KYIV, Ukraine - A newborn baby was killed following a Russian strike that hit a maternity ward in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims to have annexed, Ukrainian emergency services said on Wednesday.

Overnight on Tuesday to Wednesday, “in the city of Vilniansk in Zaporizhzhia region, as a result of a rocket attack on the territory of the local hospital, the two-storey building of the maternity ward was destroyed”, rescuers said on social media.

They added that there was “a woman in labour with a newborn baby, as well as a doctor” inside the building.

“As a result of the attack, a baby born in 2022 died, the woman and doctor were rescued from the rubble,” rescuers said, adding that according to preliminary information, there was nobody else trapped under the debris.

The emergency services distributed a video of rescuers working to free a man trapped waist-deep in the rubble of what appears to be the destroyed maternity ward.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday accused Russia of bringing “terror and murder” to Ukraine after the strike.

“The enemy has once again decided to try to achieve with terror and murder what it wasn’t able to achieve for nine months and won’t be able to achieve,” Mr Zelensky said on social media.

“Instead, it will only be held to account for all the evil it has brought to our country,” he added. AFP