Source: United Nations (video statements)
Assistant Secretary-General Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee expressed alarm at “the recent escalatory rhetoric and potential for further spillover “of the Ukraine war, and said, “everything must be done to prevent this from happening.”
Briefing the Security Council, Pobee said increased attacks by the Russian Federation against Ukraine in recent weeks have caused “greater civilian casualties and damage,” and added that “only today, at least 15 people were reportedly killed across Ukraine due to Russian aerial strikes.”
She said, “drone strikes on industrial, military and energy sites have also reportedly continued to result in civilian casualties inside the Russian Federation.”
Pobee, who is Assistant Secretary-General for Africa, Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations (DPPA-DPO) said, “a drone strike reportedly hit a bus carrying a Belarusian youth soccer team in the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation. According to Russian and Belarusian authorities, one pregnant woman was killed and nine people, six of them children, were injured.”
She stressed the United Nations “does not have additional information about the incident.”
Pobee urged the Russian Federation, Ukraine and “all concerned member States to avoid any steps that could cause this war, either intentionally or unintentionally, to spread further.”