Nearly 11,000 civilians killed in Ukraine since Russian invasion

Ukraine’s War Crimes Department in the Prosecutor General's Office said on Wednesday that at least 10,749 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 15,599 have been wounded since Russia invaded its neighboring country in February 2022. 

According to Yuriy Belousov, the head of the War Crimes Department of Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office, the death toll includes 499 children. He warned that this number is expected to “increase many times” once the Ukrainian army frees territories currently occupied by Russia. 

“I think that there will be tens of thousands of dead in Mariupol alone,” Belousov said, referring to the port city in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, which fell into Russian hands after a three-month siege that nearly destroyed the city. 

The figures revealed by the Ukrainian side are similar to those of international organizations. Earlier in July, the UN said it had confirmed the deaths of “more than 9,000 civilians, including over 500 children,” noting that the real number is expected to be much higher. 

Belousov added that nearly 98,000 war crimes committed by Russian forces were recorded in Ukraine, since the start of the war. 

Earlier on Wednesday, the Mobile Justice Team, established by the international humanitarian law firm Global Rights Compliance, issued a report saying that many prisoners held in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine were tortured and sexually violated.