Russia-Ukraine war updates: At least 31 killed in missile strikes

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• In one of the largest assaults in months, at least 31 people have been killed and 112 wounded across Ukraine in a barrage of Russian missile attacks.
• The UN Security Council meets on Tuesday over the strikes that also targeted and largely destroyed the main children’s hospital in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
• Ukraine’s air force says it downed 30 out of 38 Russia-launched missiles – including the hypersonic Kinzhal – during the series of attacks.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to “deliver a powerful response” to the Russian “aggression”.
• Kyiv urged Ukraine’s allies – set to meet at a NATO summit in Washington, DC – to decide quickly to help strengthen the country’s air defences, saying current systems are “insufficient”.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin says he has discussed the deadly Russian attacks on Ukraine with International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan.

“We are sending all information and evidence about attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities to the ICC prosecutor’s office,” he told national TV.

Ukraine officials earlier described an attack on a children’s hospital as a war crime. Russia alleged the damage was inflicted after a Ukrainian air defence system failed and one of its missiles slammed into the hospital.

Svitlana Kravchenko, 33, rushed to cover her two-month-old baby moments after a missile smashed into the Kyiv children’s hospital where he’s being treated.

“It was scary. I couldn’t breathe,” Kravchenko said as rescue workers and soldiers searched for survivors in a huge pile of rubble. “I was trying to cover him. I was trying to cover him with this cloth so that he could breathe.”

In one of the worst Russian missile strikes on Kyiv in months, the rare daytime attack destroyed a large section of Ukraine’s biggest children’s hospital.

The Okhmatdyt facility is renowned across Ukraine and beyond and performs 10,000 surgical procedures each year. About 600 children are treated at the institution at any one time.

The United Nations Security Council will meet on Tuesday – at the request of Britain, France, Ecuador, Slovenia, and the United States – over the Russian attack that struck Kyiv’s main children’s hospital, according to diplomats.

“We will call out Russia’s cowardly and depraved attack on the hospital,” Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban cannot mediate between Russia and Ukraine to end the 28-month war, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.

As world leaders head to a NATO summit starting on Tuesday in Washington, DC, Zelenskyy said only powerful nations with armed forces much stronger than Russia’s can manage the task of mediation.

“Are there many such countries around the world? Not many. I believe the US and China are such countries. And the EU, not one country, but the whole EU. This could really be an intermediary mission,” Zelenskyy told a news conference in neighbouring Poland.

Orban visited Kyiv and Moscow for talks last week and met Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier today, describing his unexpected trip to Beijing as the third leg of a “peace mission”.

Thousands of Ukrainians flocked to the scene of a missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv to help with rescue efforts. Crowds gathered to form a human chain and remove concrete slabs piece by piece.

Residents, rescuers, military personnel, and doctors with blood-covered scrubs all chipped in to help clear the debris from the gutted hospital following reports that people were trapped under the debris.

Powerful blasts scorched nearby buildings and shattered windows. Three electricity substations were damaged or destroyed in two districts of Kyiv, energy company DTEK said.

“Now we don’t have anything in our apartment, no windows, no doors, nothing. Nothing at all,” said resident Halina Sichievka, 28.

Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina wore a black ribbon and broke down in tears as she made the Wimbledon quarterfinals, just hours after deadly Russian strikes targeted her country.

Svitolina’s ribbon stood out dramatically on her white playing shirt as she completed a straight-sets win over Wang Xinyu of China.

“It’s a very difficult day today for all Ukraine people,” said Svitolina, 29, who wept as she conducted a TV interview on court. “It was not easy to focus on the match. Since this morning it has been very difficult to read the news and go on court.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he expects the upcoming NATO summit to provide specific steps to strengthen his country’s air defences against Russia, hours after a Russian missile attack killed at least 31 people.

Zelenskyy is en route to the three-day summit, which begins on Tuesday in Washington, DC, marking the Western defence alliance’s 75th anniversary. Leaders are expected to discuss ways of providing reliable long-term security aid and military training for Ukraine more than two years after Russia’s invasion.

“We would like to see greater resolve in our partners and hear resolute responses to these attacks,” Zelenskyy said, stressing that Ukraine will take its own retaliatory steps.

