AFP, KYIV
Kyiv yesterday said that more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops, many of them injured, remained in the sprawling Azovstal steel works in the Russian-controlled port city of Mariupol.
“More than a thousand” Ukrainian soldiers remain in the plant, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, said. “Hundreds are injured. There are people with serious injuries who require urgent evacuation.”
Photo: AFP
Earlier yesterday, Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, that since the Russian invasion, thousands more civilians have been killed than the official UN death toll of 3,381.
The UN team, which includes 55 monitors in Ukraine, has said that most of the deaths occurred from the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, such as shelling and airstrikes.
“We have been working on estimates, but all I can say for now is that it is thousands higher than the numbers we have currently given to you,” Bogner said.
“The big black hole is Mariupol, where it has been difficult for us to fully access and to get fully corroborated information,” she said.
On Monday, Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa came under repeated missile attack.
The Ukrainian military said that Russian forces fired seven missiles from the air at Odesa, hitting a shopping center and a warehouse.
As part of the barrage, a Russian supersonic bomber fired three hypersonic missiles, said the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian think tank tracking the war.
Using advanced guided missiles allows Russia to fire from aircraft at a distance, without being exposed to potential anti-aircraft fire.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden signed a law speeding up arms deliveries to Kyiv.
The US has sent about US$4 billion in military aid to Ukraine, but “caving to aggression is even more costly,” Biden said.
In a bid to build pressure on Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she made “progress” on a proposed Russian oil embargo during talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Additional reporting by Reuters, AP
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