THE RUNT DICTATOR PUTIN KNOWS BIDEN IS TOO PUSSY TO DEAL WITH HIM!
Ukraine-born Republican's urgent message to Kamala Harris
Putin sinks to a new low: Outrage as maternity hospital in Mariupol is bombed leaving children buried under rubble. Zelensky calls it an ‘atrocity’ and Boris says it is ‘depraved’
- Children's hospital in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, suffered a 'direct hit' by Russian rockets, Zelensky has said
- Footage shows one building totally destroyed and another badly damaged as wounded patients evacuate
- Other clips show badly injured nurses being treated while pregnant women are carried out on stretchers
- Zelensky said children are trapped under rubble as he accused world leaders of being 'accomplice to terror'
- Hours earlier, foreign minister had warned 3,000 babies in the city were without access to food or medicine
- Residents of Mariupol have been forced to begin burying the dead in mass graves amid the bombardment
- Boris Johnson also condemned the strike as 'depraved' and vowed to step up support to the Ukrainian military
- Foreign Secretary Liz Truss echoed his statements but again rejected Ukraine's request for a no-fly zone
- Red Cross has warned conditions in Mariupol are 'apocalyptic' after food, water and electricity were cut off more than a week ago as Russian forces surrounded the city
- Click here for MailOnline's liveblog with the latest updates on the Ukraine crisis
A maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been decimated in a 'direct hit' by Russian rockets leaving children buried in the rubble, President Zelensky has said, in what he described as an 'atrocity.'
Zelensky posted a video showing the badly damaged hospital buildings, filmed inside a destroyed ward room with its windows blown out and ceiling partially collapsed. More footage showed a car park covered in rubble and the smouldering wrecks of vehicles as injured families evacuated into the freezing air while snow fell.
'Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity,' he tweeted.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the strike as 'depraved' and vowed to step up support to the beleaguered Ukrainian military.
He said the UK was considering more support for Ukraine to defend itself against airstrikes and would hold President Vladimir Putin to account 'for his terrible crimes'.
'There are few things more depraved than targeting the vulnerable and defenceless,' the Prime Minister declared.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also described the hospital attack as 'absolutely abhorrent', but continued to reject Ukraine's request for a no-fly zone to be imposed over its skies.
Speaking in Washington, she said: 'The best way we can protect the skies is through anti-air weaponry which the UK is now going to be supplying to Ukraine.
'Of course the attack on the hospital is absolutely abhorrent, reckless and appalling.'
Earlier Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the MPs that the Ministry of Defence was looking at whether they could supply anti-aircraft missiles as well as more anti-tank weapons, while other Western officials expressed concern that Putin could next resort to the use of 'non-conventional weapons' such as chemical weapons, in the conflict.
Mariupol's city council said the hospital had suffered 'colossal' damage but did not immediately give a figure of the wounded and dead. The deputy head of Mr Zelensky's office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said authorities are trying to establish the number of victims.
Mariupol has been under heavy Russian bombardment for more than a week, with food, water and electricity cut off several days ago - with the Red Cross describing conditions there as 'apocalyptic'.
Just hours before the hospital was hit, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that 3,000 babies were without food or medicines and begged for a humanitarian corridor to allow them to flee. Moscow had promised a ceasefire in the city today so civilians could be evacuated, but failed for the fourth time to keep its word.
Residents of Mariupol were pictured on Wednesday dumping bodies into mass graves dug on the outskirts of the city in a desperate attempt to remove the dead amid the sustained Russian bombardment.
Meanwhile Ukrainian commanders said Russian military police had rounded up 400 activists protesting against the invasion in the occupied city of Kherson - as the long arm of Vladimir Putin's police state reached across the border to grab people on foreign soil.
It is not the first time that Russian airstrikes have targeted hospitals. While fighting alongside Bashar al-Assad in Syria in 2016, Putin's generals were accused of 'deliberately and systematically' blowing up hospitals as a way of weakening the city of Aleppo ahead of a ground assault.
Observers have suggested that Russia is now using a Syria-style battleplan against Ukraine after its early precision strikes failed.
