Russia's war against Ukraine continued to cause immense civilian suffering. Since its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russian forces have committed widespread war crimes and other abuses and maintained a climate of fear in Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine. In 2024, Russia’s large-scale coordinated attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid significantly reduced Ukraine’s power-generating capacity, causing country-wide blackouts. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued four arrest warrants against senior Russian officials for their role in these attacks.
From February 2022 through November 2024, 12,162 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 26,919 injured, according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. At least 6.7 million Ukrainians fled and remain abroad. Millions more remain internally displaced. Throughout 2024, tens of thousands fled frontline cities in Kharkivska and Donetska regions to other parts of the country due to Russia’s continued military advancement.
In June, the European Union opened accession negotiations with Ukraine and presented Ukraine with a negotiating framework that includes rule of law, fundamental rights, and democratic institutions as priority issues in the next step of the accession process.
In August, Ukraine took steps toward becoming a full member of the International Criminal Court, a milestone in advancing global justice.
In June, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in favour of Ukraine’s interstate complaint against Russia, finding Russia responsible for a range of human rights abuses in Crimea. The court found that Russian authorities carried out a pattern of “retaliatory prosecution” against those opposed to Russia’s occupation of Crimea, which began in 2014.
In April, the UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, established in 2022, for another year.
In August, Ukraine launched an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. At time of writing, Ukrainian forces reportedly controlled approximately 800 sq km there, including the town of Sudzha, where they established a military administration.
Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas
Russian forces carried out numerous attacks on densely populated areas in 2024, causing devastation and suffering across Ukraine. Most civilian casualties were caused by explosive weapons with wide area effects, which also damaged residential buildings, hospitals, schools, cultural heritage sites, and other civilian infrastructure.
At least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 injured in July, making it the deadliest month for civilians in the past two years. Russian forces’ strikes on multiple cities on July 8 killed at least 43 civilians, including five children, and injured at least 190. The attacks also caused significant damage to vital civilian infrastructure, including the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, the country’s largest children’s hospital. Ukrainian authorities reported that the strike on Okhmatdyt and another hospital in Kyiv killed nine patients and healthcare workers and injured 16 patients, including children. Human Rights Watch and others called for the strike on Okhmatdyt to be investigated as a war crime.
Russia’s March 4 strikes on Odesa killed 12 people, including 5 children, and injured 20, according to regional authorities.
As the Russian ground offensive advanced in Kharkivska region, attacks on Kharkiv city and its environs intensified. May attacks using air-dropped bombs and missiles killed, injured, and displaced large numbers of civilians and damaged civilian infrastructure. On May 25, an attack on a busy shopping center killed 19 people and wounded 54, according to Ukrainian authorities. An attack on August 30, according to official reports, killed six civilians and injured 97 and damaged or destroyed 82 residential buildings in five different areas in Kharkiv.
On September 4, Russian air attacks struck a historic residential district in Lviv. The attack killed seven residents, including four from the same family, and wounded 66. The attack also damaged seven educational facilities, including a primary school and three secondary schools, interrupting the education of 1,456 children.
A September attack on an aid distribution site in Viroliubivka, Donetska region, killed three ICRC staff and wounded two. Between January and October, nine humanitarian workers were killed.
From January through December, there were at least 459 recorded attacks on health care infrastructure and personnel, including 349 attacks that impacted healthcare facilities, with 119 personnel and 50 patients wounded. Between February 24, 2022, and December 2024, the World Health Organization documented 2,195 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine, which killed or injured at least 900 healthcare workers and patients.
Between March and August, Russian forces carried out at least 101 attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure in 17 regions. The attacks significantly reduced electrical supply for the civilian population. Daily outages, sometimes lasting up to 14 hours, put millions of Ukrainians at risk, including people with disabilities and serious health conditions as well as older people who rely on or require electricity-powered services and assistive technologies.
