HowmanychildrenwerekilledinUkrainebyRussia’sfull-scalewar?
Since the start of the full-scale war, Russian propaganda has been repeating that it is only targeting Ukrainian military facilities. However, Russian missiles hit residential areas and civilians every day. Often, the victims are children of all ages, some as young as a few months or even days old.
Lviv. March 18, 2022.
Photo: Roman Baluk
According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, at least 2,063 children have suffered in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s full-scale war from February 24, 2022, to August 8, 2024.
At least 564 children were killed in Ukraine, and 1,499 were injured.
Actual numbers might be considerably higher, as information from many locations with intense hostilities and from temporarily occupied regions of Ukraine is not yet available or confirmed.
Photo: Heidi Levine for The Washington Post
Another childs life lost in Mariupol. March 2, 2022. Photo: Mstyslav Chernov
residential house in Odesa. Russian missile strike killed 12 people,
including five children, here on March 2, 2024.
Photo: Ana Alekseienko / X
The regions closer to the frontline have the highest numbers of children killed or injured by hostilities: Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipro, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Mykolaiv regions are among them.
According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission data from February 15, 2024, 91% of civilian casualties in Ukraine were caused by explosive weapons with wide area effects. That includes shelling from artillery, tanks and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), as well as cruise and ballistic missile strikes and drone attacks.
Adults and children alike also suffer from mines and explosive remnants of war, direct fire and willful killings. The report states that a number of civilians were killed or injured when Russian armed forces opened fire on their cars when they were trying to evacuate from areas temporarily occupied by Russia in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions in February and March 2022.
While those numbers highlight the devastating consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion since February 2022, Ukrainian children have been suffering from Russia’s war against Ukraine for a decade now. From 2014, when Russian forces occupied Crimea, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk region, to 2021, at least 152 children were killed and 146 were injured.
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine deprived thousands of children of safety, home, proper education and health care. Thousands of Ukrainian children were forcefully separated from their families, abducted, and illegally deported.
And many more Russia’s crimes remain yet undiscovered in the temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine. After the liberation of Kherson, a torture chamber with a separate cell for children was found. The children there were given water every other day and were not actually given any food. Russians pressured them psychologically, telling them that their parents had abandoned them and would never return.
Those are the statistics of how many children were killed in Ukraine by Russia as of August 2024. But those change daily as the terrorist state continues to fire missiles, launch drones, and destroy entire cities with non-stop shelling. And those will rise daily until Russia is stopped and held accountable.