In January 2025, Russian short-range drones caused more casualties than any other weapon in Ukraine.
This was reported by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
According to the UN, at least 139 civilians were killed and another 738 were injured in Ukraine in January 2025. Moreover, 38 civilians were killed and 223 were injured precisely because of short-range drone attacks — they dropped explosives on people who were in cars or on public transport.
These drones are now the biggest threat to civilians in the frontline regions of Ukraine, particularly in Kherson. Most of them are probably FPV drones. They are equipped with cameras through which their operators can see potential targets in real time. So these are deliberate actions by the Russian army to attack Ukrainian civilians.
The UN monitoring mission has also documented an increase in civilian casualties from drones in other frontline areas, including Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions. The number of casualties began to increase throughout 2024, sharply in the last six months.
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