Geneva: The United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday that it confirmed 227 civilians had been killed and 525 injured in Ukraine through midnight on March 1 following Russia's invasion of its neighbour.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Russian assault was causing damage to non-military targets but did not outright say Moscow was deliberately targeting civilians.
"We're looking very closely at what's happening in Ukraine right now including what's happening to civilians. We're taking account of it, we're documenting it and we want to ensure, among other things, that there's accountability for it," Blinken told reporters.
The UN human rights office said in a statement that most of the casualties were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, "including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and air strikes."
It said it believes the true toll in the week-long conflict is "considerably higher", especially in government-controlled territory, due to reporting delays in some areas where fighting has been most intense.
The eight-day-long invasion has yet to achieve Russian President Vladimir Putin's aim of overthrowing Ukraine's government but it has sent more than 870,000 people fleeing to neighbouring countries.
The biggest attack on a European state since 1945 has also caused ructions in a global economy still recovering from the COVID pandemic, led to a barrage of sanctions against Russia and stoked fears of wider conflict in the West.
For Russians, the fallout has included queues outside banks, a plunge in the value of the rouble, and an exodus of firms while Ukrainians are counting the cost of bombings despite fresh global support, including at the United Nations.
The Black Sea port of Kherson, a southern provincial capital of around 250,000 people, is strategically placed where the Dnipro River flows into the Black Sea and would be the first significant city to fall into Moscow's hands.
Russia's defence ministry said on Wednesday morning it had captured Kherson but several hours later an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded the Ukrainian side was continuing to defend the location.
Late on Wednesday, Mayor Igor Kolykhayev said Russian troops were in the streets.
"There were armed visitors in the city executive committee today," he said in a statement. "I didn't make any promises to them... I just asked them not to shoot people."
He called on civilians to walk through the streets only in daylight and in ones and twos.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a "special operation" that is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its neighbour's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists. It denies targeting civilians.
