Russian forces have killed more than 400 Ukrainian children and injured hundreds more since its February invasion, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said Saturday.
“As of the morning of November 19, 2022, 1,274 children were affected in Ukraine as a result of Russia’s full-scale armed aggression,” the federal office said in a statement. “According to the official reports by juvenile prosecutors, 437 children were killed and 837 sustained injuries of varying severity.”
Most of the deaths — 423 — took place in Donetsk in the eastern part of the country where there has been heavy fighting since the start of the Feb. 24 invasion, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Two children in the village of Komysh-Zorya in the Zaporizhia region are among the most recent young casualties. On Friday, Russian troops reportedly shot a family, including the two kids, aged five and 14 at close range in their own home.
In April, a mom recounted the horror of witnessing the death of her 12-year-old daughter as she tried to flee with her family from Chernihiv.
Officials said the eastern Donetsk region was the most affected, with 423 children killed or injured. Future Publishing via Getty Imag“My older daughter Veronika started to cry, because my head had been cut by a piece of flying glass and I was bleeding,” heartbroken mom Viktoria Kovalenko told the BBC.
“Veronika started to shout, her hands were shaking, so I tried to calm her. She got out of the car and I went to follow. As I got out I saw her fall. When I looked, her head was gone.”
Russian strikes also damaged 2,719 educational facilities, 332 of which were completely destroyed since the beginning of the conflict, the report continued.
The grim statistics emerged as Russian authorities had reached an agreement with Iran to manufacture hundreds of weaponized drones in Russia.
The country has used hundreds of Iranian-made drones to bomb Ukrainian cities over the last several weeks. Russian and Iranian officials finalized the deal to manufacture the drones on Russian soil after a meeting in Iran in early November, according to US and European intelligence reports cited by the Washington Post.
Meanwhile, British authorities warned Saturday that weapons shipped to Ukraine from western countries may be ending up in the hands of terrorists and organized criminal gangs in Europe.
The director of Britain’s National Crime Agency said his counterparts in other European countries have been on the look out for criminal gangs selling arms, including grenades, pistols and machine guns, on the black market.
Graeme Biggar, who leads the UK’s fight against organized crime, told the Sunday Times of London that he had discussed the threat with Ukraine’s police chief.
“As with any conflict, when weapons pour in there is a risk of blowback,” he said. “At the end of the conflict, there are surplus weapons that get into the hands of criminals or terrorists.”
The warnings of black market arms trafficking came as Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak paid a surprise visit to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv Saturday, promising the Ukraine leader a $59-million air defense package that includes 125 anti-aircraft guns and advanced radar technology to help Ukraine fight against the Iranian supplied drones.
The day began with a giant gas explosion near St. Petersburg. Authorities attributed the blast that sent a fireball into the sky to depressurization on a gas pipeline east of the city. No suggestion of sabotage had been mentioned by Russian authorities, who launched a probe into the matter Saturday.
“Firefighters and rescuers extinguish a fire caused by a gas pipeline depressurization between Berngardovka and Kovalevo,” Gov. Alexander Drozdenko said on Telegram. “There is no threat to the population and the spread of fire to residential areas.”
Firefighters were waiting for the gas to burn off and emergency crews were getting ready to begin repairs, he added.
