UN says 474 civilians killed, 861 injured since start of Russian invasion of Ukraine
As many as 1,335 civilian casualties have been recorded in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian full-scale war against the country, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a civilian casualty update on March 8.
The OHCHR said 474 civilians were killed and 861 injured from Feb. 24 to March 7.
“OHCHR believes that the real figures are considerably higher, especially in government-controlled territory and especially in recent days, 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,” the update says.
According to OHCHR, this concerns, for example, the towns of Volnovakha, Mariupol, and Izium, where there are claims of hundreds of civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics, it 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 multi-launch rocket systems, along with missile and air strikes,” reads the report.
March 9 is the 14th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russian troops continue to bombard and shell Ukrainian cities, in particular residential areas, although they are suffering serious losses as the Ukrainian military is putting up fierce resistance.
On March 7, Belarus hosted a third round of talks between Ukraine and Russia.
Following the meeting, Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the chief-of-staff to the Office of the President of Ukraine, announced positive developments “to improve the logistics of humanitarian corridors.” However, there were no results on the issue of a ceasefire and ensuring security that would significantly improve the situation, he said. The talks will continue in the coming days.
Prior to that, talks were held on Feb. 28 and March 4. During the second round, the sides agreed on humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians. However, Russia disrupted the evacuation by violating the ceasefire.
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