In July and August JURIST’s Christine Savino worked in Ukraine with war victims, including those displaced by bombings, while supporting European Court of Human Rights case research and submissions on Russian war crimes.

My time in Ukraine coincided with one of the most lethal periods in the country yet.

Russia’s assaults on Ukraine escalated sharply this summer, producing the deadliest civilian tolls in more than two years and intensifying just as peace negotiations were being prepared abroad.

Before coming to Ukraine for humanitarian work with war victims, I thought quite a bit about how I could die. Russia had been increasing its bombings of civilians, and in war, anyone can be killed anytime. Although I had experienced aerial raid alerts amidst invasion threats when I lived in Taiwan for my Fulbright Scholarship, I was also under the protection of the Fulbright program and knew that if Chinese forces harmed and/or killed me, it would be a diplomatic nightmare for China. Harming a young Fulbright Scholar representing international exchange would not be in China’s best interests. However, Russia indiscriminately attacks civilians en masse within Ukraine. After all, Ukraine is a level 4 war zone.

“Fulbright is no longer there to protect you,” I thought to myself while debating whether to leave for Ukraine. Ultimately, I concluded that I wanted to embark on this newfangled work with war victims in the country. This was especially since I felt immense camaraderie and gratification when I worked with the Oxford Ukrainian Society to support soldiers and affected civilians when I was an American Visiting Student in the UK. I also work with human rights victims in the US, and it was important to me to finally work with war-affected Ukrainians on the ground.

The surge in attacks during my time in Ukraine was unfortunate for me. However, it was significantly more so for the Ukrainians whose home country is being mauled by Russia, and certainly for the families of those murdered.

The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (UNHCR) reported that July was the bloodiest month for civilians since May 2022, with at least 286 killed and 1,388 injured across 18 regions and the nation’s capital, Kyiv. The dramatic spike was fueled by intensified use of aerial bombs, long-range missiles, and loitering munitions against urban centers.

Head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, stated, “For the second month in a row, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine hits a new three-year high.”

Aerial bombs killed 67 and injured 209 in July, more than double the figures from June. Missile and loitering munitions strikes accounted for 40 percent of civilian casualties, which was led by short-range drones which caused 64 deaths and 337 injuries. The figures underscored a deliberate reliance on airborne attacks that disproportionately struck civilians. Likewise, I found that many of the attacks occurred at night, when civilians were sleeping and thus more likely to be defenseless. However, air raids occurred during my time at various times throughout the days and nights, meaning no time was per se safe. Some aerial weaponry was also undetectable by radar, meaning anyone could be unknowingly attacked at any time, even with deft adherence to all air raid alerts.

Hours after US President Donald Trump promised to send more weapons to Ukraine and announced potential sanctions on Russia on July 8, the Kremlin launched 728 drones across ten oblasts, setting a record and further straining Ukraine’s air defenses.

On July 31, President Trump told the UN Security Council that he wanted a deal to end the Russo-Ukrainian war by August 8. Later that day, a combined missile and drone barrage on Kyiv killed 32 civilians, including five children, and wounded about 180 others. It was the capital’s deadliest single strike of the year and the second-worst of the war overall.

August continued the pattern with large-scale strikes occurring alongside international diplomatic efforts.

On August 18, President Trump, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and other European leaders met for high-level peace talks in Washington, which Zelenskyy called “truly a significant step toward ending the war.” Russia unleashed its largest aerial onslaught of the month against Ukraine just hours later with 270 drones and ten missiles shot throughout the night. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the assaults as “cynical,” arguing they were timed to coincide with peace talks Ukrainian defenses intercepted or suppressed 36 of the drones and missiles, but impacts were reported across 16 sites.

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry stated that energy infrastructure in the Poltava oblast was targeted, including gas and oil refining facilities. The Ministry blasted the attacks as part of “systematic terrorist attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which is a direct violation of international humanitarian law.” International humanitarian law is the law of armed conflict which forbids attacking energy infrastructure that provides essential civilian services. During my time in Ukraine, I also worked on international humanitarian and human rights legal materials for the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Part of what I found was the pattern of targeting energy infrastructure, which left Ukrainian civilians without essential water, heating, and power supply.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, President Trump admitted on July 19 that one of his motives for holding the peace talks was to get himself into heaven. “If I can save 7,000 people a week from being killed, I think that’s pretty—I want to try to get to heaven if possible…I’m hearing that I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole,” he stated.

7,000 strikes me as an oddly specific number, however, the July 18 bombardment of Ukrainian civilians that stemmed from the peace talks ironically killed at least seven people. Perhaps such discussions on the Russo-Ukrainian war should be focused more on civilian casualties rather than personal agendas.

In any case, as I crossed the border between Ukraine and Poland to leave, I felt quite a bit of guilt. Perhaps I should have been happy or even thankful that I was alive, however, I felt particularly somber for the Ukrainians who were not able to also cross the border. Many are effectively trapped within Ukraine due to a lack of international immigration accommodations and the strict conscription that prevents an increasingly large proportion of Ukrainian men from leaving the country.

There are also many who were killed, soldiers and civilians alike, and thus never able to leave Ukraine. Waking up in the morning feels different in that I am more vividly aware that I can see the sun, breathe air, and taste food, because the bombs that were sent to my location did not kill me. But many Ukrainians were not as fortunate.

Survival in Ukraine is as much about circumstance as it is about choice. My departure was voluntary; for countless Ukrainians, there is no such option. Their absence is the truest measure of this war’s brutality—an absence that no peace negotiation should ignore.