Kyiv children’s hospital evacuated after power and oxygen supplies lost in missile strike; Italy accuses Russia of war crime – as it happened

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Ukraine will retaliate after Russian missile strikes killed at least 29 people across the country. Ukraine would initiate a meeting of the United Nations’ security council after the strike, he said.

• An unknown number of people have been trapped under rubble after Okhmatdyt hospital, Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital and the main treatment centre in the country for children with cancer, was hit during the attack. The hospital was evacuated after its power, oxygen and water supplies were lost. Another hospital – the Isida maternity hospital in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district – was hit by falling debris. The death toll has been regularly increased by officials throughout the day as bodies were found by emergency service workers. The overall death toll is therefore likely to rise further, given the scale of the strikes and the damage inflicted.

• Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the attack on the Ukrainian capital was one of the heaviest since Russia’s full-scale invasion was launched in February 2022. The Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, meanwhile, called for international condemnation of Russia. “I am struck by the images of the bombings in Kyiv which also hit a children’s hospital. War crimes that must be condemned by the entire international community,” Tajani wrote on X.

• The Ukrainian air force said it had downed 30 out of 38 Russia-launched missiles during the deadly attack, which was heavily condemned by the UN. Russian forces used cruise, ballistic, aerial ballistic and guided missiles in a combined attack on Ukrainian cities, the Ukrainian air force said.

• The Russian defence ministry said that its forces had carried out strikes on defence industry targets and aviation bases in Ukraine. Moscow said its strikes were retaliation for attacks on Russia.

• The attack came as Zelenskiy visited Warsaw before heading to the Nato summit in Washington tomorrow, where he is expected to appeal for more military support from the country’s allies. In Warsaw, the Ukrainian president and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, signed an agreement on security cooperation. Ukraine and Poland agreed to further develop political, military, and economic cooperation, and “cooperate closely in the reconstruction of Ukraine as a sovereign and democratic state”.

• Speaking to reporters, Tusk said that Poland was open to the idea of shooting down Russian missiles that were heading for Nato territory while they were still over Ukrainian soil.

• India’s prime minister Narendra Modi arrived in Moscow on Monday for a two-day visit, his first since Russia sent troops into Ukraine. Modi was set to have dinner with Russian president Vladimir Putin, to be followed by Kremlin talks on Tuesday.

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Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, has said that calls for an immediate ceasefire in the war in Ukraine would only prompt Moscow to make further attacks.

Podolyak wrote in a post on X:

Literally, in parallel with the deliberate attack on children in the Ukrainian capital, the leaders of Hungary and China once again demanded “an immediate ceasefire”. This demand is not directed at Russia. It is directed only at the West and Ukraine.

And its purpose is to create a false feeling: the aggressor has the right to kill, because he speaks of “peace”, and the victim should not defend himself and therefore should immediately stop resistance.

His comments came on the day the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán made a surprise trip to Beijing to see his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping (see opening summary at 09.00 for more details).

“The international community should create conditions for the resumption of direct dialogue and negotiations between the two sides and provide assistance,” Xi told Orban earlier, according to Chinese state media.

“It is in the interests of all parties to seek a political solution through an early ceasefire,” he added.

China, which has close ties to Russia, has been promoting a six-point peace plan it issued with Brazil in May, proposing an international peace conference “at a proper time” and calling for equal participation by both Ukraine and Russia.

During his visit to Kyiv last week, Orbán said he had asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to consider a quick ceasefire that could accelerate peace talks.

Both Zelenskiy and Vladimir Putin rejected Orbán’s call for a ceasefire, with the Ukrainian leader saying his country “cannot just trust Putin in principle”.

The Okhmatdyt hospital is being evacuated after its power, oxygen and water supplies were lost following Russia’s deadly missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital this morning, BBC News reports.

Children being treated there are being moved to other hospitals, Ukraine’s health minister, Viktor Lyashko, told reporters.

“The most important thing today is not to panic but help save as many lives as possible,” he told Ukrainian TV at the site of the hospital.

“It’s an awful act of terror, and I get tearful seeing how many people have come to help us clean up,” Lyashko told reporters at the scene, adding that three surgeries were being performed at the time of the attack.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said at least 16 people, seven of them children, were injured.

At least four people were killed and three others injured after the Isida maternity hospital in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district was hit by falling debris, the state emergency service said. The number of killed has risen to seven, the prosecutor general’s office said at about 3pm local time.

Another hospital – the capital’s Okhmatdyt hospital, the main treatment centre in the country for children with cancer – suffered a direct missile hit.

As we reported earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, in Warsaw ahead of the Nato summit in Washington tomorrow.

Speaking to reporters, Tusk said that Poland was open to the idea of shooting down Russian missiles that were heading for Nato territory while they were still over Ukrainian soil.

“We need clear cooperation within Nato here, because such actions require such joint Nato responsibility … we are open to it, logic indicates it that this would absolutely be a more effective action,” he said.

His comments came as Zelenskiy vowed that Ukraine will retaliate after Russian missile strikes killed at least 29 people across his country and damaged a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian president called on Kyiv’s allies to give a firm response to Monday’s attack in a press conference that started with a minute’s silence for the victims.

Zelenskiy said:

I would also like to hear from our partners (about) a greater resilience and a strong response to the blow that Russia has once again dealt to our people, to our land, to our children.

