Russian missiles killed at least seven people and struck a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Monday, while another attack in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed at least 10.
The Russian barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with more than 40 missiles of different types, hitting apartment buildings and public infrastructure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post.
At least 20 people were killed and around 50 people were injured across the country in the Monday morning onslaught, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. In Kryvyi Rih, 31 people were injured in addition to the 10 deaths in what the head of city administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, said was a massive missile attack. Explosions were also reported by local officials in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region.
At the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescuers were searching for people under the rubble of a partially collapsed wing of the facility, Zelenskyy said, adding that the number of casualties was not yet known.
"It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing,” Zelenskyy said on social media.
The attack comes on the eve of a three-day NATO summit in Washington, which will look at how to reassure Ukraine of the alliance’s unwavering support and offer Ukrainians hope that their country can come through Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
A two-story building at the children's hospital was partly destroyed. On the hospital’s main 10-story building, windows and doors were blown out and walls were blackened.
Medical personnel and local people helped shift the rubble as they searched for children and medical workers who could be trapped underneath. Volunteers formed a line, passing stones and debris to each other. Smoke still rose from the building, and volunteers and emergency crews worked in protective masks.
It was the heaviest Russian bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months. The daylight attacks included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, one of the most advanced Russian weapons, the Ukrainian air force said. The Kinzhal flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept. City buildings shook from the blasts. An entire section of a residential multistory building in one district of Kyiv was destroyed, officials said.
The Kyiv city administration reported falling debris, presumably from intercepted missiles, in a handful of Kyiv areas, starting fires. Thick plumes of smoke rose from several Kyiv neighborhoods.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the attack occurred at a time when many people were in the city’s streets.
Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said official assessments of the attack's consequences were still being carried out.
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