Foreign Minister Sybiha condemns UNICEF after agency fails to hold Russia accountable for Ukrainian civilian deaths
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Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Aug. 9 condemned the U.N. Humanitarian Aid Organization for Children (UNICEF) for failing to recognize Russia's responsibility for Ukrainian civilian casualties in a recent statement.
"It is deeply deplorable that UNICEF missed the essential point in its (Aug. 4) statement: All these children's deaths are a direct result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. By presenting these casualties without this essential context, UNICEF creates a false equivalence between the aggressor and the victim," Sybiha said in a post to X.
The UNICEF statement called for both parties to follow obligations under international humanitarian law, did not mention that Russia was behind deadly strikes that killed Ukrainian children in recent days, and did not recognize Russia's responsibility for starting its war against Ukraine.
"Moreover, UNICEF's statement lacks basic fact-checking. It failed to mention that the casualties in Russia's Krasnodar were caused by a drone reportedly intercepted by Russian air defense. It also failed to verify the information on casualties in Ukraine: seven, not three, children from one family were killed in the Dnipropetrovsk" Oblast, Sybiha said.
The original UNICEF statement refers to a reported Ukrainian attack that killed seven in Russia's Krasnodar Krai after a drone crashed onto a beach amid Ukraine's campaign against Russian military infrastructure.
Russia's attack on Dnipropetrovsk Oblast initially killed at least six members of one family when it destroyed their home, and comes as Ukrainian civilians are killed in Moscow's attacks day after day.
"These are Russia's war crimes. We call on UNICEF to condemn these heinous crimes and urge Russia to stop killing innocent Ukrainian children," Sybiha said, adding that another three-year-old boy was killed in Kyiv Oblast on Aug. 8.
Russia launched the attack against Ukraine's capital and Kyiv Oblast overnight on Aug. 8, killing four people, including a three-year-old child, and injuring eight others, President Volodymyr Zelensky and the local authorities reported.
