Ukraine’s largest children’s medical center was pummeled by Russian missile attacks Monday, leaving sick children covered in blood in the aftermath of the attack.
On Telegram, footage from the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital showed a young child drenched in blood and soot and held by a woman also covered in blood. A video on Telegram showed a partially collapsed wing of the hospital, with pieces of glass and spots of blood covering the floor. In another, the outside of a hospital building appeared to be left in ruins, with debris scattered and smoke filling the air.
Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was an early site of horrors during the war. When Russia’s army fought on the streets of the city, doctors at Okhmatdyt performed life-saving surgeries to patch up bullet wounds and shrapnel fragments for children in the capital city. In early 2023, The Daily Beast wrote a story from Okhmatdyt, where doctors relieved the appalling incidents they have experienced throughout the war, including removing massive shards from a 13-year-old boy’s legs and stitching multiple children’s faces after being injured in missile shelling.
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“When a child has a congenital defect from birth, the doctors are ready, the parents are ready, but in such situations where a completely healthy child becomes a child with a disability because of all the trauma, emotionally it is very hard,” Valeriy Bovkun, the Head of the Department of Reconstructive Plastic Microsurgery at the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, told The Daily Beast at the time.
Children and medical workers could be trapped under the rubble of the hospital, according to a tweet on X on Monday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“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 everyone sees what Russia is and what it is doing,” wrote Zelensky.
Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk all came under attack Monday morning in attacks that reportedly killed 20 and wounded 50 in the country. More than 10 explosions bombarded Kyiv despite air defense systems working. At least five people were killed in the city, and 11 were injured.
Monday’s attack comes one day before the NATO summit in Washington, where Ukraine hopes to receive long-term aid commitments from its allies.
