Lord have mercy:

 A Russian air strike badly damaged a children’s hospital in the besieged Ukranian port city of Mariupol on Wednesday, burying patients under rubble and injuring women in labour, Ukraine said.

The bombing, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called an “atrocity,” took place despite an agreed ceasefire to enable thousands of civilians trapped in the city to escape.

The city council said the hospital had been hit several times by an air strike, causing “colossal” destruction.

“Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage,” Zelenskiy said on Twitter.

There is video of the badly damaged hospital. Look:

‼️ 10 minutes ago, Russian invaders launched an airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol pic.twitter.com/3wWw3LRS4j

— Roman Hryshchuk (@grishchukroma) March 9, 2022

A children’s hospital. The Russian military carried out an airstrike on a children’s hospital. There’s more video at Bloomberg, including of the moment the Russian bomb or missile hit. The Ukraine government says children were in the hospital at the time of the strike, but so far, independent media haven’t been able to confirm that. There is no doubt, though, that the children’s hospital was destroyed. There’s a huge bomb crater in the courtyard.

Patriarch Kyrill, in the name of God, find your conscience, and find your voice! Putin and his generals are bringing divine judgment onto Russia.

Before you ask, no, I don’t believe that NATO should attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine in the wake of this, despite President Zelensky’s plea. That would mean World War III, which would likely mean a nuclear exchange. Do you understand that? A nuclear exchange. We cannot risk that. Still, all great Neptune’s ocean will not wash this blood clean from Putin’s hand.

UPDATE: From its record in Syria, seems like bombing hospitals is a thing that the Russian military does. 

However this thing ends with Ukraine, the reputation of Russia in the world will not recover for decades. Putin has led his country into disaster.

UPDATE.2: I don’t think Tom Nichols wrote this in direct response to the maternity hospital bombing, but it nevertheless explains why despite the horror of that attack, we have to keep our heads or countless more innocent people will die:

Let me see if I can (exhaustedly) clarify something here.

I am not worried that a direct NATO-Russia confrontation instantly produces WWIII. I am worried that the chaos of war, with heightened alerts will create the space for accidents and huge miscalculations. Same outcome. /1

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) March 9, 2022

UPDATE.3: Lots of pushback against this story, saying that the maternity hospital had been evacuated prior to the bombing, and that Ukrainian military had been using it as a base — the idea being to draw Russian fire to give Ukraine a propaganda victory. Please post credible sources questioning the Ukrainian narrative — I’m eager to know if I’ve been played here. If I have, then I will apologize and never again rush to publish anything, even if reported by Western sources, and even if accompanied by video support. And I will denounce Volodymyr Zelensky as a fraud who is eager to lie to us to compel Western publics to force their leaders into declaring World War III on Russia.

(I will still insist that Patriarch Kyrill denounce the war, though.)

I’m not going to take Russian sources as legitimate, though they may be telling the truth here. I just don’t know. But this is really interesting, and troubling:

the same victim in three different operations? SIGNAL discovered a girl photographed by photographers on the ruins of a maternity hospital in Mariupol. She turned out to be a model and a popular beauty blogger in Mariupol. Her name is Marianna Podgurskaya. pic.twitter.com/uzQdtq77pX

— Hotaru (@spookgirl19) March 10, 2022

Details:

Additionally, on March 7, Russia’s UN Ambassador said:

Ukrainian radicals show their true face more distinctly by the day. Locals reports that Ukraine’s Armed Forces kicked out personnel of natal hospital #1 of the city of Mariupol and set up a firing site within the facility. Besides, they fully destroyed one of the city’s kindergartens.

The Russians believed this before the bombing, which indicates that they did not intentionally target a working maternity hospital, but a military target. The Russians might have been wrong in this belief, but that at least exonerates them from intentionally and heartlessly targeting a maternity hospital.

But what if they were right? I want to know — and if I allowed myself to be taken in by Ukrainian propaganda, I will retract and apologize without qualification.