Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia seizes nuclear plant in Ukraine; radiation levels stable after fire

The United Nations’ top human rights body voted decisively Friday to set up a commission to investigate alleged Russian rights violations during its invasion of Ukraine.

By a vote of 32 to 2, with 13 abstentions, the Geneva-based Human Rights Council passed a resolution brought by Ukraine and backed by many Western countries. Only Russia and Eritrea voted against it. China was among the countries that abstained.

The council’s resolutions are not legally binding, but it can authorize inquiries such as the one establishing a three-member panel of experts to look into human rights violations resulting from Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Yevheniia Filipenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told the council just before the vote that her country had “irrefutable evidence of gross and systematic human rights violations, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity by Russia,” Reuters reported. “It is our common duty to ensure accountability by mandating the documentation and verification of Russia’s crimes and identification of those responsible,” she said.

Most council members blasted Russia during debate on the resolution, and many Western envoys wore ties, scarves, jackets or ribbons with the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag, the Associated Press reported.

Russia’s delegate, Evgeny Ustinov, told the council that the resolution’s backers “will use any means to blame Russia for the events in Ukraine,” according to Reuters. Russia has denied targeting civilians in Ukraine, and its government has barred Russian media from describing its military operations as an “invasion” or “attack.”

KYIV, Ukraine — On Sunday a passenger bus was riddled with bullets on a main road leading northwest out of Kyiv. One person died, and one was injured in the shooting.

It is unclear who fired on the bus; Ukrainian territorial defense forces claim that Russian infiltrators did the shooting, while others claim it was an incident of friendly fire between Ukrainian units.

This road leads to Irpin and Hostomel, and to regions controlled by the Russian military.

The mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson said Friday that humanitarian corridors agreed to in negotiations with Russia and aimed at allowing supplies into the area are not working as planned.

A vital port and Black Sea shipbuilding city of almost 290,000 people, Kherson was among the first Ukrainian cities to be targeted by Russian forces as they swept into Ukraine. Eyewitnesses say that it is the first major city to fall to Kremlin forces, but Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has not confirmed it is controlled by Moscow.

On Thursday leaders from Ukraine and Russia said they had agreed to temporary local cease-fires to create “humanitarian corridors” so civilians can be evacuated and food and medicine can be delivered.

“Despite yesterday’s agreements at the highest level, in practice … all this is not yet working,” Mayor Igor Kolykhaev said in a Facebook post.

“But, apparently, the ‘good liberators’ are preparing to bring their ‘salvation’ to Kherson. First, they brought the situation to a critical point, and then they will heroically rescue us,” he added, referring to Russia.

The secretary of the city council, Galina Luhova, said the city was running out of medicine and food supplies and facing a “global catastrophe” if a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to be evacuated, and food and medicines to be delivered isn’t functioning soon.

“In Kherson, we are running out of food — literally, we can still last for maybe three, four days,” Luhova told The Post by telephone. The fighting has left large portions of Kherson without electricity and running water. “People are in a panic, people are tense, people are frightened just to the core of their souls,” she said.

Kolykhaev also said Russian forces were preventing Ukrainian government officials from bringing in supplies and that mobile communications had faced problems and the local television center had been taken over.

“I give you my word: I do what I can. But I don’t know how long it will take. Please: Think, stay human, help each other,” he added.

Reports from other cities in Ukraine’s south told a story of increasing desperation as communications and transport routes were cut off and supplies dwindled. The mayor of Mariupol said a Russian siege and hours of shelling that battered rail links and bridges had cut off water, power and food supplies. The mayor of Odessa, a major port on the Black Sea, said the population was preparing to mount a defense amid unverified reports that a large fleet of Russian warships was heading toward the waters off the coast.

With almost all Russian forces inside Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv explore limited cease-fire

Microsoft is suspending all new sales of products and services in Russia, in a major addition to the flood of companies cutting ties over the invasion of Ukraine.

The company said it was also stopping “many aspects of our business in Russia in compliance with governmental sanctions decisions.”

“Like the rest of the world, we are horrified, angered and saddened by the images and news coming from the war in Ukraine and condemn this unjustified, unprovoked and unlawful invasion by Russia,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.

