The town of Khmelnytsky suffered Russian attacks with drones, which left a couple of dead and five injured, as reported by the mayor of the Ukrainian town. This is when the United Nations is once again putting Russian war crimes on the front lines on the table. While Moscow insisted on the assessment of the Chinese peace plan, which must be “analyzed in detail.”
The fighting intensified again in Ukraine on Monday, February 27. The focus of the invading Russian troops continues to be the capture of Bakhmut, a strategic location for their objectives as it is the ‘gateway’ to Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two most important cities that Ukraine has in the Donetsk region.
In this direction, in the last hours there were two deaths and five injuries by Russian drones in Khmelnytskyi, according to the mayor Oleksandr Symchyshyn through his Telegram account.
Initially, the information that had circulated was about the death of only one man who worked as a rescue worker. However, as the minutes passed, the number increased to two after the confirmation of the highest local authority.
“Unfortunately we have another death in the hospital. The doctors could not save the life of another hero: a rescuer,” the president said on his social networks.
However, they were not the only Russian attacks. The Ukrainian armed forces announced the downing of 11 of a total of 14 Iranian-made kamikaze drones launched by Moscow overnight.
Nine of them were shot down over kyiv, without causing casualties or material damage. The head of the city’s Military Administration, Sergiy Popko, accused the Russian forces of trying to “exhaust” the air defenses and detailed that the attacks were in two separate waves.
In the country’s capital, nighttime anti-aircraft alarms were active for five and a half hours.
Two other drone attacks were registered in the city of Zaporizhia, where they did manage to hit infrastructure, although the damage is still being estimated.
During the night hours, air alerts were also activated in Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Donetsk and in the Dnipro and Kirovohrad provinces.
Finally, the Russian Defense Ministry asserted that an attack on an ammunition depot near Bakhmut was carried out successfully, also shooting down four US-made HIMARS missiles and five drones.
United Nations debates war crimes in Ukraine
With a strong speech, the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, opened the session of the Human Rights Council, a summit that will focus its main attention on Ukraine and the alleged war crimes committed by Russia during its ‘special operation’.
Guterres stressed that the international community must protect human rights and that not doing so is not an option. “Some governments undermine it, others use the wrecking ball,” he said.
In this sense, he stressed that during the war in Eastern Europe “the most massive violations of human rights” that exist in the world today have been unleashed. “It has unleashed death, destruction and widespread displacement,” she added.
The summit, which will take place in Geneva until April 4, will be the event in which different countries will insist on expanding the mandate of a United Nations investigative body created to investigate acts committed in Ukraine.
Human rights are not a luxury that can be left until we find a solution to the world’s other problems.
They are the solution to many of the world’s other problems.
Today I told the @UN_HRC that we must make human rights a reality in the lives of people everywhere. pic.twitter.com/9EamZi4ju6
—António Guterres (@antonioguterres) February 27, 2023
This entity, according to kyiv, will be essential to ensure that Russia’s political and military leaders are held accountable. Previously they had also insisted on the formation of a special court to carry out trials.
One of the highlights for these sessions is that they will have the participation of Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, who will be the first Russian official to personally attend one of these summits since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Ryabkov’s attendance, which will address the Council next Thursday, was criticized by Western diplomats. Russia was suspended from the body last year but can still act as an observer.
The Kremlin asked to analyze the Chinese peace plan “in detail”
The proposals that Beijing made official on February 24 to reach an end to the aggressions in Ukraine were looked at askance by the West. But this Monday, Moscow affirmed that it must be carefully analyzed.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, stressed that any initiative of this nature that seeks a point of dialogue between the parties must be considered. “We are paying close attention to the plan of our Chinese friends,” he said.
Peskov added that the details “need to be scrutinized taking into account the interests of each party” and that it is a “very long and intense” process.
The rapprochement that the Asian giant has had with Russia was not overlooked in the Western bloc led by the United States. From Washington they reiterated the warnings to Beijing if it gets involved in the war and supplies Moscow with weapons, a version that has appeared in recent days and which Asia has denied.
These moves have been taken by Russia as an attempt to isolate them from the world. In this regard, Russian diplomatic leader Sergei Lavrov stressed that such efforts by the West “failed.”
“I want to stress that we have not only frustrated the West’s plans to isolate and even dismember Russia, but also ensure continued cooperation with the overwhelming majority of members of the international community,” he said.
With EFE, AFP and Reuters
