Russian strike hits Dnipro hospital, killing at least two people
Mike Brest
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A Russian missile strike hit a hospital in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing two and injuring about another 30 people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Rescue operations are ongoing while emergency personnel was at the scene of the strike, which left the three-story hospital partially destroyed, according to Dnipro Gov. Serhiy Lysak. Lysak also said those killed in the strike included at least two children.
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“Another missile attack, another crime against humanity as such. The buildings of a psychological clinic and a veterinary clinic in the city of Dnipro were destroyed,” the Ukrainian president said on social media. “Only an evil state can fight against clinics. There can be no military purpose in this. It is pure terror. Russia has chosen the path of evil of its own will, and it will not abandon this path by itself. We must defeat terror, and we will do it — Ukraine and the entire free world together.”
There is a chance that three people could have been at the facility at the time of the attack, and responders are searching for them, Lysak added.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense called the attack “a serious war crime under the Geneva Convention.”
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russian troops had “delivered a multiple strike by airborne long-range high-precision weapons against the Ukrainian army’s ammunition storage sites,” and he noted, “All the designated targets were hit,” according to Russian state media Tass.
Russian leaders have repeatedly denied allegations of targeting civilians or of committing war crimes, though they have made lying about the situation a regular occurrence and manufactured their justification for invading Ukraine.
There were 707 attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system from the start of the war on Feb. 24, 2022, through the end of the calendar year, according to a joint report released in February from eyeWitness to Atrocities, Insecurity Insight, the Media Initiative for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Ukrainian Healthcare Center.
Ukraine’s air force said it was able to destroy 10 cruise missiles and 23 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight, mostly in the eastern Kharkiv and Dnipro regions.
Also on Friday, officials reported explosions in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, and Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratiev said the area was attacked by two drones but that no casualties were reported.
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This attack appears to be one in a series of limited operations the Ukrainian military or intelligence community has carried out in Russian territory. The Ukrainians appear to be ramping up these in frequency. Russia launched a “counterterror operation” in the Belgorod region earlier this week following a pair of pro-Ukraine militias claiming to “liberate” border towns from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
The group may have been responsible for the drone attack against the Kremlin in early May, according to the New York Times, which cited anonymous U.S. officials. Publicly, U.S. officials and agencies have declined to confirm whether they believe Ukraine is responsible, though they have reiterated their stance that they don’t want Ukraine using weapons provided by them against Russian territory.