The Ukrainian capital is observing a day of mourning on Tuesday following Russian strikes that left more than 30 dead and devastated the country’s largest pediatric hospital, a toll that could rise as searches continue through the rubble.
The attack on the Okhmatdyt hospital has shocked the country and Ukraine’s allies, which have been suffering Russian bombing for more than two years.
President Volodymyr Zelensky reported in the morning nearly forty deaths across the country, which suffered a massive attack the day before involving around forty Russian missiles.
Ukraine, whose energy infrastructure is already ravaged, has been demanding more air defenses from its Western allies.
At least 31 people, including four children, were killed in kyiv, where Russian missiles and their debris hit, in addition to the hospital, a private clinic and residential buildings in several neighborhoods.
On Tuesday morning, five bodies were pulled out of the rubble of a residential building in the western Syrets district, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, bringing the total number of people killed in the building to 12. The search is continuing.
Seven people – five health workers and two patients – died in a bombing of the private Adonis clinic in the east of the city.
In Okhmatdyt, two adults, including a female doctor and a visitor, were killed and 32 injured, authorities said after rescue operations ended in the morning.
Of about 630 patients being treated there, 94 were transferred to other hospitals in the capital, more than 465 had to return home and 68 remained in buildings that were not hit by the attack, the health ministry said.
“Direct shot”
The city hall declared a day of mourning in the capital and flags were flown at half-mast.
“On this day of mourning for the innocent victims of our capital and other cities of Ukraine, I bow with all the Ukrainian people,” said the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky.
He denounced a Russian “war crime” that “shocked the world with its cruelty” and that “we, Ukrainian soldiers, will never forgive.”
As of Tuesday, 64 victims of the strikes remain hospitalized in kyiv, 28 others in Kryvyi Rig, the president’s hometown in the south-central part of the country, and six others in Dnipro, a large city in the centre-east, listed Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukraine said the strike on the children’s hospital was carried out by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile fired from a bomber.
The Kremlin, which has systematically denied any crime or blunder since the beginning of its invasion, has called into question the Ukrainian air defense, assuring, as always, never to “strike civilian targets.”
The representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Ukraine, Danielle Bell, considered it “highly probable” that the hospital was hit by “a direct hit” from a Russian missile, also mentioning the KH-101 projectile.
“Analysis of video footage and assessment at the scene of the incident indicate that it is highly likely that the children’s hospital suffered a direct hit rather than damage from an intercepted weapon system,” Bell said at a press briefing in Geneva.
Mr Zelensky, who is due to attend a major NATO summit in Washington, has called on the West to respond “stronger” to Russia.
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council is also scheduled for Tuesday, at the request of the Ukrainian president.
Joe Biden on Monday denounced Russia’s “brutality”, promising “new measures to strengthen Ukraine’s anti-aircraft defenses”.
Russian attacks on Ukraine continued during the night from Monday to Tuesday: two people were injured in the Kherson region and three others in the Zaporizhzhia region, both located in the south.