Danielle Bell, who heads the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, shares why documenting human rights in Ukraine’s conflict matters more than ever.
“We speak with prisoners of war, civilian detainees and we document torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, conflict-related sexual violence — daily realities of this awful, awful war in Ukraine,” said Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission.
Bell, who has worked in conflict and post-conflict areas for more than two decades, explains the importance of documenting the first-hand experiences of civilians affected by the Ukrainian war, where they have been recording ‘deaths, injuries, and the broader human impact of attacks on civilian.
“This helps contribute to a fact-based account of what's unfolding here in Ukraine in terms of the war. This work is crucial. It puts facts on public narratives and helps counter some of the highly politicized narratives that we've seen,” said Bell.
The Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has been present in the country since 2014, when the conflict began and throughout Russia's current full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
UN Human Rights has documented more than 50,000 civilians killed and injured, including more than 3,000 children, since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A UN Human Rights report indicated a sharp rise in civilian casualties between 1 December 2024 and 31 May 2025, with 968 civilians killed and 4,807 injured, which represents a 37 per cent increase compared with the same period the year before.
“Harm to Ukrainian civilians has risen sharply, with total casualties in the first eight months of the year increasing by 40 percent compared to 2024. In July we documented the highest number of civilian casualties in a month in more than three years,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council’s 60th session.
UN Human Rights has documented patterns of widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment, against Ukrainian civilian detainees by the Russian Federation and has also documented instances of torture and ill-treatment of conflict-related detainees by Ukrainian authorities, the report said.”
International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on civilians. It also stipulates that utmost care must be taken to avoid civilian casualties during combat activities.