A Ukrainian woman who fled the remains of a Mariupol maternity hospital shelled by Russian forces has given birth to a daughter.
On the eve of giving birth, Mariana Vishegirskaya had to flee the hospital when a Russian airstrike hit.
But on Friday (local time) newborn Veronika was photographed curled against her mother.
The assault on the Black Sea port city, which has been surrounded by Russian forces and cut off from deliveries of food and medicine, has prompted warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.
"Russian troops have not let our aid into the city and continue to torture our people … tomorrow we will try again to send food, water and medicine," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Strike also hit mothers' evacuation site
On Wednesday, with her brow and cheek bloodied, Ms Vishegirskaya clutched her belongings in a plastic bag as she navigated down the debris-strewn stairs of the Children's and Women's Health hospital in her polka dot pyjamas.
Images of the desperate mothers and medical workers from the hospital shocked the world, as the bombing took Russia's war against Ukraine to a sickening new level.
Taken to another hospital, Ms Vishegirskaya and another woman who escaped the bombing have since given birth, their babies delivered to the sound of shellfire.
A strike hit the new site where they were taken, too.
'Their wish is Ukraine without Ukrainians'
Mariupol Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov told British broadcaster Sky the "awful" situation was getting worse "hour by hour, second by second".
"First of all, we thought that their wish is to win against Ukrainian army, but now we understand that their wish is Ukraine without Ukrainians. And so they are killing as [many citizens] as they can," he said.
Mr Orlov said 17 people, mainly doctors and pregnant women, had been injured and a girl and two other people killed in the Russian bombing of hospital facilities in the centre of the city.
So far, the Russians have made the biggest advances on cities in the east and south — including in Mariupol.
Officials said on Friday (local time) that 1,582 people had been killed in the city since the siege began 12 days earlier.
"The dead aren't even being buried," Mariupol's mayor's office said in a statement.
Russian authorities make false claims
Facing worldwide condemnation over the attack on the maternity hospital, Russian officials made several false claims, including that the hospital had been taken over by far-right Ukrainian forces to use as a base and emptied of patients and nurses.
The Twitter account for the Russian embassy in London also claimed Ms Vishegirskaya was not a victim, but a beauty blogger and model who was posing as two different pregnant women.
While Ms Vishegirskaya is a Ukrainian blogger in Mariupol who posts about skin care, make-up and cosmetics, there is no evidence that she was anything but a patient at the hospital.
She has posted multiple photos and videos on Instagram documenting her pregnancy in the past few months.
AP reporters in Mariupol who documented the attack in video and photos saw the victims and damage firsthand – and nothing to indicate the hospital was used as anything other than a hospital.
Twitter has since removed the Russian embassy's tweets, and existing links are directed to a notice that says the posts violated Twitter's rules.
Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces of shelling evacuation routes and preventing civilians from escaping the city of 430,000 people.
ABC/wires
