Rescuers have continued to dig through the rubble of a children’s hospital in Kyiv after a wave of devastating Russian missile strikes across the country on Monday that killed 38 people, including four children.
On the eve of a Nato summit in Washington, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, renewed his call for more air defences and said the world had the “necessary strength” to stop what he called “Russian terror”. The US president, Joe Biden, who is expected to meet Zelenskiy, described the strike as a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said missile fragments recovered from the scene, as well as flight path data, showed Moscow had targeted Okhmatdyt children’s hospital with a Kh-101 cruise missile. It ploughed into a two-storey building, killing a 30-year-old doctor named Svitlana Lukianchuk, a paediatric nephrologist, and the mother of a patient.
The SBU’s chief, Vasyl Maliuk, promised “maximum retribution” against the Russians involved in planning and executing the attacks, which took place in the capital in the middle of the morning, and in the cities of Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih. “A terrorist state is not an abstract concept. There are specific names of murderers. Nothing will save them from justice,” he said.
On Tuesday, volunteers, the fire brigade, police and soldiers continued to sift through a sea of masonry. One wing, home to the hospital’s dialysis unit, was entirely obliterated. Furniture, cuddly toys and desks were piled up on a pavement. Windows in the main building were blown out. The heads of 32 diplomatic missions in Kyiv toured the dust-covered ruins, amid widespread international outrage.
Donations to rebuild the shattered complex have reached £5.7m, Ukrainian media reported.
“We were in the middle of an operation. Our patient was a two-year-old girl,” said Iryna Filimonova, head nurse on the hospital’s urology ward. “There was a huge explosion. We looked at each other and carried on.” Her colleague Liudmyla Puzko said she had sheltered in the corridor, adding: “This was an act of incredible baseness. Children are not guilty of anything.”
The hospital was no longer able to function, Filimonova said. Its 2,000 staff treated children from across Ukraine, with a six-month waiting list for appointments and surgery, she said. On Tuesday, Zelenskiy said all patients had been transferred to other medical institutions. They included children who were being treated for cancer, who took cover in a basement. A maternity hospital nearby was also hit.
Zelenskiy said 190 people had been injured and 64 hospitalised as a result of Monday’s country-wide attacks. “I am grateful to everyone who is rescuing and caring for our people, to everyone involved, and to everyone who is helping,” he wrote on social media, adding: “We continue our work to increase the protection of our cities and communities from Russian terror.”
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said rescuers on Tuesday found the bodies of two woman buried under the rubble of a residential house. Other local victims were named as 10-year-old Maksym Symaniuk, his nine-year-old younger sister Nastia, and their mother, Zoriana. Makysym was keen on karate, friends said. The family was killed at home in their apartment, the mayor added.
Zelenskiy and other senior Ukrainian officials have expressed frustration at restrictions imposed by the Biden administration on the use of US-supplied weapons at targets inside Russia. The White House in May allowed Kyiv for the first time to attack enemy troops and weapons systems in locations just across the border, in Russia’s Belgorod region, that were used as a staging post for raids into Kharkiv oblast but Ukraine cannot use long-range artillery to take out the Russian military airfields, which took part in Monday’s and other attacks.
Anton Geraschenko, a former adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, said Putin had ordered the strikes to send a message to western leaders. It told them they were “weak” and said the Nato summit would “not change anything”. It also reinforced the idea Ukraine should capitulate since “nobody will protect you,” he suggested.
Russia’s state media largely ignored the attack on the children’s hospital. There was criticism by Zelenskiy of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, who met Putin on Monday. Modi appeared to offer a rebuke of sorts, saying that the death of innocent children was painful and terrifying. But he stopped short of criticising Moscow, or blaming it directly.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, claimed a Ukrainian interceptor missile was responsible for the hospital strike, even though video footage clearly shows a Russian Kh-101 missile moments before impact. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, said Ukraine was staging “a PR operation steeped in blood” ahead of the Nato summit.