US Edition
The main children’s hospital in Kyiv was struck in a Russian missile barrage which killed at least 22 people, including two children, in strikes on the Ukrainian capital. A further 82 people were injured, the city’s military administration said.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said Russian forces fired more than 40 long-range munitions, including the hypersonic Kinzhal, at different cities in a rare daytime raid.
Rescue workers were dispatched to Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital amid reports that children were trapped in the wreckage of the building.
Parents holding bloodied babies, crying and dazed, were photographed trying to escape the carnage after the strike.
Young patients could be seen receiving treatment on the street as local authorities promised the missile attack would not disrupt services at the hospital.
Footage shows a medical worker in blood-stained scrubs joining the rescue effort as emergency services and volunteers passed individual bricks along a line in a scramble to free people trapped under the rubble.
The hospital’s roof has caved in and there are plumes of thick, black smoke rising from what appeared to be the impact zone.
Children hooked up to IV drips and their parents, some wearing face masks, were seen waiting patiently in a queue of seats next to the hospital, as officials said patients would be moved away from the damaged facility.
Emergency workers were met with blood-lined floors, doors and windows blown off their hinges and hospital beds and equipment scattered as they looked for survivors.
A woman was pictured carrying a young child, wrapped in a sheet, being carried out of the hospital. The child was bleeding from its forehead, nose, neck and arms.
The blue-tinted windows on the outside of the hospital were blown from their frames and piles of rubble was strewn on the floor as part of the building collapsed.
Patients at the hospital were being evacuated to nearby facilities in the city, Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said, as another raid siren was sounded over the capital.
“The hospital has been damaged by a Russian strike, people are under the rubble, the exact number of wounded and dead is currently unknown. Now everyone helps to sort out the debris: doctors, ordinary people,” Mr Zelensky wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Russia cannot help but know where its missiles are flying, and must fully answer for all its crimes: against people, against children, against humanity in general.”
“It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing,” the Ukrainian president added.
The attack has already generated international condemnation with the British government labelling the attack “appalling” while Paris said it was “barbaric”.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said: “Attacking innocent children. The most depraved of actions. We stand with Ukraine against Russian aggression – our support won’t falter.”
On the day of the missile attack, Poland and Ukraine signed a bilateral security arrangement in which Warsaw promised to look into ways to use its own air defences to intercept Russian missiles and drones heading for its borders in Ukrainian airspace.
The long-range barrage on Ukraine came as Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, met Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, to discuss a potential peace deal to end the war. Mr Orban has also visited Mr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin in recent days.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, said the attack was one of the heaviest on the capital since the target of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Local authorities reported that debris of Russian missiles intercepted by Ukrainian air defence systems rained down on six neighbourhoods in the Ukrainian capital, damaging residential blocks and offices.
In Kryviy Rih, central Ukraine, at least 10 people were killed and 31 others injured, Oleksandr Vilkul, the city’s mayor, said.
Metinvest, Ukraine’s largest mining company, said 10 employees were killed and 30 injured in a strike at a coal processing plant in the city.
Three more people died in Pokrovsk, in eastern Ukraine, when missiles struck an industrial facility.
The cities of Dnipro and Kramatarosk were also targeted.