By Olena Harmash and Max Hunder
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia rained missiles down on cities throughout Ukraine in broad daylight on Monday morning, killing at the least 29 civilians and badly damaging Kyiv’s most important kids’s hospital within the deadliest air strike in months, officers stated.
Lots of of individuals rushed to clear particles on the hospital, the place home windows had been smashed and panels ripped off. Mother and father holding infants walked on the street exterior, dazed and sobbing after the uncommon daylight aerial assault.
“It was scary. I couldn’t breathe, I was trying to cover (my baby). I was trying to cover him with this cloth so that he could breathe,” Svitlana Kravchenko, 33, informed Reuters.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated Russia fired greater than 40 missiles, damaging residential and business buildings and infrastructure in Kyiv, his residence metropolis of Kryvyi Rih, the central metropolis of Dnipro and two jap cities.
Ten individuals have been killed and 35 wounded in the primary wave of assaults on Kyiv, authorities stated. Some two hours later, particles from one other missile assault hit a distinct hospital in Kyiv, killing 4 extra and injuring three extra, the emergency providers stated.
Eleven have been confirmed lifeless in Kryvyi Rih and over 40 wounded, the emergency providers stated. Three individuals had been killed within the jap city of Pokrovsk the place missiles hit an industrial facility, the regional governor stated. One particular person was additionally killed within the metropolis of Dnipro, officers stated.
“The whole world must act as decisively as it can to put an end to Russian air strikes. Murder – this is what Putin brings. Only together we can achieve true peace and security,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram.
The Russian Defence Ministry stated its forces had carried out strikes on defence trade targets and aviation bases in Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly denied concentrating on civilians and civilian infrastructure, though its assaults have killed 1000’s of civilians because it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The assault got here a day earlier than leaders of NATO international locations have been resulting from start a three-day summit of the army alliance that Zelenskiy is anticipated to attend with the struggle in Ukraine one of many focuses.
“This callous aggression – a total disregard for human life, jeopardizing European & Transatlantic security – is why leaders will make significant security commitments to Ukraine this week,” the U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink, posted on X.
PLEA FOR AIR DEFENCES
Defence Minister Rustem Umerov stated Ukraine nonetheless lacked sufficient air defences and urged Kyiv’s allies to provide extra techniques promptly to assist shield its cities and infrastructure from common Russian aerial assaults.
The ability grid has already sustained a lot injury from focused Russian air strikes that started in March that electrical energy cuts have develop into widespread and the whirring sound of backup energy mills within the streets has develop into ubiquitous.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest personal energy producer, stated three electrical energy substations and electrical energy networks had been broken within the capital.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko stated the assault on the capital was one of many largest of the struggle.
“We heard an explosion, then we have been showered with particles,” Svitlana informed Reuters after she and her husband Viktor, emerged from a shelter on the hospital with their two-month-old child.
The child was unhurt, however Svitlana had suffered cuts, and their automobile was completely buried below the rubble of the destroyed constructing throughout the courtyard from the primary ward.
One other explosion rang out over town greater than an hour after the strike because the air pressure issued a warning to residents that air defences might interact Russian surveillance drones within the space.
