Over 4,000 civilians, including 261 children, have been killed in Ukraine since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Friday.
In the report, OHCHR acknowledged that the actual number of civilian casualties is likely to be "considerably higher" due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable information from "some locations where intense hostilities have been going on."
The official figure of 4,031 civilian deaths includes 129 civilians killed in territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
These latest numbers come as Russia continues to press its attack in the Donbas. Luhansk Governor Sergiy Haidai said Saturday that the city of Sievierodonetsk is "not cut off," even as Russian troops continued to attack from three sides. Sievierodonetsk and its twin city, Lysychansk, represent one of the last pockets of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk Oblast.
On Tuesday, Haidai told civilians trapped in Sievierodonetsk that there was no time left to evacuate.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.