'Genocidal' attack destroys children's hospital in Kyiv

UN condemns strikes on Ukrainian capital after dozens are killed under the heaviest Russian bombardment in months

- ALEXANDER BUTLER, TOM WATLING

Rescuers picked through the rubble of a children's hospital in Kyiv yesterday after it was hit by one of dozens of Russian missiles in the heaviest and deadliest wave of airstrikes on the city in almost four months.

Parents fled with babies and sick youngsters after a daylight aerial attack on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital that Ukrainian officials described as “genocide”. “It was scary. I couldn’t breathe, I was trying to cover [my baby],” said Svitlana Kravchenko, 33. “I was trying to cover him with this cloth so that he could breathe.”

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will meet today to discuss the horror, which came on the eve of a three-day Nato summit in Washington that will look at how to reassure Ukrainians that their country can come through Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War. Kyiv declared a day of mourning.

Vladimir Putin’s forces launched the hypersonic missile barrage at five Ukrainian cities, hitting seven of the capital’s 10 districts along with Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro and Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s air force said it had intercepted 30 missiles. In total, at least 37 civilians were killed and more than 170 wounded.

At the hospital, a search was underway for victims under the rubble of a partially collapsed, two-storey wing of the facility. In the 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 sustained damage.