SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Iraqi government is investigating reports that an Iraqi citizen had been killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine, a ministry spokesman said on Friday.
News of the death of a Kurdish student studying in Ukraine circulated on social media on Thursday. Iraqi media reported that the student, from Kirkuk, was killed in Russian airstrikes on Ukraine.
Russia launched its invasion by land, air and sea on Thursday following a declaration of war by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials say Russia aims to capture Kyiv and topple the government, which Putin regards as a puppet of the United States.
“We have not been officially confirmed yet about the killing of an Iraqi in Ukraine,” spokesman of Iraq’s foreign ministry Ahmed al-Sahaf said in a statement.
“We are following to determine the accuracy of what is being circulated and through our high-level coordination with the official authorities in Ukraine and through the embassy of Iraq in Kyiv,” he added.
Last week, the Iraqi foreign ministry called on its citizens numbered 5,500 Iraqis to leave Ukraine.
It also decided on Friday to grant visas to Ukrainian wives and children of Iraqis, instructing the country’s embassies in Russia, Poland, Hungary and Romania to open “hotlines” to receive calls from Iraqis who want to leave Ukraine.
Russia’s Interfax news agency reported earlier on Saturday that Russian forces captured the southeastern Ukrainian city of Melitopol, as Moscow launched coordination cruise and artillery strikes on several cities, including the capital.
Ukrainian officials said Russian forces fired cruise missiles from the Black Sea at Mariupol, as well as Sumy in the northeast and Poltava in the east.
Earlier, gunfire erupted near city-centre government buildings, a Reuters witness said. The cause was not clear.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking in a video message from outside his Kyiv office, was defiant. “We will not put down weapons, we will defend our state,” he said.
Ukrainian authorities have urged citizens to help defend Kyiv from the advancing Russian forces but even as the fighting grew more intense.
Kyiv residents were told by the defense ministry to make petrol bombs to repel the invaders.
Ukraine said more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. Russia did not release casualty figures. Zelenskiy said late on Thursday that 137 soldiers and civilians been killed with hundreds wounded.
