The UN Security Council will meet on July 9 to discuss a Russian missile attack on Kyiv's Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital that was part of a "massive" attack on July 8 that hit several cities across the country, killing at least 41 people and injuring at least 140, officials said.
The British mission to the United Nations announced the Security Council meeting, which had been requested earlier by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
"The UN Security Council will meet tomorrow at 10 a.m. to discuss Russia's missile attack on the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital," the mission said in a statement on X.
According to the Kyiv city military administration, 27 people were killed, including three children, in the attacks in the city. Serhiy Popko, the head of the capital's military administration, said 82 people were injured.
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The U.K. ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, added separately on X that Britain "will call out Russia's cowardly and depraved attack on the hospital...in the Security Council."
The head of the UN General Assembly, Dennis Francis, the former ambassador to the UN from Trinidad and Tobago, strongly condemned the attack, calling it "a gross violation of international law and the principles of the UN Charter."
The U.S. State Department denounced the strike on the hospital and said it believed it was deliberate.
"Russia unleashed another savage missile attack on civilians," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Ukrainian law enforcement officers believe that a Russian X-101 cruise missile hit the children's hospital. One law enforcement source told RFE/RL that a video of the attack shows a missile that "in terms of shape and proportions fully corresponds to a cruise missile."
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Zelenskiy vowed retaliation after the "massive" air attack on targets all over Ukraine and demanded that the West produce a "stronger response."
Earlier, he said that "more than 40 missiles of various types" had targeted Kyiv, Dnipro and Kryviy Rih in central Ukraine, and Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in the eastern Donetsk region. The Ukrainian Air Force said it had shot down 30 of 38 Russian missiles in the attack.
The UN's humanitarian coordinator and the EU's top diplomat both quickly condemned the Russian air strikes, which left an unknown number of victims buried under the rubble of the hospital. Video taken by RFE/RL of the hospital showed lines of people helping to clear the debris as smoke billowed out of the facility.
Moscow has routinely denied targeting residences, schools, hospitals, and other civilian structures despite frequent bombings that suggest otherwise.
On July 8, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air attacks near Kyiv were aimed at "Ukrainian military industry facilities and Ukrainian Air Force bases," adding that "the strike's objectives were achieved."
Russian Missiles Target Ukraine, Striking Children's Hospital In Kyiv
It said "numerous published photos and video footage from Kyiv clearly confirm the fact of destruction as a result of the fall of a Ukrainian air-defense missile."
"Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes. Against people, against children, against humanity in general," Zelenskiy said.
Falling rocket debris was reported in more than a half a dozen other areas around the capital.
UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown said that "dozens of people have been killed and injured" on July 8, adding, "It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war."
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell accused Russia of "ruthlessly" targeting Ukrainian civilians and urged "air defense" for the war-ravaged country.
"Russia keeps ruthlessly targeting Ukrainian civilians," Borrell said on X.
Zelenskiy's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram that the shelling of Ukraine came at a time when there were the most people on the streets. He blamed "obsessed Russian terrorists."
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Daytime attacks on cities have been rare, even as Russia has stepped up aerial bombardments of Ukrainian population centers and power and other infrastructure over the past six months.
In Zelenskiy's hometown of Kryviy Rih, in central Ukraine, the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration head said at least 10 people had been killed and 30 injured in a "massive enemy attack from the air."
In northeast Ukraine, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said two women were hospitalized for injuries after Russian shelling struck three residential buildings there.
Kharkiv's governor said later on July 8 that a mine blast in the region had killed five people.
In fighting on the ground, the Ukrainian General Staff said Russia was continuing offensives in the Kharkiv region.
But it said the Russian focus appeared to be on an offensive in the Pokrovsk area of the eastern Donetsk region where Russian troops with air support are trying to dislodge Ukrainian forces. The regional governor said at least three people were killed in Pokrovsk in the July 8 missile attacks.
It said Ukrainian troops were trying to "stabilize" the situation to prevent Russian forces from "advancing deep into Ukrainian territory" there.
Outside analysts recently predicted that Russia will soon launch attacks across a canal in the strategic city and logistics hub of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk, where Kyiv recently acknowledged losing a district nearly three months into an intense battle focused on that city.
The Russian domestic intelligence service, the Federal Security Service (FSB), claimed on July 8 that it had thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to bribe a Russian military pilot into hijacking a Tu-22M3 strategic bomber and flying it to Ukraine.
It was not possible to independently confirm the FSB's claim, which it said included a promise of Italian citizenship in exchange for landing the Russian bomber on Ukrainian territory.
RFE/RL cannot independently confirm reports by either side of battlefield developments in areas of the heaviest fighting.