Even schools, hospitals targets
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces on Thursday struck the Chernihiv region and hit schools.
“Of course, the Russian state is in such a state that any education only gets in its way. But what can be achieved by destroying Ukrainian schools? All Russian commanders who give such orders are simply sick, and incurable.”
He condemned what he suggested were senseless attacks on the refinery in the central Ukrainian industrial hub of Kremenchuk, in the Zaporizhzhia region and the Donbas.
“They are cowards, and they try to hide the truth behind missiles, airstrikes and artillery shelling,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation. “Therefore our task is to fight until we achieve our goals in this war: to free our land, our people and secure our security.”
Noting that Thursday is International Nurses Day, Zelenskyy thanked Ukraine’s nurses and other medical workers for their part in the fight and urged all Ukrainians to do the same. He said since the invasion began on Feb. 24, the Russian military had damaged 570 medical facilities, fully destroying 101 hospitals.
“What is that? It’s stupidity. It’s barbarity. It’s the self-destruction of Russia as a state that anyone in the world could see as a cultured nation.”
— Ukraine’s foreign minister said Thursday that everyone involved in the transportation and sales of grain seized by Russia in occupied areas of the country will face legal consequences.
“Russia is a criminal three times over: it bombed Syria to ruins, occupied part of Ukraine, and is now selling stolen Ukrainian grain to Syria,” Dmytro Kuleba said in a prepared statement.
“I want to remind the participants in this deal: what is stolen has never brought happiness to anyone. Everyone involved in the sale, transportation or purchase of stolen grain is an accomplice to the crime.
“Your actions will have adequate international legal consequences. We will do everything to make your life as difficult as possible,” he continued, commenting on media reports that on Wednesday, a Russian ship carrying Ukrainian grain moored off the Syrian coast.
Kuleba also claimed that thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian diplomats, Egypt and Lebanon had previously refused to buy the “looted” grain shipment.
— The U.N. children’s agency says the war in Ukraine is a “child rights crisis” where education is under attack and nearly 100 youngsters have been killed in just the last month.
UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi told the U.N. Security Council, Thursday, that more children have been injured, millions have been displaced and schools continue to be attacked and used for military purposes.
The school year came to a standstill after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and as of last week at least 15 of 89 UNICEFsupported schools in the country’s east have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting, he said.
In mid-March, over 15,000 schools resumed education in Ukraine mostly through remote learning or in-person hybrid options, he said.
“It is estimated that 3.7 million children in Ukraine and abroad are using online and distance learning options,” Abdi said.
But he stressed that there are still “enormous obstacles” to education, including availability for learning, resources, language barriers and movements of children and their families.