At one of many hospitals, Tertel mentioned, Ukrainian army personnel have been being handled, hiding “behind the backs of sick youngsters.”
“All these individuals and their plans are recognized to us,” Tertel mentioned. “Within the struggle towards terrorism, we act in accordance with the legal guidelines of wartime — decisively and with out hesitation.”
Kyiv authorities considered Tertel’s assertion — which was posted as a video on the web — as a potential warning of a missile or drone assault.
“The enemy really introduced an assault on these medical establishments, naming even the addresses,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko mentioned, talking in a video he posted on social media that was self-recorded from the grounds in entrance of the youngsters’s hospital.
“Allegedly there are army personnel in these establishments,” Klitschko mentioned, rebutting it as a false declare directed by Russia “to assault the capital’s social infrastructure.”
Belarus is allied with Russia and allowed Moscow’s forces to make use of its territory to invade Ukraine from the north in February 2022. Since then, nonetheless, Lukashenko has resisted strain to contain Belarusian forces straight in Russia’s battle.
Klitschko mentioned that officers “needed to do every thing to maneuver the sufferers and medical personnel to different medical establishments in our metropolis.”
“It is a difficult and never a straightforward course of,” Klitschko mentioned. “However we can not danger the lives of individuals.”
A Washington Put up staff arrived on the youngsters’s hospital because the final mother and father have been leaving with their youngsters and the emergency ward had been totally evacuated. There was no signal of any army personnel being handled on the premises.
Ihor Zorkov led his daughter Viktoriya, 2, by the hand as they walked down the hallway to the hospital exit, and he juggled three small plastic baggage together with her belongings. Viktoriya had been within the hospital for the previous 5 days with a viral an infection and a temperature, he mentioned.
“They are saying we will come again Monday,” Zorkov mentioned, as Viktoriya began to cry. “There’s a danger of an assault.”
Yevhenia Hryhoryeva, the top physician on the youngsters’s hospital, mentioned that the evacuation started a half-hour after metropolis officers contacted her and was accomplished inside 90 minutes. She declined to say what number of youngsters have been evacuated.
The hospital was not harboring Ukrainian army, Hryhoryeva mentioned, although she mentioned she was not shocked by the accusation. There may be “numerous disinformation day-after-day” from Russia and its allies, she mentioned.
“We’re all used to it, so we don’t take note of it in any respect,” she mentioned. “We solely take into consideration what actions there must be to rapidly evacuate the youngsters.”
Ukraine’s safety service, the SBU, mentioned in an announcement that stories of “legendary terrorists who’re allegedly in Ukrainian hospitals” have been a type of “informational and psychological particular operations that play into the arms of the Russian Federation.”
“The representatives of the Belarusian regime, which has utterly surrendered its nation to Russia, ought to perceive a easy factor — the individuals who shield Ukraine from the invaders are heroes, not terrorists,” the SBU mentioned. “As a result of the true terrorists are within the Kremlin.”
The assertion added: “The Belarusian authorities shouldn’t scare Ukrainians with false statements however take into consideration how to not find yourself on the dock in The Hague subsequent to the Kremlin dictator.”
