KOZELETS, Ukraine — As basic survival in Ukraine grows increasingly precarious, civilian evacuation efforts largely sputtered Wednesday across a country battered by a relentless Russian assault that officials said heavily damaged a maternity hospital.
Ukraine’s government had announced a daylong cease-fire, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., along several corridors around the country that were designated for the safe exit of residents. The routes covered some of the hardest-hit areas, including parts of the capital city of Kyiv, Sumy in the northeast and the strategic port city of Mariupol in the south.
But late Wednesday afternoon, the Mariupol City Council said a Russian strike had hit a hospital complex there and caused massive damage. Images showed emergency responders carrying a bloodied pregnant woman through a courtyard littered with mangled cars and a heavily damaged building still smoldering.
