Ukraine's aggression killed 4,374 residents in Donbass region, claims DPR Ombudsman

An estimated 4,374 residents have lost lives from July 2014 to February 24, 2022, and 8,000 others have sustained various injuries due to "Ukraine's aggression in the contentious eastern Donbass region", Human Rights Ombudsman in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Daria Morozova said, citing the data in a report to the UN Security Council on Friday. Morozova echoed Russia's President Vladimir Putin's justification for what Moscow calls a "special military operation" saying that the Ukrainian military aggression has wreaked devastation and led to the loss of human lives in Donbass where a fierce battle is ensuing between Russia's shadowy mercenaries group Wagner and Ukraine's armed forces and Foreign Legion volunteers. 

"From the beginning of the conflict and as of February 24, 2022, as a result of armed aggression by Ukraine on the territory of the DPR, 4,374 people, including 91 children, have been killed," the document published on the Ombudsman’s website read, according to Russia's state-affiliated news agency Tass. 

"Almost 8,000 civilians received injuries of various degrees of severity, including 323 children, at least 27 of them acquired a disability," the Human Rights Ombudsman in the Donetsk People's Republic stressed in Friday's report. UN Security Council, however, voted against the speech of the DPR Ombudsman at a meeting that was called to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine due to Russia's ongoing invasion. At least four countries including Russia, Brazil, Ghana, and China voiced their support for the report presented by Morozova during the procedural vote. Eight countries including Albania, the UK, Malta, the US, France, Switzerland, Ecuador, and Japan voted against the speech. Three countries Gabon, Mozambique, and UAE abstained from the voting. 

Ombudsman slams violence used by 'Ukrainian regime installed via the coup d'etat'

Morozova during her speech argued that since 2014, the Ukrainian regime which she said was installed via the coup d'etat backed by the West, "sent an army to suppress peaceful rallies using aircraft, artillery and weapons of mass lethal action" in eastern Donbass for the genocide of the ethnic Russian speaking population. Ukraine's forces not only violated international law, but also breached the fundamental principles of humanism, said Morozova. 

"Acting with particular cynicism, Ukraine not only violated all existing provisions and norms of international humanitarian law, but also demonstrated a disregard for the fundamental principles of humanity, humanism and mercy," the report published by Ombudsman summed up. "Moreover, both residents of the people's republics of Donbass and citizens who, before the start of the special military operation, lived on territories controlled by Kyiv, fell under the roller machine of neo-Nazi hatred," it continued. 

The document further alleged that Ukraine, "by the beginning of the special operation," had damaged more than 23,000 private residential buildings and about 5,000 apartment buildings by means of fire. The Human Rights Ombudsman in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) accused the Ukrainian armed formations of wiping out the Russian-speaking population. They also destroyed "about 850 educational facilities, 350 healthcare facilities and 800 housing and communal services facilities that supply consumers of the republic with gas, water, heat and electricity," the report noted.