Running from Russia's attack on the largest children's hospital in Kyiv
PLEASE NOTE: I may be updating this report as the day goes on.
I just ran from Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv. Russia hit the complex this morning with a Kinzhal, its most accurate cruise missile. Another air raid alert had sounded and it was too dangerous to stay — after a morning of explosions which some Ukrainians tell me is one of the heaviest attacks they have seen on the capital in months.
As I write, more sirens are sounding. I still feel the smoke in my throat. It came after a night of rolling blackouts in the summer heat, after a morning spent hearing blasts, then sitting in a windowless hallway for safety.
The scene at the hospital was chaos — smoke, mud, broken glass, pieces of buildings. The movement of Ukrainians trying to race time to save people, as others stood or sat in shock.
“It’s the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine and the most technologically advanced,” Rima Ziuraitis, an American medic and tactical medical instructor in Ukraine, told me. “And this missile took out their brand new advanced wing.”
Rescue workers and volunteers were clearing the rubble of a building that barely stood — one volunteer telling me the rubble was still hot from the blast. Medics and firemen were inside trying to extract children with enclosed ventilation systems. Military personnel were throwing debris out of another building with blown out windows.
Before the air raid alert sounded, I spoke with Alla. She had just been rescued from under the rubble of the Children’s Trauma Center. “This is the toxicology department,” she told me. The second floor of the building has children with the most challenging cases, she said. Many of the kids were on dialysis. Some ran down to the center’s basement, she said. “I hope there are no more victims but I hear there are still more people.”
A member of the hospital’s kitchen staff, Alla had gone down to the basement too when she heard the air raid sirens. The last thing she remembered was that she had texted her children. Then the building was hit. She said she was with fellow workers and two mothers, one nursing. She heard them scream but believes they found a way out.
There were still more people to rescue when the air raid sirens sounded. But a panicked mass fled into the streets and into a tunnel under the road. That’s because Russia has a “double tap” tactic, often targeting first responders on the scene. And another medical center in Kyiv was hit by debris from an intercepted missile shortly after.
Make no mistake: Monday’s fatal attack on Okhmatdyt children’s hospital is particularly cruel — perhaps Russia’s most cruel target yet. Because it harms the country’s medical infrastructure for children, a Ukrainian journalist who goes by the name Yewleea tells me. (The alias comes from being frequently harassed online.) “A lot of kids now are going to have to seek care out of country,” she tells me. “If they were treated there, then nowhere else in Ukraine is likely to have the resources to help them.”
Even a friend of mine in Washington, D.C. felt devastated. “Today they destroyed the hospital where I started my life,” Ukrainian-American Paul Gleger wrote me in a text message.
My trip to the hospital was an 11-minute Bolt ride with a driver who played all too cheerful ‘70s and ‘80s music. I followed the smoke and sirens, past the people on the streets who were smoking cigarettes and sitting at cafes as though nothing had happened. A shard of glass lodged in my sneaker from a blown out bus shelter as I got closer to the complex.
Two men were walking ahead of me in the same direction, one of them carrying a broom, hammer, chisel, and pry bar to break up rock. His name is Sergei, and he works in the car insurance industry. His friend Yaroslav is a construction lawyer. Both had decided to help out.
Sergei planned to enter a middle school that was hit. And a police officer through the gates to the school told me there were no casualties there. The teachers had been standing outside, and the students were not in the building because of the summer holiday. The director of the school stood near me, protective of the space.
The day continues, with at least nine missiles tageting Kyiv. And dozens more across the country. Vladimir Putin’s barrage comes a day before the NATO summit begins in Washington, D.C.
