KIEV, Ukraine — Russian missiles struck cities across Ukraine on Monday, damaging the country's largest children's hospital and other buildings. Heart surgeries needed to be halted and young cancer patients needed to undergo treatments outdoors. At least 31 people were killed, officials said.
The daytime shelling targeted five Ukrainian cities with greater than 40 rockets of differing types, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media. The Ukrainian Air Force said it intercepted 30 rockets. More than 150 people were injured.
It was the heaviest Russian bombing raid on Kiev in nearly 4 months. It hit seven of town's ten districts. At least seven people were killed within the capital, including two hospital staff. Ten people were killed in attacks in Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky's birthplace in central Ukraine.
During the attack on the youngsters's hospital in Okhmatdyt, debris fell into the opened chests of heart patients in the midst of an operation. The beds of cancer patients were rolled into parks and onto the streets.
“It is very important that the world does not remain silent about this now and that everyone sees what Russia is and what it is doing,” Zelensky said.
Russia denied the attack on the hospital and said the strikes hit military targets.
The attack got here a day before the scheduled start of a three-day NATO summit in Washington, where Western leaders backing Ukraine were to debate easy methods to reassure Kyiv of the alliance's full support and provides Ukrainians hope that their country can emerge from Europe's biggest conflict since World War II.
During a visit to Poland, Zelensky said he hoped the summit would result in the supply of additional air defense systems to Ukraine.
In a press release, US President Joe Biden called Monday's missile attacks “a terrible reminder of Russia's brutality.”
“It is vital that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we do not ignore Russian aggression,” the statement said.
At the Kyiv hospital, rescue staff looked for victims under the rubble of a partially collapsed two-story wing of the ability. In the 10-story most important constructing, windows and doors were blown out and partitions blackened. In one room, the ground was splattered with blood. The intensive care unit, operating rooms and oncology departments were all damaged, officials said.
At the time of the attack, three heart surgeries were being performed, which resulted within the patients' open chests being contaminated by debris from the explosion, said Health Minister Viktor Liashko.
Water, light and oxygen had failed within the hospital and patients had been transferred to other hospitals, he said on Ukrainian television.
Rescue staff formed a line and passed bricks and other debris to one another as they searched through the rubble. Smoke rose from the constructing and volunteers and rescue staff worked wearing protective masks.
Some moms carried their children away on their backs, others waited with their children within the yard while the doctors' calls went unanswered.
A couple of hours after the primary attack, one other air raid siren sounded and lots of of them rushed to the hospital's shelter. By the sunshine of a flashlight, moms walked through the shelter's dark corridors, carrying their bandaged children, and medical staff carried other patients on stretchers. Volunteers handed out sweets to calm the youngsters.
Marina Ploskonos said her four-year-old son underwent spinal surgery on Friday.
“My child is terrified,” she said. “This shouldn't be happening, we're in a children's hospital,” she said, bursting into tears.
“Among the victims were the most seriously ill children in Ukraine,” said Volker Türk, the UN human rights commissioner. A UN team visited the hospital shortly after the attack and saw the youngsters receiving cancer treatment in hospital beds arrange outside, he added.
“This is abhorrent and I implore all influential people to do everything in their power to ensure that these attacks stop immediately,” Türk said.
The Kyiv city administration declared July 9 a day of mourning, with entertainment events banned and flags flown at half-mast.
Ukraine's security service said it had found debris from a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile at the positioning and opened a war crimes case. The Kh-101 is an air-launched missile that flies low to avoid detection by radar. Ukraine said it shot down 11 of 13 Kh-101 missiles fired on Monday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described Monday's rocket attacks as “particularly shocking,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
At the request of France and Ecuador, the UN Security Council has called an emergency meeting on the attacks for Tuesday. Russia, which holds the rotating presidency of the council this month, will chair the meeting.
The founding charter of the International Criminal Court states that the deliberate attack on “hospitals and assembly points for the sick and wounded” is a war crime, unless the targets are military.
Late last month, the court issued arrest warrants for the previous Russian defense minister and the chief of the overall staff for an attack on the Ukrainian power grid.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks targeted Ukrainian military facilities and airbases and were successful. It denied that civilian facilities were targeted and claimed without evidence that images from Kyiv suggested the damage was attributable to a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.
Since the start of the war, now in its third 12 months, Russian officials have recurrently claimed that Moscow's forces would never attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, despite ample evidence on the contrary, including reports by the Associated Press.
Since the war began, greater than 1,600 medical facilities have been damaged and 214 have been completely destroyed, based on statistics released last month by the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
Colonel Yuri Ignat of the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had improved the effectiveness of its air strikes and equipped its missiles with special systems, including so-called heat traps that evade air defense systems.
In Monday's attack, the cruise missiles flew only 50 meters above the bottom and were subsequently harder to hit, he said in a comment sent to AP.
About three hours after the primary attacks, more rockets hit Kiev and partially destroyed a non-public medical center. Four people were killed there, the Ukrainian emergency management service said.
The massive pressure wave scorched surrounding buildings, shattered windows and hurled a dog into the neighboring yard, said local resident Halina Sichievka.
“Now we have nothing left in our apartment, no windows, no doors, nothing. Nothing at all,” said the 28-year-old.
The Ukrainian Air Force said among the weapons utilized in the attack were Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, that are amongst probably the most advanced Russian weapons. They travel at ten times the speed of sound and are subsequently difficult to intercept.
Three substations in two districts of Kyiv were damaged or destroyed, energy company DTEK said.
Samya Kullab in Kyiv contributed to this report.
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