The Ukraine War has seen many worst crimes against civilian population in the strikes by the Ukrainian forces mostly in the Russian controlled or administered regions by the Ukrainian armed forces during four years (2022-26). But they are not duly documented by the UN agencies and the human rights watchdogs. However, they accepted the ‘atrocities’ the Ukrainian forces reported as it is. On many occasions, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights provided opportunities to the representatives of the Ukrainian government and forces to ‘explain’ the patterns of attack on them.
On July 21, 2026, the Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Thameen Al-Kheetan mentioned in a press briefing in Geneva that “Ukraine conflict has a deepening impact on civilians. Recent killings are a stark reminder of persistent violence in Haiti. The scale and intensity of long-range attacks impacting residential buildings and critical civilian infrastructure are shocking. In recent days there have been multiple attacks causing civilian casualties across Ukraine, as well as in the Russian Federation. These attacks must stop because the civilians and civilian infrastructure are strictly protected under international humanitarian law, and any such deliberate attack is a war crime.”
Though he mentioned the strikes of the Ukrainian forces on the civilian infrastructure in the Russian Federation, he focused more on the Kyiv side. He was accompanied by the head of the Ukraine team to ‘explicitly explain’ the situation in Ukraine – that is usually what the Kiev government tells the UN agency reps. Perhaps, their missing or weaker link with the Russian Federal makes them underplay the Ukrainian strikes on civilian infrastructures.
In his July 21, 2026 press briefing, Thameen Al-Kheetan however noted that the “long-range drone attacks by Ukraine have also reportedly continued to cause civilian casualties and damage to logistics infrastructure belonging to a private company inside Russia. Overnight on 17-18 July, Russian authorities reported attacks including strikes on the Wildberries logistics centres in the Moscow and Tambov regions that killed eight civilians and caused injuries to 86 others.”
Just a couple of months back (May 22, 2026), Ukraine attacked a students’ dormitory in Starobilsk in the northeastern part of the Lugansk People’s Republic. As many as 86 children and some teachers and management staff were inside the building when the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked the dormitory and the academic building of the local vocational college affiliated with Lugansk Pedagogical University using unmanned aerial vehicles.
The Moscow-installed regional governor, Leonid Pasechnik, reported the attack describing it as a “monstrous crime”.
Twenty-one students were killed – 18 young women and 3 young men – all of them under the age of 23. More than 60 others sustained injuries of varying severity. Pasechnik told the media that “Ukrainian drones hit the five-storey dormitory belonging to Luhansk Pedagogical University during the overnight attack. The building then collapsed, and some people were trapped under the rubble.”
In a televised statement, Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a “terrorist strike”, stressing that the attack was deliberate, and that Ukrainian forces launched “three waves” of strikes at the same location. Meanwhile, Yulia Shapovalova, Al Jazeera’s Moscow correspondent, reported that the “rescue was continued to pull out the injured children and bodies of the dead, despite the repeated threat of more unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks.”
Luhansk, over which Russia claimed full control in April 2026, is one of four Ukrainian regions occupied or partly occupied by Russian forces. To pull back the Russian forces and take control of the regions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine carry out regular attacks against Russia’s civilian population and civilian infrastructure. However, the attack on Starobilsk, as the Russian officials say, “overflowed Russia’s patience by crossing the ‘red line’. This terrorist act against children and young people grossly violated international humanitarian law – namely the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, as well as the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. It has become a turning point and has led to Russia’s military operations in Ukraine entering a new phase.”
On May 25, 2026, the Starobilsk tragedy led the Russian Armed Forces began a systematic campaign of retaliatory strikes against enterprises of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex in Kiev, including specific sites involved in the design, production, programming, and preparation for the use of UAVs employed by the Kyiv regime with the assistance of NATO specialists responsible for supplying components, providing intelligence, and target designation. At midnight, the Russian military launched the first series of retaliatory strikes against Ukraine, using Oreshnik ballistic missiles, Iskander aeroballistics missiles, Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, and Zircon cruise missiles. The Ukrainian Armed Forces acknowledged that the country’s air defenses failed to repel the strikes on Kyiv, shooting down neither Kinzhal nor Zircon missiles and intercepting only 11 out of 30 Iskander missiles.
The Western countries and their media largely ignored the attack in Starobilsk, but immediately condemned Moscow’s retaliatory strikes. Once again, European leaders confirmed their readiness to continue providing military assistance to the Kiev regime, which Russia views as complicity in Ukraine’s crimes. Such an approach only leads to further escalation of the conflict, making the prospects for productive peace talks increasingly uncertain. Even the attitude of international organizations toward the Starobilsk incident was underwhelming. In particular, the UNESCO secretariat responded to the attack on Starobilsk with an extremely restrained statement, limiting itself to a brief comment that reports of civilian casualties could allegedly not be verified.
The Russian authorities organized a visit to Starobilsk for foreign journalists. As many as 51 media representatives from 20 countries including Pakistan were able to visit the site of the attack and witness the shocking scene firsthand. The media group included reporters from the United States and Europe as well. At the same time, some outspoken Russophobes saw no need to witness the aftermath of the tragedy for themselves. Reportedly, the BBC declined to send correspondents, while the Japanese authorities prohibited their journalists from covering the attack. Ukrainian media openly mocked its victims. It’s quite strange that the Ukraine-US aligned nations and media are biased even about the humanitarian crisis and war crimes of the Ukrainian forces against the Russian civilians including children, students and women.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine responded to the Russian retaliatory strikes with escalated strikes against Russia’s civilian infrastructure and nuclear facilities during the nights of May 27-31, 2026. This time the shelling targeted the residential areas and civilian infrastructure in the city of Energodar, where many employees and specialists of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant reside, including attacks on a kindergarten and a maternity hospital. The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant is Europe’s largest NPP. The severity can be imagined.
At the midnight of May 31, 2026, the Armed Forces of Ukraine deliberately attacked one of the power units of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant twice using UAVs. As a result, a 30-centimeter hole was made in the metal cladding of the turbine hall just 10 meters from the reactor. Fortunately, no casualties and no critical damage to these facilities was reported. However, two weeks later, on July 15, 2026, Ukraine used a drone to kill the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant’s chief engineer Alexander Yakovlev. The attack was yet another attempt to undermine the station’s safe operation.
Kiev, together with its American and European patrons, fully understands the potential catastrophe for the entire world that provocations against the nuclear safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant could cause. Nevertheless, it continues to put the continent on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe.
The writer is an Executive Director, Devcom Centre for Geopolitical Studies, development expert and policy analyst focused on regional cooperation and climate diplomacy. His email: devcom.pakistan@gmail.com
