KEY FINDINGS
This report covers the key events, trends and examples related to the crimes committed by the Ukrainian political authorities and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU[1]) in three months, from July 1 to September 30, 2025.
The violation of the international humanitarian law norms and principles and the military crimes committed by the Ukrainian side amounts to as deliberate and articulated strategy of Zelensky’s regime. The information we have collected prove that the tasks set by the Kiev regime’s political leadership for the AFU include killing and injuring civilians, damaging civilian infrastructure, intimidating civilians in the Russian regions, and so on. Systematic terror towards civilians was aimed at disrupting nascent negotiations, creating a negative information background for the international events held during that period, and destabilising internal political atmosphere in the Russian Federation.
Kiev has been doing its utmost to create a “bloody backdrop” for the talks and meetings that were directly related to the Ukraine crisis. The obvious surges in the AFU’s criminal activity towards Russian civilians and civilian facilities in the territory of Russia were directly connected with the political and international events that took place in that period.
On July 23, during the third round of the Istanbul talks aimed at settling the Ukraine crisis, the Russian delegation put forth several humanitarian and political initiatives. The Kiev regime responded with terrorist attacks against the civilian population of the Russian Federation. The AFU delivered large-scale strikes targeting crowded public places in the frontline regions, in particular, in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and the Krasnodar Territory.
On July 22−24, several Russian regions were subjected to large-scale artillery and UAV attacks. At least 413 strikes targeted civilian facilities in the Kherson Region, killing seven civilians and injuring 20.
Immediately after the end of the talks on the night of July 24, the Kiev regime launched a massive attack by strike fixed-wing UAVs on residential districts in Sochi, Krasnodar Territory. Two women were killed and 13 people injured in that attack. At the same time, large numbers of UAVs attacked the Vasilyevka and Pologi municipal districts of the Zaporozhye Region, killing three and injuring nine civilians.
The Kiev regime’s terrorist operations peaked during Vladimir Putin’s meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska on August 15. Between August 14 and 17, the number of AFU’s attacks on civilian facilities tripled. Almost simultaneously, Kiev delivered a series of “symbolic” demonstration strikes on the central districts of regional centres in the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Belgorod, Rostov, Kursk and Bryansk regions.
On August 14−15, at least 388 Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure were registered in the Belgorod Region, including the buildings of the regional government, courts and social centres. As the result, 22 civilians were wounded and one person killed. On August 15, a woman was killed and 15 people were wounded in a direct UAV strike on an apartment house in Kursk. Fifteen people were injured in a similar attack in Rostov-on-Don.
On August 18, an armed detachment of the 3rd Regiment of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was neutralised in the Bryansk Region, where they prepared to blow up a passenger railway line. Three Ukrainians were detained and another three were killed. They carried Western rifles, explosives and equipment. On May 31, 2025, the Kiev regime perpetrated a similar terrorist attack, exploding a bridge over a passenger train in the Bryansk Region. Seven people died and 113 were wounded.
The UN General Assembly High-Level Week was seen as yet another reason to intensify attacks on Russian regions. The number of shelling attacks on civilian infrastructure increased dramatically on September 22−28, in particular, in the Belgorod, Kherson and Kursk regions. As many as 39 civilians, including four minors, were injured in these attacks on September 22−23.
Ahead of Zelensky’s speech at the UN on September 23, the AFU attacked a substation line connected to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. As a result, the Dneprovskaya high-voltage transmission line was disconnected, cutting off electricity supply to the Zaporozhye NPP and creating the risk of a major nuclear accident.
These unambiguous signals, reinforced by crimes committed on the ground, are proof of the Kiev authorities’ lack of commitment to a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.
There are several trends that characterize Ukraine’s actions during the reporting period, in particular:
- A significant increase in the intensity of Ukrainian shelling attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Daily attacks on civilian facilities varied between 450 and 520.
- A significant increase in the number of civilians killed and wounded in the AFU strikes compared to the beginning of 2025. Over the three months under review, 200 more civilians have been injured than in the previous three months.
- The growth of UAV attack victims. Over 70% of civilian victims were targeted by UAVs. Overall, about 1,300 civilians have been injured in UAV attacks in the reporting period.
- The AFU used rocket projectiles to attack crowded public places. The second largest number of civilians were killed and injured by high-precision MLRS systems, mostly HIMARS, Grad and similar systems.
