Over 2,000 civilians killed in Ukraine: Reports

Kyiv: The Ukrainian authorities on Wednesday said more than 2,000 civilians have been killed so far in Russia’s invasion, which began nearly a week back. One of those killed was an Indian student in Kharkiv’s shelling on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian embassy in Turkey gave the figure, quoting the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the BBC reported.

“Russia wants to erase our history,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemning a Russian missile strike that hit a Holocaust memorial in the capital here on Tuesday calling it “beyond humanity”.

“Such a missile strike shows that for many people in Russia our Kyiv is completely foreign. They know nothing about our capital. About our history,” Zelensky rued the attack on Babyn Yar memorial that commemorates the massacre of more than 33,000 Jews by Nazi troops in Kyiv during World War Two.

As columns of tanks faced Tiananmen-like resistance from common Ukrainians in eastern and north-western corner cities of the nation under attack, the Indian Embassy in Ukraine on Wednesday issued an “urgent” advisory and asked all Indian nationals in Ukraine to leave Kharkiv immediately.

“Urgent advisory to all Indian nationals in Kharkiv immediately. Proceed to Pesochin, Babaye and Bezlyudovka as soon as possible. Under all circumstances they must reach these settlements by 1800 hrs Ukrainian time today,” the advisory issued on Twitter said.

Zelensky’s video rang out warnings to his countrymen, reminding them, “…they (Russian) have an order to erase our history. Erase our country. Erase us all.”

Seven days into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it remained unclear how many casualties Russia has sustained, as despite Ukranian Army putting out details of Russian casualties, Moscow has not made it clewar yet.

The Ukrainian government said on Wednesday the “indicative” number of Russia’s losses stood at 5,840 people. Russia has only admitted it had “any losses” four days after it started the war, but stopped short had not given any numbers.

But multiple videos and pictures from battlefields going viral on social media, including those put out by official Facebook, Twitter and Telegram handles of Ukranian authorities, suggesting invading forces have sustained severe casualties.