UN Says More Than 15,000 People in Ukraine Have Died Since Russia's 2022 Invasion

The impact of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine. (Twitter/@ZelenskyyUa)

JAKARTA - The United Nations says 15,850 people, including 791 children, have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.

"The actual figure is likely to be much higher," the Director of Europe and Central Asia of the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) Kayoko Gotoh told the UN Security Council on Tuesday, launching Al Jazeera (20/5).

Peace talks between Ukraine and Russia have stalled. US President Donald Trump has tried to mediate and announced a three-day ceasefire earlier this month, but fighting has resumed.

Russian attacks on Tuesday in Ukraine killed at least six people. A 15-year-old boy was among three people killed in a Russian ballistic missile attack on the town of Pryluky in the Chernihiv region, northern Ukraine, on Tuesday morning, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.

In Sumy region, two people were killed in an attack by two Russian drones in the town of Hlukhiv in the Shostka district on Tuesday morning, the Sumy Regional Prosecutor's Office said on Facebook.

In a nighttime attack in the same area, at least one person was killed and another wounded in a Russian drone strike on a civilian car in the town of Buryn, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleg Grigorov.

Meanwhile, in Russia, two people were killed and six others were injured over the past 24 hours in a Ukrainian drone attack on the village of Borisovka in the Belgorod region, according to Governor-General Alexander Shuvaev.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had intercepted and destroyed 70 Ukrainian drones in six hours between 05:00 GMT and 11:00 GMT on Tuesday in various regions of Russia as well as the Ukrainian-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

Several drones heading for the capital Moscow were shot down, said Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. But in the Yaroslavl region, an industrial facility was hit by a drone, according to Governor Mikhail Yevrayev.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening, two people were injured in a Ukrainian attack on a gas station in Smotrova Buda Village, Klintsovsky District, Bryansk Region, according to the Acting Governor of Bryansk, Yegor Kovalchuk, who did not specify whether the attack was carried out with a drone or a missile.