How Russia Forgot to Align Its Lies About the Bombing of a Children’s Hospital in Kyiv

On July 8th Russia fired over 40 missiles into Ukraine. One of those missiles was an Kh-101 rocket. Its target was the Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital in central Kyiv. 

As a result of Russia’s attack two people were killed and dozens more were injured. The hospital itself was left in ruins. As we reported earlier, video evidence from July 8th shows that the rocket that struck the Children’s Hospital was a Russian kH-101 missile that was fully intact. In addition, this attack fully aligned with Russia’s pattern of intentionally hitting hospitals in Ukraine.

However, the day after the attack, on July 9th, Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s Representative at the United Nations, claimed the rocket that hit the hospital was a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile. “It’s clearly seen that without any interference, a single rocket hits the children's hospital, [a] rocket of the air defense of Ukraine,” Nebenzya said to the UN. 

Just nine days after Nebenzya addressed the UN, a new lie was produced by the Russian Federation by none other than Sergey Lavrov himself, Russia’s Foreign Minister. Lavrov claimed that the hospital was destroyed by falling debris resulting from Ukrainian air defense striking a Russian rocket: 

“Recently when we struck military and also energy infrastructure in Ukraine that's related to the military, one of these missiles was shot down by Ukrainian air defenses. And these air defenses were in fact deployed there in violation of international military law next to residential housing, social facilities. And some of what was struck down fell on Ohmatdyt, a Children’s Hospital in Kyiv.” 

The first story told by Nebenzya attempts to paint a picture in which Ukraine’s air defense misses and directly strikes the children's hospital. The second narrative by Lavrov alleges that whilst trying to defend its city, Ukraine strikes down a Russian rocket and it is the debris, not a rocket, that destroys the children's hospital. What is clear is that neither of the versions represents the truth, but what is interesting is that the two lies don’t even align.

In response to the two conflicting narratives offered by Russia surrounding Ohmatdyt, Ukraine’s representative to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, noted an interesting reoccurring tradition among Russian officials, “This time Lavrov’s version that it was the Russian missile and its fragments that hit Ohmatdyt, voiced by him at the press conference at the UN on July 17th, failed to coincide with Nebenzya’s babbling on July 9th at the UN Security Council meeting.” 

The difference in Nebenzya and Lavrov’s accounts relating to the children's hospital further illustrates that Russia is willing to say whatever it needs to justify its actions even if that means blatantly lying to international governing bodies like the UN on-record.