Ukrainians on Tuesday were mourning the hundreds of children killed since the beginning of Russia鈥檚 invasion, hours after a fresh attack left two children wounded in the war-scarred Donetsk region.聽
June 4 marks the UN鈥檚 International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression.
More than 600 children have been killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war in 2022, according to the UN, with fighting wounding another 1,420 across the country.聽 The UN says the real figure is likely considerably higher.聽
Ukraine鈥檚 First Lady Olena Zelenska, speaking at a World War II memorial to commemorate killed children, urged her country鈥檚 allies to supply the military with more weapons to fend off Russian attacks.
鈥楬elp us save our children. We cannot measure the value of their lives by the cost of air defences,鈥� Zelenska said at the event in Kyiv, where those gathered held a moment of silence.
In central Lviv, a western Ukraine city that has been spared the brunt of fighting with Russian forces, residents hung bells and strips of white cloth on an effigy of an angel.聽
The Kremlin has repeatedly said its forces do not target civilians and that the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine will only prolong the suffering of its civilian population.
Earlier this week, a 12-year-old boy was among the latest children reported killed after a Russian aerial attack on the eastern Donetsk region.
A one-month-old boy and a 17-year-old boy were meanwhile wounded by Russian rockets earlier Tuesday in the frontline Donetsk region, local authorities said.
Meanwhile, Kyiv on Tuesday said that Italy would supply Ukraine with another air defence system, weapons that senior Ukrainian officials have been urging allies to send to fend off Russian assaults.
President Volodymyr Zelensky says his country urgently needs at least seven more systems, including two just to defend the eastern Kharkiv region, where Moscow recently launched a fresh ground offensive.
鈥業talian foreign minister Antonio Tajani confirmed that his country will provide Ukraine with a second SAMP/T air defence system,鈥� Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president鈥檚 office announced on social media.
An Italian government source confirmed to AFP the announcement from Yermak, without elaborating.
The news came as regional Ukrainian officials said eight people had been wounded in overnight Russian attacks in the central Dnipropetrovsk region and also in the eastern Kharkiv region.