Russia Strikes Two Hospitals, Injures 73

Russian military forces injured 73 people when a bomb struck a hospital in Kharkiv on Tuesday morning. Officials reported that the blast shattered more than 1,000 windows in the facility and nearby residential buildings. Emergency crews transported 226 patients to other medical sites to ensure their safety.

Viktor Zabashta, director of Kharkiv’s regional center for emergency medical care, described the injuries as resulting from debris and glass. He noted that acute stress reactions were common among the survivors. Many of the displaced individuals were elderly patients who had to take shelter in cold admissions areas.

Hours after the Kharkiv strike, a Russian missile hit a combined hospital and hospice in Dnipro. This location is situated 250 kilometers to the southwest. Local authorities moved more than 100 patients to alternative facilities in the city. No one died inside the Dnipro medical building, though two people were killed in the same wave of strikes on the broader city.

Borys Filatov, the mayor of Dnipro, stated that the hospital had recently undergone renovation. He emphasized that the hospice was one of the few places providing care to residents and displaced persons. Filatov said the facility had been destroyed by the missile impact.

The strikes follow a deadly attack on a school in the village of Komyshuvakha. Russian warplanes dropped multiple bombs on the site on Monday, where humanitarian aid was being distributed. The death toll from that incident rose to 37 by Wednesday, with more than 30 people still missing.

The World Health Organization has recorded over 3,400 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities since February 2022. Of those, 590 occurred this year, resulting in 31 deaths and more than 250 injuries. Robin Meldrum, country director in Ukraine for Médecins Sans Frontières, said the attacks on civilian essentials continue daily.

Danielle Bell, head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, stated that the Komyshuvakha bombing likely violated fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. Russia maintains that its daily strikes on power grids and infrastructure target military assets, despite long blackouts disrupting heating and water supplies in several cities.