Ukraine at War Update for April 9: Civilian Casualties in Kharkiv Mount Amid Constant Aerial Attacks

More than a dozen civilians killed in Russian aerial attacks on Kharkiv

Fifteen civilian residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, have been killed from April 1 to April 7, due to cross-border airborne attacks, the Ministry of Emergencies Services says.

Another 48 people have been injured as Russia is making the nation’s second most populous city uninhabitable.

More than 410,000 people lack access to power in the region, according to Gyunduz Mamedov, a deputy prosecutor general.

“Over the past month, the Russian army has carried out more than 20 attacks on energy facilities in the region, destroying more than 80 percent of infrastructure,” he said on X (formerly Twitter).

The city’s population stood at 1.2 million-1.3 million people, the regional military administration head, Oleh Synyehubov, said at a briefing late last year.

Nearly 200,000 internally displaced people are registered in the northeastern city as of Feb. 1, the Kharkiv City Council said.

Nationwide, there are almost 5 million internally displaced people registered, the Social Policy Ministry said on March 25, of whom 3.5 million moved since February 2022 when Russia’s all-out invasion began.

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UN, Justice Ministry partner to ease bureaucracy for displaced Ukrainians

Millions of documents related to residents of the easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk are being digitalized to ease bureaucratic hurdles, the Justice Ministry reported together with the United Nations.

With funding from Sweden, the project plans to scan over 3 million documents retrieved from archives in war-affected regions. They include information about births, deaths, marriages, divorces and changes to names of people from those regions.

Forty-five days into the project, the Justice Ministry has managed to process more than 800,000 documents dating to the 1940s in the city of Dnipro where the endeavor is taking place.

“Ukrainians who relocated from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, encountered the most difficult and frequent bureaucratic obstacles during the registration of public services, including because it was difficult to check and verify legal records,” Serhii Orlov, Deputy Justice Minister for Digital Development, Digital Transformation and Digitalization said in a news recent news release.

Many internally displaced persons face bureaucratic problems when moving because they either can’t retrieve documents that identify them or are in a hurry to flee amid invading Russian forces in their population centers.

Zelensky voices concern over energy and safety situation in Kharkiv

Kyiv is “maximizing” its efforts on helping residents of Kharkiv maintain access to power and for local businesses to thrive amid ongoing Russian bombardment, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation.

“Together with our partners, we're working to bolster air defense,” Zelensky said.

The previous day, Zelensky said that Ukraine needs an additional 25 Patriot air defense systems to protect the country’s skies.

He reported meeting on April 8 with government officials on how better to assist in war-affected areas of the Kharkiv region “socially and economically.”

“I thank everyone who is working for the sake of Ukrainian strength,” he concluded the message.