Before The Missile: The Work Of Kyiv's Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital

Emergency and rescue personnel clear the rubble of a destroyed building on the campus of the Okhmatdyt children's hospital following a Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian capital on July 8.

An entertainer performs for patients and families outside the main building of Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt children's hospital on May 31.  

A day after at least 43 people -- including a staff member of and a visitor to the Okhmatdyt children's hospital -- were killed in the deadliest wave of attacks in recent months, the Kremlin on July 9 denied that it had targeted civilian targets and blamed anti-missile fire for the destruction of the hospital, but analysts and several officials rejected Moscow's denial.

Beds in a newly renovated bomb shelter of the hospital in November 2023.

The facility that became Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt children's hospital was established in 1894 and then expanded under Soviet rule. Today it is Ukraine’s largest and most advanced pediatric facility. Its name is a portmanteau of Maternity and Childhood Care (Okhorona Materinstva ta Ditinstva).

The July 8 strike killed Dr. Svitlana Lukyanchuk, a pediatric kidney specialist.

Lukyanchuk was from the western Lviv region and dedicated her life to helping children after losing her own parents at a young age and growing up in an orphanage. A man who was visiting the hospital at the time of the strike was also killed in the blast and scores of people, including children, were injured.

Women plant a garden in the Okhmatdyt hospital grounds in April 2024.

Since the opening days of the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion, the Kyiv hospital and its staff have offered a safe space for children whose lives were upended by war.

Sashko, an 11-year-old survivor of a shelling attack, being helped to use crutches by a staff member of the Okhmatdyt hospital in March 2024.

In January 2024, Sashko was walking to his local shop in the Kharkiv region with his cousin Alina when a shell exploded nearby. The blast tore off the boy’s leg and fatally wounded Alina, who died after 10 days in intensive care.
 

Milana was six when a missile hit her family’s house close to Hostomel, near Kyiv, killing her mother in front of her on February 28, 2022.

Shrapnel from the strike badly wounded Milana’s feet and legs. In her hospital bed between operations she drew pictures and wrote messages to “my mom in the sky,” such as the one seen above.

Vova was 13 when he was rushed into the Okhmatdyt hospital on February 26, 2022. He was attempting to escape from Kyiv with his family when they reportedly ran into Russian soldiers. Vova’s father and six-year-old brother were killed by gunfire. Vova was shot in the face and back but survived largely thanks to the care he received in the hospital.

Syemen was the first child victim of the 2022 invasion brought to Okhmatdyt on February 25, 2022. The five-year-old was severely wounded in the neck in an incident in which his father and sister were reportedly shot dead by Russian soldiers. Five days after being brought into the hospital, the boy died in intensive care.  

Kira was orphaned at the age of 12 when her father, a one-time captain of Ukraine’s water polo team, was killed in Mariupol in March 2022. Her mother had died when the girl was a baby.

As Kira attempted to flee Mariupol with her late father’s girlfriend and some neighbors, a member of the group stepped on a mine, injuring Kira. After reaching Russian forces, Kira was taken to a hospital in Russian-held Donetsk. The girl’s grandfather later traveled through Russia to claim Kira and return her to Ukraine. While recuperating in Okhmatdyt she was visited by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.  

A woman comforts a child outside the Okhmatdyt hospital after the July 8 strike.

The Kremlin has claimed a wayward Ukrainian air-defense missile was to blame for the explosion in the hospital grounds, but images captured of the projectile show the distinctive silhouette of a Kh-101 cruise missile, a weapon used exclusively by the Russian military. Ukrainian authorities claim the missile hit “the exact target it was programmed for” amid a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine that day.