(NewsNation) — An expectant mother living in a bomb shelter in her Ukraine had strong words for Russia’s attack Wednesday on a Mariupol maternity hospital— calling it a “genocide” — but she still plans on staying in her homeland.
“Where should I go?” Liudmyla Lukianets asked on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.” “I hope the world will protect us, because 80 years after WWII, the world says ‘Never Again,’ but it is happening again right now.”
The Russian airstrike on the maternity ward wounded at least 17 people, and caused the ground to shake more than a mile away from the Mariupol complex.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Mariupol strike trapped children and others under the rubble, addressing the attack in a video that night.
“A children’s hospital. A maternity hospital. How did they threaten the Russian Federation?” he asked. “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?”
Military analysts say Russia is now resorting to tactics it’s used before in Syria and Chechnya — bombing urban areas indiscriminately to prepare the ground for troops to enter.
“We are all not doing very well this morning, because of this situation that took place yesterday in Mariupol,” Lukianets said. “We’re all shocked. We are all terrified about that.”
But Lukianets is adamant about not bringing her child to a different place.
She wants to raise her baby on the same land she and her parents call home.
“If all women and all children will leave the country, who will live here?” she asked. “I don’t want the enemy to invade my country. I don’t want to leave my country. I want to live in peace with my children, with my family. Am I asking too much? It’s my right.”
Even though she is staying, Lukianets still knows what a precarious situation she is in.
“I understand that it could be me, it could be any Ukrainian woman,” Lukianets said. “It’s also not only Ukraine — it’s about all women in the world.”