The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that nearly 10,000 civilians have been reported dead since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
A new report confirmed 9,444 civilian deaths and 16,940 people injured since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
In total, 500 children have been killed.
The real figure is likely much higher. The OHCHR noted that the count was not complete because data was missing from many regions.
This applies especially to cities such as Mariupol, Lysychansk or Sievierodonetsk, which were occupied by Russian troops after a long period of heavy fighting, making the data harder to obtain. In Kyiv too, it is feared that thousands or tens of thousands more Ukrainians have been killed than officially recorded.
According to the U.N. figures, the vast majority of people — 7,339 of them — died in regions of Ukraine shelled by Russia and defended by the Ukrainian army. In regions occupied by Russian troops, 2,105 people were killed.
In the embattled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, there were significantly more victims on both sides of the front than in the capital Kyiv, central and western Ukraine.
The U.N. report shows that there were more civilians killed in the first months of the war. In the spring and summer of 2023, between 170 and 180 civilians died each month.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meanwhile visited…
