Rescuers continue to dig through the rubble of Kiev’s children’s hospital after Russia launched a series of devastating missile attacks across the city on Monday, killing 38 people, including four children.
On the eve of a NATO summit in Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed calls for stronger air defenses and said the world had the “necessary forces” to stop “Russian terror”. US President Joe Biden, who is due to meet with Zelensky, called the attack a “horrifying reminder of Russian brutality”.
Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said missile debris recovered from the scene and flight trajectory data indicated Moscow had targeted the Okhmatdyt pediatric hospital with a Kh-101 cruise missile, which struck the two-story building, killing pediatric nephrologist Dr. Svitlana Lukyanchuk, 30, and the patient’s mother.
SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk promised “maximum retaliation” against Russians involved in planning and carrying out the morning attacks in the capital Moscow, Dnipro and the city of Krivoy Rog. “A terrorist state is not an abstract concept. The killers have concrete names. They will not be allowed to escape justice,” he said.
Volunteers, firefighters, police and soldiers continued to search through the sea of masonry on Tuesday. The wing housing the hospital’s dialysis unit was completely destroyed. Furniture, stuffed toys and desks were piled on the sidewalk and windows in the main building were blown out. Heads of diplomatic missions from 32 countries in Kiev toured the dusty ruins amid widespread international outrage.
Ukrainian media said donations to rebuild the destroyed buildings had reached £5.7 million.
“We were in the middle of an operation. The patient was a two-year-old girl,” Irina Filimonova, head nurse at the hospital’s urology ward, said. “There was a big explosion. We looked at each other and carried on with the operation.” Her colleague Lyudmila Pusko said she took refuge in the hallway, adding: “This was an incredibly despicable act. The children are innocent.”
Filimonova said the hospital is no longer functioning. Its 2,000 staff treat children from all over Ukraine and the waiting list for appointments and operations is six months long. Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that all patients had been transferred to other medical facilities, including children undergoing cancer treatment who had taken refuge in the basement. A nearby maternity hospital was also hit.
Zelenskiy said 190 people were injured and 64 hospitalized as a result of Monday’s nationwide attacks. “I would like to thank all those involved and those helping, rescuing and caring for our people,” he wrote on social media, adding that “we will continue our efforts to strengthen the protection of our cities and communities from Russian terrorism.”
Kiev’s mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said rescuers found the bodies of two women buried under the rubble of a house on Tuesday. The local victims were named as 10-year-old Maksim Shymaniuk, his nine-year-old sister Nastya and their mother Zoriana. Friends said Maksim was an avid karate enthusiast. The family was killed in their apartment, the mayor added.
Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have expressed frustration that the Biden administration has limited the use of U.S.-supplied weapons against targets inside Russia. The White House in May first authorized Kyiv to attack enemy forces and weapons systems in Belgorod Oblast, just across the Russian border, which has been used as a base for raids into Kharkiv Oblast, but Ukraine cannot use long-range artillery to destroy Russian airfields that took part in Monday’s attack and others.
Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said Putin ordered the attack to send a message to Western leaders that they were “weak” and that NATO summits “wouldn’t change anything” and to reinforce the idea that Ukraine should surrender because “no one will protect us,” he suggested.
Russian state media largely ignored the attack on the children’s hospital. President Zelensky criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met with Putin on Monday. Modi called the deaths of innocent children painful and horrifying and appeared to offer a rebuke of sorts, but did not criticize or directly condemn Moscow.
The Kremlin has said the attack on the hospital was the result of a Ukrainian interceptor, but video footage clearly shows a Russian Kh-101 missile being fired moments before it hit. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Ukraine was conducting a “bloody PR operation” ahead of the NATO summit.
