Since the start of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine on February 24, more than 8,300 civilians have been killed, including 437 children. This was stated by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, according to a report on the Internet portal “Unian” on Sunday. More than 11,000 people were injured. According to Kostin, the actual number of victims is likely to be higher because Ukrainian authorities do not yet have access to some areas occupied by Russia.
The Ukrainian authorities reportedly registered more than 45,000 war crimes. 216 people were reported as suspected war criminals, including 17 Russian prisoners of war. Twelve of the 60 people accused have been convicted so far.
According to official reports, the Ukrainian authorities are finding more and more evidence of atrocities committed by the former Russian occupiers in the liberated areas around Cherson, Kharkiv and Donetsk. In the past two months, more than 700 bodies have already been discovered in these areas, Kostin said on state television on Saturday evening. Around 90 percent of the cases involved civilians.
In addition, regarding 20 places were discovered where civilians were interrogated and held captive, he said. “We found places where they killed peaceful civilians practically in almost every village in the Kharkiv region,” Kostin said. Investigators are now finding a similar situation in the recently liberated Cherson region in southern Ukraine. “And every day we get new information.”
According to the Ukrainian general staff, the Russian armed forces are relocating units withdrawn from the Kherson region to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. In Luhansk, the Russian occupiers set up additional checkpoints to identify and arrest deserters, it said on Sunday. The Russian army is attacking massively with rockets, but it is still too early to speak of a new major offensive.
This was stated by the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuriy Ihnat, according to the Internet portal “Ukrajinska Pravda” on Ukrainian television. But there are heavy fighting in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine.
Russian troops had only recently cleared the major city of Kherson and the surrounding area north-west of the Dnipro River and, under pressure from Ukrainian forces, retreated to the east bank of the Dnipro.
According to the General Staff, Ukrainian units have been able to fend off numerous Russian attacks in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions since Saturday. The Ukrainian military counted around 60 Russian rocket launcher attacks. The information might not be independently verified.
Despite a relatively orderly withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine’s Kherson region, British military experts say Moscow’s armed forces are characterized by poor leadership and a culture of cover-up. That emerges from the daily intelligence update of the British Ministry of Defense in London on Sunday. Accordingly, there is a lack of military leadership at the middle and lower command levels.
Ukraine, meanwhile, says the country’s electricity supply is under control despite numerous Russian attacks on power generation infrastructure. “We deny the panic messages circulating on social networks and online media and assure you that the situation, while difficult, is under control,” Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said on Saturday. The Kiev authorities had previously stated that a complete shutdown of the power grid in the capital following the Russian attacks might not be ruled out.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has once more rejected proposals to negotiate with Russia. “When you take the initiative on the battlefield, it’s a bit bizarre to get suggestions like: ‘You have to negotiate,'” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak said in Kyiv. This would mean that the country “that regains its territories must capitulate to the country that loses”.
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has meanwhile been fired upon, according to Russian sources. The state news agency TASS quotes the Russian energy company Rosenergoatom as saying that Ukraine fired near a nuclear storage facility. According to measurements, no radioactive radiation escaped.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA/IAEA) confirmed several powerful explosions at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. IAEA experts on the spot reported dozens of impacts near and on the site of Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the agency said on Sunday. “Whoever is behind it: It has to stop immediately,” demanded IAEA boss Rafael Grossi. “As I have often said: you are playing with fire!” (apa)
