In Telegram, Mariupol's city administration describes the devastation as "colossal".

Pictures from the hospital show how cars are burning outside the demolished facade.

Inside the building, patient rooms and corridors filled with debris can be seen.

The mayor of the Donetsk region, where Mariupol is located, told Reuters news agency that 17 people were injured in the attack.

Several of them were women giving birth, according to the mayor.

Russian authorities have not commented on the incident, but have previously denied attacking civilians during the war.

However, the attack is not the first of its kind.

Since the outbreak of the war, the World Health Organization (WHO) has verified 18 attacks on medical facilities in Ukraine.

"Putin will be held accountable"

In a post on Twitter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj describes the attack as a "direct attack", and once again appeals to the outside world to close the country's airspace.

Stop the killing!

You have the power, but it looks like you have lost your humanity ", writes Zelenskyj.

Among those who reacted strongly to the incident is also the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who wrote on Twitter that Putin "will be held responsible for his terrible crimes".

Ukraine's National Police Authority in turn announces that it is now collecting evidence to be handed over to the International Criminal Court.

Evacuation failed again

In addition to the choice of target, the timing of the attack also aroused anger among the Ukrainians.

On Wednesday, there was a temporary ceasefire around several Ukrainian cities, including Mariupol, as part of the countries' agreement to evacuate civilians.

David Arakhmia, who led Ukraine's speeches during the diplomatic talks with Russia, writes on Facebook that 40,000 were evacuated from war-torn cities during the day.

At the same time, the negotiator writes that the plan was for 100,000 to be evacuated, and that the work was made more difficult in Mariupol as well as Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Russia, for its part, continues to claim that Ukrainian forces are behind the failure of the evacuation attempts.

In a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Vladimir Putin stated today that "militant nationalists" are sabotaging the work, the Kremlin states according to the news agency AP.