NEW YORK, 9 October 2026 — Russian attacks on Ukraine have reached “a new horrifying level”, a senior United Nations official told the Security Council on Friday, reporting that more than 100 civilians were killed and at least 429 injured across the country in a single week, according to the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
Khaled Khiari, Assistant Secretary-General in the UN Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, said a Russian glide bomb attack on two passenger buses in Kramatorsk on 8 October reportedly killed at least 33 people, while drone strikes killed six others in Kyiv. A day earlier, missiles and drones killed at least 32 people, including five children, across several regions; in Pryluky, a missile destroyed a residential building, reportedly killing 19.
Strikes on bridges, schools and energy facilities have caused widespread blackouts and water cuts, Khiari said, warning residents could face “darkness and extreme cold this winter”. He also voiced concern about civilian casualties from Ukrainian attacks inside Russia, where OHCHR recorded reports of 496 civilians killed and 3,394 injured between January and September. “All attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur, are a violation of international humanitarian law and must end immediately,” he said.
Khiari also pointed to the war’s wider fallout, including attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea and a 6.3 per cent rise in wheat prices in September reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization. In Russian-occupied Oleshky, some 2,000 civilians, including 35 children, reportedly remain trapped without food or medical supplies, and he called for an urgent local ceasefire to allow evacuations.
Gemma Connell of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) presented a $358 million winter response plan to help two million vulnerable people with heating, shelter and food, but stressed that “no amount of preparedness can substitute for protecting the infrastructure civilians depend on in the first place”.
In the debate, Ukraine’s ambassador accused Moscow of trying to make Kyiv unliveable, while Russia’s representative insisted its strikes were limited to military targets and blamed Kyiv for escalating the conflict. The United States said “the killing must stop” and urged both sides back to negotiations. Khiari closed with a direct appeal: “The current cycle of escalating attacks against civilians must end now… It is time to end this war.”
References
- UN Meetings Coverage and Press Releases: Russian strikes against Ukraine have reached ‘new horrifying level’ (SC/16472), 9 October 2026
- UN Web TV: Khaled Khiari briefing to the Security Council, 10237th meeting, 9 October 2026
- Anadolu Agency: UN warns of rising civilian toll in Ukraine as Russian strikes kill more than 100 in 1 week, 10 October 2026
Featured image: The UN Security Council chamber in New York (file photo from an earlier meeting). Photo by Cancillería Argentina / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.