The Kremlin has said that it was Ukrainian anti-missile fire and not a Russian missile struck the children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov provided no evidence to support the assertion, but told reporters: “I insist, we do not conduct strikes on civilian targets.”
Ukrainian authorities say Russia struck the main children’s hospital in Kyiv with a missile on Monday and rained missiles on other cities across Ukraine, killing at least 41 civilians in the deadliest wave of airstrikes for months.
The Ukrainian Security Service has said a Russian Kh-101 Kalibr missile struck the hospital and that evidence of this was recovered at the site – in particular, fragments of the rear part of the missile with a serial number, and a part of the guidance system.
Peskov, at his daily briefing, was asked how Russia could say it does not attack civilian targets after the tragedy at the hospital.
“I urge you to be guided by the statements of the Russian Ministry of Defence, which absolutely excludes that there were attacks on civilian targets and which states that we are talking about a falling anti-missile system,” he said.
“We continue to insist that we do not attack civilian targets. Strikes are carried out against critical infrastructure facilities, against military targets that are in one way or another related to the military potential of the regime.”
Many thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the course of the war since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022. A much smaller number of civilians have been killed inside Russia and in parts of Ukraine that Russia controls and has claimed as its own.
Ukrainian air defence forces have shot down three of the six Russian Kh-101 sub-sonic air launched cruise missiles launched on Monday.
(With inputs from Reuters)
