On the night of April 23, Russian forces launched an attack on the city of Dnipro, resulting in the deaths of two individuals and injuries to eight others, including two children, as reported by the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Hanzha.
Among the injured are a 9-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl, both of whom were transported to a hospital. Three adults were also hospitalized, with medical staff assessing their conditions as moderate.
Hanzha confirmed the fatalities in the morning, stating that residential buildings were damaged and fires broke out as a result of the strikes.
Russian military operations have increasingly targeted Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure using various types of weaponry, including drones, missiles, and artillery systems.
Ukrainian authorities, along with international organizations, classify these attacks as war crimes, emphasizing their deliberate nature. They assert that strikes on essential services and healthcare facilities aim to deprive civilians of electricity, heat, water, communication, and medical assistance, which constitutes genocidal actions.
Legal experts and human rights advocates argue that the ongoing conflict has seen Russia commit acts that may fall under the definition of genocide. This includes public declarations by Russian officials denying the existence of Ukrainians as an ethnic group and calls for their destruction.
Furthermore, the systematic targeting of infrastructure critical to civilian life, the persecution of pro-Ukrainian individuals in occupied territories, and the cultural erasure of Ukrainian identity through educational reforms also raise serious concerns.
The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide obligates its 149 member states to prevent and punish acts of genocide both in wartime and peacetime. The convention defines genocide as actions intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Signs of genocide include the killing of group members, inflicting serious bodily harm, deliberately creating living conditions aimed at destroying a group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children from one group to another.
The Russian government has consistently denied that its military is intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure or causing civilian casualties during the ongoing conflict.
A recent attack by Russian forces on Dnipro has resulted in casualties and significant damage to civilian infrastructure. Ukrainian authorities and international organizations are condemning these actions as war crimes, raising concerns about their implications under international law.