Moscow justifies the strike against the Mariupol maternity hospital by claiming that it served as a base for Ukrainian nationalists

The bombardment shocked the whole world and caused the death of at least three people, including a young girl. The head of Russian diplomacy Sergey Lavrov on Thursday justified this attack on a maternity hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, whose building served, according to him, as a base for a nationalist battalion.

“This maternity ward was taken over a long time ago by the Azov battalion and other radicals, and all the women in childbirth, all the nurses and all the support staff were thrown out,” Sergei Lavrov assured after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart in Turkey.

“A heinous war crime”

For his part, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, described as a “heinous war crime” the Russian bombardment of an establishment housing a maternity hospital and a pediatric hospital.

“Mariupol is under siege. Russia’s bombing of a hospital including a maternity ward is a heinous war crime.

#Mariupol is under siege.

Russia’s shelling of maternity hospital is a heinous war crime.

Strikes of residential areas from the air and blocks of access of aid convoys by the Russian forces must immediately stop.

Safe passage is needed, now.#PutinsWar #Accountability

– Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) March 10, 2022

“Genocide of Ukrainians”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday described the bombing of this hospital as a “war crime”, seeing it as “proof that a genocide of Ukrainians (was) happening”.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also described the bombing of hospitals by Russian forces in Ukraine as “war crimes”, assuring that Madrid, in unison with EU countries, supported the investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) “so that these criminal acts do not go unpunished”.