A handout photo released by State Emergency Service shows rescuers working at the site of a damaged residential building after a missile attack, in Uman, Cherkasy region, central Ukraine, 28 April 2023, amid Russia's invasion. At least six people were killed as a result of a rocket attack in Uman, and nine others injured, the Head of the Cherkasy Regional Military Administration, Ihor Taburets wrote on telegram. Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs said on 28 April, that the Russian army conducted attacks on residential buildings across the country, including Dnipro, Uman and Ukrainka in the Kyiv region. Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory in February 2022, starting a conflict that has provoked destruction and a humanitarian crisis. EPA-EFE/STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE OF UKRAINE HANDOUT -- BEST QUALITY AVAILABLE -- MANDATORY CREDIT: STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE OF UKRAINE -- HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALESIn its findings on Russia, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on the Russian authorities to investigate allegations of human rights violations committed during the invasion of Ukraine.
"The Committee was deeply concerned about the grave human rights violations committed during the ongoing armed conflict by the Russian Federation's military forces and private military companies ...," it said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from the Russian permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva.
In its report, the committee listed excessive use of force, arbitrary detentions, killings and the forcible transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia among the violations committed.
Russia, which the U.N. committee said had refused to provide it with information on the conflict, has denied committing atrocities and deliberately attacking civilians in Ukraine. It denies deporting Ukrainian children to Russia, saying it has evacuated them to keep them safe.
"The refusal of the Russian Federation to address these issues did not hinder us from addressing them in our concluding observations, but of course it made our work more difficult," committee member Mehrdad Payandeh told reporters in Geneva.
"We would have liked to engage in a constructive dialogue."
The U.N. committee also noted its concern about the Russian military drafting soldiers from ethnic minorities and "incitement to racial hatred and propagation of racist stereotypes against ethnic Ukrainians", including on state-owned television.
Rights activists from one region, Buryatia, have accused the authorities of focusing their draft efforts on far-flung regions with ethnic minorities to avoid sparking popular anger in Moscow and other major cities.
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by William Maclean and Kevin Liffey)
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