9,000 Ukrainian troops killed since war began, general says

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has already killed some 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers since it began nearly six months ago, a general said, and the fighting Monday showed no signs that the war is abating.

At a veteran’s event, Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said many of Ukraine’s children need to be taken care of because “their father went to the front line and, perhaps, is one of those almost 9,000 heroes who died.”

In Nikopol, across the river from Ukraine’s main nuclear power plant, Russian shelling wounded four people Monday, an official said. The city on the Dnieper River has faced relentless pounding since July 12 that has damaged 850 buildings and sent about half its population of 100,000 fleeing.

“I feel hate towards Russians,” said 74-year-old Liudmyla Shyshkina, standing on the edge of her destroyed fourth-floor apartment in Nikopol that no longer has walls. She is still injured from the Aug. 10 blast that killed her 81-year-old husband, Anatoliy.

“The Second World War didn’t take away my father, but the Russian war did,” noted Pavlo Shyshkin, his son.

The U.N. says 5,587 civilians have been killed and 7,890 wounded in the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on Feb. 24, although the estimate is likely an undercount. The U.N. children’s agency said Monday that at least 972 Ukrainian children have been killed or injured since Russia invaded. UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said these are U.n.-verified figures but “we believe the number to be much higher.”

U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of Britain, France and Germany pleaded Sunday for Russia to end military operations so close to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant — Europe’s largest — but Nikopol came under fire three times overnight from rockets and mortar shells. Houses, a kindergarten, a bus station and stores were hit, authorities said.

There are widespread fears that continued shelling and fighting in the area could lead to a nuclear catastrophe. Russia has asked for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday to discuss the situation.

Vladimir Rogov, an official with the Russia-installed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said Monday that because of the shelling, staffing at the nuclear plant has been cut, with only skeletal personnel remaining to maintain its operations.

ANDRIY ANDRIYENKO/AP Lyudmila Kolesnik (center), the mother of activist Julia Chaika, weeps over her coffin during a funeral service Sunday in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. The U.N. says 5,587 civilians have been killed since the war began.