More than 7,000 civilians killed, according to the UN
More than 7,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, including at least 35 children, according to a tally by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Most of the recorded civilian casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including heavy artillery fire, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and airstrikes,” says the UN agency. Between January 1 and 14, it counts 388 more civilian deaths.
The Office of the High Commissioner also indicates that “the real figures” of civilian casualties “are considerably higher”, noting the difficulty of collecting information in areas of “intense” combat and that some reports still need to be corroborated, in particular in Mariupol, Izioum, or Severodonetsk. According to the Ukrainian government, the number of civilians killed might be in the tens of thousands.