Rescue efforts continue after strikes that killed 38 people, as Ukraine president renews call for more air defences

Rescuers have continued to dig through the rubble of a children’s hospital in Kyiv after a wave of devastating Russian missile strikes across the country on Monday that killed 38 people, including four children.

On the eve of a Nato summit in Washington, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, renewed his call for more air defences and said the world had the “necessary strength” to stop what he called “Russian terror”. The US president, Joe Biden, who is expected to meet Zelenskiy, described the strike as a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”.

Rescuers search through rubble of country’s largest children’s hospital, as Zelenskiy vows to retaliate

Western and UN leaders have condemned a daylight Russian missile barrage that hit Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, leaving an unknown number trapped under the rubble, as strikes across the country killed 36 people in one of the deadliest attacks this year.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed retaliation as he said Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt hospital, the main treatment centre in the country for children with cancer, had taken a direct missile hit. The strike was part of one of the heaviest attacks on the capital since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

At least five people injured and a three-storey building damaged in latest wave of strikes

Russia has launched its third wave of missile strikes against Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in five days, as part of its escalating aerial bombardment of the city.

Five people were injured in the strike, with two of them taken to hospital, said the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, as Ukraine’s foreign minister called on international allies to supply more air defences to his country.

The injuries and damage appear to have been the result of falling missile debris as the Ukrainian air force said it had shot down two missiles over the city.

It was the second strike on Ukraine’s capital this week after a long period of calm

A Russian missile attack targeting the Ukrainian capital damaged a children’s hospital, with Kyiv’s mayor reporting at least 51 people injured in the “enemy attack”.

Ukraine’s air defence systems downed all 10 ballistic missiles targeting the capital, but falling debris caused injuries and destruction in four of Kyiv’s districts along the Dnipro River, which cuts through the capital, officials said.

National trident has replaced the Soviet Union’s hammer and sickle on the shield of 62-metre tall monument

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Ukraine’s national trident was installed on a monument depicting the Motherland in Kyiv on Sunday, replacing Soviet symbols in one of the most visible examples of breaking away from the past and Moscow’s influence.

The monument, a 62-metre tall (200ft) steel statue of a female warrior, was built in 1981 on top of a hill on the right bank of the Dnipro River. Gazing sternly east, the figure holds a sword in her right hand and a shield in her left.

Pro-Russian Telegram channels say Ukrainians crossed Dnipro River in apparent advance towards Crimea

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Ukrainian forces have reportedly crossed the Dnipro River and retaken territory on the left bank of Kherson province, in a move that paves the way for a future possible advance towards Crimea.

According to pro-Russian Telegram channels, Ukrainian troops have seized the village of Dachi, opposite the city of Kherson, and near the destroyed Antonivskyi Bridge. They have dug in and are seeking to establish a bridgehead, the channels said.

Strikes on the capital have caused few casualties but residents face a new ‘psychological terror’

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When the air raid alarms go off at around 3am, the first things exhausted Kyvians do is reach for their mobile phones, check the news, message family and friends – and start listening to the explosions that almost certainly follow.

“You wake up, go to a safe space, maybe a shelter, holding your phone. You cannot work, you cannot read; you sit and look around and wait. In the worst case, you hear a distinctive noise, maybe like a motorcycle passing by,” said Kira Rudik, a Ukrainian MP and leader of the liberal Holos party.