Russia has acknowledged the use of thermobaric ‘vacuum bombs’ in Ukraine, confirming widespread reports that destructive weapons were deployed.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that Moscow had announced the use of “lung-destroying” weapons.
Ukrainian newspaper ukrainska pravda Also said that a Russian artillery, Sgt. Sergei Gubarev told a state TV station that he had used the weapon.
Their information came from a report broadcast on Zvezda – a Russian state-owned nationwide television network operated by the Russian Defense Ministry.
Pravda reported that Gubarev used the weapon on March 4 in the Chernihiv region.
The city, located 80 miles north of Kyiv, has been heavily bombed by the Russians.
The day before the use of thermobaric bombs, 47 civilians were killed in the city queuing for bread at noon.
Soviet-era weapons launch rockets from atop a tank body that suck up the surrounding oxygen, producing higher temperatures and more damaging explosions that last longer than conventional detonations.
An abandoned TOS-1A thermobaric weapon is depicted, captured by Ukrainians
A tank carrying a thermobaric weapon is seen at Russia’s Victory Day parade in June 2020
Amnesty International said several bombings occurred in Chernihiv’s small public square formed by Vyacheslava Chernovola and Kruhova streets, killing civilians and seriously damaging surrounding buildings, which they said may have been a war crime. .
Thermobaric weapons are formally known as TOS-1A.
The UK Defense Ministry said in the video, ‘The impact of TOS-1A is devastating.
‘It can destroy infrastructure and cause significant damage to internal organs and flash burns, resulting in the death of those exposed.’
The Pentagon said Wednesday that it could not confirm the report, and they still saw “no indication” that thermobaric weapons were used.
Photo of the wreckage of a Russian military aircraft on the outskirts of Chernihiv on March 5
Chernihiv, 80 miles north of Kyiv, remained the center of the fighting and is still under heavy bombardment.
The wreckage of the damaged aircraft in Chernihiv, where thermobaric bombs are believed to have been used
Men walk through a residential building destroyed by heavy shelling in Chernihiv on March 4
Houses in Chernihiv are painted on March 4 – the day the thermobaric weapon was used
Chernihiv was extensively destroyed in the bombing.
Under international laws of armed conflict, thermobaric weapons are not illegal, but cannot be used against military targets if their launch also causes harm to civilians.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said last week: ‘We have seen video of the Russian military carrying an unusually lethal weapon in Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield.’
Russia, frustrated by the slow pace of the conflict and seemingly angered by the unexpectedly fierce resistance, has resorted to increasingly barbaric methods to try and win the war.
On Wednesday, a Russian airstrike destroyed a maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
Ukrainian officials said at least 17 people were injured in the attack.
The ground shook more than a mile away when the Mariupol compound was hit by a series of explosions, windows blown out and much of the front of a building torn apart.
Police and soldiers arrived at the scene to evacuate victims, a heavily pregnant and bloodied woman being carried on a stretcher as light snow fell on broken cars and trees from the burns and explosions.
Another woman held her baby and started crying. In the courtyard, an explosion pit stretched for at least two floors.
‘Today Russia has committed a great crime,’ said a top regional police officer, Volodymyr Nikulin, standing in the ruins.
‘This is a war crime without any justification.’
Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen delivering a speech on International Women’s Day on Tuesday
Putin met with Child Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in the Kremlin on Wednesday
In Zhytomyr, a city of 260,000 west of Kyiv, bombs fell on two hospitals, one of them a children’s hospital, Mayor Seri Sukhomlin said on Facebook. He said no one was injured.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said children and others were buried under rubble in the Mariupol attack.
‘children’s Hospital. a maternity hospital. How did he threaten the Russian Federation?’ Zelensky asked in his nightly video address, switching to Russian to express his horror at the airstrikes.
‘What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, that fears hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?’
He urged the West to impose even stricter sanctions, so Russia has no chance of continuing the genocide.
The video shared by Zelensky happily shows the hallway with the metal bent.
“There are few things more corrupt than targeting the weak and defenseless,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be held accountable for his horrific crimes.
The World Health Organization said it had confirmed 18 attacks on health facilities and ambulances have killed 10 people since the fighting began. It was not clear whether that number included an attack on a maternity hospital.
The State Department said that US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken denounced Russia’s “unconscious attacks” in a call with his Ukrainian counterpart Dimitro Kuleba.
Two weeks after Russia’s attack on Ukraine, its forces are struggling more than expected, but Putin’s invading force of more than 150,000 troops likely retains an insurmountable advantage in firepower as it affects major cities.
Despite often heavy shelling on populated areas, US military officials reported little change on the ground in the past 24 hours, apart from Russian advances on the cities of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv.
The Biden administration has warned Russia against trying to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, rejecting Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country.
This week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – without evidence – accused Ukraine of running a chemical and biological weapons laboratory with US support.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the claim “absurd” and said it could be part of Russia’s attempt to use such weapons against Ukraine.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said fighting was continuing in the north-west of Kyiv.
Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol were also under heavy fire and surrounded by Russian forces.
Ukraine’s military said Russian forces were placing military equipment on farms and residential buildings between residential buildings in the northern city of Chernihiv.
To the south, Russians in civilian clothing are moving to the city of Mykolaiv, a Black Sea shipbuilding hub of half a million people, it said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces are building up defenses in cities to the north, south and east, and forces around Kyiv are ‘holding the line’ against a Russian attack, officials said.