Russia-Ukraine live updates: U.S. citizen killed in Chernihiv; strike near Kharkiv leaves at least 23 dead

The United Nations on Thursday put the total of civilian casualties in Ukraine as of Tuesday at 1,900, including 726 killed — 52 of them children.

Rosemary DiCarlo, the U.N. undersecretary general for political affairs, said, as she has in the past, that the “actual number is likely much higher.” Ukrainian officials have estimated the number of dead in the thousands.

Most of the deaths, DiCarlo told the U.N. Security Council, are from “the use in populated areas of explosive weapons with wide-impact areas,” including strikes on apartment buildings, schools, and 43 health-care facilities.

DiCarlo was one of three senior U.N. officials who outlined the current humanitarian situation for the council. Raouf Mazou, the assistant high commissioner for refugees, said more than 3.1 million people have now fled Ukraine. About two-thirds have gone to Poland, he said, with hundreds of thousands each in Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia.

Ninety percent of the refugees were women and children, Mazou said.

WHO Director General Tedros Ghebreyesus said evacuation and aid convoys were again unable to reach the cities of Mariupol and Sumy. “In every case,” he said, “the only solution is peace … As if covid is not enough, to have a devastating war like this is dangerous for the world.”

Most of the country representatives who spoke after the presentations were harshly critical of the Russian offensive. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she had just met with Ukrainian civil society representatives who told her of people standing in a bread line who were gunned down by Russian soldiers.

Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya, who was furiously taking notes as Thomas-Greenfield spoke, said he shared concerns about the humanitarian crisis, but then denounced most of the specific charges as a “hyped-up campaign of lies and disinformation.”

He denied charges of Russian shelling this week of the historic theater in Mariupol, where refugees had sought shelter, and reports of an attack against a Turkish mosque in that city.

As he has in the past, Nebenzya said many of the attacks had been conducted by Ukrainian “Nazis” who used civilians as human shields. He claimed his country had evacuated 271,000 Ukrainians who sought refuge in Russia.