“Massive” Russian missile attack on Ukraine, 37 dead and a children’s hospital hit

LONDON and KIEV – At least 37 people were killed – including three children – and 170 injured in Ukraine on Monday when Russia fired a missile attack involving more than 40 missiles, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

At least five cities were attacked, including the capital Kyiv, where 21 people were killed. Kyiv’s Ochmatdyt Children’s Hospital – one of the country’s most respected children’s hospitals – was damaged along with nearly 100 other facilities, including dormitories, kindergartens, a maternity hospital, a college and a business center, according to Zelensky.

At least two people were killed in the attack on the hospital, including a doctor. At least seven children were injured, according to official figures. Zelensky said on Monday that doctors, hospital staff and rescue workers were digging through the rubble.

“The whole world must show all its determination to finally put an end to the Russian attacks. Putin brings killing,” said Zelensky. “Only together can we create real peace and security.”

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov wrote in a post on Facebook that the Russian attack was “massive” and took place “at rush hour, when Ukrainians were going to work.”

According to a Telegram post, Kyiv city authorities declared July 9 a day of mourning in the capital following the attack. Meanwhile, the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital asked for donations to rebuild the hospital after the attack and collected more than $2 million in just three hours on Monday, according to UNITED24, a fundraising initiative of the Ukrainian president.

The attack, one of the largest Russian attacks in months, came a day before US President Joe Biden began a three-day NATO summit in Washington, where the group is expected to discuss support for Ukraine.

The alliance is expected to make “significant” announcements about increased military and financial support for Ukraine, a senior White House official said last week.

Photos and videos shared by Zelensky and hospital staff appear to show bloodied doctors carrying children out of the hospital, a building on the hospital grounds reduced to rubble, and the exterior of the main building blown up. One image appears to show young patients sitting in the street with their IVs after the explosion.

A doctor at the hospital told local media that the rocket destroyed a building where two operations were taking place at the time.

The Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement that it had launched a criminal investigation into the attack on the hospital, which it called a “war crime.” According to preliminary findings, the service said a Russian Kh-101 missile hit the building.

At the conclusion of a meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday morning at the Pentagon, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the recent Russian attacks on Ukraine.

“In Ukraine, Russia continues its brutal war,” Stoltenberg said. “Just today we saw cruel missile attacks on Ukrainian cities that killed innocent civilians, including children. I condemn these heinous attacks.”

The rockets targeted cities such as Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Zelensky said. At least eight of the dead were in Kyiv, officials said.

At least 10 people were killed and several others wounded in Russian airstrikes on Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine and Zelensky’s hometown, on Monday morning, officials said. Another three people were killed in Russian airstrikes on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, officials said.

ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian, Matthew Seyler, Joe Simonetti and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.