A pre-dawn Russian missile attack on Ukraine's capital killed three people Thursday, including a 9-year-old and her mother, officials said, and inflicted the highest casualty toll from a single attack on Kyiv over the past month. The latest Russian attack, using what Ukrainian officials said were short-range Iskander ground-launched missiles, coincided with events scheduled in Kyiv to celebrate International Children’s Day, the AP reports. Those events were canceled.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down all 10 cruise and ballistic missiles launched by the Kremlin’s forces, but falling debris caused damage and casualties on the ground, wounding 16 people, according to authorities. Russia has kept up a steady barrage on the Ukrainian capital and other parts of the country in recent weeks as Kyiv readies what it says is a counteroffensive to push back Moscow’s troops, 15 months after their full-scale invasion. Kyiv was the target of a reported 17 drone and missile attacks last month.
Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, said one child was in the hospital after the attack. "Children’s Day has to be about safe childhood, summer, life,” she tweeted. “But today it is about new crimes of (Russia) against children." Since February 2022, at least 525 children have been killed and at least 1,047 have been injured, according to the UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. "Sadly, as the world marks International Children’s Day, there is little to celebrate in Ukraine where civilians, including children, continue to pay a heavy price,” said Matilda Bogner, the mission’s chief.
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