Russia blasted the main children's hospital in Kyiv with a missile in broad daylight on Monday and rained missiles down on other cities across Ukraine, killing at least 36 civilians in the deadliest wave of air strikes for months.

Parents holding babies walked in the street outside the hospital, dazed and sobbing after the rare daylight aerial attack. Windows had been smashed and panels ripped off, and hundreds of Kyiv residents were helping to clear debris.

"It was scary. I couldn't breathe, I was trying to cover (my baby). I was trying to cover him with this cloth so that he could breathe," Svitlana Kravchenko, 33, told Reuters.

The government proclaimed a day of mourning on Tuesday for one of the worst air attacks of the war, which it said demonstrated that Ukraine urgently needs an upgrade of its air defences from its Western allies.

Air defences shot down 30 of 38 missiles, the air force said. Fifty civilian buildings, including residential houses, a business centre and two medical facilities were damaged in Kyiv, the central cities of Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro and two eastern cities, the interior minister said.

An online video obtained by Reuters showed a missile falling from the sky towards the children's hospital followed by a large explosion. The location of the video was verified from visible landmarks.

The Security Service of Ukraine identified the missile as an Kh-101 cruise missile.

Twenty-two people, including two children, were killed in Kyiv and 82 more were wounded in the main missile volley and another strike that came two hours later, officials said.

Reuters

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