U.N. Security Council members confronted Russia on Tuesday over a missile strike the previous day that destroyed part of Ukraine's largest children's hospital, pouring out condemnations at an emergency meeting chaired by Moscow's own ambassador.

Russia denies responsibility for the strike at the hospital, where at least two staffers were killed.

France and Ecuador asked for the session at the Security Council, but Russia led it as the current holder of the council's rotating presidency, putting Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia on the receiving end of the criticism.

“Mr. President, please stop this war. It has been going on for too long,” Slovenian Ambassador Samuel Zbogar appealed.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told colleagues that they were there “because Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, current rotational president of the Security Council, attacked a children’s hospital.”

“Even uttering that phrase sends a chill down my spine,” she added.

Nebenzia characterized the slew of criticism as “verbal gymnastics” from countries trying to protect Ukraine's government. He reiterated Moscow's denials of responsibility for the hospital attack, insisting it was hit by a Ukrainian air defense rocket.

“If this had been a Russian strike, there would have been nothing left of the building," Nebenzia said, adding that "all the children and most of the adults would have been killed, and not wounded.”

The strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital was part of a massive daytime barrage in multiple cities, including the capital of Kyiv. Officials said at least 42 people were killed. The attack also damaged Ukraine's main specialist hospital for women and hit key energy infrastructure.

At Okhmatdyt, “the ground shook and the walls trembled. Both children and adults screamed and cried from fear, and the wounded from pain,” cardiac surgeon and anesthesiologist Dr. Volodymyr Zhovnir told the Security Council by video from Kyiv. “It was a real hell.”

Later, he heard people crying out for help from beneath the rubble. Most of the over 600 young patients had been moved to bomb shelters, except those in surgery, Zhovnir said. He said over 300 people were injured, including eight children, and two adults died, one of them a young doctor.

Acting U.N. humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya stressed to the Security Council that intentionally attacking a hospital is a war crime. She called Monday’s strikes “part of a deeply concerning pattern of systematic attacks harming health care and other civilian infrastructure across Ukraine.”

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.N. World Health Organization has verified 1,878 attacks affecting health care facilities, personnel, transport, supplies and patients, she said.

Even against that backdrop, several council members pronounced Monday's strike shocking.

British Ambassador Barbara Woodward called it “cowardly depravity.” Ecuadorian envoy José De La Gasca described it as “particularly intolerable.” To Slovenia's Zbogar, it was "another low in this war of aggression.”

Woodward and some others reiterated longstanding calls for Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine. But some nations with closer ties to Moscow continued to send a more muted message.

Chinese deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang, expressed concern about the loss of civilian lives and infrastructure but urged both sides to exercise “rationality and restraint" and “show political will, meet each other halfway and start peace talks.”

Russia insists that it doesn’t attack civilian targets in Ukraine despite abundant evidence to the contrary, including in AP's reporting.

Earlier Tuesday in Geneva, Danielle Bell, who heads a U.N. team monitoring human rights in Ukraine, said the hospital likely was struck by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

At the U.N. headquarters, Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya showed the Security Council photos of what his country asserts were fragments showing the projectile's Russian origin, plus a map purportedly showing a missile's path from Russian territory and, via a sharp turn, to the children's hospital.

“Yesterday, Russia deliberately targeted perhaps the most vulnerable and defenseless group in any society: children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses,” Kyslytsya said.

Kyslytsya, whose country isn’t on the 15-member council, blasted Nebenzia for occupying the president's seat after the bloodshed.

“In accordance with the traditions of the council presidency, and purely as the president of the council," Nebenzia drily replied, “I am compelled to thank Ukraine for their statement.”

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Almost 40 killed in Ukraine as children's hospital hit

Almost 40 people were killed and more than 140 injured in waves of Russian missile attacks across Ukraine, the Interior Ministry said on Monday, a day before NATO leaders gather in Washington to discuss their support for the government in Kiev.

While the missiles struck sites across Ukraine, it was an attack on a large children's hospital in Kiev in particular that left Ukrainians and people around the world stunned.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to discuss the Russian attack on Tuesday at the request of permanent member France and non-permanent member Ecuador.

Kiev's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said at least two people died at the hospital and 17 more were wounded, including seven children. No additional details about the victims were released.

President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on social media showing portions of the building reduced to rubble and blood on the floor of wrecked hospital rooms.

Hundreds of people gather at the Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital to search through the debris.

"Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes. Against people, against children, against humanity in general," Zelensky wrote.

Health Minister Viktor Liashko said dialysis and cancer treatment departments, as well as operating theatres and the intensive care unit, were damaged.

"Little cancer and dialysis patients sit on the pavement with their mothers," German ambassador Martin Jäger said on X after visiting the hospital.

Later Ukrainian reports said a second hospital in the capital on the other side of the Dnipro River was also damaged.

Kiev was among the cities worst impacted by the strikes, with 27 dead and at least 82 injured, the city administration said in its latest count.

Residents in Kiev's centre heard two dozen explosions, presumably the result of anti-aircraft missiles. Mayor Klitschko said debris fell in several of the city's neighbourhoods.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the Russian military fired 38 missiles of various types at targets in Ukrainian cities. Ukraine's air defences were able to intercept 30 of them.

Private electricity supplier DTEK reported damage to three transformer stations in the capital.

Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro in southern Ukraine were also badly hit with at least 11 people killed and 59 injured. Other targets included the front-line cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.

No information was provided about hits on military targets or defence factories.

It was unusual that the heavy attack took place during the day at the beginning of the working week. The embattled nation already saw airstrikes by drones, cruise missiles and missiles during the night.

Ukraine has been trying to repel a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022 and depends largely on Western support.

Kiev repeatedly urges its allies to provide even more modern air defence systems.

Moscow confirms attacks, says defence factories targeted

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed missile attacks that allegedly targeted Ukrainian defence factories and military airfields.

The ministry said, without evidence, that the damage in Kiev was caused by an errant Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.

The Moscow military dismissed the Ukrainians' shock at the attack as "hysteria on the part of the Kiev regime" and said this is often the case before NATO holds meetings.

Zelensky: Russian attack on children's hospital was deliberate

Zelensky rejected Russia's claims that there had been an air defence error.

"What cynicism the bastards in the Kremlin have shown, that it was allegedly Ukrainian air defence and not a targeted missile strike," Zelensky told a press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw.

Zelensky thanked all those who have posted videos online "on which it can be seen concretely that it is not just a part of one or another missile, but a direct missile strike that killed and injured many people."

Ukraine hopes for more NATO help

Ukraine has received four of the particularly powerful US-made Patriot systems, but says it needs many more.

Kiev is hoping for further commitments at the NATO summit in Washington that opens on Tuesday, including on up to six Patriot systems from Israel.

Zelensky has stressed the need for at least seven reliable anti-aircraft systems to protect major cities such as Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya and Odessa, which are frequently targeted by missile attacks.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the alliance is set to provide Ukraine with military aid worth €40 billion ($43 billion) in 2025 in a press conference ahead of the summit.

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