'People who did nothing wrong': The toll of Russian strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine

Wednesday's attack by Russia on a market in eastern Ukraine is the latest example of the toll the war is taking on civilians. The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said the market was hit by a ballistic missile. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it "a deliberate attack" and said a child was among the dead.

As of the end of August, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 26,717 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including 9,511 people who were killed and 17,206 who were injured.

There have been more attacks on civilians since then, including the market attack, in which at least 17 people were killed. 

Russia denies it targets civilians. But international monitors say tens of thousands of civilians have been killed in the past 18 months.

In March, a UN-backed inquiry concluded that "Russian authorities have committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law and violations of international human rights law, in addition to a wide range of war crimes, including the war crime of excessive incidental death, injury, or damage, wilful killings, torture, inhuman treatment, unlawful confinement, rape, as well as unlawful transfers and deportations."

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already opened investigations into some of the attacks and in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in connection to the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

Here is a small sample of some of the attacks on civilians since the war began on Feb. 24, 2022.

In March 2022, Russia attacked Mariupol, a city of nearly 450,000 people on the Sea of Azov in the Donetsk region. A theatre where about 600 people were sheltering and a maternity and children's hospital were both hit by missile strikes. 

The mayor said more than 10,000 people in his city were killed over the next six weeks. The United Nations said it confirmed 1,348 civilian deaths but that the actual number was likely much higher.

Other estimates have put the number of civilian deaths as high as 25,000. 

In March 2022, at least 17 people were killed while waiting in a line for bread in Cherniv, according to Human Rights Watch. 

Both hospitals and schools have come under fire in the past 18 months, the latter often when people have been using them as shelters. 

In May 2022, a school in the village of Bilohorivka in the Donbas region was bombed. Nearly 100 people were sheltering in it at the time. 

Ukraine has accused Russia of targeting both a general hospital and a psychiatric hospital in Izyum.