Ukraine's Prosecutor General urges ICC to prosecute Russian attack on Kyiv hospital

Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Russia's missile attack on the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, he told Reuters on July 11.

Russian forces launched a missile strike on Ukraine on July 8, killing at least 44 and injuring nearly 200 others. One Russian missile directly struck Okhmatdyt, Ukraine's largest children's medical center.

The attack there killed three people, destroyed one building, and damaged four others in the hospital complex. Thirty people have been killed elsewhere in the capital.

"For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC," Kostin told Reuters in The Hague.

If the ICC starts investigating the strike on the hospital, it could help establish a pattern of attacks that show Russia is committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Kostin said. Kyiv is open to providing the court with any evidence and details of its investigation, he added.

A team from the ICC Prosecutor's Office visited the site of the attack. While the ICC has not publicly commented on what charges it is investigating, it has warned that anyone found responsible for an attack on civilian objects could be prosecuted, Reuters wrote.

The Russian military struck Okhmatdyt with a Kh-101 cruise missile, according to the preliminary data obtained by the State Security Service (SBU). A law enforcement source told the Kyiv Independent that the missile was launched in accordance with a programmed route.

Over 600 patients and at least as many staff members were at the Okhmatdyt and the Ukrainian Center for Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, located near the hospital, at the moment of the attack.

The ICC issued in late June arrest warrants for Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, and Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian army, for war crimes against Ukraine related to Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The Hague court also issued arrest warrants in March 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the forcible transfer of children from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.

Ground zero: How a Ukrainian boy battling cancer and his mother survived Russia’s missile strike on children’s hospital

At about 10:30 on the morning of July 8, just minutes before a Russian missile slammed into Kyiv’s main hospital for children, 4-year-old Dima Dorontsov was waiting to receive his final dose of chemotherapy at the oncology department with his mother Viktoria Zavoloka alongside. He’s spent much

The Kyiv IndependentNatalia Yermak