A viral video out of Ukraine shows two Ukrainians defusing what is reportedly a massive Russian bomb with just their hands and a water bottle.
“This #Russia-dropped bomb would flatten a building — and yet these #Ukraine EODs defuse it with 2 hands and a bottle of water, while shells audibly land nearby,” tweeted writer Charles Lister. “Mind boggling bravery.”
Russia continues to hammer Ukraine with aerial strikes as the invasion heads into its third week. On Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said Russia “deliberately bombed” a maternity and children’s hospital in the city of Mariupol where 400,000 Ukrainian citizens are reportedly being held hostage by Russia.
An attempt to evacuate the city and deliver food, water, medicine and other essentials was thwarted ahead of the bombing when Russian invaders attacked the humanitarian convoy before it was able to reach Mariupol’s civilians, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to hold fire so civilians in the city could receive aid and hundreds of thousands could be evacuated.
“I made a simple proposal to Minister Lavrov: I can call my Ukrainian ministers, authorities, president now and give you 100% assurances on security guarantees for humanitarian corridors,” he said, according to Reuters.
“I asked him ‘can you do the same?’ and he did not respond.”
Petro Andrushenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, told Reuters that all attempts to help citizens trapped in the city have been blocked by Russian aircraft, which he said are targeting humanitarian efforts.
“We try and try and try, but I’m not sure if it’ll be possible today – or other days,” he said.
“Air strikes started from the early morning. Air strike after air strike. All the historic centre is under bombardment,” he said. “They want to absolutely delete our city, delete our people. They want to stop any evacuation.”
Lavrov justified the maternity and children’s hospital bombing with claims that the facility was no longer treating patients and that Ukrainian “radicals” had occupied the building.
President Joe Biden’s administration condemned the attack as a “barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians.”
“Mariupol. Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted following the attack. “Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity.”
