The year 2025 was the deadliest yet for civilians of the four-year-old Russo-Ukrainian War with at least 2,919 civilians killed and 17,775 non-combatants injured, according to a study on non-military injuries and deaths published by the independent research group Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) on Feb. 9.
Of the killed 96 were children and of the injured at least 1,000 were children, the report said.
The toll of men, women and children killed by all military means was about 12 percent more, and injured about 25 percent higher in 2025 than in 2024, the CIT report said, citing analyses of more than 14,000 individual incidents like artillery shell attacks, aerial bombings and small arms engagements hitting civilians recorded by the group.
The deadliest attacks of the year were Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities with the highest numbers of civilians killed or injured by those attacks recorded in Kyiv, Sumy and Ternopil.
The bloodiest outcomes per Kyiv Post reports over the year followed direct hits of apartment buildings by heavy Russian cruise or ballistic missiles that collapsed structures onto people sheltering inside.
Residents of frontline cities and towns, particularly the city of Kherson with Russian forces nearby on the opposite side of the Dnipro River also have suffered, in their case from attacks by shorter-range weapons like First Person View (FPV) drones and mortars against civilian-laden public transportation and individual pedestrians.
The Kherson cross-river attacks are a Russian “terror campaign against civilians (that is) not an isolated incident or the criminal practice of individual rogue Russian Federation units, but is rather approved and likely supported at least at the level of the [Russian Armed Forces headquarters] Group of Troops ‘Dnepr’,” the report said in part.
The Kherson and Donetsk regions had the highest number of civilian casualties in 2025, the report said.
The biggest killer over the year in aggregate was Russian drones which killed 1,376 people and injured another 10,089—more than all other types of weapons systems combined. Compared with 2024, the number of people killed or injured by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) of all types increased threefold, CIT said.
Combined Russian missile attacks were responsible for the worst single-strike casualty counts, with one the worst being a June 24 mass Russian missile attack on the southern city of Dnipro – killing 21 and injuring 319 civilians.
However, statistically the bloodiest single Russian attack against Ukrainian civilians of 2025, per CIT, took place on Nov. 19 after a pair of Russian cruise missiles struck apartment buildings in the city Ternopil setting one on fire and partially collapsing the second.
“As a result, 38 people were killed in the blaze and under the rubble, including eight children. Many families lost multiple relatives at once, often very young children. Three civilians are still listed as missing, and another 92 people were injured, including 18 children,” the report said.
CIT accused Russian forces of intentionally targeting civilians in the attack.
A Russian April 4 missile and drone strike hitting a Krivyi Rih playground and killing 20 (including 9 children) and injuring 74 (including 11 children; and a ballistic missile attack hitting central Sumy on April 13 – killing 35 (including 2 minors) and injuring 129 (including 17 children) – likewise were hard evidence of Kremlin leadership intention to target civilians, a war crime, the CIT report said.
Russian Defense Ministry spokespersons have claimed Russian forces only attack military targets.
According to Russian state-controlled media, the Krivyi Rih strike hit a restaurant where Ukrainian military officers and NATO nation advisors were secretly meeting, while the Sumy attack hit Ukrainian Ground Forces standing in formation on a square during a medals awarding ceremony, according to Moscow a legitimate military target.
Warheads of missiles that hit Sumy to kill and injure civilians were packed with shrapnel showing intent to maximize civilian death and injuries, the report said.
The CIT research paralleled 2025 findings by the United Nations also confirming that civilian casualty counts in the Russo-Ukraine War had set new records and were climbing.
According to data published by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) on Jan. 16, using data verified by that organization independently, at least 2,514 civilians were killed that year and 12,142 injured. The total 14,656 casualties in 2025, by those UN counts, was 31 percent higher than in 2024, and 70 percent higher than in 2023.
The CIT estimates using data considered highly reliable but not absolutely confirmed were, compared to UN estimates, about 14 percent higher for figures of civilians killed over 2025, and about 32 percent higher for civilians injured.
Both the UN and the CIT reports stated that actual civilian death and injury counts are in reality higher because combat activity prevents accurate registration of all attacks and harm caused by them.
The bloodiest single-weapon strike against civilians of the Russo-Ukrainian War took place on March 16, 2022, when a Russian tactical-bomber dropped an aerial bomb on a theater packed with hundreds of civilians, destroying the building and killing at least three hundred. Hundreds more are thought to have been buried in the rubble.
The theatre had been marked as a civilian shelter with the word “Chldren” (Russian: ДЕТИ) written on pavement next to theater, in letters three meters (10 feet) tall.
Russian state media later accused Ukrainian authorities of carrying out the attack in a false-flag attempt to harm the reputation of the Russian Air Force, but never offered evidence backing up the claim.
Independent reviewers using satellite overflight imagery and survivor interviews agree a Russian pilot dropped the bomb on a non-military building used as shelter by civilians.