UNITED NATIONS: Following the mayor of Kyiv’s call for inhabitants to evacuate the capital due to widespread power outages brought on by Russian strikes, the UN Security Council will convene on Monday to address Ukraine, according to a revised timetable. In a letter to the Security Council obtained by AFP on Friday, Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk stated, “The Russian Federation has reached an appalling new level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by its terror against civilians.” According to Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko, the most recent strikes left half of Kyiv’s residential structures without heating in below-freezing conditions. Additionally, the Kremlin acknowledged that it has fired an Oreshnik ballistic missile against Ukraine for the second time since the conflict started in February 2022.
The ambassador’s letter went on, “The Russian Federation regime officially claims that it used an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the so-called ‘Oreshnik’ against the Lviv region.” “The security of the European continent is seriously and unprecedentedly threatened by such a strike.” Moscow asserts that it is difficult to halt the Oreshnik, which has both conventional and nuclear warheads. Six UNSC members—France, Latvia, Denmark, Greece, Liberia, and the United Kingdom—supported Ukraine’s request for an urgent meeting, diplomatic sources told AFP.