- The use of new types of UAVs by the AFU against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including FPV UAVs, fixed-wing strike UAVs and heavy hexacopters. They targeted densely populated urban districts, civilian transport, emergency vehicles, farming machinery, refuelling stations, and civilian facilities.
- The use of inhumane weapons against civilians, such as fragments that cannot be detected with X-rays, anti-personnel mines, explosive devices disguised as household items, and the like.
- The growing number of strikes on the agrarian sector. Over 100 farm machines have been damaged by Ukrainian UAVs. The strikes were delivered to destroy the harvest and processing equipment.
- Deteriorating nuclear safety and security. Kiev continues attacking nuclear power facilities. Over the past three months, Ukraine targeted Russia’s Zaporozhye, Kursk and Smolensk nuclear power plants at least 19 times.
Ukrainian strategy towards civilians
Russian forces held the initiative on the battlefield in the reporting period, whereas Kiev has lost control over an area of approximately 1,709 square kilometres. The Ukrainian regime, which is losing battles against Russia, resorted to prohibited forms and methods of warfare, in violation of international norms. The AFU used Western-supplied weapons to kill women and children and destroy hospitals, schools, residential houses, and social and administrative buildings.
Vladimir Zelensky openly stated that the AFU’s crimes had a strategic goal −to make Russia feel its losses, which should allegedly force it to use diplomacy. The Ukrainian dictator’s rhetoric is designed to justify terrorist attacks on civilian facilities far beyond the zone of hostilities: “We must push the war back to where it came from, into Russia. And not just in the border areas.” Regarding the attribution of war, we would like to remind everyone that it was the Kiev regime, which came to power as the result of an illegal state coup that launched hostilities against civilians in Donbass in 2014, including with the use of combat aircraft.
Strikes on civilian facilities
The average number of AFU shelling and air strikes on civilian facilities has almost doubled in the reporting period compared to April−June 2025. Between July 1 and September 30, 2025, the AFU launched at least 38,278 various munitions at civilian targets. The aggregate number of munitions used by the Kiev regime against civilians since February 2022 has reached at least 316,382.
The analysis of documented Ukrainian attacks on civilian facilities in Russia in the reporting period helps pinpoint the most endangered areas, that is, the areas subjected to the most intensive daily and hourly attacks by the AFU.
The largest number of massive artillery, howitzer and various UAV strikes was reported in the Belgorod Region. These attacks most often targeted facilities in the Shebekino and Graivoron municipalities and the Krasnaya Yaruga, Belgorod and Borisovka districts. The largest attacks in the Kherson Region targeted districts and cities on the left bank of the Dnieper, primarily the Alehski, Golaya Pristan and Novaya Kakhovka municipalities. Other such targets were Gorlovka, Donetsk and Makeyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Lisichansk urban district and the Svatovo and Kremennaya districts in the Lugansk People’s Republic, Energodar, Kamenka Dneprovskaya and Vasilyevka municipal districts, the Glushkovo and Sudzha districts in the Kursk Region, and the Pogar, Starodub, Suzemka, Klimovo and Sevsk districts in the Bryansk Region.
The AFU mostly targeted apartment blocks and private houses, civilian energy infrastructure and water supply system (power plants, refuelling stations, gas pipelines, and water intake units and towers), civilian transport (passenger buses and cars), industrial facilities (refineries, food and processing facilities, and industrial enterprises), special rescue and emergency transport (Emergencies Ministry vehicles, ambulances, and emergency utility services), healthcare and educational establishments (schools, kindergartens, universities, etc.), and commercial facilities (trading objects, office centres, etc.).
Civilian victims
In accordance with verified data[2] based on reports by the federal and local authorities between July 1 and September 30, 2025, at least 1,749 peaceful citizens of the Russian Federation have been injured, the largest quarterly figure since the beginning of 2025 (1,489 in January−March, and 1,537 in April−June).
In total, 1,532 civilians, including 88 minors, sustained injuries of varying severity.
217 civilians, including six minors, were killed.
Overall, at least 24,299 people have suffered at the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since February 2022. At least 17,205, including 1,041 minors, have been wounded, and 7,094 people, including 234 minors, have been killed. Unavoidable punishment
Russia’s Investigative Committee has initiated 632 criminal proceedings in the reporting period. Since February 2022, Russian courts have handed down guilty verdicts to 622 people based on investigations into 483 criminal cases. From July 1 to September 30, 2025, investigation into 35 criminal cases against 35 Ukrainian servicemen have been completed.