We will retaliate against these people, we will deliver a powerful response from our side to Russia, for sure. The question to our partners is: can they respond?

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Zelenskiy said Kyiv wanted to be able to use weapons supplied by its partners to hit the sites in Russia that attacks were being launched from.

“I think, we would really like to receive such decision from our partners,” he said. “Or they would like to see the strikes again.”

Zelenskiy said Ukraine was waiting for concrete steps from its western partners to strengthen its air defences and protect its energy sector.

Earlier today, Tusk and Zelenskiy signed a security agreement, as other European countries, including France, Germany and the UK, have done with Kyiv. Ukraine and Poland agreed to further develop political, military, and economic cooperation, and “cooperate closely in the reconstruction of Ukraine as a sovereign and democratic state”.

The Ukrainian president has said he wanted to double Ukraine’s air defence capacity over the summer. Kyiv has indicated it hopes for progress on air defence supplies at the Nato summit. A senior US state department official has said Kyiv is expected to get “good news” at the summit.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi arrived in Moscow on Monday for a two-day visit, his first since Russia sent troops into Ukraine – an action that has complicated the relationship between the longtime partners and pushed Russia closer to India’s rival, China.

Modi was set to have dinner with Russian president Vladimir Putin, to be followed by Kremlin talks on Tuesday. Modi last traveled to Russia in 2019, when he attended a forum in the far eastern port of Vladivostok and met Putin. The leaders also saw each other in September 2022 in Uzbekistan, at a summit of the Shanghai cooperation organization bloc.

The UN condemned Monday’s wave of deadly Russian strikes across Ukraine, including on Kyiv, saying “dozens of people have been killed and injured”.

“The week in Ukraine has started with another wave of deadly strikes by the Russian armed forces,” Denise Brown, humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said in a statement. “It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war.”

“Under international humanitarian law, hospitals have special protection. Civilians must be protected,” she added.

The International Rescue Committee has condemned the attack today in Kyiv. Dr Marko Isajlovic, IRC health coordinator in Ukraine, said: “No child should grow up under the threat of missile strikes. No child should risk dying amidst the rubble of hospitals meant to be safe havens for healing and recovery. Health facilities are protected under international law and must remain out of harm’s way in times of conflict.

“Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the WHO has recorded nearly 1,700 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine. Our medical teams witness the daily toll of fighting on people who are unable to seek much needed care in hospitals reduced to rubble, reach the nearest pharmacy due to ongoing fighting, or simply afford much-needed medicines.”

Russia is the greatest security threat facing Sweden and its allies in the next several years, Stockholm said in a strategy outline published on Monday.

Sweden has beefed up its national security policy, amid concerns that led its army’s supreme commander in January to warn Swedes that they had to “mentally prepare for war”. “An armed attack against Sweden or its allies cannot be ruled out,” the new national security strategy read.

Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine led Sweden to join Nato, ending more than two centuries of neutrality.

The seriousness of the Russian threat will depend on what happens next in the Ukraine war, defence minister Pal Jonson told a press briefing. Russia’s threshold for using military force is “low”, he said, adding that Moscow is “ready to take major political and military risks”.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Ukraine was waiting for concrete steps from its Western partners to strengthen its air defences and protect its energy sector during a Nato summit this week, Reuters reports.

Zelenskiy is expected to fly to the summit in Washington later in the day after concluding a visit to Poland.

Italy has accused Russia of committing a war crime during the missile attacks that hit the Ukrainian capital and damaged a children’s hospital.

The Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani called for international condemnation of Russia on Monday.

“I am struck by the images of the bombings in Kyiv which also hit a children’s hospital. War crimes that must be condemned by the entire international community,” Tajani wrote on X, adding: “The [Italian] Government will continue to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine and its people.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed to retaliation after the huge wave of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine killed at least 29 people and damaged a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

Ukraine would initiate a meeting of the United Nations’ security council after the strike, he said.

The Ukrainian air force said it had downed 30 out of 38 Russia-launched missiles during Monday’s deadly attack.

Russian forces used cruise, ballistic, aerial ballistic and guided missiles in a combined attack on Ukrainian cities, the Ukrainian air force said.

Officials have now said the Russian missile strikes across Ukraine today killed at least 29 civilians (the previous figure was 24 people).

Ten people were killed and 35 injured in the attacks on Kyiv, authorities said. Okhmatdyt children’s hospital – Ukraine’s biggest children’s medical facility – was seriously damaged in the attack. It is not clear yet whether anyone inside was killed.

About two hours later, debris from another missile attack hit a different hospital in Kyiv, killing four more people and injuring three others, the emergency services said.

Eleven people were killed and over 40 others injured in Ukraine’s southern city of Kryvyi Rih, the emergency services said. Three people had been killed in the eastern town of Pokrovsk where missiles hit an industrial facility, the regional governor said. One person was also killed in the city of Dnipro, officials said.

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has arrived in Moscow’s Vnukovo airport for a two-day state visit, according to the Tass state news agency.

We reported earlier (see post at 10.51) that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will hold informal face-to-face talks with Modi on Monday evening.

Modi, who last visited Moscow in 2015, will visit Russia today and tomorrow. Himself and Putin will discuss “prospects for further development of traditionally friendly Russian-Indian relations, as well as relevant issues on the international and regional agenda,” the Kremlin said in a previous statement.