Russia regularly bombs Ukraine with airstrikes.
The United Nations condemned the civilian costs inflicted by the Russian war in Ukraine as fighting passed the 500-day mark with no end in sight.
More than 9,000 civilians, including 500 children, have been killed since the invasion of Russia on Feb. 24, 2022, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said in a statement Friday, though UN representatives have previously said the true number is likely will rise. be much higher.
“Today we mark another grim milestone in the war that continues to take a horrific toll on Ukrainian civilians,” Noel Calhoun, the deputy chief of HRMMU, said in the statement marking the 500th day since the invasion.
Although the number of casualties this year averaged lower than in 2022, the number started to rise again in May and June, the observers noted.
On June 27, 13 civilians, including four children, were killed in a rocket attack on Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
And far from the frontline in the western city of Lviv, rescuers found a 10th body among the rubble of buildings on Friday.
At least 37 people were injured in an early attack on Thursday that Mayor Andriy Sadovyi called the biggest attack on civilian infrastructure in his city since the Russian invasion of the country began.
More than 50 apartments were “ruined” and a dormitory at Lviv Polytechnic University was damaged, he wrote on Telegram.
UNESCO said the attack was also the first to occur in an area protected by the World Heritage Convention and damaged a historic building.
Russia regularly bombards Ukraine with airstrikes, including indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire that have been particularly deadly. The attacks also targeted infrastructure and supply lines, leaving civilians without power and water.
The cities of Bucha and Mariupol became synonymous with Russian atrocities last year after reports and images of massacres there shocked the world and sparked accusations of war crimes and even genocide.
In the once sleepy commuter town of Bucha, AFP journalists witnessed a single street full of body after body in civilian clothes in April.
Satellite images later showed that since mid-March, when the city was under Russian control, several bodies had been lying in the streets, while Ukrainian authorities said hundreds of people had been killed in Bucha by Moscow’s retreating troops.
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