Black statistics: UN records record number of civilian deaths

In July 2025, the number of civilian deaths and injuries reached the highest since May 2022. According to the UN, 286 people were killed and another 1,388 injured during the month.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (HRMMU) has recorded civilian casualties in 18 of the country's 24 regions. The head of the mission, Danielle Belle, noted that for the second month in a row, the number of civilian casualties updated a three-year high.

Only in the first three months after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation there were more dead and wounded than in the last month," Belle emphasised.

The main reasons for the rise in casualties

• Long-range weapons - about 40% of losses (89 dead, 572 wounded).
  Particularly large-scale was the strike on Kiev on 31 July: then 31 people were killed, 171 were wounded. This is the largest number of casualties in the capital since the beginning of the full-scale war.

• Short-range drones accounted for 24 per cent of all casualties (64 dead, 337 wounded). Their use has increased since July 2024.

• Aerial bombs - sharp increase in casualties (67 dead, 209 wounded in July vs. 34 dead and 80 wounded in June).
  on 28 July, bombs hit a penal colony in the village of Belenkoye, Zaporizhzhya region, killing 16 inmates and injuring at least 43.
  on 31 July, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, a strike on a residential building killed at least five people.

Strikes on Kiev on 31 July

On the night of 31 July, Russian forces conducted a combined attack on Ukraine, mainly on the capital. Drones attacked the city first, followed by missiles. In Svyatoshynskyi district, a missile hit a residential building, resulting in the complete destruction of one entrance.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said that the structure collapsed so that most of those inside could not survive.

That night and morning, 31 people were killed and more than a hundred others were injured in Kiev.