Drones now leading cause of civilian deaths in Ukraine war — UN

Reuters reported the information.

The UN reported 139 civilian deaths and 738 injuries in January 2025, with short-range drones causing 27% of fatalities and 30% of injuries. Overall, nearly 12,500 civilians, including 650 children, have died, though the U.N. acknowledges this is an undercount.

Once seen as auxiliary tools, aerial drones are now key battlefield weapons, with Ukraine and Russia each producing over a million in 2024.

"Our data shows a clear and disturbing pattern of short-range drones being used in ways that put civilians at grave risk," a press release quoted the UN monitoring mission's head Danielle Bell as saying. "The on-board (drone) cameras should allow operators to distinguish with a higher degree of certainty between civilians and military objectives, yet civilians continue to be killed in alarming numbers."

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians, though many thousands have been killed since it launched the full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.