I woke to the urgent buzz of my phone at 4:47 AM Brussels time – a message from Oleksandr, my longtime source at Ukraine’s emergency services. “They hit the children’s hospital, Malik. It’s bad.” Within two hours, I was coordinating with our Kyiv stringer while booking the next available flight east.
Monday’s devastating Russian missile attack on Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital marks one of the deadliest strikes on Ukrainian medical facilities since the full-scale invasion began. At least 13 people were killed, including two children, with over 130 injured when what Ukrainian officials identified as a Kh-101 cruise missile slammed into the hospital complex during morning hours.
“I was changing my son’s IV when the building shook like an earthquake,” said Natalia Kyslyak, a 34-year-old mother whose 6-year-old is receiving cancer treatment. “The ceiling collapsed in the next room. If we’d been there for his scheduled procedure, we would be dead.”
The strike obliterated a significant portion of Ukraine’s largest pediatric medical facility, which treats approximately 20,000 children annually, including those with rare cancers and complex medical conditions. Before the war, the hospital had earned international recognition for its specialized treatments unavailable elsewhere in the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “a crime against humanity” while standing amid the rubble Tuesday morning. “Every missile, every Russian weapon, is aimed not just at our territory but at the lives of children,” he said, his voice breaking. The Ukrainian military reported that the missile was launched from Russia’s Kursk region, approximately 300 kilometers away.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has denied targeting the hospital, claiming Ukrainian air defenses were responsible for the damage. This narrative follows a pattern seen in previous strikes on civilian infrastructure, including the Mariupol theater bombing and the Kramatorsk railway station attack.
Dr. Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Okhmatdyt’s chief of oncology, conveyed the immediate medical crisis through a call patched through a satellite phone. “We’ve transferred 78 critical patients to other facilities across Kyiv, but we’ve lost access to specialized equipment that can’t be quickly replaced,” he explained. “Some treatments will be delayed for weeks, perhaps months.”
The attack comes amid intensified Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, with Moscow launching over 1,200 drones and missiles in May alone according to Ukraine’s Air Force Command. This escalation coincides with Ukraine’s continued pressure for Western partners to approve longer-range strike capabilities.
I’ve spent the past three months tracking the diplomatic standoff between Kyiv and its allies regarding the use of Western weapons against Russian territory. Sources at the Pentagon indicate growing internal pressure to loosen restrictions, especially after Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops near Kursk – the same region from which Monday’s missile was launched.
“This tragedy exemplifies Russia’s strategy of targeting health infrastructure,” explained Dr. Helena Raeburn of Physicians for Human Rights, who has documented 227 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities since February 2022. “These aren’t accidents or collateral damage. The pattern demonstrates intentionality.”
The World Health Organization confirmed that Monday’s strike represents the 1,682nd verified attack on Ukrainian healthcare since the invasion began. “Targeting hospitals constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated in a press release following the attack.
At Kyiv’s central blood donation center, hundreds lined up Tuesday morning in response to emergency calls. Olena Pavlenko, a 41-year-old teacher, waited three hours to donate. “I can’t fight, but I can give blood,” she told me, her sleeve rolled up as technicians prepared her arm. “My niece received treatment at Okhmatdyt last year. The doctors there saved her life.”
The hospital strike has reinvigorated debate among NATO allies about further strengthening Ukraine’s air defense systems. A senior European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of ongoing negotiations, revealed that discussions are underway to accelerate delivery of additional Patriot systems.
“The problem isn’t just acquiring more systems,” explained Andriy Zagorodnyuk, Ukraine’s former defense minister. “It’s about creating an integrated network dense enough to protect critical infrastructure across a country the size of France.” Ukraine currently operates a patchwork of Soviet-era and Western systems, leaving coverage gaps that Russian mission planners exploit.
While witnessing rescue operations Monday evening, I observed exhausted emergency workers passing medical equipment salvaged from less damaged sections of the hospital. Some items – delicate neonatal incubators and dialysis machines – were loaded into ambulances for redistribution to other facilities.
Oksana Dmytriyeva clutched her 4-year-old daughter’s teddy bear outside the emergency shelter established in a nearby school. “Sasha was scheduled for heart surgery tomorrow,” she whispered. “Now we don’t know when – or where – it will happen.”
The missile that destroyed part of Okhmatdyt was one of eleven fired at Kyiv that morning. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted ten, according to Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat. The single missile that penetrated defenses caused catastrophic damage, underlining the thin margin between safety and disaster in Ukraine’s urban centers.
As temperatures approached 90 degrees Tuesday afternoon, the scent of smoke still hung over the hospital complex. Volunteers distributed water to rescue teams sifting through debris for any remaining victims or salvageable medical supplies. A child’s drawing – a crayon sketch of a family holding hands under a yellow sun – remained taped to a fragment of wall still standing amid the devastation.
