Russia says claim it bombed children's hospital is 'fake news'

The White House condemned the hospital bombing as a "barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians".

A woman walks outside the damaged by shelling maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Russia has said that a Ukrainian claim that it bombed a children's hospital in Mariupol was "fake news" because the building was a former maternity hospital that had long been taken over by troops.

"That’s how fake news is born," Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, said on Twitter.