INTERNATIONAL: Russia's invasion of Ukraine has devastated hundreds of hospitals and other institutions and left doctors without drugs to tackle cancer or the ability to perform surgery, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday 5th of May.

Zelenskiy, in a video address to a 'Brave Ukraine' fundraising event being held in the UK, said many places lacked even basic antibiotics in eastern and southern Ukraine, the focal points of the fighting.

Zelenskiy, Said.

''If we take only the medical infrastructure to date Russians have destroyed or damaged almost 400 health facilities. These are hospitals, maternity hospital, outpatient clinics. In the temporarily occupied areas of Ukraine in the east and south – the situation with access o medical services and medicines is just catastrophic. Even the simplest medications are missing. Russia has brought to Ukraine and Europe such problems that we could not have imagine a few months ago.''

Also the evacuation of civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol had continued on Thursday but did not say how many people had managed to leave.

He also said Russian forces were still storming and shelling the city's Azovstal plant, where civilians and military forces are sheltering.

Zelenskiy added that the rebuilding of Ukraine should be a historic example and investments from other countries will mean that millions of Ukrainians who were forced to leave by the war will be able to return home.

“We offer our partners, civilized and responsible countries, to take patronage over those regions, over those cities and over those sectors of Ukraine which have been affected by the war launched by Russia”, Zelenskiy added.