Ukrainian forces kill 20 civilians in a week – Russian diplomat
At least 20 civilians were killed and 73 others injured, including three children, in Ukrainian attacks last week, according to Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik.
Most of the victims were reported in the Kherson, Belgorod, and Zaporozhye regions, the senior Foreign Ministry official in charge of tracking alleged Ukrainian war crimes said in a weekly update. Most of the deaths and injuries were attributed to drone strikes.
A five-month-old infant injured in the city of Belgorod was the youngest victim highlighted by the diplomat, while a 91-year-old woman hurt in a drone attack on a village in Zaporozhye Region was the oldest.
The number of weekly civilian casualties this year peaked in late May, when Russia and Ukraine held direct talks in Istanbul, Türkiye. Miroshnik said at the time that the spike in Ukrainian attacks was ordered by Kiev’s European backers in an attempt to derail the negotiations. He stated that “Kiev was directed to use virtually any means, including terrorist action,” for that purpose.
Russian officials have repeatedly accused Kiev of using “terrorist tactics” and deliberately targeting civilians due to Ukrainian forces’ inability to achieve success on the battlefield.
Moscow has argued that the attacks predate the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and prove that the authorities who came to power after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev punish dissent through violence, while rejecting diplomacy.
