The largest children’s hospital in Kyiv was hit by a Russian missile in broad daylight. Rockets also rained down on other cities in Ukraine as part of the attack. At least 36 civilians were killed, local officials say.
Parents holding their babies walked dazed and sobbing on the street outside the hospital after the rare airstrike in broad daylight.
Windows had been smashed and paneling torn down, and hundreds of Kyiv residents helped clear away the rubble.
“It was scary. I couldn’t breathe and I tried to cover (my baby). I tried to cover him with this cloth so he could breathe,” 33-year-old Svitlana Kravchenko told Reuters.
The government declared a day of mourning on Tuesday for one of the heaviest air strikes of the war, saying the attack showed that Ukraine urgently needs air defense reinforcements from its allies.
The air defenses shot down 30 of 38 missiles, the Air Force said.
Fifty civilian buildings, including residential buildings, a business center and two medical facilities, were damaged in Kyiv, the central cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro, and two cities in the east of the country, the interior minister said.
An online video seen by Reuters shows a rocket falling from the sky onto the children’s hospital, followed by a massive explosion.
The location of the video was verified using visible landmarks.
The Security Service of Ukraine identified the missile as a Kh-101 cruise missile.
Officials said 22 people, including two children, were killed and 82 others injured in Kyiv by the main rocket attack and another attack two hours later.
Eleven deaths and 64 injuries were confirmed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, regional officials said.
Three people were killed in the eastern Siberian city of Pokrovsk when rockets hit an industrial facility, the governor said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced retaliatory measures by Ukraine and called on the country’s allies to respond decisively to the attack.
“We will retaliate against these people and will certainly give Russia a strong response from our side. The question for our partners is: can they respond?” Zelensky, who is visiting Poland, said during a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Diplomats said the UN Security Council would meet on Tuesday at the request of the United Kingdom, France, Ecuador, Slovenia and the United States.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its armed forces had carried out attacks on defense industry targets and air force bases in Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly denied carrying out attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, although thousands of civilians have been killed in the attacks since the invasion began in February 2022.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general said he had discussed the attacks with International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan, adding that his office would share evidence with the ICC.
The attack took place one day before the planned start of a three-day summit of NATO countries, which Zelensky was also scheduled to attend and where the war in Ukraine will be one of the main focuses.
“This callous aggression – a complete disregard for human life and a threat to European and transatlantic security – is why Ukraine’s leaders will make significant security commitments this week,” U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Bridget Brink wrote on X.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said the missiles flew at extremely low altitudes during Monday’s attacks.
DTEK, the largest private electricity producer, said three substations and power grids in Kyiv had been damaged.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack was one of the worst of the war, with damage reported in seven districts of the city.
The Health Ministry said five units of the children’s hospital, the largest and best-equipped in the country, had been damaged and the children had been transferred to other facilities.
Meanwhile, two civilians were killed and three others injured when Ukrainian shells hit a village in the Russian border region of Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Monday.
Gladkov said one man died of his injuries in the village of Nikolskoye and another in a nearby hospital.