More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Office has confirmed, describing it as a “grim milestone”.
The UN runs dozens of monitoring posts across Ukraine and has described the “severe human cost” over the past 21 months of Russia’s invasion as “painful to fathom”.
Despite the milestone, they have said the actual death toll is likely to be “significantly higher” than 10,000 as verification work is ongoing and difficult during a period of active combat. They are also prevented from entering the nearly 20% of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces and its proxies.
The vast majority of the deaths have been caused by explosive weapons with a wide-area impact such as shells, missiles and cluster munitions, the United Nations said, adding that at least half of deaths in the last few months have been far from the frontline.
It comes as the Kremlin announced yesterday that Vladimir Putin will make a speech at a virtual G20 meeting later this week setting out Russia’s view of the “deeply unstable world situation”.
Source : Independent
