Almost 40 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded across Ukraine in a barrage of Russian missile attacks – the deadliest in months.
A missile smashed into a children’s hospital in the capital, Kyiv, on Monday, trapping victims under rubble. Dozens of volunteers, doctors and rescue workers dug through debris of a part of Okhmatdyt National Children’s Specialised Hospital in a desperate search for survivors after the rare daytime bombardment.
Videos and photos from the scene of the children’s hospital showed volunteers working with police and security services to sift through the rubble as smoke billowed from the hospital, as staff described how they tried to rush children to safety in the wake of the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated Russian forces fired more than 40 missiles at five cities, mainly in the south and east of the country as well as Kyiv.
The attacks came as Zelensky visited Warsaw before heading to the NATO summit in Washington, DC, where he was expected to appeal for more military support from the country’s allies.
Natalia Svidler, 40, was in the hospital at the time of the strike with her two-year-old son as he awaits surgery this week.
“The nurses told us to go down to the basement. After a while, we heard a loud rumble, and then the ceiling in the basement collapsed a little,” she told the AFP news agency at the scene.
“Everyone got very scared, of course. Everyone started screaming and running,” she added.
Ukrainian energy operator DTEK announced three electrical substations had been destroyed or damaged in the attack, the latest in a series of strikes that have halved the country’s energy generation capacity in recent months.
In Zelensky’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, which has been repeatedly targeted by Russian bombardment, the strikes killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 40, officials confirmed.
There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the Kremlin, but it insists its forces do not target civilian infrastructure.
