Russian Forces Take at Least 400 Hostage at Mariupol Hospital: Ukrainian Official

The aftermath of Mariupol Hospital after an attack, in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9, 2022, in this image taken from video provided by the Mariupol City Council. Mariupol City Council via AP

Russian forces have taken at least 400 people hostage at a hospital in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to regional leader Pavlo Kyrylenko.

In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, Kyrylenko said about 400 people were driven to the Regional Intensive Care Hospital in Mariupol from neighboring houses.

Kyrylenko quoted a hospital employee who said it is “impossible to get out of the hospital.”

“They are shooting hard, we are sitting in the basement,” the hospital worker told Kyrylenko. “Cars have not been able to drive to the hospital for two days. High-rise buildings are burning around us.”

“We can’t leave,” the employee reportedly told the leader.

Kyrylenko said the hospital was “practically destroyed” by Russian troops several days earlier, but that workers and patients continued to stay in the basement where the patients continued to be treated.

“The floor slabs fell in the main building from the bombing,” he wrote.

Kyrylenko in his post urged international human rights organizations to respond to these “vicious violations of the norms and customs of war, to these egregious crimes against humanity.”

“Russia and every citizen involved in crimes in Ukraine must be punished!” he wrote

The Ukrainian army’s General Staff said Russian forces are attempting to block off the city from the western and eastern outskirts of the city. “There are significant losses,” it said in a Facebook post.

“The worst situation remains in the Mariupol area,” the post said.

Mariupol has seen heavy Russian shelling in recent days, with Ukrainian authorities saying 2,500 people in the city have been killed. Ukrainian officials said that three people were killed in an attack on a Mariupol hospital last week.

A person is carried out after the destruction of Mariupol children's hospital as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues on March 9, 2022, in this still image from a handout video obtained by Reuters. Ukraine Military/Handout via Reuters

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Russia has deliberately prevented the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol because it had failed to seize the strategically important city. Control of Mariupol would allow Russia to connect pro-Moscow enclaves in the east and Russian-annexed Crimea to the south.

Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko said Wednesday that a fourth Russian general was killed in fighting in the city. Gerashchenko said Major General Oleg Mityaev, 46, died on Tuesday during the storming of Mariupol. Russia is yet to confirm the death.

Russia has denied targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.

Moscow calls its military actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” meant to disarm its military and oust the country’s political leaders whom the Kremlin claims are dangerous nationalists.

Ukraine and its Western allies call the Russian invasion a groundless act of aggression.

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.