Key updates on July 9:
- Rescue operations end at Kyiv children's hospital, at least 33 killed in capital overall
- Ukraine struck airbase, oil depot, and energy facility in Russia overnight, source says
- Ukrainian partisans say they sabotaged railway in Russia's Rostov Oblast
- North Korean military trainers travel to Russia weeks after signing of partnership agreement
- F-16s in Ukraine may 'create conditions for counterattack,' Polish general says
Search and rescue operations at the site of a Russian missile attack on Okhmatdyt hospital in Kyiv concluded on July 9, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
The attack against the medical facility killed two people, including a doctor, and wounded 32 others. Eight children were hospitalized, according to Klymenko.
In total, at least 33 people, including four children, were killed in Kyiv as a result of the July 8 attack, officials said the following day. Another 10 children are among the 117 injured.
The Okhmatdyt hospital, Ukraine's largest children's medical center, was hit during a Russian missile attack on July 8. The strike destroyed one building and damaged four others in the hospital, Health Minister Viktor Liashko said.
Evidence from the scene of the hospital indicated "a high likelihood" of a direct hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMUN) said.
According to the HRMMUN, more than 1,000 staff members and 670 children were at the hospital at the time of the attack.
"Analysis of the video footage and assessment made at the incident site indicates a high likelihood that the children's hospital suffered a direct hit rather than receiving damages due to an intercepted weapons system," said Danielle Bell, the head of the HRMMUN.
Bell said that video footage shows the technical specification of the type of weapon used and "shows the weapon directly impacting the hospital rather than being intercepted in the air."
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) corroborated, according to preliminary data, that the Russian military had struck Okhmatdyt with a Kh-101 cruise missile. A law enforcement source told the Kyiv Independent that it was launched in accordance with a programmed route.
Other districts in Kyiv also came under Russian attacks. The bodies of three more women and of one boy were retrieved from the rubble of a residential building in the capital's Shevchenkivskyi district during the day on July 9, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Chris York
Ukraine struck airbase, oil depot, and energy facility in Russia overnight, source says
Ukrainian intelligence agencies carried out an attack against a Russian military airfield, an energy substation, and an oil depot in three different regions overnight on July 9, a military intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent.
The strike, carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), targeted the Akhtubinsk military airfield in Astrakhan Oblast, a 500 kV substation in Rostov Oblast, and an oil depot in Kalach-na-Donu in Volgograd Oblast, the source said.
The source did not elaborate on the possible consequences of the attack but strikes against the Akhtubinsk airfield last month reportedly damaged two advanced Su-57 fighter jets.
The airbase lies around 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of the Ukrainian border and some 30 kilometers (less than 20 miles) west of Russia's border with Kazakhstan.
According to the Kyiv Independent's source, Russian Telegram channels reported on a live fire by a Pantsir air defense system and powerful explosions at the Akhtubinsk airfield, later deleting the message.
This indicates a successful attack, as Russia usually "clears the information space" when its military facilities are hit, the source added.
Russian authorities said earlier the same day that Ukrainian drone attacks started fires at two substations and one oil depot in Rostov and Volgograd oblasts.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Russian air defense shot down three drones over Belgorod Oblast, two over Voronezh Oblast, five over Astrakhan Oblast, seven over Kursk Oblast, and 21 over Rostov Oblast.
Kateryna Hodunova
Ukrainian partisans say they sabotaged railway in Russia's Rostov Oblast
The Atesh partisan group sabotaged a key railway connection between Russia's Rostov-on-Don and the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol used by the Russian military, the group claimed on July 9.
An Atesh operative burned a relay cabinet near the Russian city of Shakhty, the partisans said, publishing purported footage of the sabotage without specifying the date. The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims.
Russia began constructing new railway connections to link Russia with Crimea and other occupied territories in southeast Ukraine.
This is designed to reduce the Russian military's dependence on the Kerch Bridge and ferry crossing—linking eastern Crimea to Russia's Krasnodar Krai—which have proved vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.
Petro Andriushchenko, an advisor to the exiled mayor of Mariupol, said in mid-June that the railway line between Rostov-on-Don and the occupied Ukrainian city was almost finished.
"This is one of the main railways in the region, connecting Russia to Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. It is actively used to transport military equipment and personnel to the front," Atesh said on Telegram.
"We continue to fight the occupiers with all our might, and the number of our sabotages will increase every day."
The Atesh movement claims to be active in both occupied areas of Ukraine and inside Russia itself.
Over the weekend, Atesh partisans claimed that they had successfully sabotaged a railway line near the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, halting trains being used to transport North Korean ammunition.
Francis Farrell
North Korean military trainers travel to Russia weeks after signing of partnership agreement
A delegation of North Korean military trainers led by the head of a prestigious military academy in Pyongyang has begun a trip to Russia, North Korean state media reported on July 9.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang on June 18-19, where he signed a partnership agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The two leaders led hours-long talks before signing the treaty, which pledged to provide aid to one another if either will be attacked.
According to Reuters, the visit of North Korean military trainers marks the first military exchange between Moscow and Pyongyang since the agreement was signed. Pyongyang has long been supplying Moscow with weapons for use against Ukraine.
The delegation of North Korean military trainers is led by the president of the Kim Il Sung Military University, Kim Geum Chol, North Korean state media said, without providing any further information about the visit.
South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol said on June 8 that growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea poses a "distinct threat and a grave challenge to the peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in Europe."
Kateryna Denisova
F-16s in Ukraine may 'create conditions for counterattack,' Polish general says
The arrival of F-16 fighter jets may help Ukraine create conditions for a counterattack, Jaroslaw Kraszewski, a retired Polish brigadier general, said in an interview with Ukrinform published on July 9.
Ukraine is expected to receive the first F-16 jets this summer, a year after Denmark and the Netherlands founded the "fighter jet coalition" with nine other countries at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023.
Kraszewski believes that the arrival of F-16s will "dramatically change the situation" on the battlefield, although it is unlikely to be a turning point in Russia's full-scale war.
"I think a lot of positive things will happen for Ukraine then; the planes will create conditions for a counterattack," he said in the interview.
According to the Polish general, Western aircraft and missiles should help halt Russia's offensive in Kharkiv and Donetsk sectors, as well as "cyclically and effectively" destroy logistics deep inside Russia.
Kraszewski stressed that the West must allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia to allow the liberation of Ukrainian territories, a step that Washington has so far refused to take.
Under such conditions, Ukraine could launch a counteroffensive this fall, the general believes.
Belgium, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands have so far pledged more than 70 jets to Ukraine to be delivered from 2024 onwards. The latter two allowed Kyiv to use delivered F-16s to strike Russian soil.
"Ukrainian aviation should receive long-range missiles to destroy Russia's infrastructure, including airfields. When this happens, the logistics of the Russian army will be cut off from the main forces. If this is done, Ukraine's army command should form a strike group and strike back," Kraszewski said.
Kateryna Denisova
