March 9, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Several hours before the maternity and children's hospital in Mariupol was bombed, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of establishing combat positions at the hospital.

She went on to claim that there were "numerous videos refuting Ukrainian fakes, confirming Kyiv's crimes against its citizens are in abundance in the public domain."

Video from the hospital after the bombing clearly showed there were both patients and staff there, including heavily pregnant women who were carried from the hospital.

About the attack: It came despite Russia agreeing to a 12-hour pause in hostilities to allow refugees to evacuate a number of towns and cities.

Mariupol city council posted a video of the devastated hospital in the city and accused Russian forces of dropping several bombs on it from the air.

"The destruction is enormous," said the council. "The building of the medical facility where the children were treated recently is completely destroyed."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to resort to nuclear weapons a “bluff.” 

Putin said on February 27 in a televised meeting with top Russian defense officials that he had ordered his country's deterrence forces — which include nuclear arms — onto their highest state of alert. 

Zelensky went on to say that Putin’s nuclear threat “shows a weakness.”  

Many homes in the Moldovan village of Hîrtop sit empty, either uninhabitable or their owners live in larger cities and abroad. Roughly 140 kilometers, or roughly 87 miles, from Ukraine, residents told CNN they could hear the bombing on the first day of the Russian invasion. 

Resident and activist Rusanda Curca, 33, knew a humanitarian crisis would soon spill over into Moldova and she wanted to help. 

Already she has found housing for more than 50 refugees in her small village. 

“I want them to give the best that we can. Houses, not those spaces with 700 beds. But normal houses where they can cook for themselves. Have this private space and everything,” she said. 

Widower Boris Makeyev, 75, welcomed a family of four, including two children, into his home on March 5.

“I’m lonely. I live alone. So why don’t they live here until it calms down. I feel badly for them. The children are small. This little one is innocent,” he said while holding a squirming two year old Andrei. 

Andrei’s mother Olga Kuznetsova said the decision to flee came about 5 minutes before they left. They did not plan it at all. They just gathered a few belongings and ran. 

“With little kids, hiding in the basement every two, three hours, putting the little one to sleep, feeding and bathing them, it wasn’t possible,” Kuznetsova said. 

When the family left, they had no idea they would run across a border into Moldova. They thought they would leave for a day or two and then go back home.

“We hope that it will calm down. We hope our town isn’t destroyed. We hope this to all end soon and for us to have peace so that we can go home,” she said. 

Olga and her mother, Halina Parpacak, teared up talking about “Grandfather Boris,” saying she can never repay the kindness he has shown her family. 

Asked how long he could afford to continue hosting this family, Makeyev said as long as they need.  

The US does not support the transfer of combat aircraft to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said Wednesday. 

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the Polish Minister of Defense that the US does not support the transfer of MiG-29s to the Ukrainian air force “at this time,” either by Poland transferring them to Ukraine with the US backfilling Poland’s fleet or by Poland transferring the MiG-29s to the US to then give those to Poland.

Austin and the Polish Minister of Defense spoke by phone this morning after the Pentagon released a public statement last night saying they did not believe the Polish proposal to transfer MiG-29s to a US military base in Germany was a “tenable” option.

The idea as laid out by Poland was too risky, Kirby said in the statement Thursday, as the US and NATO seek to avoid an outright conflict between the alliance and Russia.

The US also believes the “best way” to support Ukraine is “by providing the weapons and systems that they need most to defeat Russian aggression,” in particular, “anti-armor and air defense,” Kirby said.

More background: Poland said on Tuesday that it was ready to deploy — immediately and free of charge — all their MiG-29 fighter jets to the US Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base in Germany and place them at the disposal of Washington to provide them to Ukraine, according to a statement from the Polish foreign ministry. 

Watch the moment:

They came in droves, their cars loaded with anything they could cram in. The wind was blowing and small flecks of snow drifted across a huge parking lot, flanked on one side by a cohort of yellow buses.

Wednesday would be a chance for people to escape during an agreed ceasefire.

The evacuation point in Bilohorodka was the meeting place for people escaping to the capital city of Kyiv from the onslaught of Russian guns to the northwest of Kyiv, including the districts of Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and Vorzel.

The scene was chaotic, people running from car to car searching for loved ones.

People told me that they literally threw their youngsters into vans. Those who can’t find their relatives were left in tears making frantic phone calls. 

