Russian Foreign Minister admits troops deliberately targeted civilian hospital

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov admitted on Wednesday that the children's and maternity hospital that was bombed in Mariupol, Ukraine on Tuesday was considered to be a military target. He also said that Russian troops were aware that they were firing upon a hospital.

"A few days ago, at a UN Security Council meeting, the Russian delegation presented factual information that this maternity hospital had long been taken over by the Azov battalion and other radicals and that all the women in labor, all the nurses and in general all the staff had been told to leave it," Lavrov said at a press conference in Antalya as peace talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitriy Kuleba continue. "It was a base of the ultra-radical Azov battalion," he said.

Russia had initially denied that it had targeted civilians and accused Ukraine of staging the event to gain sympathy from the West.

"Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets," said Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov.

But international outcry prompted Moscow to backpedal from its stance.

"We will definitely ask our military, because you and I don't have clear information about what happened there," Peskov told reporters on Thursday. "And the military are very likely to provide some information."

The tragic incident was considered by many – including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – to be a war crime.

"Mariupol. Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power but you seem to be losing humanity," Zelenskyy tweeted after the attack.