Russian strikes on hospitals during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Ambulance on fire after a Russian strike on an emergency medical center in Zolochiv, 15 March 2024.

During the illegal[1] Russian invasion of Ukraine The Russian Military has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian medical facilities, hospitals, clinics, and ambulances, and health workers. The Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom stated that Russia was prioritizing attacks on Ukrainian medical facilities as a method of warfare, often striking these, as well as power infrastructure with Iranian-made drones such as Shahed 131, Shahed 136.[2]

Latest figures

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Hospital in Beryslav (Kherson region) after Russian shelling on 5 October 2023

As of 21 December 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 1,422 attacks on health care reported by their 'Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care' (SSA) tool.[3]

The WHO, in an article published on 22 February 2024, reported 1,574 verified attacks on health, and the deaths of 118 health-care workers, since the start of the full scale illegal invasion of Ukraine.[4]

As of 4 April 2024, WHO verified 1682 attacks on health care in Ukraine, resulting in 128 deaths and 288 injuries of medical personnel and patients.[5]

As of 10 July 2024 Physicians for Human Rights "Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine" website counted 1442 attacks on health care facilities, out of which 742 destroyed hospitals and clinics, killing 210 health workers.[6]

On 8 July 2024, Human Rights Watch reported of 1,736 damaged or destroyed medical facilities.[7]

History of attacks

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Maternity hospital in Dnipro after Russian missile attack on 29 December 2023

Russia has a history of employing systematic attacks on medical facilities as a tactic of war.[8][9][10] Human rights organizations operating in Syria state that Russian Federation is deliberately using GPS coordinates handed over to them by the UN's deconfliction line as a list of targets.[11][12][13] This became such a problem, that doctors refused to share their coordinates with the UN in an attempt to avoid Russian attacks.[14] Eventually the Russian Federation left the UN program claiming it was in protest of the UN not sharing the list with their Syrian ally, who likewise, engaged in a campaign of attacks against healthcare facilities.[15][16][17][18] Russian state media had been routinely justifying attacks on civilian objects, destruction of towns and inciting extermination of civilian population in Ukraine.[19]

Milestones

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Between February 24 and March 21, 2022, sixty-four medical facilities and their personnel were targeted by Russian forces in Ukraine, the WHO reported.[20]

By March 25, 2022, the facilities were being hit at rate of two to three a day. Mostly with heavy weapons.[21]

By April 8, 2022, there were 91 attacks confirmed by the WHO, averaging 2 attacks on hospitals, ambulances or medical supply depots per day.[22]

By November 21, 2022, there were at least 703 attacks on Ukrainian healthcare facilities with 144 such facilities completely destroyed by Russia.[23]

By the end of 2022, nearly one in ten Ukrainian hospitals had been damaged.[24][25]

The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) found that Russia has "deliberately and repeated" targeted Kherson city's medical facilities between December 2022, and May 2023.[26][27]

By May 30, 2023, the WHO had verified 1,000 attacks, the highest number ever recorded.[28] Other monitoring groups have also marked the milestone 1000th attack, though using different metrics.[29] Collectively this constitutes almost daily, deliberate instances of war crimes on a massive scale.[30]

By February 22, 2024, the WHO regional direct confirmed that there had been "over 1500" attacks reported.[31][32]

The UN reported 131 additional attacks on health infrastructure in their February 21, 2024, report.[3] This seems to be since January 2024.

Notable events

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Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv after a Russian missile strike on 8 July 2024

A deadly attack occurred on the first day of the war, February 24, 2022, at the Central City Hospital in Vuhledar when a Russian ballistic missile full of cluster munitions fell just outside of the hospital, killing four and injuring ten.[33][34]

The most widely covered attack was the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital.[33]

On 23 November 2022, Russian missile strikes destroyed a maternity ward in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, in the town of Vilnyansk, killing a newborn baby.[2]

