"I saw doors flying out." Details of Russia's strike on Okhmatdyt – photo report
"The child cried at first, then calmed down," Oleksandra tells LIGA.net. "I'm more nervous here." She was with her daughter at the Okhmatdyt hospital, which Russia hit with a Kh-101 missile on July 8.
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In total, Russia fired over 40 different missiles at Ukraine. Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk were targeted. In Kyiv, Russia struck civilian objects – hitting a residential apartment building and two hospitals.
One of them was Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest children's hospital.
"I saw doors flying out," one of the doctors tells LIGA.net. One hospital building was destroyed, while others had windows and doors blown out.
In another Kyiv district, a Russian missile destroyed an entire apartment entrance. In the evening, local residents clean up glass and cover windows with plastic sheeting provided by volunteers.
How Kyiv is recovering – LIGA.net report
"I saw doors flying out." How Russia struck Okhmatdyt
Okhmatdyt is a Ukrainian acronym for "protection of motherhood and childhood." Children and their mothers were being treated here. After the missile strike, 16 people were reported injured, including seven children. Two adults were confirmed dead, one of them a nephrologist, Dr. Svitlana Lukyanchuk.
Rescuers and law enforcement continue working at the site, still clearing debris. Broken glass lies at the walls – it's being cleaned up outside and inside the wards.
Medical staff are working. The injured are taken out onto the lawn to receive help on the street. A woman is wrapped in a thermal blanket: doctors explain that hypothermia often occurs in cases of injury and blood loss. The woman's face and hands are cut by shrapnel.
Several air raid alerts sound in Kyiv throughout the day. When a siren sounds over the destroyed hospital building, everyone is sent to shelters.
"We're from Kherson Oblast," a woman in the basement tells LIGA.net. "We came here for surgery, it was supposed to be this week."
During the alert, doctors and parents with children gathered here. They came down with whatever belongings they could grab, says another mother, Oleksandra, who was in Okhmatdyt with her child. "We were told that we would be discharged today, but they can't come to pick us up because cars aren't allowed near the hospital," Oleksandra explains.
During the explosion, she was on the fifth floor in a ward with her child.
"The child cried at first, then calmed down," the woman says. "I'm more nervous here." Outside, debris clearing continues – emergency services, police, and military are working.
"When the alert started, we went to the shelter," one of the doctors tells LIGA.net. "But the explosion was very close. Very scary."
Her colleague was working in another Okhmatdyt building. He says that at the moment of the explosion, he saw doors flying out. The blast wave blew out windows in the department, and some rooms were flooded.
"We need blood! Who has O negative?" How rubble is cleared
Volunteers immediately set up operations on the street – bringing food, water, and medicines. From the debris side, a man shouts loudly: "We need blood – O negative. Who has O negative?" He shouts this several times across the entire square near the hospital. In the background, you can hear machinery working.
"We brought sandwiches, they said to distribute them," a girl says to emergency medical staff.
"Leave the salty stuff here, sweet stuff behind the tree," a guy shouts to the team dividing the food. A bit further, they're collecting hygiene products and medications. To speed up the process, everything is passed along in a chain.
One of the volunteers, Edgar, says his daughter was in this hospital a few days ago. As soon as he heard about the attack, he immediately came to help.
"We were on the eighth floor," the man says as we stand near the building. "There were people under the rubble. The intensive care unit was here – all the windows were blown out there."
"Systems, medicines here," a doctor shouts on the street. She's coordinating the sorting of medicines, which volunteers are also bringing. All water, medicines, and food are being taken down the stairs on supermarket carts.
On the guard's TV, a news broadcast is playing – President Zelenskyy is talking about the situation with Okhmatdyt: "This children's hospital is one of the most important not only in Ukraine but in Europe."
"It's exclusively a children's hospital that has saved and restored health to thousands of children," the president says from the screen. "Russia cannot not know where its missiles are flying, and must be held fully accountable for its crimes."
"We can't find the cat." Russian missile destroys entire apartment entrance
On July 8, Russia not only hit medical facilities but also destroyed a residential building in one of Kyiv's districts.
In the morning, a Russian missile destroyed an entire apartment entrance: there's just a big hole in the middle of the building in the Syrets residential area. Window frames hang on one of the floors. Broken glass is underfoot on the surrounding streets.
"They probably dug out a person there," a girl passing by says to her father.
Windows are blown out in surrounding buildings, balcony nets lie on flowerbeds. Nearby, a school and kindergarten are also without windows.
Volunteers brought plastic sheeting for windows and balconies, residents in the damaged courtyard tell us: "Glass, frames – everything's lying around, furniture is broken. It was impossible to enter the rooms."
Many even had their doors blown out, another woman adds.
"We can't find the cat," she says. "Grandpa went looking. He was not allowed to go, but he went looking."
A fire started in one of the apartments after the strike, the woman says. Police, medics, and rescuers are still working at the scene. From time to time, parts of the destroyed building fall from the work.
It's unknown how many people are under the rubble.
Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk were under attack on July 8. 36 people were killed, 140 injured.
