14 dead as Ukraine’s army strikes hospital with US-made missiles: Russia
Russia says Ukraine’s army has attacked a hospital in Luhansk using a US-made rocket system, killing at least 14 people.
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Ukrainian forces “deliberately attacked the building of a district hospital” in the town of Novoaidar. The strike was carried out with a HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system, it said. Two dozen people among the “hospital patients and medical staff” were also injured.
According to the Ministry, the hospital has been providing “necessary medical assistance to the local population and military personnel for many months.”
“A deliberate missile strike on a known active civilian medical facility is, without doubt, a grave war crime by the Kiev regime,” the Ministry said.
Ukraine and its Western allies are engaged in “fast-track” talks on the possibility of equipping Kiev with long-range missiles and military aircraft, according to a top Ukrainian presidential aide.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Vlodymyr Zelensky, said on Saturday Ukraine’s supporters in the West “understand how the war is developing.”
He said Ukraine needs to be supplied with planes capable of providing cover for the armored vehicles the United States and Germany pledged at the beginning of the month.
Podolyak, however, criticized some of Ukraine's Western partners whom he said maintain a “conservative” attitude to arms deliveries “due to fear of changes in the international architecture.”
Ukraine has been at war with Russia since Moscow launched its “special operation” on February 24, 2022 with the declared aim of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine.
Ever since, the United States and its Western allies have imposed waves of unprecedented economic sanctions on Moscow and have given Ukraine tens of billions of dollars' worth of weaponry, including rocket systems, drones, armored vehicles, and communication systems.
Russia has already warned that sending weapons to Ukraine would prolong the war.
ME
