Russia-Ukraine war: Russian forces launch hypersonic missiles against Ukrainian targets

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A major Russian missile attack on Ukraine killed at least 31 people and injured 154 on Monday, officials said. One of the missiles hit a major children’s hospital in the capital Kyiv, where rescue workers were searching the rubble for victims.

The daytime shelling targeted five Ukrainian cities, with more than 40 rockets of various types hitting residential buildings and public infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media. The Ukrainian Air Force said it intercepted 30 rockets.

Ten people were killed and 47 injured in attacks in Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky’s birthplace in central Ukraine. The head of the city administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, spoke of a massive rocket attack. Seven people were killed in Kiev, authorities said.

“It is very important that the world does not remain silent about this now and that everyone sees what Russia is and what it is doing,” Zelensky said on social media.

Western leaders who have supported Ukraine will hold a three-day NATO Summit in Washington to examine how they can convince Kiev of the steadfastness of the alliance. Support And give Ukrainians hope that their country can survive Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War.

During a visit to Poland, Zelensky said he hoped the summit would lead to the provision of additional air defense systems to Ukraine.

At the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescue workers searched for victims under the rubble of a partially collapsed two-story wing of the facility. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 16 people, including seven children, were injured.

In the hospital’s 10-story main building, windows and doors were blown out and walls blackened. In one room, the floor was splattered with blood. The intensive care unit, operating rooms and oncology departments were all damaged, officials said.

Rescue workers searched the rubble for children and medical staff. Volunteers formed a line and passed bricks and other debris to each other. Smoke was still rising from the building, and volunteers and rescue workers worked wearing protective masks.

The attack forced the evacuation of the hospital and its temporary closure. Some mothers carried their children away on their backs, while others waited with their children in the courtyard while doctors’ calls went unanswered.

A few hours after the first attack, another air raid siren sounded and many of them rushed to the hospital shelter. By the light of a flashlight, mothers walked through the dark corridors of the shelter, their bandaged children in their arms, and medical staff carried them on stretchers. Volunteers handed out sweets to calm the children.

Marina Ploskonos said her four-year-old son underwent spinal surgery on Friday.

“My child is terrified,” she said. “This shouldn’t be happening, we are in a children’s hospital,” she said, bursting into tears.

The Ukrainian security service said it had found debris from a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile at the site and had opened a war crimes case. The Kh-101 is an air-launched missile that flies low to avoid detection by radar. Ukraine said it had shot down 11 of 13 Kh-101 missiles on Monday.

Czech President Petr Pavel described the attack on the hospital as “inexcusable”. He said he expected a consensus at the NATO summit that Russia “represents the greatest threat for which we must be thoroughly prepared”.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said it was “unconscionable” to beat children.

“Under international humanitarian law, hospitals enjoy special protection,” she said in a statement.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks targeted Ukrainian military facilities and airbases and were successful. It denied that civilian facilities were targeted and claimed without evidence that images from Kyiv suggested the damage was caused by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.

Since the beginning of the war, which is now in its third year, Russian officials have regularly used that Moscow’s armed forces never attack civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, despite statements by officials in Kyiv and reports by the Associated Press.

Colonel Yuri Ignat of the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had improved the effectiveness of its air strikes and equipped its missiles with improvements such as so-called heat traps that divert attacks from air defense systems.

In Monday’s attack, the cruise missiles flew at low altitudes – up to 50 meters above the ground – and were therefore harder to hit, he said in a comment sent to AP.

Elsewhere in Kyiv, where seven of the city’s 10 districts were subjected to the heaviest Russian bombardment of the capital in nearly four months, seven people were killed and 25 injured in the attacks, officials said.

About three hours after the first attacks, more rockets hit Kiev and partially destroyed a private medical center. Four people were killed there, the Ukrainian emergency management service said.

In the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district, a three-story part of a residential building was destroyed. Rescue workers searched for the injured and AP reporters saw them carrying away three bodies.

The massive pressure wave scorched surrounding buildings, shattered windows and hurled a dog into the neighboring yard, said local resident Halina Sichievka.

“Now we have nothing left in our apartment, no windows, no doors, nothing. Nothing at all,” said the 28-year-old.

The Kinzhal hypersonic missiles According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attack involves the most modern Russian weapons. They fly at ten times the speed of sound and are therefore difficult to intercept.

The city’s buildings shook as a result of the explosions. Three substations in two districts of Kyiv were damaged or destroyed, the energy company DTEK said.

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Samya Kullab in Kyiv contributed to this.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine