Ukraine declared a day of mourning Tuesday, as the United Nations Security Council met in an emergency meeting, following a barrage of Russian missiles that killed at least 37 people and injured more than 170 others.
Among the targets hit in Monday’s multicity attack was the country’s largest children’s hospital. It was part of a daytime series of strikes that Mayor Vitali Klitschko described as one of the largest of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy strongly condemned the attack and said Russia must be held accountable.
On Tuesday, on the sidelines of the start of the NATO summit in Washington, Zelenskyy told VOA that he would be talking with leaders.
“There we will discuss priorities first and foremost. These are air defense systems. I think that after this, both President [Joe] Biden and other leaders can be more powerful and more decisive than they were up to this point,” he said. “Although I am grateful to the president, the administration and the U.S. Congress for the package that was voted on, we expect that it is gradually arriving on the battlefield and gradually strengthening our army.”
Biden said in a statement Monday that the Russian missile strikes “are a horrific reminder of Russia's brutality” and pledged “unshakeable” U.S. support for Ukraine.
“Together with our allies, we will be announcing new measures to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses to help protect their cities and civilians from Russian strikes. The United States stands with the people of Ukraine,” Biden said.
Ukraine has repeatedly sought help from its allies to improve its air defenses against daily Russian attacks and has been pushing for those providing weapons to authorize their use in strikes against military targets inside of Russia.
In photos: Russia's attack on Kyiv children's hospital
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke about the commitment of the U.S. and other countries to Ukraine before their meeting on Tuesday.
“Ukraine’s success as a strong, independent, successful country is the best possible rebuke to the aggression that continues to be committed by Putin and Russia against Ukraine, including just 24 hours ago, an attack on the largest children’s hospital in Kyiv, a hospital that I visited a couple of years ago when I was in Ukraine visiting the children, some of whom have been victims of the Russian aggression, others cancer patients, suffering other illnesses, being treated at this remarkable facility,” Blinken said.
Kuleba said he would “raise the point about possible U.S. assistance in rebuilding and re-equipping this hospital, because we need to relaunch it as soon as possible. There are children who need daily support, daily assistance, surgeries, other procedures and manipulations. They have to continue.”
UN Security Council meets
At the United Nations, the Security Council met in an emergency meeting Tuesday morning to discuss the attack on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv.
The acting head of the U.N. office of humanitarian affairs emphasized that hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law.
“Intentionally directing attacks against a protected hospital is a war crime, and perpetrators must be held to account,” Joyce Msuya said.
She said the intensive care, surgical and oncology wards were severely damaged, and its dialysis center was destroyed.
“First responders attending the scene immediately after the attack found children receiving treatment for cancer in hospital beds set up in parks and on the street, where medical workers had quickly established triage areas among the chaos, dust and debris,” Msuya said.
Russia's Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted Ukrainian defense plants and military air bases and were successful. It denied aiming at any civilian facilities and claimed without evidence that pictures from Kyiv indicated the damage was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador echoed that and said the council was being drawn into a “dirty propaganda campaign” of Ukraine and its supporters.
“Russia does not strike civilian targets in Ukraine,” Vassily Nebenzia said, questioning the timing of the incident on the eve of the NATO summit in Washington.
U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “Yesterday’s attack makes abundantly clear: Putin is not interested in peace. He is committed to wreaking death and destruction in pursuit of his war of aggression.”
Tuesday attacks
Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday it shot down 38 Ukrainian aerial drones over the Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Rostov and Astrakhan regions.
Vasily Golubev, the regional governor of Rostov, said on Telegram there was a fire at an electrical substation as a result of the attack, which included 21 of the drones being shot down over Rostov.
In Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Tuesday on Telegram that Ukrainian attacks had killed four people during the past day.
VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer and VOA White House reporter Misha Komadovsky contributed to this report. Some information for this story was provided by Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
