2024-07-09 14:54:10
The strike on the hospital was part of a barrage that targeted cities across Ukraine
Kyiv:
A day after a Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescuers continued to clear rubble from the scene as a day of mourning was held in the Ukrainian capital.
But like similar strikes in the past, the Ukrainian government and the Kremlin were at odds over what exactly happened.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we know about the strike and the aftermath.
What was hit
The strike on the hospital was part of a barrage that targeted cities across Ukraine on Monday morning, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The president said 38 people across Ukraine were killed — including four children — and 190 wounded.
During the attack, Ukrainian officials said a cruise missile slammed into the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv.
The strike caused the collapse of the facility’s toxicology wing and damaged large portions of the surrounding buildings that house several different medical departments, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
“At the time of the attack, 627 children were in the hospital. Of these, eight were injured. Unfortunately, two adults were killed,” said military authorities in Kyiv.
The hospital complex holds around 700 beds and oversees an estimated 10,000 surgeries a year.
Before the strike, medical staff halted operations at the facility after an air raid siren was activated and sent patients, family members, and others to the building’s basement to seek shelter.
However, not all were able to evacuate.
According to a doctor at the scene, some children remained in the hospital’s surgical theatres where operations had already commenced and moving them would have been difficult.
Seven other districts in Kyiv were also damaged by direct hits or debris from falling missiles, said the city’s military administration.
Ten residents at an apartment block were killed during the onslaught in central Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky district, the mayor said.
Five medical staff and two patients also died at the Adonis fertility centre, the clinic said.
The weapon
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said its initial assessment found that Moscow had struck the facility with a Kh-101 strategic cruise missile.
A Western expert working in the defence sector told AFP on the condition of anonymity that an image of the attack “clearly shows a Kh-101 airborne cruise missile in its dive phase”.
“The missile shows no signs of damage, and its dive angle is itself consistent with that observed in other strikes,” the expert added.
Yohann Michel, expert at Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies (IESD), drew similar conclusions.
“You’d have to check that the images haven’t been altered, but on one of them you can clearly see a Kh-101 in perfect condition,” he told AFP.
The strike was part of a wider barrage aimed at overwhelming Ukraine’s air defences and focused on “different targets and used missiles with different trajectories and altitudes”, Michel added.
Russian response
Following the strike, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had struck their “intended” defence industry and military targets.
The minister went on to blame the extensive damage inflicted on civilian targets on Ukrainian air defence missiles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia had not targeted civilian structures.
The United Nation disagreed, saying there was a “high likelihood” that the children’s hospital suffered a direct hit from the Russian missile.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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