By Olena Harmash and Tom Balmforth
KYIV (Reuters) -A U.N. rights mission said on Tuesday there was a “high likelihood” that Kyiv’s main children’s hospital took a direct hit from a Russian missile during a series of airstrikes on Ukrainian cities, as the Kremlin continued to deny involvement.
Ukraine flew its flags at half mast in a national day of mourning to mark the deaths of 41 people, killed across the country in Monday’s air attacks, including four children and two people at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in the capital.
“Analysis of the video footage and an assessment made at the incident site indicates a high likelihood that the children’s hospital suffered a direct hit rather than receiving damage due to an intercepted weapon system,” said the head of the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s security service said it had unequivocal evidence the medical facility was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile during the deadliest series of strikes in months, and published images of what it said were fragments of the weapon’s engine.
The Kremlin said, without providing evidence, it was Ukrainian anti-missile fire, not Russia, that struck the children’s hospital, which is one of Europe’s largest and treats patients with serious conditions such as cancer and kidney disease.
Damage at the site triggered millions of dollars in donations from inside Ukraine and abroad more than 28 months since Russia’s full-scale February 2022 invasion.
NATO on Tuesday begins a three-day summit of the alliance’s leaders in Washington, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy set to attend as he seeks to win commitments from allies to beef up Ukraine’s air defences and boost their military support.
Russian forces are slowly advancing and claimed on Tuesday the capture of the village of Yasnobrodivka in the eastern Donetsk region. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which has reported heavy fighting in the region for months.
During a visit to Moscow, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin the “heart bleeds” when children are killed in war, conflict or a terrorist attack.
Modi’s pointed remark was an implicit rebuke to Putin, who moments earlier had welcomed him to the Kremlin with a warm statement on the importance of the strategic ties between the two countries.
Zelenskiy has blasted Modi’s trip to Russia, calling it “a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts”.
The Ukrainian leader vowed retaliation against Russia after Monday’s attacks and Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had subsequently shot down 38 drones. A Russian regional governor reported fires at an oil depot and an electricity substation.
A security source told Reuters Ukrainian drones had attacked a Russian oil refinery, a military airfield, and an electricity substation in a joint operation.
RESCUE OPERATIONS
Rescuers concluded operations at the children’s hospital earlier on Tuesday. Elsewhere in the capital, five bodies were recovered from the ruins of a residential building where 12 people were killed, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Zelenskiy put the death toll from Monday’s assault at 38 with 190 wounded, although tallies of casualties from impact sites in different regions brought the total to at least 41.
Okhmatdyt’s general director, Volodymyr Zhovnir, told reporters one of their young doctors had been killed, that the building for dialysis had been completely destroyed and that they no longer had electricity supply.
“At least four buildings of the hospital were partially destroyed,” he said.
Ukrainian business leaders rushed to announce donations to rebuild the hospital.
There was no available figure for the total amount of donations, but Reuters calculations based on statements and Ukrainian media reports put the figure from Ukraine’s corporate section at about 300 million hryvnia ($7.3 million).
In Kyiv, Oleksandr Baraboshko, 34, a strategic communications consultant, said aerial attacks like Monday’s served to unite Ukrainians against Russia.
“They’re not scaring us. On the contrary, they’re motivating us to do even more,” said Baraboshko, who helped coordinate an effort with a local shop to distribute gloves and tools to volunteers clearing debris at the hospital.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization’s Tarik Jasarevic said the hospital strike was one of 1,882 attacks on healthcare in Ukraine that have killed a total of 150 people in the more than two-year conflict.
The WHO does not attribute blame for the attacks.
(Additional reporting by Tom Peter, Max Hunder, Anastasiia Malenko, Yuliia Dysa, Yurii Kovalenko and Emma Farge;Writing by Tom Balmforth;Editing by Helen Popper)
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