What I saw at the Okhmatdyt bomb site

00:00 06:14

Svitlana Morenets has narrated this article for you to listen to.

For weeks, Kyiv had felt relatively safe compared with just about everywhere else in Ukraine. People had adjusted to wartime life as the city’s air defences managed to intercept most of Russia’s missiles and drones. There had been a sense that things were improving. This was shattered on Monday morning when a missile struck a children’s cancer hospital in the capital.

Okhmatdyt is the largest paediatric clinic in Ukraine, the equivalent of London’s Great Ormond Street. Each year, it treats more than 20,000 children with the most serious health conditions. That Russia had targeted it came as a shock but not a surprise: some 1,700 medical facilities in Ukraine have been hit since the start of the full-scale invasion. In April, Ivan Tertel, head of the Belarusian KGB, claimed that ‘terrorists are hiding in Kyiv hospitals’ – language intended to justify the strikes.