Russia has been called out for making false claims about victims caught in a military attack on a Ukrainian hospital.
Horrific footage emerged of dozens of people being ushered out of a crumbling maternity ward in Mariupol yesterday (9 March). According to reports, three people died and 17 were injured in the attack.
One image was of a heavily pregnant woman, with cuts to her face, walking down a stairwell and out of the hospital.
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However, while most of the world looked on in horror at the scenes unfolding in Eastern Europe, the Russian Embassy claimed that it did not attack a hospital.
In a post on Twitter, it claimed that the building was being used by far-right Ukrainian forces, the Azov Battalion, and branded the photo of the injured woman as 'fake news'.
It said: 'The maternity house was long non-operational. Instead, it was used by armed forces and radicals, namely the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
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'Threat to civilians in Ukraine is posed not by Russian military who do not target civil infrastructure, but by Ukrainian radicals and neo-Nazis who hold population of several cities as hostage'.
The embassy also alleged that the pregnant woman had been made up to look like the victim of an attack.
Replying to a comment, it said: 'No, it's the indeed pregnant beauty blogger Marianna Podgurskaya. She actually played roles of both pregnant women on the photos.
'And first photos were actually taken by famous propagandist photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, rather than rescuers and witnesses as one would expect'.
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They said later: 'She is indeed. As she has some very realistic make-up. She is also doing well with her beauty blogs. Plus she could not be in the maternity house at the time of the strike, as it has long been taken by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who told all the staff to clear the place'.
Since sharing the post, which has since been deleted by Twitter, the Russian Embassy has been heavily criticised for spreading misinformation about the invasion of Ukraine.
One user said: 'Russia has no bottom. This Kremlin account claims their bombing Mariupol’s maternity hospital is all fake & bloodied pregnant women were actors. This is standard operating procedure for Putin’s terrorist state. PLEASE @twitter don’t help them lie about their genocidal war crimes.'
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Echoing the outrage, another wrote: 'The OFFICIAL Russian embassy to the UK calling a pregnant women fake… the more I follow the official Russian account the more I see they just live in a fantasy world.'
'I really thought this was a fake account. Folks, I give you the Russian Embassy. Yeah, OK, we did bomb the hospital but the pregnant women weren't there so it's OK', put a third.
Topics: Russia, World News
