Russian Ministry of Defense explains 'shelling' of Mariupol maternity hospital

According to the ministry, the alleged airstrike is nothing but a completely orchestrated provocation to maintain anti-Russian sentiments among Western audiences.

"We have repeatedly stated before that Mariupol's medical institutions, including Hospital No. 3, stopped their full-time operation in late February. Nationalists dispersed all their personnel and patients.

"The hospital building, due to its advantageous tactical location close to the city center, was converted into the stronghold of the Azov National Battalion. One can hear this from city residents, who moved both to Kyiv and the Donetsk People's Republic.

"The photographs of the hospital grounds contain evidence of two separately staged explosions that took place near the hospital. One of them was a buried charge explosion, and the other one was a less powerful explosion that targeted the hospital building.

"The nature of both external and internal damage to the building may mislead non-professional audiences in Europe and the United States, for whom this performance was staged, but it may not mislead the experts. A high-explosive aviation projectile, even of smaller power, would have left practically nothing of the outer walls of the building."