Ukraine says Russia seized a hospital on Tuesday and is holding 400 people hostage inside

• Ukrainian officials said Russian troops bombed an intense-care hospital in Mariupol.
• They also said they were holding 400 people, including medics and patients, hostage there.

Russia seized an intensive-care hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Tuesday and was holding hundreds of people hostage inside, Ukrainian officials said.

Sergei Orlov, the deputy mayor of Mariupol, told the BBC on Tuesday that around 400 people at the city's Regional Intensive Care Hospital had been taken as "hostages."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a Wednesday morning video address that Russian troops "took hostage 400 people, medical staff, and shelling is held from there now," according to an official transcript.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk oblast, where Mariupol is located, made a similar report in a Tuesday Telegram post.

He cited a note from a hospital employee, which said it was "impossible to leave the hospital, they are shooting hard."

The employee continued, according to Kyrylenko: "Russians rushed 400 people from neighboring houses to our hospital. We can't leave."

Kyrylenko said Russia "practically destroyed" the hospital by bombing it, but medical staff were treating patients in the basement.

The strategic port city of Mariupol, which sits on the Black Sea, has been one of the worst hit since Russia invaded Ukraine: So many people have been killed that the city has turned to using mass graves.

The city's mayor warned on Sunday that residents were on their last supplies of food and water.