17 dead after Russian missiles hit Ukraine; Council of Europe says Moscow's deportation of children 'genocide'

Ukraine rang with air raid alerts on Friday. Quoting local sources, Interfax Ukraine news agency reported that explosions were witnessed throughout the nation, “in cities in widely separated regions.”

As per a report by news agency AP,Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine. At least 12 people were killed in these attacks, most of them when two missiles slammed into an apartment building in the centre of the country, said, officials.

Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko, earlierreported that 10 people died in strikes on a nine-story residential building in central Ukraine's Uman city.The death toll from the Russian strikes in Ukraine's Uman has risen to 17, as per a recent report by Reuters, citing officials.

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According toUkrainian national police,17 people were wounded and three children were rescued from the rubble. Umamis located around 215 kilometres (134 miles) south of Kyiv.

The news agency quoted regional Telegram accounts and reported that unidentified airborne objects were headed for the west of Ukraine. Furthermore, explosions as per Interfax were reported after midnight in Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Poltava in central Ukraine and in Mykolaiv in the south.

Citing “another online source,” Reuters reports that an explosion was also reported in the Kyiv region.

Meanwhile, on Thursday Russian troops as per Ukrainian officers tried to cut off essential supply routes into Ukraine’s Bakhmut. This, as per the officers, was done with the motive of putting more pressure on defending forces.

Talking to the Freedom television channel, spokesperson for Ukrainian troops in the east Serhiy Cherevatyi, revealed thatin the past 24 hours, Bakhmut had seen 13 new combats.

“The enemy’s main goal in the Bakhmut sector is to cut communication routes,” he said, adding that, “thanks to constant counter-battery combat ... we can deliver supplies and evacuate our wounded.”

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksander Musiyenko, as per Reuters, said that districts were rapidly changing hands in fierce fighting that has already gone on for 15 months.

“Ukraine is successfully conducting local counter-attacks, making it difficult for the Russians to capture Bakhmut,” he told Ukrainian NV Radio.

Furthermore, in a resolution adopted on Thursday, the Council of Europe has branded Russia’s forced transfer of Ukrainian children as amounting to ‘genocide.’

Calling for the safe return of the children back home to Ukraine, it said “The documented evidence of this practice matches with the international definition of genocide.”

Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, hailed the resolution as an “important,” decision and said that it would help “hold Russia and its leaders to account”.

In his evening address, he called the forced transfer of Ukrainian children an element of “Russia’s attempt to erase the identity of our people, to destroy the very essence of the Ukrainian people”, he said in his evening address.

Previously, on March 17, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, over Moscow’s “unlawful deportation” of children. The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights.

(With inputs from agencies)

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