Satellite images taken Wednesday morning in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol show extensive damage to apartments, houses, shops, shopping malls and other civic structures in and around the city.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, in a move that made 2 million Ukrainians who had fled the country become refugees. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described it as “a war against all of Europe”, and the US, EU and UK, some countries and companies imposed economic sanctions on Russia, directly against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to the BBC, Maxar shared images taken from its earth-observing satellites showing before and after shots of the city, where a maternity hospital was also hit later in the day. The photos on the left are from June 21, the photos on the right are from March 9.
Photographs taken by the commercial satellite operator show shopping areas, high-rise apartments and residential neighborhoods radically transformed by bombing. The new images below show scorched earth and roofs collapsing on civilian facilities.
Images from the maternity hospital in Mariupol, which was reported to have been bombed later in the day, spread rapidly on social media, drawing anger and condemnation. The Russian government claimed that the facility was empty and that the pregnant women photographed were actors evacuating the wreckage, but social media posts on Facebook last week asked the hospital for help with fuel and other supplies to continue working. Maxar captured this image of the hospital before the attack:
Later, the Ukrainian military released footage of the scene as pregnant women were evacuated from the facility. Mariupol city council said three people, including a child, were killed in the attack on the hospital, according to the AP. More than 3,000 Russian soldiers and a similar number of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers are thought to have died in the war so far, a US official told CBS.