The Ukrainian Healthcare Center, a think-tank based in the country, says that between the outbreak of fighting on February 24 and today, their team documented 42 cases of Russian forces attacking either healthcare facilities or medics in order to deliberately provoke a 'humanitarian crisis'.
Hospitals had been struck in every theatre where Russian forces were operating, the think-tank said, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Mariupol, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv.
'The humanitarian catastrophe is a part of Russia's hybrid war. [It] intends to spread panic, create a flow of refugees at the borders and force the Ukrainian government to surrender,' said Pavlo Kovtonyuk, co-founder of the think-tank.
The bombing took place during what was supposed to be a ceasefire in Mariupol so that civilians could evacuate. It marks the fourth time a so-called 'humanitarian corridor' out of the city has failed because Russian forces opened fire.
The mayor of Izyum, to the east of Kharkiv, said evacuations that were supposed to be underway there today also had to stop because Russians were bombing the escape route. But in Sumy, a short distance away, some civilians had managed to make it out. Successful evacuations also took place in Enerhodar, in the south, with women and children able to leave.
It is feared the evacuations are simply a precursor to Russia stepping up its bombardment of the cities to wear down dogged Ukrainian defenders before rolling in troops and tanks to capture them. CIA Director William Burns, briefing Congress on Putin's state of mind Tuesday, warned the 'angry and frustrated' despot is 'likely to double down and try to grind down the Ukrainian military with no regard for civilian casualties.'
Giving an update on the military situation this afternoon, Ukrainian commanders said Russian units continue to try and surround the capital Kyiv with attacks taking place to the west and north-east of the city, with several highways blocked.
Fighting is also going on close to the city of Sumy in an attempt to surround Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv, commanders said. Battles have also broken out around the city of Mykolaiv, in the south, as Russians attempt to push out from Kherson towards Odessa - but were turned back.
Meanwhile at least 10 people were killed in a Russian military attack in the eastern Ukrainian town of Severodonestk on Tuesday, a local official for the Luhansk region said in a statement on Telegram.
The Russian military 'opened fire' on residential homes and other buildings in the town, he said, without immediately specifying whether it was an artillery attack. The region has seen heavy fighting in recent days.
Russia's defence ministry meanwhile acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that some conscripts had been sent to fight on the frontlines in Ukraine, just days after Putin promised that only professional soldiers would be sent in.
Some associations of soldiers' mothers in Russia had raised concerns about a number of conscripts going incommunicado at the start of what Kremlin calls a 'special military operation' in Ukraine, suggesting they could have been sent to fight despite a lack of adequate training.
The revelation comes just one week after Russia's parliament passed a law imposing a prison term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally 'fake' news about the military.
'Unfortunately, we have discovered several facts of the presence of conscripts in units taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine. Practically all such soldiers have been pulled out to Russia,' the defence ministry said, promising to prevent such situations in the future.
Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from the damaged by shelling maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022
A woman injured in Russian shelling of Mariupol's maternity hospital stands outside wrapped in a blanket amid the carnage
This image taken from video provided by the Mariupol City Council shows the aftermath of Mariupol Hospital after an attack, in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday March 9, 2022
A Russian attack severely damaged the children's hospital and maternity ward in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter that there were 'people, children under the wreckage' of the hospital and called the strike an 'atrocity.'
