Recent political events
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The UN High Representative for Human Rights will hold a special session on Thursday to discuss the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine.
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Lithuania has joined Canada in recognizing Russia’s actions as genocide.
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The head of the UN human rights mission said the death toll in Ukraine was likely to be significantly higher than the official figure of 3,381 civilians killed.
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RuTube, essentially the Russian version of YouTube, is down for a second day after the cyber attack.
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German Foreign Minister Analena Berbok visited a mass grave in Bucha and vowed to hold the international community accountable for those responsible for “the worst crimes you can imagine.”
Updates from the ground on the 76th day of the war
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Ukraine says its forces have taken villages from Russian troops north and northeast of Kharkiv.
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One killed and five wounded after Russia fired seven missiles at the port city of Odessa.
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Ukrainian troops are finally stationed at the Mariupol steel plant, the last remaining fortress in the strategic port city.
Calls for the prosecution of war crimes suspects
A cemetery worker is resting from work on the graves of civilians killed in Bucha during the war with Russia, on the outskirts of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on April 14. (Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press)
Lithuania’s parliament has voted unanimously to describe Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “genocide” and “terrorism”, two weeks after a similar move by Canadian lawmakers.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonite is sponsoring the proposal, which lists evidence of alleged war crimes, including the deliberate killing of civilians, mass rapes, the forcible transfer of Ukrainian citizens to Russia and the destruction of economic infrastructure and cultural sites.
Lithuania also called for an international tribunal modeled on the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.
A special session of the UN human rights body is expected to hold a special session later this week to discuss the deteriorating human rights situation on the ground.
US President Joe Biden has previously said he believes the invasion of Ukraine is tantamount to genocide, but will leave it to lawyers to make a final decision.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and describes the invasion as a “special military operation” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed on the West, NATO and Ukraine’s military action.
The vital port of Odessa has been broken
Firefighters walk past a residential building damaged by Russian shelling in Odessa, Ukraine, on April 23. On Monday, Ukrainian authorities announced that Russian forces had fired seven missiles from the air in Odessa, hitting a shopping center and warehouse. (Max Przybiszewski / Associated Press)
On Monday, a series of attacks hit Ukraine’s strategically located port city of Odessa after Putin celebrated his country’s biggest patriotic holiday, boasting great success on the battlefield.
The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired seven rockets at Odessa, hitting a shopping mall and warehouse. One person was killed and five were injured.
The Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian think tank tracking the war, said Moscow had used some precision weapons against Odessa: the Dagger or Dagger, hypersonic air-to-ground missiles.
But a senior U.S. defense official said Tuesday that the United States has seen no indication of hypersonic missiles being fired at Odessa in recent days. Throughout the war, the Russians fired 10 to 12 hypersonic missiles, according to an official who requested anonymity to discuss a U.S. military assessment.
Ukrainian, British and US officials say Russia is rapidly using up its stockpile of precision weapons, increasing the risk of using more inaccurate missiles as the conflict continues.
The UN says the death toll is significantly higher
According to the latest update from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 3,381 civilians have been killed and 3,680 injured in Ukraine since the invasion began at 4 a.m. on February 24.
But the head of the UN human rights mission, Matilda Bogner, said the death toll was thought to be significantly higher than official records show.
Bogner said the mission had received reports that more than 300 men, women and children had been killed illegally in Bucha during the Russian occupation.
The European head of the World Health Organization has also released sobering figures, reporting about 200 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine and estimating that at least 3,000 people have died in the country due to lack of access to treatment for chronic diseases.
WATCH The World Health Organization calls for a ceasefire to end the suffering:
Ukraine’s health system has been hit by 200 direct attacks, the WHO said
The World Health Organization is calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to end the suffering of Russia’s widespread attack on Ukraine’s health systems, its workers and the sick and wounded. 1:15
The German diplomat describes the horrors of Bucha
On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Analena Berbok visited a mass grave in Bucha.
She pledged the international community to hold those responsible accountable, saying “the worst crimes imaginable” had been committed in Bucha.
Witnesses describe how Russian soldiers targeted civilians seemingly at random, leaving their bodies lying on the street after they were withdrawn from the region on March 31.
Speaking to reporters at a damaged church, Burbock said she had heard stories from those who lost loved ones during the occupation, including people killed in a supermarket while shopping, and the story of how a woman and her two children were shot dead. while trying to escape.
Tetyana Boykiv, right, meets and hugs her neighbor Svetlana Priimachenko during a funeral service for her husband, Nikola Moroz, near Bucha, Ukraine, on April 26th. Moroz was captured by the Russian army from his house in the village of Ozera, taken to an unknown location for several weeks and finally found killed by gunfire about 15 kilometers from his house. (Emilio Morenati / Associated Press)
Cyberattacks are aimed at Russian sites
Websites of state-owned companies and news sites have been subjected to sporadic hacking since Russia invaded Ukraine.
RuTube, a Russian video platform similar to YouTube, is down for a second day after the cyber attack.
In a separate incident Monday, Russian satellite TV’s menus were hacked to show Moscow viewers about events in Ukraine, including “You Have Blood on Your Hands,” according to Reuters screenshots.
Intense fighting continues in the east
In the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian defenders are still hiding in the steel plant, where they are finishing last.
Ukrainian authorities now say about 100 civilians are still trapped at the Azovstal steel plant, despite earlier reports that all women, children and the elderly have been rescued.
After unexpectedly fierce resistance forced the Kremlin to abandon its efforts to storm Kyiv more than a month ago, Moscow’s forces focused on capturing Donbass, Ukraine’s eastern industrial region.
But the fighting there has been moving back and forth, village by village. Some analysts have suggested that Putin could declare the fighting a war, not just a “special military operation,” and order a nationwide mobilization and call-up of reserves to fight the expanded conflict.
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