Ukraine’s state emergency service reported on Wednesday that a newborn boy and his mother were killed when a Russian missile struck a hospital’s maternity ward in the south of the country overnight, adding that the incident has further bolstered public outrage at Russian attacks on civilians during the nine-month war.
Video released by Ukraine’s state emergency service shows rescuers rescuing the boy’s mother and a doctor from the rubble of a two-story building in the town of Vilniansk in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The regional administration’s head, Oleksandr Starukh, expressed his grief via the Telegram chat app.
Vice President of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko’s office showed late-night rescue workers approaching a two-story building. Debris of masonry and wooden planks protruded from the shattered window openings.
Military leaders in Ukraine took to Twitter to show how they dug with their bare hands to free a man buried to his waist. The man, who appeared to be a rescue worker, was being given water by a worker in green uniforms. The photos and video have been verified as authentic by the New York Times.
The strategic waterway has become the dividing line of the southern front, and a volunteer Ukrainian special forces team has been undertaking covert raids across it at night.
In response to the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on Telegram, “The enemy has once again decided to try to achieve with terror and murder what he wasn’t able to achieve for nine months and won’t be able to achieve. Instead, he will only be held to account for all the evil he brought to our country.”
According to the Ukrainian government, an S-300 missile was responsible for the damage. As Moscow has suffered a string of battlefield losses in recent weeks, it has stepped up attacks on civilian targets and energy infrastructure across the country. Zaporizhzhia, however, has been under attack for a long time. Whether or not the hospital was a deliberate target or if there were Ukrainian troops in the area was unclear.
Assaults on hospitals and medical facilities, including maternity wards, have galvanized Ukrainians against the Russian invasion. When Russian forces attacked a hospital and maternity ward in March, it was near the beginning of a siege that devastated the city of Mariupol in the country’s south. The attack killed at least 17 people and injured at least 30 more. According to WHO statistics, more than 600 Ukrainian hospitals and clinics have been damaged or destroyed as a result of the conflict.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin of Ukraine reported on Saturday that more than 8,300 civilians, including 437 children, have been killed in the conflict since Russia invaded in February. He claimed that over 11,000 civilians had been hurt.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported on November 14 that 6,557 people had been killed since the invasion began, including 408 children. Ukrainian officials and the UN both agree that the actual numbers were “certainly higher.” Based on UN statistics, March was the deadliest month of the conflict so far.
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