Reports that Russia attacked a functioning hospital in Mariupol are fake news. A Russian envoy to the United Nations, Dmitri Polianski, said this. It is disturbing, he says, that even the UN is spreading such fake news.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Vasili Nebenzja, said right-wing extremist militias had cleared a maternity hospital to fire from the property.
According to him, UN chief António Guterres and Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky’s statement that Russians have bombed a children’s hospital is complete nonsense. Local authorities have said three people, including a child, were killed in the attack.
In addition to Ukrainian armed forces, militias from extremist parties such as the Right Sector and the Azov Battalion are fighting. According to Russia, those extremists use civilians as human shields and destroy infrastructure, including homes and schools.
They fear, among other things, the arrival of radical militias from the pro-Russian breakaway regions in Donetsk and Luhansk. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, they have now taken over several neighbourhoods in the west and east of the port city.
