Emergency workers respond at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2024. A major Russian missile attack across Ukraine on Monday killed at least 31 people and injured 154, officials said, with one striking a large children’s hospital in the capital of Kyiv, where emergency crews searched the rubble for victims.
| Photo Credit: AP

A major Russian missile attack across Ukraine killed at least 20 people and injured more than 50 on Monday, officials said, with one missile striking a large children’s hospital in the capital, Kyiv, where emergency crews searched rubble for casualties.

The Russian barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with more than 40 missiles of different types, hitting apartment buildings and public infrastructure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post.

Strikes in Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, killed 10 people and injured 37, in what the head of city administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, said was a massive missile attack.

At the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescuers were searching for people under the rubble of a partially collapsed wing of the facility, Mr. Zelenskyy said, adding that the number of casualties was not yet known.

Vsevolod Dorofieiev, the senior instructor of a volunteer medical unit, said some people had died but he did not say how many or whether they were children or adults.

On social media, Mr. Zelenskyy said: “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.”

The attack comes on the eve of a three-day NATO summit in Washington, which will look at how to reassure Ukraine of the alliance’s unwavering support and offer Ukrainians hope that their country can come through Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

At the children’s hospital, a two-story building was partly destroyed. On the hospital’s main 10-story building, windows and doors were blown out and walls were blackened. Blood spattered the floor in one room.

Medical personnel and local people helped shift the rubble as they searched for children and medical workers who could be trapped underneath. Volunteers formed a line, passing stones and debris to each other. Smoke still rose from the building, and volunteers and emergency crews worked in protective masks.

The attack forced the hospital to shut down and evacuate. Some mothers carried their children away on their backs. Others waited in the courtyard with their children as calls to doctors’ phones rang unanswered.

Elsewhere in Kyiv, the heaviest Russian bombardment of the capital in almost four months killed seven people and injured 25, officials said. The daylight attacks included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, one of the most advanced Russian weapons, the Ukrainian air force said. The Kinzhal flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.

City buildings shook from the blasts. An entire section of a residential multistory building in one district of Kyiv was destroyed, officials said. Three electricity substations were damaged or completely destroyed in two districts of Kyiv, energy company DTEK said.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the attack occurred at a time when many people were in the city’s streets.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said official assessments of the attack’s consequences were still being carried out.

A damaged refrigerator containing remnants of products is seen at the site of a private house destroyed by a missile attack in the village of Krasylivka, Kyiv region, on May 08, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Russia said on May 8 that its forces had advanced in eastern Ukraine, taking villages in two regions, and that it had struck Ukraine’s energy and military infrastructure in response to attacks on Russian refineries.

Russian missiles and drones struck nearly a dozen Ukrainian critical infrastructure facilities in a major airstrike early on May 8, causing serious damage at three Soviet-era thermal power plants, Kyiv officials said.

Russia used high-precision long-range naval and air-based weapons, hypersonic Kinzhal missile systems and drones to strike energy facilities and the military-industrial complex, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.

“As a result of the strike, Ukraine’s capabilities for the output of military products, as well as the transfer of Western weapons and military equipment to the line of contact, have been significantly reduced,” the Ministry said.

It said the strike was in response to the “attempts of the Kyiv regime to damage Russian energy facilities”.

Along the 1,000 km front, Russian forces advanced in several places, the Defence Ministry said.

They took control of the village of Kyslivka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and the village of Novokalynove in the Donetsk region, the Ministry said. Reuters could not independently verify those advances.

It also said that it had struck Ukrainian ammunition depots and drone workshops.

Kyiv:

Russia launched a “massive” missile strike at Ukraine overnight, damaging four power plants in the latest barrage targeting the country’s energy supply, officials in Kyiv said on Saturday.

Moscow has launched some of its largest ever strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities in recent months, knocking out a significant chunk of production, and triggering blackouts and energy rationing across the country.

Ukraine also fired more than 60 drones at southern Russia overnight, Moscow said, in one of its largest ever overnight drone attacks. Kyiv claimed to have hit two oil refineries and a military air base.

“Russian armed forces staged another massive missile attack on Ukraine,” the Ukrainian army said in its regular morning update.

“The enemy has once again attacked the country’s energy infrastructure. In particular, facilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv regions were attacked. There is damage to equipment,” Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a Facebook post.

The Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions are in Ukraine’s west, bordering the EU and hundreds of kilometres from the frontlines. 

Ukraine’s air force said Moscow fired 34 missiles, of which 21 were shot down.

