While the world looks elsewhere, Ukraine continues to be blasted by endless Russian air attacks aimed at its basic infrastructure. Only when its guided weapons hit children’s hospitals or other undeniably humanitarian sites does anyone take notice. Today (July 8) it fired a Kh-101 cruise missile into the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, Europe’s largest facility for young people, along with multiple other targets in the city and beyond.
Buildings collapsed; high-velocity glass shards splintered across the wards, and children died, along with their doctors and nurses. More than two-thirds of the huge complex was destroyed. Nationwide, at least 31 were killed and more than 100 wounded, but the toll is certain to rise.
In the aftermath of the attack, desperately sick children, hairless from their cancer treatment, were pictured outside the hospital with intravenous drips in their arms and nurses doing what they could to offer comfort.
Russia boasts that its missiles are extremely accurate. Deputy Premier Yury Borisov said in 2022 that munitions like the Kh-101 were “to a certain extent more humane” because they had an “error probability of just a few meters.” But it hardly matters. Russia has launched more than 600 attacks on hospitals in Syria and more than 1,000 on healthcare facilities in Ukraine. It is fair to say that it regards medical services as a military target.
Tomorrow (July 9), the 32 NATO members meet in Washington to mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary. It cannot be asserted that the attack was timed for the meeting, but Russia also struck Ukrainian civilian targets a day before the NATO summit last year.
This latest large-scale air alert had been broadcast across Ukraine in the morning as Russia launched its attack using 40 missiles of various types, including Kinzhals and Kalibr cruise missiles. Explosions were reported in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kramatorsk, Slovyansk, Pokrovsk, and Kryvyi Rih.
Crowds of civilians rushed to join staff and the State Emergency Service in removing the rubble and searching for survivors. Many brought supplies, including stacks of diapers. Mayor Klitschko announced that the patients of the children’s hospital were being evacuated to the municipal hospitals of the city.
Okhmatdyt is said to be a European children’s medical facility. It specializes in surgical correction of complex congenital defects in newborns, advanced care for deeply premature infants, oncology, and neurosurgery. It also houses a medical-genetic center for rare hereditary and genetic diseases in children. The hospital performs nearly 9,000 surgeries annually.
The first lady, Olena Zelenska wrote on X: “The shelling of the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv is Russia’s view of ‘safety’ for children. It is absolutely unjustifiable, inhumane and cruel. There can be no ambiguity when a medical facility with hundreds of children is under fire. We hope for the world’s assistance to protect them.”
Media also report that a rocket demolished a section of a residential building in one of the capital’s districts. The voices of the attack’s victims trapped under the rubble were said to be audible while the State Emergency Service is on site. Another of Russia’s targets was a private maternity clinic.
“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. It is very important that the world does not remain silent about this now, and that everyone sees what Russia is and what it is doing,” the President wrote on Twitter/X.
The July 9-11 NATO summit will discuss further air defense systems for Ukraine, months after Russia’s latest infrastructure campaign began. Ukraine has five Patriot missile systems and the US is pressing Israel to send eight more retired. The country says it requires 26 systems to fully secure its airspace. Meanwhile, the country meanwhile still awaits the arrival of F-16 combat aircraft.
But the new missiles and aircraft will arrive too late for the children at Okhmatdyt and many other Ukrainians now terrorized almost daily by Russian attacks. Worse is expected to come this winter, as a power generation system very badly damaged by attacks fails to supply national needs, and widespread power cuts result.
Responding to today’s Russian attacks, Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs stated that “at the NATO summit in Washington we must commit more military support for Ukraine. All restrictions imposed on Ukraine to use weapons against legitimate military targets must be lifted.”
Efforts to enhance Ukraine’s defenses to be announced at the summit are expected to include a new NATO mission headquarters in Germany, initially proposed and championed by the United States. Based in Wiesbaden, the alliance will coordinate training and equipment donations with nearly 700 personnel from allied and partner nations. They will help with logistics and provide ongoing support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ long-term development.
Recently, the center-right EPP Group in the European Parliament called for Western military support to Ukraine to reach €100bn ($108bn) annually, proposing that Western democracies allocate 0.25% of GDP for military assistance to the country.
So far, there is no suggestion that Ukraine’s allies are listening.
Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis. She is an experienced researcher and in 2022 was co-author of ‘The Work of the Ukrainian Parliament in Wartime’ and ‘The War of Narratives: The Image of Ukraine in Media.’
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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