Russia launched dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities on Monday, resulting in at least 20 deaths and striking a children's hospital in Kyiv, officials said.
The daytime barrage, a rare occurrence, coincided with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's scheduled visit to Warsaw, according to the Polish government, shortly before he departed for the NATO summit in Washington.
Explosions resounded through Kyiv, with plumes of black smoke visible from the city center, as reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Pictures distributed by officials from the children's medical facility in Kyiv showed people digging through mounds of rubble, with black smoke billowing over a gutted building and medical staff wearing blood-stained scrubs.
"Russian terrorists once again massively attacked Ukraine with missiles in different cities: Kyiv, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rig, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk," Zelenskyy said, listing major civilian hubs in the south and east of the country.
"More than 40 missiles of various types damaged residential buildings, infrastructure, and a children's hospital," he wrote on social media.
Zelenskyy reported that an unknown number of people were trapped under the rubble of the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital, with the number of fatalities not immediately clear.
Municipal officials earlier reported at least seven deaths in the barrage on Kyiv.
Russian forces have repeatedly targeted the capital with massive barrages since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with the last major attack on Kyiv using drones and missiles occurring last month.
In Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rig, which has been repeatedly targeted by Russian bombardments, the strikes killed at least 10 people and wounded over 30, the mayor said.
"In Dnipro, a high-rise building and a business were damaged. A service station was also damaged. There are wounded," said Dnipropetrovsk Governor Sergiy Lysak.
In the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have taken a string of villages in recent weeks, the regional governor said three people were killed in Pokrovsk, a town with a pre-war population of around 60,000.
There was no immediate comment on the strikes from the Kremlin, but it insists its forces do not target civilian infrastructure.
"This shelling targeted civilians, hit infrastructure, and the whole world should see today the consequences of terror, which can only be responded to with force," wrote Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential administration in Kyiv, following the attack on social media.
Zelenskyy and other Kyiv officials have been urging Ukraine's allies to send more air defense systems, including Patriots, to the war-battered country to help fend off deadly Russian aerial bombardments.
"Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying, and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes," Zelenskyy said in another social media post.
