Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenča
Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations
Remarks at the Security Council meeting on Ukraine
New York, 1 August 2025
Mr. President,
First, allow me to join you in thanking Pakistan for successfully presiding over the Security Council in the month of July. I wish also to congratulate Panama for taking over the Council presidency during the month of August and wish them all the best.
Mr. President,
With only one week since our last briefing to this Council on the situation in Ukraine, we are meeting again as the Russian Federation continues its brutal attacks across the country.
Overnight, between 30 and 31 July, yet another large-scale Russian missile and drone attack hit Kyiv.
At least 31 people, including five children, were reportedly killed.
159 people, including at least 16 children, were reportedly injured. The number of children injured in this attack was the highest in a single night in the city since the beginning of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion.
According to local officials, the strike damaged 27 locations across four districts of the capital, including a school, a preschool, a pediatric wing of a hospital and a university building. An entire section of an apartment block was also reportedly destroyed, leaving many trapped beneath the burning rubble.
Following the attack, humanitarian partners, including UN agencies and local non-governmental organizations in Kyiv, provided immediate emergency assistance to affected families. Aid workers also distributed emergency shelter kits to repair damaged windows, offered initial psychological aid, legal counselling, and psychosocial support to residents.
In addition to Kyiv, seven other regions of Ukraine - Vinnytsia, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv - were targeted that night with at least 120 civilian casualties reported across the country.
In the frontline Donetsk region of Ukraine, two people were reportedly killed and 10 others injured.
In the Kharkiv region, one person was reportedly killed and seven others injured.
Civilian casualties were also reported in Sumy, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
These most recent terrible and devastating attacks follow a deadly wave of daily, relentless Russian air strikes.
On the night of 28 July and the early hours of 29 July, at least 25 people were reportedly killed and dozens more injured across Ukraine.
In Bilenke, the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, a reported Russian attack hit a prison facility, killing 16 and injuring 35 people.
In the city of Kamianske in the Dnipropetrovsk region, a reported Russian attack hit a hospital. Three people, including a young pregnant woman, were killed, and at least 22, including 10 medical workers, were reportedly injured.
In the village of Novoplatonivka in the Kharkiv region, six people were reportedly killed in an attack that hit people gathered to receive humanitarian aid.
On 27 July, a drone struck a civilian bus near Ivolzhanske, Sumy region, reportedly killing three elderly women and injuring 19 other passengers.
These continuing horrendous attacks are simply unacceptable.
In total, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), since the start of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 until 30 June, launched in blatant violation of the UN Charter and international law, 13,580 civilians, including 716 children, have been killed. 34,115 civilians, including 2,173 children, have been injured.
Since our last briefing, we have also continued to see reports of civilian casualties, including civilian deaths in the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Rostov regions of the Russian Federation.
According to the Russian authorities, in the Belgorod region, between 25 and 29 July, at least two civilians were reportedly killed and seven others were wounded as a result of drone and missile strikes.
In the Bryansk region, between 26 and 28 July, two civilians were reportedly injured as a result of drone strikes.
In the Kursk region, between 25 and 26 July, one person was reportedly killed and six others were reportedly injured as a result of drone attacks and a mine explosion.
In the Leningrad region, on 28 July, debris from a crashed drone reportedly caused a fire, killing one civilian and injuring three.
In the Rostov region, on the night of 29 July, a reported drone strike killed a driver and triggered a fire at a railway station.
While the United Nations is not in a position to verify these reports, we remain concerned about the increasing impact of the reported Ukrainian strikes on the civilian population in the Russian Federation.
We also reiterate that attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law and must stop immediately – wherever they occur.
Mr. President,
Last week, we commended the parties for the continuing prisoners of war exchanges that reunited thousands of people with their families.
The situation of the remaining captives, however, remains of serious concern.
Since early June, OHCHR has interviewed nearly 140 male Ukrainian prisoners of war who were recently released, many after up to three years of captivity.
Nearly all of the former prisoners interviewed by OHCHR reported having been subjected to torture or ill-treatment, including severe beatings, electric shocks, sexual violence, dog attacks, suffocation, mutilation, or conditions so inhumane that they resulted in the deaths of fellow prisoners. These findings confirm the previously documented patterns of widespread and systematic torture.
Civilians detained by the Russian Federation and interviewed by OHCHR also continued to recount widespread and routine torture and ill-treatment, as well as arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance.
Disturbingly, OHCHR has also recorded credible allegations of the execution of 106 Ukrainian soldiers captured by the Russian armed forces between late August 2024 and May 2025.
We continue to urge the sides to fulfill their obligations under international humanitarian law in their treatment of prisoners of war. We also encourage them to continue the exchanges to bring all prisoners home.
Mr. President,
Ukrainian people have endured nearly three and a half years of unimaginable horrors, death, devastation and destruction.
They urgently need relief from this nightmare.
We therefore reiterate our urgent call for an immediate, unconditional, and complete ceasefire to pave the way towards a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.
A peace that is in line with the Charter of the United Nations, international law, and relevant UN resolutions in full respect of the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognized borders.
Diplomacy, not fighting, needs to escalate in the coming days and weeks.
Diplomacy that leads to real, tangible, verifiable and lasting results that would be felt by the long-suffering people on the ground.
The United Nations remains ready to support all meaningful efforts to this end.
Thank you.
