March 9, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The White House warned Wednesday that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine or manufacture a "false flag" operation that uses them. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, slamming what she called false claims from Russia that the US is developing chemical weapons in Ukraine, tweeted: 

Psaki also noted Russia’s “long and well-documented track record of using chemical weapons” as well as its pattern of “accusing the West of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned earlier this year of the possibility of Russia carrying out a fake or real chemical weapons attack as a manufactured pretext for an invasion into Ukraine. But his comments came before Russia’s full invasion began.

Read the tweets:

CNN's Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked why a maternity hospital was a “threat” to Russia, in a video message posted to Telegram late Wednesday night.

The video comes after a maternity hospital in Mariupol was bombed earlier in the day.

“Russian bombs fell on a hospital and maternity center in Mariupol. A children’s hospital, a working maternity hospital, those buildings are ruined!” the president said.

Zelensky said at least 17 people were injured in the attack and authorities are continuing to through the rubble for more victims.

Russia claims Ukraine was establishing combat positions at the hospital, something CNN has not been able to verify. 

Several hours before the maternity hospital in Mariupol was bombed, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of establishing combat positions at the hospital.

At her regular briefing, Zakharova said that "in Mariupol, the Ukrainian national battalions, having expelled the staff and patients from the maternity hospital, equipped combat positions in it."

In a video message posted to Telegram on Wednesday, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko called on the global community for help and called on them to “close the sky over Ukraine” following the bombing of a maternity hospital in the city.

The mayor said he is sure the time will come when “all these occupiers will face justice at The Hague” and said this “war crime will be punished, and the perpetrators will burn in hell.”

But Russia claims Ukraine was establishing combat positions at the hospital, something CNN has not been able to verify. 

Several hours before the maternity hospital in Mariupol was bombed, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of establishing combat positions at the hospital.

At her regular briefing, Zakharova said that "in Mariupol, the Ukrainian national battalions, having expelled the staff and patients from the maternity hospital, equipped combat positions in it."

Russian forces bombed a maternity and children's hospital in southern Ukraine, authorities there said Wednesday, an attack described by the country's President Volodymyr Zelensky as an "atrocity."

The reported attack came despite Russia agreeing to a 12-hour pause in hostilities to allow refugees to evacuate a number of towns and cities.

Mariupol city council posted a video of the devastated hospital in the city and accused Russian forces of dropping several bombs on it from the air.

"The destruction is enormous," said the council. "The building of the medical facility where the children were treated recently is completely destroyed."

Zelensky repeated his call for the NATO military alliance to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

Here are some images from the scene:

Vice President Kamala Harris has arrived in Poland ahead of a high stakes visit that became more complicated by what the White House calls a “temporary breakdown in communications” over sending fighter jets to Ukraine. 

Air Force Two landed at the Warsaw Chopin International Airport just after 10 p.m. local time (4 p.m. ET).

Harris is scheduled to begin meetings with Polish leaders on Thursday morning, where the issue of the jets is set to arise. Officials have said Poland’s surprise statement hours ahead of Harris’s departure regarding the jets won’t preclude a deal, though have downplayed the prospects of arriving at an agreement. 

While in Warsaw, Harris is also planning to meet with refugees from Ukraine and American diplomats from the US Embassy in Kyiv, who are now working out of Poland. 

More background: Poland said on Tuesday that it was ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MiG-29 fighter jets to the US Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany and place them at the disposal of Washington to provide them to Ukraine, according to a statement from the Polish foreign ministry. 

The US does not support the transfer of combat aircraft to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday.

There has been another air strike in Zhytomyr, according to the city’s mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn in two video messages posted to Facebook on Wednesday night.

This comes after Sukhomlyn said an apartment building and a major textile factory in Zhytomyr were destroyed by Russian military strikes on Tuesday night. There was also a Russian military strike that leveled a part of a Ukrainian tank factory outside of Zhytomyr on Saturday, substantiated by geolocated video of the aftermath.  

In Wednesday’s message, the mayor said, “An air strike has just been made. Thermal power plant of Zhytomir has been hit and a civilian building.”

In the civilian building hit, the mayor said an elderly woman living there was hiding in the basement and came out alive with minor injuries, which she is being treated for at a hospital.

The mayor also said all the windows were blown out at two hospitals including a children’s hospital but that there were no casualties and everyone was in a bomb shelter. Sukhomlyn added that he would write an appreciation letter to the doctors for “such a great job.” 

So far, there are no casualties associated with the strike on the thermal power plant but the plant will “most likely” have to be shut down, according to the mayor. The plant powers a large portion of the city, he said, providing heat to 30% of Zhytomyr. Sukhomlyn said officials will do their best to get it up and running again. 

Sukhomlyn said the city is shutting off its streetlights after the Ukrainian army advised officials to do so because the Russian air force “changed its strategy” with aircraft coming in “very low”.

“We are holding on. We’ve got a night ahead of us and we understand it can be very heated. Russians realize they are losing on all fronts. They don’t demand what they used to demand any more. We should survive and continue to hold on,” the mayor said.

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that “almost all of the missiles that have been fired” by Russian forces inside or outside of Ukraine have been fired at sites in the eastern part of the country, during a briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday.

The US has not seen any missile launches anywhere near Ukraine’s border with Poland or in the western part of Ukraine, Kirby added.

Russian forces have fired “more than 710” missiles launches during their invasion of Ukraine, a senior defense official said earlier Wednesday.

Several hours before the maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol was bombed, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of establishing combat positions at the hospital.

She went on to claim that there were "numerous videos refuting Ukrainian fakes, confirming Kyiv's crimes against its citizens are in abundance in the public domain."

Video from the hospital after the bombing clearly showed there were both patients and staff there, including heavily pregnant women who were carried from the hospital.

About the attack: It came despite Russia agreeing to a 12-hour pause in hostilities to allow refugees to evacuate a number of towns and cities.

Mariupol city council posted a video of the devastated hospital in the city and accused Russian forces of dropping several bombs on it from the air.

"The destruction is enormous," said the council. "The building of the medical facility where the children were treated recently is completely destroyed."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to resort to nuclear weapons a “bluff.” 

Putin said on February 27 in a televised meeting with top Russian defense officials that he had ordered his country's deterrence forces — which include nuclear arms — onto their highest state of alert. 

Zelensky went on to say that Putin’s nuclear threat “shows a weakness.”