Within the tiny city of Krasnopillia in rural Ukraine, the stillness of the evening is shattered by the whine of a Russian drone. Seconds later, a group hospital bursts into flames. Sparks and particles rain down throughout the skeletons of timber as the fireplace sends plumes of smoke into the pitch-black sky.
Dozens of individuals are evacuated, in line with native media reviews – however as rescuers reply, in what seems to be a double-tap strike, Russian forces hit a shelter the place greater than 20 sufferers are huddled, together with some with restricted mobility.
The strike in March 2025 comes simply hours after a bigger regional hospital within the northeastern Sumy governorate is focused, decimating the first well being amenities serving the small city of Krasnopillia, whose prewar inhabitants was round 7,700. Healthcare companies for the city “virtually ceased” within the wake of the strikes, Olena Pryima, a neighborhood college director, advised Bellingcat in a telephone interview.
“[The Russians] destroy the infrastructure so that individuals don’t have the chance to dwell and exist usually. You can’t seek the advice of a health care provider, nothing,” she stated. “And now these individuals who stay, God forbid, the ambulance is not going to go there, simply because the safety scenario doesn’t enable it.”
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Her personal college was among the many many buildings destroyed in Russian strikes, and she or he says it has been inconceivable to rebuild amid the continued conflict. “We attempt to warmth some lodging, in the end … particularly since this winter could be very troublesome,” Pryima stated. “However we’re not speaking about rebuilding in any respect now. We have now hope; we’re accumulating some paperwork [such as testimonies and damage assessments], since this may finish sometime – after which we are able to rebuild one thing.”
For the previous 4 years, Bellingcat has been documenting and verifying incidents equivalent to these, chronicling the intensive injury to civilian life and infrastructure after the onset of Russia’s full invasion which started in February 2022.
In over 2,500 circumstances of civilian hurt that now we have verified – the overwhelming majority of which occurred on Ukrainian territory, though dozens additionally happened in Russia – greater than 1,100 residential constructions have been hit. A whole bunch of different civilian websites equivalent to colleges, playgrounds, fireplace stations, hospitals, church buildings, cultural centres, museums, companies and farms have been impacted too.
Our information – which incorporates circumstances that Bellingcat researchers have been in a position to definitively geolocate utilizing open supply proof, and doesn’t mirror the total extent of civilian hurt throughout Ukraine – pinpoints greater than 300 assaults on colleges or childcare amenities, 170 hits on healthcare or humanitarian websites, and 4 dozen incidents focusing on meals and associated infrastructure.
Whereas many assaults have been clustered round 4 primary cities – Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kherson and Kyiv – we documented strikes throughout all areas of the nation. Of the weapons that may very well be recognized via out there open supply info, cluster munitions have been utilized in greater than 100 circumstances.
Cluster munitions, that are banned in additional than 100 nations (however not Russia or Ukraine), have killed greater than 1,200 folks for the reason that conflict started, with Ukraine recording the very best variety of annual casualties worldwide from these weapons in 2024 for the third consecutive 12 months, in accordance to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.
Bellingcat and members of its volunteer group logged all verified incidents of civilian hurt on an interactive TimeMap over a four-year interval spanning February 2022 to December 2025. The map is not being up to date, but it surely stays on-line as an archive (and will be seen under).
An interactive map detailing incidents of civilian hurt between February 2022 and December 2025.
Since Russia’s invasion 4 years in the past, the civilian toll in Ukraine has been stark, with round 15,000 killed – together with greater than 750 youngsters – and 40,600 injured, in accordance to a January 2026 report by the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights.
An evaluation final 12 months by Armed Battle Location and Occasion Information (ACLED) discovered that Russia adopted “a persistent sample of focusing on of populated areas … typically indiscriminate, different occasions extra deliberate”.
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New residence complexes are listed on the market on Russian web sites. In the meantime, Ukrainians are struggling to reclaim their houses.
