Kyiv children’s hospital hit as Russian missile attack kills dozens across Ukraine

London: Russia has rained missiles down on cities across Ukraine in broad daylight, killing at least 36 civilians and badly damaging Kyiv’s main children’s hospital in the deadliest air strike in months.

An unknown number of people were trapped under rubble after Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital, one of the country’s most important paediatric facilities, suffered extensive damage when a missile ripped through the dialysis ward.

Polina, 10, looks after her sister Marina, 3, at the site of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv.Credit: AP

Doctors and others inside the hospital — which treats 20,000 children annually — shared images of bloodstained hallways, collapsed ceilings and destroyed operating rooms.

Parents holding babies walked in the street outside the hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack. Children being treated at the facility were evacuated with IV drips in their arms, with many needing to be comforted by family outside the shattered remnants of a hospital war.

Rescuers at the hospital were later seen running for cover as another blast hit a building that is home to a health and family planning centre on the left bank of the city, killing at least four people. The roof of the building was torn off in the strike.

In the biggest bombardment for several months, the rockets also hit the southern cities of Dnipro, Kropyvnytskyi and Kryviy Rih.

Rescuers, medical staff and volunteers clean up the rubble and search for victims.Credit: AP

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was visiting Poland, posted a series of images from the wreckage on social media, which showed children covered in blood and broken glass strewn across hospital rooms with cribs. He said that Russia had fired some 40 missiles at targets across the country.

“Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes. Against people, against children, against humanity in general,” Zelensky said on X. “It is very important that the world does not remain silent about this now, and that everyone sees what Russia is and what it is doing.”

A Ukrainian serviceman carries a part of the missile after Russian attack destroyed the country’s main children’s hospital.Credit: AP

The government proclaimed a day of mourning on Tuesday for one of the worst air attacks of the war, which it said demonstrated that Ukraine urgently needs an upgrade of its air defences from its Western allies. The strikes took place on the eve of the NATO summit in Washington, where Ukraine hopes to receive long-term aid commitments from the allies amid Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

The UN Security Council will convene a meeting on Tuesday at the request of Britain, France, Ecuador, Slovenia, and the US to discuss the attacks.

Fifty civilian buildings, including residential buildings, a business centre and two medical facilities were damaged in Kyiv, the central cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro and two eastern cities, the interior minister said.

In Kyiv, 21 people were killed and 65 more wounded in the initial attack, which also struck the hospital, killing at least two people including a young female doctor.

At least 11 people were killed and 37 injured in the city of Kryvyi Rih, in the Dnipro region. Three people were killed in the eastern town of Pokrovsk where missiles hit an industrial facility, the regional governor said, and one person died in the city of Dnipro, officials said.

Smoke rises over the Kyiv skyline after a Russian attack.Credit: AP

Ukraine’s air force reported that Russian forces launched multiple ballistic and cruise missiles with explosions heard and felt across the capital. The attack included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which fly at 10 times the speed of sound, the air force said. Air defences shot down 30 of 38 incoming missiles, it claimed.

Russia claims it does not target civilians and its foreign ministry denied targeting the hospital, saying it was hit by fragments of a Ukrainian air defence missile.

The ministry said in a statement that the Russian military had only targeted “Ukrainian military industrial sites and air bases” and blamed the destruction in Kyiv on Ukrainian air defences.

Russian President Vladimir Putin.Credit: AP

According to the World Health Organisation, there have been more than 1600 instances of heavy weapons attacks impacting medical facilities in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, with 141 people killed in these attacks.

Last December, 12 pregnant women and four newborn babies had a lucky escape from a maternity hospital in Dnipro that had been extensively damaged in an airstrike.

with agencies

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