[2] Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy,[3] Josep Borrell, the European Union head of Foreign Affairs,[2] and British armed forces minister James Heappey[4] described the bombing as a war crime.

[9] Hospital wards were "reduced to a wreckage, walls had collapsed, rubble covered medical equipment, windows were blown out and shattered glass was everywhere".

[14] Another pregnant woman photographed in the bombing, Marianna Vyshegirskaya (née Podgurskaya), a popular Instagram blogger,[1] gave birth to a daughter the following day.

[2] James Heappey, British Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, said that whether hitting the hospital was indiscriminate fire into a built-up area or a deliberate targeting, "it [was] a war crime".

[3] Deputy Mayor of Mariupol, Sergei Orlov, stated, "We don't understand how it is possible in modern life to bomb [a] children's hospital.

He stated, "A few days ago, at a UN Security Council meeting, the Russian delegation presented factual information that this maternity hospital had long been taken over by the Azov Battalion and other radicals and that all the women in labour, all the nurses and in general all the staff had been told to leave it.

"[5] Minister of Defence spokesperson Igor Konashenkov stated that "Absolutely no tasks to hit targets on the ground were accomplished by Russian military aircraft in the area of Mariupol" and that the "alleged airstrike" was a "completely staged provocation in order to maintain the anti-Russian public outcry in the Western audience".

[6] Previously the Russian military had claimed that the Azov and Aidar Battalions were "delivering fire" from "schools, hospitals and kindergartens" in Mariupol.

"[9] Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, described the bombing as a "heinous war crime".

[2] Cardinal Secretary of State of the Vatican City Pietro Parolin expressed dismay at the bombing, calling it an "unacceptable attack on civilians".

"[30] On April 13, 2022, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) published a report which covered the Mariupol hospital airstrike, confirming the maternity house was clearly identifiable and operational, and that the Russian forces therefore perpetrated a war crime.