Ukraine's civilian casualties up 50% in Russian airstrikes in 2025: UN report

Ukraine’s civilian casualties from Russian missile attacks rose five times in the 2025, according to a United Nations (UN) report.

In the first five months of 2025, Ukraine suffered at least 1,389 casualties, which includes 221 killed and 1,168 injured, which was a five-fold increase from casualties in the same period last year, as per a report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

For many weeks, Russia has attacked Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles on a near-daily basis. After months of snail-like progress, Russian ground offensive has also picked up pace in recent weeks — even as Ukraine has repeatedly struck deep inside Russia and dealt significant blows.

Around 97 per cent of these Russian attacks occurred in civilian areas under Ukraine’s control, the UN report said.

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Since the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Russia has captured 20 per cent of Ukrainian territories. Russia captured vast swathes of four regions of Ukraine after the invasion in 2022 — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Even as Russia does not completely control these four regions, it has formally announced their annexation and wants Ukraine to cede all these territories. Russia also captured Crimea in 2014

‘High number of civilian casualties entirely foreseeable’

In response to the Russian airstrikes this week, a top UN official said that airstrikes were timed such that casualties were maximised.

Russian missiles killed at least 24 people and injured more than 300 on Monday and Tuesday in strikes on homes, schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure, the UN mission said.

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The timing of Russian airstrikes “alone made the high number of civilian casualties entirely foreseeable”, according to Danielle Bell is the Head of Mission for the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU).

“The attacks struck during the day when civilians were at work, on trains, or at school. The timing alone made the high number of civilian casualties entirely foreseeable,” said Bell.

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Overall, the report found that Russian attacks had caused casualties in 17 of 24 Ukrainian provinces and the capital city of Kyiv.

Bell said, “This year has been devastating for civilians across Ukraine, with significantly more deaths and injuries than during the same period in 2024. The intensification of long-range attacks with missiles and loitering munitions and frequent attacks with short-range drones along the frontline are a deadly combination for civilians.”