A 72-year-old woman was killed and eight others injured in the Kherson region on February 28 due to Russian shelling, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration.
Prokudin stated that the attack occurred around 14:30, resulting in injuries that were deemed incompatible with life for the elderly woman. The regional authorities reported that the previous day, Russian strikes had caused injuries to eight individuals across the area.
The attacks targeted critical and social infrastructure, damaging residential buildings, including four apartment complexes and eleven private homes. Additionally, a mobile communication tower, transport facilities, minibuses, trolleybuses, and private vehicles were also affected.
Russian forces have been consistently using various types of weaponry, including strike drones, missiles, and multiple rocket launch systems, to target Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure throughout the country.
Ukrainian officials and international organizations classify these attacks as war crimes, asserting that they are deliberate in nature. The bombardments of essential services and healthcare facilities aim to deprive civilians of electricity, heating, water supply, communication, and medical assistance, which some legal experts and human rights advocates characterize as genocidal actions.
During the ongoing conflict, Russia has been accused of committing various acts that could fall under the definition of genocide, as outlined in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This includes public declarations by Russian officials denying the existence of Ukrainians as an ethnic group and calls for their destruction.
The Convention obligates its 149 member states to prevent and punish acts of genocide during both wartime and peacetime. It defines genocide as actions intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
The characteristics of genocide include the killing of group members, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about the group’s destruction, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children from one group to another.
Russian leadership has denied that its military conducts targeted strikes against civilian infrastructure, asserting that it does not intentionally harm civilians or destroy hospitals, schools, and other essential services.
Recent Russian strikes in the Kherson region have resulted in civilian casualties, including one fatality. Authorities report extensive damage to infrastructure, raising concerns about potential war crimes.