Ukrainians Refugee Count Tops 1 Million

Ukrainian Refugees Top 1 MillionCanva Image

As the hostilities in eastern Ukraine drag into the 15th year, over 1 million people have fled eastern Ukraine. This is the fastest mass evacuation this century. Russian military forces created tensions in Kharkiv and blockaded two strategic seaports.

The Associated Press reported statistics from when the U.N. refugee agency issued the figures. The numbers highlighted 2% of Ukraine's population fleeing within seven days, evidenced in Kharkiv, where people desperate to outrun falling munitions and bombs crowded the city's train station and pressed onto trains without knowing where they were going.

A.P. reporters in Kyiv heard shots before videos surfaced on the internet showing apparent explosions in the capital.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said it had destroyed a broadcasting facility in the Lysa Hora region, about 7 kilometers south of the government headquarters. It claimed to have done so with unspecified precision weapons and that no civilians were injured or property damaged as a result.

A statement issued by the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces failed to clarify the strikes, simply stating that the Russian soldiers were "regrouping" and "trying to reach the northern outskirts" of the city.

Moscow's isolation deepened when the vast majority of the world lined up against it at the international court to demand it withdraw its forces from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened a departmental investigation into possible war crimes.

Russia Suffers Casualties

For the first time on the battlefield, Russia claimed its military casualties, saying it had suffered more than 500 casualties and around 1,600 wounded. Ukraine did not disclose its military losses but reported 2,000 civilian deaths, a figure that couldn't be independently verified.

The Ukrainian military's general staff revealed on a Facebook post that the statistics indicate that Russia experienced 9,000 casualties over the fighting. It did not specify whether the total included both killed and wounded soldiers.