Russia fired dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine on Monday in a massive barrage that killed at least 24 people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv, trapping victims under the rubble. Dozens of volunteers, doctors, and rescue workers were digging through the debris of the Okhmatdyt pediatric hospital in a desperate search for survivors after the rare day-time bombardment. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces fired more than 40 missiles at least five major civilian hubs, mainly in the south and east of the country, as well as Kyiv.
The attack came as Zelensky visited Warsaw before heading to the NATO summit in Washington, where he was expected to appeal for more military support from the country’s allies. First responders ran for cover when sirens and a blast sounded hours after the initial strikes that hit as Ukraine struggles to protect itself from Russian aerial attacks. Zelensky said that there were an unknown number of people trapped under the rubble of the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, and it was not immediately clear how many had been killed.
In Zelensky’s hometown Kryvyi Rig, which has been repeatedly targeted by Russian bombardment, the strikes killed at least 10 and wounded over 41. In Dnipro, a city of around one million people in the same region, one person was killed and six more were wounded, the region’s governor said, when a high-rise residential building and petrol station were hit. There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the Kremlin, but it insists its forces do not target civilian infrastructure. “This shelling targeted civilians, hit infrastructure, and the whole world should see today the consequences of terror, which can only be responded to by force,” the head of the presidential administration in Kyiv, Andriy Yermak, wrote on social media following the attack.
