Russia rejects Ukraine charge of genocide as invasion enters third week
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Loading... - Kendra Cox
- 10 Mar 2022
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Russia's war in Ukraine entered the third week on Thursday with none of its stated objectives reached despite thousands of people killed, more than two million made refugees, and thousands forced to cower in besieged cities under relentless bombardment.
Ukraine said Russia was carrying out "genocide" by bombing a children's hospital in the city of Mariupol. Russia said the reports were "fake news" as the building was a former maternity hospital that had long been taken over by troops.
Moscow's stated objectives of crushing the Ukrainian military and ousting the pro-West elected government of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy remained out of reach, with Zelenskiy unshaken and Western military aid pouring across the Polish and Romanian borders.
The UK Defence Ministry said on Thursday that a large Russian column northwest of Kyiv had made little progress in over a week and was suffering continued losses. It added that as casualties mount, Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to draw from across the armed forces to replace the losses.
Putin has said the advance by his forces in Ukraine was going according to plan and to schedule. Russia calls its incursion a "special operation" to disarm its neighbour and dislodge leaders it calls "neo-Nazis."
Western-led sanctions designed to cut the Russian economy and government from international financial markets were also beginning to bite, with the Russian share market and rouble plunging and ordinary Russians rushing to hoard cash.
'HOSPITAL BOMBED'
Zelenskiy accused Russia of carrying out "genocide" after Ukrainian officials said Russian aircraft bombed a children's hospital on Wednesday, burying patients in rubble despite a ceasefire deal for people to flee Mariupol.
"What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?" Zelenskiy said in a televised address late on Wednesday.
The attack, which authorities said injured women in labour and left children in the wreckage, underscored U.S. warnings that the biggest assault on a European state since 1945 could become increasingly attritional after Russia's early failures.
The White House condemned the hospital bombing as a "barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians".
"That’s how fake news is born," Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said on Twitter. Read More…
