(Image by NEIVANMADE)
Quick housekeeping note: Rosie is doing fine after her chemo today. Thank you all again for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations to help cover the costs of Rosie’s chemo.
Also, my Internet is out because of a lightning strike in my front yard. I’m using my phone as a hotspot, so we’re just covering the basics.
We now have the butcher’s bill from Russia’s cruise missile attack on Ukraine in the early morning hours.
This morning, Ukrainian air defenders shot down 30 missiles, including:
◾️1 Kh-47 Kinzhal missile
◾️11 Kh-101 cruise missiles
◾️12 Kalibr cruise missiles
◾️3 Iskander-M ballistic missiles
◾️3 Kh-59/Kh-69 guided air missilesThe aggressor attacked Ukraine with 38 missiles,… pic.twitter.com/AsBb5KRTJM
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) July 8, 2024
This morning, Ukrainian air defenders shot down 30 missiles, including:
◾️1 Kh-47 Kinzhal missile
◾️11 Kh-101 cruise missiles
◾️12 Kalibr cruise missiles
◾️3 Iskander-M ballistic missiles
◾️3 Kh-59/Kh-69 guided air missilesThe aggressor attacked Ukraine with 38 missiles, targeting children’s hospital and apartment buildings.
Ukraine still needs more air defense systems to protect civilians and stop russian terror.
For want of a nail!
MOD is gaslighting. No, it was not “Ukrainian air defense” that caused a children’s hospital to be struck. It was hit by an intact Russian missile , in the light of day, on video, after several other missiles already struck the Artem plant 1.5 km away. https://t.co/Vc1Ftcenmf pic.twitter.com/wxwbTIwAZM
— Dara Massicot (@MassDara) July 8, 2024
Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv. One of the most important CHILDREN’S hospitals not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe. Okhmatdyt has been saving and restoring the health of thousands of children.
Now that the hospital has been damaged by a Russian strike, there are… pic.twitter.com/TmRlUmSBri
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 8, 2024
Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv. One of the most important CHILDREN’S hospitals not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe. Okhmatdyt has been saving and restoring the health of thousands of children.
Now that the hospital has been damaged by a Russian strike, there are people under the rubble, and the exact number of casualties is still unknown. Right now, everyone is helping to clear the rubble – doctors and ordinary people.
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.
Women and children evacuated from Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital after it was hit by a Russian missile/fragments. (H/t @maria_avdv) https://t.co/Pi5G0O2kQX pic.twitter.com/w4ZNYLngbR
— Mike Eckel (@Mike_Eckel) July 8, 2024
A children’s hospital & a maternity hospital miles apart don’t get bombed in the same day by accident.
This is a premeditated war crime.
Russia is targeting women & children in Ukraine, not military facilities or government infrastructure – they are targeting women & children. https://t.co/zqbLFfdwq0
— Oz Katerji (@OzKaterji) July 8, 2024
The Guardian has the details:
The children sat in stunned silence, their fragile bodies still tethered to medical drips outside the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in central Kyiv, where an impromptu field clinic had sprung up.
They had not long emerged from the hospital’s dark, dusty bomb shelter, and their eyes were still adjusting to the light.
A woman rushed past, cradling an infant covered with blood.
Just an hour earlier, Okhmatdyt, Ukraine’s largest paediatric clinic, renowned for its cancer treatment and a place many of the children had called home for months, had been targeted by a powerful Russian missile attack that killed at least four people and left many injured. At least 32 more died in strikes across countries.
The hospital’s toxicology ward lay in ruins, wrecked by the explosion that sent shrapnel tearing through the main hospital building, shattering its windows. One of the surgical rooms, where doctors had been operating on a child, was reduced to rubble.
Russia’s deadly strike on Monday was not the first of its kind – more than 1,700 medical facilities have been hit since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Still, the sheer brutality of the attack is certain to send shock waves across the west and prompt furious calls in Ukraine for enhanced air defences.
Hundreds of rescuers on Monday afternoon were still combing through the wreckage of the hospital’s toxicology ward, searching for those living or dead still trapped under the rubble, as the first accounts of shock and horror emerged. Outside the hospital entrance, civilians formed a human chain to help clear the rubble brick by brick.
Maria Soloshenko, a 21-year-old nurse who was in the toxicology ward during the strike, described how children – some as young as 18 months old and suffering from kidney problems – had to be hurriedly taken off dialysis and evacuated through the building’s windows.
Soloshenko recounted how she treated another nurse with an open head wound, initially failing to recognise her amid the dust, rubble and blood that covered her face.
The strike appeared to have caused most damage to the top floor of the ward, where she believed a female colleague had probably perished.
Okhmatdyt has long been a critical lifeline for Ukraine’s most severely ill children with complex diseases. Throughout the war, its doctors have faced the challenging task of saving children injured in Russian shelling while also caring for those with pre-existing conditions.
Monday’s daytime strike came when the hospital was at its busiest, said Tanya Lapshina, a nurse at the neighbouring trauma department where the facade was ripped off by the blast. She feared for a child who was undergoing open-heart surgery when the strike hit the building.
Lapshina said her ward managed to bring the children to the shelter just minutes before the strike.
“It was absolute chaos. The children were panicked, crying in the bunker. There are no words for this. It’s awful. I’m still shaking.”
Images from inside the hospital, which treats 20,000 children annually, showed bloodied children, collapsed ceilings and destroyed operating rooms.
More at the link and more on this after the jump.
Here is the video of President Zelenskyy’s joint press conference with Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland:
