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NATO countries supply Kiev with weapons of increasing range — ombudsperson

According to Tatyana Moskalkova, since February 2022, 8,800 civilians, including 50 children, have been killed as a result of shelling and bombardment, including with weapons supplied by the US and the West

ANKARA, January 12. /TASS/. NATO countries are supplying Ukraine with increasingly longer-range weapons that are being used against Russia, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova told an international conference of ombudspersons on the future of human rights in the 21st century in Ankara on Thursday.

"Regretfully, NATO countries are beginning to supply Ukraine with weapons of longer and longer range. Since February 2022, 8,800 civilians, including 50 children, have been killed as a result of shelling and bombardment, including with weapons supplied by the US and the West. As many as 6,500 people have been wounded, including 344 children," the human rights commissioner said.

"There is a children's cemetery in Donetsk where children who died as a result of shelling by Ukraine are buried. It is called the Cemetery of Angels," Moskalkova said, showing slides.

According to her, over five million refugees from Ukraine are currently staying in Russia. "Why did they flee to Russia, who threatened them? The answer is quite obvious: they fled to save their lives. They were kicked out of their homes into basements, so that their apartments could be used as firing points," the ombudswoman went on to say.

"Unfortunately, we did not hear the speech of a human rights defender here," Moskalkova said, referring to the speech of Ukrainian ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets at the panel discussion. "I would like to say that we started working with the first human rights ombudsperson of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament), Korpacheva, in 2014 in order to first of all establish relations in order to help people. There, where diplomats fail to find common ground, we, human rights defenders, must find mechanisms that will help people to better their lot," she stressed.

Moskalkova reiterated that she has had a 24-hour hotline since the beginning of the special military operation, as well as psychologists and a special team, whose tasks are to solve within 24 hours issues related to assistance, the evacuation of people and hospitalization. "I immediately appealed to the Ukrainian ombudsperson so that we, the ombudspersons, could establish a unique humanitarian corridor for assistance. I received no support. We heard the language of hatred, genocide and rejection, which deadlocked our mission," Moskalkova said.