The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss the situation in Ukraine, according to a revised schedule, following an appeal from Kyiv’s mayor urging residents to leave the capital due to widespread heating outages caused by Russian strikes.
“The Russian Federation has reached an appalling new level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by its terror against civilians,” Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Melnyk said in a letter to the Security Council seen by AFP on Friday.
The latest attacks have left half of Kyiv’s residential buildings without heating amid sub-zero temperatures, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko reported.
The Kremlin confirmed firing an Oreshnik ballistic missile on Ukraine, marking the second use of the weapon since the war began in February 2022.
“The Russian Federation regime officially claims that it used an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the so-called ‘Oreshnik’, against the Lviv region,” Melnyk’s letter continued.
“Such a strike represents a grave and unprecedented threat to the security of the European continent.”
Moscow asserts that the Oreshnik, capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads, cannot be intercepted.
Ukraine’s request for the emergency Security Council meeting was reportedly supported by six members: France, Latvia, Denmark, Greece, Liberia, and the United Kingdom, diplomatic sources told AFP.
