At least 437 Ukrainian children have been killed as a result of Russia's invasion, Ukraine's Prosecutor General's office said on Saturday.
More than 837 children have also been injured in a tally officials said was "not final" because they were still verifying information from zones of active fighting, liberated areas and territory still occupied by Russian forces.
The eastern Donetsk region was the most affected, with 423 children killed or injured, the prosecutor's office said.
The United Nations has said at least 16,295 civilians have been killed since Russia's February 24 invasion, which Kyiv and Western leaders have denounced as an act of unprovoked aggression. Moscow denies targeting civilians.
Since the beginning of #Russia's full-scale invasion of #Ukraine, 437 children have been killed and more than 837 have been wounded, according to the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/d4Itcz7iSV
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) November 19, 2022
Russia is trying to exhaust Ukraine's air defenses
Russia's surge in missile strikes in Ukraine are partly designed to exhaust Ukraine's supplies of air defenses, something Moscow hopes would allow its forces to achieve dominance of the skies above the country, a senior Pentagon official said on Saturday.
"They're really trying to overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems," Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters during a trip to the Middle East.
"We know what the Russian theory of victory is, and we're committed to making sure that's not going to work by making sure that the Ukrainians get what they need to keep their air defenses viable."
Russia is targeting infrastructure as winter approaches
"Russian attacks on infrastructure were planned weeks in advance. The Kremlin uses winter as a weapon, trying to demoralize people who remain strong despite all the brutality inflicted on them by the occupiers," said the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, in a comment to British news outlet The i in late October.
About 10 million people are without power, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Thursday evening video address, in a country with a pre-war population of about 44 million. He said authorities in some areas ordered forced emergency blackouts.