Ukraine’s president says 16 Ukrainian children have been killed and another 45 have been injured in the Russian invasion. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message that “every crime, every shelling by the occupiers bring our partners and us even closer”.
He hailed the sanctions that the West slapped on Russia, saying they have brought the Russian currency down. Mr Zelensky asked the European Union a special quick path to membership.
Mr Zelensky said that over 4,500 Russian troops have been killed and called on Russian soldiers to lay down their guns and leave. “Don’t trust you commanders, don’t trust your propaganda, just save your lives,” he said.
A six-year-old girl has died as a result of Russian shelling in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, amid attempts to fend off the invaders. The girl was rushed into a city hospital by ambulance on Sunday after she received mortal injuries during the shelling.
She was pale. Her brown hair was pulled back with a rubber band. Her bloody pyjamas were decorated with cartoon unicorns. She was brought in with her wounded father, his head bloodied and bandaged. A medical team fought desperately to revive her as her mother stood outside the ambulance, weeping.
The girl was raced inside and doctors and nurses huddled around her. One gave her an injection. Another tried to revive her with a defibrillator, as a nurse wept.
A doctor in blue medical scrubs, pumping oxygen into the girl, looked straight at the camera of an Associated Press videojournalist who had been allowed inside. “Show this to Putin,” he said angrily. “The eyes of this child, and crying doctors.”
The girl, whose name was not immediately known, could not be saved. The doctor reached gently over her face to close her eyes. Her body was left alone in the room, covered by her brightly coloured polyester jacket, now spattered with blood.
“The Russian military has shown a blatant disregard for civilian lives by using ballistic missiles and other explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas. Some of these attacks may be war crimes. The Russian government, which falsely claims to use only precision-guided weapons, should take responsibility for these acts,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“The Russian troops should immediately stop carrying out indiscriminate attacks in violation of the laws of war. The continuation of the use of ballistic missiles and other inaccurate explosive weapons causing civilian deaths and injuries is inexcusable.”
In the deadliest strike documented by Amnesty International, at approximately 10.30am local time, a ballistic missile struck near a hospital building in Vuhledar, in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, killing four civilians and wounding ten more. According to a local source who spoke to Amnesty International researchers, two women and two men were killed, and six healthcare workers were among the injured. Analyzing photos of the weapon scrap linked to the incident, Amnesty International’s weapons investigator determined that a 9M79 Tochka ballistic missile was used in the attack. These weapons are extremely inaccurate, regularly missing their targets by half a kilometre or more and should never be used in populated areas.
Another of the attacks was carried out at approximately 8 am local time, in the Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine. The likely target was the nearby Chuhuiv Air Base, but instead Russian weapon struck a residential block, causing extensive fire damage and apparently killing at least one male civilian and injuring at least two civilian women. A single large crater in the ground between apartment buildings indicates the weapon was most likely a single large missile or rocket.
In another attack occurring at 7am on the 24 February in Uman, Cherkasy region, a civilian man appears to have been killed by a strike that also damaged a nearby restaurant.
