Putin's troops killed 148 children since the start of the invasion of Ukraine

Vladimir Putin's troops killed 148 children during bombardments and air strikes, fired 1,370 missiles and destroyed 15 Ukrainian airports since the start of the invasion on February 24, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry on Thursday.

In a statement, that portfolio added that more than 10 million Ukrainians fled their homes.

One of the cities most besieged by Russian troops is Kharkiv. They destroyed 15 percent of the houses there, according to Mayor Ihor Terkehov. “Over the past 35 days, a total of 1,531 buildings were destroyed in the city of Kharkiv, including 1,292 residential houses. The Russian army destroyed 76 secondary schools, 54 kindergartens and 16 hospitals. A total of 239 administrative buildings are in ruins.”

The city of Kharkiv, close to the Russian border, has been under continuous daily bombardment since the beginning of the Russian invasion, which celebrated its 36th day this Thursday. According to the Ukrinform agency, about a third of local residents have already left the city.

For its part, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that civilians in the northern city of Chernigov need access to basic services, humanitarian aid and safe evacuations.

“Civilians in Chernigov have been trapped in a cascading crisis for days without access to basic services and no means of escape, all while living under the constant threat of Russian attacks,” said Human Rights Watch crisis and conflict researcher Richard Weir.

He stressed that “Russian forces, together with Ukrainian forces, must take the necessary measures to allow civilians to leave the city safely if they so desire and ensure that the basic needs of remaining civilians are met.”

The NGO explained in a statement that, since March 24, Russian forces have besieged the city, controlling almost all accesses to it and attacking the bridge that provided the last remaining access route to enter and leave the town.

The conditions in Chernigov, where the evacuation of wounded persons and children were prevented, as well as the distribution of humanitarian goods to the population, resemble those of the port city of Mariupol, in the south - east of the country, where residents do not have access to basic services, according to the organization.

Some 75,000 citizens were evacuated from the city of Mariupol through humanitarian corridors and another 100,000 civilians are waiting to leave the city safely, Ukrainian authorities reported.

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, Irina Vereshchuk, explained another 45,000 people have been forcibly deported by the Russian Army to Russia and also to the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic — self-proclaimed but recognized by the Kremlin.

During the day, the Ukrainian authorities indicated that Russia confirmed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) its readiness to allow the opening of a humanitarian corridor from Mariupol, hours after Moscow was open to decree a ceasefire to allow people to leave the locality, which had been besieged for weeks.

For its part, the death toll from Tuesday's attack on the main administrative building of the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv amounted to 20, as confirmed on Thursday by the State Emergency Service, which indicated that search work continued into the early morning.

Russian troops continue to extensively bombard the disputed Donbas area with heavy weapons, while attacks persist around Kiev and other major cities such as Chernigov (north) and Kharkiv (east).

The various regional administrations assure that virtually the entire country continues to suffer attacks of various kinds, despite Moscow's announcement of decreasing its offensive on Kiev and some other major cities.

In the case of Lugansk, the authorities say that the entire territory has been bombed during the night with heavy weapons and seven deaths have been killed in the attacks.

In this area, the city of Lysychansk has been the center of the Russian offensive for the past two days, causing dozens of injuries, while the seven deaths occurred tonight as a result of the latest bombings.

In this city an oil refinery is on fire, says the Ukrainian agency.

On the other hand, several Russian missiles hit an oil depot in the Dnipropetrovsk region, in the center of the country, and an asphalt manufacturing plant in nearby Novomoskovsk. In this case, there were no fatalities.

(With information from Reuters and EFE)

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