetting of crimes which have been committed by proto-statelets or puppet statelets which are armed and financed by Russia, including the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. These war crimes have included murder, torture, terrorism, deportation or forced transfer, abduction, rape, looting, unlawful confinement, unlawful airstrikes or attacks against civilian objects, and wanton destruction.
The Russian Navy have launched several rocket attacks on Vinnytsia, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A Russian attack in July 2022 which killed 28 people including 3 children, received widespread condemnation and has been labeled as a war crime by EU officials.
During the southern Ukraine offensive of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the city of Odesa and the surrounding region have been the target of shelling and air strikes by Russian forces on multiple occasions since the conflict began, fired predominantly from Russian warships situated offshore in the Black Sea. The city has also been targeted by Russian cruise missiles.
On 8 April 2022, a Russian missile strike hit the railway station of the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The strike killed 63 civilians and wounded 150. Russian authorities denied responsibility and blamed the attack on Ukraine.
There have been attacks in mainland Russia as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on 24 February 2022. The main targets have been the military, the arms industry and the oil industry. Many of the attacks have been drone strikes, firebombing, and rail sabotage. The Ukrainian intelligence services have acknowledged carrying out some of these attacks. Others have been carried out by anti-war activists in Russia. There has also been cross-border shelling, missile strikes and ground raids from Ukraine, mainly in the Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk oblasts. Several times, Russian anti-Kremlin paramilitaries have launched incursions from Ukraine into Russia, captured border villages and battled the Russian military. While Ukraine has supported these ground incursions, it has denied direct involvement.
On 27 June 2022, the Russian Armed Forces fired two Kh-22 cruise missiles into central Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast, hitting the Kredmash road machinery plant and the immediately adjacent Amstor shopping mall. A fire broke out and the attack killed at least 20 people and injured at least 59. Russian media and officials carried conflicting stories about the attack.
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces have launched several missile attacks over the city of Dnipro in Ukraine. These have led to dozens of fatalities and over a hundred injuries among the civilian population.
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military have carried out deliberate attacks against civilian targets and indiscriminate attacks in densely-populated areas. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says the Russian military exposed the civilian population to unnecessary and disproportionate harm by using cluster bombs and by firing other weapons with wide-area effects into civilian areas, such as missiles, heavy artillery shells and multiple launch rockets. As of 2024, the attacks had resulted in the documented deaths of between 10,000 and 16,500 civilians. On 22 April 2022, the UN reported that of the 2,343 civilian casualties it had been able to document, it could confirm 92.3% of these deaths were as a result of the actions of the Russian armed forces.
On September 30, 2022, the Russian Armed Forces reportedly launched S-300 missiles at a civilian convoy, killing 32 people, both adults and children, and injuring 86 more.
Beginning in July 2022, a series of explosions and fires occurred on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula from where the Russian Army had launched its offensive on Southern Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Occupied since 2014, Crimea was a base for the subsequent Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast and Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. The Ukrainian government has not accepted responsibility for all of the attacks.
The Zaporizhzhia residential building airstrike occurred in the early morning of 9 October 2022. The missile attack by the Russian Armed Forces, killed at least 13 people and injured more than 89 others.
During the autumn and winter of 2022–2023, Russia launched waves of missile and drone strikes against energy in Ukraine as part of its invasion. The strikes targeted civilian areas beyond the battlefield, particularly critical power infrastructure, which is considered a war crime. By the end of 2023, Russian forces launched about 7,400 missiles and 3,900 Shahed drone strikes against Ukraine according to Ukrainian military officials.
Russian occupiers carried out a series of artillery fire and air raids in the city of Kryvyi Rih during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia and the surrounding region became the target of repeated Russian shelling and bombing as part of the southern Ukraine offensive from 27 February 2022 onwards. Thirty to forty percent of the infrastructure in the city has been destroyed.
On 14 April 2023, on Eastern Orthodox Christian Good Friday, a Russian missile strike struck residential buildings in Sloviansk, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 15 civilians were killed and 24 were injured. 34 apartment buildings, administrative buildings and shops were damaged in the blasts.
On 19 August 2023, Russian military forces launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile at the Taras Shevchenko Theater in downtown Chernihiv, Ukraine.
On 30 December 2023, during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, explosions occurred in the city of Belgorod, Russia, killing at least 25 people and wounding over 100. Russian sources alleged the explosions were shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Ukraine attributed the explosions to the work of Russian air defence.