Two civilians have been killed and three more injured after Ukrainian artillery shells hit a village in Russia’s Belgorod border region, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Gladkov, who previously announced the death toll as one, said one man died of his wounds in the village of Nikolskoye and another in a nearby hospital.

Three other victims were taken to a local hospital.

At least 20 people have now been killed in attacks on Ukraine’s capital, officials say.

Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko says that one of the two adults killed in the missile strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital was a doctor at the medical facility. Eighteen people died elsewhere in the city.

The number of wounded throughout the capital increased to 96 people, with 52 hospitalised.

“Also previously, seven people died in the Dnipro district as a result of debris falling on the [separate] medical centre. … Earlier, seven people died in the business centre in Solomyansk district. Emergency services work everywhere,” said Klitschko on the Telegram messaging app.

The total so far in attacks across Ukraine is now 31 killed and 112 wounded.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak says calling for an immediate ceasefire in the war “stimulates Russia to continue attacking”.

“The leaders of Hungary and China once again demanded ‘an immediate ceasefire’… 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,” Podolyak said on X.

His comments come after a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Beijing.

Strikes on the central city of Kryvyi Rih, President Zelenskyy’s birthplace, killed 11 people and wounded 47 in what the head of city administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, said was a massive missile attack.

The Kinzhal hypersonic missiles used in the attack are among the most advanced Russian weapons, Ukraine’s Air Force said, flying at 10 times the speed of sound and making it hard to intercept.

“It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk says Poland is open to the idea of shooting down Russian missiles heading for NATO territory while they are still flying over Ukrainian soil.

“We need clear cooperation within NATO here, because such actions require such joint NATO responsibility,” he said during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Warsaw.

“We are open to it. Logic indicates this would absolutely be a more effective action.”

A UN official has denounced the wave of deadly Russian attacks across Ukraine, noting that “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, the humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said in a statement.

“It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war,” Brown said, referring to the attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

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

Foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities as he reiterated an urgent call for more air-defence systems for Kyiv.

“Russia keeps ruthlessly targeting Ukrainian civilians. Today’s air attacks have killed and wounded dozens, and destroyed Kyiv’s largest children [sic] hospital, Okhmatdyt. Ukraine needs air defence now. All responsible for Russian war crimes will be held to account.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the international community to help Moscow and Kyiv resume direct dialogue, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Xi was quoted as saying that a ceasefire could occur only when all major powers project “positive energy rather than negative energy”.

His remarks came during a meeting on Monday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says his country is discussing how it can help provide energy for Ukraine before the winter as Russian attacks continue to pound Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Russia targeted the Ukrainian energy system in the first winter of the war, and renewed its assault on the grid in March as Ukraine was running low on stocks of Western air-defence missiles.

Russia’s defence ministry has said it is striking Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and energy facilities in retaliation for Kyiv’s strikes on Russian energy facilities.

As missiles struck Kyiv, Pavlo Holoviy raced to the children’s hospital where his son is recovering from a recent operation. Smoke still rose from the rubble as he arrived.

The 37-year-old said it’s “impossible to convey” his emotions after finding his wife and son safe.

“Honestly, the main thing was to see my wife and child, I didn’t pay attention to the rest,” said Holoviy.

Patients, staff and family members rushed to the basement after an air raid alarm sounded, according to Natalia Svidler, 40, whose daughter is scheduled for surgery at the hospital later this week.

“Everyone got very scared, of course. Everyone started screaming and running. For some reason, we always thought that Okhmatdyt [hospital] was protected,” said Nina, a 68-year-old hospital employee.

“We were 100 percent sure [the Russians] would not hit here,” she said, describing the frantic rush as staff moved children with IV drips to the basement. “I’d rather be killed, I’ve already lived. But why these children?”

The Ukrainian president says his country wants concrete steps from its Western partners during a NATO summit this week to strengthen its air defences and protect its energy sector.

“I would like to hear from our partners a greater resilience and a stronger response to the blow that Russia has once again delivered on our population, on our land, on our children,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference with Tusk.

Zelenskyy is expected to fly to the summit in Washington, DC, later in the day after concluding his visit to Poland.