Newborn killed in Russian rocket strike on Ukrainian Maternity Hospital

Kyiv: An overnight rocket attack struck a hospital maternity ward in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday. The baby's mother and a doctor were pulled alive from the rubble. The region's governor said the rockets were Russian. The strike in Vilniansk, close to the city of Zaporizhzhia, adds to the gruesome toll suffered by hospitals and other medical facilities and their patients and staff in the Russian invasion entering its tenth month this week. They have been in the firing line from the outset, including a March 9 airstrike that destroyed a maternity hospital in the now-occupied port city of Mariupol."At night, Russian monsters launched huge rockets at the small maternity ward of the hospital in Vilniansk. Grief overwhelms our hearts  a baby was killed who had just seen the light of day. Rescuers are working at the site," said the regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, writing on the Telegram messaging app.

Photos he posted show thick smoke rising above mounds of rubble, being combed by emergency workers against the backdrop of a dark night sky.

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The State Emergency Service initially said a baby was killed and that a new mother and a doctor were pulled from the rubble, and that they were the only people in the ward at the time. The service specified in a follow-up post on Telegram that the rescued woman was the newborn's mother.