The United Nations has a precise number for civilian dead in Ukraine, and a footnote saying it is too small. On February 22, 2024, with the invasion two days short of its second anniversary, Volker Türk, the UN’s human rights chief, reported that monitors in Ukraine had confirmed 30,457 casualties among civilians since the full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022. Of those, 10,582 were dead and 19,875 injured. “The actual numbers,” the report allowed, are “likely to be significantly higher.”
That is the whole difficulty of counting this war. Verification takes time and access, and neither is plentiful in occupied cities.
A year earlier
The Associated Press tried the same exercise at the one-year mark, and the exercise is instructive mainly for how little anyone agreed on. The UN rights office had confirmed 8,006 civilian deaths through February 15, 2023, and 13,287 injuries. Its monitors said thousands of reports from Mariupol, Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk were still waiting to be checked. The deadliest month was March 2022, with 3,382 civilians killed.
Military losses were murkier still. Russia’s last public figure, from September, was 5,937 troops dead. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, had given 9,000 in August. Britain’s Ministry of Defence put Russian deaths at 40,000 to 60,000. Western officials, for their part, estimated that around 200,000 Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded and more than 100,000 Ukrainians. Notably, none of those figures came from the people doing the fighting.
The people who left
As of that first-anniversary count, based on figures from national governments, 8.1 million people had fled Ukraine. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, put the figure for Europe and central Asia at more than 5.2 million across upwards of 40 countries, with nearly 1.6 million of them in Poland and over 880,000 in Germany. Nearly 2.9 million had gone to Russia. Inside Ukraine, the International Organization for Migration reported 5.4 million people driven from their homes as of a January 23 count, down from a peak of more than 8 million in early May 2022. About 5.6 million Ukrainians had returned home. The UN’s humanitarian office said 17.6 million needed aid.
The destruction behind those numbers is wide. Türk pointed to thousands of lost homes, and to hundreds of hospitals, clinics and schools hit or wrecked. “The long-term impact of this war in Ukraine will be felt for generations,” he said.
Violations on both sides
In occupied territory, the UN rights office has recorded torture, summary executions and enforced disappearances by Russian forces, as well as detention without cause. Its monitors spoke to over 550 freed Ukrainian prisoners and civilian detainees, whose accounts point to serious breaches of the laws of war. Ukrainian forces committed violations as well, though Türk said they were “a fraction of the scope” of the Russian ones.
His appeal was short. Russia should stop its armed attack at once, and independent organizations should be allowed to see everyone held in connection with the conflict.
Sources
- Türk deplores horrific human cost as Russia’s full-scale invasion enters third year | UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine
- The calculus of war: Tallying Ukraine toll an elusive task
