Ukraine: Civilian casualties as of 24:00 18 December 2022 [EN/RU/UK]

Date: 19 December 2022

From 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s armed attack against Ukraine started, to 18 December 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 17,595 civilian casualties in the country: 6,826 killed and 10,769 injured. This included:

• a total of 6,826 killed (2,686 men, 1,822 women, 174 girls, and 216 boys, as well as 38 children and 1,890 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
• a total of 10,769 injured (2,336 men, 1,690 women, 224 girls, and 314 boys, as well as 252 children and 5,953 adults whose sex is yet unknown)
  • In Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 9,620 casualties (4,036 killed and 5,584 injured)
    • On Government-controlled territory: 7,519 casualties (3,553 killed and 3,966 injured)
    • On territory controlled by Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups: 2,101 casualties (483 killed and 1,618 injured)
  • In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv, and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Khmelnytskyi, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Vinnytsia, Volyn, and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when casualties occurred: 7,975 casualties (2,790 killed and 5,185 injured).

Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects, including shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes.

OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration. This concerns, for example, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties.

Civilian casualties from 1 to 18 December 2022 (individual cases verified by OHCHR)

From 1 to 18 December 2022, OHCHR recorded 462 civilian casualties:

• 123 killed (52 men, 26 women, 4 boys, as well as 41 adults whose sex is yet unknown); and
• 339 injured (76 men, 72 women, 7 girls, 4 boys, as well as 2 children and 178 adults whose sex is yet unknown).

This included:

• 101 killed and 275 injured in 70 settlements in regions (parts of regions), which were under Government control when casualties occurred (81 percent of the total); and
• 22 killed and 64 injured in 6 settlements in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk regions controlled by Russian armed forces and affiliated armed groups (19 percent of the total).

Per type of weapon/incident:

• Explosive weapons with wide area effects: 106 killed and 320 injured (92 per cent);
• Mines and explosive remnants of war: 17 killed and 19 injured (8 per cent).