Losses among civilians since February 24, 2022, when Russia started the war against Ukraine, until 24:00 on March 27, 2022, amounted to 2,975 civilians (2,909 in the report a day earlier), including 1,151 dead (1,119), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported on Monday.
“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration,” the document says.
This concerns, for example, Mariupol and Volnovakha (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Popasna and Rubizhne (Luhansk region), and Trostianets (Sumy region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties. These figures are being further corroborated and are not included in the above statistics.
“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” the report said.
According to confirmed UN data, 229 men, 171 women, 34 boys and 15 girls died, while the sex of 54 children and 648 adults has not yet been determined.
Among the 1,824 injured, there were 34 girls and 26 boys, as well as 73 children, whose sex has not yet been determined.
Compared to the previous day, four children were killed and seven were injured, according to the UN.
OHCHR points out that in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as of midnight on March 28, there are 317 (301) deaths and 700 (694) injured in the territory controlled by the government, and 60 (59) deaths and 228 (227) 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, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Sumy, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions), the UN recorded 774 (759) dead and 896 (869) wounded .
The report also states that, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, as of 08:00 on March 28, some 143 (139) children were killed and 216 (205) injured.
The increase in indicators in this report compared to the figures in the previous report should not be attributed only to new cases that occurred on March 27, since OHCHR also verified a number of cases that occurred in previous days during the day, the document specifies.
About 1,000 companies desire to move to safe regions, of which 300 have already moved and 60 have resumed work in new places, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
“There is a register, it contains more than 1,000 companies that have expressed a desire to relocate from temporarily occupied territories or territories where hostilities are taking place. More than 1,000 are in the register, over 300 have already relocated and, as of yesterday, about 60 have already begun work in new places,” Shmyhal said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“We have not experienced that many enterprises have moved abroad. Even among IT specialists, 97% have remained in the country,” the Prime Minister said.
He also said that the state transfers UAH 6,500 to employers for employees.
“Under eAid, in the first month, the state paid UAH 6,500 to everyone who lost their job. Now we are transferring UAH 6,500 to employers to motivate people to work. So that the employer has a base of UAH 6,500, and adds some part of the salary from itself,” Denys Shmyhal said.
Companies belonging to the Polish Electricity Transmission and Distribution Association have provided Ukraine with auxiliary materials and equipment to carry out work to restore the energy infrastructure damaged as a result of Russian aggression, according to the website of the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine on Tuesday.
“Due to the destruction caused by the hostilities, we see the need to support the energy system with materials and equipment, which will allow the resumption of electricity supplies in the most strategic directions,” president of the Polish Electricity Transmission and Distribution Association Robert Zasina said in a letter to the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, cited by the department.
As explained in the energy department, members of the association launched a campaign to help Ukraine last week. Among the equipment provided are the most necessary, in particular low and medium voltage cables with auxiliary materials, medium/low voltage transformers, power generators and other types of equipment.
“I would like to express my special personal gratitude to Minister of Climate and Environment of Poland, Anna Moskwa, for her unwavering support for Ukraine, both on the political front and for real actions to strengthen our energy security,” Herman Haluschenko said.
According to the Ministry of Energy, the Polish energy sector will send the next batch of aid to the Ukrainian energy sector in the near future.
Transportation of goods for Ukraine is coordinated and organized by the Polish Government Agency for Strategic Reserves.
Ukraine has come up with a proposal to sign a new international treaty on security guarantees, which will include an article similar to Article 5 of the NATO Charter, David Arakhamia, the head of the Servant of the People faction, a member of the Ukrainian delegation, said.
“About a new system of security guarantees for Ukraine. We insist that it be an international treaty, which will be signed by all security guarantors, which will be ratified so as not to repeat the mistake that was once in the Budapest Memorandum. It turned out to be just a piece of paper, and we learned now very, very painfully. We want this to be a working international mechanism of concrete security guarantees for Ukraine,” Arakhamia said at a briefing following the talks with the Russian delegation in Istanbul on Tuesday.
A meeting of the heads of delegations is taking place in Istanbul as part of the Ukrainian-Russian negotiations.
“Round of heads of delegations. David Arakhamia and Vladimir Medinsky. On the fundamental provisions of the negotiation process. Delegations are working in parallel on the entire spectrum of contentious issues,” Mykhailo Podoliak, the adviser to the head of the President’s Office of Ukraine, wrote on Twitter.
It was previously planned that the negotiations would last until March 30.
The United Nations (UN) may initiate the conclusion of agreements on a humanitarian truce between Ukraine and Russia, the UN press service reports.
“Mr. Guterres said that the UN Humanitarian Affairs chief, Martin Griffiths, would ‘immediately explore’ an agreement with Russia and Ukraine for the ceasefire,” according to a press release published on Monday.
Speaking to reporters on the same day, Guterres said that the war in Ukraine had led to “the war has led to the senseless loss of thousands of lives; the displacement of ten million people, mainly women and children; the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure; and skyrocketing food and energy prices worldwide. This must stop,” the Secretary General said.
Guterres hopes that the truce will ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid, as well as the safety of civilians.
“It [the truce] will save lives, prevent suffering, and protect civilians,” the Secretary General said.
The UN chief made it clear that any solution “to this humanitarian tragedy is not humanitarian. It is political.”
“I am therefore appealing for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, to allow for progress in serious political negotiations, [aimed] at reaching a peace agreement based on the principles of the United Nations Charter,” the Secretary General said.
