Key facts
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha criticized UNICEF for omitting Russia's responsibility for civilian deaths in Ukraine.
- Sybiha stated UNICEF's statement created a false equivalence between the aggressor and the victim.
- The UNICEF statement called for both parties to adhere to international humanitarian law.
- Sybiha pointed out factual inaccuracies in UNICEF's reporting on casualties in Krasnodar and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
- Recent Russian attacks have resulted in civilian deaths in Ukraine, including children.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Aug. 9 condemned the U.N. Humanitarian Aid Organization for Children (UNICEF) for failing to explicitly recognize Russia's responsibility for Ukrainian civilian casualties in a recent statement. Sybiha stated that by presenting casualties without this context, UNICEF creates a false equivalence between the aggressor and the victim. The UNICEF statement, issued on Aug. 4, called for both parties to adhere to international humanitarian law but did not mention Russia's role in deadly strikes that killed Ukrainian children. Sybiha also accused UNICEF of lacking basic fact-checking, citing discrepancies in casualty numbers and the attribution of events in Russia's Krasnodar region and Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. He highlighted that Russia's attacks on Ukraine have resulted in daily civilian deaths, including a three-year-old child killed in Kyiv Oblast on Aug. 8.