Russian drone strike damages Kyiv trauma hospital, forces evacuation

A Russian drone struck Kyiv's National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics in the early hours of Friday, sparking a fire across two floors and forcing medics to evacuate patients, Ukrainian officials said.

The Kyiv City Military Administration said the hospital, in the capital's Shevchenkivskyi district, was hit at around 3:30am local time when falling drone debris caused a fire inside the building. Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi confirmed a Russian drone struck the building while patients and medical staff were inside.

More than 100 windows were blown out and the fire engulfed two floors along with part of the building's facade, the institute's medical director, Roman Derkach, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Staff evacuated 30 people and emergency crews rescued a further 7, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said.

The head nurse of the musculoskeletal injury department said the strike hit her unit directly, destroying a treatment room and damaging medical records, medicine stocks, sterilisation supplies and several patient wards. No one suffered life-threatening injuries, though several people, including a ward orderly, were cut by shattered glass. All patients were moved to an undamaged wing of the institute, officials said.

The strike followed two earlier attacks on Kyiv a day before. On 12 November, a Russian drone hit a nine-storey residential building in the capital's Solomianskyi district, sparking a fire across four floors that killed a 44-year-old woman. Later that day, drone debris fell on a road in Shevchenkivskyi district near Dorohozhychi metro station, officials said, though no casualties were reported from that incident.

The hospital strike was the latest in a run of overnight and daytime attacks on the Ukrainian capital this week, as Russian forces continued aerial strikes on Kyiv alongside attacks on other Ukrainian cities.