The body of a missing boy was retrieved from the rubble of an apartment block in Kiev that was destroyed in a Russian missile attack, as many expressed outrage at the brutality of the strike.
At least 27 people died in devastating Russian airstrikes on Kiev on Monday, including four children, and 117 people were injured, the city's civil defence department said on Tuesday.
There were further casualties in the Dnipropetrovsk region in the south.
In total, Ukraine has suffered at least 38 deaths and 190 injuries as a result of the recent attacks, President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on the social media platform X. "We continue to work to protect our cities and communities from Russian terror," he wrote.
Tuesday is set to be a day of mourning in Kiev, after a missile hit one of Ukraine's most important paediatric hospitals in the capital.
Hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers were still searching for people trapped in the rubble.
Children suffering from cancer who had been rescued were sitting on their mothers' laps in the street attached to drips.
Two adults were killed in the hospital, including a doctor.
Seven people were killed in a large residential building near the hospital, including three children. Two people died in an industrial plant. There were unofficial reports saying there had been attacks on an armaments company.
Nine people were killed in another partially destroyed hospital and seven people were killed in a business centre.
Moscow claims attack was caused by Ukraine
Ukraine has said the children's hospital attack was targeted as video footage shows a cruise missile approaching the building unhindered.
However, the Russian military has said the impact was caused by the mistaken use of a Ukrainian air-defence missile, without providing evidence.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov demanded that the public stick to this version. "We do not carry out strikes against civilian targets. There are only strikes against objects of critical infrastructure or military targets," he said, according to the TASS news agency.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also claimed that the hospital had been hit by a NASAMS anti-aircraft missile from Ukraine.
UN agency says cruise missile hit hospital
Preliminary investigations by the UN Human Rights Office have found that the children's hospital destroyed in Kiev was hit directly by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, Danielle Bell, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said on Tuesday.
She said specialists had reached this conclusion after analysing video footage and directly examining damage on site.
"[It is] one of most egregious attacks we have seen since the onset of the invasion," she said.
Staff brought young patients to safety in the bunker shortly before the attack on Monday, she said. Otherwise, the number of victims would have been significantly higher. She said two people died in the attack.
All 600 of the hospital's young patients had been transferred to other health facilities. The hospital, where many children with cancer and other serious illnesses were treated, was badly damaged and could no longer be used without extensive repairs, she said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) office in Kiev showed the situation on the ground on X.
The WHO has counted almost 1,900 attacks on hospitals, doctors' surgeries, ambulances and similar targets since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
According to universally applicable international humanitarian law, such health-care facilities may not be attacked, the International Committee of the Red Cross has often said on X.
UN to discuss attack
The United Nations Security Council in New York is to discuss the devastating attack. But as a permanent member of the UN's highest body, Russia has the right of veto, so Moscow is not expected to be condemned.
Ukraine has been trying to repel a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022 and depends largely on Western support. Kiev repeatedly urges its allies to provide even more modern air defence systems.
Ukraine sends drones to attack Russia
Ukraine responded to the nationwide wave of attacks from Moscow with drone attacks on Russia on Tuesday.
A depot of tanks belonging to the oil company Lukoil in the Volgograd region was set on fire as a result. Regional Governor Andrey Bocharov blamed this on debris from drones that had been shot down, which had fallen on the depot in the city of Kalach on the Don.
The fire is being extinguished, he said. A transformer station had also been hit, he said.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said 38 Ukrainian combat drones had been intercepted during the night over the Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov and Astrakhan regions.
The information could not initially be independently verified - and the Volgograd region did not appear on the ministry's list. However, Russian authorities confirmed that aircraft were temporarily unable to take off or land at the airports in Volgograd and Astrakhan.
According to the Moscow military, further drones were shot down over the Belgorod and Astrakhan regions in the course of the morning.
As Kiev lacks heavy long-range weapons, it is trying to make up for this shortcoming with targeted drone attacks. The attacks on Russian refineries and petrol depots are intended to paralyse the supply of fuel for the army.
However, the damage caused in Russia is nowhere close to the scale of the devastating consequences of Russian bombardments on Ukraine.
Most Popular
Comments / 0