Explosions and smoke over many Ukrainian cities – Moscow has carried out one of the largest air raids of the war. In Kiev, helpless sick children become victims.
One day before the NATO summit in Washington, more than 30 people die in Russian missile attacks on Ukraine. A children’s hospital is badly damaged. According to the Interior Ministry, at least 20 people were killed and 61 others injured in the capital Kiev. At least 11 deaths and 59 injuries were reported in the industrial cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro in southern Ukraine.
The attack on one of the largest Ukrainian children’s hospitals in Kiev caused dismay. President Volodymyr Zelensky published a video on the social network X showing destroyed hospital rooms and traces of blood on the floor. “Russia cannot remain ignorant of where its missiles are flying and must be held accountable for all its crimes,” the president wrote.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko spoke of 16 injured people in the hospital, including seven children. Two of the injured died. According to Health Minister Viktor Lyashko, the children’s hospital’s dialysis, cancer treatment, operating rooms and intensive care units were damaged.
Hundreds of residents helped rescue workers clear rubble and search for victims. “Young cancer and dialysis patients are sitting on the sidewalk with their mothers,” German ambassador Martin Jäger reported on X from a visit to the hospital.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed missile attacks that were allegedly aimed at Ukrainian arms factories and military airfields. The many video images from Kyiv proved that the damage was caused by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile, it said without providing any evidence.
The Moscow military dismissed the Ukrainians’ shock at the attack as “hysteria of the Kiev regime”, which is often seen before NATO meetings. According to Ukrainian reports, a second hospital in the capital on the other side of the Dnipro was also damaged.
Zelensky rejected Russian claims that the air defenses had made a mistake. “What cynicism the bastards in the Kremlin showed when they said it was supposedly the Ukrainian air defenses and not a targeted missile strike,” he said at a press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw.
Zelensky thanked everyone who posted videos on the Internet “where you can clearly see that it is not just a part of one or another missile, but a direct missile strike that killed and injured many people.”
The private electricity supplier DTEK reported damage to three transformer stations in the capital. In addition to Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih, the front-line towns of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region were also targeted. No information was given on hits on military targets or armaments factories.
Russia deployed several dozen missiles
According to Zelensky, the Russian military used more than 40 missiles in the attack. It was unusual that the heavy attack took place during the day at the start of the working week. The Ukrainian Air Force reported 38 missiles and cruise missiles of various types, 30 of which were intercepted. There had already been air strikes with drones, cruise missiles and rockets during the night.
Ukraine has been defending itself against the Russian invasion with Western help for more than two years and has repeatedly pushed for the provision of modern air defense systems.
According to recent information, Ukraine has received four of the particularly powerful Patriot systems from US production, but it believes it needs many more. Another Patriot system is to come from the Netherlands, as Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp and Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmanns from the new government confirmed during a visit to Ukraine. Romania is promising another system.
