Kiev says it has unequivocal evidence that hospital attack originated from Russia

The Ukrainian State Security Service (SBU) presented new evidence on Tuesday (9), claiming that Kiev’s main children’s hospital was directly hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

“The experts’ conclusions are unequivocal – it was a direct attack,” the SBU said on Telegram.

It shared images of a missile engine fragment it said was found at the scene. The SBU added that analysis of the trajectory and nature of the damage caused proves it was a direct hit.

Russia says the destruction of the Kiev hospital was carried out by Ukraine’s own air defense system. The Kremlin has also insisted that Moscow does not carry out attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.

Witnesses report terror in hospital

Natalia Sardudinova, a senior nurse, described the moment the attack hit the children’s hospital, saying: “It was scary, but we survived.”

“It was loud, the windows were breaking,” she told CNN . “As soon as the alarm rang, the children were taken into the hallway.”

She said two children were in surgery at the time of the explosion and both were moved to the basement shelter once the procedures were completed.

“Everything was in smoke, there was no air to breathe. The doctor was cut by shrapnel. The windows and doors were destroyed. A nurse in the hospital was seriously injured,” Sardudinova added. “My hands are still shaking. They don’t let anyone in now, they are afraid it will collapse.”

Yulia Vasylenko, the mother of an 11-year-old cancer patient at the hospital, said her son Denys was taken out of the building after the attack.

“My son is on painkillers. He has cancer. He has been off his medication for half a day. He was brought down the stairs from the third floor. There was smoke (and) heavy dust,” she said.

Iryna Filimonova, senior nurse at the pediatric urology department, told CNN that an operation on a two-year-old child was in progress when the strike took place.

“The lights went out, everything went out. We took out the instruments, turned on flashlights. Everything was stitched up quickly,” Filimonova said. “The baby was brought (to the shelter). I immediately ran to help clear the rubble. Some of my fellow nurses who worked in the operating rooms and some doctors were cut by glass fragments. Our department was destroyed.”

Another operating room nurse, Oksana Mosiychuk, said they took shelter in the emergency room when the explosion rocked the building. Afterward, she added, medical staff had to extinguish a fire that broke out in their department, including an operating table that caught fire.

“Luckily, everyone is alive. One of our colleagues was seriously injured, he had several cuts and shrapnel wounds and was taken away by ambulance. I also have minor shrapnel wounds, but I’m OK. It was very scary. I was scared for the children,” she said.

A UN team that visited the site after the attack saw children “receiving cancer treatment in hospital beds set up in parks and on the streets, where medical workers quickly set up triage areas amid the chaos, dust and rubble,” UN human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.

“Surprisingly, one of the attacks severely damaged the intensive care, surgical and oncological wards of Okhmatdyt, which is the largest children’s referral hospital in Ukraine, and destroyed the children’s toxicology department, where children receive dialysis,” Turk said.

In the hospital’s newest building, 12 departments were damaged and a section of Ukraine’s only oncology and hematology laboratory was completely destroyed, according to the Kiev military administration.

UN holds special meeting

The UN Security Council will hold a special meeting on Tuesday (9) to discuss Russia’s deadly attack on a children’s hospital, after Zelensky called for an emergency assembly while promising retaliation for the attacks.

The Ukrainian leader said in a post on X that the exact number of victims at the hospital was not yet known and that “there are people under the rubble”, but that everyone from doctors to local residents were helping to clear the rubble after the attack.

“Residential buildings, infrastructure and a children’s hospital were damaged. All services are working to rescue as many people as possible,” Zelensky wrote in a post on X.

Ukraine shot down 30 of 38 missiles launched by Russia during Monday’s (8) attack, the Ukrainian Air Force commander said in a statement, adding that Moscow used ballistic cruise missiles.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov has called for more air defense systems to support the war-torn country. Zelensky has repeatedly called on the West to provide him with more air defense systems to better protect his cities. Last month, he praised Biden for prioritizing the delivery of air defense systems after the two presidents signed a security agreement between their countries.

Air raid sirens continued to sound in Kiev in the aftermath, with video from CNN showing evacuees outside the hospital pushing children on stretchers to safety. Dozens of volunteers later delivered much-needed supplies and donations – including water, food, medicine and diapers – to the hospital.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general sent evidence of Monday’s Russian attacks to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office on Monday.

The attack came as several European countries denounced the bombing, with France calling for the attack “to be added to the list of war crimes for which Russia will be held accountable”. New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the hospital attack on innocent children as “the most depraved of acts”. A senior official at the UN children’s agency, executive director Catherine Russell, said the devastation to medical facilities “is yet another brutal reminder that nowhere is safe for children in Ukraine”.

According to the World Health Organization, there have been more than 1,600 cases of heavy weapons attacks targeting medical facilities in Ukraine since the start of the large-scale invasion, with 141 people killed in these attacks.

Last December, 12 pregnant women and four newborn babies were lucky enough to escape a maternity hospital in Dnipro that had been badly damaged in an airstrike. Earlier, the bombing of a maternity hospital and a children’s hospital in Mariupol, less than a month after Russian troops crossed the border, drew international condemnation.

“It’s a very difficult day in our hometown. Today is one of the biggest massive missile attacks on our hometown,” Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Becky Anderson of CNN .

(With information from Reuters)