Taoiseach: 'Ukraine didn’t start this war. Russia should cease its hostilities and, above all, it should stop targeting civilians'

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has described the slaughter of civilians in conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan as shocking.

Mr Martin was speaking in the wake of a Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv, which killed 12 people and injured more than 80 this week.

The strikes had followed an announcement by Moscow of a 30-hour Easter ceasefire, which both sides accused each other of violating multiple times, and came against the backdrop of faltering US-backed peace talks.

Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

The Taoiseach told The Echo that the targeting of civilians was a disturbing and growing tactic in modern warfare.

“It’s quite shocking that, despite all the talk of ceasefires and peace talks, the level of attack on civilian infrastructure is of the scale that it is,” he said.

“The invasion was wrong in the first instance — it violates the UN Charter.

“Ukraine didn’t start this war. Russia should cease its hostilities and, above all, it should stop targeting civilians.

“In all modern warfare, the degree to which belligerents are attacking civilians is quite extraordinary.

“We have it in Gaza, where innocent civilians are being slaughtered — and young children in particular.

“We have it in Ukraine; we have it in Sudan, where 15m people are now displaced and millions more are facing famine,” Mr Martin added.

“It’s absolutely shocking; it’s the forgotten war.”

“Ireland is working with the non-government organisations and the UN agencies to do what we can, but it’s quite shocking the degree to which civilian populations and communities are being targeted and slaughtered.”

The civil war in Sudan, which is led by two rival generals, broke out in April 2023.

In the two years since then, it has seen tens of thousands of people killed, left millions of people displaced, and created what the International Rescue Committee has described as “the biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded”.