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Ukrainian forces use medical facilities to deploy combat positions — Defense Ministry

A UAF stronghold has been deployed at the regional clinical hospital in Podolsk, Odessa Region, with armored vehicles and artillery deployed nearby in large numbers, Mizintsev said

MOSCOW, Mya 18. /TASS/. Ukrainian Armed Forces use medical facilities to deploy their combat positions, Russian National Defense Control Center head Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev said Wednesday.

"A UAF stronghold has been deployed at the regional clinical hospital in Podolsk, Odessa Region, with armored vehicles and artillery deployed nearby in large numbers. Firing positions have been deployed in buildings of regional children’s tuberculosis sanatorium on Sinitskogo Street and School number 2 on Lesi Ukrainki Street in Kamenets-Podolskiy, Kmelnitsky Region, with artillery and rocket systems deployed nearby. Meanwhile, the medical staff and residents of nearby buildings are being held captive as human shields," Mizintsev said.

According to his assessment, these and other similar cases of gross violation of international humanitarian law remain unnoticed by the international community and the "hypocritical Western human rights activists and politicians who strive not to notice the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists," despite Russia’s numerous statements.

Nearly 110 requests for evacuation to Russia, the Donetsk or Lugansk People’s Republics, or to Ukrainian areas controlled by the Russian Armed Forces, have come from Ukrainians and foreign nationals on a hotline of the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response, as well as government agencies and public organizations, in the past day, Mizintsev said.

"In the past 24 hours, the hotline of the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response, federal executive authorities, subjects of the Russian Federation and a wide range of public organizations have received 109 requests from foreigners and Ukrainian citizens, asking to evacuate them to Russia, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and those areas in the Zaporozhye, Nikolayev, Kharkov and Kherson Regions that are controlled by the Russian Armed Forces," said Mizintsev, who heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters in Ukraine.

To date, 2,756,034 applications from 2,135 populated localities of Ukraine are in the database, he said.