A barrage of Russian missile strikes hit targets in cities across Ukraine on Monday, including a children’s hospital in Kyiv, killing at least 31 people and injuring hundreds more, government officials said.
Ukrainian officials said the rare daytime aerial assault had struck Ukrainian cities during rush hour, including Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
According to Ukraine’s general prosecutor, nine people had been k!lled in the capital, while 23 others had been injured. In Kryvyi Rih, 10 people had d!ed and 37 more were hurt, according to local officials.
Among the buildings hit was Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Hospital, Ukraine’s largest children’s medical centre.
Every year, around 7,000 surgeries including treatments for cancer and hematological diseases are conducted at the hospital, according to Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.
Videos from the scene showed volunteers working with police and security services sift the rubble as smoke billowed from the hospital, while staff described how they tried to rush children to safety in the wake of the attack. Ukraine’s health minister Viktor Liashko said intensive care units, oncology departments and surgery units had been damaged.
“The key task here is to get people out of the rubble and provide assistance to those we can reach, as we have already taken out all the first ones,” he said in a Telegram post.
Natalia Sardudinova, a senior nurse, described the moment the strike hit the hospital saying that “it was scary, but we survived.”
“It was loud, the windows were crunching,” she told CNN. “As soon as the alarm sounded, the children were taken out into the corridor.”
She said two children had been in the operating theatres at the time of the blast
.
“Everything was in smoke, there was no air to breathe. The doctor was cut by shrapnel. The windows and doors were blown out. One nurse in the hospital was heavily injured,”
Sardudinova added. “My hands are still shaking. They don’t let anyone in now, they are afraid it will collapse.”
Yulia Vasylenko, the mother of an 11-year-old cancer patient at the hospital, said her son Denys was evacuated outside following the strike.
“My son is on painkillers. He has cancer. He has been without medication for half a day. He was brought down the stairs from the third floor. There was smoke (and) heavy dust,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy said in a post on X that the exact number of casualties at the hospital was not yet known and that “there are people under the rubble” but that everyone from doctors to local residents are helping clear debris in the strike’s aftermath.
“Apartment buildings, infrastructure, and a children’s hospital have been damaged. All services are engaged to rescue as many people as possible,” Zelensky wrote in a post on X.
He also said that around 40 missiles of various types had been launched against Ukraine.
“The entire world must use all its determination to finally put an end to the Russian strikes. Killing is what Putin brings. Only together can we bring real peace and security,” he added.
Several European nations denounced the attacks with France calling it “barbaric” while the United Kingdom’s new prime minister Keir Starmer said attacking innocent children was “the most depraved of actions.”