1,161 political violence events
4% decrease compared to last week
80 incidents of violence targeting civilians
5% decrease compared to last week
At least 60 fatalities from civilian targeting
33% decrease compared to last week
Key trends
- In the Donetsk region, Russian troops reportedly established full control over the key Ukrainian stronghold of Vuhledar, as well as three other villages. They also continued advancing towards Pokrovsk and northwest of Horlivka.
- Along the Kharkiv-Luhansk administrative boundary, Russian forces occupied two settlements west of Svatove. Russian troops also continued to advance in the Kupiansk direction in the Kharkiv region and near Makiivka in the Luhansk region.
- ACLED records 28 Russian long-range missile and drone strikes, targeting Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Poltava, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Kirovograd, and the western region of Rivne. Ukrainian forces also intercepted strikes in at least 39 instances, including over the regions of Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Zhytomyr.
- Russian shelling, missiles, and drones killed at least 59 civilians across Ukraine. In addition, Ukrainian drone strikes and shelling killed two civilians in the Russia-occupied Horlivka in the Donetsk region.
Key events
- 28 Sep. | Sumy – Russian drone strikes hit a hospital and residential buildings in Sumy city, killing 10 civilians
- 1 Oct. | Zaporizhia – Russian artillery fire hits a substation, affecting power supply to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant
- 3 Oct. | Donetsk – A Ukrainian missile strike kills 14 Russian soldiers and six North Korean officers during a training demonstration
Spotlight: Video of Ukrainian POWs’ execution emerges at the same time as new UN report on mistreatment of POWs
On 1 October, Ukrainian sources published drone footage featuring Russian soldiers executing 16 unarmed surrendering Ukrainian soldiers near Mykolaivka of the Donetsk region. Ukrainian prosecutors called for international help in identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators of the killing.1ZMINA, ‘Office of the General Prosecutor of Ukraine: Occupiers shot dead 16 Ukrainian soldiers that surrendered in the Pokrovsk direction,’ 1 October 2024 Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, ACLED records 31 specific events of reported torture and/or killing of Ukrainian military prisoners of war. With thousands of Ukrainian soldiers missing2Ivan Borysenko, ‘Around 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers MIA, MP says,’ The New Voice of Ukraine, 26 February 2024 and media reports of torture often lacking location or date information, the real extent of violence against Ukrainian prisoners of war is likely much higher.
Coinciding with the release of the footage, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a report highlighting, inter alia, the issue of “widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment” that Ukrainian POWs are subjected to during their internment, but also during their initial interrogation.3OHCHR, ‘Treatment of Prisoners of War and Update on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine: 1 June to 31 August 2024’, 1 October 2024 According to the head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, most Ukrainian prisoners of war are subjected to torture in Russia.4Radio Free Europe, ‘The UN says that most Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia are subjected to torture,’ 8 August 2024 OHCHR notes that “Russian POWs were also subjected to torture or ill-treatment by Ukrainian forces during initial stages of captivity,” but mentions that the Ukrainian prosecutors started five pre-trial investigations into ill-treatment or willful killing of Russian POWs, as compared to none started by the Russian investigators.
Explore the ACLED Conflict Exposure tool to assess the numbers of people affected by armed violence, disaggregated by locations, time period, and actors involved.
