1,205 political violence events
6% increase compared to last week
84 incidents of violence targeting civilians
22% increase compared to last week
At least 44 fatalities from civilian targeting
13% decrease compared to last week
Key trends
- In the Donetsk region, Russian troops occupied a village east of Kurakhove and another village north of Chasiv Yar. They also continued advancing towards Pokrovsk and west of Horlivka, as well as near Makiivka in the western part of the Luhansk region.
- ACLED records 25 Russian long-range missile and drone strikes, targeting Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Poltava regions. Ukrainian forces also intercepted strikes in at least 23 instances, including over the central regions of Kirovohrad, Poltava, and Vinnytsia.
- Russian shelling, missiles, and drones killed at least 44 civilians across Ukraine. In addition, Ukrainian drone strikes and shelling killed two civilians in the Russia-occupied Horlivka in the Donetsk region.
Key events
- 23 Sep. | Zaporizhia – Russian airstrikes hit residential buildings in Zaporizhia city, killing one civilian and injuring 17 others
- 25 Sep. | Donetsk – Russian aerial bombs hit Kramatorsk, killing two civilians and wounding 19 others, including three aid workers
- 27 Sep. | Odesa – Russian drones hit Izmail, killing three civilians and wounding 16 others
Spotlight: Russian bombs pound Kharkiv
On 21 September, Russian aerial bombs exploded near a high-rise residential building in Kharkiv city, wounding 21 civilians. On 24 September, Russian aerial bombs hit four districts of Kharkiv city, partially destroying a nine-story apartment building and a bread factory. As a result, five civilians were killed and at least 36 others were wounded. Sandwiched between Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine and Russia proper, the Kharkiv region is subject to constant Russian fire. Its eponymous main city, with a pre-war population of under 1.5 million people, lies only 30 kilometers away from the Russian border and is frequently targeted by aerial bombs and missiles. The number of Russian strikes in the Kharkiv region targeting civilians decreased sharply since Ukrainian forces regained most of the region in autumn 2022 but has been growing again since the beginning of 2024, with heavier aerial glide bombs replacing artillery as a weapon of choice – while ACLED records about 240 such strikes in 2023, it records nearly 370 strikes in the nine months of 2024, of which more than a third were airstrikes.
Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure tool to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.
