“You don’t shoot at pregnant women,” the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States said Wednesday evening.
But Vladimir Putin did.
On Wednesday morning, Putin ordered Russian missiles to target a maternity ward and children’s hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol, Ukraine. Two women and a child were killed and dozens injured.
The bombing occurred during an agreed upon ceasefire during which women, children and elderly can flee for safety.
Russia’s military leaders used the interval to level the hospital and all around it, burying people under the rubble.
“What kind of country is this?” an incredulous Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, asked in a video later that morning.
“This is an unbelievable war crime,” said the ambassador, Oksana Markarova.
Putin’s response? Sticks and stones.
EVEN IN TIMES of war, countries are expected to honor a set of principles that maintain some semblance of humanity.
Such concepts began more than 200 years ago and have been updated over the years. The Hague Convention lays out war crimes; the Geneva Convention, crimes against humanity. Such codes limiting the barbarity of war are generally recognized by 193 of the world’s 195 countries that belong to the United Nations, including Russia.
War crimes and those against humanity include:
* Destruction of property not justified by military necessity;
* Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health;
* Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects;
* Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives;
