(MENAFN) The UN issued a warning on Thursday that civilian deaths and injuries in Ukraine have already exceeded the total recorded in 2024, as Russian aerial assaults escalate, power disruptions worsen, and humanitarian distress deepens throughout the nation.

"Ukrainian civilians have continued to bear the brunt of the Russian Federation's escalating aerial campaign," said Kayoko Gotoh, the UN’s officer-in-charge for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas, during a briefing to the Security Council.

She emphasized that Russia’s amplified attacks on critical energy infrastructure have resulted in "widespread and prolonged emergency power outages across most regions of the country, leaving millions without heating, water or public transportation as temperatures plummet."

Highlighting the rapid rise in harm to non-combatants, Gotoh noted: "We are concerned over the alarming increase in civilian casualties in Ukraine, with the overall figure from January to October 2025 already exceeding the total for all of last year."

She continued by pointing out the sharp spike in the capital: "In Kyiv, the number of civilian casualties was nearly 3.8 times higher in the first 10 months of 2025 than in all of 2024."

Drawing on statistics from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), she reported that since Russia launched its war in February 2022, "14,534 Ukrainian civilians, including 745 children, have been killed, 38,472 more civilians, including 2,375 children, have been injured."

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