FRANKFURT, March 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Germany will increase its weapons deliveries to Ukraine following the Russian invasion by sending an 2,700 anti-aircraft missiles to the conflict zone, a government source said.
The government “approved further support for Ukraine”, involving the delivery of STRELA-type anti-aircraft missiles of Soviet manufacture, which were previously used by the army of communist East Germany, the source said.
The weapons would come out of the depots once overseen by Soviet-controlled East Germany, which reunited with West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Over the weekend, the German government decided to supply Ukraine with 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 1,000 anti-tank weapons.
A source said that the missiles were “ready to be transported” but that the Federal Security Council has yet to approve the move.
Germany had refused to send weaponsto Ukraine before the Russian government launched its offensive last Thursday. But the move marked “a historical shift,” according to Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“In this situation it is our duty to support Ukraine’s defense against the invading army of Vladimir Putin to the best of our ability,” he said after the attack.
Meanwhile, the UN said that it had recorded nearly 230 civilian deaths in Ukraine, including 15 children, since
Russia’s full-scale invasion began, warning that the true toll was likely far higher.
The UN rights office, OHCHR, said it had registered 752 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including 227 people killed and 525 people wounded, between Feb 24, when Russia invaded, and midnight Tuesday.
“OHCHR believes that real figures are considerably higher,” it said in a statement.
This was particularly true in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, it said, pointing out that “the receipt of information from some locations where intensive hostilities have been going on was delayed and many reports were still pending corroboration.”
The UN rights agency said that most of the casualties were “caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and air strikes.”
It pointed out that its tally, though an underestimate, was “more than the total number of civilian casualties recorded by OHCHR in the conflict zone of eastern Ukraine” from 2012 to 2018. — NNN-AGENCIES
