Ukrainian officials say a hospital complex in the besieged southeastern port city of Mariupol has been hit by a Russian attack.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denounced the incident as an “atrocity” and reiterated a call for Kyiv’s allies to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
Kyiv has called for an immediate ceasefire around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant amid a power cut at the site.
Russia’s defence ministry has admitted that some conscripts were deployed to Ukraine, days after President Vladimir Putin denied that was the case.
Ukraine has evacuated more than 40,000 people in one day but has fallen short of the target of 100,000, one of the negotiators in the talks with Russia said.
David Arakhamia said in a post on social media said that evacuations remained problematic around the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol.
The ground shook more than a mile away when a children’s hospital with a maternity ward in Mariupol was hit by a series of blasts that blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building.
Police and soldiers rushed to the scene to evacuate victims, carrying out a heavily pregnant and bleeding woman on a stretcher.
World Opinions – Agencies