On the morning of Monday 31 July, two Russian ballistic missiles hit an apartment complex and a university building in the central Ukrainian town of Kryvyi Rih. Six people were killed, including one little girl, and over 80 injured, including at least seven children. 150 people managed to escape the attack unharmed.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, AOAV has recorded 1,463 incidents of Russian explosive weapons use against urban residential areas in Ukraine, killing 1,577 civilians and injuring 3,237. Urban residential areas account for 46% of the 3,181 incidents of Russian explosive violence in the country, and 35% of the 13,857 civilian casualties from Russian explosive weapons. The 747 incidents of Russian explosive weapons striking multiple urban areas in one strike account for 23% of incidents, and 36% (4,950) of civilian casualties.
Donetsk remains the worst affected oblast for civilian casualties of Russian explosive weapon use since the invasion, with 4,740 civilians harmed there (1,826 killed, 2,914 injured) across 1,193 recorded incidents. Donetsk accounts for 38% of recorded incidents of Russian explosive weapon use in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. It’s followed by Kharkiv (1,988 civilian casualties), Kherson (1,666), Dnipropetrovsk (1,098), and Mykolaiv (963).
Overall, since 2010 AOAV has recorded 3,678 incidents of Russian explosive weapon use globally, and 18,134 civilian casualties (6,449 killed, 11,685). The majority, 33% (6,058) of civilian casualties, were recorded across 808 incidents in multiple urban areas, while 43% (1,567) of incidents were recorded in urban residential areas, where 5,561 civilians were killed or injured in Russian explosive attacks.
In 2022, Russia was the predominant state perpetrator of civilian harm, causing 9,372 civilian casualties across 1,686 incidents. Civilians accounted for 93% of all 10,083 recorded casualties from Russian explosive violence. 17 of those incidents took place in Syria, where Russian explosive weapons caused 82 civilian casualties, and the rest occurred in Ukraine.
AOAV’s casualty figures represent the lowest of estimations in terms of the number of people killed and injured by explosive weapon use. In an effort to quantify the explicit harm caused by specific explosive weapons, AOAV solely records incident-specific casualty figures, as reported in English-language media.
AOAV condemns the use of violence against civilians and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. All actors should stop using explosive weapons with wide-area effects where there is likely to be a high concentration of civilians.
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