Moscow, March 21, 2022 (dpa/NAN) Almost one in four people in Ukraine has been displaced by Russia’s invasion and bombardment of the country, United Nations figures showed, as officials in Kiev accused Moscow of war crimes.
At least 10 million of Ukraine’s population of 44 million people have now fled the conflict, Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said.
Some 3.4 million have fled across Ukraine’s borders to neighbouring states, according to UNHCR, while the rest have fled their homes to other parts of the country to escape the attacks.
The figures come amid a rising death toll on both sides of the conflict.
Some 14,000 Russians have died in the invasion of his country, Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a Sunday video message to the Russian public.
“That’s 14,000 mothers, 14,000 fathers, wives, children, relatives, friends and you don’t notice?”
The Ukrainian count of how many Russian soldiers have died cannot be independently verified.
Nor can the count of Ukraine’s own military losses, which the country’s leaders put at about 1,300 soldiers around a week ago.
A group of 100 Ukrainian soldiers and foreigners who have joined the conflict were also dead after a Russian attack on a training centre near the central Ukrainian city of Schytomyr, according Russian reports on Sunday.
The news comes as Russia’s military reported its second day of using Kinshal.
Meanwhile, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, multiple people were said to have been killed, among them a 9-year-old boy, after the shelling of a multiple-storey dwelling near an industrial area, according to military sources.
Officials said 266 civilians had died in the city since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began a month ago.
There was now no question that Russian actions in Ukraine amounted to genocide, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Olga Stefanishyna, said.
(dpa/NAN)
