Hello and welcome to EU tweets of the week.
This week it’s childrens hospitals shelled in Ukraine.
Salvini’s Poland visit pain And Macron's phone call strain.
I’m Jack Parrock filling in for Jennifer Baker this week.
We start with the ongoing war in Ukraine and what the country’s foreign minister called
a petrifying war crime in Mariupol.
A Russian air strike targeted a hospital and a maternity house.
Dyimitro Kuleba says the international community needs to close the airspace above Ukraine
to prevent further bombings like that.
Timothy Snyder tweeted this heartbreaking picture of the evacuation of expectant mother
from the destroyed hospital.
And AFP posted a video released by Ukrainian Police showing the utter devastation.
Ukrainian journalist Olga Rudenko said thousands of years of evolution of human morality, and
we are at a place when a country can bomb maternity hospitals and be punished by losing
McDonald's and Ikea - two of the companies which left Russia this week due to the war.
Now, if you’ve not seen the video we’re about to show you, brace yourself.
It’s a stressful watch.
Charles Lister was one of the people tweeting about an unexploeded Russian bomb that would
have flattened a building — these Ukraine EODs units are defusing it with just 2 hands
and a bottle of water, while shells are audibly landing nearby.
He tweeted - calling it Mind boggling bravery.
I can’t even - said the johnny freitag handle.
And Frances Coppola asked wasn't there a similar scene in a James Bond film?
Real bum clenching stuff…
Moving on now to Matteo Salvini - remember him?
Well the Mayor of Przemys definitely remembered a Putin t-shirt he’d warn once in Moscow
when the Italian far right politician rocked up in his Polish border town for a photo op
about Ukrainian refugees.
A bad adventure for Matteo Salvini tweeted Marco Bresolin with a video of the mayor holding
up the t shirt and refusing to let me speak - a humiliating moment for Salvini.
The Blixa account says the mayor asked Salvini to wear the t-shirt and they would go together
to the Polish-Ukrainian border to see how the Ukrainian refugees would react to him.
DG Meme used it as proof of the value of EU free movement - "Every poopulist has the right
to move freely within the EU and make a complete ass of themselves."
they tweeted.
Gregory Dowling reckons there’s a market for new t shirts - If you know any Salvini-admirers
who have a birthday coming up soon...
And Nick Whithorn reminded everyone of this Salvini tweet from March 2018 before the Russian
elections - "I hope that tomorrow the Russians re-elect President Putin, one of the best
politicians of our time,” he’d said.
Salvini is probably gonna think twice about doing a photo op like that again
We've got t-shirts, photos, twitter screenshots, this is the internet mate
We never forget…
Finally - earlier this week The Élysée Palace released images of French President Macron
after a called he’d had with Putin in late February about Ukraine.
Twitter went mad for it.
Le Chou suggested it’s how Emmanuel Macron reacts when he FAILS the day's Wordle.
Another account reckons it’s macron reacts when he sees a woman wearing the hijab.
And Maths Rouge added some complex childrens toys and said it’s how #Macron operates
in the middle of a crisis.
All that stress and he’s only just at the very start to campaign for re-election.
Makes you wonder what kind of photos he’ll be posting by the end…
That’s all for this week’s episode of EU tweets of the week.
Tune in again next week when Jennifer will be back bringing you all the snarks and larks
in the EU twitttersphre.
Ta ra.