Germany condemns Russian missile attacks on Ukraine

BERLIN

Germany on Monday strongly condemned the latest round of Russian missile attacks on Ukraine – including on a children's hospital in the capital Kyiv.

Germany calls on Russian President Vladimir Putin to “immediately end this war of aggression against so many innocent people,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer told a press briefing in Berlin.

In particular, the situation of civilians and children in Ukraine is “largely dramatic.” For more than two years they have been subjected to “a brutal war of aggression that indiscriminately claims victims, through Russian bombs and attacks that cannot be justified in any way,” she added.

A day before the start of a NATO summit in Washington, at least 20 people were killed in heavy rocket attacks on Ukraine. A children's hospital was hit in the capital Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Ukraine's claims, adding that Kyiv often makes such statements ahead of meetings with NATO representatives.

A German Interior Ministry spokesman said such acts of war show why so many Ukrainians in Germany need to be protected.

As of July 3, almost 1.18 million refugees from Ukraine were registered in Germany. Children and young people made up a third of this, and about two-thirds of the adults are women, Maximilian Kall told journalists in Berlin.

The total number is relatively stable – in September 2022, six months after the start of the war, there were around a million refugees from Ukraine. What happens next depends on how the war progresses, he added.