Europe

More than 400 children killed in war to date, Ukraine says

Moscow continues to deny targeting civilians, as UN says 16,295 have died since February

In Izium, recently liberated after months of Russian occupation, children have been injured by land mines, and mass graves and Russian torture chambers continue to be found. Photograph: Emile Ducke/The New York Times
In Izium, recently liberated after months of Russian occupation, children have been injured by land mines, and mass graves and Russian torture chambers continue to be found. Photograph: Emile Ducke/The New York Times
Sat Nov 19 2022 - 12:06

At least 437 Ukrainian children have been killed as a result of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said on Saturday.

More than 837 children have also been injured in a tally officials said was "not final" because they were still verifying information from zones of active fighting, liberated areas and territory still occupied by Russian forces.

The eastern Donetsk region was the most affected, with 423 children killed or injured, the prosecutor's office said.

The United Nations has said at least 16,295 civilians have been killed since Russia’s February 24th invasion, which Kyiv and Western leaders have denounced as an act of unprovoked aggression. Moscow denies targeting civilians.

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Meanwhile, Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, the area around the Black Sea port of Odesa and more than a dozen other regions are grappling with power shortages following relentless Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday.

“The situation with power supplies is difficult in 17 regions and in the capital,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

“Things are very difficult in Kyiv region and the city of Kyiv – Odesa region and also Vynnitsia and Ternopil,” he said, referring to two areas in western and southwestern Ukraine.

Prime minister Denys Shmyhal said earlier that Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have crippled half of the country’s energy system.

Kyiv is by far the largest city in Ukraine with an estimated population of about three million, with up to two million more in the Kyiv region. Odesa, the focal point of Ukraine’s agriculture exports, is the third most populous city, with about one million.

Emergency blackouts were occurring in those areas, Zelenskiy said. Other areas were subject to “stabilisation” blackouts according to a schedule.

With temperatures falling and Kyiv seeing its first winter snow, officials were working to restore power nationwide after some of the heaviest bombardments during the past month of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure in the nine-month-long war.– Reuters