UN human rights observers also mark the day. They presented grim figures on Friday: More than 9,000 civilians have been confirmed killed since the outbreak of the war.
Surrounded by bodyguards, the president laid flowers on Snake Island. Screenshot: Twitter / ZelenskyyUa
sea view
It is 500 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, on 24 February last year.
Ukraine’s president marked the day by visiting Snake Island, which has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
– Today we are on Snake Island, which will never fall prey to the occupiers, like all of Ukraine, because we are a brave people, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an undated video published on his official Twitter account.
In the video, the Ukrainian president says that all of Ukraine will be reconquered. Screenshot: Twitter / ZelenskyyUa
sea view
In the video, he thanks “everyone who fights for Ukraine”.
The small island in the Black Sea became famous when a few defenders withstood heavy bombardment from a Russian warship early in the war. The Russians captured the island shortly after the outbreak of war in February, but in June Ukrainian forces took it back.
In the video from the visit to the island, Zelenskyj calls the battle for it one of the most important of the war.
The Russian warship Moskva, which was central to the occupation of Snake Island, sank in the Black Sea in April after what the Russians claimed was an explosion on board. The Ukrainians claimed they had sunk the ship with rockets.
– Somber milestone
500 days of war are also marked in other ways. The UN human rights observers (HRMMU) presented on Friday grim numbers from Ukraine.
More than 9,000 civilians, including 500 children, have been killed since Russia’s invasion last year, according to a new UN report.
– Today we mark a grim milestone in a war that continues to exact a terrible toll on Ukraine’s civilians, says HRMMU Deputy Director Noel Calhoun in a statement.
It writes Al Jazeera.
At the same time, the observers are clear that the real number of people killed is probably far higher than the 9,177 confirmed civilian deaths.
Places such as Mariupol, Lysytsjansk, Popasna and Sievjerodonetsk are mentioned as places from which confirmed death figures are missing. In the report, they also state that at least 15,993 civilians have been injured.
Several killed in May and June
Although on average there have been fewer civilians killed and wounded this year than last year, the numbers began to rise in May and June, according to the report.
As recently as June 27, 13 civilians, including four children, were killed in a rocket attack on Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. Civilians also lose their lives far from the front.
On the night of Thursday, an apartment block in Lviv, in the west of the country, was hit by a Russian missile. At first it was reported that four people had been killed. Ten people have now been confirmed dead after the attack. At least 37 were injured, and over 50 apartments were destroyed.
According to the observers, three times as many civilians have been killed in the last 500 days than in the previous eight years of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, as a result of the annexation of Krym.
The cities of Butsja and Mariupol in particular have become symbols of the suffering of the civilian population during the war.
The massacre in Butsja shook the world. President Zelenskyy called it genocide. Many called for the killings to be investigated as war crimes. Norway and Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt (Ap) condemned the attacks on civilians.
The Russians also bombed Mariupol south and together. In June last year said the United Nations that more than 1,300 civilians had been confirmed killed during the battle for the city, and that the real figure was probably much higher. This is one of the places where the UN fears large dark figures in terms of the number of victims.
2023-07-08 11:09:32
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