More than 2,500 Ukrainian children have been killed or wounded by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to newly published data. A total of 669 children have died and another 1,833 have been injured. The figures, drawn from a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, were shared by analysts at Top Lead via the Telegram channel UA War Infographics, which tracks wartime developments in Ukraine.
The toll continues to grow. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office reported that in just the first few days of April, at least 10 children were killed and five more wounded in Russian attacks. On April 2, a 10-year-old boy was injured during shelling in Kharkiv, while an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl were hurt in a separate strike on Kryvyi Rih. A day later, another Russian attack on Kharkiv claimed the life of a 12-year-old girl and left two other girls, aged 12 and 17, injured.
On April 4, nine children were killed in Kryvyi Rih. The victims included two girls, aged 7 and 15, and seven boys ranging in age from 3 to 16. Eleven more children were wounded in the same strike — six girls aged between 8 months and 15 years, and five boys, including a 3-month-old infant.
Official data from Ukraine’s juvenile prosecutors indicate that more than 2,479 children have been affected by Russia’s war. At least 616 have been killed, and over 1,866 have suffered injuries of varying severity. The highest toll has been reported in the Donetsk region, with 636 child casualties, followed by Kharkiv with 480, Dnipropetrovsk with 226, Kherson with 202, Kyiv with 136, Zaporizhzhia with 170, Mykolaiv with 118, and Sumy with 115.
Source: uawarinfographics | Telegram
None of these figures are definitive—and discrepancies between sources are common. With large parts of Ukrainian territory still under Russian occupation, verifying the full scope of the damage is difficult, and may remain so until the war ends. For now, Ukraine lacks access to accurate information from the occupied regions. Meanwhile, the grim tally continues to rise. At least 16 children are killed or wounded every week as a result of Russian attacks, according to Daria Zarivna, adviser to the head of the Presidential Office and chief operating officer of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative.
The leading causes of death and injury among Ukrainian children are missile strikes, artillery fire, and the bombing of residential areas. Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure in clear violation of international law. Homes, schools, hospitals, and kindergartens have all come under fire. According to the United Nations, many child casualties have resulted from explosive weapons used in densely populated areas. One of the most harrowing examples was the missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Uman in April 2023, which killed 23 people, including six children, when a high-rise apartment building was hit as families slept inside. Another deadly attack took place at the Kramatorsk railway station in 2022, where children were among those killed while waiting with their parents for an evacuation train.
Russian troops have systematically destroyed the very places that should offer children protection. In the early months of the full-scale invasion, more than 140 educational institutions were reduced to rubble, and thousands more were damaged. By late March 2022, 773 schools had been struck by missiles or shelling, with 75 completely destroyed. The attacks have hit schools in large cities and rural villages alike, robbing Ukrainian children of access to education—and a childhood without fear.
Hospitals have not been spared in the onslaught. Since the start of the invasion, more than 800 medical facilities have been attacked, including maternity wards and children’s hospitals. In Mariupol, a Russian airstrike levelled the city’s children’s hospital and maternity ward. Images of bloodied, injured pregnant women fleeing the rubble spread around the world, becoming a chilling symbol of the brutality inflicted by the invading forces.
And that is only part of the picture. According to Ukraine’s National Police, 2,068 children are currently listed as missing, while roughly 20,000 are believed to have been abducted by Russian forces from occupied Ukrainian territories and relocated deep into Russia. That number may be far lower than the true figure. The Ukrainian presidential initiative Bring Kids Back UA, which works to trace and repatriate missing children, points to open-source data cited by Russian officials themselves confirming the deportation of 744,000 children from Ukraine. These figures are publicly available on the initiative’s official website.
