KIEV, Ukraine (AP) – A Russian strike severely damaged a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday, as civilians trying to flee bombardment on the outskirts of Kyiv headed toward the capital amid Western warnings that Moscow’s invasion was about to take a harsher, more indiscriminate turn.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media that there were “people, children under the rubble” at the hospital, calling the attack an “atrocity.” Officials said they were working to determine how many people were killed or wounded.
A video shared by Zelenskyy showed hallways painted with cheerful motifs, now twisted with metal. Room after room appeared with shattered windows. The floors were strewn with debris.
Outside, burned-out vehicles blazed, a video posted by the Mariupol city government showed, with severe damage to at least three two-story buildings. A large portion of the façade of a building had been torn apart. The council described the damage as “colossal.”
“There are few things more depraved than attacking the vulnerable and the defenseless,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter. He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “be held to account for his terrible crimes.”
Meanwhile, officials announced new ceasefire arrangements for the day along several evacuation routes intended to allow thousands of civilians to flee the suburbs around Kyiv, as well as southern Mariupol, Energodar and Volnovakha, Izium in the east, and Sumy in the northeast.
Earlier attempts to establish safe corridors largely collapsed because of what the Ukrainians described as Russian attacks. Putin, in a phone call with the German chancellor, accused Ukrainian nationalist militants of obstructing evacuations.
It remained unclear whether anyone could leave other cities on Wednesday, but residents were leaving Kyiv’s suburbs, many heading toward the city center despite explosions in the capital and repeated air-raid sirens. From there, evacuees planned to board trains westward to regions further from the fighting.
Meanwhile, civilians trying to escape the Kyiv suburb of Irpin were forced to cross a makeshift bridge on slippery planks, because Ukrainian forces had blown up the concrete bridge near Kyiv days earlier to slow the Russian advance.
With sporadic gunfire in the background, firefighters carried an elderly man in a wheelbarrow, a child clutched a soldier’s hand, and a woman moved slowly with a kitten tucked inside her coat.
“We’ve got a brief moment, for now,” said Yehven Nyshchuk, a member of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces. “Even if there’s a ceasefire right now, there’s a risk of shelling at any moment.”
In Mariupol, authorities were using mass graves to bury a large number of civilians and soldiers on the fly. With morgues full and many corpses left in homes, city officials decided to dig a deep trench about 25 meters (27 yards) long in an old cemetery in the city center.
Across the country, thousands are believed to have died since President Putin’s forces began the invasion two weeks ago. More than two million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion began, according to the United Nations, marking Europe’s fastest mass exodus since World War II.
Echoing the CIA’s William Burns, Britain’s defense minister said on Wednesday that the Russian assault would become “more brutal and more indiscriminate” as Putin seeks to regain momentum.
The British defense minister said fighting continued to the northwest of Kyiv. The cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remained under heavy shelling and encircled by Russian forces.
In the northern city of Chernihiv, Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were placing military equipment next to residential buildings and farms. In the south, it said, Russians dressed as civilians were advancing on the city of Mykolaiv, a Black Sea port with shipyards and about half a million residents.
Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the regional government, said the civilian situation was deteriorating in the capital, especially in the suburbs.
“Russia is artificially creating a humanitarian crisis in the Kyiv region, hampering civilian evacuations and continuing to bomb and attack small towns,” Kuleba said.
The situation is even bleaker in Mariupol, the strategic 430,000-person city on the Sea of Azov that has been ringed by Russian forces for the past week.
An attempt to evacuate civilians and deliver urgently needed food, water and medicine via a safe corridor failed on Tuesday. Ukrainian authorities said Russian forces had fired upon the convoy before it reached the city.
___
Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. AP reporters Felipe Dana and Andrew Drake in Kiev, along with AP staff around the world, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
