Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital was partially destroyed in a Russian missile barrage that struck several cities across the country, killing at least 29 people and injuring almost 100.
A large section of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, in Kyiv, was reduced to rubble. Authorities said it was hit by a cruise missile, a weapon designed to deliver a large warhead with high precision.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed retaliation, saying Ukraine would initiate a meeting of the United Nations' security council following the strike.
A later strike hit a second medical centre in Kyiv, killing at least four people and wounding several others, city authorities said.
The daytime Russian barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with more than 40 missiles of different types, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, one of the most advanced Russian weapons, hitting apartment buildings and public infrastructure. The Kinzhal flies at ten times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.
Mr Zelenskyy said Russian forces fired more than 40 missiles, damaging infrastructure, commercial and residential buildings in several cities on Monday morning.
About 10 people died in Kyiv, with about 35 wounded.
Pictures distributed by officials from the children's medical showed staff wearing bloodstained scrub and people digging through mounds of rubble, as black smoke billowed.
Volunteers formed a line, passing stones and debris to each other.
“There are people under the rubble and the exact number of casualties is still unknown,” said Mr Zelenskyy.
“Right now, everyone is helping to clear the rubble – doctors and ordinary people.”
Parents were seen dazed and sobbing, holding their babies as they walked out on the street.
“We heard an explosion, then we were showered with debris,” Svitlaka Kravchenko, 33, told Reuters after she and her husband Viktor took shelter from the missile strike.
Their two-month-old baby was unharmed but Ms Kravchenko suffered cuts and their car was buried under the rubble of the destroyed building.
“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,” she said.
Nina, a 68-year-old hospital employee, said she always assumed that Okhmatdyt was protected.
"We were 100 percent sure that (the Russians) would not hit here," she told AFP, as she described the frantic rush as staff moved children with IV drips to the bunker.
"I'd rather be killed! I've already lived! But why these children," she asked.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermal, said the attack occurred when many people were in the city’s streets.
Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said the strike on the hospital was one of the worst of the war.
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine harshly condemned the strikes across Ukraine, including on Kyiv, saying "dozens of people have been killed and injured".
"It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war," she said in a statement.
The attack, the heaviest Russian bombardment of Kyiv in about four months, came as Mr Zelenskyy was due in Warsaw before the Nato summit in Washington.
“This callous aggression – a total disregard for human life, jeopardising European & Transatlantic security – is why leaders will make significant security commitments to Ukraine this week,” the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, said on X.
Chinese President Xi Jinping called on world powers to help Russia and Ukraine resume direct dialogue during a meeting Monday with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Mr Orban made a surprise visit to China after similar trips last week to Russia and Ukraine to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement to end the war.
Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the EU this month and Mr Orban has since embarked on a peace mission.
