Russian strikes at a children’s hospital in Kyiv and elsewhere: The role of the U.S. and the Kremlin regime
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces were responding to the “Kyiv regime’s attempts to damage Russian economic and energy facilities” and used long-range weapons to hit “military industrial facilities of Ukraine and air bases of the Ukrainian armed forces.” Russia denied hitting civilian targets and accused Ukraine of “hysterics” before the NATO summit.
Khrystyna Korvach, an anesthesiologist at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital, told NPR that they thought this was their bastion of security. It didn’t turn out that way. Why? Because Russia would like to kill us all.
The Russian military launched missiles at the Ukrainians a day before a NATO summit in D.C., officials said.
Zelenskyy called for a UN Security Council emergency meeting and said that Putin must be held accountable.
Monday’s attacks have added an urgency to Tuesday’s NATO summit, where the security alliance’s 75th anniversary will also be marked. NATO leaders are expected to rebuff Ukraine’s membership bid but U.S. officials say they will offer more air defense systems to help Ukraine fend off near-daily Russian strikes.
Source: Russia strikes a children’s hospital in Kyiv and other sites across Ukraine
U.S. and NATO support for the Okhmatdyt hospital in Ukraine after the 2010 Ukrainian War of Independence: NPR reports from Lviv
The strike on the Okhmatdyt hospital, one of Ukraine’s largest treatment centers for children with cancer, drew international outrage. The hospital destroyed its intensive care and surgery units. Rescue workers were able to free people trapped under the rubble. Zelenskyy posted a video to social media showing dazed bystanders trying to clear the ruins. Blood was visible in patients’ rooms, where windows were blown out.
Korvach, the anesthesiologist, described chaotic scenes of trying to evacuate injured staff and terrified young patients.
She said that everything went toward the doctors and children. “The doctors finished in the operating rooms and walked into corridors filled with smoke. The children knew what was going on.”
They are unlikely to agree. For the two and a half years since Russia’s invasion, Western countries have pursued divergent, sometimes contradictory approaches to the war. Each country’s policy is informed by history. It’s like a pair of glasses, casting the war in a different light. As Vladimir Putin threatens nuclear escalation and Ukraine suffers further assaults, it’s essential that NATO members decide together how they should see the war in Ukraine — and how best to bring it to an end.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the U.S. and other NATO countries have contributed billions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine. A senior US official told NPR that the U.S. was going to provide more air defense systems to Ukraine during this week’s summit. The official asked not to be named to brief reporters before the administration publicly announces new weaponry for Ukraine.
But Mustafa Nayyem, who until last month was in charge of Ukraine’s reconstruction agency, said he’s frustrated that U.S. officials also insist that Ukraine should not join NATO until it wins the war.
NPR’s Joanna Kakissis reported from Lviv. Kateryna Malofieieva and Polina Lytvynova reported from Kyiv. NPR’s Tom Bowman contributed to this report from Washington.
World War I: What Have We Learned About Confinement? A Prime Minister Revisiting his Remark on the Prewar Era
Some believe that we are on the eve of a wider war, experiencing an equivalent of something that happened 100 years ago. This is the view through Sarajevo glasses. A young assassin opened fire on the vehicle of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the summer of 1914, setting off a chaotic sequence that led to World War I. Christopher Clark has called the political class of the time sleepwalkers. They wander into war because of a complex mix of emotions.
Mr. Tusk, a former president of the European Council, could perhaps be accused of Eurocentrism. But his remark is right: We are not in a traditional war. The conflict between Russia and the West in Ukraine has the potential to turn into a full-blown world war. For NATO members gathered this week in Washington, working out how to stop that from happening will be at the top of the agenda.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said it sounds devastating. “But we have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun: the prewar era.” Fresh from ousting national populists from power, Mr. Tusk is widely respected. His words are unlikely to come as a surprise. Considering the war in Gaza, Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine and conflict in Sudan, can we still speak of a prewar era?