The United Nations has called for an end to attacks on civilians in Ukraine after overnight Russian strikes reportedly killed at least 19 people in the Chernihiv region, five of them children, and around 25 more elsewhere.
The United Nations has condemned a wave of overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine that reportedly killed dozens of civilians, among them several young children.
At least 19 people were reported killed in the Chernihiv region, the UN said on Wednesday, October 7. Among the dead in the town of Pryluky were five children, three of them babies, according to local authorities. One child died along with his mother and grandmother.
At least 50 others were reported injured when residential buildings were struck. The UN said the toll was expected to rise as rescue operations continued.
Strikes Across the Country
The same wave of attacks reportedly killed around 25 more people and injured dozens of civilians in Kremenchuk in the Poltava region, in Kyiv, and in Oleksandriia in the Kirovohrad region.
Humanitarian teams reported that attacks and frontline fighting over the previous 24 hours had caused more than 150 civilian casualties.
‘This Pattern Must End’
“Families must never live through the horror of seeing their children placed in constant danger or buried under the rubble of their own homes,” said Matthias Schmale, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine. “This pattern of increasing harm to civilians must end.”
He stressed that civilians, including children, homes and essential civilian infrastructure are protected under international humanitarian law.
In New York, the Secretary-General’s spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said the UN chief strongly condemned the attacks.
“All attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur, are a violation of international humanitarian law and must end immediately,” Dujarric said.
Health Workers Hit
The UN also reported attacks on medical services. On October 5 and 6, airstrikes hit a hospital in Kryvyi Rih and ambulances in Kramatorsk, injuring health workers.
Ukrainian Red Cross workers were injured while travelling to help people affected by an attack in Zaporizhzhia.
The Wider Toll
According to the UN’s latest data, 15,280 civilians were killed or injured in Ukraine in the first eight months of this year.
Over the same period, the UN and its humanitarian partners assisted 1.5 million people affected by strikes. The organisation said attacks are intensifying and spreading to areas further from the front lines.
Image: Rescue work in Kyiv after a Russian attack on 28 September 2026 (not the Pryluky strike). Photo by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.