Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital was devastated by Russian missile barrage Monday, even as NATO leaders were gathering in Washington, DC, for the 2024 NATO Summit. The attack came as part of a reported 42-missile attack on various locations in Ukraine, some of which may have had military value. This was the largest missile attack on Ukraine since a 45-missile strike on June 2.
“The attack was massive, combined with the use of aerial, ballistic and cruise missiles,” said Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration. “The missiles flew at the capital in waves and from different directions.”
At the hospital, one doctor and another adult were killed and at least 10 more people were injured, including seven children, local officials said. At least three children were pulled from the rubble, Ukraine’s emergency services agency said.
Please do us all a favor and share this video with anyone you encounter on social media or in our comments section who complains that there is no video coverage of the war.
In this video, you can see the Russian Kh-101 (NATO: AS-23 Kodiak) air-launched cruise missiles on final approach in Kiev.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to “X” to make a statement.
Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv. One of the most important CHILDREN’S hospitals not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe. Okhmatdyt has been saving and restoring the health of thousands of children.
Now that the hospital has been damaged by a Russian strike, there are people under the rubble, and the exact number of casualties is still unknown. Right now, everyone is helping to clear the rubble – doctors and ordinary people.
Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes. Against people, against children, against humanity in general. 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.
Once the international outcry hit a certain painful pitch, Russia responded in the way Russia always does: deny everything, admit nothing, blame others, and make counter-accusations.
Propagandist Vladimir Solovyov claimed the missile was not Russian. He unironically placed the hospital attack in the same category as other Russian atrocities, like the MH-17 shootdown and the Bucha and Irpil massacres, that Russia denies happened.
The toad-like Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzhya used his position as UN Security Council president to claim that the multiple missile strikes on Kiev residential areas, which included extensive damage to another hospital as well as the Ohmatdyt children’s hospital, were, in fact, Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles.
Via TASS:
“We have been repeatedly saying that Russia never targets civilian facilities in Ukraine. As for strikes by the Russian aerospace forces that were delivered on Ukrainian defense industry facilities and airbases of the Ukrainian army, one of the targets in Kiev as the Artyom Plant, one of the biggest manufacturers of airborne missiles, weapons, and munitions,” he said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. “Since the plant is located some two kilometers off the Okhmatdet children’s hospital, there are grounds to think that the Ukrainian air defense projectile that hit it was launched to intercept the Russian missile that targeted the plant.”
“Such tragedies could have been avoided should the Kiev regime observe the norms of international humanitarian law and refrain from deploying air defense systems and heavy weapons in residential quarters,” Nebenzya stressed.
He noted the fact that “the tragedy when an air defense projectile hit the children’s hospital occurred just ahead of the NATO summit.” “Notably, this is the third NATO summit since the beginning of the special military operation and similar situations occurred head each of them,” he recalled.
This is another case in which Russia did not even give us the respect of telling a believable lie. The missile Nebenzhya blames for the attack, an AIM-120 AAMRAM fired from a NASAMS, has a 44-pound blast-fragmentation warhead, which would have a minor effect on a building. The missiles are on terminal trajectory and obviously have not been hit by air defense systems. And I can’t imagine why these things just “happen” when a NATO summit is underway because there is no way Russia would ever try to show that it didn’t care what NATO thinks.
The fact that an alleged legitimate target was located over a mile away is not an explanation for how multiple missiles hit a hospital unless the Russians are much more incompetent than anyone had dared imagine.
The potential political fallout was such that Moscow mobilized high-profile social media accounts to beclown themselves shamelessly. This one is from Jackson Hinkle.
Hinkle blamed a Patriot system before his handler issued a correction to match Nebenzhya’s UN speech.
Luckily, the video is clear enough to show the missiles.
Read this thread for a thorough debunking of the Russian and Russian-sponsored narrative.
This may not end up being just another in a long list of Russian atrocities. This attack was made possible by the Biden White House’s insistence that Ukraine not use American-built weapons to attack airfields in Russia. It was also made possible by Biden’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with the defensive systems it needs to protect population centers. The Kh-101s used in Kiev were programmed to fly around the city’s air defenses.
There are indications that the NATO summit will result in an increased number of air defense systems being sent to Ukraine.
