{"id":313518,"date":"2025-08-03T03:27:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T03:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313518\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T03:27:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T03:27:15","slug":"un-official-decries-deadly-ukraine-strikes-urges-return-to-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313518\/","title":{"rendered":"UN official decries deadly Ukraine strikes, urges return to diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Briefing ambassadors in the Security Council<\/a>, Miroslav Jen\u010da, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe in the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs<\/a> (DPPA), renewed the call for an immediate ceasefire and a return to diplomacy to end the devastation.<\/p>\n

\u201cUkrainian people have endured nearly three-and-a-half years of unimaginable horrors, death, devastation and destruction. They urgently need relief from this nightmare,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He stressed that diplomacy, not fighting, needs to escalate in the coming days and weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiplomacy that leads to real, tangible, verifiable and lasting results that would be felt by the long-suffering people on the ground,\u201d he added, reiterating that the UN remains ready to support all efforts toward a just, lasting peace in line with the UN Charter<\/a> and international law.<\/p>\n

ASG Jen\u010da briefs the Security Council.<\/p>\n

Brutal attacks continue<\/p>\n

Mr. Jen\u010da described the \u201cbrutal\u201d scale of the latest attacks.<\/p>\n

Overnight between 30 and 31 July, a large-scale Russian aerial assault on Kyiv killed at least 31 people \u2013 including five children \u2013 and injured 159 others, 16 of them children. It marked the highest number of child injuries in a single night in the capital since the invasion began in February 2022.<\/p>\n

The strikes damaged 27 locations across four districts of Kyiv, including a school, a preschool, a paediatric hospital wing, and a university building.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn entire section of an apartment block was also reportedly destroyed, leaving many trapped beneath the burning rubble,\u201d said Mr. Jen\u010da.<\/p>\n

Humanitarian workers, including UN agencies and local partners, responded swiftly, delivering shelter kits, emergency psychosocial support and legal counselling to affected families.<\/p>\n

Strikes beyond Kyiv<\/p>\n

Beyond Kyiv, attacks were reported across at least seven regions \u2013 Vinnytsia, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy and Chernihiv \u2013 with a total of at least 120 civilian casualties in a single night.<\/p>\n

In Donetsk, two people were reportedly killed and 10 injured; in Kharkiv, one person was killed and seven injured. Additional casualties were confirmed in Sumy, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.<\/p>\n

In Kamianske, a hospital attack left three dead \u2013 including a pregnant woman \u2013 and 22 injured, many of them medical staff. In Novoplatonivka, Kharkiv region, six were killed while waiting for humanitarian aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese continuing horrendous attacks are simply unacceptable,\u201d said Mr. Jen\u010da.<\/p>\n

The UN human rights office, OHCHR<\/a>, reports that since the start of the full-scale invasion thorugh June this year, more than 13,580 civilians \u2013 including 716 children \u2013 have been killed, and over 34,000 injured.<\/p>\n

Casualties inside Russia<\/p>\n

Mr. Jen\u010da also noted civilian casualties inside Russia.<\/p>\n

Between 25 and 29 July, Russian authorities reported attacks in Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Leningrad and Rostov regions, resulting in at least six deaths and multiple injuries.<\/p>\n

While the UN cannot verify these reports, Mr. Jen\u010da expressed concern and reiterated that \u201cattacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law and must stop immediately \u2013 wherever they occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abuses against POWs<\/p>\n

He also detailed new allegations of abuse against Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).<\/p>\n

According to OHCHR interviews with nearly 140 recently released male POWs, \u201cnearly all\u2026reported having been subjected to torture or ill-treatment,\u201d including beatings, electric shocks, and suffocation.<\/p>\n

OHCHR also documented credible reports of 106 executions of Ukrainian soldiers in Russian custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Briefing ambassadors in the Security Council, Miroslav Jen\u010da, Assistant Secretary-General for Europe in the Department of Political and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-313518","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114962710135072535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}