<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Russia's attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure amount to genocide, a top Ukrainian official says.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Strikes on key facilities targeted "the full Ukrainian nation" and were an effort to force Kyiv to surrender, the prosecutor-general told the BBC.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The term genocide refers to an effort to wipe out a group of people. Russia denies having any such aim.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Millions of people across Ukraine are facing power cuts in freezing weather, following sustained Russian attacks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Efforts are ongoing to reconnect homes cut off from electricity. Officials say Kherson has now been fully resupplied, following the city's recapture by Ukrainian troops earlier this month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But people in 14 regions and the capital Kyiv remain under usage restrictions, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Genocide involves "the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group", according to a definition provided by the UN Genocide Convention.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among the acts which may qualify are killing or causing serious harm to members of that group - or forcibly transferring its children elsewhere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In his BBC interview, Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin said that, as well as the attacks on the energy grid, 11,000 Ukrainian children had been forcibly deported to Russia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mr Kostin said his office was investigating reports of more than 49,000 war crimes and crimes of aggression since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on 24 February.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The "same pattern of conduct" was being seen in every Ukrainian settlement occupied by Russian forces, he observed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A war crime constitutes a violation of the so-called "rules" of war set out by international treaties including the Geneva Conventions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Among other things, the Conventions stipulate that civilians must be protected. Russia has been repeatedly accused of breaking this rule.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shelling of residential buildings in Dnipro over the weekend left one person dead and 13 others injured, according to the governor of the wider region.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, police said 32 civilians had been killed by strikes in Kherson since Russian troops left the southern city earlier this month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Saturday, Ukraine marked the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor - a man-made famine that killed millions of people during Soviet rule.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of the war crimes seen since Russia invaded in February, Mr Kostin said 260 people had been indicted and 13 verdicts had been issued by Ukrainian courts.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He called for the creation of an "international ad-hoc tribunal", supported by countries of "the whole civilised world" who opposed the invasion to hold Russia to account.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In other developments, the head of Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom says there are signals Moscow's soldiers could be preparing to leave the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Both sides have accused each other of shelling the site - which was captured by the Russians in March - causing worries of a dangerous nuclear accident.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But Petro Kotin cautioned that there was no evidence of any Russian departure yet. BBC</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>