Ukraine's Biggest Children's Hospital Struck by Missile

Russia unleashed a daytime barrage of missiles on five Ukrainian cities on Monday, but it was a strike in Kyiv that has generated the most attention. A missile struck Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital, the nation's largest pediatric medical facility, in the capital, reports the BBC. At least two people were killed there, though it's not clear whether they were patients, and rescuers were still searching through the rubble. "Parents holding babies walked in the street outside, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack," per Reuters.

• Five cities: Russia launched the barrage on five cities, and Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky vowed retaliation. "It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing," Zelensky wrote on social media. At least 17 were killed in Kyiv, and at least 31 in all, reports the AP. Other cities hit were Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk.
• Russian response: The nation's Defense Ministry said its strikes targeted defense plants and military air bases and denied aiming at civilian facilities. The ministry suggested one of Ukraine's air-defense missiles struck the hospital.
• A symbol: Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina will wear a black ribbon in her Wimbledon match on Monday afternoon to honor the victims, per the BBC.
• The hospital: One doctor estimates up to 70% of the facility has been heavily damaged. "It was scary. I couldn't breathe, I was trying to cover [my baby]," one mother tells Reuters about the aftermath of the strike. "I was trying to cover him with this cloth so that he could breathe." On the street outside, volunteers handed out candy to try to calm the evacuated young patients.

(More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)