Witness to bombing my city

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv resumed Monday, July 8.

Approximately 12 explosions in the capital followed an air raid alert at approximately 10 a.m. Dozens of Russian missiles targeted civilian neighborhoods and critical infrastructure.

During a two-hour attack on the capital, 129 buildings were damaged including a clinic, a business center, residential buildings, and a children’s hospital. The strike on Adonis Medical Center killed nine people, five of them medical workers. A maternity clinic in the same building was severely damaged.

In the Solomyanskyi neighborhood two floors of an office building were destroyed during an attack, leaving seven people dead. On a residential block in the Shevchenkivskyi neighborhood an entire unit collapsed, killing 14 people. In the same neighborhood, Russia targeted Ohmatdyt – the largest children’s hospital in Ukraine and one of the largest in Europe. A missile struck a toxicology building where children underwent dialysis, killing two people. Five medical units, including surgical, intensive care, oncology, and radiology, were severely damaged.

“Our unit doesn’t exist anymore,” said a physician of the Ohmatdyt Trauma Center in an interview with Kyiv24. “There are no walls. Everything is covered in blood. The worst part is that the missile struck the units of the hospital that were filled with children and medical workers.”

At the moment of the attack, over 600 children were treated in Ohmatdyt. Hundreds of patients were evacuated from their hospital wards with intravenous drips and chemo ports; some of them were moved to other medical centers in Ukraine. A nearby Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery was damaged by shockwaves from the explosions. Children undergoing surgeries during the attack suffered glass injuries and were transferred to other medical centers.

Businesses, volunteer groups and individuals around the city organized in response to the destruction. Citizens from around Kyiv came to the damaged sites with food and water supplies. Hundreds of people came to the attacked medical facilities and residential buildings to rake up the debris. Volunteers organized “live circuits,” where chains of people transported the supplies to the victims and evacuated patients and medical workers.

Following the attack, Tuesday, July 9, was pronounced a day of mourning by the Kyiv government. The emergency rescue operations were concluded on Wednesday, July 10, with 33 people, including five children, killed and more than 125 people injured in the capital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Joe Biden on Thursday, July 11, at the NATO summit. Biden announced a new aid package and promised that the U.S. will continue to support Ukraine “every single step of the way.”

Ira Buch is a rising senior at The Hotchkiss School who has returned home to Ukraine for the summer. She continues to write for The Lakeville Journal as an intern.