NATO AT 75, STILL GOING STRONG AND NEEDED MORE THAN EVER

By authorising the atrocity on Okhmatdyt with its devastating results, Putin vividly illustrated the need for NATO to provide Ukraine with more air-defence systems to protect its infrastructure.

- JOHN DOBSON

If ever there was a reason why a country such as Ukraine should join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, it happened in its capital, Kyiv, last week. Doctors and nurses were going about their daily business looking after sick children in Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, when it was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile. Lesia Lysytsia, a doctor at the hospital, Ukraine’s biggest paediatric facility, told the BBC that the moment the missile struck had been ‘‘like a film’’, with a ‘‘big light then an awful sound”. One part of the hospital was destroyed and there was a fire in another. “It’s really very damaged, maybe 60-70 percent of the buildings’’, she said. The horrific scenes from the hospital, showing young children suffering from cancer and with IV drips, sitting outside the hospital surrounded by rubble, went viral around the world. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, said that among those who died were doctors, adding that he feared more people, including children, were trapped under the remains of the hospital. Eight children were among about 50 people wounded by the attack on the hospital.

The incident happened at an awkward time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on an official visit to Russia at the time. Modi’s televised comments were highly significant and to the point. ‘‘Whether it is war, conflict or a terrorist attack’’, he told President Putin, ‘‘any person who believes in humanity is pained when there is loss of lives. But even in that, when innocent children are killed, the heart bleeds and that pain is very terrifying’’. These carefully chosen and emotive words by a respected politician were striking, as Putin has rarely been publicly criticised face-to-face over the war in Ukraine by the leader of a country, especially by one who frequently describes Russia as India’s most trusted and dependable friend.