# Russia’s prison and hospital strikes kill at least 25 across Ukraine
*Event date: 2025-07-29*
At least 25 people were killed across Ukraine on 2025-07-29 after Russian drones, glide bombs and rockets hit a prison, a hospital and other civilian sites, according to the BBC.
The deadliest strike was on the Bilenke penitentiary in the Zaporizhzhia region, where local officials said 16 inmates were killed and more than 50 people were injured. Ukraine's justice ministry said four glide bombs hit the facility shortly before midnight, destroying the dining hall, administrative headquarters and quarantine area.
The prison attack drew immediate condemnation because it struck a site where the people inside were already detained and could not leave. Ukraine's human rights commissioner said that attacking a prison was a gross violation of humanitarian law. The ministry later said 44 of the injured had been taken to hospital.
Separate strikes hit a queue for humanitarian aid in the Kharkiv region and a hospital in the Dnipropetrovsk region. In Novoplatonivka, five people were killed while waiting near a local shop for aid, local authorities said. In Kamianske, three people died when a hospital was hit, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman named Diana, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The BBC report said another casualty was recorded elsewhere in Dnipropetrovsk region, bringing the running toll to 25 dead. It also said at least 33 people were injured in a barrage that hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure around Kyiv the previous month, illustrating the broader pattern of large-scale Russian aerial attacks.
The attacks came as U.S. President Donald Trump set a deadline of 8 August for Russia to agree to a ceasefire or face sweeping sanctions. Trump had shortened an earlier 50-day ultimatum, and Zelensky urged tougher sanctions after the latest violence, saying Russia had to be forced to stop the killings and make peace.
The BBC said Russian forces have frequently targeted the front-line Zaporizhzhia region since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. That region is one of four southeastern areas that Moscow claims to have annexed, although it does not fully control any of them.
Russia, meanwhile, said Ukrainian drones hit its southern regions overnight, killing one person in Salsk and setting fire to a goods train, while another person was reported killed in Belgorod. The exchange of cross-border attacks showed that neither side had found a way to shield civilians from the war's widening air campaign.
The prison strike was especially stark because it involved incarcerated people who were trapped inside the blast zone. The hospital strike and the death of a pregnant woman deepened the sense that the conflict is increasingly defined by attacks on places normally associated with care, waiting and shelter.
