Russian Plans That Went Awry
"When we were walking, a bridge was blown up.""And when we crossed over the wreckage, because there was no other way out, there were corpses of Russian people [soldiers], lying there."Irina Mihalenka, Odessa refugee"The incident [Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol] adds to our deep concerns about indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas and civilians trapped in active hostilities in numerous areas."Liz Throssell, spokesperson, UN Human Rights"It is horrifying to see the type of the barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians in a sovereign country."White House press secretary Jen Psaki
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| Vasiliy Zhlobsky/EPA, via Shutterstock |
A maternity/children's hospital in the besieged Black Sea port city of Mariupol Wednesday was hit by a Russian air strike. Children were buried under rubble, along with injured women in labour. A deliberate strike on a vulnerable civilian target. this, despite an agreed ceasefire to allow thousands of civilians trapped in the embattled city to make their escape.
So far, the two-week-old Russian invasion of Ukraine has characterized itself by the committing of war crimes by deliberately --, against the protocols of the Geneva convention -- targeting civilian infrastructure and civilian populations. There was at the time of the bombing of the hospital a Russian pledge they would halt firing to allow some of the trapped civilians to escape the city confines where hundreds of thousands are without water or power in their shelters.
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| Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press |
Asked for comment on the bombing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov baldly stated: "Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets". All around the three-storey building lay huge piles of smouldering rubble. According to Ukraine authorities, three people died and 17 were injured in the attack where "colossal" destruction had resulted when the hospital was hit several times by an air strike.
"Indiscriminate shelling continues", stated Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Ukraine's figures are that 57 children have died across the country since the invasion began, and in Mariupol alone, 1,170 civilians had died. Maxar, a satellite imaging company, indicated that images showed extensive damage to homes, apartment buildings, grocery stores and shopping centres in Mariupol.
Ukraine, according to Russia's defence ministry is responsible for the evacuation failure.
Russian forces were preventing buses from evacuating civilians from Bucha, a town outside Kyiv, while with the use of safe corridors, civilians had left the cities of Sumy in the east and Enerhodar in the south. Ukraine is asking for a ceasefire, for the liberation of its territories, and to resolve humanitarian issues when Ukraine's Foreign Minister Kuleba was set to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Turkey.
Moscow, on the other hand, demands that Kyiv take a neutral stance, drop its aspirations to join the NATO alliance, and recognize Russian possession of Donetsk and Luhansk, along with Crimea. Only then might it consider a stop to its assault on Ukraine. At least at first. Over two million refugees have streamed out of Ukraine into neighbouring receiving countries.
All across Ukraine houses were reduced to rubble, stated the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"Hundreds of thousands of people have no food no water, no heat, no electricity and no medical care."
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| Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press |
North of Kyiv a massive Russian assault force remains stalled, leaving the West to speculate that the Kremlin was forced to adjust its scheme to expeditiously topple the Ukrainian government, despite the reality of fierce resistance from occupied sources. Russia is paying dearly for its military invasion and bombardment of Ukraine through escalating sanctions that have isolated the nation and its economy. To the extent, according to the chief economist of the World Bank that Moscow was close to defaulting on its debt.
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| Dead bodies are put into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9 as people cannot bury their dead because of the heavy shelling by Russian forces |
Labels: Fighting Back, Isolation, Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Russian War Crimes, Ukraine Under Fire
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 11, 2022
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