ReliefWeb

18.00 (Kyiv time), 1 March 2022

On 28 February 2022, multiple places in the Government-controlled territory of Ukraine were targeted with heavy artillery, multi-launch rocket systems (MLRS), and airstrikes resulting in at least 18 killed and 51 injured civilians in Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Luhansk, and Sumy regions. In Kharkiv, where several attacks from MLRS hit residential areas, at least 46 civilian casualties, 9 killed (6 adults and 3 children), and 37 injured (34 adults and 3 children), were recorded.

In total, from 4am on 24 February 2022, when the Russian Federation’s military action against Ukraine started, until 12 midnight on 28 February 2022, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded 550 civilian casualties in Ukraine: 142 killed (22 men, 19 women, 4 boys, 3 girls, as well as 6 children and 88 adults whose sex is yet unknown) and 408 injured (36 men, 25 women, 6 girls, 2 boys, as well as 18 children and 321 adults whose sex is yet unknown). 256 casualties (58 killed and 198 injured) were recorded in Donetsk and Luhansk regions: 190 (40 killed and 150 injured) in Government-controlled territory, and 66 (18 killed and 48 injured) in territory controlled by the self-proclaimed ‘republics’. 294 casualties (84 killed and 210 injured) were recorded in other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv, and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions) in places, which were under Government control when casualties occurred.

Most of these casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area2, including shelling from heavy artillery and MLRS, and air strikes.

OHCHR believes that real figures are considerably higher, especially in Government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, as the receipt of information from some locations where intensive hostilities have been going on was delayed and many reports were still pending corroboration.

In this context, OHCHR notes that the Ministry of Health of Ukraine reported 352 persons (338 adults and 14 children) killed, and 1,684 persons (1,568 adults and 116 children) injured as of 27 February. They did not provide disaggregated data regarding civilian and military casualties. On 1 March, the Minister of Health of Ukraine said that 16 children have been killed since 24 February.