Severe Russian airstrikes across Ukraine, including the bombing that damaged a paediatric hospital in Kiev, prompted international condemnation at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
A UN official condemned the attack as a war crime at the meeting, while Ukraine's supporters again denounced Russian aggression in the country.
France's representative, Nicolas de Rivière, called it a "further entry and a list of war crimes" for which Russia must be held accountable.
China, an ally of Russia, also expressed concern in remarks that could be read as a signal to Moscow.
Fighting in Ukraine has unfortunately "intensified and there have been brutal attacks from time to time that have claimed many victims. China is deeply concerned about this," said China's deputy ambassador to the UN, Geng Shuang.
However, Beijing expressed its usual caution and did not directly denounce its close partner in Moscow.
Joyce Msuya, the acting head of the UN Emergency Relief and Works Agency (OCHA), said that the deadly Russian strike on Monday that damaged the children's hospital was part of "a deeply concerning pattern of systemic attacks, harming healthcare and other civilian infrastructure across Ukraine."
"Intentionally directing attacks against a protected hospital is a war crime and perpetrators must be held to account," she said.
Because Russia has veto power in the UN Security Council, action over Russian aggression in Ukraine is out of the question.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed hope for greater international support in the wake of the attack, and thanked foreign leaders who had taken new steps to help bolster Ukraine's defences.
Zelensky travelled to Washington on Tuesday to join a three-day NATO summit being hosted in the US capital. Aid for Ukraine is expected to be a major topic at the meetings.
Devastating airstrikes on Kiev
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 31 people died in devastating Russian airstrikes on Kiev on Monday, including four children, and at least 117 people were injured, the city's civil defence department said on Tuesday.
Across the country, Ukraine has suffered a total of at least 42 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. Rescue work at the large Ochmatdyt children's hospital was halted after more than 24 hours. Hundreds of rescuers, medics and volunteers had searched for victims in the rubble until they were exhausted.
The building's facade was completely destroyed by the blast.
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.
Evidence points to deliberate Russia attack
Ukraine has said the children's hospital attack was targeted, as video footage shows what Ukrainian sources have identified as a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile approaching the building unhindered.
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.
Russia denies responsibility
Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzia repeated the Kremlin's claims that the Russian attack was aimed at a factory near the hospital.
He again asserted, without offering evidence, that a stray Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile had subsequently hit the hospital.
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.
Child patients transferred
The UN's Bell said that hospital 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.
All 600 of the hospital's young patients have now 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.
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 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.
Most Popular
Comments / 0