They target us' Terror of giving birth in fear of Russia's drones

It was one of the most horrifying targets of Russia's war on Ukraine so far. Photos showed a pregnant woman on a stretcher, her face ashen with shock, legs smeared with blood and a hand holding her bump.

- Liz Cookman

Behind her, the bombed-out ruins of Mariupol's maternity hospital. More than a dozen people, including women in labour, were injured in the attack in March 2022. The woman, Iryna Kalinina, later died along with her baby.

In the three years since then, maternity care in Ukraine has remained under constant attack, with more than 2,000 strikes on medical facilities, including 81 affecting maternal care and delivery rooms. Just last month, Diana Koshyk, seven months pregnant, was killed when a missile struck a maternity hospital in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

Over the past month, the Guardian visited three maternity hospitals near the frontline to witness how Russia's full-scale invasion and attacks on healthcare have taken away women's rights to a safe childbirth.

Even with renewed hopes for an end to the war, Russia's brutal tactics have fuelled a demographic crisis for Ukraine. In 2024, Ukraine suffered the lowest birthrate in the world and the highest mortality rate, according to the CIA's World Factbook.

Kharkiv The main hospital in Kharkiv delivered about 1,000 babies a year before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Last year, that figure fell to less than 440: two-thirds of women of child-bearing age have fled the city. The figure would be even lower but more women are attending as other hospitals in the city stop operating.

Just five days before our arrival in late July, the maternity building of the hospital had been damaged in a drone strike. As the windows were blown in and glass sprayed across beds, the women - some pregnant, others with newborns and one in active labour - were rushed across the river to a perinatal centre for urgent medical care. All were suffering from shock, but the woman in labour needed an urgent caesarean section. Staff operated quickly, and mother and baby survived.