Lithuania joins Canada in recognizing Russia's actions in Ukraine as genocide

Lithuania's parliament has voted unanimously to describe Russia's actions in Ukraine as "genocide" and "terrorism," two weeks after a similar move by Canadian lawmakers.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte co-sponsored the motion, which listed off evidence of suspected war crimes, including the deliberate killing of civilians, mass rape, forcible relocation of Ukrainian citizens to Russia and the destruction of economic infrastructure and cultural sites.

Lithuania also called for an international tribunal, modelled after the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War.

Later this week, the United Nations' top human rights body is expected to hold a special session to discuss the worsening human rights situation on the ground. 

U.S. President Joe Biden has previously said he believed the invasion of Ukraine amounted to genocide but that he would leave it up to lawyers to make a final determination.

Moscow denies targeting civilians and describes its invasion as a "special military operation," which Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed on the West, NATO and hostilities from Ukraine.

On Monday, a barrage of attacks slammed Ukraine's strategically placed port city of Odesa after Putin marked his country's biggest patriotic holiday without being able to boast of any major battlefield successes.

The Ukrainian military said Russian forces fired seven missiles at Odesa, hitting a shopping centre and a warehouse. One person was killed and five were wounded.

The Centre for Defence Strategies, a Ukrainian think-tank tracking the war, said that during the attack a Russian supersonic bomber fired three hypersonic missiles. It identified the weapons used as Kinzhal, or "Dagger," hypersonic air-to-surface missiles.

The Kinzhal can fly at five times the speed of sound. Using advanced guided missiles allows Russia to fire from aircraft at a distance without being in Ukrainian air space and exposed to potential anti-aircraft fire.

According to the latest update from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 3,381 civilians have been killed and 3,680 injured in Ukraine since the invasion began at 4 a.m. on Feb. 24.

But the head of the UN human rights monitoring mission, Matilda Bogner, said the death toll is believed to be considerably higher than official records show. 

Bogner said the mission had received reports that more than 300 men, women and children were unlawfully killed in Bucha during the Russian occupation.

The World Health Organization's European chief has also released sobering numbers, reporting some 200 attacks in Ukraine on health-care facilities and estimating that at least 3,000 people have died in the country due to a lack of access to treatments for chronic diseases.