In brief: UN official Kayoko Gotoh told the Security Council Russian attacks killed 328 civilians and injured 2,105 in September, up 85% year-on-year. October casualties remained similarly high; UN figures since February 2022: 17,968 dead, 57,713 injured.
Civilian casualties in Ukraine in September were 85% higher than a year earlier, and that record pace of death and injury caused by Russian military action isn’t slowing down, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council in New York on Monday, Nov. 9.
In September, Russian attacks with weapons of all types resulted in the confirmed deaths of 328 Ukrainian civilians, with another 2,105 sustaining injuries, said Kayoko Gotoh, who heads the UN’s Europe and Central Asia political division.
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Preliminary data suggests that the number of casualties remained just as high in October and that that pace of death and mayhem appears not to be abating, she said.
Recent Russian strikes confirmed to have caused particularly high loss of Ukrainian civilian life include a Russian glide bomb attack killing 55 people hiding in a humanitarian shelter in Komyshuvakha, Zaporizhzhia region on Nov. 3, a Russian air strike on a hospital complex in Kharkiv injuring at least 73 people on Nov. 3, a Russian jet-powered drone striking a railway platform during rush hour in the southern city of Dnipro on Oct. 29 killing 15 and injuring 14, and a drone attack the same day killing two 15-year-old girls and injuring 37 people, including five children, Gotoh said.
Following the Komyshuvakha strike, Russian drones attacked Ukrainian rescue workers attempting to dig people trapped in the collapsed shelter, mainstream Ukrainian news platforms reported on Nov. 5.Data released parallel with Gotoh’s speech by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine shows the UN has confirmed the deaths of 17,968 civilians in Ukraine, including 874 children, and another 57,713 more injured since Russia launched its second invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Between January and September 2026: 2,570 civilians were killed and 15,211 injured, representing a 59% increase over the same period in 2025, that data showed.Russian long-range weapons like missiles and drones accounted for 53% of September casualties (165 killed and 1,119 injured), with short-range drones accounting for 23% and Russian medium-range weapons like artillery and glide bombs accounting for much of the remainder, UN reports say.
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The full text of Gotoh’s remarks is here.
The UN Human Rights Office’s (OHCHR) lastest full-length report on civilian casualties in the Russo-Ukraine War, through September 2026, is here.
Particularly hard-hit has been Kyiv, which the Kremlin has heavily targeted in a bid to force Ukraine to surrender by using long-range drones and missiles to destroy the Ukrainian capital’s heating, transportation and power grid infrastructure. The cities Kharkiv and Dnipro, which are nearer the front lines and within the range of glide bombs dropped by Russian Air Force strike aircraft, also have been repeatedly hit and suffered heavy casualties.
Russian Federation Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia in a Nov. 9 rejoinder statement did not challenge Gotoh’s figures directly, instead focusing his remarks on arguments that Ukraine is a corrupt state run by fascists backed by European countries seeking to destroy Russia, whose objectives in Ukraine are peaceful.
In-country observers believe the actual counts of Ukrainian civilians killed or injured by Russia’s military are actually significantly higher than Gotoh suggested, but still in lockstep with the UN finding that Russian weapons are killing and wounding Ukrainian civilians faster and more often in recent months. Ukraine’s acting Prosecutor General Anton Kovalsky, in Oct. 23 figures first published on Facebook, reported his office had confirmed the deaths of 19,349 civilians and the injury of 55,000+ civilians following Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine launched on Feb. 24, 2022.Of the deaths, 762 were children, and in 2026 alone, 2,960 civilians have been killed (including 87 children) and 16,316 wounded (including 668 children) in the first 10 months of that year, making 2026 one of the bloodiest years for Ukrainian civilians, Kowalsky said.
Neither Gotoh’s nor Kowalsky’s figures included civilians killed or injured by armed forces employed by Russia in Ukraine from 2014-2021.
According to the UN, for that entire period, 3,106 conflict-related civilian deaths were confirmed, excluding, in July 2014, when 298 people were killed aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 following a hit by a BUK anti-aircraft missile fired by operators from Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade invading Ukraine’s Donbas region. More than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians were injured by Russian military action following Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine, before the launch of Russia’s second invasion, those figures say.
Stefan Korshak is the Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent. He is from Houston Texas, is a Yalie and since the mid-1990s has worked as correspondent/photographer for newswire, newspapers, television and radio. He has reported from five wars but most enjoys doing articles on wildlife and nature. You can read his weekly blog on the Russo-Ukraine War on Facebook, Substack and Medium. His new book on the 2022 Siege of Mariupol is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US.