UN says Ukraine's civilian deaths are being underestimated and the true number may never be known

The United Nations warns that the civilian casualty statistics it publishes daily don't capture the full impact of the war in Ukraine — while military experts say the number of Ukrainian civilians killed by Russian forces likely won't be known until years after the conflict ends.

Experts say the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is providing the most accurate daily statistics on Ukraine's civilian casualties. But the OHCHR itself says it may be greatly underestimating the real casualty rate.

"OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration," it said.

Since the invasion on Feb. 24, the OHCHR has confirmed that 1,232 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 1,935 have been injured. Of the civilians killed, the UN said it has confirmed that 250 were men, 176 were women, 18 were girls and 36 were boys. Another 58 children and 694 adults have also been confirmed dead by the UN, but the agency has been unable to determine their sex.

Experts say that civilian authorities in wartime — unlike militaries — typically lack the resources and time to count civilian casualties accurately.

Howard Coombs, an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, said that modern militaries need detailed battle damage assessments to shape targeting plans, evaluate ongoing operations and provide direction to troops.

"You have systems and calculations that are standardized and can be used to get the most accuracy, because if you don't have accurate information you can't shape your operations properly and you don't know if you're having success,"  Coombs told CBC News.

"It's a very different thing on the civilian side. There is no calculating, in a systemic fashion, like there is when counting military damage."

Coombs said that coming up with an accurate count of Ukrainian civilian deaths could "take years." He pointed out that no one knows for sure how many Russian civilians were killed during the Second World War.

A OHCHR official told CBC news that while a complete count of every civilian death may never happen, the agency should be able to account for about 90 per cent of civilian deaths within a few months of the war ending.

"An accurate picture of how many civilians had actually been killed could be achieved relatively quickly, while the process of recovery and identification of all mortal remains would probably never reach the stage when one could claim that every civilian death is accounted for," the official said. 

The official said the UN is aware of many "improvised grave sites" and "Individually marked graves" that could be verified once the OHCHR can get in there — but that would depend on the level of devastation UN workers find on the ground.

 "There may be a considerable number of bodies whose identification would remain problematic for years, as well as those who are missing and likely deceased," they said. 

Experts say that if a mass casualty event, such as a gas explosion, took place in an urban setting in a western democracy, it would take days to determine how many people died. When the authorities who do such work — police and paramedics — are no longer functioning, that work doesn't happen.