Russia’s Large and Devastating Military Strikes in the Ukraine War So Far

What challenges does Putin’s new military strategy in Ukraine bring? 1:32 (CNN Spanish) — A hospital, a theater, a train station and a massacre in the streets of a city constitute until this Wednesday the most heinous military attacks that Russian forces have carried out in different cities of Ukraine . The images of these attacks have gone around the world and caused a stir among Western leaders who, following the atrocities allegedly committed by the Kremlin Army, have tightened economic sanctions against the government of Vladimir Putin. Although these sanctions target Russian financial institutions and individuals, including Putin’s adult daughters and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s wife and daughter, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said this is not enough. Meanwhile, the Russian siege has forced thousands of Ukrainians, most of them women and children, to flee desperately from the bombing towards central Europe. It is precisely these civilians who are the victims of these great military attacks: thousands of people waiting for a train to flee the war were targeted by a missile apparently launched by the Russians, or the thousands of people who lost their lives in a theater after a deadly attack by Russian aircraft. Here is an account of the largest military strikes launched by Russian forces against Ukraine: Attack on mother and child hospital in Mariupol On March 9, the Russians bombed a mother and child hospital in Mariupol, in southern Ukraine. Images of the wounded went around the world, including that of a woman in her last stages of pregnancy being carried on a stretcher in front of the smoldering remains of the hospital located in a city that has been heavily besieged by Russian troops since the invasion began. The airstrike left three dead and 17 injured, according to the Mariupol city council, which accused Russian forces of having dropped several bombs on the hospital from the air. President Zelensky condemned the attack as an “atrocity” and said it was “proof of genocide.” Then the international condemnation grew after the bombing of this mother and child hospital. After attack on maternity and child hospital in Mariupol, survivor gives birth local authorities. The March 16 bombing of this theatre, in which, according to the Ukrainian authorities, up to 1,300 people had taken refuge, has so far been one of Russia’s deadliest attacks since it began its invasion of Ukraine at the end of february. Kyiv denounced that on the ground outside the building the word “children” in Russian was announced in large white letters, large enough to be seen from the sky. Drone footage shows the destruction of the theater that was used as a bomb shelter as Russia intensified its attacks on the city. New drone footage shows the destruction of the Mariupol theater 1:08The massacre in Bucha Images of at least 20 civilian bodies lying in the streets of Bucha, northwest of the capital Kyiv, shocked the world. The terrifying images emerged after Russian troops withdrew from the capital in a failed attempt to besiege it. Although CNN has not been able to independently confirm details surrounding the deaths of the civilians, reporters saw at least a dozen bodies in body bags piled inside a grave in this Ukrainian city. Around 150 people, mostly civilians killed in the fighting around the city, are buried there, residents told CNN. In the face of the Bucha massacre, Zelensky called for an end to Russian “war crimes.” And the Russian government responded with a general denial of the accusations and said that the images of the bodies were “false”. He also claimed that “not a single local resident suffered any violent action” during the Russian occupation of Bucha. Meanwhile, a senior UN official said an “independent investigation” into civilian deaths was “essential” to ensure “effective accountability.” While President Joe Biden called the massacre a “war crime.” In the wake of the atrocities in Bucha, the United States announced new sanctions against Russia that include the daughters of President Vladimir Putin. Video: Russian troops kill a cyclist in Bucha 0:59Attack on a train station in Kramatorsk On April 8, at least 50 people, including five minors, lost their lives after the Russian Army launched a missile, this time at a train station where civilians were trying to evacuate the city of Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to local authorities. The mayor of Kramatorsk said up to 4,000 people were in the waiting room at the time the missile hit. After the attack, Zelensky said that “people (were) huddled together waiting for the trains to be evacuated to safe territory,” adding, “why do they need to hit civilians with missiles? Why this cruelty that the world has witnessed? in Bucha and other cities liberated by the Ukrainian Army?” asked the President of Ukraine in his speech to the Finnish Parliament. For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement in which it described the missile attack as “provocative” and assured that “they do not correspond at all to reality.” Russia attacks train station in Ukraine: there are civilian casualties 0:55The Chernobyl seizure During the first days of the Russian invasion of Urania —while bombings were reported in the main Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv and Kharkiv— the Chernobyl nuclear plant was captured by the Russians. Russian troops arrived at the plant on the first day of the invasion, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian State Agency for the Management of Exclusion Zones, Yevgeniya Kuznetsov, told CNN. Upon arrival they took control of the power plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, and held the staff “hostage”, according to the adviser to the commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. After Russian forces left Chernobyl after spending a month there, CNN was given exclusive access to the facility where radiation levels are now higher than usual. In addition, the Ukrainian Interior Minister told journalist Fred Pleitgen that the Russians imprisoned the staff inside the plant’s own bomb shelter and have now taken them to Russia and do not know how they are doing. Ukraine’s government released drone footage showing that the Russians apparently dug fighting positions in the forbidden Red Forest area, one of the world’s most polluted areas since the 1986 incident, thus ignoring the dangers of radiation exposure. . This is how the Chernobyl nuclear plant was left after the Russian withdrawal 4:12With information from Betsy Klein, Kevin Liptak, Hira Humayun, Tim Lister, Laura Smith-Spark, Olga Voitovych, Allie Malloy, Nathan Hodge, Sam Fossum, Gul Tuysuz, Tamara Qiblawi, Sam Romano, Fred Pleitgen, all from CNN.