Children’s Hospital Okhmatdyt Attack

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Russia is purposefully attacking residential buildings and hospitals. The Centre for Strategic Communications explains

On July 8, as a result of Russia’s combined missile attack on Kyiv, civilian objects were damaged; in particular, the new building of the Children’s Hospital Okhmatdyt was destroyed

• Another Russian terrorist missile attack on Kyiv caused destruction to the city’s housing and civil infrastructure. At least two dozen people died, and more than fifty were injured.
• As a result of the attack, the new building of the National Children’s Hospital Okhmatdyt (maternity and childhood care) was destroyed. Okhmatdyt is the largest children’s, not military, diagnostic and treatment facility in Ukraine and one of the largest in Europe.
• Up to 18,000 children are treated annually in the Okhmatdyt Hospital, about 20,000 receive emergency care in the trauma centre, and about 7,000 operations are performed. Okhmatdyt saves lives and treats children with cancer.
• Intensive care, operating, and oncology units were damaged. The Russian strike destroyed the building where the children received dialysis; that means they were attached to blood purification systems.
• People were trapped under the rubble of the building; the exact number of victims is currently unknown. It is already clear that this is one of Russia’s biggest war crimes during the full-scale war.

• Russia is purposefully at war with the civilian population of Ukraine, attacking residential buildings, hospitals, and recreation areas. Entire families die in their own homes during shelling. Russia once again showed that it is a terrorist country.
• The barbarian attack on Okhmatdyt was purposeful. What the video footage shows. Therefore, this is not a mistake or falling debris, as Russian propaganda tries to show.
• Ukrainian children are often the victims of Russian attacks. Since 2022, more than half a thousand children have died, whose identities have been reliably established.
• Ever since the Russians bombed the maternity hospital and the Drama Theatre in Mariupol, where children and their parents tried to save themselves, Russia has not stopped implementing its genocidal program.
• Russian public figures directly call for the killing of Ukrainian children, and Russian commentators on social networks rejoice over the deaths of Ukrainian children.
• Moscow’s crimes erase any possibility of dialogue with Putin’s regime. The Russian leaders’ place is in the international tribunal, not in the negotiation hall.
• Ukraine still lacks air defence systems to protect against missile attacks on civilian infrastructure.
• Western partners should remove restrictions on the use of their weapons to target military facilities on Russian territory.