The air-launched cruise missile that struck a children’s hospital in Kyiv was from Russia, Sky News can confirm.
The strike on Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was one of several attacks in the deadliest bombardment of Ukraine’s capital in several months.
According to the United Nations team tracking human rights violations in Ukraine, at least two people died and around 50 people were injured in the hospital strike.
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A 30-year-old doctor was among those killed.
In total, 42 people were killed and 150 were injured in strikes across Kyiv on Monday.
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Now, Sky News’ data and forensics team can reveal that a Russian weapon hit the hospital using a video that circulated after the attack.
Using the location where the video was filmed, the site that was hit, and the visible trajectory in the video of the missile in the hospital’s immediate vicinity, Sky News determined this was the weapon responsible for the destruction at the hospital.
In higher quality versions of this video, distinctive features such as fins and an external engine are visible.
When approached by Sky News, analysts at the defence intelligence firm Janes assessed that the video shows a Kh-101.
According to Missile Threat, a resource maintained by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’s Missile Defence Project, Kh-101s are designed to be fired from aircraft and “defeat air defence systems by flying at low, terrain-hugging altitudes”.
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Earlier today, Ukrainian officials released a series of photographs on Telegram showing what they claim to be fragments of the Russian missile found at the hospital.
Speaking to Sky News, former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician Trevor Ball confirmed that the fragments shown in the photographs resemble those from a Kh-101.
Sky News matched features including fittings on what is reported to be a piece of the missile’s engine.
As initially reported by the investigative journalism outlet Bellingcat, other fragments photographed correspond to reference images published by the Ukrainian government to aid in identifying Russian munitions.