Landmines and Cluster Munitions
Repeated Russian cluster munition attacks have killed and injured hundreds of Ukrainian civilians since 2022. An April 29 attack on Odesa killed seven civilians and injured dozens more. According to Ukrainian officials, on August 26, Russian forces used cluster munitions to attack power infrastructure. Ukrainian forces have also used cluster munitions and received six transfers of the weapons from the United States between July 2023 and September 2024.
Russian forces have also used landmines extensively, causing civilian harm and contaminating agricultural land. In June, Ukraine announced that it had opened a pre-trial investigation into “the use of anti-personnel mines by unidentified military personnel,” following reporting by Human Rights Watch on Ukrainian use of rocket-fired landmines in and around Izium in 2022, when the city was under Russian control.
Russian authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine continued to impose Russian legislation, administrative structures, and judicial control, including by appointing federal judges, in violation of international humanitarian law. Russian occupying authorities also pressured residents to obtain Russian passports through harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention, and restrictions on access to social services essential for rights, such as health care.
Russian authorities continued to suppress the Ukrainian language and education curriculum and impose the Russian curriculum and Russian as the language of instruction in schools in occupied areas of Ukraine.
Throughout the year, Russian authorities in occupied areas severely repressed fundamental rights, including the rights to freedom of speech, association, assembly, and religion. They arbitrarily detained journalists, volunteers, and community and religious leaders who refused to cooperate with the occupying authorities.
Russian authorities continued to conscript Ukrainian civilians in occupied areas or otherwise tried to forcibly enlist them, including those in detention, into the Russian military, which is a war crime.
In March, de facto authorities in Russia-occupied Donetska, Luhanska, Zaporizka, and Khersonska regions adopted new measures allowing the seizure of “unused” property in these regions. The grounds for deeming properties “unused” are vague and enable authorities to seize private homes and apartments arbitrarily. These measures especially affect residents who fled these areas and have found it difficult to maintain their properties remotely.
In Crimea, Russian occupying authorities continued to harass and arbitrarily detain politically active members of the Crimean Tatar community, journalists, and others critical of Russia’s actions in Crimea. Between December 2023 and September 2024, courts in Crimea convicted 254 people of “discrediting Russian armed forces.”
Russian occupying authorities pressured lawyers working on politically motivated cases. In July, Alexey Ladin, a defense attorney representing Crimean Tatars and others in politically motivated cases, was stripped of his law license due to alleged violations of legal ethics. This was the fourth such case in Crimea since Russia occupied the peninsula in 2014.
Authorities continued to deny adequate medical care to Crimean Tatars and others in detention on politically motivated charges. Iryna Danylovych remained in detention in a penal colony in southern Russia without access to adequate medical help. In September 2024, authorities imprisoned Olexandr Sizikov, who has a disability, despite the legal protections Russian law affords to individuals with disabilities. Sizikov had been under house arrest since 2020 on trumped-up terrorism charges related to his alleged affiliation with Hizb ut-Tahrir, a religious group that is banned in Russia but not in Ukraine. In 2023, Sizikov and two Crimean Tatar men were sentenced to prison terms of 12 and 17 years, respectively. The appeals court upheld these sentences in September 2024.
In 2024, Ukrainian authorities secured the release from Russian custody, through prisoner exchanges, of two Crimean Tatar activists: Nariman Dzelial, deputy Chairman of the Mejlis, arrested in Crimea in 2021 on trumped-up sabotage charges, released in June; and Leniye Umerova, a Crimean Solidarity activist arrested in Russia in 2022 on false espionage charges, released in September.
Prisoners of War
More than six thousand Ukrainian POWs remain in Russian captivity, according to Russian authorities.
Russian forces appear to have summarily executed at least 15 Ukrainian soldiers and possibly six more as they attempted to surrender between December 2023 and February 2024. As of November, Ukrainian authorities were conducting 53 criminal investigations into the extrajudicial execution of 177 Ukrainian POWs since 2022. From December 2023 through August 2024, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) documented the execution of 34 Ukrainians hors de combat.
