The Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Russia apparently used cluster munitions contained in at least one ballistic missile in an attack on Kyiv early on August 5, 2026.
The attack reportedly killed three people at a sorting center belonging to Nova Poshta, Ukraine’s largest private courier and mail service, and endangered civilians nearby.
The strike was part of a wider Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region that reportedly killed at least 17 civilians and injured dozens.
“Russia has once again fired an inherently indiscriminate weapon into a densely populated civilian area,” said Kseniya Kvitka, assistant Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“There can be no justification for using cluster munitions near homes, schools, and hospitals, and it shows Russia’s utter disregard for civilians and the international law designed to protect them.”
Cluster munitions are fired in rockets, missiles, and projectiles or dropped from aircraft. They typically disperse in the air, spreading dozens of explosive submunitions, or bomblets, indiscriminately over a large area. Many fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that can kill and maim, like landmines, for years or even decades, unless located and destroyed.
Human Rights Watch verified two videos and seven photos relating to the August 5 attack and analyzed satellite imagery. The visual evidence, including missile remnants and the pattern of multiple near-simultaneous explosions, indicate the apparent use of a cluster munition.
A video of the attack on Nova Poshta in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi district, posted on Telegram at 8:44 a.m. on August 5, shows a large fire and billowing smoke from a residential area. As the person films, multiple flashes of light appear followed by the sound of multiple near-simultaneous explosions. A second video, posted on Telegram at 8:58 a.m., shows the same incident from a different angle.
Human Rights Watch verified the locations and identified the area targeted as the Nova Poshta sorting center. A hospital, Kyiv Municipal Clinic, is less than a kilometer west of the site, and a residential area with schools, a stadium, and multiple high-rise residential buildings is less than 500 meters east.
At 8:38 a.m., Nova Poshta posted on its official Telegram channel that a “massive enemy attack destroyed a sorting center of Nova Poshta in Kyiv.” The company said a cluster munition had been used and that three people were killed, all employees of partner or contracting organizations. Russia’s Defense Ministry also claimed that it had targeted four logistics centers in Kyiv, including two Nova Poshta sites.
Photos published by the Associated Press show emergency responders at the heavily damaged facility. In two photos that Human Rights Watch verified as having been taken at the site, a missile remnant is visible.
Human Rights Watch researchers confirmed that the item is the nose cone of a 9M720 series “Iskander-M” ballistic missile, equipped with a cluster munition warhead. This type of missile can reportedly deploy as many as 54 submunitions of the 9N730 high explosive fragmentation type.
Russian forces have consistently used cluster munitions in Ukraine, causing significant civilian harm. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Human Rights Watch has documented Russian cluster munition attacks in Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Kherson, Odesa, Lyman, and other cities.
The Russian cluster munition attack on the crowded Kramatorsk train station on April 8, 2022, remains one of the single deadliest incidents for civilians during the war, killing 58 and injuring more than 100.
The August 5 attack is part of a massive escalation of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, with a sharp increase in civilian casualties. In July 2026, Russia reportedly fired a record number of missiles at Ukraine, including at least 126 ballistic missiles.
Unlike many Russian drones, which Ukraine can counter with domestically produced interceptor drones and electronic countermeasures, ballistic missiles require specialized air-defense systems and interceptors.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, recorded civilian casualties in the first half of 2026 were 37 percent higher than the same period in 2025, and 114 percent higher than in 2024. The reason for this dramatic escalation, it said, is the increased use of “powerful weapons that are particularly deadly when used in densely populated urban areas.”
Strikes against Ukrainian cities far from the battlefield are the leading cause of civilian deaths, amounting to 45 percent of recorded casualties.
Kyiv alone has experienced several exceptionally deadly attacks during this escalation. Russian missile and drone strikes overnight on July 1-2 reportedly killed at least 30 people, while on May 14, a missile that struck an apartment building killed 24 civilians and injured 48.
Other Ukrainian cities have also sustained heavy civilian casualties from Russian attacks. A drone and missile attack against Dnipro on June 2 killed 17 civilians and injured 40.
Cities closer to the front, including Zaporizhzhia, Pavlohrad, Kryvyi Rih, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk are increasingly being targeted by “glide bombs,” guided air-dropped munitions that can have massive explosive payloads of up to 3,000 kilograms. Meanwhile, Russia has reportedly continued deliberately targeting posted civilians with first-person drones previously documented by Human Rights Watch in Kherson.
The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 112 countries have joined and 12 more have signed, comprehensively prohibits these weapons and requires the clearance of contaminated areas and assistance to victims. Although Russia is not a state party, it is bound by international humanitarian law, otherwise known as the law of armed conflict.
International humanitarian law requires parties to a conflict to take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian population and to “take all feasible precautions” to avoid or minimize the incidental loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects.
International humanitarian law also requires all parties to distinguish between military objectives and civilians and civilian objects and to target only military objectives. Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent—that is, intentionally or recklessly—may be prosecuted for war crimes.
As cluster munitions spread submunitions over a wide area and unexploded submunitions continue to pose a foreseeable danger long after hostilities are over, their use in civilian areas amounts to a violation of the principles of precaution and distinction. Intentionally directing such attacks against the civilian population is a war crime.
Ukraine is also not a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and Human Rights Watch has documented Ukraine’s use of cluster munitions in and around the then-occupied city of Izium, Kharkivska region, in 2022, causing civilian harm.
However, following an announcement that the United States would transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine, it has committed not to use cluster munitions in urban areas, but only “in the fields where there is a concentration of Russian military” and also to record where the munitions were used and conduct clearance activities there once able.
Both Ukraine and Russia should urgently join the convention and cease the production, transfer, and use of cluster munitions, as well as commit to clearing unexploded cluster munitions in all areas under their effective control and assisting the affected communities.
“The use of widely banned weapons amid a mounting civilian toll underscores the urgent need for accountability,” Kvitka said. “The August 5 attack should be investigated as a possible war crime, and Russia should immediately end its use of cluster munitions and other indiscriminate attacks.”
