Ukrainian Foreign Ministry demands UNICEF to openly condemn Russia

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has demanded that UNICEF publicly condemn Russia. This was reported on August 9 by Sibikha X on social media. The request was made in connection with UNICEF's statement published on August 4 on "Children killed and injured in attacks in the Russian Federation and Ukraine."

According to the Ukrainian official, UNICEF created a "false equality between the aggressor and the victim" in its statement. Sibikha criticized the fact that the statement did not indicate that the deaths of children were a consequence of Russia's war against Ukraine.

UNICEF also mentioned in its statement that three children died on a beach in the village of Arkhipo-Osipovka, which is part of the resort city of Gelendzhik in the Krasnodar Territory of Russia. Sibikha noted that, according to available information, these deaths may have been caused by the shooting down of a drone by a Russian air defense system.

The Telegram channel "Agenstvo. Novosti" reported, citing two military experts, that the trajectory of the drone could have been caused by the actions of Russian air defenses on the beach. OSINT analyst Kirill Mikhailov believes that the incident could have been caused by the activities of a mobile fire group. At the moment, there is no information about the independent verification of these versions.

Sibikha also said that UNICEF's data on the number of children killed from one family in the Dnipropetrovsk region is incorrect. According to her, not three, but seven children from one family died as a result of the attack. The Ukrainian publication NV reported that 6-year-old Emilia, 11-year-old Azariy and 17-year-old Mark Voronov were killed in the Radushnoye settlement of the Kryvyi Rih district of the Dnipropetrovsk region. According to the publication, several other children of the family were also at home at the time of the attack - 15-year-old Dominika, 14-year-old Viorika, 12-year-old Zakhary and 10-year-old Veronika. The family's one-and-a-half-year-old grandson Artyom was also reportedly at home. It is reported that all of them may have died under the rubble.

Sibikha also recalled the death of a 3-year-old child in an airstrike in the Kiev region on August 8. The acting head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called these incidents "war crimes" by Russia and called on UNICEF to publicly condemn them. He also called on Russia to stop the attacks that are leading to the deaths of Ukrainian children.

Earlier, on August 1, Sibikha appealed to Ukrainian partners and asked for additional assistance to strengthen the country's air defense. He noted that Ukraine needs additional air and missile defense systems, as well as interceptor missiles.