Ukrainians who have fled their country due to the war, mostly women, children and the elderly, surpassed this Wednesday the barrier of four million.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) offered this data, when the thirty-fifth day of war has been reached, which registers relevant activity in places such as kyiv and Chernikov, where Russia said that it would lower the intensity of its actions.
UNHCR already predicted at the beginning of the Russian invasion that this figure would be reached, which means the greatest exodus in Europe since the end of the Second World War, and that almost one in ten Ukrainians has left their country in just one month.
A 5-year-old Ukrainian refugee plays with a cell phone in his new home in Spain. Photo: AP
More than half of these refugees arrived in neighboring Poland, which hosts some 2.3 million Ukrainians, while around 600,000 are in Romania, where thousands of them previously passed through neighboring Moldova.
Attacks in kyiv and Chernikov
The Ukrainian authorities believe that it is “too soon” to confirm that the Russians have fulfilled their commitment to reduce the attacks on the cities of kyiv and Chernikov, since throughout the night from Tuesday to Wednesday there have been bombings and the anti-aircraft sirens have continued to sound.
Vadym Denysenko, advisor to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, also assured that “certain (Russian) units and equipment are entering the territory of Belarus. This is more a troop rotation for licking its wounds than a real suspension of hostilities”, said the ministerial adviser.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, pledged on Tuesday to ease its offensive pressure on the cities of kyiv and Chernikov, following talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegates in Istanbul.
In addition, Russia announced on Wednesday that its armed forces destroyed 64 Ukrainian military targets in the past twenty-four hours, including a special operations forces headquarters in the Mykolaiv region of southern Ukraine.
Russian troops withdraw
Russian units that suffered significant losses have been forced to return to Belarus and Russia to reorganize and replenish, indicates the latest part of UK military intelligence released this Wednesday.
This situation highlights “the difficulties that Russia has in reorganizing its units in advanced areas inside Ukraine,” according to information from the British Ministry of Defense.
Russia is likely to continue to compensate for its reduced ground maneuver capability with massive artillery and missile attacksAdd.
Russia’s statement that it is focusing its offensive on Donetsk and Luhansk “is probably an admission that it is struggling to hold more than one significant axis of advance,” the report said.
humanitarian corridors
The Ukrainian authorities have agreed with the Russians to open this Wednesday three humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of citizens, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk reported today on her Telegram account.
“To date, three humanitarian corridors have been agreed; the first will serve for the evacuation of Mariupol residents and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Berdyansk”, explained the also responsible for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine.
The minister added that another corridor will be used to deliver humanitarian aid and evacuate people from Melitopol, while a third will include a convoy of people leaving Enerhodar for Zaporizhia, in this case with private vehicles.
They all try to evacuate citizens of the southern cities of the country, the most punished by the bombardments of the Russian troops since they invaded the country on February 24 last.
This is the case of the port city of Mariupol, which had a pre-war population of half a million inhabitants and has been besieged for weeks by Russian troops, so the few remaining residents, some 160,000 according to the authorities, do not have access to basic goods such as drinking water and services such as gas or heating.
They will investigate human rights violations
The Colombian Paul of Greiffthe norwegian Erik Moses and Jasminka Dzumhurfrom Bosnia-Herzegovina, were appointed members of the Commission of Inquiry for Ukraine, approved by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate possible human rights violations during the Russian invasion.
They must also “identify to the extent possible which individuals or entities have been responsible for violations of human rights abuses” in Ukraine, in order to ensure that they are held accountable.
The goal is to obtain evidence as soon as possible that can serve to bring the perpetrators to justice, at a time when the International Criminal Court in The Hague has already opened investigations about the war in Ukraine.
EFE
ap
