Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was requesting a meeting of the UN Security Council and vowed retaliation after a “massive” air attack on targets all over Ukraine including an apparent cruise missile that slammed into the country’s largest children’s hospital before midday on July 8.
The UN’s humanitarian coordinator and the EU’s top diplomat both quickly condemned the Russian air strikes, which Ukrainian authorities said killed at least 29 people nationally and injured dozens more and left an unknown number of victims buried under the rubble of Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital.
Earlier, Zelenskiy said that “more than 40 missiles of various types” had targeted Kyiv, Dnipro and Kryviy Rih in central Ukraine, and Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in the eastern Donetsk region.
Zelenskiy also said he would initiate a meeting of the UN Security Council over the July 8 bombardments and demanded that the West produce a “stronger response.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko was reported as having told Reuters that it was “one of the worst” attacks on the capital in the 28-month-old full-scale war.
Video taken by RFE/RL of Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv showed lines of people helping to clear the debris as smoke billowed out of the facility.
“There are people under the rubble, and the exact number of casualties is still unknown,” Zelenskiy said on social media, calling Okhmatdyt “one of the most important children’s hospitals not only in Kyiv but also in Europe.”
Klitschko said via Telegram that “Patients of the children’s hospital, which was hit by an enemy rocket, are being evacuated to the municipal hospital of the city.”
Zelenskiy and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk held a moment of silence at their meeting in Warsaw for the victims of the daylight strikes. They were there to sign a bilateral security deal.
Zelenskiy also pledged to launch a new Ukrainian legion in Poland, which has accepted millions of Ukrainian refugees since Russia’s full-scale invasion started in February 2022. He urged Ukrainians abroad to join the Polish-based legion,
Tusk said ahead of Poland’s participation in a NATO 75th-anniversary summit this week in Washington where Ukraine will be a focus that “you will always be able to count on us.”
But a seemingly solo bid by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at what he described as a “peace mission” after his country assumed the rotating EU Presidency has wrought havoc among Ukraine’s European allies, despite the EU’s quick denunciations of Orban’s initiative.
Russian Missiles Target Ukraine, Striking Children’s Hospital In Kyiv
Russia launched dozens of missiles at cities across Ukraine on July 8, killing at least 24 people and devastated a children’s hospital in Kyiv, officials said.
Back in Ukraine, the air force said it had shot down 30 of 38 Russian missiles in the attack.
Moscow has routinely denied targeting residences, schools, hospitals, and other civilian structures despite frequent bombings that suggest otherwise.
On July 8, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air attacks near Kyiv were aimed at “Ukrainian military industry facilities and Ukrainian air force bases,” adding that “the strike’s objectives were achieved.”
It said “numerous published photos and video footage from Kyiv clearly confirm the fact of destruction as a result of the fall of a Ukrainian air-defense missile.”
“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,” Zelenskiy said.
Falling rocket debris was reported in more than a half a dozen other areas around the capital.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office said the death toll in Kyiv was at least 15, with 37 injured.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko had previously put the known death toll around the country at at least 20 with 50 more injured.
UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown said that “dozens of people have been killed and injured” on July 8, adding, “It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war.”
EU high representative for foreign and defense policy Josep Borrell accused Russia of “ruthlessly” targeting Ukrainian civilians and urged “air defense” for the war-ravaged country.
“Russia keeps ruthlessly targeting Ukrainian civilians,” Borrell said on X, formerly Twitter.
Zelenskiy said that “the entire world must use all its determination to finally put an end to the Russian strikes,” adding, “Killing is what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin brings. Only together can we bring real peace and security.”
Ukraine’s air force put the entire country on air alert twice earlier on July 8.
Explosions thundered in Kyiv around 10:30 local time as the city’s military administration told the public: “The air alert continues! Air defense works in the capital. Stay in shelters until the air-raid alarm goes off!”
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said via Telegram that the “Shelling of Ukraine [came] at a time when there are the most people on the streets.” He blamed “obsessed Russian terrorists.”
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
Daytime attacks on cities have been rare, even as Russia has stepped up aerial bombardments of Ukrainian population centers and power and other infrastructure over the past six months.
Ukrainian forces reported downing at least three cruise missiles overnight.
Air force commander General Mykola Oleshchuk said via Telegram that the missiles had been targeting the northwestern and central regions of Zhytomyr and Cherkasy.
In Zelenskiy’s hometown of Kryviy Rih, in central Ukraine, the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration head said at least 10 people had been killed and 30 injured in a “massive enemy attack from the air.”
In northeast Ukraine, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said two women were hospitalized for injuries after Russian shelling struck three residential buildings there.
Kharkiv’s governor said later on July 8 that a mine blast in the region had killed five people.
In fighting on the ground, the Ukrainian General Staff said Russia was continuing offensives in the Kharkiv region.
But it said the Russian focus appeared to be on an offensive in the Pokrovsk area of the eastern Donetsk region where Russian troops with air support are trying to dislodge Ukrainian forces. The regional governor said at least three people were killed in Pokrovsk in the July 8 missile attacks.
It said Ukrainian troops were trying to “stabilize” the situation to prevent Russian forces from “advancing deep into Ukrainian territory” there.
Outside analysts recently predicted that Russia will soon launch attacks across a canal in the strategic city and logistics hub of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk, where Kyiv recently acknowledged losing a district nearly three months into an intense battle focused on that city.
The Russian domestic intelligence service, the Federal Security Service (FSB), claimed on July 8 that it had thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to bribe a Russian military pilot into hijacking a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber and flying it to Ukraine.
It was not possible to independently confirm the FSB’s claim, which it said included a promise of Italian citizenship in exchange for landing the Russian bomber on Ukrainian territory.
RFE/RL cannot independently confirm reports by either side of battlefield developments in areas of the heaviest fighting.
