The Sky News reporter confronted Sergey Lavrov as he discussed the latest round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Antalya, Turkey. Moscow faced fresh condemnation after reports emerged that Russian forces dropped a bomb on a maternity and children’s hospital in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Dominic Waghorn asked how Russia could now think Ukraine would trust them after the attack killed three people, including a 6-year-old girl.
The Sky reporter said: “You said some time ago that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine.
“I think today you said Russia didn’t invade Ukraine when they clearly did.
“You also said that Russia would not harm civilians and thousands of people were injured, their homes destroyed and it seems the hospital was attacked.
“Why should Ukrainians take you seriously, with all due respect? Why should they believe a word you say, and the rest of the world?”
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Lavrov claimed that Russia had reported to the UN Security Council three days before the attack that the hospital had been taken over by the Azov Battalion, a right-wing neo-Nazi militia battalion originally formed after the invasion of the Crimea in 2014.
Moscow also claimed no women or children were in the hospital despite footage now showing pregnant patients and relatives being evacuated through the rubble.
He said: “As for the hospital and the maternities, I talked about it but you didn’t listen to that and you’re not going to show it.
“And no one will say that three days ago at the United Nations Security Council we explained what happened with this neighborhood.”
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Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said the affected hospital building was a former maternity hospital that had been taken over by Ukrainian troops.
“This is how fake news is born,” he said, adding that Russia warned on March 7 that the hospital had been turned into a military object from which the Ukrainians were firing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike in Mariupol was part of a “genocide” against his people.
Defense Minister James Heappey said that although Russian troops had not deliberately targeted the medical complex, the attack still constituted a war crime.
Mr Heappey said: “We wonder how this happened? Was it an indiscriminate use of artillery or missiles in a built-up area, or was a hospital explicitly targeted?
“Both are equally despicable, both, as the Ukrainians pointed out, would amount to a war crime.”
He continued: “Yes, if you deliberately target civilian infrastructure like a hospital, yes.
“If you use indiscriminate artillery in an urban area with no regard for reality, you could hit a protected site like a hospital, so that too, in my opinion, is.”
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Source: www.express.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-03-11 06:35:00
