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Russia's attack on energy infrastructure amounts to genocide: Ukraine

  • International
  • 28 November, 2022 15:23:34

Photo: Collected

International Desk: Ukraine has claimed that Russia's attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure is equal to genocide. The country claims that Russia's attack on key installations targets "the entire Ukrainian nation" and is an attempt to force Kiev to surrender.

On Sunday (November 27), the Prosecutor-General of Ukraine said this, according to a report of the British media BBC.

According to the report, the term genocide refers to the attempt to wipe out a group of people. However, Russia has denied any such attacks.

Millions of people across Ukraine have been left without power in freezing weather, mainly due to Russia's continued attacks. Attempts are being made to restore power to the homes that have been cut off.

Officials say the area has now been fully restored to power after Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Kherson earlier this month. However, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky, residents of the capital, Kiev, and 14 other regions of the country are under power restrictions.

As defined by the UN Genocide Convention, genocide includes the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. Even killing or seriously harming members of a group - or forcibly relocating their children - can be considered genocide.

In an interview with the BBC, Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin said that in addition to the attack on the energy grid, 11,000 Ukrainian children were forcibly deported to Russia.

Kostin said his office has investigated more than 49,000 reports of war crimes and crimes of aggression since Russia began full-scale aggression on February 24 this year.

He claims that every Ukrainian settlement occupied by Russian forces is witnessing 'the same kind of behaviour'.

Violations of the so-called 'rules' of war laid down by international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions, are considered war crimes. Among other things, the conventions stipulate that civilians must be protected even in war. However, Russia has repeatedly been accused of breaking this rule.

One person was killed and 13 injured in shelling of residential buildings in Dnipro last weekend. Also, 32 civilians have been killed in attacks in Kherson since Russian troops left the southern city earlier this month, police said.

Media say Russia has stepped up missile attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks. Basically, Russia launched an attack on Ukraine's energy network and infrastructure on October 8 in retaliation for the deadly explosion and fire incident on Europe's largest rail and road bridge connecting Russia with the Crimea peninsula.

Among them was a drone attack on a Russian fleet in the Black Sea near Sevastopol, the largest port city in the occupied Crimea peninsula, last month. After that, on several occasions, Russia launched a barrage of missiles targeting Ukraine's energy facilities.

According to the BBC, Russia recently carried out the heaviest airstrikes in Ukraine since the start of the war. Those attacks also targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian buildings.

These recent attacks by Russia are part of a broader strategy after the failure of the main frontal war, and as winter sets in, the effects of this Russian strategy are beginning to be felt more acutely in Ukraine.

 

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