Ukraine Calls for NATO Action After Putin Crossed 'Red Lines'

Russia's missile barrage across Ukraine on Monday shows how urgently NATO members must back giving Kyiv more air defense capabilities, a board member of the children's hospital that was among the sites struck has told Newsweek.

The comments by Ukrainian lawmaker Mariya Ionova at the start of NATO's 75th-anniversary summit echo calls Kyiv has been making for months for more help from the alliance and other countries to thwart Russian missiles and drones.

Kyiv had asked NATO for seven Patriot systems in April, and the United States ambassador to the alliance, Julianne Smith, said a decision is expected this week amid outrage over the biggest Russian missile attack for months.

Ionova arrived at Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital in Kyiv, where she is on the board of trustees, to find the devastating aftermath of a strike that had destroyed part of the country's biggest pediatric facility and killed at least two adults. Kyiv said it was a Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile.

"I saw wounded doctors trying to save people and to find children," she told Newsweek, describing how, in the melee, there were two air alarms warning of further danger.

"When we were transporting children to ambulances, all the corridors were covered in blood, and there were very scared children. It's too much for them to have oncology diseases and to face such terrorism," she said.

She said 627 children were in the hospital when it was hit, eight of whom were injured. There were 94 who were taken to other facilities in Kyiv, while 68 remained for treatment in the buildings that were unscathed in the strike.

Another 465 children who needed planned treatment were examined and temporarily discharged home. A separate maternity unit in Kyiv was partially destroyed by falling debris, killing four.

"This is over the line—to fire at children with cancer in a targeted manner. I don't know where there are red lines in this brutality and terror because it was on purpose," said Ionova, a member of Ukraine's European Solidarity party.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry and the Kremlin for comment.

The Kremlin has repeated its denials since the start of the war, insisting that it does not target civilian infrastructure. Moscow said the hospital had been hit by fragments of a Ukrainian air defense missile.

In an assessment emailed to Newsweek, analysis firm Fenix Insight said Tuesday that Russia's claims "are not credible, based on the imagery shown of the missile in flight and the structural damage on the hospital buildings."

The treatment needs of the children at Okhmatdyt Hospital are complex, and the facility provides specialized care.

"This missile was really very powerful because operational departments, toxicology departments, the hemodialysis department are destroyed totally," Ionova said. "Now, there is an assessment over what equipment we still have."

Colonel Yuriy Ihnat, head of public relations at Ukraine's Air Forces, said the missiles flew at "extremely low" altitudes, which the Institute for the Study of War suggested showed a change of Moscow's tactics, with the aim of giving Ukrainian air defense no time to respond so as "to inflict maximum damage."

Monday's strikes are likely to further focus Kyiv's allies on providing more weapons and air defense capabilities. Ukrainian media reported that Ukraine and Poland are working on a system in which Polish air defense will shoot down Russian missiles and drones.

Tuesday was observed as a day of mourning across Ukraine following the missile strikes which killed at least 41 people and injured 166. Ionova said in response, Kyiv is expecting a strong reaction from its allies to "stop Russia in Ukraine because we would like to have peace."

"Unfortunately, we will only get peace only when we get more long-range missiles, air defense, and F-16s to protect us and to destroy Russian military infrastructure," she said.