Ukrainian Influencer in Mariupol Hospital Bombing Gave Birth to Daughter
- A Ukrainian beauty influencer who was injured in a Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital gave birth on Friday.
- Mariana Vishegirskaya was falsely accused by the Russian Embassy of being a crisis actor.
- Vishegirskaya faced online hate on her Instagram account, which has since amassed more than 80,000 followers.
A Ukrainian beauty influencer who survived the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol gave birth to a daughter days later.
Mariana Vishegirskaya was injured by shelling after a Russian airstrike hit the maternity hospital on Wednesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian troops of making a “direct strike” on the building. Three were killed and 17 were wounded in the strike, according to Ukrainian authorities.
AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka
A photo of a bloodied Vishegirskaya fleeing the hospital made global headlines, prompting the Russian Embassy to falsely claim she was a crisis actor, saying she was not at the hospital at the time of the attack and was wearing “some very realistic make-up.”
Though the Embassy’s post was taken down by Twitter for violating the platform’s abusive-behavior policy, it did prompt a flood of online hate against Vishegirskaya on her Instagram account, which has more than 82,000 followers as of Friday.
The blogger’s most recent Instagram post of her holding baby clothes had nearly 25,000 comments on it, with some commenters saying she was taking part in a “shameless” “fake photo shoot,” as Insider’s Waiyee Yip reported.
—Oleksandra Matviichuk (@avalaina) March 10, 2022
Vishegirskaya has since given birth to a daughter. On Friday, photographs show Vishegirskaya lying in a hospital bed in Ukraine with her husband Yuri holding their daughter, Veronika, taken by photographer Evgeniy Maloletka.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