Kyiv says Moscow is escalating its attacks from the air and on land ahead of nationwide celebrations on May 9, when Russia marks victory in World War II, and while Ukraine awaits the arrival of crucial US weapons.

– Energy rationing –

The DTEK power operator said equipment at four of its thermal power plants was “severely damaged” in the overnight strikes.

State electricity operator Ukrenergo said it had disconnected its main overhead power line in the west of the country as a preventative measure.

Officials asked energy users to limit their power usage.

“We ask all consumers to consume electricity sparingly. Industry is asked to maximise electricity imports and use alternative power sources,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.

The head of the western Lviv region called on residents not to use kettles, irons, washing machines and microwaves between 7:00pm and 10:00pm to preserve limited energy supplies.

Separate shelling on a village close to the Russian border in the northeastern Kharkiv region killed one person on Saturday, Ukraine’s state emergency services agency said.

One person was also killed and eight wounded in shelling of the southern Kherson region, Ukraine’s national police said.

The overnight missile strikes injured two people in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, regional governor Sergiy Lysak said, and wounded one in the northeastern Kharkiv region, emergency services said.

– 68 drones downed –

Ukraine also launched its own massive drone attack on Russia’s southern Krasnodar region overnight.

A Ukrainian defence source told AFP its drones had hit two oil refineries and a military airfield in the region, just east of the annexed Crimean peninsula.

“Ukrainian drones struck the atmospheric distillation columns of the Ilsky and Slovyansky refineries. These are key technological facilities,” the source said.

Russian officials in the Krasnodar region reported a fire at an oil refinery in the town of Slavyansk-on-Kuban.

The refinery suspended operations as a result, Russian state media reported, citing a company representative.

Videos and photos on social media showed a large fire raging overnight at the site after a series of blasts.

Moscow said earlier that Ukraine had launched one of its largest ever attempted overnight drone attacks on the Krasnodar region.

“Air defences destroyed and intercepted 66 Ukrainian drones over the territory of the Krasnodar region and two over the Crimean peninsula,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

Kyiv has hit several Russian oil refineries in the western part of the country in recent months, despite reports of concern in Washington that the strikes could be seen as escalatory and might drive up global oil prices.

Ukraine says targeting Russia’s vital energy sector is legitimate as it is a source of fuel and funds for the Russian army.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Police officers inspect a part of a Russian Kh-55 cruise missile, intercepted during a missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in a park in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Poland demanded an explanation from Russia on March 24 after one of its missiles strayed briefly into Polish airspace during a massive missile attack on Ukraine, prompting the NATO member to activate F-16 fighter jets.

The incident came as Russia launched its third massive missile attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital of Kyiv.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said Russia used cruise missiles launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers. An air alert in the capital lasted for more than two hours as rockets entered Kyiv in groups from the north.

He said the attacks were launched from the Engels district in the Saratov region of Russia.

According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or damage in the capital, he said.

Armed Forces Operational Command of Poland, a member of NATO, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 a.m. (0323GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine.

Also Read | EU scrambles to send weapons to Ukraine’s outgunned forces

The object entered near Oserdów, a village in an agricultural region near the border with Ukraine, and stayed there for 39 seconds, the statement said.

Poland’s Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz later told reporters in a televised news conference that the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading towards a target in Poland.

He said that Polish authorities monitored the attack on Ukraine and was in contact with Ukrainian counterparts. Polish and NATO F-16s were activated as part of the strategic response.

He said the missile penetrated Polish airspace about a kilometre or two (0.6 miles to 1.2 miles) as Russia was targeting the region around Lviv in western Ukraine.

“As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish air space,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, the Polish Foreign Ministry said it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace.”

Also Read | Russia fires 31 missiles at Kyiv in the first attack in 44 days, and 13 people are hurt

“Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems,” the statement read.

Andrzej Szejna, a deputy Foreign Minister, told the TVN24 broadcaster that the Foreign Ministry intended to summon the Russian ambassador to Poland and hand him a protest note.

Henryk Zdyb, the head of the village of Oserdów, said in an interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he saw the missile, saying it produced a whistling sound.

“I saw a rapidly moving object in the sky. It was illuminated and flying quite low over the border with Ukraine,” he told the paper.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, there have been a number of intrusions into Polish airspace, triggering worry in the European Union member state and reminding people of how close the war is.

In 2022, two Poles were killed in a missile blast. Western officials blamed those deaths on a Ukrainian air defence missile that went astray but also accused Russia of culpability because it started the war, with the Ukrainian missiles launched in self-defence.

On March 23 night, one person was killed and four wounded in a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, city governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said on his Telegram channel.