Russian airstrike hits a maternity hospital in Ukraine wounding at least 17 people

Ukraine is accusing Russia of bombing a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol, in what the Ukrainian president is calling an atrocity. The aftermath of the airstrike wounded at least seventeen people.

Inside the hospital, rooms are destroyed, with blown-out windows and destroyed walls and furniture. Officials released photos showing pregnant women escaping, and an image of one who appears to be dead. Russia claims there were Ukrainian combat positions there. “Mariupol is under continuous shelling from artillery and bombing each hour, each minute, each second.” Mariupol’s deputy mayor says the Russian assault continues, the Ukrainian military says aerial footage shows Russian tanks in the streets. Mariupol’s mayor released a video saying the hospital attack was evil, imploring western nations to impose a no-fly zone. Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy says there are kids trapped in the rubble.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the city have been trying to escape for days,
but Ukraine says a humanitarian corridor out of the city was once again unusable due to Russian shelling.

Russia announced another new ceasefire today to allow civilians to get out of Ukrainian cities under attack, several attempts to set up humanitarian corridors in recent days have failed after Ukraine accused Russia of shelling the routes.

Some progress is being made though, Ukraine’s interior ministry saying 3,000 people got away from fighting northwest of Kyiv today. But the situation for trapped civilians in several towns is deteriorating as heavy combat continues.

Alexa Khomenko knows what it’s like to live amid Russian shelling in Kharkiv, she fled the city on March 1st after enduring days of heavy bombing. She wants to go back and help defend the city she loves, and can’t help but cry when talking about what is happening and how much she misses her family stuck in Donetsk.

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says he doesn’t yet know how many people have died in heavy fighting in the northwest suburbs, which continued for another day.

The mayor of Zhytomyr, which has already been hard hit by bombing, says another civilian building had been struck, just one day after an apartment building and textiles factory were destroyed.