At least three civilians, including a newborn, have died in renewed Russian air strikes in Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accuse Moscow of causing “terror” in his country.
“The enemy has decided once again to try to achieve, with terror and murder, what it has not achieved in nine months and will not achieve,” Zelensky wrote in Telegram, referring to the period of invasion of his country.
The Ukrainian president promised that Russia “will have to account for all the damage it has done to the country”.
Among the victims is a baby who died in a bombing that hit a maternity hospital in the region of Zaporizhzhia, southern Ukraine, announced the emergency service.
In the early morning of November 23, in the city of Vilniansk, Zaporizhzia region, the two-story building of the maternity hospital was destroyed by a rocket attack on the local hospital,” said the Ukrainian service for emergency situations.
“As a result of the attack, a baby born in 2022 died,” the state service added.
In addition to the baby, the child’s mother and a doctor were in the affected area.
The mother was injured, Zelensky said, also on his Telegram account.
“The terrorist state continues the war against civilians,” Zelensky declared, referring to Russia.
Emergency services have released a video showing rescuers at work trying to pull a man out of the rubble.
According to available information, there are no more people trapped in the rubble.
The small town of Vilniansk lies 45 kilometers from the front line, in the north of the Zaporizhzhia region, which has seen much of the south occupied by Russian troops since Moscow announced the annexation of the territory in late September.
More than 700 attacks
On November 17, a Russian attack destroyed a building in the area and killed 10 people, including three children.
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, another Russian bombing killed two people on Wednesday: a 55-year-old woman and a 68-year-old man, regional governor Oleg Synegubov said.
The governor said the bombing hit a residential building and a hospital. One person was hospitalized and another received care in the area of the attack.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday that it had recorded more than 700 attacks against Ukrainian health centers since the start of the Russian invasion in February, which it said was a “clear violation” of international humanitarian law.
“Hundreds of hospitals and health centers are no longer fully operational,” said Hans Kluge, WHO director for Europe, at a press conference in Kiev.
The WHO has also warned that winter will pose a threat to millions of Ukrainians following Russian bombings of the country’s energy infrastructure, which has left millions of homes without electricity and heat.
“This winter will endanger the lives of millions of people in Ukraine,” warned Kluge. “This winter will be about survival.”
Damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure “already has devastating effects on the health system and the population,” he said.
