(Moscow) The Russian army described Thursday as “staged” by Ukrainian “nationalists” the strike having targeted the day before a maternity hospital and a pediatric hospital in the surrounded city of Mariupol, in the south-east of Ukraine.
Posted at 12:06 p.m.
Updated at 12:32 p.m.
“The Russian air force has not carried out any target destruction missions in the Mariupol region,” assured the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Igor Konashenkov.
“The alleged airstrike is a total set-up for the purpose of provocation in order to fuel the anti-Russian agitation of the Western public,” he added.
The spokesman repeated Russian accusations that the hospital had been evacuated by the Ukrainians and was being used as a “stronghold” for fighters “due to its favorable location from a tactical point of view”.
Before him, the head of diplomacy Sergei Lavrov had argued Thursday that the establishment was used as a base for “radicals” and that “all women in childbirth, all nurses and all support staff were thrown out” .