As the Russian invasion continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blasted Russia’s bombing of multiple hospitals as a war crime and embarrassed the West in a renewed demand for assistance.
“Today, we must be united in condemning Russia’s war crime, which embodies all the horror that the invaders brought to our land,” Zelensky said in his evening speech, referring to an airstrike on a maternity facility in Mariupol, which injured at least 17 people.
The bombing was one of at least three carried out by Russian forces on hospitals in war-torn Ukraine on Wednesday.
In Zhytomyr, a city of 260,000 people, two further attacks on medical facilities, including a children’s hospital, occurred.
“A children’s hospital. A maternity hospital. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” he said in his address.
“What kind of country is this, Russia, that is scared of hospitals, especially maternity facilities, and destroys them?”
The aircraft assault occurred as local authorities in Mariupol, a crucial city of 430,000 people, rushed to bury the dead from the previous two weeks of combat in a mass grave.
Mariupol has been bombarded, and the city has been surrounded by Russian soldiers for a long time.
Despite the ongoing aggression, Zelesnky reported that 35,000 Ukrainians were saved on Wednesday through three humanitarian corridors.
The refugees came from Sumy, Kyiv and its environs, and Enerhodar, according to the president, who spoke late Wednesday.
According to Zelensky, six humanitarian corridors are being prepared for Thursday.
Thousands of civilians and military are said to have been slain across the country since Putin’s forces invaded.
According to Zelensky, 1,200 people have killed in Mariupol alone during the nine-day siege.
According to UN estimates, more over 2 million people have fled the nation since the invasion began on February 24.
More than 10,000 people were evacuated from Ukraine’s capital on Wednesday, according to Kyiv governor Oleksiy Kuleba.
Zelensky chastised the West for failing to impose a no-fly zone or provide 28 Polish fighter jets to aid the Ukraine combat Russia’s invasion in his Wednesday night address.
In a Wednesday night lecture, Zelensky stated, “Together, we must restore courage to some Western leaders.”
“In order for them to eventually perform what they were supposed to do on the first day of the invasion.” Either keep Russian missiles and bombs out of Ukraine’s skies, or provide us fighter jets so we can handle everything ourselves,” he raged.
Both demands have been turned down by the US and NATO partners, who fear an escalation of the conflict if they get too involved.