Lyman cluster bombing

On the morning of 8 July 2023, at approximately 9:55 a.m., during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Armed Forces shelled a residential area in the center of Lyman using 9M55K-series Smerch cluster munitions. At the time, Lyman was located roughly 15 kilometers west of Russian-occupied territory, placing it near the front line of ongoing fighting.

The strike targeted the crossing of Nezalezhnosti and Dubonosa Streets, an area where local residents were selling and trading vegetables grown in their own gardens. The attack killed 9 civilians and wounded 13 more. The bombing occurred amid Russia's military offensive toward Lyman, which ultimately failed to retake the city.

Cluster munitions such as the Smerch rockets used in this attack disperse numerous submunitions over a wide area, and their use in densely populated civilian areas is widely regarded as indiscriminate. Human Rights Watch described the strikes as a possible war crime due to this indiscriminate nature. France separately characterized the attack on civilians as a war crime and condemned Russia's actions.

The bombing is one of several documented incidents involving cluster munitions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, alongside other cited cases such as the March 2022 and April 2022 Kharkiv cluster bombings and the 2023 Uman missile strike, reflecting a broader pattern of attacks affecting civilian areas during the conflict.

No individuals have been publicly named or charged in connection with this specific strike in the available reporting. The characterization of the attack as a possible war crime by Human Rights Watch and as a war crime by the French government reflects assessments made by these organizations and states, rather than a judicial determination of criminal responsibility against any named individual.