Russian forces continued to torture and mistreat Ukrainian POWs and civilians in Russian custody. Most detainees are held in poor prison conditions, without access to adequate food and medical care. In October, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that “Russian authorities have committed torture against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war as a crime against humanity.” Around 80 percent of former POWs reported sexual violence while in Russian captivity.
The HRMMU documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of Russian POWs during the initial stages of captivity, which, with a few exceptions, ceased upon their arrival at official internment facilities. The internment conditions for Russian POWs in Ukrainian pre-trial detention centers and three dedicated camps were “generally compliant with international standards.” They were able to maintain contact with their families, have access to legal counsel, and receive regular visits from independent monitors.
As of December, Ukrainian authorities reported that at least 169 Ukrainian POWs and 15 civilians had died in Russian custody since February 2022. Ukrainian groups believe that the actual death toll is higher
Between December 2023 and December 2024, in violation of laws of war, Russian authorities convicted, using terrorism and extremism charges as a pretext, at least 120 Ukrainian POWs for participating in hostilities. Sentences varied from 12 years to life imprisonment.
Since 2022, 59 prisoner exchanges between Ukraine and Russia resulted in the return of 3,956 military service people and civilians.
Conflict-Related Civilian Detainees
Ukrainian authorities estimated that as of July, Russia was unlawfully detaining over 14,000 Ukrainian civilians.
In April, a report issued under a mechanism of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) extensively documented Russia’s abuses against Ukrainian civilians arbitrary detained by Russian authorities since 2022. The report documented extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence, and denial of fair trial guarantees. It concluded that the there was “credible evidence to argue that some of these violations could, if responsible individuals are identified, amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The HMRUU in October stated that occupying authorities continued to detain people for “what appeared to be legitimate exercise” of the right to religious freedom. Between December 2023 and May 2024, it documented 81 cases of arbitrary detention of civilians. It also documented the death in custody of a priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, whose body was found in a local morgue in February. He was last seen two days prior being apprehended by three armed men in military uniforms in the Russia-occupied part of the Khersonska region.
The HMRUU continued to document instances of torture and ill-treatment against civilians in custody in occupied areas and in detention facilities in Russia, with many of the cases taking place in 2022 and 2023.
Close to 55,000 Ukrainians are listed in the unified state registry as missing. At least 16,000 are listed as civilians, with 1,700 having disappeared since 2014.
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
As of December, Ukrainian prosecutors had opened 335 cases of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) perpetrated by Russian forces in detention facilities and in occupied territories since February 2022. Women and girls comprise the majority of reported victims. The true number of sexual violence incidents is likely to be higher as stigma, fear of reprisals, and lack of awareness of and access to safe reporting mechanisms prevent survivors from seeking help.
Authorities investigated 88 CRSV cases against Russian servicemen and brought 28 cases involving 40 perpetrators to trial. Three were sentenced to 12 years in prison, and two others to 11 and 10 years, all in absentia. The other cases were pending at time of writing. Ukrainian prosecutors established a coordination center aimed at providing war crimes victims and witnesses, including those affected by CRSV, with psychological, social, and legal support throughout the criminal process.
Sexual violence survivors faced significant barriers in accessing medical, psychosocial, and legal services. To cover urgent needs, they can apply for a one-time assistance payment of €3,000 through an interim reparations project, launched in 2024. As of November, 308 survivors had received financial support according to Ukraine’s commissioner for gender equality.
While sexual violence against Ukrainians in Russian custody disproportionately impacted women detainees, male prisoners, including POWs, were also victims.
Former POWs in Ukraine are entitled to four to eight weeks of rehabilitation before return to active duty. Ukrainian groups believe they need more time for recovery and better access to specialized support services.
In November, Ukraine’s parliament adopted a bill that codified the definition of CRSV in national legislation and established mechanisms to provide survivors with interim reparations.
Despite advocacy efforts by civil society, parliament has not yet adopted amendments to criminal legislation concerning the investigation and adjudication of CRSV cases. A draft law, which authorizes the police to investigate such crimes and aims to ensure the confidentiality of survivors' data at all stages of the criminal process, remained pending at time of writing.