A maternity hospital in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol has suffered 'colossal' damage after a 'direct hit' by Russian rocket artillery that left children buried in the rubble (pictured, a badly damaged room at the hospital)
President Zelensky described the attack as an 'atrocity', accusing world leaders of being 'accomplice to terror' by refusing to take out incoming Russian rockets
The burning wreckage of a car is seen outside a destroyed children's hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which has been under heavy Russian bombardment for more than a week
A Ukrainian soldier examines a huge crater caused by one of the Russian rockets, which fell just in front of a hospital building at the maternity hospital in Mariupol
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the strike as 'depraved' and vowed to step up support to the beleaguered Ukrainian military
Wounded families and patients evacuate from a badly-damaged building at the hospital. Local officials said the damage was 'colossal' and were not able to give an immediate number on the injured and dead
Wounded people are seen evacuating from the hospital, with President Zelensky repeating calls for a 'no-fly' zone to protect civilians. NATO has repeatedly refused the measure
Ukrainian emergency employees work at the side of the maternity hospital in Mariupol after it suffered a direct hit by Russian rocket strikes on Wednesday
Mass grave in Mariupol. Photographer Mstislav Chernov writes that people cannot bury the dead properly due to the constant shelling of the city. March 9, 2022
Ukrainian citizens are pictured on the outskirts of Mariupol dropping bodies into a mass grave as the city's inhabitants work to remove the dead amid brutal shelling from Russian troops
A baby is evacuated as people flee near a destroyed bridge to cross the Irpin River, on the outskirts of Kyiv, as Russian forces try to surround it in ahead of an attack
A man helps a woman to carry her dog across a river on the outskirts of Irpin,
Ukrainian servicemen evacuate a person across Irpin River below a destroyed bridge as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues
New members of the Territorial Defence Forces train to operate RPG-7 anti-tank launcher during military exercises in Kyiv
Recent conscripts into the Ukrainian Territorial Defence are trained to use NLAW anti-tank launchers in Kyiv, as the city prepares to defend itself from a Russian assault
New members of the Territorial Defence Forces are pictured on training exercises in Kyiv, as Russian troops try to surround the city in preparation for an assault
A satellite image taken on Tuesday but released Wednesday shows the destroyed road bridge on the outskirts of Irpin, near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, which refugees have been using to flee the besieged city
Tracks created by Russian armoured vehicles are seen in the snow near Hostomel, on the outskirts of Kyiv, while heavily damaged buildings are seen to the right of the image
Putin meets his 'children's rights commissioner' in Moscow as rockets destroy kid's hospital
Vladimir Putin has met with his 'children's rights commissioner' in Moscow at the same time as shelling a maternity hospital in Mariupol in his latest vile display of hypocrisy.
The Russian leader spoke with Maria Lvova-Belova at the Kremlin today after overseeing a savage two-week campaign in Ukraine which has seen children killed, orphaned or forced to flee their homes.
Putin held the meeting to discuss changes to the law which will allow Russians to adopt Ukrainian orphans, after his forces killed their parents.
The changes will mean children from Donetsk and Luhansk who do not have Russian citizenship will qualify for adoption.
Putin said in the meeting: 'These are extraordinary circumstances and it seems to me that we need to think not about bureaucratic delays, but about the interests of children.
'I will make proposals, we will change the legislation. We will appeal to the State Duma, I am sure that the deputies will support you.'
Lvova-Belova said 1,090 orphans have been evacuated to Russia from the two republics.
An estimated one million children have been forced to flee Ukraine since the barbaric invasion was launched.
Western officials have also warned of 'serious concerns' that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine.
One said: 'I think we've got good reason to be concerned about possible use of non-conventional weapons, partly because of what we've seen has happened in other theatres.
'As I've mentioned before, for example, what we've seen in Syria, partly because we've seen a bit of setting the scene for that in the false flag claims that are coming out, and other indications as well.'
Before the rocket attack took place, Mariupol's deputy mayor spoke about the dire situation in the besieged city - saying residents had been forced to use melted snow as drinking water, as it runs dangerously low on supplies.
Serhiy Orlov admitted that he didn't know how long the blockaded urban centre would be able to continue under siege as he spoke to CNN's John Berman about the devastating bombings on Wednesday.
Orlov said today was their fifth attempt to provide a humanitarian corridor to get supplies and transport into Mariupol, but he added that by 3pm local time, the buses had not made it anywhere near the city.
He said many residents are unable to leave as Mariupol is being bombed 'each second', after Russian forces have broken their ceasefire agreement despite agreeing to open 'humanitarian corridors' allowing citizens to flee.
'There is no ceasefire, any ceasefire in Mariupol, Mariupol is under continuous shelling from the artillery and bombing. Each hour, each minute, each second,' he added.
