‘Huge disappointment’: Zelensky blasts Modi meeting with Putin the same day Russian attack devastates Ukraine hospital

CNN —

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday criticized his Indian counterpart’s visit to Moscow as a “huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts,” on the same day that a Russian missile smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow on Monday, while 900 kilometers away (560 miles) Russian missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities in a morning rush hour assault that killed at least 37 people and injured 170 others.

Modi’s two-day trip marks his first visit to Russia since Putin began his full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two and a half years ago, with images and video Monday showing the two leaders hugging, chatting over tea, riding in an electric vehicle and watching a horse show.

“It is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day,” Zelensky said in a post on X on Monday, referring to the deadly Russian attacks.

The large-scale daylight bombardment struck the capital Kyiv, and cities including Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Slovyansk and Kramatorsk – some of which are heavily populated areas far from the front lines.

In Kyiv, 27 people were killed, including four children, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Tuesday. Two people were killed and at least 16 others were injured in the strike on Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt hospital.

The facility is Ukraine’s largest children’s medical center and has been vital in the care of some of the sickest children from across the country.

Rescuers work at Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital that was damaged during a Russian