A Russian attack on a humanitarian convoy in the city of Zaporizhia has killed 23 people and wounded 28, southern Ukraine’s Governor Oleksandr Starukh said on Friday.
In a statement posted on the Telegram platform, Starukh said that Russian forces attacked a humanitarian convoy heading to Russian-occupied territory.
The governor also published images of burned vehicles and bodies lying on the road.
Starukh said that the organizers of the humanitarian convoy intended to travel to the Russian-occupied territory to rescue the family members and then take them to safety.
The governor said that relief teams were at the scene of the attack, which has so far not been claimed by Russia.
The attack comes as Moscow prepares to annex Zaporizhia and three other Ukrainian regions: Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson.
On Thursday, the Kremlin had announced that Ukraine’s four regions, which held referendums on September 23-27 on joining Russia, will now join the country.
Official annexation was already expected after the vote in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, whose inhabitants, Moscow claimed, overwhelmingly supported Russia’s formal annexation of these territories.
UN Secretary General António Guterres stressed that the so-called ‘referendums’ in the occupied regions were held during the active armed conflict, in areas under Russian occupation and outside Ukraine’s legal and constitutional framework, so “they cannot be genuinely summoned”. expression of the popular will.
The separatist consultations in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia have been condemned by kyiv and the West, who describe the referendums as “democratic farces”.
In the case of Kherson, a region that borders the annexed Crimean peninsula, more than 87% of voters supported Russian annexation, while more than 93% of the participants in Zaporizhia supported this option, according to pro-Russian sources.
The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine has already caused the flight of almost 13 million people -more than six million internally displaced persons and almost seven million to neighboring countries-, according to the latest UN data, which places this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the international community in general, which has responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia in all sectors, from banking to energy and sports.
The UN presented as confirmed 5,587 civilian deaths and 7,890 wounded, stressing that the real figures are much higher and will only be known at the end of the conflict.
Source: TSF