We found Natasha, crammed into a van full of orphans in her care.

She said “the older children were really scared, but the younger ones didn’t really understand. We’ve had no water, no heat and no gas. We’ve been using wood to cook in the streets.”

Another car pulled up, packed to the rafters with Nadia and her family. In English, she told CNN that Vorzel was “dangerous occupied by a lot of Russians and a lot of Chechens.” She went on to say that she had spent most of the last 10 days underground.

The arriving cars are greeted with a cup of tea, some warm food and thorough checking by the police and intelligence services. The deputy mayor of Kyiv, Kostiantyn Usov, told CNN that they are checking that no Russian spies have infiltrated the masses leaving the area.

Over the course of several hours, the yellow buses fill with evacuees, and the condensation gathers on the windows.

A little boy sticks his head over the windowsill to see outside. He waves, not a care in the world, likely unable to comprehend that he may never return to the place he was born.

The Ukrainian Interior Ministry says more than 3,000 people managed to escape fighting "in occupied parts of Irpin and Vorzel," localities north of Kyiv, on Wednesday.

The Interior Ministry repeated earlier statements by local authorities that many others had been prevented from leaving towns north of Kyiv, despite an agreement between Ukraine and Russia to create so-called "green corridors" for five areas near the capital to allow civilians to escape heavy fighting. 

"According to police, the occupiers stopped the humanitarian convoys that were leaving Bucha, Gostomel and Borodyanka today. Because of this, some people were forced to risk their lives to leave Bucha for Irpin and then leave with a column of locals," they said.

Andrey Nebitov, the chief of police for the Kiev region, said: "Exhausted, frightened, hungry, but, most importantly, alive. People who came out of the blockade shared the horrors of the occupation — looting, executions, intimidation and looting in Russian-occupied cities."

A senior official in the Kyiv region says lines of vehicles stretch for miles as people try to escape fighting in districts to the north and northwest of Kyiv.

Konstantin Usov, the deputy chairman of the Kyiv Regional administration, speaking from an assembly point to the west of Kyiv, said that the evacuation was underway, after a day in which thousands of people tried to use so-called "green corridors" agreed by Russia and Ukraine to escape widespread destruction north of the capital.

"Unfortunately, people could not leave all the cities today," Usov said, long after darkness fell.

He added, "We try to let all cars go as early as possible, as soon as possible. There is a filtration, selection. We are checking the documents so that Russian saboteurs do not pass under the guise of evacuees. Difficult work, unfortunately, we are 100% beyond curfew. "

Curfew in the Kyiv region begins at 8 p.m. local time. 

"We continue to feed people, continue to heat them, give them tea," Usov said.

Former professional boxer and brother of Kyiv’s mayor, Wladimir Klitschko said his “heart is bleeding” following the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol on Wednesday.

“My heart is bleeding,” the former Hall of Famer said in a video posted to Facebook.

Following the bombing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: "Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage.”

The city council in Mariupol in southern Ukraine posted video of a devastated children's and maternity hospital in the city and accused Russian forces of dropping several bombs on it from the air. The Donetsk region police say that according to preliminary information, 17 people were injured.

“Look at these images there, the concrete and real result of Putin’s special operations, so to speak. When he does not take the lives of these angels, he kills their parents, grandparents and destroys their homes and schools,” Klitschko said.

Klitschko said “to attack Children is to attack life, civilization itself,” and urged people to “stop Putin’s war now.”

Ukrainian troops are engaging in firefights with Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Voznesensk, over 50 miles north of Mykolaiv, a video posted to social media shows. 

CNN has geolocated, and verified the authenticity of the video. 

In the video, a number of Ukrainian military troops are seen on the southern side of Voznesensk near market. The soldiers are seen armed with shoulder-fired missiles and the sound of gunfire is heard. 

Suddenly, an explosion is seen and heard near the side of the building where at least two Ukrainian troops are seen taking cover. As the camera suddenly backs away, one of the soldiers is seen falling back. It's unclear if any soldiers were injured in the explosion. 

Continued fighting in Voznesensk is notable given that the Russian military have yet to defeat Ukrainian forces in Mykolaiv, 50 miles to the south. It suggests that some of the Russian military is bypassing the intense exchanges in Mykolaiv and attempting to advance further north.