section_path: War crimes and attacks on civilians
section_name: War crimes and attacks on civilians
paragraph_text: War crimes and attacks on civilians
  
  During the invasion, the Russian military and authorities have been responsible for deliberate attacks against civilian targets (including strikes on hospitals and on the energy grid), massacres of civilians, abduction and torture of civilians, sexual violence, forced deportation of civilians, and torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war. They have also carried out many indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas, including with cluster bombs, in once instance killing 61 people in the Kramatorsk railway station attack. According to Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of the Ukrainian intelligence, Russia before the start of the invasion of Ukraine had created 'execution lists' of Ukrainian teachers, journalists, scientists, writers, priests, politicians and was preparing for a genocide of Ukrainians, also the plans included locations of mass graves and mobile crematoriums.
  
  According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, by December 2023, about 78% of confirmed civilian casualties had been killed in Ukrainian-controlled territory, while 21% had been killed in Russian-occupied territory. Over 12,300 civilians have been killed since the start of the invasion. Russia has deliberately targeted Ukrainian civilians with drones, such as in the Kherson terror campaign dubbed the human safari. In May 2025, the UN concluded that the recurrent Russian attacks on civilians in Kherson, which had killed nearly 150 people and injured hundreds more according to officials, amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
  
  The UN Human Rights Office reports that Russia is committing severe human rights violations in occupied Ukraine, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, crackdown on protests and freedom of speech, enforced Russification, indoctrination of children, and suppression of Ukrainian language and culture. Ukrainians have been coerced into taking Russian passports and becoming Russian citizens. Those who refuse are denied healthcare and other rights, and can be imprisoned as a "foreign citizen". Ukrainian men who take Russian citizenship are drafted to fight against the Ukrainian army.
  
  Russian forces have reportedly used banned chemical weapons during the war, usually tear gas grenades. In April 2024, a Daily Telegraph investigation concluded that "Russian troops are carrying out a systematic campaign of illegal chemical attacks against Ukrainian soldiers".