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Smoke rises over Mariupol after the city was shelled
Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Parts of the building bombed, pregnant women fleeing into the open or being carried away on stretchers, three dead, including a six-year-old girl: According to Ukrainian sources, several civilians died in an attack on a children's hospital in Mariupol.
The reports are consistent with the information provided by reporters and eyewitnesses in the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sees the attack as evidence of Russian genocide in Ukraine.
The Kremlin, on the other hand, says the reports are false.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry called the allegations “information terrorism”.
Her boss Sergey Lavrov spoke of a "manipulation" of the entire world with information about alleged atrocities by the Russian army.
Zelenskyy, in turn, called it a lie.
Mariupol shows that in Ukraine not only rockets, tanks and grenades are used;
an information war has also broken out.
It's the 15th day of the war.
The most important reports at a glance.
humanitarian situation
»The Russian armed forces do not shoot at civilian targets« – this claim has been maintained by the Kremlin since the start of the attack on Ukraine, and now also by the spokesman for the Russian Presidential Office, Dmitry Peskov.
It hasn't stood up to independent testing for a long time.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had verified 18 attacks on medical facilities since the war began.
In addition, there are reports of shelling of residential areas, which can apparently also be seen on satellite images.
Mariupol is at the center of this.
According to the city administration, 1,207 civilians have died within nine days.
The information has not been independently verified.
The residents have had to endure without electricity, water, heating and under constant fire for days.
An aid convoy had to turn back before it reached the surrounded city in southern Ukraine.
The reason for this is the continued shelling, says Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
The convoy was intended to get civilians out of the city and to safety.
Evacuations from the embattled cities in the north and east of the country and the capital Kyiv are continuing.
Evacuations are mainly from the Sumy region on the Russian border in the direction of Poltava in central Ukraine, said the deputy head of the presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko via Telegram.
Efforts are also being made to bring people from Izyum in the Kharkov region and the besieged cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha in the Donetsk region to safe regions.
In addition, further transports from the north-western suburbs of Kyiv to the capital are planned.
According to Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko, around half of the city's residents have now left the city.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2.3 million people have fled Ukraine.
About 44 million people lived in Ukraine before the war.
military situation
The events of the war remain confusing, especially since the information provided by the warring parties cannot be independently verified.
Ukrainian authorities reported that Russian planes bombed the area around Sumy, including residential areas and a gas pipeline.
The Ukrainian army spoke of attempted Russian attacks on the capital Kyiv and the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, as well as attacks on the region around the city of Kharkiv in the east.
But the Russian offensive was slowed down.
According to the Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russian troops have so far destroyed 2,911 military infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.
The Russian army has also taken control of some neighborhoods in the besieged city of Mariupol, ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said, according to Russian news agencies.
As a condition for a cessation of fighting, Russia is demanding that Ukraine declare itself neutral in its constitution.
In addition, Kyiv must recognize the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as Russian and the separatist areas of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent states.
It is considered impossible that Kyiv accepts these conditions.
Meeting of foreign ministers
A meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Russian colleague Lavrov in Antalya, Turkey, did not bring any significant progress.
Two weeks after the start of the Russian attack on the neighboring country, it was not possible to agree on at least a temporary ceasefire or even further escape corridors.
The European Union wants to discuss the situation at a summit in France in the evening.
Ukraine had made it clear that, in principle, they wanted to talk about ways to end the conflict.
Lavrov, on the other hand, subsequently explained that the right forum for this would be the talks that had already begun in Belarus, a common neighboring country that is closely allied with Russia.
Lavrov accused the West of exacerbating the conflict by supplying arms to Ukraine.
Kuleba complained that Lavrov was unable to agree escape corridors himself, not even for the port city of Mariupol, which was suffering particularly badly.
The Russian foreign minister must discuss this in Moscow.
A 24-hour ceasefire was also discussed, but: “We have not made any progress on this issue.
Because it seems that these decisions are made by others in Russia.« Both Lavrov and Kuleba were in principle ready for further talks.
You should have heard, read and seen this
SPIEGEL reporter Alexandra Rojkov never wanted to be a war reporter, but then the first bombs fell when she was in Kyiv.
She told the daily podcast how she is doing and how she works under these circumstances.
You can find the podcast here: Reports under Danger to life
On Sunday, a mother and her two children were killed in a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Irpin near Kyiv.
The photo with their bodies went around the world.
Now the father and husband has spoken out.
You can find the whole text here: »The whole world should know what is happening here«
Two brothers from Brandenburg want to pick up refugees from the Polish-Ukrainian border.
Who can you take with you?
The video report by Thilo Adam, Andreas Evelt and Fabian Pieper can be found here: Up to the limit
Does Europe need a defense fund - and what are the problems with the project?
Markus Becker and Michael Sauga addressed these questions before the meeting of the heads of state and government.
col/pbe/dpa/Reuters/AFP