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The attack on the hospital was part of a barrage targeting cities across Ukraine
Kiev:
A day after a Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Kiev, rescuers continued to clear debris from the scene as a day of mourning was held in the Ukrainian capital.
But as with similar attacks in the past, the Ukrainian government and the Kremlin disagreed over what exactly happened.
Here’s a quick overview of what we know about the strike and its aftermath.
What was hit
The attack on the hospital was part of a barrage that attacked cities across Ukraine on Monday morning, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The president said 38 people were killed – including four children – and 190 injured across Ukraine.
During the attack, Ukrainian officials said a cruise missile struck the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv.
The strike caused the collapse of the facility’s toxicology wing and damaged large parts of the surrounding buildings that house several medical departments, AFP journalists on the scene said.
“At the time of the attack, 627 children were in hospital. Eight of them were injured. Unfortunately, two adults were killed,” military authorities in Kiev said.
The hospital complex has approximately 700 beds and oversees an estimated 10,000 surgeries per year.
Before the attack, medical staff halted operations at the facility after an air raid siren was activated, sending patients, family members and others to the building’s basement to seek shelter.
However, not everyone was able to evacuate.
According to a doctor on the scene, some children remained in the hospital’s operating rooms, where operations had already begun, and moving them would have been difficult.
Seven other districts in Kiev were also damaged by direct hits or debris from falling rockets, the city’s military administration said.
Ten residents of an apartment building were killed in the attack in the Shevchenkivsky district of central Kiev, the mayor said.
Five medical staff and two patients also died at the Adonis fertility center, the clinic said.
The weapon
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said its initial assessment showed that Moscow had hit the facility with a Kh-101 strategic cruise missile.
A Western expert working in the defense sector told AFP on condition of anonymity that an image of the attack “clearly shows a Kh-101 cruise missile in the diving phase”.
“The missile shows no signs of damage and its dive angle is consistent with that observed in other attacks,” the expert added.
Yohann Michel, an expert at the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies (IESD), drew similar conclusions.
“You have to check that the images have not been altered, but in one of them you can clearly see a Kh-101 in perfect condition,” he told AFP.
The attack was part of a broader barrage aimed at overwhelming Ukrainian air defenses and targeting “different targets and used missiles with different trajectories and heights,” Michel added.
Russian response
After the attack, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had hit their “target” defense industry and military targets.
The minister then blamed the extensive damage to civilian targets on Ukrainian air defense missiles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia had not targeted civilian structures.
The United Nations disagreed, saying there was a “high probability” that the children’s hospital was hit by the Russian missile.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)