Kyiv — June 12. More civilians were killed and injured in Ukraine in May than in any other month in the last four years, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said in its monthly update on civilian harm, released today.
HRMMU has verified that conflict-related violence in Ukraine in May killed at least 274 civilians and injured 1,763.
“With more than 2,000 civilian casualties, the month of May saw more civilian casualties than any other month since April 2022,” said Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU. “The intensification of hostilities and increased use of powerful weapons in urban areas led to high numbers of civilians killed and injured across the country.” In previous years, the number of casualties steadily increased from month to month during spring and summer. Casualty figures so far in 2026 have followed the same pattern, but at a significantly higher level than in previous years.
The use of powerful weapons in urban areas by the Russian Federation was the main reason for the high casualty figure in May, HRMMU said. Attacks with missiles and aerial bombs in urban areas killed and injured dozens of civilians on multiple occasions. On 5 May, for example, an attack with aerial bombs on an industrial area in Zaporizhzhia city killed 12 civilians and injured 42. On 14 May, a missile that struck an apartment building in Kyiv city killed 24 civilians and injured at least seven.
“The civilian harm we documented was not limited to communities near the frontline. In cities across Ukraine, repeated attacks with missiles and aerial bombs killed and injured civilians far from areas of active ground combat,” Bell added.
While the vast majority of casualties in May occurred in territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine, HRMMU also verified that civilians were killed and injured in territory occupied by the Russian Federation. In one such case, 21 civilians were killed and others injured when one or more weapons struck an educational complex in occupied Starobilsk, Luhansk region, during the night of 21-22 May.
Near the frontline, attacks with short-range drones were the primary cause of civilian casualties. With short-range drones killing at least 64 civilians and injuring 539, more civilians were killed and injured by this type of weapon in May than in any other months since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. In Kherson city, for example, 14 civilians were killed and 221 injured, 6 of those killed and 132 of those injured resulted from attacks with short-range drones.
In addition to the number of civilians verified by HRMMU as killed and injured in Ukraine, including in territory occupied by the Russian Federation, Russian authorities reported that 47 civilians were killed and 298 injured in May on Russian Federation territory. HRMMU systematically collects and analyzes publicly available information on civilian casualties also in the Russian Federation but is not able to regularly verify civilian casualties in the Russian Federation due to limited independent sources of information.
