WAR IN UKRAINE: March 9, 2022
A vehicle burns at the site of a maternity hospital in Mariupol that was bombed early Tuesday evening (from Twitter).
LATE BREAKING DEVELOPING NEWS (18:00 GMT): A maternity ward and a children's ward have been destroyed in a Russian air strike on a hospital in the southern city of Mariupol.
“The destruction is colossal," the city council says. There are reports of many dead and injured in the city, where people have been trapped for days with little food. Russia earlier agreed a new 12-hour ceasefire to allow civilians to flee, reported BBC.
My review of video footage from the site posted on Telegram shows massive destruction: injured patients and staff can be seen being assisted out of the facility, alongside vehicles still on fire. A photo of the bomb crater with a male standing inside suggests a massively powerful bomb.
A male filmed the inside of a wing of the facility, showing total destruction but no sign of bodies (suggesting patients and staff had been moved to floors below). He can be heard in Ukrainian calling out for survivors.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the air strike on a hospital in Mariupol, CNN reported.
"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?" Zelensky said on his Telegram account.
The president again directed his anger at NATO for refusing to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying "Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”
“Taras Shevchenko dreamed about the times when his country would be a free sovereign state, where the Ukrainian language, culture and history would be highly valued, and the people would be happy and free”
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS (DAY 14 OF WAR)
Today marks the birth date of one of the most important figures of Ukrainian nationalism, Taras Shevchenko. He is the “foremost Ukrainian poet, prose writer, painter and playwright of the 19th century. He was a major figure of the Ukrainian national revival,” according to the Kyiv university named after the so-called bard of Ukraine. His memory is particularly relevant to many Ukrainians today as the country fights for its very survival against Russian aggression. “The poet dreamed about the times when his country would be a free sovereign state, where the Ukrainian language, culture and history would be highly valued, and the people would be happy and free,” says Taras Shevchenko University.
At least 1,170 civilians have been killed in Mariupol since the start of the invasion, the city's deputy mayor has said, and the authorities have dug a mass grave because normal burials have become impossible. "Sadly, there are just too many bodies," local official Vitaly Falkovsky tells the Financial Times. "It was a necessary measure because we can’t bury people in the normal way. The morgues are overflowing." More than 60 people have been buried in the grave in the past two days, AP reports. They include civilians and soldiers killed by shelling, as well as civilians who died from disease and natural causes (BBC).
As a new set of humanitarian corridors agreed to with Russian forces open from 0900-2100 today, Ukrainian officials plead with the Kremlin to respect their commitments. A senior Ukrainian government official said this morning that there’s particular concern over the evacuation of a children’s center in the east. Previous negotiated humanitarian corridors were quickly cancelled due to Russian shelling.
The Pentagon spokesperson pretty much rejected NATO member’s surprise announcement that it would transfer fighter jets compatible with the Ukrainian Armed Forces via the United States. It sets back a proposal popular in Ukraine to strengthen superiority in the air by accepting fighter jets from western allies.
Putin is not crazy, according to William Burns, director of the CIA, during a congressional committee hearing. However, Putin’s increasing isolation and insulation from conflicting views make him “extremely difficult to deal with.” (NYT).
All the elements of a public health catastrophe are present in the ongoing war in Ukraine, the World Health Organization said late today: unprecedented numbers of migrants on the move allow for easier disease spread; damage to hospitals and lack of power/water/oxygen means treatment of the injured is difficult; and the demands on healthcare workers are extremely difficult.
Yesterday I began making mini videos to bring you more context to one of the biggest stories of our lifetime. Below is the first installment. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to stay up-to-date!
Yesterday evening, following Ukraine President Zelensky’s historic speech to the British House of Commons, I was invited onto CNN International with host Eleni Giokos to comment on his performance as a wartime president. I also gave a fairly grim assessment of the tools remaining in Mr. Putin’s playbook to inflict maximum damage. View the entire video below…