Almost one in four people in Ukraine have been displaced by Russia’s invasion and bombardment of the country, new United Nations figures showed on Sunday, as officials in Kiev accused Moscow of war crimes, transmits news agency MIA.
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 on Twitter.
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 to unconfirmed Russian reports on Sunday.
The news comes as Russia’s military reported its second day of using Kinshal hypersonic rockets in its invasion of its western neighbour, in an attack on a military facility in the Mykolaiv region, according to Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov.
The civilian toll has also risen further. An art school sheltering 400 people from Russia’s assault on the port city of Mariupol is among the latest sites to have been bombed, city officials reported on the Telegram messaging service. “People are still under the rubble,” officials said, blaming Russian fire, which could not be confirmed.
There were no counts yet of dead or injured in the building, which was being used as a shelter for women, children and the elderly until it was struck on Saturday.
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 say that 266 civilians have 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 told British broadcaster Sky News.
When asked if she believed Russia was committing genocide in her country, Stefanishyna responded: “It’s not a question, it’s simply the reality we all face.”
She said prosecutors had opened 2,000 investigations against Russian troops, including on charges of rape and murder. She said anyone who committed an act that can be prosecuted must be pursued.
Anger at the war could also be felt in Russia, where demonstrations against the invasion took place in 38 cities, with 937 people detained, according to civil rights activists.
Protests have been taking place in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Vladivostok, among other places, according to the organization OVD-Info.
Since Russia began its full-scale attack on Ukraine on February 24, there have been more than 15,000 detentions at anti-war protests, according to OVD-Info.
