March 9, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

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.”  

Many homes in the Moldovan village of Hîrtop sit empty, either uninhabitable or their owners live in larger cities and abroad. Roughly 140 kilometers, or roughly 87 miles, from Ukraine, residents told CNN they could hear the bombing on the first day of the Russian invasion. 

Resident and activist Rusanda Curca, 33, knew a humanitarian crisis would soon spill over into Moldova and she wanted to help. 

Already she has found housing for more than 50 refugees in her small village. 

“I want them to give the best that we can. Houses, not those spaces with 700 beds. But normal houses where they can cook for themselves. Have this private space and everything,” she said. 

Widower Boris Makeyev, 75, welcomed a family of four, including two children, into his home on March 5.

“I’m lonely. I live alone. So why don’t they live here until it calms down. I feel badly for them. The children are small. This little one is innocent,” he said while holding a squirming two year old Andrei. 

Andrei’s mother Olga Kuznetsova said the decision to flee came about 5 minutes before they left. They did not plan it at all. They just gathered a few belongings and ran. 

“With little kids, hiding in the basement every two, three hours, putting the little one to sleep, feeding and bathing them, it wasn’t possible,” Kuznetsova said. 

When the family left, they had no idea they would run across a border into Moldova. They thought they would leave for a day or two and then go back home.

“We hope that it will calm down. We hope our town isn’t destroyed. We hope this to all end soon and for us to have peace so that we can go home,” she said. 

Olga and her mother, Halina Parpacak, teared up talking about “Grandfather Boris,” saying she can never repay the kindness he has shown her family. 

Asked how long he could afford to continue hosting this family, Makeyev said as long as they need.  

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

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the Polish Minister of Defense that the US does not support the transfer of MiG-29s to the Ukrainian air force “at this time,” either by Poland transferring them to Ukraine with the US backfilling Poland’s fleet or by Poland transferring the MiG-29s to the US to then give those to Poland.

Austin and the Polish Minister of Defense spoke by phone this morning after the Pentagon released a public statement last night saying they did not believe the Polish proposal to transfer MiG-29s to a US military base in Germany was a “tenable” option.

The idea as laid out by Poland was too risky, Kirby said in the statement Thursday, as the US and NATO seek to avoid an outright conflict between the alliance and Russia.

The US also believes the “best way” to support Ukraine is “by providing the weapons and systems that they need most to defeat Russian aggression,” in particular, “anti-armor and air defense,” Kirby said.

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. 

Watch the moment: