The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington D.C. reported that thousands of Americans are volunteering to fight against Russia amid the mounting death toll and continued destruction of Ukraine.
Approximately 6,000 people, mostly American citizens, have asked the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., to serve, according to Major General Borys Kremenetskyi. About one hundred have been accepted so far, primarily those who have been in combat or flown helicopters before.
The International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine has a seven-step application to join in the fighting. At least 16,000 foreigners from places like Belarus, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Poland, have registered to join the International Legion, Foreign Policy reported.
Businesses Destroyed
Half of the businesses in Ukraine are currently non-operational. The Russian attack has caused at least $100 billion in damage, says Ukraine’s presidential economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko.
Ustenko stated at a Peterson Institute for International Economics event that 50% of Ukrainian businesses have closed down because of the war. The other half are operating well below their capacity.
He said that the damage estimate is “very rough,” but it includes roads, bridges, hospitals, equipment, and other infrastructure. Ustenko said the country’s economic outlook was “very depressed.”
The Wall Street Journal reported on March 10 that Ustenko also touched on the global impact of the hit to Ukraine’s economy, with interruptions of exports such as meat, sunflower oil, barley, and other agricultural products driving up commodity prices and global food inflation.
Maternity Hospital Hit
News of Ukraine’s suffering economy comes on the heels of word that Russian airstrikes hit a maternity hospital.
According to USA Today reports, three people were killed and seventeen were wounded by the blast in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on March 9.
“Mariupol,” Zelenskyy tweeted. “Direct strike of Russian troops at the maternity hospital. People, children are under the wreckage. Atrocity! How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror? Close the sky right now! Stop the killings! You have power, but you seem to be losing humanity.”
Twitter removed a tweet from the Russian Embassy in the UK the next day that claimed the bombing of the maternity ward was staged, MediaITE reports.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris also condemned the Russian airstrike.
“We have been witnessing for weeks, and certainly just in the last 24 hours, atrocities of unimaginable proportions,” she said. “A maternity hospital, a children’s hospital, where we have witnessed pregnant women who were there for care for one reason being taken out because they required care because of an act of violence, unprovoked, unjustified.”
