Nine people were killed in Russian attacks across Ukraine today, including a drone strike that set ablaze industrial warehouses and destroyed humanitarian aid supplies in the western city of Lviv, officials said.
Six of the victims were killed by a guided bomb that hit the northeastern town of Kupiansk, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said, describing the attack as a "military crime against the civilian population of the Kharkiv region".
One man was killed in the drone strike on Lviv and two people, including a policeman, were killed in shelling of the southern city of Kherson, local officials said.
The attacks were the latest of many carried out by Russia since it sent troops into Ukraine nearly 19 months ago in an invasion condemned at the UN General Assembly today by US President Joe Biden and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The civilian death toll is rising rapidly although Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians.
In Lviv, which is far from front lines, a huge fire broke out after three industrial warehouses were hit in an attack at around 5am (3am Irish time) this morning, emergency services said.
Photos released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine showed fire fighters tackling huge flames that lit up the sky above the burning warehouses.
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Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble, and that fire was extinguished in the late afternoon, hours after it started.
Denise Brown, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said a warehouse used by the non-governmental organisation Caritas-Spes had been destroyed.
"The vital humanitarian facility, which contained approximately 300 tons of relief supplies, was burned to the ground," she said in a statement.
'Nexus of horror'
Lviv regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi said Russian forces had launched 18 drones in the attack on his region, and that 15 had been shot down, including seven that were directly over the Lviv region.
Ukraine's air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.
Russia staged multiple air strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities last winter and has intensified attacks on port and grain infrastructure in the two months since Moscow quit a deal allowing safe exports of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports.
In New York, Mr Biden said Russia's invasion and occupation of territory violated the founding UN Charter and Mr Guterres said the invasion had unleashed "a nexus of horror."
Ukraine urges World Court to impose 'reparations' over Russia war
Ukraine has said the International Court of Justice should impose reparations on Russia for its "war of annihilation", arguing that international law itself was at stake.
"Russia is not above the law. It must be held accountable," Ukraine's lead speaker, Anton Korynevych, told the court, sitting just a few metres from his Russian opponents in the Peace Palace in The Hague.
"You have the power to declare that Russia's actions are unlawful, that its continued abuses must stop, that your orders must be followed and that Russia must make reparations," he told the judges.
He later told reporters the exact amount of reparations Ukraine would demand needs to be worked out at a later date, but that Kyiv would use every opportunity in international courts to "prove that the Russian Federation is the biggest violator of international law in the 21st century."
Ukraine dragged Russia before the ICJ only a few days after the 24 February 2022, invasion, seeking to battle its belligerent neighbour on all fronts, legal as well as diplomatic and military.
Kyiv's argument is that Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked a supposed "genocide" against pro-Russian people in eastern Ukraine as one of the reasons for Russia invading its neighbour.
This, according to Ukraine, is a misuse of the United Nations Genocide Convention, set up in 1948 and signed by both Ukraine and Russia.
"At our moment of greatest peril, Ukraine turned to this court. Your court has broad jurisdiction over disputes relating to the Genocide Convention," argued Mr Korynevych.
"Can it truly be the case that a state can abuse the Genocide Convention to justify a war of conquest?" Asked Mr Korynevych.
"It must be 'no' for the sake of the world, to prevent international law from being twisted into a tool for human right abuses and destruction," he added.
In a preliminary ruling in March last year, the ICJ sided with Ukraine and ordered Russia to halt its invasion immediately.
However, Russia objected to this judgement, saying the ICJ had no legal right to decide in this case.
In addition to the two warring countries, 32 allies of Ukraine will also take the floor tomorrow, arguing in support of Ukraine.
The ICJ was set up to settle disputes between countries but is not famed for the speed of its work. The court is likely to take months just to decide whether it can hear the case.