On July 8, 2024, Russian cruise missiles attacked children's hospitals in Kyiv and Dnipro.[35]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "International Court orders Russia to 'immediately suspend' military operations in Ukraine | UN News". news.un.org. 2022-03-16. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  2. ^ a b "Zaporizhzhia strike kills newborn baby at Ukraine hospital". BBC News. 23 November 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Situation reports (Ukraine-specific)". www.who.int. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
  4. ^ "3 reflections from 2 years: WHO's response to Europe's largest emergency". www.who.int. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  5. ^ "Triple risk of harm for Ukraine's health transport workers over other health-care staff, WHO data indicates". www.who.int. Retrieved 2024-05-02.
  6. ^ "Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine". www.attacksonhealthukraine.org. Retrieved 2024-07-10.
  7. ^ "Russia's July 8 Attack on a Children's Hospital in Ukraine". Human Rights Watch. 11 July 2024.
  8. ^ Triebert, Christiaan; Hill, Evan; Browne, Malachy; Hurst, Whitney; Khavin, Dmitriy; Froliak, Masha (2019-10-13). "How Times Reporters Proved Russia Bombed Syrian Hospitals". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  9. ^ Hill, Evan; Triebert, Christiaan (2019-10-13). "12 Hours. 4 Syrian Hospitals Bombed. One Culprit: Russia". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  10. ^ "Syrian and Russian forces targeting hospitals as a strategy of war". Amnesty International. 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  11. ^ McKay, Hollie (2019-05-10). "Syrian hospitals bombed by Assad, Russian troops after coordinates were shared with the UN". Fox News. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  12. ^ Herman, Jonnea (2019-06-13). "The UN Made a List of Hospitals in Syria. Now They're Being Bombed". The Century Foundation. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  13. ^ Hill, Evan; Hurst, Whitney (2019-12-29). "The U.N. Tried to Save Hospitals in Syria. It Didn't Work". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-08.
  14. ^ "UN Fails to Acknowledge Own Failures in Hospital Attacks Inquiry". Syria Justice & Accountability Centre. 2020-04-16. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
  15. ^ "Russia quits UN system aimed at protecting hospitals, aid in Syria". chinadailyhk. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  16. ^ "The ultimate barbarity". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  17. ^ Cumming-Bruce, Nick (2013-09-13). "U.N. Reports Syria Uses Hospital Attacks as a 'Weapon of War'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  18. ^ "Syria's hospitals face systematic attacks: report – DW – 03/09/2021". dw.com. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  19. ^ Russian Media Monitor (2024-07-07). Andrey Gurulyov and Vladimir Solovyov want to destroy Ukrainian cities. Retrieved 2024-07-10 – via YouTube.
  20. ^ "WHO Confirms Attacks on Ukraine Healthcare Facilities". WSJ. Archived from the original on March 6, 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  21. ^ Taylor, Luke (2022-03-25). "Russian forces are increasingly targeting Ukrainian healthcare facilities, says WHO". BMJ. 376: o801. doi:10.1136/bmj.o801. ISSN 1756-1833. PMID 35338043. S2CID 247631261.
  22. ^ Sanders IV, Lewis; Felden, Esther; Theise, Eugen (8 April 2022). "How Russia could get away with attacks on Ukraine hospitals". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 11 April 2022.
  23. ^ "Russian Airstrikes in Ukraine: The 'Largest Attack' on Health Care in Europe Since World War II, Says WHO - Health Policy Watch". 21 November 2022.
  24. ^ "Nearly one in every 10 hospitals in Ukraine have been damaged by attacks since Russia's invasion - Ukraine | ReliefWeb". reliefweb.int. 2023-02-28. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
  25. ^ Staff, C. N. N. (2023-02-21). "Report: Nearly one in every 10 hospitals in Ukraine have been damaged by attacks since Russia's invasion". CNN. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  26. ^ Harding, Luke (2023-09-20). "Revealed: how Russia deliberately targeted Kherson's hospitals". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
  27. ^ Harding, Luke; Malykhina, Lisa; Morresi, Elena; Čvorak, Monika (2023-09-20). "Why is Russia targeting hospitals in Kherson? – video explainer". the Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-02-09.
  28. ^ "WHO records more than 1000 attacks on health care in Ukraine over the past 15 months of full-scale war". www.who.int. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
  29. ^ Short, Kevin (2023-08-10). "A Horrific Milestone: More Than 1,000 Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine Since Russia's Full-scale Invasion". PHR. Retrieved 2023-11-18.
  30. ^ "Putin is Targeting Ukrainian Hospitals. That's a War Crime".
  31. ^ "Ukraine's health system is a symbol of resilience". www.who.int. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  32. ^ "Ukraine's health system is a symbol of resilience". POLITICO. 2024-02-22. Retrieved 2024-02-24.
  33. ^ a b "Russian attacks hit at least 9 Ukrainian medical facilities, visual evidence shows". Washington Post. 2022-03-12. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  34. ^ "Ukraine: Russian Cluster Munition Hits Hospital | Human Rights Watch". 2022-02-25. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  35. ^ Sauer, Pjotr (8 July 2024). "'No words for this': Horror over Russian bombing of Kyiv children's hospital". The Guardian.
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