Peace talks were supposed to save lives in Ukraine. Instead, last year became the war’s deadliest for civilians since 2022.

The investigative group Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) has released a report documenting civilians killed and wounded in the war between Russia and Ukraine in 2025. The summary, which tracks victims on both sides of the conflict, is CIT’s second — the first covered 2024. The report’s central finding is grim: Peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by the United States, failed to de-escalate the violence. Instead, civilian casualties surged so sharply that 2025 was the war’s deadliest year for noncombatants since 2022.

Conflict Intelligence Team volunteers have tracked civilian casualties on both sides of the front line since autumn 2023. Their database now holds more than 14,000 records of attacks involving at least one victim — up from 6,000 records a year ago.

To gather data, CIT volunteers primarily rely on statements from officials on both sides of the conflict and scour open sources, such as news reports and Telegram channels, for visual evidence. However, the group warns that it cannot verify every attack, particularly those not reported by local officials.

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Overall figures

• In 2025, 2,919 civilians were killed on both sides of the front, including 96 children. Another 17,770 civilians were injured, including 1,000 children. Consequently, the combined total of killed and wounded exceeded 20,500.
• Compared with 2024, deaths increased by 12 percent and injuries by more than 25 percent.

• Although Russia and Ukraine began discussing peace under U.S. pressure, the intensity of strikes on civilian infrastructure only increased in 2025. The monthly number of civilian casualties exceeded 1,550 people in nine of the 12 months of the year. The highest tolls were recorded in April, June, and July, with CIT documenting at least 2,000 killed or injured in each of those months.

• According to CIT’s calculations, the deadliest attacks in 2025 targeted Ternopil on November 19 (38 killed, 92 injured), Sumy on April 13 (35 killed, 129 injured), and Kyiv on July 31 (32 killed, 158 injured). A June 24 strike on Dnipro caused the highest total casualties (21 killed, 319 injured).

Figures by sides of the conflict

• In 2025, civilian casualties in Ukraine’s unoccupied territories totaled 16,300 (2,348 killed, 13,952 injured). In occupied areas, 298 people were killed and 1,751 injured. In Russia, 273 were killed and 2,072 wounded. In total, 79 percent of casualties occurred in territories under Ukraine’s official control.

• Over the year, the number of civilian casualties in occupied areas of Ukraine decreased by 6 percent, while in unoccupied areas it increased by 35 percent.
• The highest numbers of killed and wounded were recorded in the Donetsk and Kherson regions on both sides of the front line.

• In the city and wider region of Kyiv, attacked almost daily by the Russian army, casualty numbers are comparable to frontline regions.

• In Russia, Belgorod remains the most affected region for a second consecutive year: 134 civilians killed and 1,202 injured. This was followed by the Kursk region (61 killed, 327 wounded) and the Bryansk region (24 killed, 181 wounded). However, while the number of casualties in the Belgorod region decreased by 13 percent over the year, it increased in the other two regions.

Figures by weapon category

• Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) caused the greatest damage. They killed 1,376 civilians and wounded another 10,089 on both sides of the front — more than all other types of weapons combined. Drone casualties increased approximately threefold in 2025 compared with 2024.
• UAV attacks killed or injured 2,017 people in Russia, 888 in occupied areas of Ukraine, and 8,560 in the rest of Ukraine. CIT concluded that this disparity cannot be attributed solely to the gap in combat capabilities; rather, the Ukrainian army likely uses drones more carefully than the Russian army.
• Artillery shells killed or injured 2,673 people on both sides (down 10 percent from 2024); missile strikes killed or injured 3,580 (down 3 percent); and aerial bombs killed or injured 2,648. Notably, deaths from aerial bombs increased by 40 percent, while injuries remained virtually unchanged.
• Almost all civilians killed and wounded in aerial and missile strikes were in unoccupied Ukrainian territory — the Ukrainian Armed Forces have few missiles or aviation bombs for attacks on occupied areas and Russia. On the Russian side, aerial bombs caused 18 casualties over the year; in all cases, they were victims of Russian friendly fire.

CIT’s conclusions