Kyiv, Ukraine. Rescue operations continued for a second day at a major kyiv children’s hospital hit by a Russian missileUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday as officials raised the countrywide death toll to 42 dead and nearly 200 wounded in intense daytime bombing the previous day that leveled several cities.
Zelenskyy said on social platform X that 64 people were hospitalized in the capital, as well as 28 in Kryvyi Rih and six in Dnipro, both cities in central Ukraine.
It was Russia’s most intense bombing of kyiv in almost four months and one of the deadliest in war, affecting seven of the city’s 10 districts. The strike at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, which halted open-heart surgeries and forced young cancer patients to receive their treatments outdoors, sparked an international outcry.
The 10-story hospital, which is Ukraine’s largest children’s medical center, was caring for about 670 patients at the time of the attack, Okhmatdyt General Director Volodymyr Zhovnir said Tuesday. The missile hit a two-story wing of the hospital.
“The building where we do dialysis for children with kidney failure or acute poisoning is completely ruined,” he told reporters, estimating total damage to the hospital at $2.5 million.
Danielle Bell, head of a U.N. team monitoring human rights violations in Ukraine, said at least two people died in hospital and about 50 were injured, including seven children.
The death toll would have been much higher if the patients had not been taken to a bunker when the air raid sirens first sounded, he added.
Authorities were working to restore the hospital’s power and water supplies, Zhovnir said.
kyiv city administrators declared Tuesday an official day of mourning. Entertainment events were banned and flags were lowered in the capital.
Russia denied responsibility for the hospital attack, insisting that it does not attack civilian targets in Ukraine despite abundant evidence to the contrary, including reports from the Associated Press.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday repeated that position, pointing to a Russian Defense Ministry statement that blamed a Ukrainian air defense missile for partially destroying the hospital.
Bell, head of the UN team, dismissed that argument. He said an evaluation of video footage and findings at the scene indicated that the hospital “received a direct hit, rather than suffering damage from an intercepted weapons system.”
The hospital was likely hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, Bell said. Ukrainian officials said the same.
The bodies of three more people were found on Tuesday under the rubble of a residential building in kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district, authorities said, raising the death toll in the single building to 10.
Monday’s Russian attack came on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington where alliance countries are expected to pledge new military and economic support to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin was receiving the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi in Moscow.
New Delhi’s importance as a key trading partner has increased since the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine in February 2022.
Zelenskyy was deeply critical of Modi’s visit, saying on X on Monday night: “It is a great disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy embrace the world’s bloodiest criminal in Moscow on such a day.”
Meanwhile, Russian military and regional officials said Tuesday that Ukrainian drones struck six Russian regions overnight, in what appeared to be a larger-than-usual airstrike by Kiev forces.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defense systems in five regions of southern and western Russia “destroyed and intercepted” a total of 38 Ukrainian drones.
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Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed.
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