UN / UKRAINE HUMANITARIAN

A top humanitarian official told the Security Council that across Ukraine, there has been “an intensified pattern of attacks on civilian infrastructure, with far-reaching humanitarian consequences.” UNIFEED

• Video Length: 00:03:45
• Production Date: 14 May 2024
• Asset Language: English; Russian
• Personal Subject: VASSILY A. NEBENZIA; SERGIY KYSLYTSYA
• Corporate Name: SECURITY COUNCIL; OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS - OCHA
• Subject Topical: ENERGY RESOURCES; WAR; DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY; INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW; PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE; ELECTRIC POWER
• Geographic Subject: UKRAINE; RUSSIAN FEDERATION
• MAMS Id: 3207375
• Parent Id: 3207084
• Alternate Title: unifeed240514g

Description

STORY: UN / UKRAINE HUMANITARIAN
TRT: 03:45
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / RUSSIAN / NATS

DATELINE: 14 MAY 2024, NEW YORK CITY / FILE

Shotlist

FILE - NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, UN Headquarters

14 MAY 2024, NEW YORK CITY

2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Lisa Doughten, Director, Financing and Partnerships Division, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“As of today, authorities report that over 7,000 civilians were evacuated from border areas of the Kharkiv region. And they have had devastating consequences for civilians who remain in those areas, with many cut off from access to food, medical care, electricity and gas. People in Donetsk and Sumy regions, in the east and the north of the country, were also impacted by attacks in recent days with homes and civilian infrastructure damaged. In total, the Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded more than 700 civilian casualties across Ukraine in April.”
4. Wide shot, Council
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Lisa Doughten, Director, Financing and Partnerships Division, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“Across Ukraine, we have also seen an intensified pattern of attacks on civilian infrastructure, with far-reaching humanitarian consequences. Since 22 March 2024 the UN and its partners have seen five waves of attacks directed against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. OHCHR recorded 50 such incidents in April alone. Kharkiv and Dnipro regions are particularly affected, with Ukraine’s Energy Ministry reporting up to 250,000 residents experiencing rolling power outages in Kharkiv and ongoing restrictions in Dnipro since March. These attacks have destroyed or damaged power generation plants and electricity substations. The impact of these power cuts on the most vulnerable is stark.”
6. Wide shot, Council
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Lisa Doughten, Director, Financing and Partnerships Division, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
“And we are alarmed by reports of attacks damaging energy infrastructure and oil refineries in the Russian Federation. Such attacks risk enflaming the war further and worsening its humanitarian impacts. I am compelled, once again, to recall that under international humanitarian law, the parties must take constant care to spare all civilians as well as civilian objects, including homes, schools, hospitals, and other essential infrastructure.”
8. Wide shot, Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya addressing Council
10. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vasily Nebenzya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Russian Federation:
“The Kyiv regime's sponsors - including those who are queuing up, namely non-members of the Security Council, EU countries - instead of this are engaging in trotting out terrifying tall tales about the situation in Ukraine and are attempting to create the impression about the intolerable suffering of civilians as a result of the actions of the Russian Federation. It is difficult to do this, rather difficult for them to do this, insofar as the Russian Aerospace Force's strikes against facilities which are related to the military capabilities of the Kyiv regime are high-precision in nature, the lives of Ukrainian cities are proceeding normally on the whole, if we are not to take into account the rounding up of Ukrainian men who the Ukrainian dictator is throwing into the front as cannon fodder.”
11. Wide shot, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya addressing Council
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Sergiy Kyslytsya, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ukraine:
“Since the end of February, Russia has carried out 388 strikes on 131 energy infrastructure facilities, hydro and thermal power plants, dams and transmission systems. These strikes destroyed almost all of Ukraine's thermal power generation. On the 27th of April alone, four thermal power plants were damaged. On May the eighth two more hydroelectric power plants were attacked by Russia, and they're no longer in operation. And all these is done by a country that called itself a friend of the UN Charter.”
13. Zoom out, end of Council session

Storyline

A top humanitarian official today (14 May) told the Security Council that across Ukraine, there has been “an intensified pattern of attacks on civilian infrastructure, with far-reaching humanitarian consequences.”

The Director of the Financing and Partnerships Division at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Lisa Doughten said, “over 7,000 civilians were evacuated from border areas of the Kharkiv region. And they have had devastating consequences for civilians who remain in those areas, with many cut off from access to food, medical care, electricity and gas.”

In Donetsk and Sumy regions, Doughten said, people, “were also impacted by attacks in recent days with homes and civilian infrastructure damaged,” and added that “700 civilian casualties across Ukraine in April.”

The humanitarian official said, “since 22 March 2024 the UN and its partners have seen five waves of attacks directed against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. OHCHR recorded 50 such incidents in April alone. Kharkiv and Dnipro regions are particularly affected, with Ukraine’s Energy Ministry reporting up to 250,000 residents experiencing rolling power outages in Kharkiv and ongoing restrictions in Dnipro since March.”

These attacks, she said, “have destroyed or damaged power generation plants and electricity substations,” and stressed that “the impact of these power cuts on the most vulnerable is stark.”

Doughten expressed alarm by reports of “attacks damaging energy infrastructure and oil refineries in the Russian Federation.”

Such attacks, she said, “risk enflaming the war further and worsening its humanitarian impacts.”

Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said, “the Kyiv regime's sponsors” are engaging in “trotting out terrifying tall tales about the situation in Ukraine and are attempting to create the impression about the intolerable suffering of civilians as a result of the actions of the Russian Federation.”

Nebenzya said it was “rather difficult for them to do this, insofar as the Russian Aerospace Force's strikes against facilities which are related to the military capabilities of the Kyiv regime are high precision in nature, the lives of Ukrainian cities are proceeding normally on the whole, if we are not to take into account the rounding up of Ukrainian men who the Ukrainian dictator is throwing into the front as cannon fodder.”

For his part, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said that since the end of February, “Russia has carried out 388 strikes on 131 energy infrastructure facilities, hydro and thermal power plants, dams and transmission systems.”

These strikes, Kyslytsya said, “destroyed almost all of Ukraine's thermal power generation,” including four thermal power plants damaged on 27 April and two more hydroelectric power plants on 8 May that “were attacked by Russia, and they're no longer in operation.”

Kyslytsya said, “and all these is done by a country that called itself a friend of the UN Charter.”