Kyiv, Ukraine
CNN
—
A Russian missile strike partially destroyed a children’s hospital in kyiv on Monday, sending terrified patients and their families fleeing for their lives as authorities feared more people could be trapped under the rubble.
Moscow launched a daring airstrike in broad daylight against targets in several Ukrainian cities during the morning rush hour, killing at least 31 people and wounding 125 others, according to Ukrainian emergency services.
In an update on Telegram, the emergency service said the latest toll included the number of dead and wounded in the capital, which now stands at 20 dead and 61 wounded. Two people were killed and at least 10 injured in the strike on kyiv’s Okhmatdyt hospital.
The facility is the largest children’s medical center in Ukraine and plays a vital role in caring for the country’s sickest children. Every year, about 7,000 surgeries – including for cancer and blood diseases – are performed there, according to Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets.
Videos from the scene showed volunteers working with police and security services to search through the rubble as smoke billowed from the hospital, while staff described how they were trying to get children to safety after the attack. Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko said intensive care units, oncology wards and surgical units had been damaged.
“The main task here is to pull people out of the rubble and provide help to those we can reach, because we have already evacuated all the first ones,” he said in a message on Telegram.
The attacks are part of a series of daylight bombings on Ukrainian cities, some of them densely populated areas far from the front lines. They come on the eve of a crucial NATO summit hosted by US President Joe Biden in Washington, where new announcements of the alliance’s military, political and financial support for kyiv are expected.
Natalia Sardudinova, a head nurse, described the moment the strike hit the hospital, saying: “It was scary, but we survived.”
“It was loud, the windows were cracking,” she told CNN. “As soon as the alarm went off, the kids were taken out into the hallway.”
She said two children were in the operating rooms at the time of the explosion and both were moved to the basement shelter after their operations were completed.
“Everything was in smoke, there was no air to breathe. The doctor was injured by shrapnel. The windows and doors were blown out. A nurse from the hospital was seriously injured,” Sardudinova added. “My hands are still shaking. They are not letting anyone in, they are afraid that the hospital will collapse.”
Yulia Vasylenko, the mother of an 11-year-old boy with cancer who is in hospital, said her son Denys was evacuated outside after the strike.
“My son is on painkillers. He has cancer. He hasn’t taken any medication for half a day. He was brought down from the third floor by the stairs. There was smoke and dust,” she said.
Iryna Filimonova, a senior nurse at the pediatric urology department, told CNN that an operation on a 2-year-old child was underway when the attack occurred.
“The lights went out, everything went out. We took out the instruments, turned on the flashlights. Everything was quickly sewn up,” Filimonova said. “The baby was lowered (into the shelter). I immediately ran to help clear the rubble. Some of my fellow nurses who worked in the operating rooms and some doctors were injured by shards of glass. Our department was destroyed.”
Oksana Mosiychuk, another operating room nurse, said they fled to the emergency room when the explosion rocked the building. Afterward, she said, the medical team had to put out a fire that broke out in their ward, including an operating table that caught fire.
“Luckily, everyone is alive. One of our colleagues was seriously injured, he had many cuts and shrapnel wounds, and was evacuated by ambulance. I also have minor shrapnel wounds, but I am fine. It was very scary. I was afraid for the children,” she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a message on X that the exact number of victims in the hospital was not yet known and that “there are people under the rubble” but that everyone, from doctors to local residents, is helping to clear the debris after the strike.
“Apartment buildings, infrastructure and a children’s hospital have been damaged. All services are mobilized to save as many people as possible,” Zelensky wrote in a message posted on X.
The shelling hit targets in the capital kyiv as well as in Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
Zelensky also said that about 40 missiles of different types had been launched against Ukraine. He then called for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, promising retaliation for Monday’s strikes.
Responding to Monday’s bombing, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said the country’s infrastructure had been targeted by four dozen Kalibr cruise missiles and Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles launched from Russia’s Volgograd region.
In a statement, Umerov continued to call for more air defense systems to support the war-torn country. Zelensky has repeatedly called on the West to provide more air defense systems to better protect its cities. Last month, he praised Biden for prioritizing the delivery of air defense systems after the two presidents signed a security agreement between their nations on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy.
Mr. Oumerov said Monday that kyiv was continuing “to work to ensure that the systems promised by our partners arrive in Ukraine as quickly as possible.”
Air raid sirens continued to sound over Kiev after the incident, and CNN video showed evacuees outside the hospital pushing children on stretchers to safety.
Dozens of volunteers then brought much-needed supplies and donations to the hospital – including water, food, medicine and diapers.
Several European countries have denounced the attacks, with France calling them “barbaric”, while the new UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said targeting innocent children was “the most depraved act”.
The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the strikes were “barbaric acts, directly and deliberately targeting a children’s hospital, and should be added to the list of war crimes for which Russia will be held accountable.”
According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,600 heavy weapons attacks have hit medical facilities in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, killing 141 people.
Last December, 12 pregnant women and four newborns were lucky to escape from a maternity hospital in Dnipro that had been badly damaged by an airstrike. Earlier, the bombing of a maternity hospital and a children’s hospital in Mariupol, less than a month after Russian troops arrived at the border, had drawn international condemnation.
This story has been updated with additional information.
