Civilian casualties in Ukraine up sharply in 2025, UN monitor says

ZURICH – The year 2025 was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, driven by intensified hostilities along the front line and the expanded use of long-range weapons, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said on Jan 12.

Conflict-related violence in Ukraine killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in 2025, a 31 per cent rise in the number of victims from 2024, the monitor said in a monthly update on civilian harm.

The vast majority of the casualties verified by the watchdog occurred in Ukrainian government-controlled territory from attacks launched by Russian armed forces, the statement added. Ukrainian officials generally cite the UN figures as accurate.

Increased efforts by Russian armed forces

to capture territory in 2025

resulted in the killing and injuring of civilians, destruction of vital infrastructure, halting of essential services and new waves of displacement in front-line areas, the monitor said.

Almost two-thirds of all casualties in 2025 occurred in front-line areas, with older people particularly affected as they remained in their villages. Civilian casualties caused by short-range drones also increased sharply, it added.

“The expanded use of short-range drones has rendered many areas near the front line effectively uninhabitable,” said Ms Danielle Bell, head of the monitoring mission. “In 2025, many people who had endured years of hostilities were ultimately compelled to leave their homes.”

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been injured or killed in Europe's deadliest war since World War II, although neither side releases full figures.

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, particularly in 2022, the war’s first year, during a long Russian siege of the port of Mariupol and assaults on cities before the front line hardened in place.

Since then, Moscow has

continued to use missiles and drones to strike cities

across Ukraine. Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, but says its attacks on Ukrainian civil infrastructure are justified because they hinder the war effort. Ukraine also targets civil infrastructure in Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, though on a far smaller scale.

The UN statement said an increase in the use of long-range weapons by the Russian armed forces starting in June 2025 also caused an increase in civilian harm in urban centres across Ukraine. “The sharp increase in long-range attacks and the targeting of Ukraine’s national energy infrastructure mean that the consequences of the war are now felt by civilians far beyond the front line,” Ms Bell said. 

The Russian authorities reported that attacks by Ukrainian armed forces killed 253 civilians and injured 1,872 in the Russian Federation in 2025, the monitor said. Lack of access and limited publicly available information meant the watchdog could not verify these numbers, it added. REUTERS