NEW DELHI: Russia on Tuesday dismissed the report of its involvement in the missile strikes that damaged and gutted a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Clarifying on the reports, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that the damaged caused to the hospital was a result of Ukraine‘s anti-missile fire.
Peskov, without giving any evidence, asserted that Moscow’s stance has never been to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities have claimed that Russia launched a Kh-101 cruise missile at the main children’s hospital in Kyiv and fired missiles at other cities across the country on Monday, resulting in the deaths of at least 41 civilians in the most lethal wave of airstrikes in months.
The Ukrainian Security Service stated that fragments of the rear part of a Kh-101, including a serial number and part of the guidance system, were found at the site.
“The experts’ conclusions are unequivocal – it was a direct strike,” the Ukrainian State Security Service said on Telegram.
The head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine also said that the strike was likely caused by a direct hit from a Russian missile.
When asked how Russia could maintain its claim of not attacking civilian targets after the hospital tragedy, Peskov urged reporters to rely only on statements by official Russian authority.
“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, according to news agency AFP.
Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, many thousands of Ukrainian civilians have lost their lives. A significantly smaller number of civilians have been killed within Russia and in areas of Ukraine that Russia controls and claims as its own.