A day of mourning has been declared in Kyiv by mayor Vitali Klitschko after a daylight Russian missile barrage hit Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital and killed dozens around the country. All flags will be flown at half mast on municipal buildings throughout the city, he said in a Telegram post, and entertainment events will be cancelled. The strike was among the heaviest attacks on the capital since Russia’s February 2022 invasion. Twenty-two people were killed in the capital, including two staff members at the hospital, where three children were hurt. At least 36 people were killed across Ukraine. The Ukrainian president posted on the Telegram messaging app: “Russia cannot help but know where its missiles are flying, and must fully answer for all its crimes: against people, against children, against humanity in general.”
After the strikes, US president Joe Biden promised “new measures” to boost Ukraine’s air defences. “Russia’s missile strikes that today killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and caused damage and casualties at Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital are a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House. He was speaking on the eve of a Nato summit in Washington where leaders are expected to present a “historic” aid package for Ukraine, including air defences. Observers expect Nato members to pledge at least four additional Patriot missile batteries. Zelenskiy had previously asked Nato for seven batteries, saying that Putin “must be brought down to earth, and our sky must become safe again … And it depends fully on your choice … [the] choice whether we are indeed allies.”
Western and UN leaders condemned Monday’s strikes, which saw Ukraine’s main treatment centre for children with cancer, take a direct missile hit. British prime minister Keir Starmer condemned “attacking innocent children” as the “most depraved of actions”, while the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, called the missile strike a “war crime”. A spokesperson for António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said he strongly condemned the “particularly shocking” strikes against the children’s hospital and another medical facility. UN rights chief Volker Türk condemned the Russian strikes as “abominable”. France’s foreign ministry called the bombardment of a children’s hospital “barbaric” and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau described the attack as “abhorrent”. Russia has claimed the extensive missile damage in Kyiv was caused by Ukrainian air defence systems and that it was striking only military targets.
Witnesses in Kyiv have described how children – some as young as 18 months old and suffering kidney problems – had to be hurriedly taken off dialysis and evacuated through the building’s windows after the missile strike on Okhmatdyt children’s hospital. Nurse Tanya Lapshina said the strike came at a time when the hospital was at its busiest, and she feared for a child who was undergoing open-heart surgery at the time. Lapshina said her ward managed to bring the children to the shelter just minutes before the strike. “It was absolute chaos. The children were panicked, crying in the bunker. There are no words for this. It’s awful. I’m still shaking.” Images from inside the hospital, which treats 20,000 patients annually, showed bloodied children, collapsed ceilings and destroyed operating rooms.
The UN security council is to meet on Tuesday at the request of Britain, France, Ecuador, Slovenia and the US.
A fire broke out at a power substation in Russia’s Rostov region after Ukraine launched “tens” of drones overnight, Vasily Golubev, the governor of the southern Russia region that borders Ukraine said on Tuesday. “As a result of an air attack in the Rodionovo-Nesvetaysky district, two transformers caught fire at a power substation,” Golubev wrote on Telegram, adding that air defence systems destroyed a number of drones.
