On September 22, 2023, Russian forces launched a missile attack on the city of Kremenchuk, in Ukraine’s Poltava region. The attack damaged residential buildings in the city’s downtown area and resulted in the deaths of one person and the injuries of 55 others, including six children.
Nineteen of the injured have been hospitalised, including one child.
Photograph: Ukrinform
As of 25 September 2023, AOAV has recorded 16,852 civilians killed and injured by explosive weapons in Ukraine since 24 Feb 2022. 34% (5,738) of civilians were harmed in urban residential areas, and 31% (5,297) in strikes which hit multiple urban locations.
Poltava is the 13th most affected oblast for civilian casualties of explosive weapons use in Ukraine. 157 civilians have been reported killed and injured there, or 1% of the total 16,852 civilians harmed in the country. The most impacted oblasts are Donetsk (5,849 civilian casualties), Kharkiv (2,208), Kherson (2,174), Zaporizhzhia (1,240), and Dnipropetrovsk (1,227).
Ground-launched weapons are the predominant cause of civilian harm in Ukraine since 24 Feb 2022, having caused 71% (11,886) of civilian casualties since then.
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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