The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has confirmed that 9,000 civilians have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The mission has condemned the "horrendous" civilian death toll and warned that the actual toll is likely to be far higher than the number of officially confirmed deaths.
The UN's Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has noted that casualty numbers in Ukraine have been lower on average than in 2022, but the figure began to climb again in May and June. On June 27, 13 civilians, including four children, were killed in a missile attack on Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
The UN also noted that three times as many civilians were killed in the last 500 days compared to the entire previous eight years of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, when Russian-backed separatists seized Crimea and other areas.
Russia regularly bombards Ukraine with air attacks, including indiscriminate artillery and missile fire that have been especially deadly for civilians. Russia has also attacked civilian infrastructure and supply lines, depriving civilians of power and water. The cities of Bucha and Mariupol became bywords for Russian atrocities last year, after reports and images of massacres there shocked the world and prompted allegations of war crimes and even genocide.
On Friday, the US announced that it would provide Ukrainian forces with cluster munitions, which human rights groups have slammed due to the dangers posed to civilians by the use of such weapons. Cluster bombs release large numbers of bomblets across wide areas, and the indiscriminate nature of the explosives presents a major threat to civilians, both during the conflict and long after. More than 120 countries have signed the 2008 UN Convention on Cluster Munitions to ban their use.
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