Kiev has fired more than 22,000 shells at non-military Russian facilities this year, a senior diplomat has said
FILE PHOTO: A view shows a residential house damaged by a Ukrainian military strike in Belgorod, Russia. © Sputnik / Anton Vergun
Indiscriminate Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory have killed more than 200 civilians, including almost a dozen children, since the start of 2024, with hundreds of others injured, a senior Foreign Ministry official has said.
Speaking at a media briefing on Friday, Moscow’s ambassador-at-large for Ukraine’s crimes, Rodion Miroshnik, said that data gathered by Russian authorities indicated that Kiev’s strikes resulted in 922 civilian casualties between January 1 and March 31, 2024. “Of this number, 721 people were injured. 201 civilians were killed,” he stated.
There have also been 59 casualties among Russian children, the diplomat continued, adding that 11 of them were killed. The youngest of them was only four months old, Miroshnik said.
Between early January and late March, Kiev has fired at least 22,000 rounds of ammunition – most of which was supplied by the West – at Russian civilian facilities, the diplomat said. “It is almost 250 shells a day, or ten shells an hour.”
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Miroshnik also said that the spike in Kiev’s attacks directly correlated with its defeats on the battlefield. Meanwhile, he added, Ukraine’s Western backers are choosing to “turn a blind eye” to the use of their weapons against facilities that enjoy protection under international law.
Ukrainian forces have for months been launching artillery, drone, and rocket strikes on Russian border regions, with officials in Kiev insisting that they should be stepped up to demoralize the country’s population.
One of the deadliest attacks on Russian territory came in late December when a Ukrainian barrage on Belgorod killed 25 people and left more than 100 wounded. Another major strike on the city in February left seven more people dead.
The conflict has also claimed numerous civilian lives in other Russian regions. According to official data, as of September 2023, a total of 4,703 civilians were killed in Donetsk Region since the start of large-scale hostilities in February 2022. Meanwhile, at least 65 civilians were killed in neighboring Lugansk Region in 2023, according to official data as of October.
Both Lugansk and Donetsk regions have been under constant Ukrainian shelling since 2014, when hostilities first erupted in the area after a Western-backed coup in Kiev. Both territories, along with two other former Ukrainian regions, overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in the autumn of 2022.