A day after a Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Kiev, rescue teams continued to clear debris from the scene as a day of mourning was observed in the Ukrainian capital.
But as with such attacks in the past, the Ukrainian government and the Kremlin disagreed on what exactly happened.
Here’s a brief overview of what we know about the strike and its aftermath.
What happened?
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the attack on the hospital was part of a wave of attacks targeting various cities in Ukraine on Monday morning.
The president said 38 people were killed in Ukraine – including four children – and 190 were injured.
Ukrainian officials said a cruise missile hit the Okhmatdit children’s hospital in Kiev during the attack.
The attack destroyed the hospital’s toxicology wing and damaged large parts of surrounding buildings, which house several different medical departments, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
“627 children were in the hospital at the time of the attack. Eight of them were injured. Unfortunately, two adults were killed,” military officials in Kiev said.
The hospital complex has around 700 beds and performs an estimated 10,000 surgeries annually.
Before the attack, medical staff halted work at the facility after an air raid siren sounded and sent patients, family members and others to the building’s basement to take shelter.
However, not everyone was able to get out.
According to a doctor present at the scene, some children were left behind in the surgical theatre of the hospital, where operations had already begun and it would have been difficult to remove them.
Seven other districts of Kiev were also damaged by direct hits or debris from missiles, the city’s military administration reported.
Ten residents of an apartment block were killed during the attack in the Shevchenkivskyi district of central Kyiv, the mayor said.
Five medical staff and two patients at the Adonis Fertility Center also died, the clinic said.
Weapon
Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said its preliminary assessment found that Moscow had attacked the facility with a Kh-101 tactical cruise missile.
A Western defence expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that a photo of the attack “clearly showed a Kh-101 air cruise missile diving.”
“The missile does not show any signs of damage, and its dive angle is consistent with that observed in other attacks,” the expert said.
Yohann Michel, an expert at the Institute for Strategic and Defence Studies (IESD), reached similar conclusions.
“You have to check that the pictures have not been altered, but in one of the pictures you can clearly see the Kh-101 in perfect condition,” he told AFP.
Mitchell said the attack was part of a broader offensive aimed at destroying Ukraine’s air defenses and “focused on multiple targets and used missiles with a variety of trajectories and altitudes.”
Russian response
Following the attack, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had struck its “targeted” defence industry and military targets.
The minister blamed Ukrainian air defence missiles for the extensive damage to civilian targets.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had not targeted civilian structures.
The United Nations disagreed, saying it was “highly likely” the children’s hospital had been directly hit by a Russian missile.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
