Rescuers yesterday searched the rubble at a children’s hospital for more dead and wounded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, a day after Russian missiles slammed into the facility and cities across the country in a massive daytime barrage.
The death toll from the strikes rose to 42, officials said.
Zelenskiy said on the social platform X that 64 people were hospitalized in the capital, as well as 28 in Kryvyi Rih and six in Dnipro — both cities in central Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
It was Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months and one of the deadliest of the war, hitting seven of the city’s 10 districts.
The strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, which interrupted open-heart surgery and forced young cancer patients to take their treatments outdoors, drew an international outcry.
The 10-story hospital, which is Ukraine’s largest medical facility for children, was caring for about 670 patients at the time of the attack, Okhmatdyt director-general Volodymyr Zhovnir said yesterday.
The missile hit a two-story wing of the hospital.
“The building where we conducted dialysis for children with kidney failure or acute intoxication is ruined entirely,” he told reporters, estimating the overall damage to the hospital at US$2.5 million.
Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said that at least two people were killed at the hospital and about 50 people were injured, including seven children.
The casualty figure would have been much higher if patients had not been taken to a bunker when air raid sirens first sounded, she added.
Authorities were working to restore the hospital’s power and water supply, Zhovnir said.
Kyiv city administrators declared yesterday an official day of mourning. Entertainment events were prohibited and flags were lowered in the capital.
Russia denied responsibility for the hospital strike, insisting it does not attack civilian targets in Ukraine despite abundant evidence to the contrary, including Associated Press reporting.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday repeated that position, pointing to a Russian Ministry of Defense statement that blamed a Ukrainian air defense missile for partially destroying the hospital.
Bell dismissed that argument, saying an assessment of video footage and findings on site indicated the hospital “took a direct hit, rather than receiving damage due to an intercepted weapons system.”
The hospital was likely struck by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, Bell said.
Ukrainian officials said the same.
The bodies of three more people were found yesterday under the rubble of a residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi District of Kyiv, officials said, bringing the death toll in the single building to 10.
The Russian onslaught on Monday came on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington where alliance countries are expected to pledge new military and economic support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin was hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Moscow.
New Delhi’s importance as a key trading partner has grown since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
Zelenskiy was deeply critical of Modi’s visit, saying late on Monday on X: “It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day.”
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