The UN announced that 23,600 civilians were killed and wounded as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The number of victims among the civilian population in Ukraine in recent months has increased to the highest level – 23,600 killed and wounded.

This was stated on Monday at the meeting of the UN Security Council, where the humanitarian situation caused by the Russian war was discussed, the UN Deputy Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, reports Ukrinform’s own correspondent in New York.

According to Griffiths, 23,600 civilian casualties (killed and wounded) have been recorded since the start of the full-scale Russian aggression, although “actual losses are probably much higher.”

He also recalled the rocket attacks by the Russian army on humanitarian aid warehouses in Odesa, the mobile hospital of the Red Cross Society in Mykolaiv, as a result of which humanitarian goods and vital medical equipment were destroyed.

The UN Deputy Secretary General noted that almost 3.6 million people received humanitarian aid in Ukraine in the first quarter of this year. We are talking about cash payments, food, medical services, etc., in particular, approximately 280,000 people received various assistance in the frontline areas.

“The biggest problem remains obstacles to access to all areas in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, which are currently under the military control of the Russian Federation,” he added. According to him, Russia has never given an opportunity to deliver humanitarian aid to communities along the front line in the occupied areas.

Griffiths also reminded that more than 30 million tons of cargo have been exported from Ukrainian ports as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, of which more than 600,000 tons of wheat have been delivered by the World Food Program in support of humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Yemen.

The latest analysis by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that world grain prices have fallen by almost 20% over the past twelve months. In April, wheat prices reached the lowest level since July 2021, in particular due to the export of Ukrainian grain. At the same time, “a reduction in the volume of exports from the Black Sea ports of Ukraine is observed due to complex dynamics in the Joint Coordination Center established in accordance with this Agreement on July 22, 2022 in Istanbul,” which includes representatives of Ukraine, Turkey, the United Nations and Russia, he noted.

At the same time, according to the deputy general secretary, efforts to implement the grain initiative “will be continued and concentrated in the coming days.”

On May 15, the UN Security Council discusses the humanitarian situation in Ukraine caused by the Russian war.