Fighting for Mariupol: Worldwide horror after the attack on the clinic

The attack on a clinic in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol has sparked worldwide outrage. Meanwhile, the United States warns that Russia may be planning to use biological and chemical weapons.

A Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol has sparked outrage around the world. UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke of a “horrific” act and called for the senseless violence to stop. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of acting unscrupulously.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video message late in the evening: “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, that is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals and destroying them?”

Reporters from the AP news agency in Mariupol witnessed the attack on the clinic, and an AP photographer documented the destruction. The ground trembled more than a kilometer away when the building was hit several times. Windows shattered, a large part of the front facade of a building was torn away. Police officers and soldiers brought victims to safety. A heavily pregnant and bleeding woman was taken away on a stretcher. Battered cars burned in the yard of the clinic complex. A crater created by the explosions was at least two stories deep.

Selenskyj calls for even tougher sanctions

“Today Russia committed a massive crime,” said a Mariupol police official, Volodymyr Nikulin, in the rubble of the building. “It is a war crime without justification.” According to Ukrainian sources, 17 people were injured, including several pregnant women. Selenskyj wrote on Twitter that there were children under the rubble. The attack is an atrocity.

In response, in his daily video message, he called for even tougher sanctions from the West. “There is a genocide of Ukrainians taking place,” he said.

According to local authorities in Mariupol, more than 1,200 civilians have died in the besieged city in nine days. According to a post published on the city government’s official Telegram channel, 1,207 civilians were killed during the Russian “blockade” of the city, accompanied by a video message from Mayor Vadym Boichenko. “Nine days of genocide against the civilian population,” it said.

Other clinics also attacked

According to the World Health Organization, at least 18 clinics, other health facilities or ambulances have been attacked in Ukraine since the start of the war. At least ten people were killed in these attacks, the WHO said. It was initially unclear whether the number already included the shelling of the clinic in Mariupol.

The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Schytomyr west of Kyiv also reported on Facebook that two hospitals had been hit there in the evening, including a children’s hospital. The number of victims is still being determined. His statements could not be independently verified.

US warns against use of chemical or biological weapons

The US government warned that Russia could also use chemical or biological weapons. Moscow itself is spreading false information about alleged weapons laboratories in Ukraine, potentially preparing the ground for such attacks, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova previously claimed that Ukraine was running chemical and biological weapons laboratories with US support. She did not provide any evidence of this. On Wednesday, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Chumakov, called on Western media to report on the secret laboratories.

Such allegations are “absurd,” said Psaki. US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby called them a “bunch of crap.” When asked by a Russian journalist, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said he had no information to support the Russian allegations.

“Now that Russia has made these false claims and China has seemingly gotten behind this propaganda, we should all keep our eyes open for Russia’s possible use of chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine,” Psaki said.

US military circles: Russia is making little progress

Russia may want to create a pretext for further escalation of the war. For in the first two weeks since the invasion began, Russian troops have made less rapid progress than expected. Although several cities were being heavily shelled, there had been little change in the positions of Russian troops in the past 24 hours, according to US military circles on Wednesday (local time). Only in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv did Russian soldiers advance.

Hundreds flee Kyiv suburbs

Hundreds of Ukrainians have meanwhile left their hometowns outside of Kyiv, which are occupied by Russian troops. The Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior announced that 700 residents of the towns of Worsel and Irpin were brought to safety during the evacuation operations on Wednesday. It was not possible to escape from three other suburbs of the capital. Reporters from the AP news agency saw long lines of cars, some with white flags, and buses pushing down the streets. Some of those who fled said they had not eaten in days.

The head of the regional administration in the greater Kyiv area, Oleksiy Kuleba, also described the desperate situation of the people there after new artillery attacks on Kiev suburbs. “The Russian troops are systematically making our lives hell,” he said on Ukrainian television on Wednesday. “People have to sit underground day and night without food, water or electricity.”

Officials report shelling in several cities

Local officials reported shelling from several other cities during the night. Russian planes bombed the area around the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, the head of the Sumy regional administration, Dmytro Shyvytskyi, wrote on Telegram. Residential areas were again shelled in the town of Ochtyrka south of Sumy. There is also information that a gas line had also been hit there.

The mayor of the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv also reported fire from multiple rocket launchers coming from the north. “Either they are testing the robustness of our checkpoints, or they are preparing for an offensive,” Mayor Olexandr Senkevich said in a live video on Facebook. He called on people to sleep in the basement. The information cannot be independently verified.

Authorities: Planned three escape corridors from Sumy region

According to a Ukrainian official, three escape corridors are planned for Thursday to evacuate people from the Sumy region. These led from the cities of Trostianets, Krasnopillya and Sumy in the direction of the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, said the head of the regional administration, Shyvytskyi, on the Telegram news channel at night. The start of the ceasefire for the routes concerned is scheduled for 8:00 a.m. CET.

According to Schywytskyi, other places in the region have been submitted for escape corridors, but these have not yet been confirmed. Escape corridors are routes that civilians can use to escape to safety. According to the British Ministry of Defence, the large city of Sumy is surrounded.

According to Zhyvytskyi, almost 50,000 people left Sumy on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday alone, around 10,000 private cars and 85 buses left the city, a total of around 44,000 people.

Meeting in Antalya

In Antalya today, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian colleague Dmytro Kuleba want to talk about ways to end the fighting, mediated by Turkey. An adviser to Zelenskyi had suggested that Ukraine could forego NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees. This is one of the central demands of the government in Moscow.

A spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry said the government wants to achieve its goals of Ukraine’s neutral status through talks and hopes the round of talks will make progress.