* “Colossal destruction”, says the town hall of Mariupol
* Russia had promised to observe a ceasefire
* A new package of European sanctions approved
* Concerns around the Chernobyl power plant
by Natalia Zinets
LVIV, Ukraine, March 9 (Reuters) – Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of breaking truce promises in Mariupol and bombing a children’s hospital in the beleaguered southeastern city, where Hundreds of thousands of civilians are trapped after two weeks of Russian military offensive.
Russian authorities, who deny targeting the population, announced on Wednesday that their troops would observe a truce in several areas in Ukraine to allow civilians to flee besieged cities.
But the municipality of Mariupol, which has more than 400,000 inhabitants, said the hospital had been targeted during the day by several bombs and spoke of “colossal destruction”.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky spoke of “atrocity”. “Direct strikes by the Russian army on a maternity ward. People, children under the rubble,” he said on Twitter.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry posted images on its Twitter account of what looks like a badly damaged hospital facility, which it presents as a children’s hospital and a maternity hospital.
In this video, we can see gaping holes at the locations of the windows of a three-story building and large piles of rubble, some still smoking.
Regional Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported 17 injuries, including women in labor.
This information could not be independently verified.
According to the Deputy Mayor of Mariupol, Serhiy Orlov, quoted by the Ukrainian State News Agency, at least 1,170 civilians have been killed in Mariupol since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
BLIND BOMBINGS
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba has accused Russia of breaking the ceasefire it promised to observe on Wednesday to allow the evacuation of thousands of civilians from the port city, located halfway -way between the Crimea annexed by Moscow in 2014 and the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine.
“Russia continues to hold more than 400,000 people hostage in Mariupol, preventing humanitarian aid and evacuations. The indiscriminate shelling continues,” he wrote on Twitter. “Nearly 3,000 newborns lack medicine and food.”
Civilians were able to leave other towns on Wednesday via humanitarian corridors, in Sumy in the northeast and Enerhodar in the south, Ukrainian authorities said.
Russian forces, on the other hand, prevented a convoy of 50 buses from evacuating civilians from the town of Boutcha, near Kiev, local officials said, adding that negotiations were continuing to authorize the departure of the vehicles.
In Mariupol, besieged for more than a week, the situation was qualified Tuesday by the Red Cross as “apocalyptic”, while the inhabitants of the city, confined in underground shelters to protect themselves from the incessant bombardments, are deprived water, food and electricity and unable to evacuate the wounded.
More than two million people have already fled Ukraine, according to the UN, since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched almost two weeks ago what Moscow presents as a “special military operation” aimed at disarming and “denazifying” Ukraine.
Kiev and its Western allies accuse Russia of fabricating pretexts to justify its war against a democratic country of 44 million inhabitants, an attack against a European state unprecedented since the Second World War.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin summoned the United States to explain itself on a military biological program that they would have according to Moscow developed in Ukraine, an accusation deemed fanciful by Washington. nL5N2VC4YL
At the same time, the Ukrainian public nuclear company Energoatom warned of the risk of radioactive leaks in Chernobyl following a power cut that could not be repaired due to clashes.
Dmitro Kouleba said the diesel-powered electricity generators at the site only had a capacity of 48 hours. “After that, the cooling systems of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility will shut down, making radioactive leaks imminent,” he said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) considered that there was no major impact for the safety of the damaged plant. nL5N2VC45P
THE EU WILL REFLECT ON A “RESILIENCE PLAN”
The invasion of Ukraine has triggered a series of unprecedented Western sanctions that are increasingly isolating the Russian economy, including the United States’ ban on all imports of Russian oil or gas, whereas so far the energy sector remained untouched by retaliatory measures.
Russian authorities warned on Wednesday that they were preparing a rapid response to these sanctions, which will target the most sensitive areas for Western economies.
United Russia, the ruling party in Moscow, announced on Wednesday that a government committee had validated the first legislative step supposed to lead to the nationalization of assets of foreign companies having left the Russian market.
For their part, the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) on Wednesday approved new sanctions targeting Russian leaders and oligarchs, Belarusian banks, as well as the Russian maritime sector, the French presidency of the European Council said. nL5N2VC2OP
European leaders, who will meet Thursday and Friday at a summit in Versailles, will have initial discussions on the possibility of a European resilience and investment plan, the Elysée said.
Western countries believe that Vladimir Putin, who they say intended to quickly overthrow the Ukrainian government with a lightning offensive, is now forced to change his strategy in the face of Ukrainian resistance.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, however, clarified on Wednesday that Russia was not aiming to bring down the Ukrainian government and that she hoped to be able to achieve more significant progress during the next session of talks with the authorities. Ukrainians. She added that the “special military operation” in Ukraine was proceeding as planned.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has however admitted that conscripts were taking part in the conflict, despite multiple denials previously made by Vladimir Putin, according to whom only professional soldiers were sent to the theater of operations.
On the Ukrainian side, Vadim Denisenko, adviser to the Minister of the Interior, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that Russia desperately needed a victory in cities like Kiev or Mariupol before negotiating peace.
“Therefore, our task is to resist for the next ten days,” he notes.
(Reuters offices, written by Peter Graff; French version Myriam Rivet and Jean-Stéphane Brosse, edited by Blandine Hénault and Bertrand Boucey)