Russia-Ukraine war update: what we know on day 15
of the Russian invasion
Ukraine president calls Russian shelling maternity
hospital in Mariupol the ‘ultimate evidence of genocide’
Samantha
Lock and Maanvi Singh
Thu 10 Mar
2022 01.05 GMT
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy called
the Russian strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol “the ultimate evidence
of genocide”. The children’s hospital and maternity ward in the southern
Ukrainian city was destroyed by a Russian airstrike on Wednesday afternoon,
Ukrainian officials said. Zelenskiy said children are buried under rubble and
the regional governor said 17 people have been wounded. “A children’s hospital,
a maternity ward. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” Zelenskiy
added. The Guardian was unable to fully verify Ukrainian officials’ accounts,
but video published by the Associated Press showed multiple injured people at
the site of the hospital attack.
Western officials warned of their “serious
concern” that Vladimir Putin could use chemical weapons on Kyiv. In an
assessment, they said an “utterly horrific” attack on the Ukrainian capital
could be unleashed as Russian forces attempt to overcome the logistical issues
that have apparently plagued troops headed towards Kyiv.
Britain is planning to supply Starstreak
anti-aircraft weapons and “a small consignment” of Javelin anti-tank missiles
to Ukraine as Russian forces close in on Kyiv, the British defence secretary
has said.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has landed
in Turkey for the face-to-face talks on Thursday with his Ukrainian counterpart
Dmytro Kuleba, the highest-level meeting between the two countries since Russia
invaded. Kuleba warned in a Facebook video his expectations were “limited”. So
far, the parties have been engaged in lower-level talks in Belarus, largely
over humanitarian issues and involving only Ukrainian officials.
Leaders of the 27-nation EU are to meet in
Versailles on Thursday and Friday. A draft declaration prepared for the summit
said: “Russia’s war of aggression constitutes a tectonic shift in European history.”
The leaders are expected to discuss reducing the bloc’s energy dependency on
Russia, and Ukraine’s request to join the EU.
Russia’s foreign ministry has confirmed the use
of the TOS-1A weapon system in Ukraine, Britain said. The UK’s ministry of defence
said the system uses thermobaric rockets, creating incendiary and blast
effects. Here is an explainer on thermobaric weapons.
The United States has seen indications that
Russia is dropping “dumb bombs” – unguided munitions with no precise target –
on Ukraine, a senior US defence official said. Officials added that the US was
observing “increasing damage to civilian infrastructure and civilian
casualties”.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of “holding
400,000 people hostage” in Mariupol. The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro
Kuleba, said the city, where conditions are described as “apocalyptic”, was
still being shelled by Russian troops despite an agreement to establish a safe
evacuation corridor for civilians.
Ukrainian authorities have said the power supply
has been cut to the defunct Chernobyl power plant. The UN’s atomic watchdog
said the spent nuclear fuel stored there had cooled down sufficiently for it
not to be an imminent concern. Still, the news is raising concerns that a lack
of external power to the site could compromise nuclear safety.
More than 40,000 civilians were evacuated from
across Ukraine on Weednesday but authorities struggled to get people away from
conflict zones around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, a Ukrainian
negotiator said. Ukrainian authorities said earlier that the corridors should
allow residents of the heavily bombarded cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar, Sumy,
Izyum and Volnovakha, as well as towns around Kyiv including Bucha, Irpin and
Hostomel, to leave, calling on Russian forces to respect an “official public
commitment” to cease fire.
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