Ukraine civilian casualty toll in May highest in four years, UN monitors say

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has verified that at least 274 civilians were killed and 1,763 injured last month – a 93 per cent increase compared with May 2025 and a 23 per cent increase over April 2026. 

“With more than 2,000 civilian casualties, the month of May saw more civilian casualties than any other month since April 2022,” said mission head, Danielle Bell. 

Attacks on urban areas 

Rights investigators said the use of powerful weapons by Russia in urban areas was the main driver of the high casualty toll. 

Attacks with long-range weapons – missiles and drones – accounted for 45 per cent of all casualties, most of which occurred in urban centres far from the frontline. 

For example, an aerial bomb assault on an industrial area in Zaporizhzhia city on 5 May killed 12 civilians and injured 42.  On 14 May, a missile struck an apartment building in the capital, Kyiv, killing 24 civilians while at least seven others were wounded. 

“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,” Ms. Bell said.    

‘The blast threw me against a fence’ 

Men accounted for the majority of overall casualties, but women and children did not escape, including an elderly woman who had to have her leg amputated following a missile attack in the Chernihiv region on 19 May. 

“The blast threw me against a fence,” she said.  “I saw smoke and felt severe pain in my right leg. When I looked down, I saw that my leg had been almost completely torn off.” 

The investigators noted that in previous years, the number of casualties steadily increased during the spring and summer months. Figures so far in 2026 have followed the same pattern, but at a significantly higher level than in previous years.   

Casualties in Russian-occupied territory 

While the vast majority of casualties occurred in territory under Ukrainian Government control – namely across 20 regions and the city of Kyiv – HRMMU also verified that some civilians were killed and injured in Russian-occupied territory.  

In one 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.    

Harm from short-rage drones 

Attacks with short-range drones were the primary cause of civilian casualties near the frontline, with at least 64 killed and 539 injured in May.   

This was the highest monthly civilian toll caused by these weapons since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. 

The investigators cited the example of Kherson city, where 14 civilians were killed and 221 injured. Short-range drone attacks accounted for six of the deaths and 132 injuries.    

Other civilian casualties near the frontline resulted from aerial bombardments, artillery shelling and Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) attacks, and incidents involving explosive remnants of war and mines. 

HRMMU noted that in addition to the number of civilian casualties that it has verified in Ukraine, including in Russian-occupied areas, Russian authorities have reported that 47 civilians were killed and 298 injured in May on Russian territory.  

The mission said it systematically collects and analyzes publicly available information on civilian casualties in Russia but cannot regularly verify these figures due to limited independent sources of information.