Russian drones become main cause of civilian deaths in Ukraine - UN
Photo: UAVs have become the main cause of death of Ukrainian civilians (Getty Images)
Short-range drones have become the most common cause of civilian deaths in Ukraine in January 2025. The residents of Kherson suffer the most, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) reports.
In particular, the UN mission stated that in January 2025, at least 139 civilians were killed, and 738 were injured. At the same time, 38 deaths (27%) and 223 injuries (30%) were the result of attacks using short-range drones that drop explosives on civilians often in their cars or public transport.
“Short-range drones now pose one of the deadliest threats to civilians in frontline areas,” said Danielle Bell, Head of HRMMU.
Terror in Kherson
According to the UN, the drones used in most close-range attacks were likely so-called first-person view (FPV) drones. These UAVs are equipped with cameras that provide operators on the ground with a real-time view of the areas they cross and potential targets.
"In principle, this allows an operator to assess with a higher degree of certainty whether a potential target is a military objective or a civilian person or object," the report stated.
Most civilian casualties from short-range drones occurred in government-controlled areas of the Kherson region, particularly along the Dnipro River. In January, these drones were responsible for 70 percent of all civilian casualties in the region.
For instance, on the afternoon of January 6, as people were returning home from work, a short-range drone dropped explosives on a public bus in Kherson, killing a man and a woman and injuring eight civilians (six women and two men).
The mission also recorded an increase in civilian casualties due to short-range drone usage by Russians in other front-line areas, including the Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions.
According to UN data, about 12,500 civilians have died during the war, including 650 children. The organization has repeatedly stated that its figures are underestimated since they only include cases confirmed by its monitoring groups.
Earlier, the Head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, emphasized that the frontline needs to be pushed back at least 20 kilometers from Kherson to stop Russia's drone terror.
