A Ukrainian member of parliament says Russian soldiers are shooting at women and children who are trying to flee the conflict.
Kira Rudyk was speaking amid international condemnation of a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol yesterday.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin criticised the 'indiscriminate cruelty of Putin's invasion' of Ukraine.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted that children were "under the wreckage", calling the strike an "atrocity".
"How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror?", he asked.
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. pic.twitter.com/FoaNdbKH5k
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 9, 2022
Deputy Rudyk says the world now sees Russian President Vladimir Putin as he is.
"For the city of Mariupol, that has been under siege, for three consecutive days Putin promised that he will let the humanitarian convoy out.
"And three times in a row when these women and children, who were melting the snow for water, were trying to get out Russia soldiers were shooting at them.
"[They] were firing their guns so they had to come back.
"And if Putin cannot keep his word in this fairly minor thing, why would the world expect him to be ready for diplomatic negotiations?
"So we know not to trust Putin, but now the whole world sees he cannot be trusted."
She says the bombing of the maternity hospital is "extremely beyond anything - this cannot be happening in the 21st century in a city at the centre of Europe.
"It just cannot be happening, and what I feel is complete rage".
