United Nations Security Council meets in New York City, US. Reuters

The UN Security Council will hold an open meeting Monday on the worsening humanitarian situation in Ukraine as the Russian offensive intensifies.

The United States and Albania requested the meeting, which will hear briefings by UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and Catherine Russell, executive director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, diplomats said on Friday.

At the request of France and Mexico, the council meeting will be followed by closed consultations on a draft resolution on the humanitarian plight of millions of Ukrainians that the two countries have been spearheading, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations on the meeting have been private.

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The United Nations launched an emergency appeal on March 1 for $1.7 billion to respond to soaring humanitarian needs of both people who fled Ukraine and who remain in the country. It immediately received pledges of $1.5 billion, and has urged that the pledges be turned into cash quickly.

UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths attends a meeting. File photo

The UN estimates that 12 million people staying in Ukraine and four million fleeing to neighbouring countries in the coming months will need humanitarian aid.

The US Embassy in Ukraine is calling Russia’s attack on a nuclear plant a war crime.

"It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant,” the embassy statement said. "Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further.”

Russian troops seized the plant Friday in an attack that set it on fire and briefly raised fears of a nuclear disaster. The blaze was extinguished and no radiation was released.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russia’s action "nuclear terrorism” and appealed to the UN Security Council for action to safeguard Ukraine’s endangered nuclear facilities.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal appealed to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the EU to send representatives to all five of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. "This is a question of the security of the whole world,” he said in a nighttime video address.

Associated Press