'Bring this nightmare to an end' - US to Russia at UN on Ukraine

U.N. political affairs chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the council that Russian strikes have escalated as temperatures plunge far below freezing, killing and injuring civilians and disproportionately affecting the elderly, children and people with limited mobility.

DiCarlo said the attacks followed a troubling pattern, intensifying when weather conditions worsen and civilian need for heating becomes most acute.

The humanitarian impact was underscored by Ramesh Rajasingham, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva, who said families in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih were melting snow for washing and cooking and heating water over candles after power outages lasting more than a day.

The United States said the attacks came even as diplomatic efforts were underway to negotiate an end to the war. U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Tammy Bruce told the council that Washington was closer to a peace deal than at any point since the conflict began, but said Russia had escalated by launching a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile near the Polish and NATO border.

Bruce called the strike a dangerous escalation and urged Russia, Ukraine and Europe to pursue peace seriously and "bring this nightmare to an end."

Russia’s U.N. ambassador Vassily Nebenzia rejected accusations of targeting civilians, saying Russian forces do not strike civilian populations and blaming casualties on Ukrainian air defenses.

Ukraine’s ambassador Andrii Melnyk told the council that Russian attacks had left millions of civilians, including his own family in Kyiv, without heat or water as nighttime temperatures approached minus 20 degrees Celsius. He said Ukraine requested the emergency meeting after Russia used the Oreshnik missile for a second time, warning the nuclear-capable weapon posed a serious threat to European and international security.

Russia's defense ministry said on Monday that the target it hit last week in a strike with a hypersonic Oreshnik missile was a Ukrainian aircraft repair plant, which was disabled.

Ukraine and its European backers condemned the Russian missile strike on Friday (January 9), which they said was intended to intimidate the West in a week when European countries offered troops for a potential post-war reassurance force in Ukraine.

It was only the second time Russia has used the intermediate-range ballistic missile during the war. A Ukrainian official told Reuters the missile, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, was armed with inert dummy warheads and damaged a workshop at a state enterprise in Lviv, near the Polish border.

Russia's defense ministry said the Lviv State Aviation Repair Plant was disabled as a result of the strike, which it said hit production workshops and warehouses.

Russia said on Friday that the missile strike was a response to a Ukrainian attack on one of President Vladimir Putin's residences in northern Russia at the end of December. Kyiv has denied carrying out such an attack.