Harrowing images show Ukrainians burying loved ones in mass graves following the ‘apocalyptic’ Russian bombing of Mariupol.

Following heavy shelling in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, corpses are placed in body bags and dumped in mass graves, according to HARROWING images.

Workers can be seen digging a 25m trench in one of the besieged port city’s old cemeteries, making the sign of the cross as they push the dead bodies into the pit.

The bodies had been wrapped in carpets or bags.

It follows Russia’s shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, which killed three people, including a six-year-old girl.

Another 17 people were hurt, including two heavily pregnant women.

“The last information we have about victims is that most of the visitors were in a bomb shelter,” Mariupol’s deputy mayor Sergei Orlov said on Thursday.

“That is why we have information on 17 injured people, the majority of whom are pregnant women and doctors who work in this hospital.”

He went on to say: “We had three buildings there, maternity hospital, children’s hospital, and children’s therapy,” Orlov continued.

“It’s a good thing the majority of the visitors were in bomb shelters. We have more victims of this heinous crime, so we transferred all of the victims and injured to other hospitals, but this hospital has been destroyed by Russian bombing over the last five days.

“We have no idea where to put our injured people.” We can only confirm the numbers (dead) from the previous day, so we have 1,207 civilians killed in Mariupol.

“That’s why we have information on 17 injured people, the majority of whom are pregnant women and doctors who work in this hospital.”

He continued, saying: “We had three buildings there,” Orlov continued, “maternity hospital, children’s hospital, and children’s therapy.”

“It’s a good thing most of the visitors were in bomb shelters. We have more victims of this heinous crime, so we transferred all of the victims and injured people to other hospitals, but this hospital has been destroyed by Russian bombing for the last 5 days.

“We don’t know where to put our injured people.” We can only confirm the numbers (dead) from the day before yesterday, so we have 1,207 civilians killed in Mariupol.

The video showed holes where windows should have been in what appeared to be a severely damaged three-story hospital building.

A pregnant woman who was being led out of the wrecked unit was wrapped in a duvet to keep warm in the subzero temperatures.

Russia initially denied that the hospital in Mariupol had been bombed by aircraft.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said immediately after the attack, “Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets.”

However, Moscow appeared to soften its stance today, while still refusing to admit to the attack.

On Thursday, Peskov told reporters that the Kremlin would investigate the incident.

“We’ll definitely ask our military because you and I don’t have a clear picture of what happened here,” he said.

“And the military will almost certainly provide some information.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also appeared to admit that the attack was planned by the Russian Army.

He claimed that neo-Nazis were using the hospital as a base during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitriy Kuleba.

He claimed, without providing evidence, that the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian far-right militia that was incorporated into Ukraine’s armed forces in 2014, had taken over the hospital and that there were no civilians present at the time of the airstrike.

“A few days ago, at a UN Security Council meeting, the Russian delegation presented factual information that this maternity hospital had long been taken over by the Azov battalion and other radicals, and that all the women in labour, all the nurses, and all the staff in general had been told to leave,” he said.

“It was the headquarters of the ultra-radical Azov battalion.”