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Over 15,000 civilians dead or injured in Ukraine in the first eight months of 2026, 55% more than last year, a “shocking” level of sexual violence, and then the devastation of civilian targets, with a population now living in a “constant state of terror”.
The report presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva says, in numbers, what President Volodymyr Zelensky had summarized a few days ago: Russian leader Vladimir Putin has released his generals’ reins, urging them to no longer follow the rules of war.
A war that is today “a catastrophe – stated the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk – which grows and intensifies week by week, causing unimaginable suffering to civilians”. The figures speak for themselves: between January and August around 15,280 civilians killed or injured by the war, with an average of over 400 per week. A 55% increase compared to the same months of 2025, which rises to +62% in the areas closest to the front. Donetsk, Kharkiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia: territories now the constant target of Moscow’s glide bombs, which have caused the death or injury of 2,500 people in those areas alone in eight months. In Oleshky, near Kherson, “around two thousand people are trapped in desperate conditions, without running water, electricity or gas. Food deliveries have been severely interrupted and the hospital is running out of fuel to run the generators.”
Even among the Russians, the UN commissioner reported, civilian victims would be increasing, but the numbers remain uncertain because the authorities “did not grant us access”. What is certain, Turk said, is that “Ukraine is a laboratory for drone warfare. We need urgent interventions internationally to address the carnage caused by these weapons systems around the world.”
This war is “characterised by cruelty” and “incessant brutality” in which “shocking levels” of sexual violence against civilians and prisoners emerge. “The Russian Federation – said Turk – uses these aberrant acts to torture, intimidate and coerce individuals and communities. Of the more than 1,000 cases documented by my Office, 89% were attributed to the Russian authorities and 11% to Ukraine. Most of the victims were men, especially in places of detention, but women and children were also affected, mainly in the occupied territories. In addition to peace, there must be accountability.”
All this while “the fronts remain practically immobile” and the targets of the bombings are increasingly “residential buildings, schools, medical centers, railways, ports, petrol stations, shops and logistics and telecommunications companies”, in “clear violation of international humanitarian law”. The effects also affect those who are spared by the drones: “Russian attacks on supermarkets and food companies are already causing temporary shortages of vegetables and dairy products in some areas. Damage to power plants causes power outages that affect water pumping stations. As winter approaches, Ukrainians fear that the worst is yet to come.”
A poison which, however, also intoxicates the Russian aggressor, according to the UN official, whose society “is sinking more and more into fear, denial and a militarized economy that puts death and destruction before health and education. I am shocked – admitted Commissioner Turk – by the lack of empathy demonstrated”.