Russia attacked a hospital in central kyiv, near several Western embassies, after Volodymyr Zelenskyy said speed restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield system made it harder for Ukraine to shoot down enemy drones.
Three people were injured when a drone crashed into the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics at 3 a.m., hitting the hospital’s second floor and an adjoining 19th-century building.
Meanwhile, Russia claimed to have shot down nearly 1,200 Ukrainian drones overnight, one of the largest swarms sent by kyiv. It was reported that at least four people were killed in the southern Volgograd region.
The explosion in kyiv blew out windows of nearby buildings, including that of the National Academy of Arts across the road. The six-story hospital is located in the Shevchenkivskyi district, not far from the embassies of Denmark and Romania, as well as cafes and a park popular with dog walkers.
Standing in the courtyard as smoke billowed from the burning building and firefighters led dazed patients to safety, one witness, Oleksandr, said the attack narrowly missed patients. “We were sleeping when there was this massive boom. We all immediately jumped out of bed.
“There were windows all over the ground. People were running everywhere… If it had hit a little further to the left, it would have been much worse. We felt the shock wave.”
He added: “Targeting the wounded is really a small thing. Russia attacks everything. Where I live, high-rise buildings are constantly being hit by bombs. They don’t care where they drop them or where they land.”
Russia has recently stepped up strikes against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, hitting power plants, passenger trains and two bridges over the Dnipro River. Ukraine says the attacks are part of a campaign of terror aimed at making a weary population capitulate.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy said the Starshield system – operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and overseen by the Pentagon – was again experiencing significant disruption, after an unexplained slowdown last month.
He said some Russian air sorties were successful because Ukrainian interception systems that rely on U.S. satellite service could not reach the speed needed to eliminate enemy drones. Starshield is the Ukrainian military version of Starlink.
The White House has not yet explained why the service was limited a second time, but it follows intense shuttle diplomacy by the United States this week, with Donald Trump appearing to pressure Zelensky to make territorial concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s emissaries, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate developer Steve Witkoff, met with Putin on Thursday in Moscow. They then traveled to Dublin to brief Zelensky on their discussions, which took place after trilateral negotiations on Tuesday and Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.
Kremlin negotiators insist that Ukraine cede four Ukrainian provinces, including towns and villages that Russian troops have been unable to conquer. They are also calling for a new “security architecture” in Europe – in effect a demand that NATO return to its pre-1997 position, before Eastern European countries joined the alliance.
At the same time, Moscow does not want European states to be involved in US-led negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must participate since “American support” for kyiv had ended.
“Without Europeans, there is no support for Ukraine,” Macron said. “Ultimately, it is we who will define and decide our future security as Europeans. »
Meanwhile, Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure overnight caused power outages in 12 regions, Deputy Energy Minister Artem Nekrasov said. The affected regions are Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Zhytomyr, kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Rivne, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Chernihiv.
“Energy sector workers are working at an accelerated pace, but new attacks and constant air alerts “complicate and delay repairs,” Nekrassov said.
In kyiv, the director of the orthopedic hospital, Roman Derkach, said medical services had been temporarily suspended due to the start of cleaning operations. Thirty patients were brought to safety.
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