Mariupol, March 12 (AP): Newborn Veronica leaned on her mother’s side on Friday, as if to hide from the terror around her – the war that ravaged the Mariupol maternity hospital, where she was to greet the world .
On the eve of giving birth, her mother, Mariana Vyshegirskaya, had to flee the hospital during a Russian air raid.
On Wednesday, while walking down the rubble-laden stairs of the hospital in polka-dot pajamas, she packed her belongings in a plastic bag and blood flowed down her forehead and cheeks.
Images of desperate mothers and medical workers from Children’s and Women’s Health Hospital shocked the world, as the bombing took Russia’s war against Ukraine to a new level.
Taken to another hospital, Vishegirskaya and another woman who survived the bombing, since birth, gave their children the sound of shelling. There was also a strike at the new site, where they too were taken.
Facing worldwide condemnation, Russian officials made several false claims – that the hospital had been taken over by far-right Ukrainian forces to be used as a base and that patients and nurses had been evacuated.
The Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in London claimed that she was not the victim, but a beauty blogger and model posing as two different pregnant women.
While Vishegirskaya is a Ukrainian blogger in Mariupol who posts about skin care, makeup and cosmetics, there is no evidence that she was anything other than a patient in the hospital. She has posted several photos on Instagram documenting her pregnancy over the past few months, and in one, she can be seen wearing polka-dot pajamas just like Wednesday.
The embassy posted two side-by-side photos to the Associated Press, one of which shows Vishegirskaya and a woman being carried on a stretcher, with the word “FAKE” in red text. The caption claimed: “The maternity home was non-operational for a long time at the time of the strike”.
The embassy followed with a second tweet in which it shared a photo of Vyshegirskaya wrapped in blankets outside the hospital along with an image from her Instagram account to suggest she was playing a role.
The AP reporter in Mariupol who documented the attack in video and photos took a first look at the victims and damages – and went on to point out that the hospital was not used as anything other than a hospital.
Twitter has since removed the tweets from the Russian embassy, and the existing link has been directed to a notice stating that the post violated Twitter’s rules.
The AP was unable to determine the identity of the woman on the stretcher.
The matter attracted attention at the United Nations Security Council, where Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia placed copies of AP photos during a meeting on Friday, while reiterating lies about Vyshegirskaya’s identity and the attack.
But US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield praised the media for “documenting the truth on the ground”, saying: “Russia cannot cover the work of AP News photographers.” After the bombing, Vishegirskaya was taken to another hospital on the outskirts of the city, facing the front line, and gave birth via caesarean section in a city that had lost more than a week’s worth of food supplies. , was cut off from water, electricity and heat.
On Friday, her husband, Yuri, lovingly held his daughter, then she was put back next to her mother.
Vyshegirskaya in polka-dot robes rested her hand on the bundled-up Veronica. (AP) NSD NSD
(This story has been published as part of an auto-generated Syndicate wire feed. Headline or body have not been edited by ABP Live.)