The attack on the hospital was part of a barrage that targeted cities across Ukraine
Kyiv:
A day after a Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Kiev, rescuers continued to clear rubble from the site as a day of mourning was held in the Ukrainian capital.
But, as with similar attacks in the past, the Ukrainian government and the Kremlin were at odds over what exactly happened.
Here’s a quick summary of what we know about the strike and its aftermath.
What was achieved
The attack on the hospital was part of an attack that hit cities across Ukraine on Monday morning, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The president said 38 people across Ukraine were killed – including four children – and 190 were injured.
During the attack, Ukrainian officials said a cruise missile hit the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kiev.
The attack caused the collapse of the facility’s toxicology wing and damaged large parts of the surrounding buildings that house several different medical departments, according to AFP journalists present at the scene.
“At the time of the attack, 627 children were in hospital. Of these, eight were injured. Unfortunately, two adults were killed,” military authorities in Kiev said.
The hospital complex has around 700 beds and oversees around 10,000 surgeries per year.
Prior to the strike, medical personnel halted operations at the facility after an air raid siren was activated and sent patients, family members and others to the building’s basement to seek shelter.
However, not everyone was able to evacuate.
According to a doctor present at the scene, some children remained in the hospital’s operating rooms, where operations had already begun and it would have been difficult to move them.
Seven other Kiev districts were also damaged by direct hits or debris from falling missiles, the city’s military administration said.
Ten residents of an apartment building were killed during the attack in the Shevchenkivsky district of central Kiev, the mayor said.
Five medical staff and two patients also died at the Adonis fertility center, the clinic said.
The gun
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said its initial assessment concluded that Moscow hit the facility with a Kh-101 strategic cruise missile.
A Western expert working in the defense sector told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that an image of the attack “clearly shows a Kh-101 airborne cruise missile in its dive phase.”
“The missile shows no signs of damage and its dive angle is consistent with that observed in other attacks,” the expert added.
Yohann Michel, an expert at the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies (IESD), drew similar conclusions.
“It would be necessary to check that the images have not been altered, but in one of them it is possible to clearly see a Kh-101 in perfect condition,” he told AFP.
The attack was part of a wider barrage aimed at overwhelming Ukraine’s air defenses and focused on “different targets and used missiles with different trajectories and altitudes”, Michel added.
Russian response
Following the attack, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces struck defense industry and “intended” military targets.
The minister went on to blame the extensive damage inflicted on civilian targets on Ukrainian air defense missiles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was not targeting civilian structures.
The UN disagreed, saying there was a “high probability” that the children’s hospital was directly hit by the Russian missile.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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