Dozens killed as Russia bombards Ukraine

KYIV (AP):

Dozens of Russian missiles blasted cities across Ukraine on Monday, striking apartment buildings and a large children’s hospital in the capital, where local residents joined emergency crews to search through piles of rubble. At least 31 people were killed, officials said.

The daytime barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with more than 40 missiles of different types, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media. Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 30 missiles. More than 150 people were wounded.

It was Russia’s heaviest bombardment of Kyiv in almost four months, hitting seven of the city’s 10 districts. Seven people were killed in the capital, including two staff members at the hospital, where three children were hurt. Strikes in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s birthplace in central Ukraine, killed 10.

“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.

Russia denied attacking the hospital and said the strikes hit military targets.

The attack unfolded a day before Western leaders who have backed Ukraine were scheduled to begin a three-day NATO summit in Washington to consider how they can reassure Kyiv of the alliance’s unwavering support and offer Ukrainians hope that their country can survive Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

Zelenskyy said during a visit to Poland that he hopes the summit will provide more air-defence systems for Ukraine.

At the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescuers searched for victims under the rubble of a partially collapsed, two-storey wing of the facility.

At the hospital’s main 10-storey building, windows and doors were blown out, and walls were blackened. Blood was spattered on the floor in one room. The intensive care unit, operating theatres, and oncology departments all were damaged, officials said.

At the time of the strike, three heart operations were being performed, and debris from the explosion contaminated the patients’ open chests, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said.

The hospital lost water, light, and oxygen in the attack, and the patients were transferred to other hospitals, he told Ukrainian television.

Rescuers formed a line, passing bricks and other debris to each other as they sifted through rubble. Smoke still rose from the building, and volunteers and emergency crews worked in protective masks.

Some mothers carried their children away on their backs while others waited in the courtyard with their children as calls to doctors’ phones rang unanswered.

A few hours after the initial strike, another air-raid siren sent many of them hurrying to the hospital’s shelter. Led by a flashlight through the shelter’s dark corridors, mothers carried their bandaged children in their arms, and medical workers carried other patients on gurneys. Volunteers handed out candy to try to calm the children.

Marina Ploskonos said her four-year-old son had spinal surgery on Friday.

“My child is terrified,” she said. “This shouldn’t be happening. It’s a children’s hospital,” she said, bursting into tears.

Kyiv city administrators declared July 9 a day of mourning when entertainment events are prohibited and flags are lowered on buildings.

Ukraine’s Security Service said it found wreckage from a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile at the site and opened proceedings on war-crime charges. The Kh-101 is an air-launched missile that flies low to avoid detection by radar. Ukraine said it shot down 11 of 13 Kh-101 missiles launched Monday.

Czech President Petr Pavel said the hospital attack was “inexcusable” and that he expected to see at the NATO summit a consensus that Russia was “the biggest threat for which we must be thoroughly prepared”.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said striking children was “unconscionable”.