Mariupol, which has been under blockage for eight days, is one of the Ukrainian cities worst hit since the invasion began, with Russian forces bringing widespread destruction to residential and administrative centres.
Speaking about the devastation across the city, Orlov said Russian forces had destroyed their biggest steel planter as he warned that the situation is 'unmanageable'.
He praised the bravery of the Ukrainian army, but warned that it is the humanitarian crisis is also worsening, adding: 'We are not able to protect our lives.'
President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday warned that the port city was running dangerously low on food, water and medicine.
Ukrainian territorial defence forces have been able to deliver vital supplies to some residents, but many more remain isolated and unable to access lifesaving rations.
Reiterating Zelensky's stark warning, Orlov said there is no more electricity, heating, gas or water supplies in Mariupol, adding that residents have had to resort to collecting wood to make fires for warmth and using melted snow as drinking water.
'It's an awful situation and I cannot imagine in my mind that it's possible in the 21st century, but it is true,' he said.
When asked how long the city might be able to continue under siege, Orlov admitted he 'didn't know' as he claimed there are at least 3,000 infants who are currently without food.
American talk show host Berman also asked the deputy mayor whether his own family are safe, after he previously spoken about being unable to reach his parents.
In response, a devastated Orlov said the district where his parents lived has been completely destroyed, saying it 'does not exist anymore', as he admitted he doesn't know if they are alive.
He added: 'The district where they live is flattened and I'm not sure that I can see them anymore. But I hope and pray they are alive.'
Ukrainian commanders said today that Russia's attack on the country has 'slowed significantly' with no major gains in any sector while its forces were bolstering defenses in key cities and 'holding the line.'
In the northern city of Chernihiv, Russian forces are placing military equipment among residential buildings and on farms, the Ukrainian general staff said. And in the south, it said Russians dressed in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv. It did not provide any details of new fighting.
In Kyiv, back-to-back air alerts Wednesday morning urged residents to get to bomb shelters as quickly as possible over fears of incoming Russian missiles. Soon after an all-clear was given for the first alert, a second alert followed.
Such alerts are common, though irregular, keeping people on edge. Kyiv has been relatively quiet in recent days, though Russian artillery has pounded the outskirts.
Kyiv regional administration head Oleksiy Kuleba said the crisis for civilians was growing in the capital, with the situation particularly critical in the city's suburbs.
'Russia is artificially creating a humanitarian crisis in the Kyiv region, frustrating the evacuation of people and continuing shelling and bombing small communities,' he said.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said a change in Russian tactics meant there was a need to consider how Ukrainian forces could be supported against Russian air attacks.
'We can all see the horrific devastation inflicted on civilian areas by Russian artillery and air strikes, indiscriminate and murderous,' he said.
'It is vital, therefore, that Ukraine maintains its ability to fly and to suppress Russian air attack.'
Mr Wallace said that 'in response to a Ukrainian request' the Government was exploring the donation of Starstreak high-velocity man-portable anti-air missiles.
He also confirmed that 3,615 Nlaw anti-tank weapons had been supplied - up from the previously-announced figure of 2,000 - and 'small consignments' of the Javelin system would also be sent to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson continued to resist calls to drop visa requirements for Ukrainians fleeing the violence, insisting the security checks were vital to prevent President Putin infiltrating agents into the UK.
The Prime Minister said a thousand visas had been granted under the scheme allowing relatives of people in Britain to flee the war zone to join their families and he promised another programme allowing individuals to offer a home to Ukrainians would be set out in 'the next few days'.
More than 2 million people have now fled Ukraine, according to the United Nations.
'We know how unscrupulous Putin can be in his methods, it would not be right to expose this country to unnecessary security risk and we will not do it,' he said.
'We are going to be as generous as we can possibly be, but we must have checks.'
His comments in the Commons followed a call from Ukraine's ambassador to the UK to temporarily drop the visa requirement.
Vadym Prystaiko hit out at the bureaucracy of the British system, telling MPs: 'I don't want to see these pictures of people banging at the doors in Calais and scratching the doors which are quite sealed.'
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