ACLED’s information for the interval of February 2022 to late January 2026 highlights hundreds of residential strikes throughout Ukraine, together with greater than 750 assaults on healthcare amenities, 1,200 on instructional websites, and a pair of,400 on power infrastructure. A February 2025 World Financial institution report says it can take greater than US$500bn to rebuild Ukraine.
These numbers inform solely a part of the story. Whereas a lot international media consideration has targeted on the politics of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, or highlighted strikes on massive city centres, civilians in distant rural villages have suffered outsized impacts from the destruction of colleges, hospitals and cultural establishments – the important thing threads tying their communities collectively.
In Verkhna Syrovatka, a small village in Sumy of round 3,800 folks, pictures from the scene of shelling in Could 2025 revealed a large gap locally’s blue-roofed cultural home. Inside the ability, which as soon as served as a spot for rehearsals, youngsters’s lessons and people ensembles, pictures and trophies may very well be seen amid piles of splintered wooden and cracked concrete.
The village’s solely college was additionally impacted, with a lot of its home windows blown out, forcing lessons to maneuver on-line. This devastation displays a national development, as UNICEF reviews that Ukrainian youngsters are falling behind in core topics equivalent to studying, maths and science.
Incidents of civilian hurt recorder by Bellingcat in Verkhna Syrovatka. Readers can click on or faucet the dots to study extra about every incident.
Additional south, the village of Opytne within the Donetsk area is steadily being erased, amid a collection of Russian assaults courting again greater than a decade to the 2014 occupation of the Crimean Peninsula.
The village has modified fingers repeatedly in recent times. In December 2022, drone footage revealed large-scale destruction of its residential space, together with a medical workplace, music college and church. In response to media reviews, maybe solely half a dozen residents stay out of greater than 1,000 who lived within the village a decade in the past.
Picture left reveals the village of Opytne in 2021, earlier than Russia’s full invasion (Credit score: Airbus/Google Earth Professional). Picture proper reveals the village of Opytne in 2024 (Credit score: Maxar/Google Earth Professional).
A few months later, in February 2023 in Dvorichna, a rural settlement within the Kharkiv area, Russian forces launched one other double-tap strike: as first responders looked for survivors from an earlier assault on the village council constructing, a number of emergency autos have been hit.
Positioned simply south of the Russian border, Dvorichna has been occupied on and off since 2022. Because of this, the village, whose inhabitants was roughly 3,500 4 years in the past, is estimated to deal with solely 80 residents at this time.
Throughout Ukraine, {the catalogue} of horrors is countless. In Pravdyne, a small village within the Kherson area, the prewar inhabitants of greater than 1,000 folks was reported to have dwindled to fewer than 200 by late 2022. Corpses exhibiting indicators of torture have been exhumed from backyard beds; in a single case, residents reportedly buried the our bodies of Ukrainian troopers beneath slabs of slate to forestall canines from reaching them.
Incidents of civilian hurt recorder by Bellingcat in Pravdyne. Readers can click on or faucet the dots to study extra about every incident.
In Sumy Oblast, Russian drone and missile assaults have compelled residents to flee houses they inhabited for half a century. Within the village of Hroza in northeastern Ukraine, one-fifth of the inhabitants died in a single assault whereas attending the funeral of a soldier, in accordance to native officers.
What might by no means be calculated are the impacts this brutal battle could have on future generations.
Incidents of civilian hurt recorder by Bellingcat in Hroza. Readers can click on or faucet the dots to study extra about every incident.
Again in Krasnopillia, the native college director, Pryima says residents have tried onerous to remain in what she calls “the zone of resilience”, but it surely has been a wrestle.
“It’s very scary to go to sleep, since you don’t know if you happen to’ll get up within the morning,” she stated, noting that residents dwell in fixed worry of the drones that fly overhead, keenly conscious {that a} bomb might drop at any second.
For Ukrainian youngsters, the results have been particularly dire.
“These youngsters, earlier than the full-scale invasion, have been carefree, cheerful – what youngsters must be,” Pryima stated. “These youngsters are not there.”
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