April saw highest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine in 1.5 years

Hostile shelling in Kharkiv region / Photo from Oleg Sinegubov's Telegram channel

April was the month with the highest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine since September 2024 due to Russia's massive missile attacks.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission (HRMMU), Kryvyi Rih, Sumy, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv and Kharkiv were the most affected. The head of the mission, Danielle Belle, noted that the sharp increase in the number of victims was due to the use of ballistic missiles against large cities.

The UN reports at least 209 dead and 1,146 wounded in April.

A ballistic missile strike on Kryvyi Rih on 4 April killed 20 civilians and injured at least 63 others. A week later, on Palm Sunday (13 April), two rockets struck the city of Sumy, killing at least 31 civilians and injuring 105. Five days later, on 18 April, a rocket attack on Kharkiv killed one person and injured at least 102 others. And on 24 April, at least 11 civilians were killed and 81 injured in an attack in Kyiv using rockets and barrage munitions.

The attacks continued in May, with civilians again being targeted in Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv. Many of those killed and injured are children: in April, at least 19 children were killed and 78 injured, the highest number since June 2022.

Short-range unmanned aerial vehicles caused 23 per cent of civilian casualties in April.

In total, from January to April 2025, 664 civilians were killed and 3,425 others were injured in attacks, a 59% increase compared to the same period in 2024.

As a reminder, Mykolaiv region has once again come under hostile attack as Russian troops continue to shell the region using drones.