ICC promises no impunity for Russia after Ukraine attacks

Solomia is now being treated in the western city of Lviv, 470km (290 miles) from Kyiv, because her specialist unit was one of those destroyed.

On a video call, she told us she remembers fear being her overriding emotion that morning.

“It was very scary, but I tried not to listen to the explosions and kept calm. But when the rocket hit, I didn’t immediately understand what had happened.”

Then came the realisation that the hospital had suffered an attack. She said she remembered a doctor, covered in blood, pulling her and another young patient from the rubble.

Solomia’s mum, Oksana, said it was a miracle they had both survived the strike, and said the attack had “a heavy impact on our lives, even tragic. It is difficult to live after this.”

At the hospital, Mr Khan was given a private briefing by Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Andriy Kostin, who is in charge of the court prosecution system in the country and has previously called on the ICC to investigate the hospital attack as a war crime.

The presentation was held in the car park of the hospital and showed information about the type of missile used, fragments of which were laid out and numbered.

The hospital’s director previously told the UN Security Council that the strike severely damaged several departments, including the intensive care units and oncology and surgical wings, and completely destroyed the toxicology and traumatology departments.

Mr Kostin told the BBC that every effort was being made to eventually bring prosecutions at the ICC.

“Ukrainians live in a very difficult time… every day between hope and belief for the better future,” he said.

“But on the accountability and justice track, I think that we can give belief, we can provide belief because justice will be served,” Mr Kostin added.

“And it’s not only about arrest warrants already issued. We understand that at some stage, we will need people behind the bars in The Hague.”

In March 2023 the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and more warrants were put out earlier this year for Russia’s former defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov.

Mr Kostin added that every legal avenue would be pursued. “There is no statute of limitations for the time,” he said. “We understand that our work is for years, maybe for decades, but our commitment is to do it as soon as it is possible.”