Microsoft added that it was helping cybersecurity officials in Ukraine “defend against Russian attacks, including most recently a cyberattack against a major Ukrainian broadcaster.”

“Since the war began, we have acted against Russian positioning, destructive or disruptive measures against more than 20 Ukrainian government, IT and financial sector organizations,” Smith said. “We have also acted against cyberattacks targeting several additional civilian sites. We have publicly raised our concerns that these attacks against civilians violate the Geneva Convention.”

Smith’s statement concluded, “Like so many others, we stand with Ukraine in calling for the restoration of peace, respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and the protection of its people.”

DAKAR — Senegal’s foreign ministry on Thursday condemned a Facebook post by Ukraine’s embassy in the West African nation calling for people to join the fight against Russia.

Recruiting volunteers, mercenaries and foreign fighters for the war is “illegal” and punishable by law, the ministry said in a statement.

Thirty-six people had signed up to deploy, the statement added. The Ukrainian ambassador was summoned to the ministry to explain the post, where Senegalese officials asked him to take it down. The Ukrainian embassy in Senegal declined to comment.

Senegal was one of 17 African countries that abstained from a United Nations vote rebuking the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Friday, Arina, a 7-year-old Ukrainian girl, walked out of her refugee camp tent to a chorus of Romanian workers singing “Happy Birthday.”

Video posted by the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs shows camp staffers hosting an impromptu party for Ariana complete with cake, pizza and several gifts.

The camp, in Siret, Romania, on the eastern border of Ukraine, has had an influx of refugees as fighting continues across Ukraine.

LONDON — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba alleged Friday that there had been “numerous cases” of Ukrainian women being raped by Russian soldiers, and he called for the Russian government to be held accountable.

“When bombs fall on your cities, when soldiers rape women in the occupied cities — and we have numerous cases of, unfortunately, when Russian soldiers rape women in Ukrainian cities — it’s difficult, of course, to speak about the efficiency of the international law,” he said.

Kuleba was speaking at an online event at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. He did not provide any evidence to back up his assertion.

The foreign minister was joining other panelists who were urging countries to support the creation of a special tribunal to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

Kuleba said he welcomed the recent move by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to launch an investigation but also supported the creation of a special tribunal to “fill a gap” in international law.

Dapo Akande, a professor of public international law at the University of Oxford, said that a special tribunal would be “complementary to the efforts of the ICC,” which cannot at present deal with crimes of aggression because Russia is not a party to that statute of the ICC.

He said the ICC still could take up the matter if the United Nations Security Council were to refer it to the prosecutors in The Hague. But he said that “as Russia is a permanent member of that security council, it would veto any attempt to refer the situation to the ICC.”

The online panel included former British prime minister Gordon Brown, who said that a special tribunal could be structured like the one created after meetings in London in 1942, during World War II, as a step toward the international military tribunals and the postwar Nuremberg trials.

“I’m surprised that this morning, now that the Russian government has taken over a second nuclear power station in Ukraine, and now are in control of it, they have not made a statement that they will not allow that nuclear station to be used to endanger and threaten human life,” Brown said.

“Please remember,” Brown said, “that what is happening even now is an offense that has got to be recognized and dealt with.”

Behind the Story is a series where we show how we report and produce our journalism.

The Post has been covering the escalating war in Ukraine closely, with correspondents based in Ukraine and other teams around the world covering developments 24/7. We spoke to Moscow correspondent Isabelle Khurshudyan, video journalist Whitney Leaming and staff photographer Salwan Georges. The three have been reporting together on the front lines of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. They spoke to us from Dnipro, after leaving Kharkiv as heavy shelling hit the city on Monday.

We spoke to each person over the phone. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

How long have you been reporting on the Russia-Ukraine conflict? When did you decide you needed to go to Ukraine?

Isabelle: For me, the conflict really started last spring when we saw the first Russian buildup around Ukraine. Back then, everybody was pretty convinced that it was a show of force: saber-rattling, challenging the Biden administration. People didn’t take the buildup seriously.