Ukraine: Briefing
Tomorrow afternoon (10 September), the Security Council will hold a briefing on the situation in Ukraine. Ecuador and France requested the meeting following the latest barrage of Russian missile and drone attacks that targeted multiple cities across Ukraine. In a letter dated 4 September, Ukraine said that these attacks have caused a significant number of civilian casualties and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, and Dnipro, among others. Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Joyce Msuya is expected to brief. Ukraine and several countries from the region are expected to participate under rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure.
On 30 August and 1 September, aerial attacks on the north-eastern city of Kharkiv killed at least six people and injured 150 others, 30 of whom were children, according to Ukrainian authorities. More than 90 residential buildings, a shopping centre, sports facilities, and two schools were damaged. UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Matthias Schmale condemned the attacks in a 30 August statement, emphasising that civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected in accordance with international law.
On 3 September, in the city of Poltava in central Ukraine, a missile attack hit a military academy and a nearby hospital, killing at least 50 people and injuring over 270. The strike has been described as one of the deadliest since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moreover, on 4 September, the city of Lviv in western Ukraine faced a deadly missile and drone assault that killed seven civilians and injured 64, including ten children. The attack damaged more than 50 homes and four schools and hospitals, worsening the humanitarian crisis in a city already sheltering civilians displaced by the war. Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine was also struck on the same day, injuring dozens, including children, and damaging six schools. Schmale also condemned these indiscriminate assaults, reiterating that civilians and civilian infrastructure are not legitimate targets.
Concerns over nuclear safety intensified following missile strikes that destabilised Ukraine’s energy grid. On 26 August, widespread attacks on energy infrastructure caused major power fluctuations, leading to the temporary shutdown or disconnection of reactor units at the Rivne and South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). The power supply at the Khmelnytskyy NPP and the Chornobyl site was also affected. In response, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced plans to expand its nuclear safety assistance following talks between Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 3 September.
On 5 September, Grossi visited the Zaporizhzhia NPP (ZNPP) for the fifth time as part of ongoing efforts to monitor nuclear safety since the IAEA established a permanent presence there in September 2022. His visit focused on assessing damage to the plant, including a fire that broke out on 11 August at one of its cooling towers. Grossi emphasised that missile attacks have caused severe power disruptions at key nuclear facilities—including the ZNPP, which has also suffered drone strikes and power losses since his last visit in February—highlighting the precarious state of nuclear safety.
The UN has also expressed concerns about the effects of the spread of hostilities on civilians in Russia’s Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions. At a 28 August Security Council briefing on Ukraine, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe, Central Asia and the Americas Miroslav Jenča noted that, since Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region on 6 August, at least 12 people had been killed and 121 injured, according to local Russian officials. Additionally, over 130,000 people have reportedly been evacuated from the area. Jenča stressed that Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned attacks on civilians and infrastructure, “no matter where they occur”.
At tomorrow’s briefing, Msuya is expected to provide an update on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, focusing on ongoing relief efforts by the UN and its partners in response to recent Russian missile attacks. A protection of civilians update report released on 6 September by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) highlighted that in August alone, at least 184 civilians were killed and 856 injured in Ukraine. This makes August the month with the second highest number of civilian casualties so far this year. The report attributes the high casualty count to “multiple mass casualty events” and “daily attacks near the frontlines”.
Msuya may also highlight the severe effects of these intensified attacks on children and educational facilities, particularly as the new school year begins. According to UNICEF, as at 31 August, local authorities in the Donetsk region reported the daily evacuation of approximately 3,500 civilians, including 400 children. There has also been an increase in evacuations from the border area in the Sumy region. UNICEF has expressed concern that these evacuations may cause children to miss in-person or online lessons as they seek safety elsewhere in Ukraine. Moreover, as at 2 September, over 2,180 children have been killed or injured, and more than 1,300 educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed since February 2022.
Tomorrow, several Council members are expected to condemn Russia’s recent missile strikes, while accusing Moscow of indiscriminately shelling and bombing populated areas and targeting civilian infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. These members are also likely to raise concerns over the effects of power disruptions on Ukraine’s nuclear plants. In this regard, Council members are expected to commend the IAEA’s efforts to safeguard nuclear facilities in Ukraine and Russia, while urging all parties to de-escalate nuclear rhetoric.
Some Council members may emphasise the importance of ensuring accountability in Ukraine and express support for efforts at both national and international levels, particularly the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC). On 3 September, Putin visited Mongolia, marking his first visit to an ICC member state since the court issued an arrest warrant for him in March 2023 on allegations of war crimes, including the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. Despite being an ICC member bound by its legal obligations under the Rome Statute, Mongolia did not arrest Putin. Prior to the visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to surrender Putin to the court in The Hague, while the EU regretted that Mongolia “did not comply with its obligations under the statute to execute the arrest warrant”.
Russia is expected to deny accusations that it deliberately targets civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, claiming instead that its long-range precision weapons are aimed solely at military targets. It is likely to highlight Ukraine’s recent drone strikes on critical infrastructure within Russian territory, including attacks that set fire to power stations and refineries in Moscow and the Tver region. Ukrainian officials have characterised these strikes as a retaliation to Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure. Zelenskyy has argued that targeting Russian airbases and infrastructure helps protect Ukrainian cities and hinders Russian advances, including in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces are making significant progress toward key towns such as Pokrovsk.
