Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed fresh hell on Ukrainian civilians Wednesday — this time targeting helpless mothers and babies by bombing a maternity hospital, prompting Ukraine’s leader to again demand the world’s help.
“People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity!” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted, along with footage of the hospital ruins in the already-besieged coastal city of Mariupol. “How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings!
You have power but you seem to be losing humanity,” he wrote in a clear rebuke to Western allies’ refusal to institute a no-fly zone over the area to combat Russian fighter jets. At least 17 people were wounded, including women in labor, said regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko.
“The destruction is enormous. The building of the medical facility where the children were treated recently is completely destroyed. Information on casualties is being clarified,” the council said. “A maternity hospital in the city center, a children’s ward and department of internal medicine … all these were destroyed during the Russian airstrike on Mariupol.
Just now,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional administration. Donetsk region police say that according to preliminary information, at least 17 people were injured —mothers and staff — as a result of the Russian attack. “Information on victims is being clarified,” the police said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the airstrike on the hospital in Mariupol.
Russia has also confirmed it has used strictly regulated thermobaric rockets in its ongoing attack against Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence said today. The missile is seen as one of the deadliest on the modern-day battlefield, so much so its use is strictly regulated.
The Russian missiles explode at a much higher temperature than most missiles, and their blasts last longer than conventional weapons. They are fired by the TOS-1A, an armored rocket launcher, which can be used to destroy infrastructure, and due to the heat it produces it can cause massive damage to internal organs and cause flash burns.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that previous footage had shown Moscow was using the TOS-1A against Ukraine, and if Putin was to use this against civilians it would be illegal.
Meanwhile, The Pentagon said Monday it believes that Russia is now trying to recruit Syrian fighters to bolster the Russian war effort in Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal first reported the story Sunday, saying Russia is seeking Syrians who have taken part in urban combat and could help Russia take control of cities such as Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
“The accounts of the Russians seeking Syrian fighters, to augment their forces in Ukraine, we do believe there’s truth to that,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “It’s interesting that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would have to rely on foreign fighters.”
Kirby said he had no information on the numbers or the caliber of the Syrian fighters that the Russians are trying to sign up. Russia has not commented on the reports. It’s not clear how long it might take such a group of Syrian fighters to reach Ukraine, how they would integrate with the Russian military, or how effective they might be in a country they are not familiar with.
The Kremlin has also reportedly accused the United States on Wednesday of declaring an economic war on Russia that was sowing mayhem through energy markets and put Washington on notice it was considering its response to a ban on Russian oil and energy.
Russia’s economy is facing the gravest crisis since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union after the West imposed heavy sanctions on almost the entire Russian financial and corporate system following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov cast the West’s sanctions as a hostile act that had roiled global markets and he said it was unclear how far turbulence on global energy markets would go. “You see the bacchanalia, the hostile bacchanalia, which the West has sown – and that, of course, makes the situation very difficult and forces us to think seriously,” Peskov told reporters.
