The war in Ukraine claimed the lives of at least 7,155 civilians, and another 11,662 were injured

Civilian casualties from February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a war against Ukraine, to February 5, 2023 amounted to 18,817 civilians (18,657 a week earlier), including 7,155 dead (7,110), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported on Monday.

“The cause of most of the recorded cases of death or injury of civilians was the use of explosive weapons with a large impact zone, in particular, heavy artillery and rocket launchers, as well as rocket and airstrikes,” the document emphasizes on UN data.

This applies, for example, to such settlements as Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izyum (Kharkiv region), Lysychansk, Popasna and Severodonetsk (Luhansk region), where, according to reports, numerous cases of civilian deaths or injuries have been recorded.

According to confirmed UN data, 2,853 men, 1,927 women, 226 boys and 180 girls died, while the sex of 32 children and 1,937 adults has not yet been determined.

Among the 11,662 wounded, there are 339 boys and 248 girls, as well as 264 children, the sex of which has not yet been determined.

Compared to data on January 29,9 children were injured.

If previously the report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the number of casualties was published daily, and then only on working days, since July it has become weekly. In this summary, as in the previous one, data are given for months.

According to them, the death toll in January decreased to 177 from 190 in December, but exceeded November’s figure of 164, which was the lowest since the beginning of the war, and for 5 days in February it was 29 people.

March remains the deadliest month for civilians, according to the UN, with at least 3,378 deaths. In April, according to the publication of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the number of civilian deaths due to the war decreased to 714, in May – to 476, in June – to 376 and in July – to 360. In the first five days of the war, from 24 by February 28, 362 people died, in August – 307, in September – 331, in October – 288.

The number of wounded in January – 520 – was the lowest since the beginning of the war: in December there were 612, in November – 530. In October, the number of wounded fell to 787 from 934 in September, when it was higher than August’s figure of 894 and slightly lower than previous ones: July – 1,100, June – 1,030, May – 1,021. In April and March, respectively, 1,255 and 2,418 people were injured.

According to the summary, 167 people were killed and another 468 injured by large-area explosive weapons in January, while 14 people died and 52 were injured by mines and explosives of war (9% of total casualties).

According to the UN, 91% of the victims in January were in government-controlled territories.

The summary traditionally states that the increase in indicators before the previous summary should not be counted only for cases after January 29, because during this period the Office verified several cases for the previous days.

American volunteer Pete Reed died in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine while providing aid to the civilian population. This was reported by the humanitarian aid group Global Response Medicine (GRM).

Reid, a US Marine Corps veteran, was listed as “killed in aid” while on a mission with another organization.

“Pete Reed, founder of GRM, died in Bakhmut, Ukraine. Pete was a cornerstone of GRM, serving as Chairman of the Board for 4 years. In January, Pete left GRM to work with Global Outreach Doctors on their mission in Ukraine and was killed while providing relief “.

It is also noted that this is “a stark reminder of the dangers faced by rescuers and humanitarian workers in conflict zones when they provide assistance to citizens caught in the crossfire.”

“Pete Reid, a volunteer medic, was killed during shelling in Bakhmut, Ukraine, while trying to evacuate civilians. One of the most selfless people I have ever met. Rest in peace, brother,” wrote documentary photographer Cengiz Yar on Twitter.

A spokesman for the US State Department confirmed to journalists “the recent death of a US citizen in Ukraine”: “We are in contact with the family and are providing all possible consular assistance.”

As of the morning of February 7, 2023, more than 1,380 children were injured in Ukraine as a result of the full-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation: according to the official information of juvenile prosecutors, 461 children died and more than 919 were injured of various degrees of severity, the Prosecutor General’s Office reports.

These numbers are not final. Work is ongoing on their installation in the places of hostilities, in temporarily occupied and liberated territories.

The largest number of children were affected in Donetsk oblast – 443, Kharkiv oblast – 270, Kyiv oblast – 123, Kherson oblast – 86, Zaporizhzhya oblast – 84, Mykolaiv oblast – 83, Chernihiv oblast – 68, Luhansk oblast – 66, Dnipropetrovsk oblast – 63.

3,126 educational institutions were damaged due to bombing and shelling by the armed forces of the Russian Federation. 337 of them were completely destroyed.

Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, 98 energy workers have died in the line of duty, and many have been injured.

Andriy Gerus, the head of the energy committee of the Verkhovna Rada, told about it.

“Repair works continue around the clock. Energy workers do everything possible to ensure that Ukrainians have electricity. In particular, they risk their lives. In 2022, 98 energy workers died in the line of duty, twice as many were injured. This is the price of each kilowatt of electricity,” – said the people’s deputy.

In the occupied territories of the Luhansk region, Russian security forces are forcing Ukrainian teachers to obtain Russian passports.

This was reported by the Center of National Resistance.

All teachers who continue to work in the occupied territories have been told that they will be fired if they do not receive a Russian passport.

The center says teachers must write a statement renouncing Ukrainian citizenship, even though Russia allows people to hold two passports.

A total of 550,000 Russian passports were illegally issued to residents of the occupied part of Donetsk region

A total of 550,000 Russian passports were illegally issued to residents of the occupied part of the Donetsk region. This is stated in the message of the so-called “migration service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the DPR”.

It states that the Russian Federation began to illegally accept Russian citizenship in April 2019. During this time, the occupiers managed to issue only 550,000 passports of the aggressor state.

At the same time, since September 30, 2022, i.e. after the Kremlin’s legally invalid statement about the “inclusion” of the territory of the Donetsk region into the Russian Federation, only 103 thousand people received Russian passports.

It is impossible to determine the exact number of Ukrainian citizens living in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk region. The occupying power “DNR” operates with a figure of 2.2 million people.

In the temporarily occupied Crimea, the invaders issued 13,000 Russian passports to residents of the temporarily occupied regions of Kherson Oblast and Zaporizhzhia.

This was reported by the President’s office in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

“The occupation mouthpiece Konstantinov (the self-proclaimed speaker of the Russian parliament of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov) said that 13,000 occupation passports have already been allegedly issued on the territory of the peninsula for residents of the temporarily occupied districts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions,” the message reads.

The department added that the self-proclaimed Minister of Transport of Crimea, Mykola Lukashenko, announced the launch of an illegal bus service from the peninsula to the cities of Genichesk and Skadovsk. As noted, there were almost no passengers on the first flights.

The Russian occupiers took 3,500 prisoners from the prisons in the temporarily occupied territories of Kherson region and Zaporizhzhia to the temporarily occupied Crimea, where they were recruited by the Wagnerites.

Russians conduct searches in Ukrainian churches. Currently, the occupiers are subjecting a number of denominations in the occupied territories to repression, in particular, searches were conducted in the parishes of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The beginning of 2023 for the wintering of aquatic inhabitants was within the ichthyological norms, but in January the facts of the death of fish were already recorded. The reason was the damage to the shut-off valves of the Kakhovsky HPP as a result of Russian shelling in the Kakhovsky Reservoir. There was a mass death of aquatic biological resources.

This creates direct risks of disruption of spring spawning in the reservoir. Shelling by the Russian Federation on the coastal part of the city of Kherson and the water area of ​​the Dnipro River also led to the mass death of grayling. Criminal proceedings have been opened for this fact. In this case, the losses caused to the fishing industry are estimated to be more than 390 million hryvnias. This was reported by the State Agency of Land Reclamation and Fisheries of Ukraine.

In other reservoirs of Ukraine, no incidents of fish death and suffocation were recorded during January. Thus, water temperature fluctuations averaged 0.4-3 ℃ in the northern and western regions, 1-4 ℃ in the eastern and central regions, and 1.5-4.5 ℃ in the south of the country. The average indicators of dissolved oxygen in water in the country’s reservoirs were within the norm and were higher than the minimum allowable fishery norm (4.0 mgO2/dm3).

In most regions of Ukraine, the ice cover was either completely absent, or partially covered water bodies and amounted to 3-6 cm (up to 25 cm in places in the Kharkiv region). In the mountainous parts of the western regions, active ice formation was observed on the rivers in the form of ice channels, incomplete ice deposits, and banks, in some areas of which ice jams formed. On water bodies covered with ice, users of water bioresources carried out traditional melioration measures, in particular digging pits, holes, etc.

At the same time, in connection with the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, part of the information about the level regime, water temperature and content of oxygen dissolved in water in the reservoirs of the occupied and de-occupied territories of Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson regions remains unknown.