2025 was the deadliest year for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, according to the United Nations (UN).
Conflict-related violence killed at least 2,514 civilians last year, the UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said, compared with 2,088 in 2024 and 1,974 in 2023. The number of injured civilians also increased sharply each year.
The year’s deadliest attack killed at least 38 civilians in the western city of Ternopil in November, it reported, including eight children.
On Tuesday President Volodymyr Zelensky said overnight Russian strikes had killed four people in Kharkiv and left “several hundred thousand households” without power in and around Kyiv amid freezing temperatures.
The total number of civilians killed and injured in 2025 represented a 31% increase on 2024, and 70% on 2023, according to the UN mission.
It previously said at least 8,006 civilians were killed and 13,287 injured in the first 12 months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
In November, it reported more than 14,534 civilians had been killed since the war began.
The mission’s chief Danielle Bell said 2025’s figures represented “a marked deterioration in the protection of civilians”.
“Our monitoring shows that this rise was driven not only by intensified hostilities along the frontline, but also by the expanded use of long-range weapons, which exposed civilians across the country to heightened risk.”
Separately, Zelensky said almost 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles had targeted cities across the country overnight, causing a major power outage in the Kyiv region.
The city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defences were in operation during what the military said had been a missile attack.
The CEO of energy company Yasno said the whole city had gone into “emergency shutdowns” as a result, while emergency workers sought to put out fires and reconnect supplies in sub-zero temperatures.
The country’s foreign minister accused Russia of deliberately targeting energy infrastructure to “deprive people of power, water and heating” and heating as they woke up to temperatures below -15C.
Parts of the capital had already faced days without heating and electricity in freezing temperatures due to strikes last week.
Zelensky said four people were killed in a missile strike “without any military purpose whatsoever” on a postal terminal in Korotych, Kharkiv.
The north-eastern region’s governor said 10 people had been injured, while Ukraine’s foreign ministry said 30 people had been evacuated.
Elsewhere, the governor of Donetsk Vadym Filashkin said two were killed in strikes across the eastern region, while officials in Odesa in southern Ukraine said six people were injured by strikes which damaged homes, energy facilities, a hospital and a kindergarten.
Kyiv said it had also launched its own attack overnight on a drone manufacturing plant in Russia’s western Rostov region. The army’s general staff said explosions and a fire were recorded in the area.
The latest attacks came two days after Russia’s full-scale invasion hit its 1,418th day – the same length of the Soviet army’s participation in World War Two.
The EU’s ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Matheronva wrote on social media: “Back then, the USSR was attacked, fought back, and – thanks to massive Western support – ended the war victorious… Today, Putin chose this war. Planned it. Launched it. Owns it.”
