Russia has incredible chutzpah for calling an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after Ukraine had the audacity to actually strike back at Russia after many months of illegal Russian attacks.
Ukrainian airstrikes on the Russian city of Belgorad, just over the border, resulted in the deaths of 20 people and injuries to more than 100. Russia is claiming that Ukraine carried out a "deliberate indiscriminate attack against a civilian target" and a "terrorist attack", although Ukrainian spokespeople insist that only military infrastructure was targeted, Belgorod being a major supply centre for the Russian army.
Ukraine does have to be careful not to fall into the mold of Russia and Israel by indiscriminately bombing Russian towns (or even deliberately targeting civilians) - they need to maintain the moral high ground if they are to keep the support of the West. But how Russia can complain about Ukraine's illegal actions, when they have spent most of the last two years doing just that, I just don't know. I mean, who started this totally illegal war, anyway? An extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black.
As the UN discussion pointed out, if Russia has not invaded Ukraine in the first place, there would be no reason for Ukraine to attack Russian targets. The Ukraine action followed Russia's worst aerial bombardment since the start of the war in February 2022. Russia then went on to use the Ukrainian attack as their excuse for a subsequent attack on Kharkiv, which is just unbelievable. They have not seen the need to explain any of their other attacks, which have rained down on Ukraine daily over the last 22 months, most of them targeting (or at least hitting) civilian targets. The UN estimates there have been at least 10,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths since the war started.