The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) condemned Russia’s latest attacks on the country’s civilian population, noting that none of the targeted facilities where people died were military.
This was pointed out in the Mission’s statement, Ukrinform reports.
The organization recalled that on Monday and Tuesday, at least 24 people were killed and more than 300 were injured, including 32 children, as a result of ballistic missile strikes in Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions. Homes, schools, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed.
“The attacks struck during the day when civilians were at work, on trains, or at school,” said Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU. “The timing alone made the high number of civilian casualties entirely foreseeable.”
The Odesa-Zaporizhzhia train was damaged as a result of the Russian strike on Dnipropetrovsk region / Photo: Serhiy Lysak / Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration
The UN recalled that on June 23, two ballistic missiles launched by Russian forces hit Lyceum No. 1 in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, Odesa region. Three teachers were killed, 14 people were injured, including two boys. The school, which was home to more than 700 students, sustained critical damage.
The HRMMU visited the sites of these attacks and found no evidence of military presence at the school, and people confirmed that no military presence had been stationed there.
Consequences of the enemy attack on the lyceum in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi in Odesa region / Photo: SES
“The school in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi was not a military objective,” Bell said. “Yet it was hit by two ballistic missiles, killing educators and injuring children.”
The next day, June 24, at around 11:00, missiles hit the industrial zone in Dnipro, causing injuries and deaths.
Consequences of the Russian strike on the Dnipropetrovsk region / Photo: SES
According to the UN, these strikes followed a series of other attacks in June that led to significant civilian casualties, including in Kyiv on June 17 and 23.
Consequences of the Russian combined attack on Kyiv / Photo: Kyrylo Chubotin, Ukrinform
“Ballistic missiles, when used in densely populated areas, cause predictable and widespread harm to civilians, as demonstrated by these recent attacks,” Bell said. “The rising civilian casualties reflect the severity of that risk.”
The UN noted that the civilian casualty toll in the first five months of 2025 was almost 50% higher than in the same period last year, with the increase usually observed in the summer months.
As Ukrinform reported, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recorded a sharp increase in the number of gross violations of children’s rights amid Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine this year and again added the Russian army to the “list of shame.”
