DM Monitoring
KYIV: More than 4,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began on February 24, although the true number is likely much higher, the UN rights office (OHCHR) has said.
In total, 4,031 people have been killed, including nearly 200 children, according to OHCHR, which has dozens of monitors in the country.
Most were killed by explosive weapons with a wide impact such as shelling from heavy artillery or air raids. It did not attribute blame for the deaths.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians and has called its invasion a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and “denazify” it and rid it of what it has said are anti-Russian nationalists fomented by the West. Ukraine and its allies said these are baseless claims that Russia used to justify its full-scale invasion.
In its statement on Friday, the UN rights office said most of the civilian casualties recorded “were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”
It added, “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.”
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was making slow but palpable progress in the Donbas in east Ukraine.
“I’m afraid that Putin, at great cost to himself and to the Russian military, is continuing to chew through ground in Donbas,” he told Bloomberg UK.
“He’s continuing to make it gradual, slow but I’m afraid it’s palpable.” He continued: “Therefore it is absolutely vital that we continue to support the Ukrainians militarily.”
Johnson went on to discuss Ukraine’s need for more military support, including multiple-launch rocket systems.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of carrying out a “genocide” in the eastern region of Donbas, where the city of Severodonetsk is suffering an onslaught of Russian shelling.
In his daily televised address, Zelenskyy condemned Moscow’s sustained assault on the Donbas, where it has redirected its forces after having failed to capture Kyiv, adding that its bombardment could leave the entire region “uninhabited”.
“All this, including the deportation of our people and the mass killings of civilians, is an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia,” he said.
Pro-Moscow separatist groups have since 2014 controlled parts of Donbas, but Russia now appears set on taking the whole region.
