United Nations warns Russia over potential war crimes during invasion of Ukraine

The UN warned Russia Friday that attacks that target civilians were banned and could amount to war crimes, as it raised the use of cluster bombs in Ukraine.

The UN human rights office said Friday it was gravely concerned by the rising death toll in the conflict following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has recorded 564 civilians killed and 982 injured, though it acknowledged that the actual figures are "considerably higher".

"We remind the Russian authorities that directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, as well as so-called area bombardment in towns and villages and other forms of indiscriminate attacks, are prohibited under international law and may amount to war crimes," OHCHR spokeswoman Elizabeth Throssell said.

"Civilians are being killed and maimed in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks, with Russian forces using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in or near populated areas," she told reporters in Geneva.

She said these included missiles, heavy artillery shells, rockets and airstrikes.

"We have also received credible reports of several cases of Russian forces using cluster munitions, including in populated areas."

Throssell said on February 24, a cluster munition exploded at the Central City Hospital in Vuhledar, in government-controlled Donetsk, killing four civilians and injuring 10 others.

It also damaged ambulances, civilian vehicles and the hospital itself.

"There were other cluster munition attacks in several districts of Kharkiv, in which nine civilians were killed and 37 injured," she said.

"Due to their wide area effects, the use of cluster munitions in populated areas is incompatible with the international humanitarian law principles governing the conduct of hostilities."

Russian strikes hit fresh civilian targets in central and eastern Ukraine Friday, including a city previously considered a safe haven, as Moscow's troops edged closer to the capital Kyiv.