In addition to CRSV, the war has increased risks of intimate partner violence, including by men coming back from combat. The number of domestic violence cases increased by 36 percent in 2024 and around 60 percent of perpetrators were men who returned from combat; women’s rights organizations claim that courts are reluctant to prosecute soldiers serving their country.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
In the first half of 2024, rights groups documented 39 instances of homophobic and transphobic violence in Ukrainian-controlled areas and one instance in Russia-occupied territory. The true number of cases in occupied areas is likely higher, but difficult to document due to limited access to the area and extremely repressive conditions that inhibit reporting.
Two draft laws, proposing amendments to criminal legislation to address crimes motivated by hate or discrimination and introducing same-sex partnerships, remained pending in parliament. Public support for the changes proposed by the draft legislation grew despite opposition from church communities, according to public surveys. A June survey showed that more than half of Ukrainians support same-sex unions, and over 70 percent believe in equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
Rule of Law
Authorities continued to vigorously apply anti-collaboration laws, adopted in 2022, which Ukrainian and international groups criticized for being overly broad and vague. Authorities imposed harsh, arbitrary penalties on volunteers, municipal workers, medical personnel, and teachers for working in areas run by Russian occupying forces, despite an absence of evidence they were committing any hostile acts and ignoring the framework of international humanitarian law that protects civilians living under occupation.
Throughout the first half of 2024, the number of prosecutions steadily grew, amidst concerns about prosecutorial bias and compromised right to defense for the accused. In the second half of the year, the number of new investigations reportedly decreased following instructions from the Prosecutor General's Office to adhere to international law. The conviction rate for collaboration cases remained close to 100 percent.
Authorities took steps to impose additional security-related restrictions on public access to information. In May, parliament adopted at first reading a bill that, if adopted into law, would restrict access to court decisions in cases of “special public interest,” including national security cases, throughout the period of martial law and one year thereafter. More than 30 Ukrainian rights groups called on parliament to reject the legislation.
In August, parliament adopted a law governing religious organizations that is overly broad and could have far-reaching consequences for Ukrainians’ right to religious freedom. The law bans the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine and any religious organization in Ukraine with ties to it. The law could effectively ban the functioning of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), one of the largest religious organizations in Ukraine, resulting in severe practical consequences for UOC parishes and millions of parishioners. Consequences could include: restrictions on ownership and operation of religious properties; barriers to accessing places of worship; and heightened risks of surveillance and prosecution by security services.
Media Freedom
Independent journalists and media outlets critical of the government faced harassment. In January, unknown assailants tried to break into the apartment of anti-corruption journalist Yurii Nikolov. A smear campaign against Nikolov followed on several pro-presidential Telegram channels, calling him a Russian agent and accusing him of draft evasion and attempting to discredit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Also in January, the investigative outlet Bihus.info, known for its investigations into law enforcement officials, reported that its staff had been monitored through video surveillance and telephone wiretapping for months. An investigation into unlawful surveillance of the journalists initiated by Ukraine’s security service was ongoing at time of writing.
In early 2024, dozens of employees at Ukrinform, Ukraine’s only government national news agency, resigned, citing growing pressure to follow government guidelines on reporting. Following the dismissal of Ukrinform’s director, President Zelensky in May issued a decree, appointing a military officer as the agency’s director general. Ukraine’s independent media watchdog, the Institute of Mass Information, criticized the decision as a threat to press freedom.
In October, the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet accused the President's Office of exerting "long-term and systematic pressure" on its editorial staff and journalists. This pressure included blocking government officials from communicating with the outlet and pressuring businesses to stop advertising with them.
International Justice
After years of campaigning by national and international human rights groups, Ukraine took important steps to ratify the ICC’s founding Rome Statute. Parliament passed a law to ratify the treaty, but it includes limitations that, if acted on, could shield war criminals from justice. To become a full ICC member, Ukraine still needs to pass legislation to incorporate provisions of the Rome Statute into national law and formally notify the United Nations.