Civilian deaths are climbing again. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission recorded 328 people killed and 2,105 hurt in September 2026. No September since the full-scale invasion began has been worse, and the toll was 85 per cent above September 2025 with 249 dead and 1,068 injured a year earlier.
August was bad too: at least 372 civilians killed and 2,349 injured, the second highest monthly figure of 2026. July was higher still. The mission’s first report said 437 killed and 2,610 injured, the most deaths in a month since May 2022, and later gave 448 killed and 2,675 injured. June had been 298 killed and 2,041 injured, so the summer was much worse than what came before.
People on the move
The refugee numbers are the other half of the human cost. Statista, using UNHCR data, counts close to 7 million Ukrainians registered as refugees, in Europe and beyond. Germany hosts the most. Russia comes next, then Poland and the Czech Republic. Germany and Russia each registered more than 1 million, and Poland just under that. The United Kingdom and Spain have more than 200,000 each, while Romania, Italy and Slovenia each host from 130,000 to 180,000.
A further 3.7 million Ukrainians are displaced inside the country. More than one million refugees are believed to have gone home, though the trend has faded; only 9 percent of refugees said in 2024 that they were returning. Some who went back have left again. Among those on the registers, 59 percent are women and girls, 41 per cent men and boys, 31 per cent are children, and 6 percent are 65 or older.
The bill for rebuilding
A joint damage assessment issued in Kyiv on February 15, 2024, by Ukraine’s government with the World Bank, the EU Commission and the UN priced recovery and reconstruction at $486 billion across the coming ten years, counted as of 31 December 2023. A year earlier the figure had been $411 billion.
For 2024 alone, Ukrainian authorities saw a need for around $15 billion for immediate recovery priorities, covering housing, energy, transport and services. About $5.5 billion had been secured. That left roughly $9.5 billion unfunded. Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the needs had grown over the past year and argued that frozen Russian assets in the West should be the main resource for recovery.
Sources
- Updated Ukraine Recovery and Reconstruction Needs Assessment Released (World Bank)
- Chart: In Three Years of War, Almost 7 Million Ukrainians Have Fled (Statista)
- All reports (UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine)
- All reports (UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine), July report
