Civilian casualties from February 24, when Russia started the war against Ukraine, to 24:00 on May 18 amounted to 8,089 civilians (the day before – 7,964), including 3,811 dead (3,778), reports the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Thursday.
“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are much higher as information is delayed from some areas of heavy fighting and many reports are still awaiting confirmation,” the UN data document notes.
According to him, this applies, for example, to Mariupol (Donetsk region), Izyum (Kharkiv region) and Popasna (Luhansk region), where there are reports of numerous civilian casualties. They are subject to further verification and are not included in the above statistics.
“The majority of civilian deaths or injuries were caused by the use of explosive devices with a wide area of effect, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as rocket and air strikes,” the report says.
According to confirmed UN data, 1,429 men, 937 women, 98 boys and 87 girls died, while the sex of 70 children and 1,190 adults has not yet been determined.
Among the 4,278 injured were 115 boys and 103 girls, as well as 164 children whose gender has not yet been determined.
Compared with the report the day before, four children died.
OHCHR indicates that in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions at midnight on May 19, 1973 (1946) deaths and 1821 (1761) injured were recorded in the territory controlled by the government, and 126 (124) deaths and 502 (492) injured in the territory controlled by the self-proclaimed “republics”.
In other regions of Ukraine under government control (in Kyiv, as well as in Zhytomyr, Zaporozhye, Kyiv, Sumy, Odessa, Nikolaev, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions), the UN recorded 1712 (1708) dead and 1955 (1930) wounded .
The summary traditionally states that the increase in figures from the previous summary should not be attributed only to the cases on May 18, since during this period the Office verified a number of cases from previous days.
Canada, which has allocated 1 billion Canadian dollars (about $780 million at the current exchange rate) of financial support to Ukraine in its next budget, remains the only country that intends to use a special account administered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to send this assistance.
“The account allows donors to channel further support to Ukraine securely, through loans or grants, using our fiduciary infrastructure. Canada has a billion in its upcoming budget. I am not aware of any other pledges or commitments at this time. We will keep you posted,” he said. IMF Representative Gerry Rice at a traditional briefing in Washington on Thursday.
When asked about the Fund’s exchange rate advice, in particular the advisability of adjusting the fixed rate policy chosen at the start of the war, the IMF spokesperson said that he “is not aware of any specific advice that we have given regarding the adjustment at this time.”
Rice also said that the Fund remains in very close contact with the Ukrainian authorities, almost daily, in particular, a few days ago there was another conversation between IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
As reported, on February 24, the National Bank suspended the work of the foreign exchange market of Ukraine, except for the sale of foreign currency, and fixed the exchange rate at the official level of that day – UAH 29.2549/$1, which led to the emergence of a “black” market, where in the first days the exchange rate reached 39-40 UAH/$1. Later, the regulator allowed the sale of currency in branches that are under the threat of capture by the invaders, by decision of their leadership.
The NBU made the next liberalization step on April 15, when it granted banks and non-banking financial institutions the right to sell cash currency throughout the country at a rate not higher than “official plus 10%”, but within the volume of the purchased currency. As a result, many banks declared the possibility of selling foreign currency at the maximum possible rate of UAH 32.17-32.18/$1 and at the same time raised the purchase rate closer to the selling rate. However, according to market participants, it is extremely difficult to freely officially buy cash currency. Nevertheless, the “black” market reacted with a slight strengthening of the hryvnia, as a result of which the dollar exchange rate on it was only about 2% higher. Now this difference has increased to about 14%.
The negative balance of Ukraine’s foreign trade in goods in January-March 2022 decreased by 40 times compared to the same period in 2021 – to $31.6 million from $1271.6 million, the State Statistics Service reported.
According to its data, the export of goods from Ukraine for the reporting period increased by 2.9% compared to January-March 2021, to $14.101 billion, while imports decreased by 5.6%, to $14.132 billion.
The State Statistics Service clarifies that in March, compared to February 2022, the seasonally adjusted volume of exports decreased by 57.9%, to $2.483 billion, and imports, by 75.8%, to $1.663 billion.
The seasonally adjusted foreign trade balance in March 2022 was positive and amounted to $0.819 billion, while in February 2022 it was negative – $0.969 billion.
The export-to-import coverage ratio in the first quarter of this year amounted to 1.00 (in the first quarter of 2021 – 0.92).
The State Statistics Service specified that foreign trade operations were carried out with partners from 214 countries of the world.
The Embassy of India in Ukraine informs in an official release that it is resuming its work in Kyiv on May 17, 2022.
The Embassy was temporarily transferred to Warsaw (Poland) on March 13, 2022.
As previously reported, as of now, more than 30 foreign embassies have returned to Kyiv.
The topic of the problems that have appeared in the world in the field of food will be discussed next week in the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Sunday.
“This week, the UN Security Council will hold meetings on what measures we can take to solve the food problem,” he said at a press conference in Berlin, adding that “foreign ministers” will also be involved in this topic.
Blinken explained that the risk of food shortages in the world arose because of the situation in Ukraine.
At the opening of the G7 Agriculture Ministerial Conference in Stuttgart on May 13, Minister of Agrarian Policy Ministry of Ukraine Mykola Solsky proposed to discuss the creation of an influential organization of the main countries-supplies of grain in the world, responding to modern challenges and threats to food security, including from the Russian Federation.
As stated in the message of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy on Saturday, among the tasks of this organization, Ukraine sees, in particular, the establishment of maximum volumes of exports of grain crops to stabilize prices and predictability of the market, the development of a mechanism for directing excessive balances of agricultural products to the needs of the “green” sector of the economy.
In addition, this organization could apply joint restrictive measures against unfriendly actions of food importers, especially in the case of restrictive measures by third countries on the import of processed products.
Another principle introduced by the organization should be, in the opinion of Ukraine, the storage of grain residues contracted by third countries, to a large extent in producing countries.
Solsky also called on his colleagues to contribute as much as possible to lifting the blockade on the export of agricultural products from Ukraine.
“Due to the blockade of Ukrainian seaports, seven million tonnes of wheat, 14 million tonnes of corn, three million tonnes of sunflower oil and three million tonnes of sunflower cake, as well as other crops, did not enter the world market. This has already led to a record increase in prices on the world market and will inevitably lead to a global food crisis and rising inflation,” the minister said.
